I assumed, Sir, in my preceding Letter that I had in fact committed the errors against the faith of which I am accused, and I caused it to be seen that because these errors are not at all harmful to society they were not punishable before human justice. God has reserved for himself his own defense and the punishments of faults that offend only him. It is a sacrilege for some men to make themselves into the avengers of the divinity, as if it needed their protection. Magistrates, Kings have no authority over souls, and as long as one is faithful to the Laws of society in this world, it is not at all up to them to meddle with what will happen to one in the other, where they have no inspectorship. If this principle were lost from sight, Laws made for the happiness of the human race would soon be its torment, and under their terrible inquisition, men, judged by their faith more than by their deeds, would all be at the mercy of whoever would want to oppress them.
If the Laws do not have any authority over the sentiments of men in what pertains uniquely to Religion, they do not have any either over writings in which these sentiments are manifested. If the Authors of these Writings are punishable, it is never precisely for having taught error, because neither the Law nor its ministers judge about what is precisely only an error. The Author of the Letters Written from the Country appears to agree with this principle.R1 Perhaps he would even push it too far by granting that Politics and Philosophy could maintain the liberty of writing everything.R2 That is not what I wish to examine here.
But here is how your Gentlemen and he twist the thing in order to authorize the judgment rendered against my Books and against me. They judge me less as a Christian than as a Citizen; they regard me less as impious toward God than as a rebel against the Laws; in me they see sin less than crime, and heresy less than disobedience. According to them I have attacked the Religion of the State; thus I have incurred the penalty provided by the Law against those who attack it. There, I believe, is the sense of what is intelligible in what they have said to justify their proceeding.
I see in that only three little difficulties. The first, to know what that Religion of the State is; the second, to show how I attacked it; the third, to locate that Law in accordance with which I have been judged.
What is the Religion of the State? It is the holy evangelical Reformation. Without contradiction these are very striking words. But what is the holy evangelical Reformation at Geneva today? Would you know, Sir, by any chance? In that case I congratulate you for it. As for me, I do not know. I used to believe I did know it; but I was mistaken as were many others, more learned than I on every other point, and not less ignorant on this one.
When the Reformers separated from the Roman Church they accused it of error; and in order to correct that error at its source, they gave to Scripture a different meaning than the one the Church gave it. They were asked by what authority they thus deviated from the accepted doctrine? They said that it was by their own authority, by that of their reason. They said that since the meaning of Bible was intelligible and clear to all men in what concerned salvation, each was a competent judge of doctrine and could interpret the Bible, which was its rule, in accordance with his individual mind; that all would agree this way about the essential things, and that those upon which they could not agree were not at all essential.
Thus the individual mind is established as the sole interpreter of Scripture; thus the authority of the Church is rejected; thus each is put under his own jurisdiction for doctrine. Such are the two fundamental points of the Reform: to acknowledge the Bible as rule of one’s belief, and not to admit any other interpreter of the meaning of the Bible than oneself. Combined, these two points form the principle on which the Reformed Christians separated from the Roman Church, and they could not do any less without falling into contradiction; for what interpretive authority could they have reserved for themselves, after having rejected that of the body of the Church?
But, it will be said, how could the Protestants have been able to unite based on such a principle? Wanting each to have his manner of thinking, how did they constitute a body against the Catholic Church? They had to do it: they united in this, that all acknowledged each of them as competent judge for himself. They tolerated and they ought to tolerate all interpretations except one, namely that which removes liberty of interpretation. Now that single interpretation which they rejected was that of the Catholics. Thus they had to proscribe in concert Rome alone, which equally proscribed all of them. The very diversity of their manners of thinking about all the rest was the common bond that united them. It was so many small States leagued against a great Power, and the general confederation of which removed nothing from the independence of each.
