What separated Calvin from the Lutherans most radically, at least in terms of practical consequences, was his approach to the governance of the church as well as—church and state being inextricably connected in his system—the civil society. Luther, in renouncing the traditional church, had discarded Catholic belief in a priesthood endowed with special authority and unique sacramental faculties. In its place he offered a “priesthood of all believers,” and while acknowledging the church as a legitimately distinct element of society, he emphatically subordinated it (especially after the Peasants’
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