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<TITLE> Precedent in Servetus' Case Unleashes Calvinists to Kill Political Opponents On Specious Heresy/Blasphemy Charges</TITLE></HEAD>
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Calvin's' 1555 Subversion of Geneva's Democracy Repeated In The Dutch Republic of 1579</LI>
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Precedent in Servetus' Case Unleashes Calvinists to Kill Political Opponents On Specious Heresy/Blasphemy Charges</H1>
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When Calvin and his party, mostly French, first came to Geneva, the city accepted them out of tolerance. When Calvin tried to exert a domineering influence, he was at first expelled in 1539. That year, Calvin had refused to give the entire town any communion on Easter Sunday in protest that the church Consistory could not excommunicate persons deemed `unworthy.'<A HREF="#pgfId=925135" CLASS="footnote">
1</A>
Rather than bow to Calvin, the city expelled him. Calvin stayed in Strasbourg for three years. In 1541, he was permitted to return. </P>
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Eventually, in time, Calvin in the 1550s would wreak his revenge, and take over Geneva. Calvin would subvert the democratic institutions of Geneva, as we will see, by taking a tiny election victory in 1555, and use it to oust the old order using the precedent the Servetus' execution provided. Calvin would then create a tyrannical regime that he controlled as President of the Consistory from which charges of heresy could be filed in the criminal court which the Calvinists now undisputedly controlled.</P>
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This is not denied by Calvinist scholars. This frank account of Calvin's path to tyranny by terror and subversion of democratic institutions is painstakingly demonstrated in William G. Naphy's Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) at 182 et seq. Naphy neutrally and dispassionately recounts this shocking story. </P>
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As we shall see later, the Calvinists repeated this subversion of democracy in the Dutch Republic after its constitution of 1579 had promised freedom of religion.</P>
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All this evil starts at its head with Calvin's criminal complaint that he filed through his assistant in 1553 against Servetus. Once the door was opened to kill a man for mere heresy, Calvinists were able to turn the power of killing opponents over to the magistrates' office at Geneva. This model was then followed in Salem, Massachussets and then again in the Dutch Republic. Because the Calvinists in 1555 dominated the Geneva magistrates on the Petit Conseil, the Calvinists used that office power to kill as a means of using pretexts to eliminate by death their leading political opponents. The Geneva example became an example in subversion that Calvinists would repeat many subsequent times.</P>
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We can trust this information on what happened in Geneva because William <A NAME="marker=925122">
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Naphy's 2003 book was published by Westminster John Knox Press. This means it is released by the most well-known Calvinist publishing house of our time. </P>
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Moreover, for those unfamiliar with <A NAME="marker=925123">
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Naphy, when he wrote this book, he was the head of the Department of History and the Director of Teaching at the School of History and History of Art at King's College at the University of Aberdeen. His book is based on an extensive study into the archives at Geneva. This included looking at the minutes of governing bodies such as the Geneva Consistory, and the criminal court including notary records.</P>
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With that background, let's now examine what William Naphy had to say about the case involving <A NAME="marker=925121">
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Servetus.</P>
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In the latter half of 1553, two new cases started which would and convulse Geneva for the remainder of the year and beyond. One, involving Michel Servetus, is undoubtedly the more famous today but of lesser importance in 1553. The premier case was Philibert <A NAME="marker=925120">
</A>
Berthelier's attempt to have the Petit Conseil overturn the ban of excommunication placed on him. The magistrates cooperated with the ministers in prosecuting Servetus while violently clashing with the ministers over the actual scope of Consistorial authority....</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
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However, there are some aspects of Servitus case in which merit examination. First,... the action against Servetus was wholly a secular affair. Servetus did not appear before the Consistory[,] and ministers were brought into the case as theological specialists to dispute Servetus' opinions. It is also useful to recall that Servetus' case followed close on the heels of the Bolsec affair which had ended unsatisfactorily from Geneva's point of view; Bolsec had simply moved to Berne and continued his attacks on Calvinist doctrine from there. The issues involved were also of much greater importance; Bolsec disagreed with Calvin on predestination while Servetus rejected traditional Trinitarian doctrine and paedobaptism....</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
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Servetus was arrested on 13 August 1553 after he was denounced by Nicolas de la Fontaine, Calvin's secretary. After an initial investigation, the lieutenant, Pierre Tissot, began the prosecution. On a 17 August, Germain Colladan appeared as a lawyer for De La Fontaine who was being held, according to Geneva law, until his accusations could be substantiated. At that point, the Lieutenant stepped aside and gave the case to his assistant, Philibert Berthelier, who was still excommunicated. The following day, for the first time, Calvin appeared as an expert witness to evaluate and refute Servetus' views. as it became apparent that Servetus would probably become the first person to be executed for heresy in Geneva, the city decided to seek advice of the other Swiss Protestant cities....[T]he Petit Conseil condemned Servetus; he was burned as a heretic the next day. (William G. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) at 182-183.)</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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Please note that in the above quote there simply was an indictment based solely on a complaint from Calvin's personal employee. The only witness was Calvin. The penalty doled out by the civil authorities was death.</P>
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What Willie Naphy also points out is that concurrent with the Servetus' case, Berthelier -- the one Naphy just identified as one of Servetus' early prosecutors<A HREF="#pgfId=925104" CLASS="footnote">
2</A>
-- was battling against excommunication by Calvin's Church-run <A NAME="marker=925080">
</A>
Consistory. (<A NAME="marker=925077">
</A>
Calvin was president; this board had 6 pastors and 12 elders.) The same court that was about to rule against Servetus was simultaneously put under every unfair means of external pressure that Calvin could bring to bear to get his way. Calvin denounced their decision from the pulpit. Calvin had his allies threaten mass resignation from the criminal court (Petit Conseil) itself, to cripple its function. Naphy explains this simultaneous sub-plot involving <A NAME="marker=925081">
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Berthelier who now served as one of Servetus' prosecutors:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
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The other important case of 1553, involving Berthelier, began a fortnight after Servetus's arrest. Berthelier launched a fierce assault on the Consistory's power to excommunicate. On September 1, while excommunicated, he appealed to the Petit Conseil; he asserted that magistrates had the authority to overturn the Consistory's ruling.... when the Conseil upheld its earlier ruling and supported <A NAME="marker=925082">
</A>
Berthelier, Calvin's reaction was swift, uncompromising and guaranteed to provoke a hostile response from his opponents. He presented an ultimatum against the ruling on to September and announced decision from the pulpit the next day. By 7 September all the other ministers had rallied to Calvin's inside, threatening the Council with mass resignation. Id., at 184.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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As this debate raged over Berthelier in 1553, Calvin continually appealed on the Berthelier matter to ministers throughout Switzerland to support him while the non-Calvinist magistrates of Geneva were soliciting support from other magistrates throughout Switzerland to support themselves.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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It turned out that the &quot;other Swiss Protestant cities&quot; did not support Calvin on this issue. &quot;They clearly wished to avoid offending, but showed no desire to support his views on excommunication and ecclesiastical authority.&quot; (Naphy id.)</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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The magistrates who so opined were clearly correct as a matter of law in the Swiss cantons. William Naphy points out that the church throughout Switzerland always insisted excommunication was a civil affair of the state, and did not belong as a power of the church. If followed in this case, the church Consistory at Geneva had no final authority to excommunicate Berthelier. This law giving the state such jurisdiction was something that the Protestant faithful had initially sought to achieve in Switzerland, apparently designed to protect the individual from loss of a perceived civil liberty at the hand of the church.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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The first revised ruling in the case of <A NAME="marker=925072">
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Berthelier was a face saving one. The Petit Conseil insisted that Berthelier was &quot;free to receive communion but advised that he voluntarily refrain from doing so....&quot; Id., at 185.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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However, the ministers/pastors at the urging of Calvin would not back down. The pressure became too great:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
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Faced with the impasse created by the determined opposition of the ministers, the magistrates had little choice but to climb down unless the Petit Conseil had been willing to expel the entire company of pastors. Its members had no other option; the issue itself could not be settled. [They] were faced with historic reality that there was a practical limit to their ability to control the ministers. But simply, they had no effective means of forcing the creatures in the local supporters to give way; the best they could only hope to maintain the stalemate. Id., at 186.</P>
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What this concurrent history with Servetus' case demonstrates is that the judicial system at Geneva was not comprised of merely civil authorities operating independent of Calvin's church. Instead, within the same civil authority of the Petit Conseil, many members of the decision-making body of the panel of magistrates were a significant number of Calvinist ministers. These ministers could vote and move as a block, and thereby pressure all the other magistrates to follow their will. The other magistrates could only hope to stalemate and check the Calvinist ministers. But such action had its practical limits because the ministers would use the pulpit to attack the magistrates for doing so.</P>
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In other words, the very same civil magistrates who decided the case involving Servetus were the very same group of magistrates who could not act independently of the Calvinist minister members on the Petit Conseil to assume jurisdiction over the Berthelier case of excommunication, as Geneva law had previously settled in favor of their civil jurisdiction.</P>
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Because these very same Calvinist ministers were being led by Calvin, this gave the denunciation of Servetus by Calvin's cook/student/secretary an enormous foot forward. There could be no realistic expectation of a fair neutral judiciary to decide the fate of Servetus.</P>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
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Polarization by Calvin's Troops To Gain Power to Kill</H2>
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William Naphy points out these disputes at the time were &quot;all polarizing the population throughout Geneva...&quot; He continues: &quot;the [Calvinist] ministers were in a position to drive home their message that their opponents were godless lovers of disorder and immorality, opposed to God's truth.&quot; Id., at 186-87.</P>
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However, in reality, Calvin was stirring up friction over any disagreement with his views. He was willing to instigate criminal prosecutions against people solely because they did not acknowledge what Calvin taught was true. Thus, what is happening in the background is Calvin is actually trying to step up and begin using the church-court to inflict punishments which previously belonged exclusively to the state: excommunication and death. Calvin was stymied in this, and thus at this juncture he is relying upon the magistrates of the town council or Petit Conseil to inflict the punishments which can give Calvin de facto authority to eliminate opponents. </P>
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William Naphy points out that at this juncture &quot;Calvin repeatedly stressed his view that his opponents were arrogant man who tolerated sin and delighted in wickedness.&quot; Id., at 188. Thus, Calvin's view allowed himself to see his political opponents as simultaneously sinners worthy of at least expulsion based on the mere fact of their opposition to Calvin. This was enough to smear them as <A NAME="marker=925067">
</A>
Libertines -- a label invented solely by the Calvinists to describe the opposition. (This epithet is used so often by Calvinist apologists in historical writings that one would think there was actually a political party called the Libertines at Geneva.<A HREF="#pgfId=937731" CLASS="footnote">
3</A>
Alas, there was no such party. It is simply a smear systematically employed first by Calvin and then by any historian of a Calvinist-bent to describe those in opposition to Calvin. It was an epithet to demonize opponents, and hence justify what is about to be done to them in 1555 -- death and expulsion.)</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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In reality, Calvin was sowing violent discord and hateful abuse on opponents rather than seeking to convince by means of persuasion. </P>
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Eventually, this led to political success for Calvin. The last stronghold of traditional Swiss independence crumbled as the French reformers who started as mere immigrants now took control of Geneva. For 1554 was the last time that the Swiss party was able to defeat at the polls the French immigrants led by Calvin. William Naphy explains the change:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
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The first dramatic sign of a shift in the political landscape came on 24 January 1555, a week after... [an] execution for sodomy and in the midst of the trial for [an alleged] blasphemous procession. The Conseils des Soixante and Deux Cents overruled the Petit Conseil and accepted the ministerial interpretation of the [city] ordinances about excommunication; the [Church] Consistory's authority to discipline was secured. Id., at 189.</P>
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In other words, in 1555, as a result of Calvin's backdoor pressure, the civil magistrate authorities overruled Swiss practice, and now ruled that the church could inflict church discipline of excommunication without approval or review by the state/the courts. </P>
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Prior to this change in 1555, there was one good effect of the lack of separation of church and state in Geneva. If you wanted to express yourself freely, you had some hope that the magistrates would shield you from the Calvinist influence over the city. The Petit Conseil could suspend any penalties the church-Consistory wanted to impose. However, that last hope of independence of the civil authorities from the Calvinist party was now in collapse in 1555. The Calvinists could now have their way, forcing the magistrates to accept findings of the Calvinist church-Consistory which had authority over ever citizen due to the compulsory oath to the <A NAME="marker=925034">
</A>
Confession of Faith. Once the Consistory was given independent power to inflict discipline on members, this led the Consistory under Calvin's presidency to seek to undermine any independent influence at the Petit Conseil to check its power. </P>
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This came about because in February 1555, the Calvinist party won a slight but decisive triumph at the polls. It was the &quot;evidence of an equally decisive shift in Geneva and politics.&quot; (Naphy, supra, at 189.)</P>
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As a consequence, Calvinists were then being appointed in greater numbers to all magistrate councils including the Petit Conseil and the superior Conseil de Deux Cents. Id., at 190.</P>
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As a result, William Naphy could say &quot;all the election results of 1555 show a substantial if not overwhelming shift towards the Calvinists.&quot; Id., at 190. Nevertheless, &quot;it is essential to stress the slim majority the Calvinist had.&quot; As a result, such a &quot;slender majority suggested the shift in the balance of political power in Geneva without implying an overwhelming realignment of public opinion.&quot; Id., at 191.</P>