That is how the evangelical Reformation was established, and that is how it must preserve itself. It is very true that the doctrine of the majority can be proposed to all, as the most probable or the most authorized. The Sovereign can even draw it up in a formula and prescribe it to those it charges with teaching, because some order, some rule, is needed in public instruction, and because at bottom this does not obstruct anyone’s liberty, since no one is forced to teach in spite of himself: but it does not follow from this that private individuals are obliged to admit precisely those interpretations given to them and that doctrine taught to them. Each remains the sole judge of them for himself, and does not acknowledge any authority in them other than his own. Good instruction ought less to fix the choice we ought to make than to put us in a condition to choose well. Such is the genuine spirit of the Reformation; such is its true foundation. Individual reason pronounces in it, by drawing faith from the common rule it establishes, namely the Gospel; and it is so much of the essence of reason to be free, that even if it wished to subject itself to authority, it would not be able to do so. Make the slightest infringement of this principle and all evangelism instantly collapses. Let someone prove to me today that in matters of faith I am obliged to submit to someone else’s decisions, beginning tomorrow I will become Catholic, and every consistent and true man will act as I do.
Now the free interpretation of Scripture entails not only the right to explain passages from it, each in accordance with its particular sense, but that of remaining in doubt over those that one finds doubtful, and that of not understanding those one finds incomprehensible. That is the right of each of the faithful, a right that neither Pastors nor Magistrates have anything to do with. As long as one respects all of the Bible and one is in accord on the capital points, one lives in accordance with the evangelical Reformation. The oath of the Bourgeois of Geneva entails nothing more than that.
Now I already see your Doctors triumphing over these capital points, and claiming that I deviate from them. Slowly, Gentlemen, for mercy’s sake; I am not yet the issue, you are. Let us know first what these capital points are according to you, let us know what right you have to constrain me to see them where I do not see them, and perhaps where you do not see them yourselves. Do not forget at all, if you please, that to give me your decisions as laws is to deviate from the holy evangelical Reformation, it is to unsettle its true foundations; it is you who deserve punishment by Law.
Whether one considers the political state of your Republic when the Reformation was established, or one ponders the terms of your old Edicts in relation to the Religion they prescribe, one sees that the Reformation is everywhere put into opposition with the Roman Church and that the Laws have as their object only to abjure its principles and form of worship, which are destructive of liberty in every sense.
In this particular position the State existed, so to speak, only by the separation of the two Churches, and the Republic was annihilated if Papism reacquired the upper hand. Thus the Law that settled the evangelical form of worship, in doing so, considered only the abolition of the Roman form of worship. This is attested to by the (even indecent) invectives that one sees against it in your first Ordinances, and that subsequently were wisely excised, when the same danger no longer existed: This is attested to also by the oath of the Consistory, which consists solely in preventing all acts of idolatry, blasphemy, dissolution, and other things contravening the honor of God and of the Reformation of the Gospel. Such are the terms of the Ordinance passed in 1562. In the review of the same Ordinance in 1576 they put at the head of the oath, to watch out for all scandalsR3: which shows that in the first formula of the oath they had only the separation from the Roman Church as object; later on they provided in addition for public order: that is natural when an establishment begins to take on consistency: But, in sum, neither error nor heresy is a question in either one or the other reading, nor in any oath of Magistrates, or Bourgeois, of Ministers. Far from that having been the object of the Reformation or the Laws, that would have been to put oneself in contradiction with oneself. Thus, under this word Reformation, your Edicts have not fixed anything but the points debated with the Roman Church.
I know that your history, and that of the Reform in general, is full of facts that show a very severe inquisition, and that, from being persecuted the Reformers soon became persecutors: but this contrast, so shocking in all the history of Christianity, does not prove anything in yours but the inconsistency of men and the rule of passions over reason. As a result of disputing against the Catholic Clergy, the Protestant Clergy acquired the disputing and touchy spirit. It wanted to determine everything, regulate everything, pronounce about everything: each modestly proposed his sentiment as the supreme Law for all the others; this was not the way to live in peace. Calvin, doubtless, was a great man; but in the end he was a man, and what is worse, a Theologian: moreover he had all the pride of the genius who feels his superiority, and is indignant that anyone disagree with him: the majority of his colleagues were in the same position, all of them all the guiltier in this as they were more inconsistent.
