It is evident that these outrageous and contradictory calumnies have been all grafted upon the convicted he mentioned in the preceding note, and on the malignant insinuation of Archibald Hamilton. The characters of the foreign reformers were traduced in the very same manner by the popish writers. Those who have seen Bolsec’s Lives of Calvin and Beza, or others written in the same spirit, must be sufficiently convinced of this. Will it be believed that, in the middle of the seventeenth century, a book should have been published under the name of Cardinal de Richlieu, in which it is asserted that “Calvin being condemned for acts of incontinency, which he had carried to the utmost extremity of vice, [ses {327} incontinences, qui le porterent jusques aux dernieres extremitez du vice,] retired from Noyon (his native city) and from the Roman church, at the same time?” And that this should have been published after the cardinal himself had examined the registers of Noyon, which stated facts totally inconsistent with the supposition of such a thing having ever been imputed to him? La Defence de Calvin, par Charles Drelincourt, p. 10, 11, 33. Geneve, 1667. Our countrymen of the popish persuasion were careful to retail all the calumnies against the foreign reformers, and they do so in a manner peculiar to themselves. Nicol Burne most seriously asserts that Luther was begotten of the devil, as to his carnal as well as his spiritual generation; and in order to prove that this was not impossible, he advances the most profane argument that ever proceeded from the mouth or pen of a Christian. Disputation, p. 141. The same thing is asserted by James Laing. De Vita Hæretic. fol. 1, b. In a pretended translation into Scots of a poem written by Beza in his youth, (which the Roman Catholics, after he left their communion, were careful to preserve from oblivion,) Burne has unblushingly inserted some scandalous and disgraceful lines, for which he had not the slightest warrant from the original. Disputation, p. 103, 104. John Hamilton says, that “Calvin did ane miracle to mak ane quik man ane deid, quhilk miracle was done in Geneve to ane Brulæus of Ostune, with whome he contractit for a piece of money to fenzie himself deid, and to ryse to lyfe at his prayers, when he sulde chope thryse upon his biere: bot the compagnion forget to ryse again, whilk come to Calvin’s schame.” Facile Traictise, p. 412. But the following narrative is still more marvellous, and lest his readers should doubt its truth, the author prays them to “suspend thair judgement, quhill they spere [until they enquire at] the maist affectionat Protestantis of Scotland quha has bene in Geneve. Surelie,” continues he, “I ressavit the treuth of this be honorable gentilmen of our countrie, quha confessit to me before gud vitnes, that the devil gangis familiarlie up and down the town, and speciallie cumis to pure and indigent men quha sellis thair saullis to him for ten sous, sum for mair or less.