These three marks are by Divine law. But there are other things by Divine law. There are four offices: pastors, or ministers (both words are used; ), doctors or teachers, presbyters, deacons. The most important of these four are the pastors and presbyters. These four are by Divine order, and they have to be always there. They are derived from the Bible. The Church has in itself, in its own mixed status, a community of active sanctification. This community is created by the Church and becomes manifest in the Lord’s Supper. Therefore discipline precedes the giving of the Lord’s Supper.
Now I don’t want to go much into the doctrine of the sacraments in Calvin. The main thing is that he tries to find a mediation between Luther and Zwingli. He does not want, with Zwingli, that the Lord’s Supper is only a meal of commemoration; he wants the presence of God, but not a presence which he finds superstitious and magical, as he sees it in Luther, where even those who are not belief-ful eat the body of Christ The doctrine of the State: Calvin was a humanist and therefore gave to the state much more functions than Luther. Luther gave it practically only one function: to repress evil and preserve society from chaos. Calvin uses also the ideas of humanism, of good government, of helping the people, and many other things of a more positive way. I can give you this very drastically: the function of a policeman in Germany is to repress; the function of a policeman in this country may also be this function, but beyond this it is the function to help. For us, when we came 20 years ago, it was really an experience when you wanted something you could go to a policeman! Nobody could do that in Germany! Now I hope this has changed, but I don’t believe too much. The state represses, but it never helps.
