Will Durant writes that in Geneva:
To regulate lay conduct a system of domiciliary visits was established ... and questioned the occupants on all phases of their lives .. The allowable color and quantity of clothing, and the number of dishes permissible at a meal, were specified by law. Jewelry and lace were frowned upon. A woman was jailed for arranging her hair to an immoral height. Censorship of the press was taken over from rcc and secular precedents and enlarged: books ... of immoral tendency were banned ... To speak disrespectfully of Calvin or the clergy was a crime. A first violation of these ordinances was punished with a reprimand. Further violation with fines, persistent violation with imprisonment or banishment. Fornication was to be punished with exile or drowning; adultery, blasphemy, or idolatry, with death .. a child was beheaded for striking its parents. In the years 1558-59 there were 414 prosecutions for moral offenses; between 1542 and 1564 there were 76 banishments and 58 executions; the total population of Geneva was then about 20,000.
All the claims of the popes for the supremacy of the church over the state were renewed y Calvinfor his church ... [Calvin] was as thorough as any pope in rejecting individualism of belief; this greatest legislator of Protestantism completely repudiated that principle of private judgment with which the new religion had begun - In Geneva .. those who could not accept it would have to seek other habitats. Persistent absence from Protestant [Calvinist] services or continued refusal to take the Eucharist was a punishable offense. Heresy again became [under Calvin as under Augustine] ... treason to the state, and was to be punished with death ... in one year on the advice of the Consistory, 14 alleged witches were sent to the stake on the charge that they had persuaded Satan to afflict Geneva with plague. [Will Durant "Caesar and Christ. 474]
Augustine had enforced unity ... through common participation in the Sacraments and Calvin was following in his footsteps. Schaff believes that Servitus who was recognized and arrested at church had only gone to avoid drawing attention by his absence.
It is just amazing how little we often learn from such historical examples. In terms of correction and accountability, the idea that we are individually under the authorship of a personal God (i.e. Ro 14:4), that correct thinking (doctrinal and moral purity -- "Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief") is not a forced aspect of the equation, that "equation" actually has so very little to do with "becoming," are all lessons missed because of a myopic inclination that seems to lead to blindness. Our only hope is found in the fact that serve a God who is able to cause the blind to see, that when "falling" is a appears to be an option, being made to stand is the only outcome.
JD