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Then a decisive subversion took place of the Swiss rulers by the French refugees loyal to Calvin. This is what allowed the Calvinists to take complete control. It was ingenious while at the same time bordering on diabolical. William Naphy explains this in neutral tones:</P>
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The Calvinists were left with the problem of devising a means of securing and strengthening their position. The change they made to the councils and courts showed that they tried to entrench their supporters at every level of Geneva government.... Their greatest change was to the Conseil General.... The obvious answer to this problem [i.e., the risk of retrenchment to the Swiss traditional ruling families] was to alter the character and composition of this body in such a way as to guarantee Calvinist majorities. The method which the Calvinists chose involved the admission of substantial numbers of French refugees to the borgeoisie [entitled to vote].... The enfranchisement of a dedicated block of pro-Calvin refugees, coupled with the fortuitous chance to exile many of the opposition, gave the Calvinists just to change a desired before the next election in 1556 around 130 new bourgeois [voters] were admitted and over 50 [Swiss traditionalists] faced judicial action ranging from warnings and disenfranchisement to exile or death. In a city of 12,000 persons with an evenly divided electorate, the addition of so many new voters and the expulsion of the opposition's leadership was sufficient to alter Geneva's entire magisterial structure.&quot; (Naphy, supra, at 191-92.)</P>
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In other words, by expanding French immigration, the power of the civil magistrates now fell into the hands of the Calvinists. They used this judicial power to accuse opponents of blasphemy or heresy. The effect was to then expel or kill opponents on `moral' grounds. The intention was clearly to then even more certainly centralize power and take undisputed control.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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William <A NAME="marker=925008">
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Naphy makes no bones about what was taking place. He states &quot;there is no doubt that the admission of these bourgeois [i.e., immigrants] was a calculated political move to pack the Geneva electorate.... Recent history works have presented a very confused picture of the Calvinist victory and its aftermath. Bouwsma simply fails to give any explanation of the Calvinist triumph.&quot; Id., at 192.</P>
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Naphy is identifying facts which apologists for Calvin do not want to see. However, if the validity of Calvinism were not at stake, surely such Christian men would themselves be aghast over such subversive tactics to undermine a state to allow a religious faction to assume undisputed control. Such sedition and subversion of a peaceful God-fearing (Protestant) democratic community is wrong in every age and in every place. The Calvinist' desire to subvert such a city, driving out those Christians who differed from Calvin's doctrines, reveals something defective at the core of Calvinism. For in doing this, Calvinists at Geneva were transgressing the universally-recognized crime of sedition.</P>
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Thus, the true Christian response is to recognize Calvin was making a calculated <A NAME="marker=924999">
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Stalinesque effort to subvert a democracy, control the ballot box, and then kill and expel opponents so as to turn a democracy into a one-party regime. </P>
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For example, in mid-1555, Calvin criticized the Swiss traditional leaders of Geneva who had attended a sermon in a Bernese church. In that sermon, Calvin was attacked from the pulpit.<A HREF="#pgfId=924961" CLASS="footnote">
4</A>
Calvin was making himself a sacrosanct figure. Simultaneously, the old guard were shown what criticizing Calvin could mean. The magistrates now had Andr&eacute; <A NAME="marker=924998">
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Vulliod arrested upon Calvin's charge that Vulliod committed blasphemy. <A NAME="marker=924959">
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Vulliod's statement was wholly innocuous. He simply said, &quot;we have done a great wrong by the arrest of Jesus Christ, whom the Jews have rejected and given over to the Gentiles.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=547012" CLASS="footnote">
5</A>
Apparently, Calvin thought this was intended to criticize Calvin's arrest of all the good citizens in his grab for undisputed power. Yet, on its face, it lacks any such meaning.</P>
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How did the slightest statement about Jesus end up in a blasphemy charge? Naphy explains why: the Petit Conseil (the magistrates) were now &quot;dominated by the Calvinists...&quot; Id., at 193.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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Then the <A NAME="marker=924958">
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final shoe fell.</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
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In time the magistrates began to move decisively against the [traditional Swiss rulers of Geneva]. Throughout the summer [Swiss traditionalists] were fined, exiled or sentenced to death. Id., at 194.</P>
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A very thorough list was compiled by William Naphy of the names of the Swiss traditionalists who were resisting the Calvinists and were put under threat. It is a frightening list of numerous names where next to their name we see often &quot;sentenced to death, fled&quot; or &quot;executed.&quot; Included within the this list was one of those who vigorously fought his excommunication from the communion table -- <A NAME="marker=924957">
</A>
Berthelier. Next to his name, it says &quot;sentenced to death, fled.&quot; Id., at 195. </P>
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By this method, it is an undisputed fact that the Calvinists resorted to brazen killing of opponents for no other reason than they were opponents of Calvinism. Yet, Calvin and his party were on a mission to usurp all aspects of city government, and then use that political power to physically drive out their political opponents from Geneva. Berthelier had said it best when his brother, Francois Daniel, was executed at Geneva in June 1555. (His crime apparently was sympathy with those executed or exiled.) <A NAME="marker=924956">
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Berthelier responded to his brother's death, saying that the city was now run by murderers. (Naphy, supra, at 196.) </P>
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Upon their narrow election victory of February <A NAME="marker=924955">
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1555, the Calvinists quickly completed their goal of making Geneva a totalitarian religious regime. These tightening measures also had the advantage of ensnaring anyone who was not a strict Calvinist in thought or deed. For example, one of the first orders after the narrow election victory for the Calvinists was that as of February 1555 women must now sit apart from men in church. (Naphy, supra, at 198.) Because attendance at church was mandatory for every resident of Geneva,<A HREF="#pgfId=547337" CLASS="footnote">
6</A>
this separation decree would test whether the non-Calvinists would submit to another level of cruel oppression. </P>
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Cottret records the February 1555 explanation for this decree: &quot;It has been brought to notice here that women mix among the men and men among the women at the sermon.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=547262" CLASS="footnote">
7</A>
In consequence, the people must no longer &quot;mix with each other,&quot; but &quot;each should take a place only for himself.&quot; (Cottret, id., at 252.) </P>
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In March 1556, those who broke measures barring the mixing of men and women were subjected to public humiliation in the collar -- a sort of pillory.<A HREF="#pgfId=547181" CLASS="footnote">
8</A>
This was in keeping with Calvin's Geneva earlier having criminalized <A NAME="marker=924997">
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dancing between a man and woman.<A HREF="#pgfId=547149" CLASS="footnote">
9</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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In 1557, further interference in matters unquestionably private involved a ban on an older woman from <A NAME="marker=924996">
</A>
marrying. This was on the theory that a marriage union which would not produce children was fornication, the Calvinists forgetting the possibility that care, comfort and mutual support (i.e., love) could also be a primary purpose of a marriage union!<A HREF="#pgfId=547276" CLASS="footnote">
10</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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These decrees and rulings are but a small glimpse at a parade of many other <A NAME="marker=924949">
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tyrannies over innocent behavior which was never criminalized in the Bible, and which even the Bible endorsed!<A HREF="#pgfId=547200" CLASS="footnote">
11</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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Then to effectuate totalitarian control, the Consistory -- the church's governing body with <A NAME="marker=924954">
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Calvin as President -- established &quot;spies and watchmen&quot; who were to &quot;report to the Consistory all breaches of discipline.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=547311" CLASS="footnote">
12</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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Of course, none of this was a laughing matter. For indeed, since 1550, laughter was outlawed during any sermon. The penalty: three days imprisonment.<A HREF="#pgfId=547326" CLASS="footnote">
13</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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By 1557, Geneva had become a cheerless tyranny. No dancing. No mixing of sexes. No laughter. No light.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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When the old Swiss<A NAME="marker=924950">
</A>
traditionalists were in a slight dominance, Calvin felt free to condemn them at every turn without fear anyone would accuse him of any un-Christian attack on those `in authority.' However, when Calvin (the Frenchman) used his fellow loyal French immigrants to subvert the city of Geneva, now anyone who spoke out against using this subversive tactic was deemed un-Christian. With the same power those new voters gave him, Calvin could use the Consistory's powers (over which he was President) to now drive out and expel anyone who spoke out. He labelled all his intended victims as political subversives or blasphemers. Calvin would now be able to rely upon his doctrine from his Institutes which taught that it is a Christian duty to submit to tyranny and not rebel. <A NAME="marker=924940">
</A>
Institutes 4:20.1 (&quot;spiritual <A NAME="marker=924943">
</A>
liberty may very well consist with political servitude.&quot;) As a result, Calvin could now twist this principle to his advantage, so that &quot;it was considered blasphemy to speak against the foreigners who had taken refuge at Geneva for the sake of religion.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=547295" CLASS="footnote">
14</A>
In other words, any political speech that exposed the stratagem of how Calvin would subvert and eventually did subvert the city government was banned as blasphemy!</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=481292">
</A>
William Naphy does not hide all the evil that was afoot by Calvin and his cohorts. These stringent policies were used to effectuate the &quot;mass explusion of... many leading citizens&quot; to solidify Calvin's dominion. Id., at 197. In May 1555, just over a year after Servetus' execution and on the heals of the February 1555 prohibition on mixing-of-sexes during church services and other similar tyrannies, Perrin (the leader of the Swiss traditional ruling class) tried opposing the church now taking over the entire life of Geneva. This led to a melee, Perrin's expulsion and &quot;the execution of four of his associates.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=510293" CLASS="footnote">
15</A>
All involved were tried without the benefit of being arrested and hence the right to defend their innocence. Yet, the final decrees ordered their death.<A HREF="#pgfId=547392" CLASS="footnote">
16</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=510314">
</A>
William Naphy sums up the whole pernicious process of how <A NAME="marker=924929">
</A>
Calvin and his `ministers' subverted the entire city government:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
<A NAME="pgfId=481301">
</A>
It is essential to recall that the margin of the Calvinists' victory [in February 1555] and electoral swing which produced it were very slight. [The Calvinists exploited this slim margin and] they were ruthlessly willing to alter the Genevan electorate to secure their grip on power: and when presented with the chance, they were able and willing to crush [sic: kill] the opposition and expel a significant number of their fellow citizens. As the next chapter will show, the Calvinists were not content with this singular victory; they used their new-found political power to sweep away much in Geneva's ruling elite. Id., at 199.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=485550">
</A>
Ironically, Calvin had committed the very wrongs that Tyndale, a leading reformer, said the Pope and the Catholic church had done to the civil governments of Europe. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=485559">
</A>
In <A NAME="marker=924922">
</A>
Tyndale's Answer to More, Tyndale proved the Catholic church has long been corrupt because the Pope had managed to subvert temporal power. Tyndale argued the Pope has become the true ruler of Europe. The monarchs of Europe were only his servants. Yet, look at Calvin in Geneva? He had subverted the civil system, and turned it into a power-mad servant of his lusts for killing to guarantee control. Remember, real people died for mere thoughts in Geneva's Republic during Calvin's Reign of Terror.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=924797">
</A>
The Lesson This Teaches</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=924798">
</A>
Yet, in August 1553, Calvin's long-term strategy was not known. It was not clear how the killing of Servetus as a heretic would create a precedent -- a very dangerous precedent -- to steal the liberty of every Genevan. We cannot trust the motive of the learned or the religious when they come to take away our liberty of thought. Instead, we must guard the law from ever being used to infringe on the freedom of speech. Any such effort perverts the purpose of the law and allows the loss of every other protection offered by the law. For once a community loses freedom of thought due to overbearing laws or prosecutors, all other liberties can be destroyed. For freedom of speech is the foundation of all other liberties. Without it, all citizens are subject to the whim of the state. No one explained this principle better than Calvin himself, which proves his knowing violation of it in 1553. Prior to becoming a Christian, Calvin wrote a commentary in 1532 on Seneca's book On Mercy. There Calvin said:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
<A NAME="pgfId=924806">
</A>
If there is anything free in man, it is his tongue. A man is thrust into utter slavery when his FREEDOM OF SPEECH is taken away. In a free city, says <A NAME="marker=924886">
</A>
Tiberius [Suet., Tib. 28.1], there must be free speech.<A HREF="#pgfId=924842" CLASS="footnote">
17</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=924891">
</A>
All these words but the last sentence are original with Calvin.<A HREF="#pgfId=924903" CLASS="footnote">
18</A>
Amazingly, these are <A NAME="marker=924921">
</A>
Calvin's thoughts.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=924804">
</A>
Thus, Calvin meant in 1532 that anyone who seeks to infringe on the freedom of speech of his neighbors, and wishes to cast them onto the fire for disagreement with their views, is nothing but a tyrant -- the enslaver of men. Ironically, these words belong to none other than Calvin himself. As our Lord Jesus said, &quot;you will be judged by every word that comes out of your own mouth.&quot;</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944587">
</A>
Yet, the lesson Calvin taught in 1553-1554, not 1532, is the one that his adherents followed, with deadly consequences. Next we shall see the example of subversion at Geneva was repeated in the Dutch Republic, leading to killings of heretics and loss of religious liberty.</P>
</DIV>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H1 CLASS="Heading1">
<A NAME="pgfId=944356">
</A>
<DIV>
<IMG SRC="Calvin 1555 Subversion of Geneva Democracy Repeated in 1579-1.gif">
</DIV>
Other Nightmarish Murders by Calvinists For Which Calvin's Precedent With Servetus Makes Calvin Morally Responsible</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944358">
</A>
Calvin's murderous precedent with Servetus and lesson in the Defensio of 1554 lived on among his most zealous followers. The first place this repeated itself outside Geneva was in the Dutch Republic in 1618 and 1659-1661.</P>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=948884">
</A>
The Dutch Republic Turns To Murder of Non-Calvinists</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948871">
</A>
In the <A NAME="marker=948870">
</A>
Dutch Republic, freedom of conscience was enshrined in the 1579 <A NAME="marker=948872">
</A>
Union of Utrecht. This was the Republic's basic constitutional document. Article 13 of the Union specifically stated: &quot;each person shall remain free, especially in his religion, and that no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of their religion.&quot;</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948873">
</A>