Thus what a hold they gave to the Catholics on this point, and what a pity it is to see in their defenses these learned men, these enlightened minds who reasoned so well on every other article, talking nonsense so stupidly on that one? Nevertheless these contradictions did not prove anything other than that they followed their passions much more than their principles. Their harsh orthodoxy was itself a heresy. That was very much the spirit of the Reformers, but it was not that of the Reformation.
The Protestant Religion is tolerant by principle; it is tolerant essentially; it is as much so as it is possible to be, since the only dogma it does not tolerate is that of intolerance. That is the insurmountable barrier that separates us from the Catholics and unites the other communions among themselves. Each one indeed views the others as being in error. But none views or ought to view that error as an obstacle to salvation.R4
The Reformed people of our day, at least the Ministers, no longer know or no longer love their Religion. If they had known and loved it, they would have shouted with joy in unison at the publication of my Book; they would all have joined with me, who attacked only their adversaries. But they prefer abandoning their own cause to sustaining mine. With their laughably arrogant tone, with their rage for quibbling and intolerance, they no longer know what they believe, nor what they want, nor what they say. I no longer see them as anything except bad valets of the Priests, who serve them less out of love for them than out of hatred for me.R55 When they have disputed well, squabbled well, caviled well, pronounced well, at the very height of their little triumph, the Roman Clergy—who laugh now and leave them alone—will come to chase them out, armed with arguments ad hominem to which there is no reply; and beating them with their own weapons, the clergy will say to them: that is fine; but now get out, evil intruders that you are. You have worked only for us. I return to my subject.
As a Reformed church, the Church of Geneva, then, does not and should not have any profession of faith that is precise, articulated, and common to all its members. If people wished to have one, for that very reason, they would offend evangelical freedom, they would renounce the principle of the Reformation, violate the Law of the State. All the Protestant Churches that have drawn up formulas for a profession of faith, all the Synods that determined points of doctrine, wanted only to prescribe to ministers the one they ought to teach, and that was good and proper. But if these Churches and these Synods claimed to do more by means of these formulas and to prescribe to the faithful what they ought to believe, then by such decisions these assemblies proved nothing other than that they were ignorant of their own Religion.
For a long time the church of Geneva appeared to stray less than the others from the genuine spirit of Christianity, and it is on the basis of this misleading appearance that I honored its Pastors with praises of which I believed they were worthy, for my intention was assuredly not to mislead the public.6 But today who can see these same Ministers, formerly so accommodating and suddenly having become so rigid, quibble about the orthodoxy of a Layman and leave their own in such scandalous uncertainty? One asks them if Jesus Christ is God, they dare not reply. One asks them what mysteries they recognize, they dare not reply. To what will they reply then, and what will be the fundamental articles, different from mine, on which they want people to decide, if those are not included?
A Philosopher gives them a quick glance. He sees through them. He sees them to be Arians, Socinians. He says so and thinks he honors them. But he does not see that he is exposing their temporal interest, the only thing that generally determines the faith of men here below.
Immediately alarmed and frightened, they gather, they discuss, they fidget, they do not know where to turn.7 And after many consultations,R6 deliberations, conferences, everything ended with a piece of nonsense in which they said neither yes or no, and in which it is as impossible to understand anything as in Rabelais’ two speeches for the defense.R78 Isn’t the orthodox doctrine perfectly clear, and isn’t it in safe hands?
Yet because one of them, compiling many scholastic jokes as benign as they are elegant, in order to judge my Christianity does not fear abjuring his own, altogether charmed by their colleague’s knowledge and above all by his logic, they endorse his scholarly work and thank him for it through a deputation. In truth, these Gentlemen your Ministers are singular men! We know neither what they believe nor what they do not believe. We do not even know what they pretend to believe. Their only manner of establishing their faith is by attacking that of others. They do as the Jesuits do, who, it is said, forced everyone to sign the constitution9 without wanting to sign it themselves. Instead of explaining themselves about the doctrine imputed to them, they think they put the other churches off the scent by picking a fight with their own defender. They want to prove through their ingratitude that they did not need my efforts, and believe they look Orthodox enough by looking like persecutors.
