Servetus and Calvin - Important Epoch in the Early History of the Reformation by Robert Willis

Author:Robert Willis [Willis, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-02-22T23:00:00+00:00

August 16, the Court, constituted as usual, was observed to be less numerously attended than on the day before, but with two important additions: Philibert Berthelier among the Councillors, by right, and Germain Colladon, introduced as Counsel for De la Fontaine. Between these two men, says M. Rilliet, more perhaps than between any other notable members of the Republic of Geneva, the contrast was striking and complete. They might even severally have been assumed as representatives of the parties which divided the state and contended for mastery. Berthelier was the acknowledged head of the patriotic party, mostly native Genevese, the Libertines as they were called, from their zealous defence of the immunities and privileges of the citizens against the old tyranny of the Roman Catholic Bishops and the recently introduced consistorial rules and regulations of the Reformer. As son of one of the martyrs to the public liberties of Geneva, and possessed of wealth and influence, Berthelier had long been opposed to the authority of Calvin; his patriotism and his self-respect revolting against the domineering character of the man and the stringency of his religious and sumptuary regulations, so that the struggle in which he and Colladon now engaged, with the unhappy Servetus as their subject of contention, was but an interlude in the strife that had been carried on between Berthelier and Calvin for years.

In Calvin’s arrest and prosecution of Servetus there can be no question that Berthelier, making light of the theological grounds on which the Spaniard was arraigned, and trusting to the strength of his party in the Council, believed he saw a means and opportunity of worsting his old irreconcilable enemy. He thought little, and it may be perhaps felt somewhat indifferent as to the fate that would befal the individual whose cause he espoused, did he fail in the purpose he proposed to himself. Hate of Calvin blinded him to more remote contingencies.

Colladon, engaged of course by Calvin on behalf of Nicolas de la Fontaine and the prosecution, was a man of a totally different stamp from Berthelier. A refugee from France, his native country, for conscience sake, and seeking in Geneva freedom to enjoy his religious convictions; austere in disposition, rigid in morals and punctilious in outward observance, he had been forced to fly from his home in consequence of zeal too openly expressed for the cause of the Reformation. Safe in Geneva, he gave himself heart and soul to Calvin, and was found by him among the most useful of his auxiliaries in formulating his discipline and enforcing its observance, Colladon’s familiarity with business and his legal knowledge qualifying him in every way for the part he was ambitious to play. The party of which he was a distinguished member were now in the minority, but did not so remain for long. Within two years of the time that engages us, they had gained the ascendency, and were not slow to avenge themselves on the legitimate sons of Geneva by forcing them in

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