The concluding epistle of the series must have given great offence to Calvin, the writer reproaching him with setting the Christian on no higher level than the vulgar Jew. ‘They are alike to you, indeed, alike carnal, because to you are the benefits of Christ’s coming unknown; to you who in the Supper partake of nothing more than a trope or figure, and who treat baptism as the equivalent of a Levitical rite, the sign of a thing that is not. But in the Supper we, nourished by immortal food, for a terrestrial have a new celestial life imparted to us, and how should he perish who has once partaken of Christ? May God give you to receive all these things with a true understanding, led by the spirit of truth, by Jesus Christ and the Father. Amen.’ Scouting the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, as he did, we here find Servetus speaking as if he believed that it was the body of Christ indeed that was partaken of in the Supper! To understand this in him his pantheistic notions must again be taken into account. But pantheism, when not detached from the idea of _personality_, in the usual acceptation of the word, leads inevitably to such absurdity. Speaking as he does now, Servetus forgets his philosophy and yields himself up to his mysticism. With as much justice might he have said that Cannibals partake of God when they eat one another, as that the Christian communicant partakes of Christ when he joins the simple, solemn, commemorative feast. CHAPTER XVII. ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO’--THE RESTORATION OF CHRISTIANITY--DISCOVERY OF THE PULMONARY CIRCULATION. We have seen that Servetus could never recover his MS. of the Restoration of Christianity from the hands of Calvin. But he had not sent his work for the review of the Reformer without retaining a copy for himself, and this he determined now to have printed and sent abroad into the world. With this view he forwarded the Manuscript to a publisher of Basle, Marrinus by name, with whom--if we may infer so much from the address of the publisher’s letter to him declining the work--he must have been on terms of intimacy. Marrinus’s letter is short, to the point, and in the following terms:-- ‘Gratia et pax a Deo, Michael carissime!--the grace and peace of God be with you, dearest Michael! I have received your letter and your book; but I fancy that on reflection you will see why it cannot be published at Basle at this present time. When I have perused it [more carefully] I shall therefore return it to you by the accredited messenger you may send for it. But I beg you not to question my friendly feelings towards you. To what you say besides I shall reply at greater length and more particularly on another occasion. Farewell! Thy MARRINUS. ‘Basle, April 9, 1552.’