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slavishly fettered," he writes in 1557, to Bullinger,' who insisted on the authority of the magistrate.,

Calvin, therefore, entirely rejected the idea of having the state govern the church, even though the state might have become evangelical. He wanted it to form a community sui generis, of which each member would have a certain share in the government. He made of each church a small democracy, and of the union of these churches a confederation.

Nowhere, perhaps, was the spirit of Calvin so strongly manifested, with regard to the independence of the church, as in the canton of Vaud. The church in that fine country stood between Geneva and Berne as between two conflicting forces. The spirit of independence and liberty seemed wasted to it from the walls of Geneva by the mighty breath of Calvin; whilst the military republic of Berne, desirous of preserving that power of the state, which for several centuries contributed to its greatness, endeavored, with a strong arm, to draw tighter the bonds and forms by which the state was attempting to restrain the church. Berne could not permit any part whatsoever of the public power to be withdrawn from the mighty hands of the state, not even in religious matAnd thus, when the Vaudois church claimed the free exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, the state feared lest, if this power were granted, its independence might thereby be acknowledged, in some degree. It was willing to allow discipline, but it wanted to exercise it by means of its own officers. 3

ters.

Nevertheless, Viret, Theodore Beza, and a number of other ministers maintained the principles of independence in the canton of Vaud. The ties uniting it to Berne were daily slackening, and all turned their eyes to Geneva. These two

1 Non puto tam serviliter nos constrictos teneri.

Vaud is a Swiss canton; the term Vaudois must not be confounded here with the French name of the Waldenses, which is spelt in the same way. TRANS.

Ordonnance de réformation des seigneurs de Berne. Voir Ruchat, 1837, tom. iv., p. 522. Pièces Justificatives.

great systems, placed in opposition to each other, rendered a crisis unavoidable. "A rupture was inevitable," says the learned Hundeshagen, (who is now a professor at Berne,) in his history of the struggles of that church. Thus, in the sixteenth century, two hundred and fifty years previous to its emancipation, the independence of the church was probably on the point of giving political independence to the Vaudois. people. But the bear' was the stronger. It rushed down roaring from its mountain heights; and Viret, and Beza, and Marlorat, and Merlin, with about forty of their brethren, all friends of the freedom of the church, had to fly from the country where they had preached the Gospel of Christ with so much joy, and went to enrich Geneva and the Reformed churches of France with their piety and their learning. The free church of Scotland was allowed to remain in the very scene of the struggle; but the free church of Vaud, having its strongest limbs broken, and its hands chained together by a powerful republic, was obliged to leave its smiling villages, its valleys, and its mountains; .... and the fettered church alone remained. The whole classis of pastors was imprisoned for two days in the castle of Lausanne; and not one was allowed to leave that prison until he had promised to appear at the first summons. At the same time the state withdrew from the church the power of convoking either classes or colloquies in future. Thus Vaud was the scene of the complete triumph of the state over the church. "Order reigned in Warsaw." That order, which followed one of the most memorable struggles of Christianity, has endured for three centuries, and the influence of the Bernese principles has so pervaded that beautiful country, in the course of time, that if the eloquent voices of Viret and Beza are heard here and there amidst the ruins, claiming the rights of the church of Jesus Christ, those sounds which have lasted for three centu

The bear is the emblem of the Bernese Republic.

The Classis is equivalent to our Presbytery; the Colloquy to our Conference.-TRANS.

ries are, strangely enough, taken for modern words and theories of the day.

Without doubt, there were relations between church and state in Calvin's system, but they were so little essential, that, two years since, at the time of our revolution, it was enough that a few voices recalled these principles of the Reform, to place these relations in imminent danger of being broken. Let us then mark this, that, although there is now a recrudescence of nationality in some minds, though there are some honorable Christians who preach a blind submission, and who are opposed to allowing citizens and believers to respectfully request in petitions, that the liberty which has been promised them by oath, and has been secured to them by the constitution itself of their country, should be given them-still, let us mark this, that such a mode of acting is an invasion of Lutheranism, of a false Lutheranism, as well as a great deviation from the principles of the Reform.

