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

72
property of the churches and convents, and took under its control the
regulation of marriage, the care of the poor, and the education of the
clergy. The Church was reduced legally to a state of dependence, though
she was really the moving and inspiring power of the State, and was
supported by public sentiment. In a republic the majority of the people rule,
and the minority must submit. The only dissenters in Zurich were a small
number of Romanists and Anabaptists, who were treated with the same
disregard of the rights of conscience as the Protestants in Roman Catholic
countries, only with a lesser degree of severity. The Reformers refused to
others the right of protest which they claimed and exercised for themselves,
and the civil magistracy visited the poor Anabaptists with capital
punishment.
The example of Zurich was followed by the other cantons in which the
Reformation triumphed. Each has its own ecclesiastical establishment,
which claims spiritual jurisdiction over all the citizens of its territory. There
is no national Reformed Church of Switzerland, with a centre of unity.
This state of things is the same as that in Protestant Germany, but differs
from it as a republic differs from a monarchy. In both countries the
bishops, under the command of the Pope, condemned Protestantism, and
lost the control over their flock. The Reformers, who were mere
presbyters, looked to the civil rulers for the maintenance of law and order.
In Germany, after the Diet of Speier in 1526, the princes assumed the
episcopal supervision, and regulated the Church in their own territories for
good or evil. The people were passive, and could not even elect their own
pastors. In Switzerland, we have instead a sort of democratic episcopate or
republican Caesaropapacy, where the people hold the balance of power,
and make and unmake their government.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Church and State, professing the
same religion, had common interests, and worked in essential harmony; but
in modern times the mixed character, the religious indifferentism, the
hostility and the despotism of the State, have loosened the connection, and
provoked the organization of free churches in several cantons (Geneva,
Vaud, Neuchatel), on the basis of self-support and self-government. The
State must first and last be just, and either support all the religions of its
citizens alike, or none. It owes the protection of law to all, within the limits
of order and peace. But the Church has the right of self-government, and
ought to be free of the control of politicians. f120