and queens nursing-mothers" to the Church. He refers to the examples of Moses, Joshua and the Judges, David, Josiah, and Hezekiah.

Here is the critical point where religious persecution by the State comes in as an inevitable consequence. Offences against the Church are offences against the State, and vice versa, and deserve punishment by fines, imprisonment, exile, and, if necessary, by death. On this ground the execution of Servetus and other heretics was justified by all who held the same theory; fortunately, it has no support whatever in the New Testament, but is directly contrary to the spirit of the gospel.

Geneva, after the emancipation from the power of the bishop and the duke of Savoy, was a self-governing Republic under the protection of Bern and the Swiss Confederacy. The civil government assumed the episcopal power, and exercised it first in favor, then against, and at last permanently for the Reformation.

The Republic was composed of all citizens of age, who met annually in general assembly (conseil général), usually in St. Peter's, under the sounding of bells and trumpets, for the ratification of laws and the election of officers. The administrative power was lodged in four Syndics; the legislative power in two councils, the Council of Sixty, and the Council of Two Hundred. The former existed since 1457; the latter was instituted in 1526, after the alliance with Freiburg and Bern, in imitation of the Constitution of these and other Swiss cities. The Sixty were by right members of the Council of Two Hundred. In 1530 the Two Hundred assumed the right to elect the ordinary or little Council of Twenty-Five, who were a part of the two other councils and had previously been elected by the Syndics. The real power lay in the hands of the Syndics and the little Council of Twenty-five, which formed an oligarchy with legislative, executive, and judicial functions.

Calvin did not change these fundamental institutions of the Republic, but he infused into them a Christian and disciplinary spirit, and improved the legislation. He was appointed, together with the Syndics Roset, Porral, and Balard, to draw up a new code of laws, as early as Nov. 1, 1541.1 He devoted much time to this work, and paid attention even to the minutest details concerning the administration of justice, the city police, the military, the firemen, the watchmen on the towers, and the like.2

The city showed her gratitude by presenting him with “a cask of old wine" for these extra services.3

Many of his regulations continued in legal force down to the eighteenth century.

Calvin was consulted in all important affairs of the State, and his advice was usually followed; but he never occupied a political or civil office. He was not even a citizen of Geneva till 1559 (eighteen years after his second arrival), and never appeared before the councils except when some ecclesiastical question was debated, or when his advice was asked. It is a mistake, therefore, to call him the head of the Republic, except in a purely intellectual and moral sense.

The code of laws was revised with the aid of Calvin by his friend, Germain Colladon (1510-1594), an eminent jurisconsult and member of a distinguished family of French

1 Reg. du Conseil, in Annal. vol. XXI. 287. Comp. vol. X. Pars I. 125. 2 In the Grand Ducal Library of Gotha are preserved several drafts of Calvin, in his own handwriting, on the various departments of civil government, especially the reform of judicial proceedings. They are published in Opera, X. Pars I. 125-146. "Nicht ohne Bewunderung," says Kampschulte (I. 416), "sehen wir in ihnen den gelehrten Verfasser der Institution selbst den untergeordneten Fragen der städtischen Verwaltung und Polizei seine Aufmerksamkeit zuwenden. Da finden wir ausführliche Instructionen für den Bauaufseher, Anordnungen für den Fall einer Feuersbrunst, Anweisungen für den Aufseher des städtischen Geschützwesens, Verhaltungsregeln sogar für den Nachtwächter, für die Ketten-, Thor-, und Thurmhüter."

3 "Resoluz quil luy soyt donné ung bossot de vin vieulx de celluy de l'hospital." Registre du Conseil, Nov. 17, 1542, quoted in Annal. vol. XXI. 305, and in Opera, X. P. I. 125.

refugees who settled at Geneva. The revised code was begun in 1560, and published in 1568.1

Among the laws of Geneva we mention a press law, the oldest in Switzerland, dated Feb. 15, 1560. Laws against the freedom of the press existed before, especially in Spain. Alexander VI., a Spaniard, issued a bull in 1501, instructing the German prelates to exercise a close supervision over printers. Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic established a censorship which prohibited, under severe penalties, the printing, importation, and sale of any book that had not previously passed an examination and obtained a license. Rome adopted the same policy. Other countries, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, followed the example. In Russia, the severest restrictions of the press are still in force.