Freedom in matters of the church, and in those of the state, is our antiquity; this is our custom; this is our tradition; and we are its preservers. It would be a revolutionary deed to take from the Reform that noble love of freedom.

It is time to close.

"The Catholic church," says Lange, "is the church of Priests; the Lutheran church is that of Theologians; the Reformed church is that of the Faithful." We accept this definition, observing, nevertheless, that Lange's idea is, that the very catholicism of the Reformed church makes it attribute, both to doctors and pastors, the place belonging to them.

Were it necessary to give a motto to the Reform, what ought to be inscribed on its banner? I would choose this:Above, GRACE,

Below, CATHOLICISM AND LIBERTY.

GRACE, for its doctrine. Grace, in its fulness and its eternity, from the first movement of the regenerated heart, to the entire accomplishment of its salvation.

CATHOLICISM and LIBERTY for the church.

Catholicism. Assuredly the Reformed church possesses it, for it has never ceased to make the great Christian union one of its most fervent desires, one of its dearest objects. It possesses it in a far higher degree than the self-styled Catholic church, which has ever unhesitatingly cut off from its communion every man who has had any degree of truth and life. It did so to Jansenius, and almost to Fenelon.

But if Grace is the sun of the Reform, and if Catholicism is one of its poles, Liberty is the other pole. Catholicism for that church as a body, and liberty for its individual members. Individuality and catholicism are both equally essential to it; and to rise against either of them is to cease to be Reformed.

Thus, in the day when the Lord will bring his army together in holy solemnity, in the day when the body of Christ will unite its scattered members, the Reformed church will advance, bringing as a gift to the new church these three things which will abide: Grace, Catholicism, Liberty. What other church can bring so sublime an offering?

We say then in conclusion, let us be intelligent, faithful and unchangeable sons of the Reform; let us be such, not only here, in Geneva, but in Lausanne, in Neuchâtel, in all Switzerland, in France, in Holland, in Scotland, in England, in Germany, in America. The fate of the church depends on this.

Shall we forget our fathers, their principles, their struggles, their faithfulness, their blood? Whilst they took such care to preserve the Reform pure, not only in relation to Popery, but also in all its secondary aspects, shall we lightly forsake the precious principles of their faith? Shall we walk over their tombs, treading under foot their bones and scattering their ashes to the winds?

Doubtless, Lutheranism has its work as well as ours. Doubtless Lutheranism and the Reform ought to walk hand in hand beneath the banner of Christ, to the conquest of the world. And, that we should do our ally the service which he has a right to expect of us, we must be ourselves. And are we that?

Ah! He who wrote to the seven churches of Asia those

Revival-letters, speaks to us too. are whose "hands fall down, and

he exclaims to the Reform:

Seeing how many there whose knees are feeble,"

"Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Keep that which is committed to thy trust by the spirit which dwelleth in thee."

The Reform is the church of the present day; the Confession of the present, as a German writer calls it. Its special work, given to it by the Lord, is the bringing together of the nations. Let it then advance with freedom and courage in the world, and let it there accomplish the sacred function which it has received from the Most High, and, as the sixteenth century was the century of a great separation, may the nineteenth become, by the prayers and labors of the Reform, the century of a great union.

"I will make thee a pillar in the temple of my God."

ARTICLE VII.

DOMINICI DIODATI I. C. NEAPOLITANI, DE CHRISTO GRÆCE LOQUENTE EXERCITATIO.

Translated by O. T. DOBBIN, LL. D., of Western Independent College, Exeter, England.

Continued from page 476, Vol. XII.

$5. The Jews taught their children the Greek alphabet in their schools.

To the points already enlarged upon is added another, drawn from the book De Infantia Domini, or the Protevangelion of Thomas, lately published by the learned John

"Die Confession der Gegenwart."-LANGE.

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