pope or the clergy, were in the people as politically organized, or (wherever the Reformation came by a political revolution) in the Protestant as distinguished from the Romanist people. Arrangements were therefore made for the reforming of ecclesiastical institutions-such as public worship, the choice and induction of ministers, the administration of sacraments, and the infliction of censures-in conformity with the theory which it will be convenient to designate as Nationalism. The underlying idea was that the baptized people of an independent state, being a distinct church, were as independent of Rome as Rome was of them, while they were also a constituent part of the true church catholic. Before the Reformation there was no ecclesiastical independence any where in Western Christendom. National churches, if any body thought of such a thing, were only portions of one organized and governed church—the Roman Catholic.

Where kings or sovereign princes led the Reformation, and had the shaping of its institutions, the reconstructed church government was, essentially if not in name, episcopal. In proportion as the political element concurring with the religious reformers was popular, the new church government was essentially presbyterian, or classical and synodical, tending toward the independence and self-government of each particular congregation, but guarding the official authority as well as the parity of the clergy. At Geneva, Calvin, not to be out-voted by fellow-presbyters unfriendly to the Ref ormation, established a consistory in which representatives of the laity, annually chosen, were consessors with the clergy. That consistory at Geneva became a model of government for the churches of the Reformation in France, in the Netherlands, in various German cities and principalities, and in Scotland; and the laymen whose voices and votes in the consistory were to check the power of the ministers were afterward called "lay-elders."

It would be folly to suppose that the Reformers, as dis

tinguished from the secular powers that protected or befriended them, regarded themselves as having achieved their own ideal of church organization. On the contrary, they seem to have regarded the various ecclesiastical systems resulting from the Reformation as obviously imperfect, and to have accepted them as the best they could obtain in the circumstances. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, and Latimer wanted something better, and hoped that in another age the work begun by them would be completed. The religious tendency, in the reconstruction of ecclesiastical institutions, was in the direction of a theory which was nowhere realized.'

Nine years after the beginning of the Reformation in Germany (1526), there was prepared for the churches of the great principality of Hesse, or Hessia, a scheme of ecclesiastical order which was almost a purely Congregational platform, but which never went into operation there. Francis Lambert, of Avignon, was the author of it. A fugitive from France, he had found in Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, a protector and a patron. In an informal synod convened by Philip to settle the Reformation in his principality, the exiled Frenchman had the opportunity of presenting certain theses on church government which he had published not long before under the title of "Paradoxes ;" and a plan of reformation was adopted by the synod in conformity with the views which he had gained from a careful and independent study of the Scriptures.

The method which Lambert proposed, and which the informal synod seems to have heartily approved, provides, first, for the organization of local churches. It "contemplates the formation of a pure congregation of true believers, in which the right of ecclesiastical self-government should be exercised immediately by the congregation, not mediately through representatives and delegates." Reasons for the self-government of parochial churches were adduced from the Script

1 Gieseler, "Eccl. Hist." (translated by Prof. H. B. Smith), iv., 520–532.

ures.

"The law of Christ, in Matt. xviii., requires it to be 'told to the church' when a brother will not hear admonition; but the church of God is nothing but the assembly of believers. The believers must therefore be assembled from time to time, otherwise it would not be possible for the contumacy of an offending brother to be reported to them. Furthermore, according to the word of Paul (1 Cor. v.), the believers must be gathered together for the public censure and excommunication of a scandalous person. There are other purposes, also, for which the believers must assemble -to pass judgment on the sentiments of their pastors; to elect, and, if necessary, to depose bishops and deacons (that is, parish ministers and their assistants), and officers for the care of the poor,1 and to decide on any other matter that concerns the whole Church.

"Accordingly," said the author of the plan, "we ordain that in every parish, after the Word of God has been preached for a sufficient length of time, a meeting of believers shall be held, in which all men who are on Christ's side and are reckoned with the saints shall come together, in order that they may, in conjunction with the bishop "—that is, the bishop of that parish-"settle all the affairs of the church according to the word of God. Believing women may attend the meeting, but without the right of voting.

"But inasmuch as opposers of the faith ought not to be admitted to the assembly of the faithful, let a separation between true and false brethren be undertaken in the following way: After the word of God has been preached for a time, let the minister invite all believers to a meeting on the next Sunday, at which, however, only those are expected to be present who are willing to submit themselves to the word of God, and in particular to the rule that whosoever

1 Another account of this platform describes it as providing for "two kinds of church officers "the pastors (episcopi) and their helpers (diaconi, or adjutores episcoporum), on the one hand, and the almoners (diaconi ecclesiarum) on the other hand.

gives offense by evil-doing shall be put out of the church. After this has been repeatedly announced, and after the people have been individually exhorted to repentance and amendment of life, shall the meeting take place. Those who are not willing to devote themselves to a life of Christian piety shall withdraw, and shall be considered not as brethren, but as heathen men and 'those that are without.' Let prayer, however, be made for these as well as for the brethren.

"The power of excommunication and absolution by no means rests with the bishop alone, but only with him in conjunction with the church. But those who wish to be numbered with the saints, and to put themselves under the Christian discipline, are to be enrolled in a register-not shrinking from this even when they are very few in number; let them be assured of this, that through the operation of God's word their number shall speedily increase, even though, at the outset, it be no more than twenty or thirty.

"In the congregations of brethren or saints that may be organized as the result of these preparatory steps, all church business is to be transacted-choice of ministers, excommunication, restoration; the bishop, to whom it belongs to preside in the meeting, seeing to it that, in accordance with the word of God, every one shall have a patient hearing.”

Such was the plan which Francis Lambert, in the early years of the Reformation, had deduced from the precedents and principles of the New Testament. The church, as organized and governed, was to be a local or parochial institution, complete in every parish. It was to be constituted, not by including all baptized inhabitants, but by a separation. of its members from such as were not willing to submit themselves to the word of God, and by mutual agreement. The church thus constituted was to be self-governed, having power over its members to admonish the erring, to excommunicate the stubborn offender, to restore the penitent. It was to have power over its officers, both bishops and deacons -the power to elect, to judge, and, if necessary, to depose.

The bishop-each church having a bishop or bishops of its own-was to preside in the church-meeting, but was to have no power of exclusion from communion without the votes of the brethren. In every parish the brotherhood of believers was to be, simply and purely, a spiritual democracy under Christ.

Another part of the platform made provision for a yearly synod of the churches, which was to be "composed of the assembled pastors and of delegates chosen immediately before in the church-meetings." The functions and powers of the synod were defined in a remarkable accordance with the powers and functions of councils in the polity of the New England churches, the most important difference being that the synod was to meet annually at a fixed time and place, instead of being convened like a New England council on a definite occasion and at a special call. In the annual meeting there was to be an examination of the doings of congregations in the choice and removal of pastors, an inspection and superintendence of the three visitors annually appointed, and finally the decision of questions and difficulties laid before them by the churches. But it was declared in an intensely Congregational spirit, "that the word of God outweighs a majority;" and that the decisions of the synod were to be set forth solely on the authority of substantial proofs from Scripture for the edification of all the churches, and were to be announced not as decrees or statutes, but only as "the answer of the Hessian Synod."

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Yet-and this was the greatest defect-the church was not to be completely separated from the state, but was still to be in some sort under the superintendence of the secular government. The business occurring between one synod and the next was to be in the charge, partly, of a select synodal committee of thirteen, partly of three visitors, to be

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'Major enim est Dei sermo omni hominum multitudine; et melius est adherere uni habenti verbum Domini, quam multis proprium judicium sequentibus."