Page:French Calvinism, German Lutheranism and the War.pdf/15

-14- other hand. French Calvinism hes generally made for religious freedom as well as for political freedom. And even Roman Catholicism which is assumed to be necessarily favourable to religious despotism has again and again stood for religious liberty. Let me only refer to the most recent and most memorable illustration. After the Franco-German War the one church which dared to challenge the Iron Chancellor was the German Catholic Church. The Catholic Kulturkampt is the only genuine spiritual protestantism which the German people have known.

IV.

I now come to my fourth proposition, namely that Lutheranism hes always made for political despotism. What may perhaps seem to some of you a paradox is almost implied in the very definition of Lutheranism. It is inconceivable that you can retain for any length of time political liberty where you have the fusion and confusion of temporal and spiritual power. Spiritual power in fact is the only check on temporal despotism. Wherever the two powers are united, you are bound in the long run, to have despotism. And that is exactly what has happened in Lutheran