We trust (say the pastors of Zürich), that the faith and zeal of Calvin, your pastor, and our brother, his noble devotion to the refugees and the pious, will not be suffered by you to be obscured by the unworthy accusations of this man, against whom, indeed, we think you ought to show the greater severity, inasmuch as our Churches have the evil reputation abroad of countenancing heretics, and even of favouring heresy. But the holy providence of God, they proceed, waxing in fervour, presents you at this moment with an opportunity of clearing yourselves as well as us, from such injurious imputations, if you but resolve to show yourselves vigilant, and well disposed to prevent the further spread of the poison. We do not doubt, indeed, that your Excellencies will act in this wise. Schaffhausen was content to subscribe to all that had been said by Zürich (whose conclusion, consequently, had been communicated to it); but could not resist insinuating how it thought the Spaniard should be dealt with. We do not doubt (say its Ministers) that you, with commendable prudence, will so repress this attempt of Servetus, that his blasphemies shall not be suffered to eat like a gangrene into the limbs of Christ. To use lengthy reasonings with a view to free him from his errors, would but be to rave with a madman. The pastors of the Church of Basle [with Sulzer as reporter], the last consulted, are rejoiced to see Servetus in the hands of the magistrates of Geneva; feeling persuaded that they will not be wanting either in saintly zeal or Christian prudence, in finding a remedy for an evil that has already led to the ruin of vast numbers of souls. The theological culpability of the man is also much aggravated in their opinion by the obstinacy and insolence with which he persists in his errors, instead of yielding to the reflections which imprisonment and the instructions of the pastors of Geneva ought to have led him to make. We exhort you, therefore (they conclude), to use, as it seems you are disposed to do, all the means at your command to cure him of his errors, and so to remedy the scandals he has occasioned; or, otherwise, does he show himself incurably anchored in his perverse opinions, to constrain him, as is your duty, by the powers you have from God, in such a way that henceforth he shall not continue to disquiet the Church of Christ, and so make the end worse than the beginning. The Lord will surely grant you his spirit of wisdom and of strength to this end.