The Protestant Reformation of Constitutionalism

The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation brought far-reaching changes to Western constitutionalism. The Lutheran reformers vested each territorial state with much of the jurisdiction held by the medieval church, arguing that the magistrate was the custodian of both the religious and civil duties set out in the Ten Commandments. They also merged church courts and state courts, placing both legal and equitable power in the hands of conscientious Christian judges. The Anabaptists ascetically withdrew from civil and political life into small, self-sufficient, and often intensely democratic communities governed by simple biblical principles and dialogical forms of internal governance. Despite ample persecution, Anabaptists were fervent champions of religious liberty and separation of church and state. The Calvinist reformers separated the offices of church and state but called both authorities to help create an overtly Christian local polity governed by written constitutions based on the Bible and natural law but with detailed positive laws tailored to local needs. Calvinist also developed robust biblical-based theories of natural and positive rights, whose persistent and pervasive breach triggered the right of resistance and revolution.