THE NEW SCHAFF-IIERZOG
ary. If the interest of Calvin had been confined to indi^^dual discipline, he would have been satisfied, like Zwingli, with the moral surveillance which was zealously and often rigorously exerciseil by the magistrate. But as the honor of Christ seemed to him to demand the independent exercise of ecclesiastical functions, he could not tolerate the refusal of a parocliial organization. The church can solve her ethical problem only if she forms herself according to her own principles. Calvin realized his plan only after his expulsion from Geneva, in his independent congregation at Strasburg, and thence brought it back to Geneva.
Immediately after his return in 1.541, the Ordonnanccs ccclesiastiques were drawn up and approved by the two coimcils and the assembly of citizens. The church order establishes as a basis the four offices (pasteurs, docteurs, anciens, diacres) which the Lord instituted for the government of his church. It is the task of the people to create a congregation that enjoys the blessings of God in a becoming manner and with a mature consciousness, especially in the sacraments. For the regular supervision over the congregation, the college of elders is instituted (officially called Consistoire), consisting of the clergymen and twelve members of the different colleges of council. The lay elders are elected by the smaller council on the initiative of
the pastor. Their discipline covers 3. Genevan matters of faith and morals. Smaller Ecclesiasti- offenses were adjusted by the personal cal Tri- admonition of an elder; obstinate bunals. sinners were summoned before the
college which met every week. If they remained in their rebellious disposition, they were excluded from the Lord's Supper or the congregation of believers. Obstinate opposition against the religion of the state and its institutions was reported to the secular authorities, who infhcted their own penalties. There resulted an intolerable confusion of ecclesiastical and secular power; these conditions, however, were due not so much to the peculiar ecclesiastical theories of Calvin as to the spirit of the time, which could not conceive the possibility of different religions existing side by side in one single State. It is rather due to Calvin that, in spite of this general view, the Church was not absorbed altogether in the State.
The spirit of the ordinances of Geneva rules in all later Reformed church orders. In the French Protestant Church the purely ecclesiastical character of discipline found a clearer expression, owing
to the fact that this church had to be France ^^^^ independently of the State
and even in opposition to it. It is the difference between theocracy and free churchism. The degrees of discipline were the same as in Geneva. The discipline of the Church extends not only over gross vices, but strives after honesty and modesty in the whole conduct of life. It was also earnestly intent upon the preservation of the right confession.
The church order of Lasco in London dates from 1550. It shares the view of Calvin that the Church, according to the word of God, needs a special government and discipline with a presbyterial
constitution, but it embodies a freer democratic spirit. Puritanism in England received its characteristic stamp from Scotland. The congregation of strangers, formed by John Knox
5. In Great in Geneva, followed closely in the Britain, wake of Calvin, and their Book of
Common Order (1558) took whole pages from the " Institutes," but after their removal to Scotland the fear of hierarchism led them into the paths of Lasco. Under its king Christ and according to his word in Matt. xvi. and xviii., the congregation rules itself by its officers: ministers, or teaching elders; ruling elders, including the pastor, for the supervision of morals in the congregation; and deacons. Presbyterial Puritanism found its completion in the Westminster Standards of 1647, the discipline of which exerted great influence upon the whole non-episcopal English- American Protestantism.
Another group is formed by Holland, East Frisia, and the German Lower Rhine, the ecclesiastical discipline of which was based upon the orders of the Wesel Convention (1568) and the Emden Synod (1571). Here the chief stress is laid upon the moral and social organization. The Lord's Supper belongs only to members of a constituted church.
Each elder possesses his own district,
6. In Hoi- ^'iid his duty is chiefly pastoral. The land and. elders are to visit the members of the Germany, congregation regularly, together with
their pastor. Upon this solid substructure the different degrees of discipline were built up. In the other German territories which received their Calvinism from their rulers, efforts to introduce church discipline were made, but in many cases they were obstructed by unfavorable conditions. Hesse-Cassel derived its order of discipline from the time when it was Lutheran, but the Palatinate furnished the example for other territories. Here it was only in 1750 that the congregations received presbyteries, and not till a century later was a presbyterial order thoroughly worked out and put into operation at the time when in other territories the Reformed Church was reconstructed, after the Thirty Years' War. The organization of the college of elders and the degrees of discipline correspond exactly to the French church order, but the whole is put into the frame of the State, the presbyteries being dependent upon the secular authorities.
Modern times have greatly modified or in part abolished the old orders of discipline, not only in Germany, but also in France and Switzerland. The principle of alliance superseded the order of individual congregations. The Dutch Chur ch has preserved considerable reranantfs of the
7. Modern old discipline, but the firmest con- Modifica- nection with their historicaK origin
tions. has been maintained by the^ Presbyterian churches — their strict \prder of church-membership forms still a solid basis of discipline. The Scottish Free Church returned even consciously to the old traditions. In Germany the old remnants of Reformed discipline are being met with the beginnings of a general Evangelical reorganization. (E. F Karl MCller.)