RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Merit Merodach
ical Society of Geneva (q.v.) had been formed during his absence, and for the rest of his life he labored as professor in the theological school which it founded, lecturing chiefly on church history and doctrine, but also on symbolics, homiletics, catechetics, ecclesiology, and pastoral duties. In 1832 he founded the weekly Gazette evangelique and, with Gaussen and Galland, he preached for the congregation of the Society in the Chapelle de 1'Oratoire. The Genevan Church naturally looked with suspicion on the new society, and the Company of Pastors forbade the pulpit to Merle d'Aubign6 and his associates. The former had Christian unity deeply at heart, but he felt that he could not allow any external authority to interfere with his office as a preacher of the Gospel. So, reluctantly and under compulsion, as he believed, in 1835 he consented that the Lord's Supper should be administered in the Oratoire, thereby making the congregation independent of the State Church. The final step was taken in 1849 when the Oratoire was united with the old separated church of the Bourg-de-Four and the Evangelical Church (Eglise FLvangeUique) was formed. Two years later, when changes in the constitution of the national church were under consideration, he published La Liberie des cultes (Geneva, 1851; Eng. transl., The Separation of Church and State, published by the British Anti- State Church Association, London, 1851) and other tracts, demanding more power for the laity and that the congregations should have a voice in the choice of pastors, and herein his plea was successful. His contention that the constitution should not emanate from a political body which counted Roman Catholics among its members, but from a synod representing the Protestant citizens was not listened to. His view of the proper relations of Church and State did not exclude all power of the latter in certain external and secular matters. He would not have the Church receive its material support from the State; nor would he have a hard and fast compact, but an understanding limiting the sphere of each by mutual agreement. Concerning the form of church government, he held the presbyterial most Scriptural; but refused to condemn Episcopalians or Congregationalists because of their preference.
The first volume of the history of the Reformation appeared in 1835, the thirteenth and last in 1878 (the last three volumes published posthumously). The entire work comprises two parts, the
first (La Reformation du seizieme siecle, Writings. 5 vols., Paris, 1835-53; Eng. transl.
by D. Walther, 3 vols., London, 1838- 1841, by H. White, 5 vols., Edinburgh, 1846-53, and others) treating of the time of Luther, about whom are grouped Zwingli and Farel in Switzerland and the predecessors of the Reformation in France and England (vol. v.=La Reformation d'Angleterre). In the second part (La Reformation en Europe au temps de Calvin, 8 vols., Paris, 1863-78; Eng. transl., 8 vols., London, 1863-78) Geneva is made the central point of the narrative. The author's chief merit is the patient search for the sources and penetrating study of them. He writes with zeal and learning, earnestness, and charm of
style. His defects are an inclination toward pathos, and such a use of the sources as results in a partizan and prejudiced coloring of the narrative. The work appeared at a favorable time, and its success was remarkable, particularly in Englishspeaking lands.
The more noteworthy of Merle d'Aubignd's other publications, omitting numerous occasional sermons, are the following: Le Cult domestique (Paris, 1827; Eng. transl. London, 1846) ; Le Christianisme et le Protestantisme, sont-ils deux choses distinctesf (Paris, 1828); Discours sur I' etude de I' histoire du Christianisme (Geneva, 1832); La Voix de I'Eglise une sous toutes les formes successives (Geneva, 1834); Foi et science (Geneva, 1835); Les Miracles ou deux erreurs (Geneva, 1840); Geneve et Oxford (Geneva, 1842; Eng. transl., London, 1843); Le Lutheranisme et la Reforme (Geneva, 1844; Eng. transl., Luther and Calvin, Glasgow, 1844); Rome and the Reformation (London, 1844); Le Protecteur au la republique d'Angleterre aux jours de Cromwell (Paris, 1848; Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1847), a somewhat overdrawn apology for the English leader; Trois siecles de lutter en Ecosse (Geneva, 1850), a narrative of the struggle for religious liberty in Scotland from John Knox to the founding of the Free Church in 1843; L'Authorite des ecritures inspirees de Dieu (Geneva, 1850); Le Temoinage de la thiologie ou le biblicisme de Neander (Geneva, 1850); Deux discours prononces a Londres, exposition universelle (London, 1851); Quelle est la theologie propre d guerir les maux du temps actuelt (Geneva, 1852; Eng. transl., What is the Theology Fitted to Cure the Evils of the Present Time? Glasgow, 1853); L'Eglise et la diete de I'Eglise (Berlin, 1853; Eng. transl., The Church p,nd the Church Diet (London, 1854); Du caractere necessaire au theologien et au chretien dans I'epoque actuelle (Paris, 1845); Faith and Criticism Address Delivered at the Opening of the Presbyterian College, Belfast (Belfast, 1853; French ed., Geneva, 1854); Jean Chrysostdme (Geneva, 1854); Souvenir des derniers jours de Marianne Merle d'Aubigne nee Brelaz, his first wife (Geneva, 1855); L'Ancien et le ministre (Paris, 1857); L'Assemblee de Berlin ou unite et diversite dans I'eglise (Geneva, 1857); L'Orient ou Origene et la science — L'Occident ou Cyprien et la pratique (Geneva, 1857; Eng. transl. in Christianity in the First Three Centuries, Edinburgh, 1858); Vie et doctrine (Geneva, 1858); II y aun ministre de la parole (Paris, 1858); La Pierre sur laquelle I'Academie de Geneve fert posee en Juin, 1559 (Geneva, 1859); Le Reveil de I'eglise contemporaine (Toulouse, 1860); Septembre, 1861, ou V Alliance Evangelique a Geneve (Geneva, 1861); Caractere du Reformateur et de la Reformation du Geneve (Geneva, 1862); Enseignement de Calvin: glorifler Christ, address at the three-hundredth anniversary of Calvin's death (Geneva, 1864; Eng. transl., Calvin's Teaching for the Present Day, London, 1864); Les Coups et les enseignements de Dieu (Geneva, 1865); L'Expiation de la croix (Geneva, 1867; Eng. transl.. The Expiatory Sacrifice of the Cross, London, 1868); Jean Calvin un de fondateurs des libertes modernes (Geneva, 1868); Le Comite et Vinfallihilite (Geneva, 1870).
(DuCHEMIN.) Bibliography: J. Bonnet, Notice sur la vie et les ecrits de
Merle d'Aubigne, Paris, 1874.
MERODACH, mer'o-dac (Hebr. Merodak; Assyr. Marduk or Maruduk) : The god of light of Babylonia who revealed himself in the beneficent appearrance of the sun of the morning and of spring time. Long before the time of Hammurabi Merodach was brought, as son of Ea, into connection with the cult of healing in Eridu (see Babylonia, IV., § 2, VII., 2, §§3, 10), in the inscriptions is often sent as a messenger of good by his father, and is by him recognized as equal in knowledge, all of which is in accordance with his nature as a light deity and as the dispeller of the shadows of night and cold of winter. After Babylonia had been unified under Hammurabi, the priests of his temple based their claim for the rulership of the world by Babylon upon the alleged creation of the world by Merodach. To Merodach they applied the story of creation pre-
Merodach Mersetourg