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The organic articles asserted the old claims of the Gallican Church, which forbade the application of Papal Bulls, or of the decrees of "foreign" synods, to France: they further forbade the French bishops to assemble in council or synod without the permission of the Government; and this was also required for a bishop to leave his diocese, even if he were summoned to Rome.
Calvin provided for the matter in a still more direct and effectual fashion, not only as regarded affairs in general, but even the choice of pastors; he gave admission to laymen, in larger number too than that of the ecclesiastics, into the consistories and synods, the governing authorities in the Reformed church.
He ordered all the synods of the Church to meet, in order to have articles submitted to them which provided that the bishops should have full jurisdiction over the ministers, under his Majesty, and that the King should be acknowledged supreme ruler of the Church under Christ. These articles were rejected by Melville's synod, and referred to the Assembly by the others.
After the conquest of Gaul, they still delighted in the rustic simplicity of their ancestors; the cities were abandoned to solitude and decay; and their coins, their charters, and their synods, are still inscribed with the names of the villas, or rural palaces, in which they successively resided.
We do not find fault with the decrees of the Councils; for under a certain condition these allow marriage, but we find fault with the laws which, since the ancient Synods, the Popes of Rome have framed contrary to the authority of the Synods. Nor is it without a reason. For Daniel, 11, 37, ascribes to the kingdom of Antichrist this mark, namely, the contempt of women. Fifthly.
The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they call synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys."
Consistent also in their practise, they refused to fellowship and recognize the errorists everywhere, even when found in Lutheran synods. No wonder, then, that the Henkels and their uncompromising attitude met with no sympathy on the part of the Lutheran synods then found in America.
As early as Bede, in England, though not in Rome, communions were very infrequent. English and French Synods tried to insist on communion three times a year, but could not enforce the rule. Innocent III, in the fourth Lateran Council, with a view to compel confession, prescribes once a year.
A large majority of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favor his cause; and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of Cæsarea, the most learned of the Christian prelates; and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a statesman without forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were opposed to the synods of Egypt.
And in this they are successful; for, indeed, how could the notion occur to any one that all that has been repeated from century to century with such earnestness and solemnity by all those archdeacons, bishops, archbishops, holy synods, and popes, is all of it a base lie and a calumny foisted upon Christ by them for the sake of keeping safe the money they must have to live luxuriously on the necks of other men?
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