However, by a series of subversions, the Calvinists gained hegemony. They began doing so in 1582 by means of censorship laws. With a Calvinist as governor over the most influential province of Holland, the Calvinists used censorship laws to persecute religious views different from strict Calvinism. As a result, the Dutch Reformed Church became the de facto but never de jure church of the Netherlands. All other denominations were suppressed.<A HREF="#pgfId=948876" CLASS="footnote">
19</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948877">
</A>
This persecution became murderous at Dort in 1619 and at Boston in 1656.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=948836">
</A>
The Murderous Council of Dort of 1618-1619</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948837">
</A>
The unchristian and murderous behavior of Calvin's heirs toward heretics is on full display in the <A NAME="marker=948838">
</A>
Council of Dort. (The Dutch name was Dordrecht.) This council was to determine policy for Holland--one of the seven provinces of the United Netherlands. It was not a natioanl council of the Netherlands, even though Holland was the most influential province.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948839">
</A>
We in the Reformed churches praise the rulings at the Council, but we are never told the same men who endorsed the five principles of Calvinism at this Council simultaneously ordered beheaded a famous pastor. This pastor's crime? He did nto believe in rigid predestination. All the others who dissented from strict Calvinism were banished. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948840">
</A>
How could leaders of Calvinism have the gospel truth but engage in judicial murder, contrary to our Lord's words in the <A NAME="marker=948894">
</A>
Parable of the Wheat and the Tares? Our Lord commands us to make this review, and reject as an authority in the church anything taught by men guilty of such misdeeds.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948842">
</A>
What is particularly deplorable about the Council of Dort is that many times we are taught in the Reformed Church that this council &quot;settled&quot; points of doctrine within the church. The way this is depicted is one would think this was a fair-minded discussion. However, what is instead true is the dissenting group of pastors at Reformed churches who did not accept rigid predestination and &quot;eternal assurance&quot; doctrine<A HREF="#pgfId=949039" CLASS="footnote">
20</A>
were invited to have a fair discussion and vote alongside the Reformed leaders invited from eight countries. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948935">
</A>
The deck was stacked from the beginning. The opponents of the Arminian Remonstrants invited as voting members to this church synod a superfluity of Calvinists from eight other countries. This created a total of 86 voters who likely could be counted upon to side with the Contra-Remonstrants. At the inception, the Arminian Remonstrants were given three seats with voting rights.<A HREF="#pgfId=949147" CLASS="footnote">
21</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=949145">
</A>
However, after arguments had been presented fairly by both sides for 26 sessions, on the 27th session everything was changed. The Synod displaced the three voting Arminians, and denied them their seats. Being forced to yield their chairs, now only the side opposing the Arminians were both the judge and witnesses.<A HREF="#pgfId=948922" CLASS="footnote">
22</A>
The Arminians were cut off any longer from any ability to dispute doctrine as equals, and vote as judges. &quot;[T]he Arminian representatives were detained and were not allowed to sit on the synod. Thus the judges were comprised entirely of individuals who had already rejected the Arminian view.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=949058" CLASS="footnote">
23</A>
As one wry observer noted, the Arminian Remonstrants &quot;were predestined to fail.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=949095" CLASS="footnote">
24</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=949068">
</A>
They were displaced effectively, contrary to the entire spirit of the meeting up to that point. Their opponents alone were thereafter permitted to be seated, vote and speak. The 86 remaining voting members of the synod, including the many foreigners who had been invived, then voted &quot;unanimously&quot; that the displaced Remonstrants were wrong in doctrine. The 86 then made pronouncements of imprisonment, banishment and through their influence over the States General death upon one famous supporter of the Arminians. Schaff--a Calvinist and famous historian--summarizes the results:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
<A NAME="pgfId=949107">
</A>
The victory of orthodoxy was obscured by the succeeding deposition of about two hundred Arminian clergymen, and by the preceding though independent arrest of the political leaders of the Remonstrants, at the instigation of [Prince] Maurice. Grotius was condemned by the States-General to perpetual imprisonment, but escaped through the ingenuity of his wife (1621). Van Olden Barneveldt was unjustly condemned to death for alleged high-treason, and beheaded at the Hague (May 14, 1619). His sons took revenge in a fruitless attempt against the life of Prince Maurice. (Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I, 514.) </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948843">
</A>
Hence, the Council of Dort is not a ruling we can raise as an honorable event, as is still done today in Calvinist denominations.<A HREF="#pgfId=948846" CLASS="footnote">
25</A>
Instead, it was conference tainted by murder, tyranny and oppression. The ones following the arguments of Arminius were, as the Freewill Baptist Quarterly relates, &quot;persecuted with inveterate malice.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=948849" CLASS="footnote">
26</A>
All these 200 ministers in dissent from strict Calvinism &quot;were accordingly silenced in their churches, or forced into exile&quot; in the state of Holland. Id. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=949189">
</A>
In Historia Quinquarticularis (London: 1650), the famous English preacher Peter Heylin, D.D. (1600-1662) commented that at the Synod of Dort &quot;.... what the Contra Remonstrants (strict Calvinists) wanted in strength, they made good by power .. they prosecuted their Opponents in their several Consistories, by suspensions, excommunications, and Deprivations, the highest Censures of the church.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=948959" CLASS="footnote">
27</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948940">
</A>
As one dispassionate summary states: </P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
<A NAME="pgfId=948850">
</A>
If we pass over into Holland [i.e., one of the seven provinces of the Netherlands], we shall also find that the reformers there, were, most of them, in the principles and measures of persecution.... the most outrageous quarrel of all was that between the Calvinists and Arminians.... The moment the two parties had thus got a dogma to dispute upon, the controversy became irreconcilable, and was conducted with the most outrageous violence. The ministers of the predestinarian party would enter into no treaty; the remonstrants [non-Calvinists] were the objects of their furious zeal, whom they denominated, mamalukes, devils and plagues; animating the magistrates to destroy them; and when the time of the new elections drew near, they prayed to God for such men as would be zealous, even to blood, though it were to cost the whole trade of their cities. At length, a synod being assembled, acted in the usual manner; they laid down the principles of faith with confidence, condemned the doctrine of the remonstrants; deprived their antagonists of all their offices; and concluded by humbly beseeching God and their high mightinesses, to put their decrees into execution, and to ratify the doctrine they had expressed. The states obliged them in this Christian and charitable request, for as soon as the synod was concluded, Barnwelt [Dutch: John of Olden Barneveld], a friend of the remonstrants and their opinions, was beheaded,<A HREF="#pgfId=948975" CLASS="footnote">
28</A>
and <A NAME="marker=948851">
</A>
Grotius condemned to perpetual imprisonment; and because the dissenting ministers would not promise wholly, and always to abstain from the exercise of their religious functions, the states passed a resolution for banishing them, on pain, if they did not submit to it, of being treated as disturbers of the public peace.&quot; (J.J. Stockdale, The History of the Inquisitions (1810) at xxviii, xxix.)</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=949161">
</A>
Yet, one often hears Calvinists claiming the Council of Dort was an ecumenical council, with broadminded input that then `settled' certain thorny issues, as if in a dispassionate manner. However, as the Court in Groesbeeck v. Dunscomb (New York Practice Reports, 1871), said, such a depiction of the Council of Dort as an &quot;ecumenical council... wholly misrepresents&quot; those proceedings. Instead, &quot;it is perfectly notorious that it never pretended to settle doctrines of the Christian communion, but only some miserable controversies between Calvinists and Arminians.&quot; (Id. at 314). Some members of the church of England were invited, but they were without power of that church to commit to anything. &quot;The decrees of the synod were never accepted in England, and were vigorously opposed by both the king and the archbishop of Canterbury.&quot; Id.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=949162">
</A>
In England, the condemnation of the Council of Dort long echoed throughout history. Samuel Parr (1747-1825) wrote that we are &quot;shocked at the vindictive dispositions of those who presided at the Council of Dort.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=949165" CLASS="footnote">
29</A>
He went on:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
<A NAME="pgfId=948857">
</A>
In England, we are disgusted by the sullen obstinancy of some puritans, at the brutal ferocity of others, and at the insolent domination of their headstrong and infuriated oppressors. Id.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=949177">
</A>
The horrors of the Council of Dort are thus more of the terrible legacy of Calvin.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=948751">
</A>
Calvinist Death Penalties At Boston: 1659-1661</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948752">
</A>
In 1656, the Quakers of Boston were threatened by death by the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (MBC)--a Dutch chartered corporation which means it was directly controlled by the Dutch Republic. In 1656, Endicott, the MBC governor, threatened the Quakers<A HREF="#pgfId=948755" CLASS="footnote">
30</A>
with the death penalty if they resisted the Dutch Reformed Church as the sole lawful church. &quot;Take heed,&quot; he said, &quot;ye break not our ecclesiastical laws, for then ye are sure to stretch by a halter.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=948758" CLASS="footnote">
31</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=948759">
</A>
The Dutch rulers were serious. Four Quakers were executed thereafter solely for their beliefs. These became known as the <A NAME="marker=948760">
</A>
Boston Martyrs. Three were English members of the Society of Friends (Quakers): Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer. The forth was the Friend William Leddra of Barbados. Each were &quot;condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, 1660 and 1661.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=948763" CLASS="footnote">
32</A>
</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944596">
</A>
Murders by Calvinist Pilgrims of Massachusets: 1620-1693.</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944597">
</A>
In Massachusetts -- murderous Calvinists known as <A NAME="marker=944598">
</A>
Separatists (aka Dissenters) engaged in what is nothing less than mass murder. These were Puritans who morphed into `Separatist' <A NAME="marker=944599">
</A>
Pilgrims but who were still Calvinist Puritans in doctrine.<A HREF="#pgfId=944603" CLASS="footnote">
33</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944607">
</A>
In Salem, they restarted the pattern of Geneva. At first, they landed peaceably at Salem, Massachusetts from 1620-1630. Gradually, they passed laws that expelled &quot;from the territory all those who did not profess what they called the orthodox faith&quot; -- sending Priests, Quakers and other Protestants to resettle elsewhere.<A HREF="#pgfId=944610" CLASS="footnote">
34</A>
But then by 1692-1693, this turned ugly. The violent practices of Geneva revived in Salem. During those two years, the church there initiated discipline over church members that resulted in burning at the stake of 29 women as alleged <A NAME="marker=944611">
</A>
witches. (These were largely church-goers.) </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944612">
</A>
The Pilgrim-Puritan/Calvinist party saw themselves as in a new type of Geneva: &quot;the Puritans [of Salem] had established a type of theocracy... in which the church ruled in all civil matters, including that of administering capital punishment for violations of a spiritual nature.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=944615" CLASS="footnote">
35</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944616">
</A>
Thus, one sees here the Salem Church, like the Church Consistory of Geneva under Calvin, arrogated to itself the right to impose punishment upon church members. These punishments included death. This was in reliance on the practices that Calvin inaugurated at Geneva. Hence, we see once more that Calvin's misdeeds suffered repetition. The reason it took so long to undo this pattern is that Calvin's defenders over the Servetus Affair continued to promote the power of the church to kill those in dissent or who were perceived as heretics. Calvin bears on his ledger all those murdered at Salem as well.</P>
<P CLASS="Body">
<A NAME="pgfId=944594">
</A>
</P>
</DIV>
</DIV>
<HR>
<DIV CLASS="footnotes">
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
1.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=925135">
</A>
See <A HREF="Calvin 1555 Subversion of Geneva Democracy Repeated in 1579.html#10919" CLASS="XRef">
</A>
and accompanying text.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
2.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=925104">
</A>
Berthelier was soon replaced. Calvin's modern apologists deceptively argue that Berthelier was the &quot;attorney of Servetus,&quot; but in fact he was the prosecutor. However, he favored applying the law as currently written -- a punishment of expulsion. Consequently, at this early juncture before Calvin appeared as a witness, it very much appeared that the court would be inclined to simply banish Servetus. After Calvin appeared as a witness and began testifying, the prosecutorial team was reshuffled, and Berthelier was no longer involved, and now the penalty under discussion gradually shifted to death. Hence, one may infer that Berthelier was in favor of allowing Servetus to be banished. Given his own struggles against Calvin, one could foresee Berthelier being mild to Servetus.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
3.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=937731">
</A>
For a deplorable example of such `historical writing, see &quot;The Burning of Michael Servetus,&quot; at http://www.albatrus.org/english/potpourri/historical/burning_of_servetus.htm (accessed 6/29/08).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
4.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=924961">
</A>
The Pastor of Berne, <A NAME="marker=924981">
</A>
Haller, strongly regarded Calvin's doctrine on predestination as virtually blasphemy of God's good nature. See <A HREF="Calvin 1555 Subversion of Geneva Democracy Repeated in 1579.html#31822" CLASS="XRef">
</A>
, and accompanying text.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
5.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547012">
</A>
Am&eacute;d&eacute;e Roget, Histoire du peuple de Gen&egrave;ve depuis la r&eacute;forme jusqu'&agrave; l'escalade (Geneva, J. Jullien, 1877) Vol. IV at 170 explains this incident in French: &quot;By Le 10, Andr&eacute; Vulliod, citoyen et notaire, est d&eacute;nonc&eacute; par Calvin et les ministres comme coupable de blasph&egrave;me. Ce personnage avait dit que &#171;nous avons grand tort de nous arrester &agrave; J&eacute;sus-Christ, lequel les Juifs ont reffus&eacute; et livr&eacute; aux gentils;&#187; on lui reprochait aussi de s'&ecirc;tre ing&eacute;r&eacute; &agrave; recevoir la C&egrave;ne, bien qu'elle lui e&ucirc;t &eacute;t&eacute; d&eacute;fendue. Il est banni pour trois ans par arr&ecirc;t du Conseil.&quot; </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
6.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547337">
</A>
&quot;Lives of Calvin,&quot; London Quarterly (March 1809) at 286 (&quot;Attendance at sermons was rigidly insisted upon.&quot;)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
7.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547262">
</A>
Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2000) at 252.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
8.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547181">
</A>
Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2000) at 253.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
9.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547149">
</A>
Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2000) -- a sympathetic work to Calvin -- mentions the following facts: </P>
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<A NAME="pgfId=547157">
</A>
[1] in April 1546, Ami <A NAME="marker=924952">
</A>
Perrin was put on trial for refusing to testify against several friends who were allegedly guilty of having <A NAME="marker=924953">
</A>
danced. She was incarcerated for refusal to testify. (Id., at 189.)</P>
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<A NAME="pgfId=547158">
</A>
[2] on Thursday, June 23, 1547, several women are tried for having danced, this time including Ami Perrin. (Id., at 189.)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
10.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547276">
</A>
Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2000) at 253 (&quot;The age of marriage depended on the ability to procreate. The union of the widow <A NAME="marker=924948">
</A>
