the
majesty of God must be as strictly avenged as the throne of the
king.[274]

If the defence of the truth was the purpose for which power was
intrusted to princes, it was natural that it should be also the
condition on which they held it. Long before the revolution of 1688,
Calvin had decided that princes who deny the true faith, "abdicate"
their crowns, and are no longer to be obeyed;[275] and that no oaths are
binding which are in contradiction to the interests of Protestantism.[276]
He painted the princes of his age in the blackest colours,[277] and
prayed to God for their destruction;[278] though at the same time he
condemned all rebellion on the part of his friends, so long as there were
great doubts of their success.[279] His principles, however, were often
stronger than his exhortations, and he had difficulty in preventing murders
and seditious movements in France,[280] When he was dead, nobody prevented
them, and it became clear that his system, by subjecting the civil power
to the service of religion, was more dangerous to toleration than Luther's
plan of giving to the State supremacy over the Church.

Calvin was as positive as Luther in asserting the duty of obedience to
rulers irrespective of their mode of government[281] He constantly
declared that tyranny was not to be resisted on political grounds; that
no civil rights could outweigh the divine sanction of government; except
in cases where a special office was appointed for the purpose. Where
there was no such office--where, for instance, the estates of the realm
had lost their independence--there was no protection. This is one of the
most important and essential characteristics of the politics of the
reformers. By making the protection of their religion the principal
business of government, they put out of sight its more immediate and
universal duties, and made the political objects of the State disappear
behind its religious end. A government was to be judged, in their eyes,
only by its fidelity to the Protestant Church. If it fulfilled those
requirements, no other complaints against it could be entertained. A
tyrannical prince could not be resisted if he was orthodox; a just
prince could be dethroned if he failed in the more essential condition
of faith. In this way Protestantism became favourable at once to
despotism and to revolution, and was ever ready to sacrifice good
government to its own interests. It subverted monarchies, and, at the
same ti