Institutes 4.10.5 — OF THE POWER OF MAKING LAWS. THE CRUELTY OF THE POPE AND HIS ADHERENTS, IN THIS

**OF THE POWER OF MAKING LAWS. THE CRUELTY OF THE POPE AND HIS ADHERENTS, IN THIS RESPECT, IN TYRANNICALLY OPPRESSING AND DESTROYING SOULS.**

Let us now return to human laws. If they are imposed for the purpose of forming a religious obligation, as if the observance of them was in itself necessary, we say that the restraint thus laid on the conscience is unlawful. Our consciences have not to do with men but with God only. Hence the common distinction between the earthly forum and the forum of conscience. French, “Et de fait, tel a eté le sens de cette distinction vulgaire qu’on a tenue par toutes les ecoles; que c’est autre choses des jurisdictions humaines et politiques, que de celles qui touchent à la conscience;”—And in fact, such is the import of the common distincti has been held by all the schools, that human and civil jurisdictions are quite different from those which touch the conscience.

Source

• source-manifest/institutes — Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Beveridge 1845 (PD)
• evidence_grade: D_doctrinal_textbook