Claude Richardot, said to be seventy years of age, with her servant Jean Archard, a &quot;youngster of twenty-five or twenty-six&quot; was forbidden. The Council gave the following decision (Tuesday, January 5, 1557): `Such a union would be against nature, and rather to support fornication than the marriage state, which should be kept holy....[T]he servant wanted to take his mistress, not for the principal objects of marriage, to have descendents or for reproduction or other comforts, but for riches. So that it is not according to God.&quot;)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
11.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547200">
</A>
In <A NAME="marker=924930">
</A>
Exodus 15:20, Miriam was <A NAME="marker=924941">
</A>
dancing to celebrate the victory God's power had brought at the Red Sea. In <A NAME="marker=924942">
</A>
2 Samuel 6:12-16, it recounts David &quot;danced before the Lord&quot; to celebrate the Ark of the Covenant being brought back to Jerusalem. <A NAME="marker=924931">
</A>
Psalm 149:3 &amp; <A NAME="marker=924932">
</A>
150:4 mention that we can praise or worship God through dance. There is no prohibition in the Law or Prophets or in Jesus' words on a man and woman dancing.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
12.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547311">
</A>
&quot;Lives of Calvin,&quot; London Quarterly (March 1809) at 286.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
13.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547326">
</A>
&quot;Lives of Calvin,&quot; London Quarterly (March 1809) at 286 (&quot;To <A NAME="marker=924933">
</A>
laugh during a sermon was a matter which drew after it three days' imprisonment.&quot;)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
14.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547295">
</A>
&quot;Lives of Calvin,&quot; London Quarterly (March 1809) at 286.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
15.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=510293">
</A>
David Sloan Wilson, Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (University of Chicago Press, 2002) at 115.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
16.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=547392">
</A>
According to Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2000) -- who is sympathetic to Calvin we learn at page 198, the following facts:</P>
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<A NAME="pgfId=547381">
</A>
On Monday, June 3, <A NAME="marker=924951">
</A>
1555, several leading citizens were judged without even their presence in court or being put under arrest for the melee of May 1555. In that melee they were in protest against the new tyrranical laws. <A NAME="marker=924923">
</A>
Perrin was condemned to have the hand of his right arm cut off, i.e., the hand with which he grabbed the baton that represented the church-head's (syndic's) office. He and those involved in the melee were condemned to decapitation. Then the heads and Perrin's hand were to be nailed up in public and he and his friends' bodies were to be cut into four quarters. The brothers <A NAME="marker=924924">
</A>
Comparet received the sentence of decapitation and their bodies were also to be quartered. In response, most fled. Those who refused to be intimidated, and stayed eventually were executed. Two other men, Claude Galloys and Girard Thomas, were put in a sort of pillory in two different parts of town. Galloys also received the sentence of having to carry a torch and ask for mercy. <A NAME="marker=924927">
</A>
Berthelier's brother Francois-Daniel was among the victims of the repression. At the same time, <A NAME="marker=924928">
</A>
Calvin completely justified the severity of these sentences. </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
17.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=924842">
</A>
John Calvin, Commentary on Seneca's De Clementia (1532) (Battles/Hugo translation)(1969) at 141.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
18.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=924903">
</A>
See <A HREF="Calvin 1555 Subversion of Geneva Democracy Repeated in 1579.html#22674" CLASS="XRef">
</A>
.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
19.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948876">
</A>
See our oline article http://www.jesuswordsonly.com/Lessons/Dutch %20 Republic%20 %20 Calvinist%20subversion %20of%20 freedom%20of%20religion.pdf.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
20.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=949039">
</A>
More specifically, the Remonstrants, as they were also called, were Reformed Pastors who taught election on the basis of foreseen faith, a universal atonement, resistible grace, and the possibility of lapse from grace. Schaff points out that the five points of the Remonstrants later became tenets of Wesley's Methodists and the Episcopalian Church. (Schaff, Creeds, Vol. I, 516.) </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
21.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=949147">
</A>
http://arminiantoday.blogspot.com/2007/09/synod-of-dort.html (accessed July 6, 2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
22.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948922">
</A>
William A. McComish, The Epigones: A Study of the Theology of the Genevan Academy at the Time of the Synod of Dort (Pickwick Publications, 1989) at 59.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
23.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=949058">
</A>
&quot;Synod of Dort,&quot; Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Dort (accessed July 6, 2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
24.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=949095">
</A>
Dewar, M.W., &quot;The British Delegation at the Synod of Dort - 1618-1619,&quot; The Evangelical Quarterly (Ap-Je, 1974) 46: 103-16.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
25.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948846">
</A>
If it is binding, then why do we not follow all its rulings? &quot;Christmas, Easter, Ascension...holydays are all denounced by the assembly at Dort....&quot; Groesbeeck v. Dunscomb (New York Practice Reports, 1871) at 302, 344.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
26.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948849">
</A>
&quot;The First Chapter of Ephesians, or Personal Predestination,&quot; Freewill Baptist Quarterly (Oct. 1868) at 388, 397.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
27.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948959">
</A>
William A. McComish, The Epigones: A Study of the Theology of the Genevan Academy at the Time of the Synod of Dort (Pickwick Publications, 1989) at 48.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
28.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948975">
</A>
McCormish calls this &quot;a shameful judicial murder, when John of Olden Barneveld, the foremost citizen of the Netherlands, after forty years of the noblest public service, was beheaded on an absurd charge of treason....&quot; McComish, The Epigones: A Study of the Theology of the Genevan Academy at the Time of the Synod of Dort (Pickwick Publications, 1989) at 124-25. He was killed </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
29.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=949165">
</A>
Samuel Parr, LL.D, The Works of Samuel Parr (Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1828) at 212.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
30.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948755">
</A>
&quot;The Friends believed that God's grace did not filter through the hierarchy of the religious elite, but reached each person directly. In taking this theological approach, the Quakers bypassed the authority of clergy and rulers, and recognized that the common person could be elevated to the `priesthood of all believers.' This rendered the current cultural order obsolete and formed the core ideal of the American republic that would arise more than a century later.&quot; &quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
31.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948758">
</A>
&quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
32.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=948763">
</A>
&quot;Boston Martyrs,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_martyrs (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
33.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944603">
</A>
The difference between a <A NAME="marker=944602">
</A>
Puritan and a Pilgrim is simple. A Puritan wanted to purify the Anglican church. The Pilgrim was a Puritan who gave up the effort, and decided a life of pilgrimage to others lands to live a Christian life. See <A HREF="Calvin 1555 Subversion of Geneva Democracy Repeated in 1579.html#36936" CLASS="XRef">
</A>
. Hence, Pilgrims were known as Puritans who separated from the Anglican church. See http://www.pilgrimhall.org/PSNoteNewPilgrimPuritan.htm (2/24/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
34.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944610">
</A>
These are the editor's words in a footnote to Thomas Paine, The Theological Works (J.P.Mendum: 1859) at 181. </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
35.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944615">
</A>
&quot;Salem Witch Trials,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials (accessed 2/18/2008). &quot;Much, but not all, of the evidence used against the accused was `spectral evidence,' or the testimony of the afflicted who claimed to see the apparition or the shape of the person who was allegedly afflicting them.&quot; Id. The Rev. William Milbourne, a Baptist minister in Boston, publicly petitioned the General Assembly in early June 1692, challenging the use of spectral evidence by the Court. Milbourne had to post 200&#163; bond or be arrested for &quot;contriving, writing and publishing the said scandalous Papers.&quot; Id. To the same effect was the petition on June 15, 1692 of twelve local ministers including Increase Mather, Samuel Willard, and Cotton Mather. It was entitled The Return of several Ministers to the Governor and Council in Boston, cautioning the authorities not to rely entirely on the use of spectral evidence, stating, &quot;Presumptions whereupon persons may be Committed, and much more, Convictions whereupon persons may be Condemned as Guilty of Witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable, than barely the Accused Persons being Represented by a Spectre unto the Afflicted.&quot;</P>
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<TITLE> Calvin Was Begged To Repent in 1554 To Save Lives</TITLE></HEAD>
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<LI CLASS="ChapterTitle">
<A NAME="pgfId=545328">
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Does Calvin Bear Any Responsibility for Later Slaughters by Catholics of Calvinists?</LI>
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<DIV>
<H1 CLASS="Heading1">
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<DIV>
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Calvin Was Begged To Repent in 1554 To Save Lives</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532131">
</A>
In 1554, critics of Calvin warned that Calvin's killing of Servetus as a mere heretic would give fresh impetus to the Roman Catholic Church to repeal the toleration that it exercised since 1520 toward the Protestant `heresy' (as Catholics viewed it.) The danger by Calvin's actions was an obvious one. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=935678">
</A>
Having had Servetus killed for heresy, Calvin provided Catholics, as Pastor Benson pointed out in 1753, with &quot;an invincible argument against themselves [i.e., the Calvinists]&quot; that killing of Calvinist Protestant heretics was just.<A HREF="#pgfId=532209" CLASS="footnote">
1</A>
Fritz Barth (1856-1912) made the same point in Calvin und Servet (1909), saying Calvin's instigating a heresy trial as a death-penalty trial &quot;gravely compromised Calvinism and put into the hands of the Catholics...the very best weapon for the persecution of the Huguenots [i.e., Calvinists of France], who were nothing but heretics in their eyes.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=935663" CLASS="footnote">
2</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532132">
</A>
Zagorin summarizes Calvin's response in his Defensio of 1554 to the critics warning his new principle of killing heretics will lead to the Catholics revisiting their current patter of tolerating Protestants:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
<A NAME="pgfId=532133">
</A>
He dismissed the argument that the Protestants' punishment of heretics would likewise <A NAME="marker=924604">
</A>
justify the Catholics' persecution of Protestants, answering that Catholics were wrong because they persecuted the truth, whereas Protestants defended the true religion ordained by God.<A HREF="#pgfId=532136" CLASS="footnote">
3</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532137">
</A>
Calvin is using a lawyer's trick. He is changing the issue and then answering the question which he prefers. Calvin never addresses the problem whether Calvin's violent ideas toward heretics could revive Catholic violent intolerance of Protestant heretics. In other words, if Calvin's principle of death-to-heretics is well-publicized, as it was, then the Catholic leaders will learn Calvinists concur on that issue. Then, based upon Calvin's clear defense of killing heretics, Roman Catholics can re-assert death to Protestant heretics. At least, the Catholics would be justified killing Calvinist Protestants because their founder conceded&nbsp;the principle. The Calvinist Protestants did not all live in safety like Calvin did in Geneva. Over 100,000 Calvinist Huguenots lived in Catholic France. Several million Calvinists lived in the Netherlands under Catholic rule. They were all at risk if Calvin miscalculated what his example of murderous intolerance would signal to Rome.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532138">
</A>
The question the critic wanted answered was a good one: `What if the Catholics of France or the Netherlands learn from you a principle, unless you repent quickly, that will be turned on the Calvinists in each land, leaving them no moral defense to say the principle of killing them as heretics is wrong?'</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532139">
</A>
The lives of all the Calvinists of the Netherlands snatched in 1568 and those in France killed in 1572, as we shall soon discuss, turned on the failure of Calvin to repent. He side-stepped the issue by using an old lawyer trick. When you cannot answer the question put to you, answer a different question. It has many names. It is sometimes called raising a red herring. It is sometimes called using a diversion. Most simply, it typically is called ignoring the issue.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532140">
</A>
That's the reason why Calvin did not address this crucial point. As a consequence, the lives of over 25,000 Huguenots -- perhaps as many as 100,000 -- were seized prematurely in 1572. It appears an even far greater number were killed in the Netherlands in 1568. This all due to the fact their spiritual leader -- Calvin -- did not have the good sense of repenting.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532141">
</A>
Let's review this in more detail. The salient facts are simply more tragedies that belong on Calvin's long list of bad &quot;fruit.&quot;</P>
</DIV>
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<H1 CLASS="Heading1">
<A NAME="pgfId=532142">
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<DIV>
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Roman Catholic Toleration Is Ended Only For Calvinist Protestants As A Matter of Self-Defense</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532143">
</A>
Calvin can be blamed for subsequent Catholic resort to killing of Calvinists as heretics. As a French text bitterly relates this consequence from Calvin's defense of the right to kill heretics: &quot;[Calvin's Defensio of 1554] furnished the Catholics an invincible argument... against the Protestants who had reproached them previously against any killing the Calvinists of France.&quot; (Louis Mayeul Chaudon, &quot;Servetus,&quot; Dictionnaire universel historique (1812) XIX:156.) One can hear the bitterness between the lines of Chaudon's heartbreak over what happened next.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=548830">
</A>
What Calvin had single-handedly done is unwind all the progress at fostering tolerance by Catholics for the Calvinist Protestants in particular, and especially those of France and the Netherlands.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=548807">
</A>
For Erasmus in 1520 successfully poured shame on the Catholics which insulated Lutherans. Erasmus' pleas created an era of Catholic tolerance of the Lutheran Protestants from 1520 onward. The Catholics still regarded all Protestants as heretics, yet took no effort at massive violent suppression until its clear hand in the Huguenot massacres of 1572.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532223">
</A>
Lord <A NAME="marker=924574">
</A>
Acton (a Catholic) pointed out this Catholic tolerance lasted from 1520 until the Catholic church's wars on the Calvinists, plotted in the late 1560s.<A HREF="#pgfId=532679" CLASS="footnote">
4</A>
</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H1 CLASS="Heading1">
<A NAME="pgfId=943339">
</A>
<DIV>
<IMG SRC="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists-1.gif">
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Calvin's Responsibility for the 1568 Decree That All Inhabitants Of The Netherlands Should Be Killed</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943340">
</A>
After 1537, &quot;Calvinism became the theological system of the majority in...the Netherlands.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943343" CLASS="footnote">
5</A>
&quot;The third wave of the Reformation, Calvinism, arrived in the Netherlands in the 1560s, converting both parts of the elite and the common population, mostly in Flanders.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943389" CLASS="footnote">
6</A>
&quot;By the 1560s, the Protestant community had become a significant influence in the Netherlands, although it clearly formed a minority then.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943542" CLASS="footnote">
7</A>
Yet, this was a Catholic land. Its Spanish ruler, Philip II, King of Spain, engaged in various oppressions of the Calvinists. Then in 1566, the Calvinists committed a systematic vandalism of Catholic churches.<A HREF="#pgfId=943565" CLASS="footnote">
8</A>
