“HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.” 181 
formation, or at least of the manner in which it was brought about, 
choosing to call it a destruction, not a reform, of the church esta- 
blishment. From these several circumstances, the reader will deter- 
mine for himself what reason there was for the very name of popery 
lighting up a passionate aversion in the bosom of Burnett, and how 
far his opinions, in all that relates to this subject, were taken up with- 
out examination, and continued without justice. 
But, however the Bishop may be accused of drawing the corrup- 
tions of popery with an exaggerating hand, yet, with all his protest- 
ant feelings and prejudices, he does not shut his eyes to the direful 
animosities to which the Reformation gave rise, not only among the 
promoters of the new learning and the maintainers of the ancient dis- 
cipline, but between the different denominations of the reformed 
religion. Painful as it was to him to contemplate the sad inconsis-~ 
tencies of human reason, he shrinks not from showing how far an 
admirable and enlightened reformation was carried on by the aids of 
persecution ; he does not attempt to hood-wink his readers to the 
melancholy fact of both foreign and English reformers demanding 
liberty of conscience for themselves, yet refusing to grant it to others 
—proclaiming to all Christendom the sacred rights of free inquiry 
and private judgment, yet each erecting a little popery of their own in 
their respective communions, where, in cases of dissent, they who 
professed to hate persecution, yet justified the exertion of temporal 
punishment, and the infliction of bodily tortures, and death ;* so that, 
* The protestant Servetus was put to death by the protestant Calvin ; and 
the mild Melancthon spoke here the language of a sanguinary fanatic, when 
he declared that Servetus deserved to have his bowels pulled out and his 
body torn to pieces. The persecutions of protestants by protestants, as they 
are detailed by Chandler in his History of Persecution, may be designated a 
savage conspiracy against the written and unwritten rights of mankind. 
When Melancthon says, “Tuo judicio prorsus assentior. Affirmo etiam 
vestro magistratus juste fecisse quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judi- 
cata interfecerunt,” he in these words delivered the sentiments of the German 
reformers. It is a well-known tact that the Swiss churches recommended 
the punishment of Servetus in formal letters. Nor are proofs wanting that 
some of our English divines were forward in testifying their approval on this 
occasion. But though the concurrence of these different bodies of men can 
never absolve Calvin from the heinous offence of having outrageously vio- 
lated all the principles of reason, justice, and humanity, we must not forget 
that something more than grave blame is imputable to Servetus for provok- 
ing the feelings of the Christian church to the highest degree, by calling the 
Trinity “triceps monstrum, et Cerberum quindum tripartitum,” and other re- 
volting names. We can hardly, however, bring ourselves to believe that 
