"The main end of human society is that God be honoured as He should be. Now the Magistrate is set as guard and governor of this society... And though it be his duty, so far as in him lies, to take order that no discord arise among his subjects, yet, since the chief and ultimate end of human society is not that men should live together in peace, but that, living in peace, they should serve God, it is the function of the Magistrate to risk even this outward peace (if no otherwise may it be done) in order to secure and maintain in his land the true service of God in its purity... And it is impossible that he should so preserve and maintain religion unless he suppresses by the power of the sword those who obstinately contemn it and form sects. It remains then to say that those who would that the Magistrate should not concern himself with religion, either do not understand what is the true end of human society or else pretend that they do not."
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De haereticis a civile magistratu puniendis libellus, adversus Martini Belli farraginem et novorum Academicorum sectam, Theodora Beza Vezelio auctore (1554), p. 186, quoted in J. W. Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1928), p. 96
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Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza (Latin: Theodorus Beza; French: Théodore de Bèze or de Besze; 23 June 1519 – 13 October 1605) was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation. He was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Geneva. Beza succeeded Calvin as the spiritual leader of the Republic of Geneva.
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