Page:History of Freedom.djvu/220

 176

ESSAYS ON LIBERTY

churches are in ill repute abroad, as if we were heretics and friends of heresy. Now God's holy providence has furnished an opportunity of clearing ourselves of this evil suspicion." 1 After the event he advised Calvin to justify it, as there were some who were taken aback. " Every- where," he says, "there are excellent men who are con- vinced that godless and blaspheming men ought not only to be rebuked and imprisoned, but also to be put to death. . . . How Servetus could have been spared I cannot see." 2 The position of æcolampadius in reference to these questions was altogether singular and exceptional. He dreaded the absorption of the ecclesiastical functions by the State, and sought to avoid it by the introduction of a council of twelve elders, partly magistrates, partly clergy, to direct ecclesiastical affairs. "Many things," he said, "are punished by the secular power less severely than the dignity of the Church demands. On the other hand, it punishes the repentant, to whom the Church shows mercy. Either it blunts the edge of its sword by not punishing the guilty, or it brings some hatred on the Gospel by severity." 8 But the people of Basel were deaf to the argu- ments of the reformer, and here, as else\vhere, the civil power usurped the office of the Church. In harmony with this jealousy of political interference, æcolampadius was very merciful to the Anabaptists. "Severe penalties," he said," were likely to aggravate the evil; forgiveness would hasten the cure.", A few months later, however, he regretted this leniency. U 'VVe perceive," he writes to a friend, "that we have sometimes shown too much indul- gence; but this is better than to proceed tyrannically, or to surrender the keys of the Church." ð Whilst, on the

1 Pestalozzi, Heinrich Bullinger, p. 426. 2 In the year 1555 he writes to Socinus: .. I too am of opinion that heretical men must be cut off with the spiritual sword,,. . The Lutherans at first did not understand that sectaries must be restrained and punished, but after the fall of
 * Münster, when thousands of poor misguided men, many of them orthodox, had

perished, they were compelled to admit that it is wiser and better for the Govern- ment not only to restrain wrong-headed men, but also, by putting to death a few that deserve it, to protect thousands of inhabitants" (Ibid, p. 428), 3 Herzog, Leben Oekolampads, ii. 197. " Ibid, p, r89. Ibid. p. 206,