DISCIPLINE AND PIETY

1. Democratic election of elders

   Nota:

   • 2 from Narrow Council, 4 from Council of Sixty, and 6 from Council of Two-Hundred
   • Men who are fearful of God and have good spiritual discretion
2. Consistory to meet every Thursday
3. Discipline and Punishment from the Holy Word of God
4. Discipline in the educationary message of the Gospel

   Nota:

   • People living uprightly will influence others to do the same
   1. Attending sermons not enough

      Nota:

      • Must understand and follow the Scripture in their entirety - interpreting the message with the preacher
   2. Vernacular understanding emphasised
5. Disciplined approach to Scripture

   Nota:

   • One belief and limitations of personal interpretation of Christian belief argued by the Consistory

1. Outlined the organisation of the Church
2. Expectations of individuals

   Nota:

   • Persons of upright life, and needing to master sacramental knowledge

1. Pastors

   Nota:

   • Proclaim the Word of God and to administer the sacraments as well as admonish, instruct and censure the populace
2. Doctors

   Nota:

   • Masters of Theology, Hebrew - for spiritual and learned education
3. Elders

   Nota:

   • Oversee lives of everyone in the community and to admonish those who were erring/ leading a disorderly life
4. Deacons

   Nota:

   • Provision of charity and poor-relief to the less fortunate members of society

1. Margo Todd; conscious effort to create this identity/ a rite of passage
   1. Self-flagellation and a process

      Nota:

      • Parallels with Calvin's own musings, and a fashion of self-deprecation and modesty to make one's efforts seem greater
   2. Puritan work-ethic - never a wasted moment

Nota:

• Nothing conduceth more to the true service and glory of God than often to hear his Word, to call upon him and such Christian exercise
• A man must therefore labour above all things for alacrity in God's service

1. God a constant judge and companion

Nota:

• "Not feeling of the reverance which I ought to have in the sight of God" - need for DISCIPLINED control of the faith.
• Constant reflection on God's majesty and in seeking the truth - God's Word is above all

Nota:

• Not taking in the sermons or fulfilling Christian practice means you are not following God's path.
• God's omnipresence means nothing you do will go unnoticed, and he is a continual judge of your actions.
• While you have no control of your election, you must live as uprightly as possible to prove you are one of the elect - receiving a sign of your election - keeping society morally disciplined

Nota:

• Needing to be extirpated from humanity and society

Nota:

• III. To give all glory to God. IV. To bear crosses patiently V. To do good works

Nota:

• Assertions of a proper church discipline attracted godly visitors to Calvin's Geneva to rhapsodise about the exemplary moral order established there (Knox)

Nota:

• Which centred on the local church and consistory

1. To implement city-wide order
2. Marriage counsel
   1. Adultery, unrequited love and ownership of objects
   2. Enforcing discipline and morality between spouses
3. Based on judicial and 'fairness' principles
   1. Quest for the truth

      Nota:

      • Case of Jane and Bertin Vulliens in 1542 - "examine them better and learn the truth better from the parties on Monday"
   2. Much deliberation

      Nota:

      • Evidence for claims brought forward a necessity
   3. Emotions to be controlled

      Nota:

      • Place of humility, and no place for anger towards others
4. Calvin admonished those who failed to follow the true faith

   Nota:

   • 1542 - Donne Janne Pertennez - not following Scriptural guidelines and needing greater education
   1. Assessing the religious understanding within the community
      1. Most common concerns were church attendance and knowledge of prayers
5. Self-enforcement
   1. People coming forward to repent

      Nota:

      • Seeking spiritual guidance and counsel, or vindication
   2. Disciplining one another

      Nota:

      • Similar to Catholic confession, but for civic morality at large - upholding Calvinist ideals
6. Kingdon - Court and legal counselling service

   Nota:

   • Trying to instruct Genevan residents in the new religious obligations they had to follow
7. Watt - Anxious over female religious behaviour

   Nota:

   • Perhaps explained by Calvin's emphasis on women as moral examples for their children and husbands to follow - disciplined house leads to disciplined society
   • Religious education to shift from the church to the home a common Reformer's concern
   1. 1542 Official's Report

      Nota:

      • Women were more easily led astray or more ignorant with regard to Reformed practices
      • More frequently practising 'popish' doctrines
   2. Loss of veneration of Mary and female saints

      Nota:

      • Women losing important religious role models
8. Benedict - Essential agency

   Nota:

   • For effecting the communal moral regeneration that appeared so attractive to so many, and the initial excitement of the Reformation
9. Initially no heresy cases

   Nota:

   • Not preaching conflicting views, but on the Scriptural knowledge of the populace
10. Against Catholic vestiges
    1. Baptismal names dispute
    2. Dancing
       1. Removing the folk-tradition aspect
       2. Associations with sex and fornication

          Nota:

          • Upholding pious lifestyle and 'upright' behaviour
11. Stages of correction

    Nota:

    • Excommunication final; inability to resolve the issue of sin
    1. Beza consolidating Calvin's legacy

       Nota:

       • Issue of control and censuring the populace remained - carrying through with Calvin's vision with gusto
    2. Excommunication losing severity?

