But Calvin’s treatment of the unfortunate Servetus was yet more severe. His book, entitled, “Restitutio Christianismi,” which he sent in MS. to Calvin, enraged him to that degree, that he afterwards kept no temper or measures with him; so that as Bolsec and Uytenbogaert relate, in a letter written by him to his friends Viret and Farrel, he tells them,[302] that “If this heretic (Servetus) should ever fall into his hands, he would take care that he should lose his life.” Servetus’s imprisonment at Vienne, soon gave him an opportunity to shew his zeal against him: for, in order to strengthen the evidence against him, Calvin sent to the magistrates of that city the letters and writings which Servetus had sent to him at Geneva. This is evident from the sentence itself against him; in which those writings, as well as his printed book, are expressly mentioned, as containing the proofs of his heresy. Whether Calvin sent them of his own accord, or at the desire of the magistrates of Vienne, I shall not presume to determine. If of his own accord, it was a base officiousness; and if at the request of those magistrates, it was a most unaccountable conduct in a Protestant to send evidence to a Popish court to put a Protestant to death; especially considering that Servetus could not differ more from Calvin than Calvin did from the Papists, their common adversaries, and who certainly deserved as much to be burnt, in their judgment, as Servetus did in Calvin’s. ----- Footnote 302: Biblioth. Raison. Pour d’ Octobre, &c. 1728. Art. VIII. -----