CQOD: 05/27/06 -- Calvin: the limitations to civil obedience

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 27, 2006

Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564

Meditation:
    But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men."
    -- Acts 5:29 (ESV)

---

Quotation:
    In that obedience which we have shown to be due the authority of rulers, we are always to make this exception, indeed, to observe it as primary, that such obedience is never to lead us away from obedience to him, to whose decrees all their commands ought to yield, to whose majesty their scepters ought to be submitted. And how absurd would it be that in satisfying men you should incur the displeasure of him for whose sake you obey men themselves! The Lord, therefore, is the King of Kings, who, when he has opened his sacred mouth, must alone be heard, before all and above all men; next to him we are subject to those men who are in authority over us, but only in him. If they command anything against him, let it go unesteemed.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, iv.20.32 [1559]

---

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we follow You in submission.

---

---

See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

---

CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
CQOD Home Page:    http://www.cqod.com/
Subscription info: http://www.cqod.com/cqodlist.htm
Comments and problems: email to curator@gospelcom.net