Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain, and Related Writings

Fourth Letter

Fourth Letter I have made you see, Sir, that the imputations drawn from my Books as proof that I was attacking the Religion established by the laws were false. It is, however, by these imputations that I have been judged guilty and treated as such. Let us assume now that I was in fact guilty, and let us see what punishment was owed me in that situation. Like virtue, vice has its degrees. Being guilty of one crime does not make someone guilty of them all. Justice consists in tailoring the punishment exactly to the fault, and extreme justice is itself a wrong when it pays no heed to the reasonable considerations that ought to temper the rigor of the law. Assuming the oVense is real, it remains for us to seek what its nature is and what procedure is prescribed by your laws in such cases. If I violated my oath of the Bourgeois, as I am accused of doing, I committed a crime against the State, and cognizance of this crime belongs directly to the Council. That is incontestable. But if my entire crime consists in error about doctrine, this error was itself an impiety. That is a diVerent thing. According to your Edicts, it belongs to another Tribunal to take cognizance of it in the Wrst instance. And even if my crime were a crime against the State, if a prior decision about doctrine must be made in order to declare it as such, it is not up to the Council to make it. It is very proper for it to punish the crime, but not to establish it. That is explicit according to your Edicts, as we shall see later. The Wrst thing is to know whether I violated my oath of the Bourgeois, that is to say the oath my ancestors swore when they were admitted to the Bourgeoisie. Because for myself, not having lived in the Town, and not having performed any function as Citizen, I have not sworn the oath at all. But let it go at that. In the formulation of this oath, there are only two articles that could concern my oVense. By the former, one promises, to live in accordance with the Reformation of the Holy Gospel; and by the latter, not to make, nor to allow any intrigues, machinations, or undertakings against the Reformation of the Holy Gospel. 188 Fourth Letter (Pl., III, 755–757) 189 Now far from infringing the Wrst article, I have conformed to it with a Wdelity and even a boldness that have few examples, openly professing my Religion among the Catholics, although I previously lived in theirs; and one cannot cite that lapse from my childhood as an infraction from the oath, above all since my authentic rejoining of your Church in 175425 and my reestablishment in my rights of Bourgeoisie, well known to all Geneva, and of which moreover I have proofs positive. One could not say, either, that I have infringed this Wrst article by the condemned Books; since in them I have not ceased to declare myself to be a Protestant. Furthermore, conduct is one thing, Writings are something else. To live in accordance with the Reformation is to profess the Reformation , although by error one could lapse from its doctrine in blameworthy Writings, or commit other sins that oVend God, but which by the fact alone does not cut the oVender oV from the Church. That distinction, if one could dispute it in general, is present in the oath itself; since in it they separate into two articles what could make only one, if the profession of the Religion was incompatible with every undertaking against the Religion . One swears by the Wrst to live in accordance with the Reformation, and one swears by the last not to undertake anything against the Reformation . These two articles are very distinct and even separated by many others. Thus in the meaning of the Legislator these two things are separable . Thus if I had violated this last article, it does not follow that I have violated the Wrst. But have I violated this last article? Here is how the Author of the Letters Written from the Country establishes the aYrmative, page 30. “The oath of the Bourgeois imposes on them the obligation not to make, nor to allow any intrigues, machinations, or undertakings against the Reformation of the Holy Gospel. It seems that it is to intrigue and machinate against it a little* to...