This was not a political but a religious rebellion. However, Philip called it a `rebellion' and sent Spanish troops into the Netherlands to suppress it. In 1568, the &quot;Spanish government, under <A NAME="marker=943494">
</A>
Phillip II started harsh prosecution campaigns, supported by the Spanish Inquisition.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943551" CLASS="footnote">
9</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943348">
</A>
These &quot;harsh prosecution campaigns&quot; against defenseless citizens is recounted in John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877)'s Rise of the Dutch Republic (N.Y.: 1856)(reprint Thomas Crowell, 1901). He relates:</P>
<P CLASS="Quote">
<A NAME="pgfId=943349">
</A>
Upon the 15th of February <A NAME="marker=943495">
</A>
1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the King [Phillip II of Spain], dated ten days later confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed..... Three millions of people, men, women and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines. Under the new decree, the executions certainly did not slacken. Men in the highest and humblest positions were daily and hourly dragged to the stake. Alba, in a single letter to Phillip II, cooly estimates the number of executions which were to take place immediately after the expiration of Holy Week at &quot;eight hundred heads.&quot; (Id., Vol. 1 at 597-98.) </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943350">
</A>
This is confirmed by other historians. King Philip through the Duke of Alba set up &quot;arbitrary and sanguinary tribunals&quot; throughout the Netherlands, and &quot;multitudes were daily delivered over to the executioner; nothing was to be seen or heard but seizure, confiscation, imprisonment, torture and death.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943353" CLASS="footnote">
10</A>
The Protestant William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, sought to rescue the Protestants from further murder, but his army of 28,000 were no match for the Spaniards stationed in the Netherlands.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943354">
</A>
The Inquisition was working hand-in-glove with Fernando Alvarez de Toledo known as the <A NAME="marker=943615">
</A>
Duke of Alba aka Alva. He was the right-hand man of King <A NAME="marker=943616">
</A>
Philip II of Spain. In one episode just prior to the Inquisition decree of 1568, some had come to the Duke of Alba, pleading for clemency on behalf of those imprisoned for being tolerant of Protestantism.<A HREF="#pgfId=943597" CLASS="footnote">
11</A>
The Duke of Alba made a &quot;passionate and ferocious reply&quot; that &quot;his Majesty would rather the whole land should become an uninhabited wilderness than that a single Dissenter should exist within its territory.&quot; (Motley, id, I: 597.)</P>
<DIV>
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Connection to the Events To Come in France in 1572</H2>
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These sanguinary events, incidentally, in the Netherlands have a connection to those in 1572 in France, which we discuss in the next section. In 1572, King Charles of France instigated by a Catholic cardinal orchestrated the murder of 25,000-100,000 Calvinists known as Huguenots, not pitying woman or children.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943404">
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What politically transpired in the case of the Netherlands in 1568 directly relates to what happens in France in 1572. Cardinal Lorraine of France in 1568 was conspiring with Spain to have King Philip put at the head of France should King Charles of France perchance &quot;die.&quot; (Motley, I: 590.) At minimum, Spain in recompense would receive a few territories in France if it suppressed Calvinism in the Netherlands. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943356">
</A>
The royal throne of France appears to have gotten wind of what was afoot, and felt the pressure from the Catholic Church to kill the Calvinist Huguenots. Soon after this Catholic conspiracy was begun with Spain, the Queen dowager of France (the effective monarch because Charles was still a young boy) wrote to her counterpart in Spain--the Duke of Alva. She discussed the Calvinist Huguenot problem. She said that unless she had 2000 Spanish musketeers, she would have to succumb to a peace, i.e., enter into a peace with the Huguenots. (This did take place in 1570.) But the reply came from the Duke of Alva on behalf of King Philip of Spain. In Motley's account, Alva said &quot;it was much better to have a kingdom ruined preserving it for God and the king by war, than to have it kept entire without war, to the profit of the devil and his followers.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943359" CLASS="footnote">
12</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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</A>
As we shall see, it was this same Roman Catholic ferocious pressure that was applied upon the Queen Mother of France and the young King Charles in 1572 to slaughter the Huguenots without mercy -- whether man, woman or child. </P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
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Calvin's Moral Responsibility For the Deaths of the Calvinists of the Netherlands</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
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</A>
But to repeat, Calvin remains morally responsible although obviously not in the same degree as those ordering the murders. For had Calvin not unleashed the dogs of war by saying (Calvinist) Protestants should kill heretics, the alarm at (Calvinist) Protestants gaining power in the Netherlands or in France, would have posed no risk to Roman Catholics. But the rise of Calvinist Protestants politically put themselves at risk due to the new policy Calvin announced in 1554 in the wake of the Servetus Affair. Calvin declared that Protestants of Calvinist persuasion would kill heretics, and felt it their duty to do so. No Catholic ruler could ever let them rise to power. Calvin made it become a life-and-death struggle. For to Calvinists, Roman Catholics were heretics, proven by Calvin's treatment of the Catholic Church in Geneva in 1535.<A HREF="#pgfId=943458" CLASS="footnote">
13</A>
Hence, if the Roman Catholics did not kill the Calvinists now, it would be too late once they gained political power which appeared only a matter of time.<A HREF="#pgfId=943641" CLASS="footnote">
14</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943508">
</A>
This Catholic thought-process is precisely what Castellio warned Calvin would be the consequence of killing Servetus, and defending it on the principle of `death-to-heretics.' Calvin did not listen. Calvin was wrong. Calvin thus ends up morally responsible for all the predictable responses of the Roman Catholics in thereafter murdering pre-emptively the Calvinist Protestants throughout Europe.</P>
</DIV>
</DIV>
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<DIV>
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Calvin's Responsibility for The Killings of French Huguenots</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943334">
</A>
The Roman Catholic Lord Acton in his famous article on the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in France exposes the Roman church's role in that mass murder. It took place in 1572, beginning in Paris and spreading throughout France. When it ended, 25,000 to 100,000 Calvinist Huguenots of France were murdered as alleged heretics. Acton says up to that point, the &quot;Protestants...had won toleration&quot; from the Roman Catholic church. Until this epoch, the attempt to &quot;arrest [Protestantism's] advance by force had been abandoned.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=532227" CLASS="footnote">
15</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532221">
</A>
In 1572, the Roman Pope's agents directly orchestrated at the pope's command the French king's actions to suppress the Calvinist <A NAME="marker=924573">
</A>
Huguenots. Prior to 1572, tensions were rising in France. Catholic meddling only had emerged in 1569 in a minor skirmish. But in 1572, the cat was out of the bag. Death to heretics of the Calvinist stripe was in full swing in France!<A HREF="#pgfId=532147" CLASS="footnote">
16</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532248">
</A>
In 1572, beginning with the <A NAME="marker=924572">
</A>
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Roman church of France turned to killing Huguenots en masse. The Huguenots were a sect of Calvinists, so the irony should not be lost on anyone. Lord Acton was a famous Roman Catholic as well as objective historian. Acton commented on this 1572 episode: &quot;I... point[] out that the Popes had, after long endeavours, nearly succeeded in getting all the Calvinists murdered.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=532251" CLASS="footnote">
17</A>
For the full account of the pope's instigation and orchestration of these events, derived from Lord Acton's famous history, see online at www.jesuswordsonly Appendix O: End of Tolerance of Protestants in 1572 With Catholic Execution of Protestants As Heretics in France.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H1 CLASS="Heading1">
<A NAME="pgfId=943433">
</A>
<DIV>
<IMG SRC="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists-1.gif">
</DIV>
<A NAME="16349">
</A>
History Proves Calvin's Moral Responsibility</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532148">
</A>
The reason for this change in Roman Catholic policy toward Calvinists in particular was directly related to Calvin's actions in 1553 and his later defense of those actions.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532149">
</A>
For Calvin's change in the standard Protestant refrain that the <A NAME="marker=924557">
</A>
Parable of the Wheat and the Tares meant no death of heretics was rejected in 1554 by Calvin. He boldly proclaimed killing of Servetus was defensible under the notion that Servetus was a heretic. Calvin now defended the killing heretics as perfectly legal and mandatory for member of Calvin's church. This had grave implications upon the safety of Roman Catholics in Geneva or in any land that might adopt Calvinist Protestantism.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532333">
</A>
For in Geneva, <A NAME="marker=924554">
</A>
Farel and Calvin banned the Catholic church, expelling all Catholic practitioners in 1535, while brazenly treating the Catholics who remained as all suspected heretics. In fact, the <A NAME="marker=924555">
</A>
Confession of Faith of 1535 in Geneva, written by <A NAME="marker=924556">
</A>
Calvin and Farel, said anyone who continued to associate with Catholicism belonged to the &quot;synagogue of the Devil.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=532339" CLASS="footnote">
18</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=541121">
</A>
On August 27, 1535, <A NAME="marker=924547">
</A>
Geneva banned any saying of the Mass. Geneva also expropriated the property of the Roman Catholic church, which was a penalty Catholics previously applied historically to heretics.<A HREF="#pgfId=532345" CLASS="footnote">
19</A>
Calvin's view of Catholicism as a heresy was obvious and open for all to see. If Catholics were heretics, and Servetus was a heretic, it does not take a brilliant mind to know the logical deduction of the Roman Catholic pope. He would expect Catholics in France to be persecuted even unto death if Calvinism triumphed over France any time after 1554.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532352">
</A>
As long as this murderous view of this Frenchman (Calvin) was limited to a small city, it was contained. As long as this Frenchman had stood by the firm resolve of all the other Protestants that Jesus' <A NAME="marker=924546">
</A>
Parable of the Wheat and the Tares meant no death to heretics, Catholics would have to grin and bear Calvin's success at Geneva. But with the killing of Servetus in 1553, and the subsequent dogmatic defense by Calvin of killing of heretics (departing radically from Protestant norms and teachings), the Roman pope knew there was no hope for clemency in a Calvinist France for Catholics, should the Calvinists of France take power. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532276">
</A>
To head off this possibility, in 1561, the Pope tried to obtain reconciliation with the Calvinists of France. This meeting was &quot;sponsored by the French government at the <A NAME="marker=924550">
</A>
Colloquy of Poisy in 1561, where Calvinist and Catholic divines fruitlessly debated their differences.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=532642" CLASS="footnote">
20</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532640">
</A>
Having failed to find common ground, the Pope could not ignore that Calvin's Geneva thereafter gave him fresh and notorious examples of how those who are heretics in Calvinist eyes would be burned at the stake.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=545258">
</A>
In 1566, <A NAME="marker=924528">
</A>
Gentilis was arrested at Geneva.<A HREF="#pgfId=532320" CLASS="footnote">
21</A>
He was handed over to authorities in <A NAME="marker=924529">
</A>
Bern in 1566 for execution. The Calvinist magistrates there &quot;beheaded [Valentine] Gentilis&quot; for his alleged Arian teaching of an inferiority of Jesus to the Father.<A HREF="#pgfId=532279" CLASS="footnote">
22</A>
Gentilis &quot;did not hold the opinions of Servetus, as many writers affirm; but held Arian sentiments, and made the Son and the Holy Spirit to be inferior to the Father.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=532285" CLASS="footnote">
23</A>
Here is only heresy, not blasphemy. The verdict was death. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=545267">
</A>
Incidentally, <A NAME="marker=924530">
</A>
Calvin held the same Arian view as Gentilis.<A HREF="#pgfId=545219" CLASS="footnote">
24</A>
However, with Calvin's death in 1564, his followers in 1566 began to rectify this error by their deceased leader. They now persecuted unto death those holding to the Arian heresy.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=545275">
</A>
Continuing on, there was another case initiated in 1566 at Geneva. This was another heresy &quot;blasphemy&quot; trial pending of a jurist named Grabaldus. A death sentence was hanging over him. However, the defendant died in prison, and the case never went to trial.<A HREF="#pgfId=532289" CLASS="footnote">
25</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532271">
</A>
In 1572, these several cases were still in recent memory of the Roman Pope who would see them as an alarm to the safety of French Catholics if the Calvinist Huguenots gained political supremacy in France.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532150">
</A>
Now obviously due to the abandonment of toleration by Calvinist Protestants of heretics, the Roman Catholic church had to abandon toleration in return of Calvinist Protestants. It was a simple equation of self-defense.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532165">
</A>
Thus, when Calvin and Beza in 1554 defended the right to kill anyone who they thought was a heretic,<A HREF="#pgfId=532171" CLASS="footnote">
26</A>
these were chilling words to Catholics as well. At that time, the Calvinist Huguenots in France openly operated with military field generals, especially in the South of France. They mustered militia-armies in self-defense whenever frightened of Catholic designs.<A HREF="#pgfId=532178" CLASS="footnote">
27</A>
If the Huguenots should come to power in France -- which was not a far-fetched possibility because several members of the Royal family were Protestant, the Roman Catholics could then face a retaliatory Inquisition at the hands of the armed Calvinist Huguenots.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532179">
</A>
Hence, because the Geneva Reformer named Calvin insisted Catholics were heretics, Catholics in 1572 had to realize the best defense was an aggressive offense. Thus, Calvin's principle of `death to heretics,' proven by the killing of Servetus and many Genevans thereafter, was a direct threat to Roman Catholics if Calvinism should ascend into dominance in France. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532180">
</A>
By contrast, the Roman Catholics had no need to violently persecute Lutherans. In 1555, the Lutheran and Catholic churches had agreed to co-exist within the Holy Roman Empire. Neither would persecute the other as heretics. This was settled in the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. (&quot;Peace of Augsburg,&quot; Wikipedia.)</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532181">
</A>
This contrast proves how crucial were the events in 1553 when Calvin had Servetus killed as a mere heretic. To repeat, Calvin's Defensio in 1554 and <A NAME="marker=924525">
</A>
Beza's similar fulminations that same year made it absolutely clear to Catholics that they had to kill off the Calvinist Huguenots of France. How could the Catholics permit the Calvinists to gain ascendancy in France and potentially turn the tables on the Catholics? If they did not do something violent themselves now, they would find themselves bitterly being killed as heretics later in a Calvinist Huguenot France.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532182">
</A>
Hence, by inexorable logic, directly deduced from the killing of Servetus in 1553, and the dogma upon which <A NAME="marker=924527">
</A>
Calvin later defended that killing, the Roman Catholic church orchestrated what remains the most bloody episode of all time of the killing of people merely for being perceived as heretics. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532183">
</A>
In 1572, the Roman Catholic church instigated the Catholic King to mark the homes of <A NAME="marker=924526">
</A>
Huguenots throughout the country. In a systematic wave of terror, the agents of the church and king slaughtered man, woman and child without any trial. Their homes and personages were marked as Huguenot heretics, and they were doomed. The smallest estimate of those murdered in the two month terror was 25,000. The largest estimate was 100,000.<A HREF="#pgfId=532188" CLASS="footnote">
28</A>
The blood of each murdered soul cries out: `Thanks Calvin! You put the sword in the hands of our mortal enemies.'</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=532190">
</A>
