The ordinance of marriage has been disfigured by the evil and unscriptural laws of the Papacy, and it were well that the whole matter be carefully thought over and some simple rules laid down agreeable to the Word of God. This memorandum, for it is scarcely more, was dignified with the name of the _Articles_ (_Articuli de regimine ecclesiæ_). It was generally approved by the _Small Council_ and the _Council of Two Hundred_, who made, besides, the definite regulations that the Holy Supper should be celebrated four times in the year, and that announcements of marriages should be made for three successive Sundays before celebration. But it is very doubtful whether the Council went beyond this general approval, or that they gave definite and deliberate consent to Calvin's proposals about "the discipline of excommunication." These _Articles_ were superseded by the famous _Ordonnances ecclésiastiques de l'Église de Genève_, adopted on Nov. 20th, 1541; but as they are the first instance in which Calvin publicly presented his special ideas about ecclesiastical government, it may be well to describe what these were. To understand them aright, to see the _new_ thing which Calvin tried to introduce into the Church life of the sixteenth century, it is necessary to distinguish between two things which it must be confessed were practically entangled with each other in these days--the attempt to regulate the private life by laws municipal or national, and the endeavour to preserve the solemnity and purity of the celebration of the Holy Supper.