Can we wonder at Calvin’s rage with the man who dared to address him in such language as this? On his trial at Geneva Servetus tells his judges that the correspondence between him and the Reformer degenerated by degrees on both sides into mutual recrimination and abuse. In the above objectionable passage we see, if not the beginning, yet a significant sample of this unhappy style, which continues even to the end. Had we Calvin’s letters, we should certainly find them not more guarded in expression--for Calvin was a master of invective, with a superabundant vocabulary of epithets at command, and never choice in the use of those he applied to opponents--rascal, dog, ass, and swine being found of constant occurrence among them--had there been any stronger than scoundrel and blasphemer, they would assuredly have been hurled at Servetus. Referring to the subject of Justification, Calvin, as we presume, must have said, in one of his letters, that Justification is _imputed_ by God, and that no change takes place in him who is justified. To this Servetus, in his thirteenth epistle, exclaims: ‘What do I hear? The spirit of man suffers no change through sin! But if sin cause change, then must there also be change when sin is taken away. He, forsooth, who sits in darkness differs in nothing from him who sits in light! Your justification is Satanic merely if the conscience within you remains as it was before, and your new life of faith differs in nothing from the old death. God grant, O Calvin, that, ridding you of your magical fascinations, you may abound to overflowing in all good things; but Peter’s disputation against Simon Magus refutes you, teaching, as it does, the excellence of works even in the heathen. The justification you preach, therefore, is mere magical fascination and folly.’ In another of his letters Calvin must have asked Servetus where the Apostle John teaches that we in this world are such as was Christ? Which his correspondent answers by referring him to the fourth chapter of the Epistle general, where he would find these words: ‘Because as he is, so are we in this world.’ We can fancy how vexed Calvin must have been with himself for the slip he had made, as well as angry with the triumph of his opponent, who continues: ‘But you neither rightly understand Faith in Christ, nor good works, nor the Celestial Kingdom. In the New Covenant a new and living way was inaugurated; but you, true Jew--_tu vero Judaico_--would shame me by a show of zeal and whelm me with contumely because I say with Christ, “He who is least shall in this Kingdom be greater than Abraham.”’