Calvinism - pagina 61

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CALVINISM AND RELIGION. must tend

religion

all

may

he

utterance

clear

On

the

free,

by a

that

express that general religious

God

impression stamped, by nature.

make man

to

57

Himself,

upon unconscious

hand, every appearance of an

other

interposing priest or enchanter in the domain of religion

human

the

fetters

in

spirit,

a chain which presses the

more woefully the more the piety increases in fervour. In the Church of Rome, even at the present day, the bons catholiques are most closely confined in the fetters of the clerus. Only the Roman-Cathohc whose piety has

decreased,

secure for himself a partial

able to

is

by loosening more than halfway the

liberty

which

tie

In the Lutheran churches

connects him with his church.

the clerical fetters are less confining, yet far from being

loosened,

And

entirely.

their stand in Calvinism,

only in churches which take

do we find that

spiritual inde-

pendence which enables the believer to oppose, be,

and

for

if

God's sake, even the most powerful

need

office-

bearer in his church.

Only he who personally stands

God on

account, and enjoys an uninter-

before

own

his

rupted communion with God, can properly display the glorious in

wings

of liberty.

And

both

in

Holland and

France, in England as well as in America, the historic

result affords

most undeniable evidence of the

fact that

despotism has found no more invincible antagonists, and liberty of conscience

no braver, no more resolute cham-

pions than the followers of Calvin. the cause of this effect of

must it

be,

every to

phenomenon

lies

In the last analysis, in the fact that the

clerical interposition invariably was,

make

religion

with sacerdotal forms.

external and

Only where

all

to

and

smother

priestly inter-

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