_Epistolary Correspondence between Knox and Calvin._――In a letter, dated 28th August, 1559, Knox requests Calvin’s opinion on the two following questions. 1. Whether bastards, the children of idolaters and excommunicated persons, should be admitted to baptism, before their parents gave satisfaction to the church, or they themselves were able to require it? 2. Whether monks and popish priests, who neither serve the church, nor are capable of serving it, although they have renounced their errors, ought to have the annual rents of the church paid to them? Knox had maintained the negative on the last question. The letter is said to be written _raptim_. “Plura scribere vetat febris qua crucior, laborum moles qua premor, {303} et Gallorum bombardæ, qui, ut nos opprimant, appulerunt.” (Comp. Historie, p. 161.) Calvin, in a leter dated Nov. 8, 1559, answers, that it was his opinion and that of his colleagues, on the first question, That the sacrament of baptism was not to be administered to those who were without the church, nor to any without proper sponsors; but the promise (upon which the right was founded) was not confined to the posterity in the first degree: and therefore those who were descended from godly parents were to be viewed as belonging to the church, although their parents or even grand‑parents had become apostates, and such children were not to be refused baptism, provided persons appeared as sponsors, engaging for their religious education. “Adde quod alia est nunc renascentis ecclesiæ ratio, quam rite formatæ et compositæ.” (Comp. Dunlop, ii. 573.) On the second question, he says, That although those who performed no service in the church had not a just claim to be supported by its funds, still, as the popish clergy had brought themselves under engagements in times of ignorance, and had consumed a part of their lives in idleness, it seemed harsh to deprive them of all support. He therefore advises a middle course to be adopted. Calvini Epistolæ et Responsa, p. 516‒520. Hanoviæ, 1597. Ibid. p. 201, 202, in Oper. tom. ix. Amstælod. 1667.