Although Calvin had an exalted idea of the spiritual dignity of the Church, he allowed a very dangerous interference of the State in ecclesiastical affairs, even while he would separate the functions of the clergy from those of the magistrates.  He allowed the State to pronounce the final sentence on dogmatic questions, and hence the power of the synod failed in Geneva.  Moreover, the payment of ministers by the State rather than by the people, as in this country, was against the old Jewish custom, which Calvin so often borrowed,—­for the priests among the Jews were independent of the kings.  But Calvin wished to destroy caste among the clergy, and consequently spiritual tyranny.  In his legislation we see an intense hostility to the Roman Catholic Church,—­one of the animating principles of the Reformers; and hence the Reformers, in their hostility to Rome, went from Sylla into Charybdis.  Calvin, like all churchmen, exalted naturally the theocratic idea of the old Jewish and Mediaeval Church, and yet practically put the Church into the hands of laymen.  In one sense he was a spiritual dictator, and like Luther a sort of Protestant pope; and yet he built up a system which was fatal to spiritual power such as had existed among the Catholic priesthood.  For their sacerdotal spiritual power he would substitute a moral power, the result of personal bearing and sanctity.  It is amusing to hear some people speak of Calvin as a ghostly spiritual father; but no man ever fought sacerdotalism more earnestly than he.  The logical sequence of his ecclesiastical reforms was not the aristocratic and Erastian Church of Scotland, but the Puritans in New England, who were Independents and not Presbyterians.

Yet there is an inconsistency even in Calvin’s regime; for he had the zeal of the old Catholic Church in giving over to the civil power those he wished to punish, as in the case of Servetus.  He even intruded into the circle of social life, and established a temporal rather than a spiritual theocracy; and while he overthrew the episcopal element, he made a distinction, not recognized in the primitive church, between clergy and laity.  As for religious toleration, it did not exist in any country or in any church; there was no such thing as true evangelical freedom.  All the Reformers attempted, as well as the Catholics, a compulsory unity of faith; and this is an impossibility.  The Reformers adopted a catechism, or a theological system, which all communicants were required to learn and accept.  This is substantially the acceptance of what the Church ordains.  Creeds are perhaps a necessity in well-organized ecclesiastical bodies, and are not unreasonable; but it should not be forgotten that they are formulated doctrines made by men, on what is supposed to be the meaning of the Scriptures, and are not consistent with the right of private judgment when pushed out to its ultimate logical consequence.  When we remember how few men are capable of interpreting