Charles Hodge Quotes
The Reformers, therefore, as instruments in the hands of God, in delivering the Church from bondage to prelates, did not make it a tumultuous multitude, in which every man was a law to himself, free to believe, and free to do what he pleased.
Hodge, Charles. What is Presbyterianism? Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1855, p. 33.
His positions presaged some of those of Protestants in the Reformation. In the great struggle of the time between the Pope and the Emperor, Marsilius was the leading advocate for the emperor’s superiority of authority. The Pope wrote a condemnation of these ideas.
Carroll was writing to Troy during the time of the question of Catholic emancipation in England. Here he is clearly alluding to the British form of government. Carroll never missed the opportunity to champion religious freedom as manifested in the U.S. Constitution. For an earlier example of his praise for religious freedom, see {596933}.
This concept is not terribly different from the concept of the theocracy of the Islamic government of Iran in the 21st century. There is a civil government but it serves and is “under the direction of the spiritual power.”
This appears to be one of the first religious groups to withdraw and separate from a state church.
John Ilyitch Sergieff. The power of the leadership of organizations, religious and secular, has long been in contention. There are those who advocate the strong, very powerful executive such as Russia under the Czars and the Roman Catholic Church and those who prefer a weaker leader with very limited power such as the United States and the Russian Orthodox Church.
The church attempted to retain its role as the premier Russian religion, and maintain its traditional influence and autonomy. It was not to be.
This notice of Excommunication was promulgated to the Catholic clergy in Ireland in May of 1538. It required all Roman Catholic leaders to size the property of Protestants or Catholics who sympathized with them. Those who did were then regarded as traitors by the Protestant King. The anti-Protestant feeling culminated with the massacre of about 100 Protestants who were drowned in Bann a few years later.
This anarchist vision of religion in the state is that of America with its first amendment, The reason that religion was still an issue for American Anarchists were that at the time and earlier, community norms and customs throughout the country dominated life and the First Amendment separation of church and state was commonly transgressed with few citizens willing to stand up against the community majority and force the issue in courts or in the political arena. That changed in the remainder of the 20th century and while there still are violations, they are relatively few in the 21st century.
See {639434}, {639436}, and {639437} for the triggers to this report.
Charles Hodge was a Presbyterian theologian and principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878.
