History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

Reformer of Geneva, and permitting the magistrate
to take cognisance of heresy only when it shows
itself in disturbances and uproars. It is important to
bear in mind that the Reformers had to fight two
battles at once. They had to contend for the
emancipation of the magistrate, and they had to
contend for the emancipation of the conscience.
When they challenged for the magistrate
exemption from the authority of Rome, they had to
be careful not to appear to exempt him from the
authority of the law of God. The Papists were ever
ready to accuse them of this, and to say that the
Reformation had assigned an atheistic position to
princes. If at times they appear to deny the
toleration which at other times they teach, much, if
not all, of this is owing to the double battle which
the times imposed upon them -- the emancipation
of the magistrate from the enslavement of the
Church, and the emancipation of the conscience
from the enslavement of both the magistrate and
the Church.
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