But Calvin in his prosecution of those who opposed him always shows himself both vindictive and pitiless. Speaking of the way in which he would have had Bolsec disposed of he says: ‘It is our wish that our Church should be so purged of this pestilence that it may not, by being driven hence, become injurious to our neighbours.’ These words will bear one interpretation only--Calvin would have had Bolsec put to death. But he was withstood in his design, and mainly so by the Church of Berne, the language of which must have been highly displeasing to him; for the Reporter, in counselling moderation, says: ‘How much easier is it to win a man by gentleness than to compel him by severity;’ and still more displeasing perhaps was that which follows: ‘It cannot be said of God that He blinds, hardens, and gives to perdition any man, without at the same time assuming that it is God who is the Author of human blindness and reprobation, and therefore the cause of the sin committed.’ Now Bolsec’s offence had been in saying that men are not saved because elect, but are elect because of their faith. ‘None are reprobate,’ continues the Reporter from Berne, ‘by the eternal decrees of God, save those who of their own choice refuse the election freely offered to all. How shall we believe that God ordains the fate of men before their birth; foredooming some to sin and death, others to virtue and eternal life? Would you make of God an arbitrary tyrant, strip virtue of its goodness, vice of its shame, and the wicked of the reproaches of their conscience?’ But this is to cut the ground from under the feet of Calvin. No wonder, therefore, that as the proud man would not, and the self-satisfied man could not, bring himself to admit his error, he would have had him who exposed and led to such an exposition of it put out of the way.[80] It was whilst expecting replies from Vienne, and waiting the convenience of M. Rigot, the Attorney-General, that the Court proceeded to make inquiries of the prisoner concerning his relations with Arnoullet, the printer of the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’ a letter of his to a friend of the name of Bertet having now been put in and read to the Court. In this letter, dated July 14, 1553, Arnoullet informs his friend Bertet that he is still in prison, but is promised his liberty next week, having got six substantial sureties for his good behaviour in time to come. He had been villainously deceived, he says, by his manager Geroult, who corrected the rough proofs of the book, but never said a word of the heresies it contained.