I am wondering if these quotes attributed to Calvin are accurate?:
http://www.bcbsr.com/topics/servetus.html
7 years before the incident:
"If he [Servetus] comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight."
After the incident:
"Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that (they allege) I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face."
"Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt.
Servetus' final words while being burned alive tied to a stake:
"Jesu, thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!"
And is this true?:
Michael Servetus, a Spaniard, a physician, a scientist and a Bible scholar was born in Villanova in 1511. He was credited with the discovery of the pulmonary circulation of the blood from the right chamber of the heart through the lungs and back to the left chamber of the heart. He was Calvin's longtime friend in their earlier resistance against the Roman Catholic Church. Servetus, while living in Vienne (historic city in southeastern France), angered Calvin by returning a copy of Calvin's writings, Institutes, with critical comments in the margins. Servetus was arrested by the Roman Catholic Authorities on April 4 but escaped on April 7, 1553. He traveled to Geneva where he attended Calvin's Sunday preaching service on August 13. Calvin promptly had Servetus arrested and charged with heresy for his disagreement with Calvin's theology. The thirty-eight official charges included rejection of the Trinity and infant baptism. Servetus was correct in challenging Calvin's false teaching about infant baptism leading to salvation, but he was heretical in his rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity. Servetus pleaded to be beheaded instead of the more brutal method of burning at the stake, but Calvin and the city council refused the quicker death method. Other Protestant churches throughout Switzerland advised Calvin that Servetus be condemned but not executed. Calvin ignored their pleas and Servetus was burned at the stake on October 27, 1553. Servetus was screaming as he was literally baked alive from the feet upward and suffered the heat of the flames for 30 minutes before finally succumbing to one of the most painful and brutal death methods possible. Servetus had written a theology book, a copy of which Calvin had strapped to the chest of Servetus. The flames from the burning book rose against Servetus' face as he screamed in agony.
John Calvin was proud of his killing of Servetus, bragging and celebrating. Many theological and state leaders criticized Calvin for the unwarranted killing of Servetus, but it fell on deaf ears as Calvin advised others to do the same. Calvin wrote much in following years in a continual attempt to justify his burning of Servetus. Some people claim Calvin favored beheading, but this does not fit charges of heresy for which the punishment as written by Calvin earlier was to be burning at the stake. Calvin had made a vow years earlier that Servetus would never leave Geneva alive if he were ever captured, and Calvin held true to his pledge.
Another victim of Calvin's fiery zeal was Gentile of an Italian sect in Geneva, which also numbered among its adherents Alciati and Gribaldo. More or less Unitarian in their views, they were required to sign a confession drawn up by Calvin in 1558. Gentile signed it reluctantly, but in the upshot he was condemned and imprisoned as a perjurer. He escaped only to be twice incarcerated at Berne where, in 1566, he was beheaded. Calvin also had thirty-four (34) women burned at the stake after accusing them of causing a plague that had swept through Geneva in 1545. John Calvin's actions were very paganistic like his mentor, Saint Augustine. Jesus and all of the Apostles would have abhorred and condemn these blatant mass murders.
Puritanism.
The citizens of Geneva hated John Calvin as he clearly stated. In 1554 Calvin wrote "Dogs bark at me on all sides. Everywhere I am saluted with the name of 'heretic,' and all the calumnies that can possibly be invented are heaped upon me; in a word, the enemies among my own flock attack me with greater bitterness than my declared enemies among the papists." Calvin, quoted in Schaff, History, volume 8, page 496. The history of John Calvin's reign of terror in Geneva is undisputed. Calvin himself had historical records kept that have survived to this day.
http://www.biblelife.org/calvinism.htm
Here is another site on the subject that says nothing about Calvin warning Servetus not to come to Geneva:
http://www.gospeltruth.net/heresy/heresy_chap5.htm
Here is a Catholic site that says the same thing:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/reformers.htm
Who am I to believe?
And OT, I would say that the other thread was canceled because it is almost always the Calvinists that start these contentious threads.
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