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

570
they had dethroned. They imposed with equal rigor their creeds and
confessions; they asserted the right of the magistrate to punish heretics
with death. The nature of the tiger was the same, but he was gradually
deprived of his teeth and fangs.” f1008
Protestant persecution violates the fundamental principle of the
Reformation. Protestantism has no right to exist except on the basis of
freedom of conscience.
How, then, can we account for this glaring inconsistency? There is a
reason for everything. Protestant persecution was necessary in self-defence
and in the struggle for existence. The times were not ripe for toleration.
The infant Churches could not have stood it. These Churches had first to
be consolidated and fortified against surrounding foes. Universal toleration
at that time would have resulted in universal confusion and upset the order
of society. From anarchy to absolute despotism is but one step. The
division of Protestantism into two rival camps, the Lutheran and the
Reformed, weakened it; further divisions within these camps would have
ruined it and prepared an easy triumph for united Romanism, which would
have become more despotic than ever before. This does not justify the
principle, but it explains the practice, of intolerance.
The Reformers and the Protestant princes and magistrates were essentially
agreed on this intolerant attitude, both towards the Romanists and the
heretical Protestants, at least to the extent of imprisonment, deposition,
and expatriation. They differed only as to the degree of severity. They all
believed that the papacy is anti-christian and the mass idolatrous; that
heresy is a sin against God and society; that the denial of the Trinity and
the divinity of Christ is the greatest of heresies, which deserves death
according to the laws of the empire, and eternal punishment according to
the Athanasian Creed (with its three damnatory clauses); and that the civil
government is as much bound to protect the first as the second table of the
Decalogue, and to vindicate the honor of God against blasphemy. They
were anxious to show their zeal for orthodoxy by severity against heresy.
They had no doubt that they themselves were orthodox according to the
only true standard of orthodoxy—the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures.
And as regards the dogmas of the Trinity and Incarnation, they were fully
agreed with their Catholic opponents, and equally opposed to the errors of
Servetus, who denied those dogmas with a boldness and contempt
unknown before.