Scriptural authority but to the
fact that there was no material for any other form of government to be
found in Germany. He was no sycophant, nor had he any illusions as to
the character of hereditary monarchs. In his _Treatise on Civil
Authority_, [Sidenote: 1523] dedicated to his own sovereign, Duke John
of Saxony, he wrote: "Since the foundation of the world a wise prince
has been a rare bird and a just one much rarer. They are generally the
biggest fools and worst knaves on earth, wherefore one must always
expect the worst of them and not much good, especially in divine
matters." They distinctly have not the right, he adds, to decide
spiritual things, but only to enforce the decisions of the Christian
community.

Feeling the necessity for some bridle in the mouth of the emperor and
finding no warrant for the people to curb him, Luther groped for the
notion of some legal limitation on the monarch's power. The word
"constitution" so familiar to us, was lacking then, but that the idea
was present is certain. The German Empire had a constitution, largely
unwritten but partly statutory. The limitations on the imperial power
were then recognized by an Italian observer, Quirini. [Sidenote: 1507]
When they were brought to Luther's attention he admitted the right of
the German states to resist by force {597} imperial acts of injustice
contrary to positive laws. Moreover, he always maintained that no
subject should obey an order directly contravening the law of God. In
these limitations on the government's power, slight as they were, were
contained the germs of the later Calvinistic constitutionalism.

[Sidenote: Reformed Church]

While many of the Reformers--Melanchthon, Bucer, Tyndale--were
completely in accord with Luther's earlier doctrine of passive
obedience, the Swiss, French and Scotch developed a consistent body of
constitutional theory destined to guide the peoples into ordered
liberty. Doubtless an influence of prime importance in the Reformed as
distinct from the Lutheran church, was the form of ecclesiastical
government. Congregationalism and Presbyterianism are practical
object-lessons in democracy. Many writers have justly pointed out in
the case of America the influence of the vestry in the evolution of the
town meeting. In other countries the same cause operated in the same
way, giving the British and French Protestants ample practice in
representative government. [Sidenote: Zwingli] Zwing