From all this, I conclude that it is not easy to say what composes the holy Reformation in Geneva today. The only thing that can be said with certainty about this point is that it has to consist mainly in rejecting the points contested against the Roman Church by the first Reformers, and especially by Calvin. That is the spirit of your institution. That is what makes you a free people, and it is in this respect alone that among you Religion is part of the Law of the State.
I pass from this first question to the second, and ask how it is possible in a Book where the truth, utility, and necessity of Religion in general is established with the greatest force; where, without making any exception,R8 the Author prefers the Christian Religion to any other worship and the evangelical Reformation to any other sect, for this same Reformation to be attacked? That appears difficult to conceive. However, let us see.
I have already proved above in general and will later prove in more detail that it is not true that Christianity is attacked in my Book. Now when the common principles are not attacked, any sect in particular can be attacked only in two ways, namely indirectly, by supporting the distinctive dogmas of its adversaries, or directly, by attacking its own.
But how would I have supported the distinctive dogmas of the Catholics since, on the contrary, they are the only ones I have attacked, and since it is that attack itself that aroused the Catholic party against me, without which it is certain the Protestants would have said nothing? That, I admit, is one of the strangest things anyone ever heard of, but it is nonetheless true. I am a communicant of the protestant faith in Paris; that is why I am still one in Geneva.
And how would I have attacked the distinctive dogmas of the Protestants since, on the contrary, they are what I have supported with the most force, since I have not stopped insisting on the authority of reason in matters of faith, the free interpretation of the Scriptures, evangelical tolerance, and obedience to the Laws, even in matters of worship, all of which are distinctive and radical dogmas of the Reformed church, without which, far from being solidly established, it could not even exist.
There is more. See what force the very form of the Work adds to the arguments in favor of the Reformed. It is a Catholic Priest who is talking, and this Priest is neither impious nor a libertine. He is a believing and pious man, full of candor, rectitude, and despite his difficulties, his objections, and his doubts, nurturing at the bottom of his heart the truest respect for the worship he professes. A man who, in his most intimate effusion, declares that having been called to the service of the Church in this worship, he fulfills the tasks prescribed to him with all possible exactitude; that his conscience would reproach him for voluntarily failing in the slightest detail; that in the mystery that most shocks his reason, he collects his thoughts at the moment of consecration in order to do it with all the dispositions the Church and the greatness of the sacrament require; that he pronounces the sacramental words with respect; that he confers on their effect all the faith of which he is capable; and that, whatever the case for this inconceivable mystery, he does not fear that on the day of judgment he will be punished for having ever profaned it in his heart.R9
That is the way of talking and thinking of this venerable, truly good, wise, truly Christian man, the most sincere Catholic who perhaps ever existed.