The press law of Geneva was comparatively moderate. It put the press under the supervision of three prudent and experienced men, to be appointed by the government. These men have authority to appoint able and trustworthy printers, to examine every book before it is printed, to prevent popish, heretical, and infidel publications, to protect the publisher against piracy; but Bibles, catechisms, prayers, and psalms may be printed by all publishers; new translations of the Scriptures are privileged in the first edition.2

The censorship of the press continued in Geneva till the eighteenth century. In 1600 the Council forbade the printing of the essays of Montaigne; in 1763 Rousseau's Emile was condemned to be burned.

1 On the Colladon family see La France Protestante, IV. 510 sqq. (second ed. by Bordier). Another distinguished member was Nicolas Colladon, who published a Life of Calvin in 1565, and succeeded him in the chair of theology in 1566.

2 The Spanish censorship was applied to the vernacular versions of the Bible, the works of Erasmus, all Protestant books, the Mystics and Illuminati, the Molinists and Quietists. The natural consequence of this tyranny was the decadence of intellectual and literary activity. See H. C. Lea, Chapters from the Religious History of Spain connected with the Inquisition, Philadelphia, 1890.

It should be noted, however, that under the influence of Calvin Geneva became one of the most important places of publication. The famous Robert Stephen (Étienne, 15031559), being censured by the Sorbonne of Paris, settled in Geneva after the death of his father, Henri, as a professed Protestant, and printed there two editions of the Hebrew Bible, and an edition of the Greek Testament, with the Vulgate and Erasmian versions, in 1551, which for the first time contains the versicular division of the text according to our present usage. To him we owe the Thesaurus Linguæ Latina (third ed. 1543, in 4 vols.), and to his son, Henri, the Thesaurus Linguæ Græcæ (1572, 4 vols.). Beza published several editions of his Greek Testament in Geneva (1565– 1598), which were chiefly used by King James' translators. In the same city appeared the English version of the New Testament by Whittingham, 1557; then of the whole Bible, 1560. This is the so-called "Geneva Bible," or "Breeches Bible" (from the rendering of Gen. 3:7), which was for a long time the most popular English version, and passed through about two hundred editions from 1560 to 1630.1 Geneva has well maintained its literary reputation to this day.

§ 102. Distinctive Principles of Calvin's Church Polity.

Calvin was a legislator and the founder of a new system of church polity and discipline. He had a legal training, which was of much use to him in organizing the Reformed Church at Geneva. If he had lived in the Middle Ages, he might have been a Hildebrand or an Innocent III. But the spirit of the Reformation required a reconstruction of church government on an evangelical and popular basis.

Calvin laid great stress on the outward organization and order of the Church, but in subordination to sound doctrine and the inner spiritual life. He compares the former to the

1 The Bibles in the Carton Exhibition, London, 1878, p. 95.

body, while the doctrine which regulates the worship of God, and points out the way of salvation, is the soul which animates the body and renders it lively and active.1

The Calvinistic system of church polity is based upon the following principles, which have exerted great influence in the development of Protestantism:

1. The autonomy of the Church, or its right of selfgovernment under the sole headship of Christ.

The Roman Catholic Church likewise claims autonomy, but in a hierarchical sense, and under the supreme control of the pope, who, as the visible vicar of Christ, demands passive obedience from priests and people. Calvin vests the self-government in the Christian congregation, and regards all the ministers of the gospel, in their official character, as ambassadors and representatives of Christ. "Christ alone," he says, "ought to rule and reign in the Church, and to have all preeminence in it, and this government ought to be exercised and administered solely by his word; yet as he dwells not among us by a visible presence, so as to make an audible declaration of his will to us, he uses for this purpose the ministry of men whom he employs as his delegates, not to transfer his right and honor to them, but only that he may himself do his work by their lips; just as an artificer makes use of an instrument in the performance of his work." 2

In practice, however, the autonomy both of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and of the Protestant Churches is more or less curtailed and checked by the civil government wherever Church and State are united, and where the State supports the Church. For self-government requires self-support. Calvin intended to institute synods, and to make the clergy

1 "De necessitate reformandæ Ecclesia" (Opera, VI. 459 sq.): “Regimen in ecclesia, munus pastorale, et reliquus ordo, una cum sacramentis, instar corporis sunt ; doctrina autem illa, quæ rite colendi Dei regulam præscribit, et ubi salutis fiduciam debeant hominum conscientiæ ostendit, anima est, quæ corpus ipsum inspirat, vividum et actuosum reddit; facit denique, ne sit mortuum et inutile cadaver."

2 Inst. IV. ch. III. § 1.