Section V.
CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND WORSHIP.
The designation, “The Reformed Churches of France” (Les Eglises Reformées de France), instead of “The Reformed Church of France,” must not connect the Huguenots in the reader’s mind with the Independent or Congregationalist system of Church-Government. The national title had to be avoided, partly because Protestantism was tolerated, not throughout the kingdom but only in some places, and partly because it would have needlessly offended the priest-ridden rulers of the nation.
The Reformed doctrines and rites in France were Calvinistic. The worshippers were called Calvinists, not as persons convinced by the study of theological manuals, but as the spiritual offspring of Calvin himself — an ecclesiastical vineyard planted by his own labours. Because they never had bishops or episcopal ordination, Bishop Bossuet in his Pastoral Letter (page 11) thus reproached them:— “If your pretended pastors will speak the language and attribute to themselves the authority of true pastors, let them shew us the original of their ministry and, like St Cyprian and the other orthodox bishops, let them make us see that they are descended from any Apostle. Let them show us the eminent Chair, where all the churches preserve the Unity, where principally shines the concord and succession of Episcopacy. Open yourselves, my brethren, the books which you call your Ecclesiastical History; ‘tis Beza that has composed it. Open the history of these false martyrs whose unhappy number they would have you to augment. You will find that the first who modelled the Churches in France, which you call Reformed, were laics made pastors by laics, and by consequence always laymen, who dared at all times to take the law of God in their mouth, and without power did dare to administer the holy sacraments. Call to your remembrance Pierre Le Clerc, a wool-carder; I do not speak it in scorn of his profession, or to revile an honest trade, but to tax the ignorance, the presumption and the schism of a man who, without having predecessor or pastor to ordain him, bolts out of his shop to preside in the Church. It is he who carved out the pretended Reformed Church of Meaux, the first hatched in this kingdom, in the year 1546.”
The first Reformed Synod, which met on the 28th May 1559 and following days, drew up a Confession de Foi in Forty Articles and a Discipline Ecclesiastique in Forty Precepts. From these we discover the principles and practices of the Ecclesiastical system (they are printed in the Appendix to Haag’s La France Protestante, Piéces Nos. X. and XL). The Doctrinal Articles, from the 29th to the 33d, describe the Huguenot belief as to Ecclesiastical rule and rulers. The office-bearers are of three orders, Pasteurs, Surveillans, and Diacres [(1) pastores or pastors, (2) episcopi or overseers, (3) diaconi or deacons]. Instead of Surveillans, the word used in the precepts of Discipline is Ancicns (presbyteri or elders). The duties assigned to the pasteurs are similar to those of other Presbyterian Churches. The duties of the ancicns are to assemble the congregation, and to report scandals to the consistory; while the diacres are to visit the sick, the poor and prisoners, and to catechize from house to house. The elders and deacons are not elected for life, their continuance in office being intended to be of freewill, only they must apply for permission to resign. At an ecclesiastical meeting the president should be a pasteur; but with this limitation he is to be freely chosen at each meeting, and his position as chairman terminates with the meeting.
The above rules recognize two courts, a consistory and a synod. A consistory corresponded to a Scottish Kirk-Session, and was the local court for superintendence over the members of one congregation. Between this court and a Synod, there was another “meeting,” which, though not named in the rules, is implied. A considerable number of adjacent congregations were represented by their pasteurs, and by a corresponding number of selected elders, in a higher court of superintendence over congregations, called a Colloquy, the same as a Scottish Presbytery or an English Classis. Next in the ascending scale of courts was the Provincial Synod, the boundaries of whose jurisdiction over Colloquies could be conveniently mapped out, through the geographical division of France into provinces. And the supreme court was the National Synod, composed of representatives from the Provincial