Listen, however, to what this virtuous Priest says to a young Protestant man who had become Catholic and to whom he gives advice. “Go back to your Fatherland, return to the religion of your fathers, follow it in the sincerity of your heart and never leave it again. It is very simple and very holy. I believe that of all the religions on earth it is the one which has the purest morality and which is most satisfactory to reason.”R10
He adds a moment later: “If you wish to listen to your conscience, countless vain obstacles will disappear at its voice. You will sense that in the uncertainty in which we dwell, it is an inexcusable presumption to profess a religion other than that in which we were born, and a falseness not to practice sincerely the religion which we profess. For if we go astray, we deprive ourselves of a great excuse at the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge. Will He not pardon the error on which we were weaned sooner than the error we dared to choose ourselves?”R11
A few pages earlier he had said: “If I had Protestants in my neighborhood or in my parish, I would not distinguish them at all from my true parishioners in everything connected with Christian charity. I would bring them all to love one another without distinction and to regard one another as brothers, to respect all religions, and to live in peace, with each observing his own. I think that to urge someone to leave the religion in which he was born is to urge him to do evil, and consequently is to do evil oneself. While waiting for greater enlightenment, let us protect public order. In every country let us respect the laws, let us not disturb the worship they prescribe; let us not lead the citizens to disobedience. For we do not know with certainty whether it is a good thing for them to abandon their opinions in exchange for others, and we are very certain that it is an evil thing to disobey the laws.”10
That, Sir, is how a Catholic Priest talks in a Writing where I am accused of having attacked the worship of the Reformed, and where nothing else is said about it. What I might have been reproached for, perhaps, was excessive partiality in their favor, and a lack of propriety in making a Catholic Priest talk the way no Catholic Priest has ever talked. Thus in everything I did precisely the opposite of what I am accused of having done. It is as if your Magistrates behaved on a wager. If they had bet on judging against the evidence, they could not have been more successful.
But this book contains objections, difficulties, doubts! And why not, I beg you? What is the crime for a Protestant to propose his doubts about what he finds doubtful and his objections about what he finds admits of some? If what appears clear to you appears obscure to me, if what you judge demonstrated does not seem demonstrated to me, by what right do you claim to subject my reason to yours and to give me your authority as Law, as if you claimed the Pope’s infallibility? Isn’t it amusing that it is necessary to reason like a Catholic to accuse me of attacking the Protestants?
But these objections and these doubts touch on the fundamental points of faith? Under the appearance of these doubts, everything that can tend to undermine, unsettle, and destroy the principal foundations of the Christian Religion has been assembled? That changes the thesis, and if that is true, I may be guilty. But it is also a lie, and a very imprudent lie on the part of people who themselves do not know what constitutes the fundamental principles of their Christianity. For myself, I know very well what constitutes the fundamental principles of mine, and I have said so. Almost all of Julie’s profession of faith is affirmative, the entire first part of the Vicar’s is affirmative, half of the second part is also affirmative, a part of the chapter on civil Religion is affirmative, the Letter to the Archbishop of Paris is affirmative. There, Sirs, are my fundamental articles. Let us see yours.
They are skillful, these Gentlemen. They establish the method of discussion that is newest and most convenient for persecutors. They artfully leave all the principles of the doctrine uncertain and vague. But if an Author has the misfortune to displease them, they go rummaging through his Books to find out what his opinions might be. When they believe they have verified them well, they take the opposite of these opinions and make them into so many articles of faith. Then they rail about impiety, blasphemy, because the Author did not introduce in his Books ahead of time the supposed articles of faith that they constructed after the fact to torment him.
How is it possible to follow them in these multitudes of points on which they attacked me, to bring together all their personal attacks, to read them? Who can go sort out all these fragments, all these rags among the junk dealers of Geneva, or in the rubbish of the Mercurey of Neufchâtel? I get lost, I get bogged down in the midst of so many stupidities. Let us select from this trash a single article to serve as an example, their most triumphant article, the one for which their preachersR12 entered the fray and about which they have made the most noise: miracles.
I am entering a lengthy examination. I beg you to forgive me for its tiresomeness. I do not want to discuss this awful point except to spare you those upon which they insisted less.
They say then, “J. J. Rousseau is not Christian although he presents himself as such. For we, who certainly are, do not think as he does. J. J. Rousseau does not believe in revelation at all, although he says he believes in it. Here is the proof of that.
“God does not reveal his will directly to all men. He speaks to them through his Messengers, and his Messengers have miracles as proof of their mission. Therefore, whoever rejects miracles rejects the Messengers of God, and whoever rejects the Messengers of God rejects Revelation. Now Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejects miracles.”
First let us grant both the principle and the fact as if they were true. We will return to them later. That supposed, the preceding reasoning has only one fault, which is that it works directly against those who use it. It is very good for the Catholics, but very bad for the Protestants. It is my turn to prove.
