Calvinism - pagina 9

1

Constitutional Liberties.

895-]

The Reglement de

of building "a state within the state." Guerre

Politie et de

is

of 1793.

a substitute for the body poHtit,

ening the

ties

To

money.

raise

it,

induced them to seek

Tliis

then wanting, by strength-

till

No war

of the church.

651

can be waged without

consistories assessed their congrega-

cannons and ammunition to and for this the network of be consistories spread over France was made to do service; and,

tions.

Troops had

to be levied,

bought, cavalry to be hired,

common

to strengthen the

purpose,

run through only a very few hands. in

Holland, and thus they were done

cords were

its

Thus in

made

to

things were done

France, and

in

both

it was a secondary design of political and military and not the claim of the principle of faith, by which the Reformed church was put, as it were, in a strait-jacket within which its life has languished for more than two hun-

countries

interests,

dred years.

Nor was

this

all.

The

Calvinistic principle,

ally applied, leads to separation of

as the state

is

The

logic-

This principle could

not wholly Calvinistic.

not prevail in Geneva.

when

church and state, as soon

dissension

among

the citizens of

Geneva, which Calvin quieted, arose not from a difference of

There were no Romanists there. ISut there were Romanists in France. To assume the consequences of separation, and as a free church pay homage to the independence of civil government: this stage of development in Calvinism had not been reached. Hopes were too sanguine that the other half of the French The question in nation also would honor the Reformation. itself, and the whole of France be hand would then drop of confession, but from shameful libertinism.

When

Reformed. faith

this

hope proved

maintained themselves

in

vain,

course of action was not discovered. tried in the colonization plan.

oHc, and

its

and two forms of

the state, even then the proper

colony Reformed.

A

way

of escape was

France would then be Cath-

And when this failed, the Two states for two

other extreme became the watchword.

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