Calvinism - pagina 12

Calvinism and

654

[Oct.

revolutionary ideas on the sovereignty of the people are found in the writings

of Boethius, Commines, Montaigne, and

anus, and there was so

little

Thu-

respect for the authority of the

king, that, in 1478, one, Oliver Maillart, dared answer Louis

XL, who threatened him with death by drowning: it

will

be

less difficult for

me

to creep

on

my

" Sir

King,

knees to the

Seine, than for you, with your best coach and four, to reach

any other place than hell." Let us have historic fairness. It is true that even Melanchthon and Beza approved of killing a tyrant, but when it is found that, before the Reformation broke out, and before the Father of Calvinism had yet been born, these ideas were

rife,

then they should not be laid to

the charge of Calvinism or Romanism, but the cause of these

immoral ideas should be discovered in a sinful trait of the For it is in this school that the false heroism Renaissance. of the ancient Romans and Greeks has engendered such bitter fruit.

As purer sources from which to draw knowledge of Reformed state-law, the standard works of Hottoman and LanEven though this self-same false guet should be consulted. vein of the Renaissance courses through Hottoman's Franco and through Languet and the Pseudonym, " Vindicise contra tyrannos," by Junius Brutus, yet, with the last-named author especially, are marked out the fundamental lines of Gallia,

the Calvinistic system in which roots the true, constitutional state-law.

For with

this learned

statesman and sagacious

diplomat, whose works have lately again been translated by

Richard Treitzschke, is found indeed a system. He esteems He is an advocate of all authority as descended from God. In this wise, however, he looks for the the "Droit divin." sovereignty of the crown; not in the person of the king, nor

yet in the isolated office of royalty, but in the organic union And with of this office with the " magistratus inferiores." these he does not

mean

the officers appointed

by the

king,

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