You will find that I repeat myself often, but what does that matter? When I need the same proposition for totally different arguments, do I have to avoid taking it up again? That affectation would be childish. The issue is not variety, but truth, and correct, conclusive reasonings. Forget the rest and consider only that.
When the first Reformers began to make themselves heard, the universal Church was at peace. All sentiments were unanimous. There was not one essential dogma debated among Christians.
In this tranquil situation, suddenly two or three men raise their voices and shout throughout Europe: Christians, be on your guard. You are being deceived, you are being led astray, you are being taken on the road to hell. The Pope is the Antichrist, the instrument of Satan; his Church is the school of lies. You are lost if you do not listen to us.
At these first clamors, an astonished Europe remained silent for some moments, waiting to see what would happen. Finally the Clergy, recovered from their initial surprise and seeing that these newcomers were forming Sectaries as every man who dogmatizes always does, understood that it was necessary to have it out with them. They began by asking them who they were after with all this racket. The others respond proudly that they are the apostles of truth, called to reform the Church and bring the faithful back from the road to perdition where the Priests were leading them.
But, they were answered, who gave you this fine errand to come disturb the peace of the Church and the public tranquillity? Our conscience, they said, reason, the inner light, God’s voice which we cannot resist without committing a crime. It is He who calls us to this sacred ministry, and we follow our vocation.
You are Messengers of God, then, the Catholics continued. In that case, we agree that you ought to preach, reform, teach, and that one ought to listen to you. But to obtain this right, start by showing us your credentials. Prophesy, heal, enlighten, perform miracles, display the proofs of your mission.
The reply of the Reformers is beautiful and is well worth the trouble of transcribing.
“Yes, we are the Messengers of God. But our mission is not extraordinary. It is in the impulse of an upright conscience, in the enlightenment of a healthy understanding. We do not bring you a new Revelation. We limit ourselves to the one that has been given to you and that you no longer hear. We come to you not with marvels that can be deceptive and with which so many false doctrines have propped themselves up, but with the signs of the truth and of reason that do not deceive; with this holy Book that you disfigure and that we explain to you. Our miracles are invincible arguments, our prophesies are demonstrations. We predict to you that if you do not listen to the voice of Christ which speaks to you through our mouths, you will be punished like unfaithful servants who are told the will of their masters and who do not want to carry it out.”
It was not natural for Catholics to admit the evidence of this new doctrine, and that is just what the majority of them were careful not to do. Now it can be seen that, being reduced to this point, the dispute could no longer be brought to a close and that each one had to carry his point; the Protestants always maintaining that their interpretations and their proofs were so clear that one had to act in bad faith to reject them. And the Catholics, for their part, finding that the petty arguments of a few private individuals, which were not even unanswerable, should not win out over the authority of the entire Church, which had in all ages determined the debated points otherwise.
That is the state in which the quarrel has remained. People have not ceased disputing over the force of the proofs, a dispute that will never come to an end as long as men do not all have the same head.
But that was not the issue for the Catholics. They were put off the scent, and if, without being diverted by quibbling about the proofs of their adversaries, they had limited themselves to disputing their right to prove, they would have confounded them, it seems to me.
“In the first place,” they would have said to them, “your manner of reasoning only begs the question. For if the force of your proofs is the sign of your mission, it follows for those whom they do not convince that your mission is false, and that therefore we, the whole lot of us, can legitimately punish you as heretics, as false Apostles, as disturbers of the Church and the human Race.
“You do not preach new Doctrines, you say. What are you doing then when you preach your new explanations to us? Isn’t giving a new meaning to the words of the Scripture establishing a new doctrine? Isn’t it making God speak altogether differently than He spoke? It is not the sounds but the meanings of words that are revealed. Changing these meanings that are recognized and established by the Church is changing Revelation.
