The Political Significance of Calvin's Institutes

This continues my series on Calvin's political theology

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Calvin intended his Institutes to be an introduction to the study of Scripture, and thus nourish piety. It is not first of all a political manifesto.

Nevertheless, it begins and ends with political statements. In the prefatory address, Calvin reminds Francis that a ‘true king’ must ‘recognize himself a minister of God in governing his kingdom’, and warns him that a king who ‘does not serve God’s glory exercises not kingly rule but brigandage’, and that a kingdom which is ‘not ruled by God’s sceptre, that is, his Holy Word’ will not prosper. The whole preface is a plea that Francis give the Protestants a fair hearing, and not associate them with Anabaptist turmoil. These themes are repeated and expanded in the Institute’s final chapter, which remained virtually unchanged from the first edition of Institutes to the last.

Calvin’s Institutes is an apologia for the magisterial reformation, and therefore a highly political document. It is an appeal to secular rulers to exercise their God-given privilege and responsibility of leading their subjects into true religion.