Principles of western civilisation

312 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

the model of the Brunswick Church Ordinances, the affairs of the Church from the beginning were considered as forming part of the various city administrations. Later on, as the movement developed, we see the reigning princes of the German States which accepted the Reformation following in the same direction; and, as a matter of course, taking their places in the Church as organisers and administrators of its affairs.. Everywhere we appear to see the new movement endeavouring to follow the same principle of the past; identifying the ecclesiastical organisation with the civil community, attempting the suppression of what are considered to be false views, and the punishment of offenders; and always, in so doing, seeking, as a matter of course, as in the days of the Carlovingian empire, to make the civil authority the executive organ of the ecclesiastical community.” By the religious peace of 1648 we have the zus reformandt given to the civil governments in Germany, and the association and amalgamation of the powers of the sovereign and the Church duly recognised in practice.®

In Switzerland we have in view a still more remarkable spectacle. In the German States the tendency had been, throughout the progress of the Reformation movement, for the authorities and reigning princes to assume episcopal authority in a Church organisation still considered as episcopal. But in Switzerland the tendency was towards the forms of a republic in the new religious com-

1 Moeller, Hzst. of Chr. Church, vol. iii. divs. i, and iv. 2 Jbid. 3 Cf. Transactions of the Rhenish Provincial Synod, 1844, trans. in Constztution of the Church of the Future, by C. C. J. Bunsen.