The early Presbyterianism of Switzerland was defective in the following respects: (1) It started from a wrong definition of the Church, which, instead of being conceived as an organized com munity of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, was made to depend upon the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. As these implied a duly appointed minister, the ex istence of the Church was made to depend upon an organized ministry rather than an organized membership. It calls to mind the Romish formula : "UN episcopus ibi ecclesia." (2) It did not maintain the scriptural right of the people to choose their minister and other office-bearers. (3) Its independence of civil control was very imperfect. (4) And it did not by means of church courts provide for the manifestation of the Church's unity and for the concentration of the Church's influence.
"Calvin," says Principal Lindsay, "did three things for Geneva all of which went far beyond its walls. He gave its Church a trained ministry, its homes an educated people who could give a reason for their faith, and the whole city an heroic soul which enabled the little town to stand forth as the citadel and city of refuge for the oppressed Protestants of Europe." France.—It is pathetic and yet inspiring to study the develop ment of Presbyterianism in France; pathetic because it was in a time of fierce persecution that the French Protestants organized themselves into churches, and inspiring, because it showed the power which scriptural organization gave them to withstand in cessant, unrelenting hostility. It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of Calvin upon French Protestanism. His Christi anae religionis institutio became a standard round which his coun trymen rallied in the work and battle of the Reformation. Though under thirty years of age, he became all over Europe, and in an exceptional degree in France, the leader, organizer and consoli dator of the Reformation. The work which the young Frenchman did for his countrymen was immense.
The year 1555 may be taken as the date when French Protest antism began to be organized. A few churches had been organ ized earlier, at Meaux in 1546 and at Nimes in 1547, but their members had been dispersed by persecution. Prior to 1555 the Protestants of France had been for the most part solitary Bible students or little companies meeting together for worship out i out any organization. The first organized church was formed in that year in Paris ; and from that date they began to spring up in all parts of the country.
In 1558 a further stage in the development of Presbyterian church polity was reached. Some doctrinal differences having arisen in the church at Poitiers, a synod was convened to meet in Paris the following year (1559). It was the first general synod of the French Protestant Church, and consisted of representatives from some say sixty-six, others, twelve churches. It adopted a confession of faith and a book of order or discipline. The con fession consisted of forty articles. It was based on a short con fession drafted by Calvin in 1557, and may still be regarded, though once or twice revised, as the confession of the French Protestant Church. The book of order, Discipline ecclesiastique des eglises ref ormees de France, regulated the organization and procedure of the churches. It contains this fundamental state ment of Presbyterian parity, "Aucune eglise ne pourra pretendre primaute ni domination sur l'autre; ni pareillement, les ministres d'une eglise les uns sur les autres ; ni les anciens ou diacres, les uns sur les autres"; and it explains various church courts, familiar to us now as Presbyterian. "It is interesting to see how in a coun try whose civil rule was becoming gradually more absolutist, this `Church under the cross' framed for itself a government which reconciled, more thoroughly perhaps than has ever been done since, the two principles of popular rights and supreme control. Its con
stitution has spread to Holland, Scotland (Ireland, England), and to the great American (and Colonial) churches. Their ecclesiasti cal polity came much more from Paris than from Geneva." To trace the history of Presbyterianism in France for the next thirty years would be to write the history of France itself during that period. We should have to tell of the great and rapid in crease of the Church; of its powerful influence among the nobles and the bourgeoisie; of its direful persecutions; of its St. Bar tholomew massacre with 70,000 victims; of its regrettable though perhaps inevitable entanglements in politics and war; and finally of its attaining not only tolerance but also honourable recognition and protection when Henry IV. in 1598 signed the famous Edict of Nantes. This secured complete liberty of conscience everywhere within the realm and the free right of public worship in all places in which it existed during the years 1596 and 1597, or where it had been granted by the edict of Poitiers (1577) interpreted by the convention of Nerac (1578) and the treaty of Fleix ( 1580)— in all some two hundred towns ; in two places in every bailliage and senechaussee; in the castles of Protestant seigneurs hauts justiciers (some three thousand) ; and in the houses of lesser nobles, pro vided the audience did not consist of more than thirty persons over and above relations of the family. Protestants were granted full civil rights and protection, and were permitted to hold their ecclesiastical assemblies. Under the protection of the edict the Huguenot Church of France flourished. Theological colleges were established at Sedan, Montauban and Saumur, and French theology became a counterpoise to the narrow Reformed scholas tic of Switzerland and Holland. The history of the Church from the passing of the edict of Nantes till its revocation in 1685 cannot be given here. That event was the climax of a long series of hor rors. Under the persecution, a large number were killed and be tween four and five millions of Protestants left the country. From 1760 owing to the gradual spread of the sceptical spirit and the teaching of Voltaire more tolerant views prevailed. In 1787 the Edict of Tolerance was published. In 1789 all citizens were made equal before the law, and the position of Presbyterianism im proved till 1791. In 180i and 1802 Napoleon took into his own hands the independence of both Catholic and Protestant Churches, the national synod was abolished, and all active religious propa ganda was rigorously forbidden. In 1848 an assembly representa tive of the eglises consistoriales met at Paris. When it refused to discuss points of doctrine a secession took place under the name of the Union des eglises evangeliques de France. This society held a synod at which a confession of faith and a book of order were drawn up. Meanwhile the national Protestant Church set itself to the work of reconstruction; and in 1852 a change took place in its constitution. The eglises consistoriales were abolished, and in each parish a presbyterial council was appointed, the minis ter being president, with f our to seven elders chosen by the people. In the large towns there were consistories composed of all the min isters and of delegates from the various parishes. Over all was the central provincial council consisting of the two senior ministers and fifteen members nominated by the state in the first instance. The vigour shown by the two groups of Presbyterian churches in France (whose members number nearly half the Protestant population) in the work of reorganization since the Great War, has helped to vitalize French Presbyterianism.