“Calvin had inspired in his disciples that energy of piety which abhors all halfway measures, which boldly endeavors to make all the affairs of life subject to Christ, the Head and Lord. . . . But what was needed, viz., firm principles about the relation of the Reformation to the forces of modern emerging culture—to the state, science, and art—this was lacking, and how could it be attained all at once in the midst of all the unrest of the time? Regarded in this way, we believe the appearance of natural law doctrine becomes comprehensible. A doctrine of the state constructed on evangelical principles was not in existence. But such a doctrine was imperatively needed and demanded by the need of the time. Men needed to have clearness about the relation of the ruler to the subjects, about the problem of Church and State, about the relation between different churches in the same country. No wonder that in the lack of a conception of the state revised in the light of fundamental evangelical ideas, men had recourse to the political theory taught in the traditional jurisprudence, without heeding the fact that that theory had an origin foreign to the Reformation, and involved tendencies and consequences which would lead away from the Reformation. These tendencies, of course, became apparent later in slowly developing after-effects, and then, especially after the spiritual enervation sustained in the protracted religious wars, they could not fail gradually to dissipate and destroy the Reformation’s basis of faith. . . .”
E. L. Hebden Taylor, The Christian Philosophy Of Law, Politics And The State, p.3
(quoting August Lang in the Princeton Theological Review entitled “The Reformation and Natural Law”)
