age and place; but this eternal and internal Church was, as it were, distributed into local and external Churches, which existed in the towns and villages inhabited of men. Calvin held, indeed, that the local ought to possess the same spiritual qualities as the universal Church; but he did not hold the two to be identical. They differed in many ways; in the one case the chosen of God constituted the Church, but in the other case, as Augustine had said, "there are very many sheep without, and very many wolves within." The universal Church lived under the immediate sovereignty of God; but particular Churches, while bound so to live, yet were organised according to the wants of human society, and so long as the people were God's and lived unto Him, their society was a Church, which, as an inhabitant of space and time, could not but live its corporate life in some State, in relation to it even while differing from it. What this relation ought to be Calvin rather implied than discussed. He assumed their distinctness, but his policy often involved their identity. It would be approximately true to say that the ideal Church was independent of the State, above it while distributed through it; but the actual Church, while owing its existence to the ideal, was yet associated with the State, and often bound to act with it and through it. It was not possible that a local Church should be merged jn the State, for then it would cease to be a Divine institution; or be subordinate to the State, for then it would be a mere minister of man's will, subject to all the accidents and influences proper to time; or be separated from the State, for then it would be cut off from the field which most needed its presence and action.
Hence the proper analogy was natural rather than political:—as soul and body constituted one man, so Church and State constituted one society, distinct in function but inseparable in being. Without the State there would be no medium for the Church to work in, no body for the soul to animate; without the Church there would be no law higher than expediency to govern the State, no ideal of thought and conduct, no soul to animate the body. Both Church and State therefore were necessary to the good ordering of society, and each was explained by the same idea. All human authority was the creation of God; His will had formed the State to care for the actual man, who was temporal, and the Church to care for the ideal man, who was immortal. Each had the same cause or root; and, without both, life could not be so ordered as to realise Eternal Will. Over the State God placed the magistrate, who might here be a monarch, an Emperor or King, and there a Syndic or Council, created by the people for the people; but whatever he might be, he was yet a power ordained of God for the good of man and the regulation of society. In, rather than over, the Church God had set a ministry or authorities that were to rule by the teaching which convinced the reason and commanded the conscience, and by the service which won the heart and persuaded the will. The ministers were