“Furthermore, see how unjust you are! You agree there must be miracles to authorize a divine mission, and yet, though you are simple private individuals by your own admission, you come to speak to us imperiously and as the Messengers of God.R13 You demand the authority to interpret Scripture at your whim, and you claim to deprive us of the same freedom. You arrogate to yourselves alone a right you refuse both to each one of us and to all of us who compose the Church. What title do you have, then, to subject our common judgments in this way to your individual mind? What intolerable conceit to claim always to be right, and right alone against the whole world, without wanting to leave alone in their sentiment those who do not share yours and who think they are right too!R14 The distinctions with which you put us off would be at most tolerable if you simply stated your opinion and left it at that. But not so. You wage open war on us. You breathe fire everywhere. To resist your lessons is to be rebellious, idolatrous, worthy of hell. You want absolutely to convert, to convince, even to constrain. You dogmatize, you preach, you censure, you anathematize, you excommunicate, you punish, you put to death. You exercise the authority of Prophets and present yourselves as mere private individuals. What! You Innovators, on your opinion alone, supported by a few hundred men, you burn your adversaries and we with fifteen Centuries of antiquity and the votes of a hundred million men, we will be wrong to burn you? No, stop talking and acting like Apostles or show your titles; or when we are the stronger, you will be very justly treated as imposters.”
Do you see, Sir, what solid reply our Reformers could have made to this discourse? For myself, I do not see it. I think they would have been reduced to silence or to performing miracles. A sad recourse for friends of truth!
I conclude from this that establishing the necessity of miracles as proof of the mission of the Messengers of God who preach a new doctrine, is turning the Reformation upside down. It is to do, in order to fight me, what I am falsely accused of having done.
I have not said all there is to say on this subject, Sir. But what remains to be said cannot be divided and will only make an overly long Letter. It is time to finish this one.
Notes
R1 In this regard, he says on page 22, I recognize my maxims well enough in those of the remonstrances; and on page 29, he regards as incontestable that no one can be prosecuted for his ideas about Religion.
R3 Ordon. Eccles. Tit. III. Art. LXXV.
R4 Of all the Christian sects, the Lutheran appears the most inconsistent to me. It has gratuitously collected against itself alone all the objections of the sects to each other. It is in particular intolerant like the Roman Church. But it lacks the great argument of the latter: it is intolerant without knowing why.
R5 It is rather superfluous, I believe, to give notice that I make an exception here for my Pastor and those who think as he does on this point. Since writing this note, I have learned to make exceptions for no one, but I am leaving it as I have promised, for the instruction of any decent man who may be tempted to praise the Clergy.
R6 When one is well resolved about what one believes, said a Journalist dealing with this subject, a profession of faith ought to be quickly made.
R7 There would perhaps have been some difficulty in explaining themselves more clearly without having to retract certain things.
R8 I entreat every equitable reader to reread and weigh in Emile what immediately follows the profession of faith of the Vicar, and where I resume talking.
R9 Emile, T. III, p. 185 and 186 [Bloom, 308–309].
R10 Ibid., page 196 [Bloom, 311, translation altered].
R11 Ibid., page 195 [Bloom, 311].
R12 I would not have used this term, which I found disparaging, if the example of the Council of Geneva, who used it in writing to the Cardinal de Fleury, had not taught me that my scruple was badly founded.
R13 Farel declared in his own words in Geneva before the Episcopal Council that he was the Messenger of God, which made one of the Council members quote these words of Caiaphas: “He blasphemed. What need is there for other testimony? He deserved death.” In the doctrine of miracles, other testimony was necessary to reply to that. Yet Jesus performed none on that occasion, nor did Farel either. Froment declared likewise to the Magistrate who forbade him to preach, “that it was better to obey God than men,” and continued to preach, despite the interdiction, behavior that could certainly not be authorized except by an express order from God.
R14 What man, for example, was ever more trenchant, more imperious, more decisive, more divinely infallible as he pleased than Calvin, for whom the slightest opposition, the slightest objection someone dared to make to him was always a work of Satan, a crime worthy of the fire? It was not only Servet who paid with his life for daring to think differently from him.