Calvinism - pagina 25

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Constitutional Liberties.

895-]

out consulting the Scriptures, were led by the light of divine approbation to cherish the thought of a constitution of the people, which destroys not the hereditary rights of the throne,

The

but limits the powers of the crown.

history of public

opinion, as well as the writings on public law,

show

clearly

that the fact of Saul's and David's coronation has hastened

the progress of our constitutional ideas with Christian people far

more than the most Utopian

Thus has been shown

theories.

that the plant of political liberty

mother soil among the Calvinistic nations, Switzerland, Holland, England, and America; that America, where liberty is most profuse, is an institution of the Puritans; that the vigor of the Puritan spirit was the fruit of England's Calvinism, and that in turn the struggle of the Independents was the sequence of that vital thought, which had once animated the Huguenots in France. It has been shown that in these mighty commotions of spirit it was ever the one germ, developing itself, and that the seed from which this plant rose ever higher is to be sought in the giant mind of Calvin. found

its

The motto

of his

life,

"God

the magic power which authority

its

is

sovereign absolute," contained

our surprise to this day, to give

firmest support while

allows the plant of lib-

it

erty the utmost room for growth. Does this imply the assertion that darkness reigned supreme until Calvin was born, and that only with him the first

rays of light appeared

and must ever

By no means.

}

be, the child of

its

majestic figure was born of the past.

Geneva was not the

first

Boldest genius

is,

times, and even Calvin's

No: the reformer of

to mingle a thirst for liberty

and an

aversion to tyranny with the blood of the Germanic race.

Before him an Arminius Claudius Civiles

break

in

in

in

the Teutoburgen forest, and a

Holland domains, had known how to

pieces the shackles of oppression.

tyranny has our race been through

all

ages,

An enemy

to

and Romish as

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