‘I doubt not you have heard of Servetus, the Spaniard, who more than twenty years ago infected Germany with a villainous book, full of sacrilegious error of every kind. The scoundrel having fled from Germany and lain concealed in France under a false name, has lately concocted a second book out of the contents of the first, but replete with new figments, which he has had printed clandestinely at Vienne, a town not far from Lyons. Of this book we learn that many copies have been sent to Frankfort, in prospect of the approaching Easter fair. The printer, a pious and respectable person, when he came to know that the book was a mere farrago of Errors, suppressed the copies he had on hand. It were long did I enumerate the many Errors, the prodigious blasphemies against God, that are scattered over its pages. Imagine to yourselves a rhapsody made up of the impious ravings of every age; for there is no kind of impiety which this wild beast from hell has not appropriated. You will assuredly find in every page matters that will horrify you. The author is now in prison here at the instance of our magistracy, and I hope will shortly be condemned and punished. But you are to aid us against the further spread of such pestiferous poison. The messenger [the bearer of this] will tell you where the books are bestowed and their number; and the bookseller to whom they are consigned will, I believe, make no objections to their being given to the flames. Did he throw any obstacle in the way of this, however, I venture to think you are so well disposed, that you will take steps to have the world purged of such noxious corruption. You shall not want authority, indeed, for what you do in the business. If you are allowed to have your way, it will not then be necessary to seek the interference of your magistrates. But I have such confidence in you, that I feel persuaded my hint will suffice to guide your action. The matter, nevertheless, is of such moment, that I entreat you, for Christ’s sake, not to allow the occasion of showing yourselves zealous in your office to pass unheeded. ‘Farewell, &c. ‘Geneva, 6 Calends of September, 1553.’ The session of the 21st, preliminaries ended, was occupied in the beginning with a dispute between the prisoner and Calvin, who came into Court on this occasion again accompanied by a number of ministers, his colleagues, introduced, says the Record of proceedings, to maintain the contrary of the prisoner’s allegations in respect of the authorities he cites as favouring his views. Calvin thereupon, taking the lead, proceeded to interpret the passages of the Fathers referred to by the prisoner in a sense different from that put upon them by him, and showed satisfactorily that the word Trias or Trinity had really been used by writers before the date of the Nicæan Council.