The Reformation tended to emphasize the sacred character
of kingship. The reformers set up the authority of the State against the
authority of the Church, which they rejected and condemned. Providence, they
argued, had never sanctioned the Papacy, but Providence had really ordained the
State and had placed over it a king whom it was a religious duty to obey. Even
those who were not reformers distorted the Christian idea that government has a
divine basis to represent kings as God's vicegerents upon earth, as in fact
earthly deities.
BOSSUET ON DIVINE RIGHT
The theory of divine right received its fullest expression
in a famous book [4] written by Bossuet, a learned French bishop of the
seventeenth century. A hereditary monarchy, declared Bossuet, is the most
ancient and natural, the strongest and most efficient, of all forms of
government. Royal power emanates from God; hence the person of the king is
sacred and it is sacrilege to conspire against him. His authority is absolute
and autocratic. No man may rightfully resist the king's commands; his subjects
owe him obedience in all matters. To the violence of a king the people can
oppose only respectful remonstrances and prayers for his conversion. A king, to
be sure, ought not to be a tyrant, but he can be one in perfect security.
"As in God are united all perfection and every virtue, so all the power of
all the individuals in a community is united in the person of the king."
[4] Politics as derived from the Very Words of the Holy
Scriptures. This work was prepared for the use of the young son of Louis
XIV, the French king.
