"The education obtained by the framing of their own ordinances was also no slight gain to the townsmen. They provided for their peculiar needs in their own peculiar way, not always we may say in the best way, but in that which they, who knew the special requirements of the case, considered the best. Each who took part in drawing up those regulations would feel that a certain share of responsibility rested with him to see that they were kept. The constitutional importance also of this training, in imparting an appreciation of the responsibilities and duties which devolve on those who frame regulations, was not unimportant."

CHAPTER III

THE CHURCH COVENANT

The Anabaptists and their "Bund"

"THAT department of modern political thought which may be broadly called democratic," says a recent writer,1 "takes its rise in the sixteenth century."

"Modern democracy is the child of the Reformation. . . . To make the religious revolution lawful, it was necessary to proclaim these two principles [free inquiry and the priesthood of all believers] which contained in them the germs of the political revolution.''

But it may well be asked if the freedom and equality here referred to were not the underlying and fundamental ideas of the folkmoot? Moreover, it is not at all certain that the expression of these principles in the form now about to be discussed the church covenant or Finally, if

"bund" - did not actually antedate the Reformation. modern democracy, as a political fact, be exclusively "the child of the Reformation," why did it not generally accompany that movement? Why, in other words, did not democracy begin with Luther in Germany? or, better still, with Wyclif in England or Huss in Bohemia? Why did it wait until, as Dr. Borgeaud himself so skilfully shows, the Reformation reached a country where democratic institutions had never disappeared, but were maintained in their pristine vigor from primitive times? It would seem to be more correct

'Gooch, "History of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century," 1. Cf. Osgood, "The Political Ideas of the Puritans," Political Science Quarterly (1891), VI, 229.

2 Borgeaud, "Rise of Modern Democracy in Old and New England," 2, 3.

3 "The Church covenant idea may even have been made use of among the various Christian brotherhoods, of which, in the century preceding the Reformation, and even farther back, we find many traces." Burrage, "The Church Covenant

Idea," 13.

to treat this phenomenon of the sixteenth century as a revival than as a birth, considering it quite as much a product of soil and conditions as of the forces acting upon them.

It is natural, however, that in times of sectarian strife and persecution members of the weaker sect should seek to give formal expression to the closer union which results from the sense of common danger and interdependence. In the days of Trajan the Christians "bound themselves by an oath at their meetings." 1 At the period of the Reformation, this notion assumes the form of the "bund" or covenant. This was not a mere announcement of theological dogmas; it was rather a declaration of the ties which bound together the members of the sect and an agreement on their part to pursue a certain course of conduct. A typical instance of this occurs within a decade after Luther formally launched the Reformation by nailing his famous theses on the church door at Wittenberg. The Wiedertaüfer (Anabaptists) of Schlatten am Randen put forth an instrument entitled the "Seven Articles . . . Agreed to on February 4, 1527." All but two of the articles are introduced by the phrase "seint wir vereinigt wordten" (we are become united), and the fourth, which is especially significant, is as follows: 3 –

"Zum vierden: Seint wir vereignigt worden von der absinderung von dem bösen vnd vom argen, das der teuffl in der welt gepflanzt hat, also das wir nit gemainschafft mit inen haben, vnd mit inen (nit) laufen in die gemenge irer greül. — Nun ist vns auch das gebot des herren offenbar, in welchem er vns haist abgesindert sein, wellen wir seine süne vnd töchter sein; weiter vermant er vns darumb: von babilon vnd dem Irdischen Egipto aus zu geen, das wir nicht thailhafftig werden irer qual vnd leiden, so der herr über sie füeren wirt. Dis gräuel, welche wir meiden sollen in den werden vermaint alle babstliche vnd widerbäbstliche werckh vnd gotes dienste, versamlung, kürchgang, . . . vnd andere mer dergleichen, die dan die welt für hoch helt;- von diesem allem sollen wir abgesindert werden, vnd kain tail mit solchem haben, denn es sein eitel gräuel, die vns verhasst machen vor vnserem Christo Jesu, welcher vns entledigt hat von der dienstbarkeit des fleisches."

1 Letter of Pliny the Younger ("C. Plinii Caecelii Secundi Epistolarum Libri Decem et Panegyricus" (Parisiis, 1823), Epistola XCVII, 199, 200.

