ABSTRACT
The main problem, in fact, for the political theorist is still that which lies at the root of medieval conflict. Strikingly medieval, too, is the political theory no less of the Oxford Movement than of that Kulturkampf which sent a German prince a second time to Canossa. And in a piece of Scottish ecclesiastical history the familiar tones may without difficulty be detected. Cardinal Manning, indeed, was a fervent upholder of the Austinian theory of sovereignty; and he found his sovereign in the will of the Universal Church as expressed by its pontiff. Yet the vital conception of the two kingdoms, separate and distinct, was put forward in the first epoch of Scottish Presbyterian history by Andrew Melville; As Mr. Figgis notes, Divine Right of Kings. It is safe to say that the attempt thus to define the limits of authorities basically conceived as distinct is the special contribution of Presbyterianism to the theory of political freedom.
