Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/701

Rh PRESET TEEIANISM 677 sacraments ; while the rest are invested with jurisdiction in the correction of manners and with the care of the poor. For, although Christ gave to the whole congregation the power of excommunication, as in the Jewish Sanhedrim, and although, therefore, the elders are to use their power only with the consent of the congregation, yet the crowd are not to rule, lest arbitrariness and confusion enter. Deacons (or elders who have the care of the poor) are of two kinds, those who administer alms and those who attend to the sick. For additional sanction to his views Calvin often refers to the primitive church and the writ ings of the fathers. But with respect to this his position is best indicated by his own words in the preface to the Institutes : &quot; We so read their writings as always to keep in view the saying of Paul (1 Cor. iii. 21-23) that all things are ours, to serve us that is, and not to rule over us, while we ourselves belong to the Lord, whom, without exception, we must all obey.&quot; (1) His system, while preserving the democratical theory in so far as it recognized the congrega tion as the holder of church power, was in practice strictly aristocratic, inasmuch as the congregation is never allowed any direct use of that power, which is invested in the whole body of elders ; and the system constantly tended to development in the aristocratic direction. (2) The great object is discipline of life : &quot; We come now to the third branch of the power of the church, and that which is the principal one in a well-regulated state, which, we have said, consists in jurisdiction. The whole jurisdiction of the state relates to the discipline of manners&quot; (iv. 11, 1). In his correspondence too Calvin is ever on this subject, while the eldership itself is seldom mentioned ; at Stras- burg his mind was constantly occupied with it ; it was the first business that he set his hand to in Geneva ; it was for insisting upon this that he was banished ; and he made it his first condition for return (iv. 12). (3) Although the Presbyterian form of church government has to thank Calvin for its vertebrate existence, he nowhere makes the true church depend upon this or any other form of govern ment. The inner life is what he insists upon, not the out ward form ; all that is needed for a true church, he asserts, is the word of God duly preached and the pure adminis tration of the sacraments. He held the jus divinum of the ministerial office as admitting of no question &quot;that mode of governing the church by its ministers which the Lord appointed to be of perpetual continuance&quot; (iv. 3, 1-3) but the manner in which the ministerial office is divided is to some extent in his mind a matter of argument and &quot; apprehension.&quot; The same elasticity and desire for adapta tion may often be noticed in his words, as, for example, when on the very question of election of ministers, whether it should be by the congregation or not, he says, &quot;We must be guided in this respect by times and circumstances &quot; (Henry, i. 37 1). 1 Nor does he put forward any theory as to the details the number, method of choice, or period of office. All these he leaves to each individual church. (4) He does not include synods as necessary. Should contro versy arise respecting doctrine (iv. 9, 13), there is no better or more certain remedy, he says, than to assemble a council of true &quot; bishops,&quot; in which the controverted doc trine may be discussed. Regarding the question histori cally he gives to the ancient councils a modified approbation, but he denies the power of councils to frame new doctrine. With regard to the relations between the church and 1 On the question of the jus divinum of the eldership, see Lorimer, On the Eldership, especially the tract therein by James Guthrie, who first suggested the idea in the middle of the 17th century, and two papers in the Records of the First General Presbyterisin Council, 1877 (pp. 52, 98), by Dr Cairns and Professor Lee, in the latter of which it is stated with wonderful confidence that &quot;Calvin himself holds that we may rest the doctrine of a divine warrant for the ruling eldership on the ground mentioned in List., iv. 3, 8.&quot; the state, Calvin was utterly opposed to the Zwinglian Calvin on theory, whereby all ecclesiastical power was handed over church to the state. The political administration, he says, is as a &quot; necessary to human weakness as are food and light and air ; but it has not the right to legislate for religion or divine worship, though it must take care that the gospel religion is not insulted or injured. &quot; The church of God stands in need of a certain spiritual polity, which, however, is entirely distinct from civil polity, and is so far from obstructing or weakening it, that on the contrary it highly conduces to its assistance and advancement&quot; (iv. 11, 2). &quot; The church does not assume to itself what belongs to the magistrate, nor can the magistrate execute that which is executed by the church.&quot; Thus, the magistrate imprisons a man for drunkenness ; the church excommunicates him, and regards him spiritually as an outlaw. Should he re pent, the magistrate takes no cognizance of his repentance, but the church can do so by allowing him to return to communion. The magistrate makes laws, and God makes laws; the breach of the one is a &quot;crime,&quot; that of the latter is a &quot;sin,&quot; though perhaps no crime; it is with the sin that the church deals. The magistrate may neglect to punish magisterially; the church, with spiritual penalty, supplies the neglect. But, though the church disclaims interference with the domain of the state, she expects the state to support her. Indeed, while Calvin utterly abjures the thought of an imperium in imperio, while he spends much labour in showing how the papacy, by continual encroachments, secured the civil power, and in condemning this confusion of two distinct spheres of action, the function of giving support to the church is in the Calvinistic system really the raison d etre of the state. In a very remarkable passage (iv. 20, 3) Calvin s position is clearly shown. A well- ordered state, that for which the best of the popes strove, is a theocracy. There can be no question as to what doctrine is right, for the law of God, the only possible doctrine, is plainly stated in the Bible. That law is the highest thing that a state can regard ; it is indeed the very life of the state, and the position of the state towards the church follows at once. The words &quot; toward the church &quot; alone introduce the difficulty. They should be &quot;toward God.&quot; If the state fail to support the church, it fails to support, not a human, but a divine organization. In the infliction of punishments, for example, the magistrate should regard himself merely as executing the judgments of God. So that the objection of the imperium in imperio, the assertion that the church claims spiritual liberty inde pendent of the judgment of the state, while at the same time insisting on the support of that state whose authority she thus disregards, falls to the ground. The civil magis tracy is as much a divine institution as is the ministry of Christ ; the state and the church are as much one as are the veins and the blood which permeates and vivifies them. The fallacy in all this is obvious. The argument neces sarily presupposes a theocracy, and such a thing did not exist in Europe. A state church, claiming at once inde pendence of the state and support from the state, must bring about contest and complication where the state is not prepared to recognize the claim. The imperium in imperio difficulty (expressed most briefly by James I. s &quot; No bishop, no king &quot;) arises acutely at once, however much the church may refuse to admit it. This was the case in Scotland. And where, as was the case in France, it is not a state church but a union of persons holding a religion, and therefore views on important matters, which differ from those of the Government, oppression must arise in an age ignorant of religious liberty, and the oppressed will become a political party opposed to the Government, however much they may disclaim the position.