No one can remove the Roman Catholic stigma from these events. But Calvin's bloody hands were an important contributing factor to the events of 1572. For it was his example with Servetus and his unrepentant doctrine of 1554 that opened the floodgates. It opened them specifically only as to Calvinist Protestants. In 1572, the Lutheran Protestants went to bed as peacefully in those two months as they had since 1555. They had the Peace of Augsburg protecting them. They enjoyed the mutual understanding that no Lutheran or Catholic &quot;heretic&quot; in the other's domain would be killed merely for heresy.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943041">
</A>
Thus, one can now understand that killing Servetus for heresy had a far reaching impact on the history of Europe. That execution, and the subsequent and radically new Calvinist dogma of `death to heretics' (belatedly raised to justify the crime) clearly led to the mass murder of numerous good Christian souls. They paid the price of the sin of their leader -- John Calvin. Each of those 25,000 to 100,000 dead souls were no less murdered by John Calvin than by the unholy alliance of the Pope at Rome and the King of France. </P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H1 CLASS="Heading1">
<A NAME="pgfId=943750">
</A>
<DIV>
<IMG SRC="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists-1.gif">
</DIV>
The Danger of Calvinism To the Freedom of Religion in the Netherlands</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943756">
</A>
As an aside, the Netherlands is a lesson in how a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion in a true democratic republic can be usurped by a militant religious party. This is more important than ever as candidates from both the Democrat and Republic parties both support `faith-based' inititives--a dangerous precedent to the freedom of religion to those `faiths' not favored by government largesse.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943769">
</A>
After the Netherlands declaration of independence, it formed a new government known as The United Provinces of the Netherlands or the Dutch Republic. It lasted from 1581 to 1795. The Dutch Republic was a compromise system between Catholics and Protestants. </P>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=943784">
</A>
Like the USA in Almost Every Way: Our Clear Model</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943780">
</A>
The Dutch Republic provided the best example of a true confederative republic to our young United States. Upon closer examination, it is obviously the source of our own Constitution in almost every detail, even on the guarantee of the freedom of religion. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943788">
</A>
Each of the seven provinces was governed by its local Provincial States, and by a stadtholder (governor) who was subordinate to his respective Provincial State. Some provinces were Catholic, and others Protestant. Some were democratic and some were aristocratic, such as Holland. Each province had one vote in the senate of sovereign states also known as the States General. The States General alone could declare war or conclude peace. Their resolutions were decisive law for the Republic. It alone appointed ambassadors although the ambassadors reported to the President of the Republic (soon to be discussed). All cities formed virtual independent states. At the same time, the primary stadtholder akin to a President was elected and subject to the States General, i.e., the national legislative body. He was also the captain-general and adminral-general, but he could not declare war or make peace. This president alone had the right to appoint magistrates. This confederative republic lasted just over 200 years.<A HREF="#pgfId=943795" CLASS="footnote">
29</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943757">
</A>
In the <A NAME="marker=943935">
</A>
Dutch Republic, freedom of conscience was enshrined in the 1579 <A NAME="marker=943936">
</A>
Union of Utrecht, the Republic's basic constitutional document. Article 13 of the Union specifically states, &quot;each person shall remain free, especially in his religion, and that no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of their religion.&quot;</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943758">
</A>
However, the Calvinists used their influence to come to dominate the Dutch Republic and soon made Calvinism the de facto state religion in violation of the Netherlands Constitution.<A HREF="#pgfId=943938" CLASS="footnote">
30</A>
Soon laws were made that outlawed Catholic, Lutheran or Anabaptist worship. In the Catholic provinces, an oath was required of public servants that they would fight the &quot;papist religion&quot; which had the effect of disqualifying all Catholics from public office.<A HREF="#pgfId=943819" CLASS="footnote">
31</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943759">
</A>
There were efforts to correct this Constitutional imbalance in favor of the Calvinist Reformed Church. This effort at enforcing the freedom-of-religion clause in the Dutch Constitution began ironically in what later became the United States.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944057">
</A>
Calvinist Death Penalties At Boston</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944016">
</A>
In 1656, the Quakers of Boston were threatened by death by the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony--chartered and thus controlled by the Dutch Republic. In 1656, Endicott, the governor, threatened the Quakers<A HREF="#pgfId=944088" CLASS="footnote">
32</A>
with the death penalty. &quot;Take heed,&quot; he said, &quot;ye break not our ecclesiastical laws, for then ye are sure to stretch by a halter.&quot; <A HREF="#pgfId=944031" CLASS="footnote">
33</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944063">
</A>
The Dutch rulers were serious. Four Quakers were executed thereafter solely for their beliefs. These became known as the Boston martyrs. These three were English members of the Society of Friends: Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados. Each were &quot;condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, 1660 and 1661.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=944073" CLASS="footnote">
34</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943832">
</A>
</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944099">
</A>
The 1657 Remontrance</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944100">
</A>
It is in this context that we can now understand the courage of those who in 1657 signed a petition called the Flushing Remonstrance. It sought to correct this error, asking that freedom of conscience be restored.<A HREF="#pgfId=943965" CLASS="footnote">
35</A>
Flushing was in what is today Long Island, New York. Those who signed it happened to also be Englishman, thus revealing how their ideas later percolated in the British colonies. Also, one can see the demand for religious freedom in what later became the United States was first sought against Calvinist encroachment under the Dutch Constitution. A mild irony from our Creator to teach us how history runs in circles. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943976">
</A>
Edward Hart was the town clerk of Vlissingen (as Flushing, Long Island, was then known in Dutch) wrote this remarkable remonstrance. It was signed by thirty-one fellow townsmen on December 27, 1657. It was in opposition to West India Company Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant's harsh ordinance against anyone found harboring Quakers. (Baptists too had been persecuted under the same ordinance.) </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944132">
</A>
The Remonstrance cited the Flushing patent of 1645. It had promised &quot;the right to have and enjoy liberty of conscience, according to the custom and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any magistrates, or any other ecclesiastical minister.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943987" CLASS="footnote">
36</A>
The Remonstrance asked for enforcement of this provision, which was based upon Article 13 of the Netherlands Utrecht Union Constition.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943948">
</A>
The Remonstrance stated that the &quot;molestation&quot; clause of their town charter of 1645 was granted &quot;in the name of the States General&quot; by West India Company resident director Willem Kieft, and could not be withdrawn by a later director. The petitioners protested &quot;we can not condemn them [Quakers]&quot; nor &quot;punish, banish or persecute them.&quot; </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944169">
</A>
Stuyvesant replied with reasoning reminiscent of Calvin's own, that this freedom of religion had permitted the moral license of this &quot;disobedient community&quot; and thus freedom of religion was justly abridged.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944163">
</A>
As a result, Stuyvesant charged that the town had violated the director-general's orders and New Netherland's charters, which stated &quot;no other religion shall be publicly admitted in New Netherland except the Reformed.&quot; Stuyvesant arrested Hart, Vlissingen schout Tobias Feake, who delivered the remonstrance to him, and two other Vlissingen magistrates who had signed the document. Under this pressure the signatories recanted the document and admitted their &quot;error.&quot;</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944180">
</A>
Thus, the first effort to hold up the constitutional and foundational city-charters against later decrees failed.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944187">
</A>
Legal Scholars in the 1700s Try to Voice Constitutional Concerns</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943836">
</A>
In the mid-1700s, Christian Trotz, a legal scholar and professor at Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1755, did a thorough analysis of the Netherlands Constitution. He concluded the Calvinist Reformed Church had usurped, in essence, the freedom of religion granted in Article 13. He claimed religion was irrelevant to the nature of the Netherlands state.<A HREF="#pgfId=943847" CLASS="footnote">
37</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944191">
</A>
But in reply, Cornelis van <A NAME="marker=943891">
</A>
Bynkershoek (1673-1743) argued that Article 13 did not trump `states rights'--the independence of each province to determine the public faith to perpetuate. Id.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943864">
</A>
However, under that approach, Article 13 would thereby be gutted. It said: &quot;each person shall remain free, especially in his religion, and that no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of their religion.&quot; Thus, in the Netherlands, no law could infringe the freedom of religion of any person, regardless of which state made the law.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943882">
</A>
Yet, Joris van Eijnatten points out that &quot;contemporary commentators eagerly appropriated the argument&quot; of Bynkershoek.<A HREF="#pgfId=943902" CLASS="footnote">
38</A>
Thus, because Article 13 did not explicitly prohibit laws abridging freedom of religion, each individual state could do so and somehow not violate the right of &quot;each person&quot; to their own religious belief.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943910">
</A>
Obviously, this reading was ignoring the implied prohibition on making any law abridging the freedom of conscience. Article 13 had come to be a dead letter. The Calvinists in each province came to control the laws, and thus defeated the right of &quot;each person&quot; to their own religious beliefs.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944197">
</A>
Notice How Carefully Worded Is Our First Amendment</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943860">
</A>
The First Amendment to our own Constitution tried correcting the wording of such a right. It not only enshrined the &quot;freedom of religion&quot; of each person, but also prescribed Congress from making any law to &quot;abridge&quot; the freedom of religion. The Calvinist loophole in the Netherlands' Constitution was closed by our very wise founding fathers. Of course, they preserved state rights, but most states preserved the freedom of religion, following the lead of the founders in this respect in each state. Thus, our First Amendment took away the argument of the Dutch Calvinist legal scholars who found a way to ignore the implied prohibition on making laws establishing religion in Article 13 of the Utrecht constitution.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943752">
</A>
Yet, what the Calvinists did in the Netherlands can happen in any country that lets its laws degrade into the support of religion. The law that favors one faith or groups of faith naturally saps the energy of the others, and thus undermines those of different faiths or those of no faith.</P>
</DIV>
</DIV>
<HR>
<DIV CLASS="footnotes">
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
1.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532209">
</A>
George Benson, D.D., &quot;The Old Whig, or the Consistent Protestant,&quot; February 2, 1737-38,&quot; reprinted in G. Benson, A Collection of Tracts (London: 1753) at 189.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
2.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=935663">
</A>
Quoted by Walter Nigg, The Heretics (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1962) at 328-29.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
3.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532136">
</A>
Perez Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton, 2003) at 80.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
4.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532679">
</A>
<A NAME="marker=924558">
</A>
Acton omits considering <A NAME="marker=924559">
</A>
Queen Mary I killing of 300 Protestants during her reign. He evidently does not consider her actions as the responsibility of the Pope. This may be but she may have relied on the example of Calvin, for her killings were all subsequent to the execution of Servetus. Mary I became Queen of England on August 3, 1553, just a few days before Servetus' arrest. In the next year after Servetus' execution, Mary I in 1554 &quot;orders bishops to suppress heresy beginning a long period of Protestant martyrdom.&quot; In 1555, &quot;300 Protestants are executed.&quot; (See http://estc.ucr.edu/CHRONOLOGY_1473-1640.html.)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
5.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943343">
</A>
&quot;Calvinism,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism (accessed 7/5/08).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
6.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943389">
</A>
&quot;History of religion in the Netherlands,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_religion_in_the_Netherlands (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
7.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943542">
</A>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
8.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943565">
</A>
&quot;Early August 1566, a mob stormed the church of Hondschoote in Flanders (now in Northern France). This relatively small incident spread North and led to a massive iconoclastic movement by Calvinists, who stormed churches and other religious buildings to desecrate and destroy statues and images of Catholic saints all over the Netherlands. According to the Calvinists, these statues represented worship of idols. The number of actual image-breakers appears to have been relatively small and the exact backgrounds of the movement are debated.&quot; See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
9.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943551">
</A>
&quot;History of religion in the Netherlands,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_religion_in_the_Netherlands (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
10.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943353">
</A>
William Russell, The History of Modern Europe: with an account of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (H. Maxwell, 1802) II at 450.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
11.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943597">
</A>
&quot;Egmont and Horne [arrested in 1567] had been Catholic nobles who were loyal to the King of Spain until their death. The reason for their execution [in 1568] was that Alba considered they had been treasonous to the king in their tolerance to Protestantism.&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
12.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943359">
</A>
Motley, I: at 591.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
13.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943458">
</A>
For discussion on the proofs of Calvin's moral responsibility, see <A HREF="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists.html#16349" CLASS="XRef">
See History Proves Calvin's Moral Responsibility</A>
.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
14.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943641">
</A>
The reaction led eventually to revolution in 1572, and by the Act of Abduration in 1581--a declaration of independence.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
15.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532227">
</A>
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, History of Freedom (MacMillan, 1907) at 102, 103.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
16.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532147">
</A>
<A NAME="18161">
</A>
The outbreaks of religious violence in 1562-1563 in France were evidently not orchestrated by the Catholic church, unlike the killings of 1572. This 1562-1563 episode is called the first `Religious War' with Huguenots. It arose in 1562 merely out of a misunderstanding between servants of the Duc de Guise and a Huguenot congregation on a Sunday afternoon. The Duc de Guise ended up later being assassinated. Tensions mounted, and the Huguenots formed an army within France, and called for aid from Protestants of Germany and England. The Crown decided to peaceable settle the dispute. Prisoners were exchanged. The<A NAME="marker=924551">
</A>
Edict of Amboise issued March 16, 1563 granted &quot;freedom of conscience&quot; to nobles of the &quot;reformed&quot; faith with their &quot;families and subjects.&quot; Next, in 1567-1568, when Spain's armies were passing the &quot;Spanish road&quot; from Italy to Flanders to subjugate the Netherlands, the Huguenots suspected treachery. They heard rumours that the pope wanted to invade France via Spain's armies and exterminate the Huguenots. The Huguenots overreacted, and attempted a coup at Meaux, and the capture of the king. The plan fizzled. Another edict of peace was signed, called the <A NAME="marker=924552">
