§ 73. Calvin's call. 315
gregation, and identified ordination with vocation. "Whoever is called," he says, " is ordained, and must preach : this is our Lord's consecration and true chrism." He even consecrated, by a bold irregularity, his friend Amsdorf as superintendent of Naumburg, to show that he could make a bishop as well as the pope, and could do it without the use of consecrated oil.
Calvin was regularly elected pastor and teacher of theology at Geneva in 1536 by the presbyters and the council, with the consent of the whole people.^
This popular election \vas a revival of the primitive custom. The greatest bishops of the early Church — such as Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustin — were elected by the voice of the people, which they obeyed as the voice of God.
We are not informed whether Calvin was solemnly introduced into his office by prayer and the laying on of the hands of presbyters (such as Farel and Viret), after the apostolic custom (1 Tim. 4 : 14), which is observed in the Reformed Churches. He did not regard ordination as absolutely indispensable, but as a venerable rite sanctioned by the practice of the Apostles which has the force of a precept.^ He even ascribed to it a semi-sacramental character. " The imposition of hands," he says, " which is used at the introduction of the true presbyters and ministers of the Church into their office, I have no objection to consider as a sacrament ; for, in the first place, that sacrament is taken from the Scripture, and, in the next place, it is declared by Paul to be not unnecessary or useless, but a faithful symbol of spiritual grace (1 Tim. 4 : 14). I have not enumerated it as a third among the sacraments, because it is not ordinary
^ Beza, Vita C. (XXI. 125 sq.) : " Suffragiis presbyter ii et magistratus, accedente plebis consensu, delectus non concionator tantum (hoc autem primum recuserat), sed etiam sacrarum literarum doctor, quod unum admittehat, est designatus anno Domini MDXXXVI mense Augusta." Comp. CoUadon, ibid. fol. 58 sq. : "declare Pasteur et Docteur en ceste Eglise \_de Geneve'] avec legitime election et approbation." - Inst. IV. ch. III. § 16.
316 THE REFOEMATION IN FKENCH SWITZEKLAND.
or common to all the faithful, but a special rite for a particular office. The ascription of this honor to the Christian ministry, however, furnishes no reason of pride in Roman priests ; for Christ has commanded the ordination of ministers to dispense his Gospel and his mysteries, not the inauguration of priests to offer sacrifices. He has commissioned them to preach the Gospel and to feed his flock, and not to immolate victims." ^
The evangelical ministry in the non-episcopal Churches was of necessity presbyterial, that is, descended from the presbyterate, which was originally identical with the episcopate. Even the Church of England, during her formative period under the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, recognized the validity of presbyterial ordination, not only in the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of the Continent, but within her own jurisdiction, as in the cases of Peter Martyr, professor of theology at Oxford ; Bucer, Fagius, and Cartwright, professors at Cambridge ; John a Lasco, pastor in London ; Dean Whittingham of Durham, and many others.^
2. But whence did Calvin and the other Reformers derive their authority to reform the old Catholic Church and to found new Churches ? Here we must resort to a special divine call and outfit. The Reformers belong not to the regular order of priests, but to the irregular order of prophets whom God calls directly by his Spirit from the plough or the shepherd's staff or the workshop or the study. So he raises and endows men with rare genius for poetry or art or science or invention or discovery. All good gifts come from God; but the gift of genius is exceptional, and cannot be derived or propagated by ordinary descent. There are divine irregularities as well as divine regularities. God writes on a
1 Institutes, IV. oh. XIX. § 28. (In Tholuck's ed. II. 470.) ■•^ Keble says in his Introduction to Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity : " Nearly up to the time when Hooker wrote (1594), numbers had been admitted to the ministry of the Church of England with no better than presbyterial ordination."