have founded their charge of criminality merely on his religious opinions. They had nothing to charge him with but what they deemed his erroneous doctrines.

Let it be remembered the character of this· unsuccessful reformer ought to be estimated, not by what the christian world, half awakened from its long sleep of ignorance and superstition, thought of him, nor by what those who were evidently prejudiced wrote and said of him but by what can be ascertained of his real sentiments, spirit and conduct. Let the maxim of Christ ever be remembered. A good free cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. By their fruits ye shall know them. By this rule we ought to judge of Servetus. grity and virtue, he was no doubt accepted with God; nor had his enemies any right to persecute or use him ill. He judged for himself, he wrote and published what he thought true, and who had a right to blame, much less to burn him, for using this Liberty?

If a man of inte

SECTION III.

The difficulty of obtaining a full and impartial account of Dr. Servetus.

No class of men have had greater injustice done them than reputed heretics. Not content with persecuting them while living, nor even with putting them to a shameful and cruel death, their oppressors have endeavored to render their memory infamous. Their enemies had generally influence enough to gain credit to whatever reports they might choose to propagate and reports circulated by prejudiced persons would accumulate to a bolder tone of calumny as they spread. While the supposed heretic was treated as a real criminal, by those who professed to be the real ministers of Christ, the zealous guardians of divine truth, and who possessed high authority in the church, the common people, judging of him, not by an examination of his real sentiments, spirit and con. duct, but merely by the treatment he received from those they regarded as a kind of oracles, would naturally conclude he was justly punished, and easily give credit to the tales which were circulated to his disadvantage. The writings

of reputed heretics were usually destroyed with them, which gave their enemies an opportunity of representing their opinions in whatever light they pleased, without fear of detection: and it may well be supposed that those who burnt their persons would not pay much regard to justice in the representation they gave of their doctrines. Frequently the persecuted had no friends left to plead their cause, or do justice to their memory; while the persecutors had a great sway in the church, a general influence over the judgment of its members, and maintained their cause by the strong arm of power. If the reputed heretic had friends they were awed into silence by the terrors with which persecutors never fail to array themselves. If any friend to truth and justice dared to lift up his voice in defence of the injured, if he escaped the same fate, his voice would be drowned by the clamor of reputed orthodoxy, and the outcry against supposed heresy. A Paul might try to be heard at Ephesus in defence of the faith of Christ, his voice was drowned by the clamor of the multitude, stirred up by the craftsmen, shouting Great is Diana of the Ephesians.' Sometimes ages rolled away before a favorable opportunity offered of doing justice to the character of men whose lives were violently taken

away, and their writings committed to the flames and then, of course, it became extremely difficult fully to trace all the circum. stances. These remarks are in a great measure applicable to the case of Dr. Servetus. Hence the difficulty of doing justice to his memory, of forming a fair estimate of his character and writings.

• We have not been allowed' saith Episcopius 'to see Servetus' own writings.' Had we been permitted to see his writings, we might have formed a more correct judgment of his learning, genius, abilities and opinions; but as his books were destroyed, we can only judge of him by those fragments of his works which have been preserved by other writers, and the accounts which his enemies gave of him and his doctrine. It may be presumed that he had some truth and weighty argument on his side; for no party of men will resort to violence for the suppression of opinions which they can easily refute, nor will they burn religious publications which they can, without much difficulty, answer: they resort to such measures only when they feel that their cause cannot be supported by reason and scripture. To repel by fire and faggot, or by brutal force in any form, what derives its whole strength and support from reason and

scripture, and which, if false, may be refuted by sober argument, is cowardly and base, and proves, either that the cause so defended is a bad one, or that its advocates are too weak to defend it with lawful weapons. It is fair to conclude that what men endeavor to suppress in so unreasonable and unscriptural a way cannot, in their judgment, be suppressed by any more rational or consistent means. The enemies of free enquiry are the enemies of truth; for truth cannot be discovered and promoted without free enquiry. Truth needs not the aid of devouring flames to maintain its cause; its weapons are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty through God.

He

What could either catholics or protestants have to fear from Servetus and his writings, that they should burn him and his books? had no party, no power, no popular prejudices on his side. Could an individual man, by the mere efforts of his single pen, in opposition to all the established creeds and systems, and the whole power and strongest prepossessions of the christian world, introduce with success new doctrines, subversive of what were deemed the fundamental truths of christianity, if he had no truth, no rational or scriptural arguments on his side?

His adversaries must have felt more force