</A>
Peace of Longjumeau. Finally, during 1568-1570, the Catholic Cardinal de Lorraine this time planned to capture the Huguenot military leaders. He failed initially. The Huguenot army in the south held off the royal armies. Finally another peace was signed at St. Germain. This last episode did involve a Catholic prelate directly meddling, and is the precursor to the <A NAME="marker=924553">
</A>
St. Bartholomew's Massacre of 1572. (This is based in part on http://www.lepg.org/wars.htm (2/24/08).)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
17.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532251">
</A>
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton (Longman's Gree, 1917) at 55-56.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
18.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532339">
</A>
See <A HREF="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists.html#21013" CLASS="XRef">
</A>
and accompanying text.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
19.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532345">
</A>
See <A HREF="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists.html#15081" CLASS="XRef">
</A>
et seq.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
20.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532642">
</A>
Perez Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton, 2003) at 87.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
21.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532320">
</A>
George Benson, D.D., &quot;The Old Whig, or the Consistent Protestant,&quot; February 2, 1737-38,&quot; reprinted in G. Benson, A Collection of Tracts (London: 1753) at 190 (&quot;Valentinus Gentilis... was afterwards imprisoned at Geneva for heresy...&quot;).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
22.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532279">
</A>
E. William Monter, Calvin's Geneva (New York: John Wilely &amp; Sons, 1967) at 83-84.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
23.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532285">
</A>
Johann Lorenz Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History (Harper &amp; Bros., 1841) at 227.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
24.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=545219">
</A>
See <A NAME="marker=924531">
</A>
Calvin's letter to the Polish Brethren quoted at length in Gaston Bonet-Maury &amp; Edward Potter Hall, Early Sources of English Unitarian Christianity (1884) at 16 fn. 4. Here, Calvin clearly says Jesus is inferior to God-the-Father because of the verses where Jesus was speaking of his limitations in knowledge compared to the Father, etc. </P>
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<A NAME="pgfId=924532">
</A>
This proves, incidentally, the superiority of Servetus' solution which sees two natures in Jesus rather than two distinct `Gods' -- one inferior to the other. Servetus explained that the human Jesus is a human, but otherwise, the Word was made flesh which is the divine in Jesus, and hence Jesus is identical to God in Jesus. Thus, Calvin should not have talked of the human limitations of Jesus as if they made Jesus an inferior God to God-the-Father. </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
25.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532289">
</A>
Mosheim relates: &quot;Not much different [from Gentilis] were the views of Matthew Gribaldus, a jurist of Pavia, who was removed by a timely death, at Geneva, in 1566, when about to undergo a capital trial: for he distributed the divine nature into three Eternal Spirits, differing in rank, as well as numerically.&quot; Johann Lorenz Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History (Harper &amp; Bros., 1841) at 227.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
26.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532171">
</A>
See <A HREF="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists.html#32174" CLASS="XRef">
</A>
et seq.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
27.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532178">
</A>
See <A HREF="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists.html#18161" CLASS="XRef">
See The outbreaks of religious violence in 1562-1563 in France were evidently not orchestrated by the Catholic church, unlike the killings of 1572. This 1562-1563 episode is called the first `Religious War' with Huguenots. It arose in 1562 merely out of a misunderstanding between servants of the Duc de Guise and a Huguenot congregation on a Sunday afternoon. The Duc de Guise ended up later being assassinated. Tensions mounted, and the Huguenots formed an army within France, and called for aid from Protestants of Germany and England. The Crown decided to peaceable settle the dispute. Prisoners were exchanged. The Edict of Amboise issued March 16, 1563 granted &quot;freedom of conscience&quot; to nobles of the &quot;reformed&quot; faith with their &quot;families and subjects.&quot; Next, in 1567-1568, when Spain's armies were passing the &quot;Spanish road&quot; from Italy to Flanders to subjugate the Netherlands, the Huguenots suspected treachery. They heard rumours that the pope wanted to invade France via Spain's armies and exterminate the Huguenots. The Huguenots overreacted, and attempted a coup at Meaux, and the capture of the king. The plan fizzled. Another edict of peace was signed, called the Peace of Longjumeau. Finally, during 1568-1570, the Catholic Cardinal de Lorraine this time planned to capture the Huguenot military leaders. He failed initially. The Huguenot army in the south held off the royal armies. Finally another peace was signed at St. Germain. This last episode did involve a Catholic prelate directly meddling, and is the precursor to the St. Bartholomew's Massacre of 1572. (This is based in part on http://www.lepg.org/wars.htm (2/24/08).)</A>
.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
28.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=532188">
</A>
See <A HREF="Does Calvin Bear Responsibility for Later Slaughter by Catholics of Calvinists.html#34700" CLASS="XRef">
See Calvin Was Begged To Repent in 1554 To Save Lives</A>
et seq.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
29.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943795">
</A>
See Friedrich Edler, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1911) at 11-12 fn. 2. See also, &quot;Dutch Republic,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic (accessed 7/5/2008). </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
30.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943938">
</A>
In 1651, a law was passed that no organized religion that had not existed when the republic was formed could be authorized to be practiced in the Netherlands. See Joris van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Republic in the Eighteenth Century Netherlands (Brill, 2002) at 257.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
31.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943819">
</A>
&quot;Dutch Republic,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic (accessed 7/5/2008). </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
32.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944088">
</A>
&quot;The Friends believed that God's grace did not filter through the hierarchy of the religious elite, but reached each person directly. In taking this theological approach, the Quakers bypassed the authority of clergy and rulers, and recognized that the common person could be elevated to the `priesthood of all believers.' This rendered the current cultural order obsolete and formed the core ideal of the American republic that would arise more than a century later.&quot; &quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
33.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944031">
</A>
&quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
34.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944073">
</A>
&quot;Boston Martyrs,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_martyrs (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
35.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943965">
</A>
See &quot;The Flushing Remonstrance,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_Remonstrance (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
36.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943987">
</A>
The patent is quoted in &quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
37.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943847">
</A>
See Joris van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Republic in the Eighteenth Century Netherlands (Leiden &amp; Boston: Brill, 2002) at 255.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
38.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943902">
</A>
See Joris van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Republic in the Eighteenth Century Netherlands (Leiden &amp; Boston: Brill, 2002) at 255.</P>
</DIV>
</DIV>
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<TITLE> The Danger of Calvinism To the Freedom of Religion in the Netherlands</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff">
<DIV>
<H1 CLASS="Heading1">
<A NAME="pgfId=943750">
</A>
<DIV>
<IMG SRC="Dutch Republic - Calvinist subversion of freedom of religion-1.gif">
</DIV>
The Danger of Calvinism To the Freedom of Religion in the Netherlands</H1>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943756">
</A>
As an aside, the Netherlands is a lesson in how a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion in a true democratic republic can be usurped by a militant religious party. This is more important than ever as candidates from both the Democrat and Republic parties both support `faith-based' inititives--a dangerous precedent to the freedom of religion to those `faiths' not favored by government largesse.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943769">
</A>
After the Netherlands declaration of independence, it formed a new government known as The United Provinces of the Netherlands or the Dutch Republic. It lasted from 1581 to 1795. The Dutch Republic was a compromise system between Catholics and Protestants. </P>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=943784">
</A>
Like the USA in Almost Every Way: Our Clear Model</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943780">
</A>
The Dutch Republic provided the best example of a true confederative republic to our young United States. Upon closer examination, it is obviously the source of our own Constitution in almost every detail, even on the guarantee of the freedom of religion. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943788">
</A>
Each of the seven provinces was governed by its local Provincial States, and by a stadtholder (governor) who was subordinate to his respective Provincial State. Some provinces were Catholic, and others Protestant. Some were democratic and some were aristocratic, such as Holland. Each province had one vote in the senate of sovereign states also known as the States General. The States General alone could declare war or conclude peace. Their resolutions were decisive law for the Republic. It alone appointed ambassadors although the ambassadors reported to the President of the Republic (soon to be discussed). All cities formed virtual independent states. At the same time, the primary stadtholder akin to a President was elected and subject to the States General, i.e., the national legislative body. He was also the captain-general and adminral-general, but he could not declare war or make peace. This president alone had the right to appoint magistrates. This confederative republic lasted just over 200 years.<A HREF="#pgfId=943795" CLASS="footnote">
1</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943757">
</A>
In the <A NAME="marker=943935">
</A>
Dutch Republic, freedom of conscience was enshrined in the 1579 <A NAME="marker=943936">
</A>
Union of Utrecht, the Republic's basic constitutional document. Article 13 of the Union specifically states, &quot;each person shall remain free, especially in his religion, and that no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of their religion.&quot;</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943758">
</A>
However, the Calvinists used their influence to come to dominate the Dutch Republic and soon made Calvinism the de facto state religion in violation of the Netherlands Constitution.<A HREF="#pgfId=943938" CLASS="footnote">
2</A>
Soon laws were made that outlawed Catholic, Lutheran or Anabaptist worship. In the Catholic provinces, an oath was required of public servants that they would fight the &quot;papist religion&quot; which had the effect of disqualifying all Catholics from public office.<A HREF="#pgfId=943819" CLASS="footnote">
3</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943759">
</A>
There were efforts to correct this Constitutional imbalance in favor of the Calvinist Reformed Church. This effort at enforcing the freedom-of-religion clause in the Dutch Constitution began ironically in what later became the United States.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944057">
</A>
Calvinist Death Penalties At Boston</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944016">
</A>
In 1656, the Quakers of Boston were threatened by death by the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony--chartered and thus controlled by the Dutch Republic. In 1656, Endicott, the governor, threatened the Quakers<A HREF="#pgfId=944088" CLASS="footnote">
4</A>
with the death penalty. &quot;Take heed,&quot; he said, &quot;ye break not our ecclesiastical laws, for then ye are sure to stretch by a halter.&quot; <A HREF="#pgfId=944031" CLASS="footnote">
5</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944063">
</A>
The Dutch rulers were serious. Four Quakers were executed thereafter solely for their beliefs. These became known as the Boston martyrs. These three were English members of the Society of Friends: Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados. Each were &quot;condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, 1660 and 1661.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=944073" CLASS="footnote">
6</A>
</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944099">
</A>
The 1657 Remontrance</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944100">
</A>
It is in this context that we can now understand the courage of those who in 1657 signed a petition called the Flushing Remonstrance. It sought to correct this error, asking that freedom of conscience be restored.<A HREF="#pgfId=943965" CLASS="footnote">
7</A>
Flushing was in what is today Long Island, New York. Those who signed it happened to also be Englishman, thus revealing how their ideas later percolated in the British colonies. Also, one can see the demand for religious freedom in what later became the United States was first sought against Calvinist encroachment under the Dutch Constitution. A mild irony from our Creator to teach us how history runs in circles. </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943976">
</A>
Edward Hart was the town clerk of Vlissingen (as Flushing, Long Island, was then known in Dutch) wrote this remarkable remonstrance. It was signed by thirty-one fellow townsmen on December 27, 1657. It was in opposition to West India Company Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant's harsh ordinance against anyone found harboring Quakers. (Baptists too had been persecuted under the same ordinance.) </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944132">
</A>
The Remonstrance cited the Flushing patent of 1645. It had promised &quot;the right to have and enjoy liberty of conscience, according to the custom and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any magistrates, or any other ecclesiastical minister.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=943987" CLASS="footnote">
8</A>
The Remonstrance asked for enforcement of this provision, which was based upon Article 13 of the Netherlands Utrecht Union Constition.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943948">
</A>
The Remonstrance stated that the &quot;molestation&quot; clause of their town charter of 1645 was granted &quot;in the name of the States General&quot; by West India Company resident director Willem Kieft, and could not be withdrawn by a later director. The petitioners protested &quot;we can not condemn them [Quakers]&quot; nor &quot;punish, banish or persecute them.&quot; </P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944169">
</A>
Stuyvesant replied with reasoning reminiscent of Calvin's own, that this freedom of religion had permitted the moral license of this &quot;disobedient community&quot; and thus freedom of religion was justly abridged.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944163">
</A>
As a result, Stuyvesant charged that the town had violated the director-general's orders and New Netherland's charters, which stated &quot;no other religion shall be publicly admitted in New Netherland except the Reformed.&quot; Stuyvesant arrested Hart, Vlissingen schout Tobias Feake, who delivered the remonstrance to him, and two other Vlissingen magistrates who had signed the document. Under this pressure the signatories recanted the document and admitted their &quot;error.&quot;</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944180">
</A>
Thus, the first effort to hold up the constitutional and foundational city-charters against later decrees failed.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944187">
</A>
Legal Scholars in the 1700s Try to Voice Constitutional Concerns</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943836">
</A>
In the mid-1700s, Christian Trotz, a legal scholar and professor at Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1755, did a thorough analysis of the Netherlands Constitution. He concluded the Calvinist Reformed Church had usurped, in essence, the freedom of religion granted in Article 13. He claimed religion was irrelevant to the nature of the Netherlands state.<A HREF="#pgfId=943847" CLASS="footnote">
9</A>
</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=944191">
</A>
But in reply, Cornelis van <A NAME="marker=943891">
</A>
Bynkershoek (1673-1743) argued that Article 13 did not trump `states rights'--the independence of each province to determine the public faith to perpetuate. Id.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943864">
</A>
However, under that approach, Article 13 would thereby be gutted. It said: &quot;each person shall remain free, especially in his religion, and that no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of their religion.&quot; Thus, in the Netherlands, no law could infringe the freedom of religion of any person, regardless of which state made the law.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943882">