       Nota:

       • 1 in 8 were excommunicated - multitude of cases and thus the moral judgement perhaps diminishes

Nota:

• Inspires an iconoclastic rampage in Perth to destroy all Catholic vestments and idols

1. Kirk sessions

   Nota:

   • Keen to commit to the central Protestant focus on the sermon and the godly life of moral DISCIPLINE and prayer
   1. Fought Yule celebrations

Nota:

• Vigorous concept of election reinforced the penchant for arranging and defining the community

Nota:

• Establishes explicit, mutually agreed-upon rules for excommunication throughout the French Reformed churches
• Polarity to Catholicism

1. Community cohesion through a shared Protestant identity and a common goal of devout, orderly society

   Nota:

   • Catholic clergy increasingly seen as corrupt by all Reformed communities
   1. Following the Ten Commandments

      Nota:

      • Duties to God and duties to one's kindred human beings

Nota:

• Warned members against the fellowship of Catholics.

1. Chareyne - mirrored the long-established social hierarchy

Nota:

• Established a justice system of punishment to be meted out to those breaching moral codes, similar to Geneva's

1. Moral order along social lines

1. Co-ordinated the activity of the elders - a hierarchical system

1. Sanctity of marriage and abhorrence of pre-marital sex
2. Mentzer - the double standard

   Nota:

   • Officials prosecuting women for fornication, whereas men committing the same crime often ignored, or dealt a lesser punishment
   • Yet equal punishment for men and women committing adultery

1. 1560 onwards - from local session to General Assembly, waged a stern, unremitting campaign
2. Squash popish superstition - blamed for plague and famine
3. New vision of the 'good life'

   Nota:

   • Community cohesion through a shared Protestant identity

1. Flurry of legislation in 1570s

   Nota:

   • Spurred by the Reformer's recognition that thus far, Protestantism had made little dent in popular 'supersititous' celebration
   1. Mild censures meted out, delayed compliance
      1. 1580s acts

         Nota:

         • Lacked the severity that would have assured compliance - punishment weak in context
      2. 'Fighting a losing battle'

         Nota:

         • Fines and admonitions having little effect
2. Kirk Sessions documents

   Nota:

   • Elders chose their battles carefully, and with the priorities of the larger church and community in mind
   1. Vigorous attacks on masks and costumes

      Nota:

      • Principle concern with the wearing of disguises; gender inversion in dress - fundamental dishonesty
      • Ideas of misrule feared by civil and ecclesiastical authorities all across Europe
      1. Concerned with the overturning of the gender hierarchy
   2. Perth and Aberdeen reveal a slow pace of cultural Reformation
      1. Secured the Reformation with this compromise

         Nota:

         • Less likely to face retaliation of vindication from over-punished locals unused to the new religous regime
         • Authorities behaved not most sternly but with most discrimination - multiple hues of compromise
3. Authorities tempered voluble disapproval with relative tolerance
4. TRANSFORMATION rather than the abolition witnessed on the continent

Nota:

• Strongly Protestant French town - consistory with pastors, lay elders and lay deacons; moral issues their chief concern

1. Consistory's historical reputation

   Nota:

   • Tireless efforts toward identification and correction of fornication and adultery
2. Men and women performing humiliating penance for extramarital pregnancy

Nota:

• Collusion of moral ideal

1. Cooperated in important ways

   Nota:

   • Cases coming to the Consistory's attention due to municipal justice
   • Ecclesiastical courts granted access to criminal court records and collaborative efforts existed in other Protestant towns

Nota:

• Closely observing scriptural directives; especially the ethical code of the Decalogue

Nota:

• Granted a substantial measure of authority and autonomy, while maintaining an elaborate presbyterian-synodal organisation
• Pastors and elders assembled periodically in regional colloquies, and provincial and national synods to clarify dogma, institute policy and resolve disagreements

Nota:

• Consular governments long associated with such liberties etc

1. Reinforced tradition

   Nota:

   • Of municipal self-governance and strengthened the local elite's control over its own affairs

1. Exercised social and moral control over the congregations they served

1. Encouraged royal hospitality to Dutch/ Walloon and French reformed immigrants during the C16th

1. Ghent (1578-83)
2. Herborn (1574)
3. Continued the Genevan tradition of attracting international students

1. Principle of Democracy
   1. Guaranteed constant reflection, renewal and reform within the church

      Nota:

      • Semper reformanda ecclesiae
2. Perpetual balance between law and liberty
   1. Allowed Calvinist congregations to adapt/ adjust themselves to a variety of locales

      Nota:

      • Could accommodate local spiritual and cultural flavours without losing their core religious identity
      1. What Calvin adumbrated, his followers elaborated
3. Doctrine of SIN
   1. Led Calvinists to emphasise the need for individual discipline and structural safeguards on offices of authority