Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

306
of his licentiousness. Every open manifestation of sympathy with popery by
carrying a rosary, or cherishing a sacred relic, or observing a saint’s day,
was liable to punishment. The fame of Geneva went abroad and began to
attract students and refugees. Before the close of 1537 English Protestants
came to Geneva to, see Calvin and Farel.” f482
On July 29, 1537, the Council of the Two Hundred ordered all the citizens,
male and female, to assent to the Confession of Faith in the Church of St.
Peter. f483 It was done by a large number. On Nov. 12, the Council even
passed a measure to banish all who would not take the oath. f484
The Confession was thus to be made the law of Church and State. This is
the first instance of a formal pledge to a symbolical book by a whole
people.
It was a glaring inconsistency that those who had just shaken off the yoke
of popery as an intolerable burden, should subject their conscience and
intellect to a human creed; in other words, substitute for the old Roman
popery a modern Protestant popery. Of course, they sincerely believed that
they had the infallible Word of God on their side; but they could not claim
infallibility in its interpretation. The same inconsistency and intolerance was
repeated a hundred years later on a much larger scale in the “Solemn
League and Covenant” of the Scotch Presbyterians and English Puritans
against popery and prelacy, and sanctioned in 1643 by the Westminster
Assembly of Divines which vainly attempted to prescribe a creed, a Church
polity, and a directory of worship for three nations. But in those days
neither Protestants nor Catholics had any proper conception of religious
toleration, much less of religious liberty, as an inalienable right of man.
“The power of the magistrates ends where that of conscience begins.”
God alone is the Lord of conscience.
The Calvinistic churches of modem times still require subscription to the
Westminster standards, but only from the officers, and only in a qualified
sense, as to substance of doctrine; while the members are admitted simply
on profession of faith in Christ as their Lord and Saviour. f485
§ 84. EXPULSION OF THE REFORMERS. 1538.
CALVIN’S correspondence from 1537 to 1538, in Op. vol. X., Pt. II.
137 sqq. HERMINJARD, vols. IV. and V.—Annal. Calv., Op. XXI.,
fol. 215–235.