To show the true colors of the sheer spirit of hatred that existed in John Calvin one need look no further than the "John Calvin's Treatise Against Ana-Baptist" book. And here is how he begins....
TO write against all the false opinions & errours of the Anabaptists, should be a thing too long, & such a bottomless pit, as I could not well come out of. For this canker differeth in this thing from all other sects of hereticks: that she hath not erred only in certain points: but she hath engendered a whole sea, as it were, of foolish & false opinions. In such wise that scant shall a man find one Anabaptist which hath not some fantasy singular: which his fellows have not. So that if we would pluck out, or rehearse all their wicked doctrines, we should never make an end. But now at length they become unto two principal sects: whereof the one, though she be full of wicked & pernicious errours, yet doth she abide in much more simplicity. For she yet receiveth the holy scripture, as we do. And if men do dispute with those that be of that sect, it shall be perceived wherein they differ from us, & they will express their meaning, & in conclusion it may be perceived in what they accord, & wherein they dissent. The second sect is a mass of such foolish & beastly opinions, as the like cannot be found, insomuch that it is wonder how creatures which bear the figure of a man, can be so clean without sense & reason, as to suffer themselves so to be deceived, & fall into fantasies more than brutish. This sect call themselves libertines. And counterfeit so much the spiritual, that they set no more by the word of God, than they do by fables: except it be when it pleaseth them, and when as they may deprave it, and by force make it to serve for their devilish opinions. And besides this they have a charming or croaking as it were Cranes, so that a man cannot tell what it is, that they would say, and no more do they wot what it is themselves: but that by this craft they cover the filthiness of their doctrine. For their principles are to confound all differences between good & ill, & to mingle God so with the Devil that it should not be discerned between the one and the other, and so to make men not only without all feeling in their consciences before God: but also without shame before the world. Now see you wherefore they drive themselves into such caves of obscure and doubtful words, to the end that their villainy should not be perceived, lest we should have them in horror and execration. As indeed our nature repugneth against such monstrous things as they bring forth. So now to write in a sum against the errours of the Anabaptists, the shortest and most expedient way is to keep this division, and to gather apart in one treatise the errours of them which be not altogether so mad and desperate: and in another treatise to discover the venomous malice of those wicked, which under the colour of spirituality, would make men like unto brute beasts. - John Calvin
TO write against all the false opinions & errours of the Anabaptists, should be a thing too long, & such a bottomless pit, as I could not well come out of. For this canker differeth in this thing from all other sects of hereticks: that she hath not erred only in certain points: but she hath engendered a whole sea, as it were, of foolish & false opinions. In such wise that scant shall a man find one Anabaptist which hath not some fantasy singular: which his fellows have not. So that if we would pluck out, or rehearse all their wicked doctrines, we should never make an end. But now at length they become unto two principal sects: whereof the one, though she be full of wicked & pernicious errours, yet doth she abide in much more simplicity. For she yet receiveth the holy scripture, as we do. And if men do dispute with those that be of that sect, it shall be perceived wherein they differ from us, & they will express their meaning, & in conclusion it may be perceived in what they accord, & wherein they dissent. The second sect is a mass of such foolish & beastly opinions, as the like cannot be found, insomuch that it is wonder how creatures which bear the figure of a man, can be so clean without sense & reason, as to suffer themselves so to be deceived, & fall into fantasies more than brutish. This sect call themselves libertines. And counterfeit so much the spiritual, that they set no more by the word of God, than they do by fables: except it be when it pleaseth them, and when as they may deprave it, and by force make it to serve for their devilish opinions. And besides this they have a charming or croaking as it were Cranes, so that a man cannot tell what it is, that they would say, and no more do they wot what it is themselves: but that by this craft they cover the filthiness of their doctrine. For their principles are to confound all differences between good & ill, & to mingle God so with the Devil that it should not be discerned between the one and the other, and so to make men not only without all feeling in their consciences before God: but also without shame before the world. Now see you wherefore they drive themselves into such caves of obscure and doubtful words, to the end that their villainy should not be perceived, lest we should have them in horror and execration. As indeed our nature repugneth against such monstrous things as they bring forth. So now to write in a sum against the errours of the Anabaptists, the shortest and most expedient way is to keep this division, and to gather apart in one treatise the errours of them which be not altogether so mad and desperate: and in another treatise to discover the venomous malice of those wicked, which under the colour of spirituality, would make men like unto brute beasts. - John Calvin