2 Dr. Crooker in his monograph on "The Unitarian Church," 15, aptly characterizes the covenant as afterward developed among the American churches as "the declaration of a spiritual purpose or a life promise . . not a creed, a set of beliefs, but a statement of religious motives."

3 Quoted from Burrage, "The Church Covenant Idea," 16, 17. An abridged text of the articles is given in Beck, "Die Geschichts-Bücher der Wiedertaüfer in Oesterreich-Ungarn" (1883).

["In the fourth place: We have agreed [have covenanted] concerning separation from evil and wickedness, which the devil has planted in the world, namely that we will not have association with them, and will [not] walk with them in their many abominations. Now also to us is the command of the Lord manifest, in which he calls us to be separated [from the world], if we wish to be his sons and daughters; further he warns us therefore: to flee from Babylon and the land of Egypt, that we share not their torments and sorrows, which the Lord will bring upon them. The abominations, which we shall avoid by which are meant all papal and anti-papal work and church services, gathering[s], churchway[s], . . . and still other of the like, which the world now holds in high esteem; from all this shall we be separated, and have no part with such, for they are empty abominations, which make us hateful before our Christ Jesus, who has released us from the bondage of the flesh."]

We have here, then, the church covenant in its crudest and most primitive form. Some features which are clearly expressed as the instrument comes into wider use are here only implied. Its final characteristics are but faintly foreshadowed. Enough appears, however, even in this simple document, to challenge careful attention. It was an agreement among equals; not something imposed or enjoined upon inferiors. It acquired its force from the voluntary consent of the members. It purports to bind only those who "have agreed" and consequently it becomes effective as to each individual only when he agrees. Finally, it is a formal written compact not only evidencing the organic union of its adherents, but binding them to a specified mode of life.

From this period on the idea of the church "bund" or covenant becomes common and instances of it are found in various countries.1 We shall encounter it often in these pages, and we shall do well to watch its development, follow its changing character and widening scope, study its application to civil affairs, and trace its gradual transformation into a political instrument. For it is probable that in the church covenant we find the germ of the popular written constitution as it has been evolved in America. That instrument, it is certain, is a product of the era of modern democracy, and for the beginnings of the former we should logically look to the time and region of the latter's origin.

1 Some of the English Calvinists appear to have borrowed it directly from the Anabaptists (see Burrage, 35, 42, 43); others probably indirectly, by way of Geneva.

CHAPTER IV

SWITZERLAND AND THE REFORMERS

FROM Germany the Anabaptist movement spread1 to the one country of Europe where the folkmoot has maintained its pristine character and exercised the functions of a law-making body almost continuously until the present hour.

There is a record of a folkmoot, under the name of Landsgemeinde, held in the canton of Schwyz in 1294, within three years after the formation of the league which marks the beginning of the modern Switzerland. And this was no solitary instance; the record discloses that the Landsgemeinde was then an established institution.3 In Uri, matters relating to the pasturage had long been regulated by such an assemblage. All through the intervening centuries the Swiss folkmoot, in one form or another, has continued. In some of the cantons it is still the sole legislative body; in others representative legislatures have been constituted, but the principle of the folkmoot has been preserved even there. All proposed changes in either federal or cantonal constitutions must be submitted to the people, and in all save one of the cantons the referendum may be compelled." Thus to-day, after having preserved this venerable institution through ages of political change and social upheaval, during which it has elsewhere mostly disappeared, the Alpine Republic is giving it new life and expanded scope, and offering it as a model to the statesmen of other lands.

1

Burrage, "The Church Covenant Idea," 13.

' Blumer, "Staats und Rechtsgeschichte der Schweizerischen Demokratien,” I, 135; Richman, "Appenzell," 145.

3 Deploige, "The Referendum in Switzerland,” 4, note.

4 Id.

5 Id., Introduction, xix. See Mr. Freeman's classical description of the Landsgemeinde in Uri and Appenzell, "Growth of the English Constitution," Chap. I. Cf. Richman, "Appenzell," Chap. VII; Adams and Cunningham, “The Swiss Confederation," 117 et seq.; Winchester, "The Swiss Republic," Chap. VII.

Deploige, "The Referendum in Switzerland," Introduction, xvi.