</A>
Yet, Joris van Eijnatten points out that &quot;contemporary commentators eagerly appropriated the argument&quot; of Bynkershoek.<A HREF="#pgfId=943902" CLASS="footnote">
10</A>
Thus, because Article 13 did not explicitly prohibit laws abridging freedom of religion, each individual state could do so and somehow not violate the right of &quot;each person&quot; to their own religious belief.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943910">
</A>
Obviously, this reading was ignoring the implied prohibition on making any law abridging the freedom of conscience. Article 13 had come to be a dead letter. The Calvinists in each province came to control the laws, and thus defeated the right of &quot;each person&quot; to their own religious beliefs.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV>
<H2 CLASS="Heading2">
<A NAME="pgfId=944197">
</A>
Notice How Carefully Worded Is Our First Amendment</H2>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943860">
</A>
The First Amendment to our own Constitution tried correcting the wording of such a right. It not only enshrined the &quot;freedom of religion&quot; of each person, but also prescribed Congress from making any law to &quot;abridge&quot; the freedom of religion. The Calvinist loophole in the Netherlands' Constitution was closed by our very wise founding fathers. Of course, they preserved state rights, but most states preserved the freedom of religion, following the lead of the founders in this respect in each state. Thus, our First Amendment took away the argument of the Dutch Calvinist legal scholars who found a way to ignore the implied prohibition on making laws establishing religion in Article 13 of the Utrecht constitution.</P>
<P CLASS="BodyAfterHead">
<A NAME="pgfId=943752">
</A>
Yet, what the Calvinists did in the Netherlands can happen in any country that lets its laws degrade into the support of religion. The law that favors one faith or groups of faith naturally saps the energy of the others, and thus undermines those of different faiths or those of no faith.</P>
</DIV>
</DIV>
<HR>
<DIV CLASS="footnotes">
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
1.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943795">
</A>
See Friedrich Edler, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1911) at 11-12 fn. 2. See also, &quot;Dutch Republic,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic (accessed 7/5/2008). </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
2.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943938">
</A>
In 1651, a law was passed that no organized religion that had not existed when the republic was formed could be authorized to be practiced in the Netherlands. See Joris van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Republic in the Eighteenth Century Netherlands (Brill, 2002) at 257.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
3.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943819">
</A>
&quot;Dutch Republic,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic (accessed 7/5/2008). </P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
4.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944088">
</A>
&quot;The Friends believed that God's grace did not filter through the hierarchy of the religious elite, but reached each person directly. In taking this theological approach, the Quakers bypassed the authority of clergy and rulers, and recognized that the common person could be elevated to the `priesthood of all believers.' This rendered the current cultural order obsolete and formed the core ideal of the American republic that would arise more than a century later.&quot; &quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
<P CLASS="Footnote">
<SPAN CLASS="footnoteNumber">
5.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=944031">
</A>
&quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
</DIV>
<DIV CLASS="footnote">
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6.</SPAN>
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&quot;Boston Martyrs,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_martyrs (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
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7.</SPAN>
<A NAME="pgfId=943965">
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See &quot;The Flushing Remonstrance,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_Remonstrance (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
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8.</SPAN>
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The patent is quoted in &quot;The Flushing Remonstrance&quot; in the Liberty Magazine, available online at http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/ (accessed 7/5/2008).</P>
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9.</SPAN>
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See Joris van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Republic in the Eighteenth Century Netherlands (Leiden &amp; Boston: Brill, 2002) at 255.</P>
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10.</SPAN>
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See Joris van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces: Religious Toleration and the Republic in the Eighteenth Century Netherlands (Leiden &amp; Boston: Brill, 2002) at 255.</P>
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Lord Acton's Example</LI>
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The Roman Catholic -- Lord Acton -- Denounced 300 Year Old Murders by Popes</H2>
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A true Christian must recognize and denounce a murder done by his church leader. It is virtue to admit it. It would be complicity to cover it up. It would be compounding the crime to make pathetic illegitimate excuses. Lord Acton gave us a noble example of how true Christians respond to evidence that their religious leaders are criminals, even if such crimes took place 300 years earlier. The taint and criminality does not fade with time.</P>
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In the 1860s, Lord Acton evaluated his Roman Catholic Church by the same measure that we here are attempting to do with Calvin and Servetus. We are aiming to promote a repentance from the Reformed Calvinists of today -- the spiritual ancestors of Calvin. </P>
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Lord <A NAME="marker=997355">
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Acton in 1859 was the editor of a Roman Catholic monthly paper. When the Pope told him to shut it down, he obeyed. He was a good and faithful Catholic. However, Lord Acton continued to write articles critical of the papacy, and concluded the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of an unrepentant murder 300 years earlier when it killed as heretics the Huguenots in 1572. Acton said the Popes and all of Catholicism owed an apology and appropriate repentance. Acton said this episode also proved the papacy was certainly not infallible. It could only persuade by the force of Scripture, not by tradition or anyone's feelings of loyalty.</P>
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To that end, Acton revived the memory of this Huguenot massacre in an article published in 1869 in the North British Review. He concluded his book-long essay by saying that there was no evidence to absolve the Roman Church of premeditated murder.<A HREF="#pgfId=997360" CLASS="footnote">
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Acton argued that it was not only facts that condemned the papacy for this heinous crime, but the whole body of &quot;casuistry&quot; (phony excuses) developed by the church that made it an act of Christian duty and mercy to kill a heretic so that he might be removed from sin.<A HREF="#pgfId=997363" CLASS="footnote">
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Acton pointed out that only when the Roman Church could no longer rely upon force but had to make its case before public opinion that it sought to explain away the Huguenot murders. Yet, in doing so, the church resorted to lies. &quot;The same motive which had justified the murder now promoted the lie,&quot; Acton wrote. A bodyguard of lies was fabricated to protect the papacy from guilt for this monstrous sin.<A HREF="#pgfId=997367" CLASS="footnote">
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Acton wrote:</P>
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The story is much more abominable than we all believed.... S. B. [St. Bartholomew's] is the greatest crime of modern times. It was committed on principles professed by Rome. It was approved, sanctioned, and praised by the papacy. The Holy See went out of its way to signify to the world, by permanent and solemn acts, how entirely it admired a king who slaughtered his subjects treacherously, because they were Protestants. To proclaim forever that because a man is a Protestant it is a pious deed to cut his throat in the night....</P>
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Acton said that for three centuries the Roman church's canon law had affirmed that the killing of an excommunicated person was not murder, and that allegiance need not be kept with heretical rulers. Legitimized murder and authorized treason were part of the Roman church's official teachings. As a result of such license for murder, <A NAME="marker=997373">
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Charles IX of France in killing the Huguenots was praised by the Catholic church as a good Catholic. Soon after the mass slaughter of innocents in their beds, Charles was highly praised by the pope for having killed so many of these Huguenots.</P>
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Acton contended that these acts of murder by the Roman church's leaders had discredited them as a source of reliable teachers. </P>
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Incidentally, another Roman Catholic critical of his church on this principle was <A NAME="marker=997376">
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Von Dollinger (1799-1890). This Bavarian was a Doctor of Theology and Professor of Canon Law at the Catholic Universities of Landshut and Munich. In a work praised by the famous Prime Minister of England, <A NAME="marker=997377">
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Gladstone, as &quot;the weightiest and most worthy of documents,&quot; Von Dollinger wrote in 1869:</P>
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A man is not honest who accepts all the Papal decisions in questions of morality, for they have often been distinctly immoral; or who approves the conduct of the Popes in engrossing power, for it was stained with perfidy and falsehood; or who is ready to alter his convictions at their command, for his conscience is guided by no principle.<A HREF="#pgfId=997382" CLASS="footnote">
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As thanks, Von Dollinger was publicly excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1871.<A HREF="#pgfId=997387" CLASS="footnote">
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Acton after studying the same materials upon which Dollinger relied likewise wrote:</P>
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The papacy contrived murder and massacre on the largest and also on the most cruel and inhuman scale. They were not only wholesale assassins but they made the principle of assassination a law of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.... [The Papacy] is the fiend skulking behind the Crucifix.<A HREF="#pgfId=997392" CLASS="footnote">
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As Lord Acton (along with Dollinger) tried faithfully to correct his church, while always remaining a Catholic, he wrote his famous letter dated April, 1887, to Bishop Mandell Creighton. In it, Acton made his most famous pronouncement about the papacy:</P>
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.</P>
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As the Encyclopedia points out, &quot;Most people who quote Lord Acton's Dictum are unaware that it refers to Papal power and was made by a Catholic, albeit not an unquestioning one.&quot;<A HREF="#pgfId=997398" CLASS="footnote">
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The most stunning observation, however, was Acton's feelings towards those <A NAME="marker=997400">
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Catholics who connive to condone these acts of murder out of loyalty to the pope. He said this is not mere error, but crime itself -- the approval of murder after-the-fact. </P>
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What made these conniving excuses more deplorable is that these were men who professed religion. Acton said it made their crime by ratification also sacrilegious. Their consciences became warped due to a desire to defend the indefensible. This insightful statement, which applies with equal force to a dozen Calvinist-inspired accounts of the Servetus trial, should pique the conscience of every loyalist of Calvin. It is no good to find pathetic excuses for Calvin's conduct rather than to &quot;renounce&quot; him as Acton said he was compelled to do of the Papacy itself. He says:</P>
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Was it better to renounce the papacy out of horror for its acts, or to condone the acts out of reverence for the papacy? The Papal party preferred the latter alternative. It appeared to me that such men are infamous in the last degree. I did not accuse them of error, as I might impute it to Grotius or Channing, but of crime. I thought that a person who imitated them for political or other motives worthy of death. But those whose motive was religious seemed to me worse than the others, because that which is in others the last resource of conversion is with them the source of guilt. The spring of repentance is broken, the conscience is not only weakened but warped. Their prayers and sacrifices appeared to me the most awful sacrilege.<A HREF="#pgfId=997405" CLASS="footnote">
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Acton called his fellow Catholics to repent rather than distort their beliefs to accept the intolerable. Calvinists who have bent the truth repeatedly to exonerate the inexorable have fallen prey to the same &quot;weakened&quot; and &quot;warped&quot; conscience. It is time to repent from this compounding sin, and denounce Calvin as the murderer he indubitably was.</P>
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His article entitled &quot;Massacre of St. Bartholomew,&quot; was published in the North British Review in 1869, and later reprinted in Acton's work History of Freedom (MacMillan, 1907) at 101. </P>
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Thanks are given for the inspiration to this section to John Robbins, The Trinity Foundation (April 4, 2005), from his article at http://www.trinityfoundation.org/horror_show.php?id=33 (accessed 2/18/2008).</P>
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The effectiveness of these lies can be measured by looking at the duped writer of &quot;<A NAME="marker=997368">
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St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre,&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_Massacre (2/18/2008). Apparently oblivious to Lord Acton's research, the author writes of the killings: &quot;The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barth&eacute;lemy in French) was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots&quot; and &quot;From August to October, similar apparently spontaneous massacres of Huguenots took place in other towns, such as Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Bourges, Rouen, and Orl&eacute;ans.&quot;</P>
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Just as it was important for Calvinists to shift blame from Calvin to Servetus or others, the Wikipedia writer is only aware apparently of three theories of culprits in advance, but none of them mention Acton's evidence dug up from papal records of the pope's nuncio and cardinal as the direct orchestrators! The Wikipedia writers notes Janine Garrisson's theory that it was Catherine de Medici and her Catholic advisers who were the principal culprits, as if the hand of the pope was distant and uninvolved. The second theory is by Thierry Wanegffelen that the member of the royal family with the most responsibility in this affair was the Duke of Anjou. However, nowhere in this article is mention of the most famous piece of all time: Acton's St. Bartholomew's Massacre. The obfuscation continues, much like the obfuscation of the responsibility of Calvin for Servetus' death.</P>
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Von Janus [Pseud. for <A NAME="marker=997381">
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J.J.I. Dollinger], &quot;The Pope and the Council,&quot; The North British Review (N.Y.: Oct. 1869) Vol. 1, 67, at 70 (translation and reprint attributed to Von Janus, Der Papst und Das Council (Leipzig, 1869).) This was &quot;supposed at first to be by Acton,&quot; but in fact Von Janus was actually J.J.I. Dollinger, proven by Gladstone's letter of October 10, 1869 to Dollinger. See William Gladstone, The Gladstone Diaries (ed. H.C.G. Matthew)(Oxford University Press, 1982) Vol. VII at 144-145. <A NAME="marker=997383">
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Gladstone explained that he suffered &quot;indignation&quot; to whatever &quot;curtails and disfigures within her borders the common inheritance of the Christian faith.&quot; Id., at 145. His next letter urges E.B. Pusey to read this Pope and the Council, as it &quot;profoundly struck&quot; him. Id. In the article on &quot;Johann Dollinger,&quot; in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) V:98, it acknowledges he wrote Papst.</P>
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&quot;Johann Dollinger,&quot; The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) Vol. 5 at 94.</P>
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John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton (Longman's Gree, 1917) at 55 (letter of 1879).</P>
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See &quot;John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton,&quot; Wikipedia (2/18/2008).</P>
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John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton (Longman's Gree, 1917) at 55.</P>
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