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

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to do anything against the will of God and against our conscience. Then,
we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). f668
Calvin was thus a strong upholder of authority in the State. He did not
advise or encourage the active resistance of the Huguenots at the beginning
of the civil wars in France, although he gave a tacit consent.
Calvin extended the authority and duty of civil government to both Tables
of the Law. He assigns to it, in Christian society, the office,—”to cherish
and support the external worship of God, to preserve the true doctrine of
religion, to defend the constitution of the Church, and to regulate our lives
in a manner requisite for the social welfare.” He proves this view from the
Old Testament, and quotes the passage in Isaiah 49:23, that “kings shall be
nursing-fathers and queens nursing-mothers” to the Church. He refers to
the examples of Moses, Joshua and the Judges, David, Josiah, and
Hezekiah.
Here is the critical point where religious persecution by the State comes in
as an inevitable consequence. Offences against the Church are offences
against the State, and vice versa, and deserve punishment by fines,
imprisonment, exile, and, if necessary, by death. On this ground the
execution of Servetus and other heretics was justified by all who held the
same theory; fortunately, it has no support whatever in the New
Testament, but is directly contrary to the spirit of the gospel.
Geneva, after the emancipation from the power of the bishop and the duke
of Savoy, was a self-governing Republic under the protection of Bern and
the Swiss Confederacy. The civil government assumed the episcopal
power, and exercised it first in favor, then against, and at last permanently
for the Reformation.
The Republic was composed of all citizens of age, who met annually in
general assembly (conseil général), usually in St. Peter’s, under the
sounding of bells, and trumpets, for the ratification of laws and the election
of officers. The administrative power was lodged in four Syndics; the
legislative power in two Councils, the Council of Sixty, and the Council of
Two Hundred. The former existed since 1457; the latter was instituted in
1526, after the alliance with Freiburg and Bern, in imitation of the
Constitution of these and other Swiss cities. The Sixty were by right
members of the Council of Two Hundred. In 1530 the Two Hundred
assumed the right to elect the ordinary or little Council of Twenty-Five,