17 8
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
their promotion the supreme duty, opposition to them an unpardonable crime. There was nothing in the instItu- tions of men, no authority, no right, no liberty, that he cared to preserve, or towards which he entertained any feelings of reverence or obligation. His theory made the support of religious truth the end and office of the State,l which was bound therefore to protect, and consequently to obey, the Church, and had no control over it. In religion the first and highest thing was the dogma: the preservation of morals was one important office of government; but the maintenance of the purity of doctrine \vas the highest. The result of this theory is the institution of a pure theocracy. If the elect were alone upon the earth, Calvin taught, there would be no need of the political order, and the Ana- baptists would be right in rejecting it ; 2 but the elect are in a minority; and there is the mass of reprobates who must be coerced by the sword, in order that all the \vorld may be made subject to the truth, by the conquerors imposing their faith upon the vanquished. s He \vished to extend religion by the s\vord, but to reserve death as the punishment of apostasy; and as this law would in- clude the Catholics, who were in Calvin's eyes apostates from the truth, he narrowed it further to those who were
1 Ie Huc spec tat (politia) . . . ne idololatria, ne in Dei nomen sacrilegia, ne adversus ejus veritatem blasphemiae aliaeque religion is offensiones publice emergant ac in populum spargantur, , . . Politicam ordinationem probo, quae in hoc incumbit, ne vera religio, quae Dei lege continetur, palam, publicisque sacrilegiis impune violetur" (lnstitutio Christianae Religionis, ed. Tholuck, ii. 477), "Hoc ergo summopere requiritur a regibus, ut gladio quo praediti sunt utantur ad cultum Dei asserelldum" (Praelectiones in ProPhetas, O}era, v, 233, ed, 1667), 2 .. Huic etiam c01ligere promptum est, quam stulta fuerit imaginatio eorum qui volebant usum gladii tollere e mundo, Evangelii praetextu. Scimus Anabap- tistas fuisse tumultuatos, quasi totus ordo politicus repugnaret Christi regno, quia regnum Christi continetur sola doctrina; deinde nulla futura sit vis, Hoc quidem verum esset, si essemus in hoc mundo angeli: sed quemadmodum jam dixi, exiguus est piorum numerus: ideo necesse est reliquam turbam cohiberi violento freno : quia permixti sunt filii Dei vel saevis belluis, vel vulpibus et fraudu- lentis hominibus" (Pr, in Afichaeam, v. 310). II In quo non suam modo in- scitiam, sed diabolicum fastum produnt, dum perfectionem sibi arrogant; eujus ne centesima quidem pars in illis conspicitur" (lnstitutio, ii. 478). 3 ., Tota igitur excellentia, tota dignitas, tota potentia Ecclesiae debet hue referri, ut omnia subjaceant Deo, et quicquid erit in gentibus hoc totum sit sacrum, ut scilicet cultus Dei tam apud victores quam apud victos vigeat' (Pr. Í1z A-lichaeam, v. 317).
