'there needs no distinction as to less or more; for with you these are all alike of non-avail, some as you maintain being saved with, as some are saved without, merit of their own. But it is faith that of the impious makes the pious, of the dead the living. Ignorant of all gospel truth is he who does not attach supreme significance to faith in Christ as the Son of God.'

The concluding epistle of the series must have given great offence to Calvin, the writer reproaching him with setting the Christian on no higher level than the vulgar Jew. They are alike to you, indeed, alike carnal, because to you are the benefits of Christ's coming unknown; to you who in the Supper partake of nothing more than a trope or figure, and who treat baptism as the equivalent of a Levitical rite, the sign of a thing that is not. But in the Supper we, nourished by immortal food, for a terrestrial have a new celestial life imparted to us, and how should he perish who has once partaken of Christ? May God give you to receive all these things with a true understanding, led by the spirit of truth, by Jesus Christ and the Father. Amen.' Scouting the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, as he did, we here find Servetus speaking as if he believed that it was the body of Christ indeed that was partaken of in the Supper! To understand this in him his pantheistic notions must again be taken into account. detached from the idea of personality, in the usual acceptation of the word, leads inevitably to such absurdity.

But pantheism, when not

Speaking as he does now, Servetus forgets his philosophy and yields himself up to his mysticism. With as much justice might he have said that Cannibals partake of God when they eat one another, as that the Christian communicant partakes of Christ when he joins the simple, solemn, commemorative feast.

'CHRISTIANISMI

CHAPTER XVII.

RESTITUTIO -THE RESTORATION OF

CHRISTIANITY-DISCOVERY OF THE PULMONARY CIR

CULATION.

WE have seen that Servetus could never recover his MS. of the Restoration of Christianity from the hands of Calvin. But he had not sent his work for the review of the Reformer without retaining a copy for himself, and this he determined now to have printed and sent abroad into the world. With this view he forwarded the Manuscript to a publisher of Basle, Marrinus by name, with whom-if we may infer so much from the address of the publisher's letter to him declining the work-he must have been on terms of intimacy. Marrinus's letter is short, to the point, and in the following

terms:

and

'Gratia et pax a Deo, Michael carissime!-the grace

peace of God be with you, dearest Michael! I have received your letter and your book; but I fancy that on reflection you will see why it cannot be published at Basle at this present time. When I have perused it [more carefully] I shall therefore return it to you by the accredited messenger you may send for

it. But I beg you not to question my friendly feelings towards you. To what you say besides I shall reply at greater length and more particularly on another occasion. Farewell! Thy

'Basle, April 9, 1552.'

MARRINUS.

The MS., even on a cursory perusal, had evidently frightened the worthy publisher of Basle: he would have nothing to do with it; but this did not put our author from his purpose of publication. Not going so far afield as Basle, he took Balthasar Arnoullet, bookseller and publisher, and William Geroult, manager of his printing establishment, both of Vienne, into his confidence, giving them to understand that though the book he wished to have printed was against the doctrines of Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, and other heretics, there were many reasons why neither his name as the author, nor Vienne as the place of publication, should appear on the title-page.

Arnoullet, like Marrinus, must have had misgivings about the reception the book was likely to meet with from the clergy of France, and, aware of the danger he incurred who printed and published aught out of conformity with the doctrines of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, he too must have declined in the first instance to undertake the work. But Michel Villeneuve had been prosperous; he had money in his purse, and engaging not only to take the whole of the expenses on himself, but to add a gratuity of 100 crowns to the cost,

Arnoullet consented at last to run the risk of publication, meaning, however, that the world at large should know nothing of him as instrumental in the business. No one then knew that Secerius of Hagenau had printed the 'De Trinitatis Erroribus,' or that its author, Michael Servetus, was Doctor Villeneuve. Why should it ever transpire that Balthasar Arnoullet of Vienne had printed the ‘Restitutio Christianismi,' or that Monsieur Michel Villeneuve the physician was its writer? To keep the secret within their own circle, therefore, the work must not be composed in the usual place of business, and none but the most indispensable hands be employed upon it. A small house, away from the known printing establishment, was accordingly taken ; type cases and a press were there set up, and the work once entered on proceeded regularly without interruption during a period of between three and four months, when the impression, consisting of 1,000 copies, was successfully worked off.

Arnoullet, although we shall by and by find him declaring his entire ignorance of the burden of the book, and charging his manager, Geroult, with having deceived him on this head and by misrepresentations induced him to meddle with the publication at all, must nevertheless have been well aware of its nature. measures taken to keep the outside world in ignorance of what was going on, the arrangement with the author to be his own reader for press, and the premium paid, give the lie to all his asseverations. Servetus, too,

The