Calvin had displayed at Lausanne a steadfastness in the faith, and a faculty of unfolding his views, which attracted more and more attention to him. Bucer and Capito, in reading his _Institution_, had already recognized the lofty reach of his intellect, and they eagerly desired to have a conference with him on the evangelical doctrine. They both wrote to him on December 1. ‘We acknowledge,’ said Bucer, ‘that it is the Lord’s will to make use of you abundantly for the good of our churches, and to make your ministry greatly useful. We desire to be in agreement with you in all things, and we will go to meet you wherever you please.’[438] Thus, then, the Strasburgers acknowledged in Calvin a vocation for all the churches. They saw in him the reformer. The author of the _Institution_ had in fact conceived an ideal of a Church which was to take the place of the papacy--an ideal difficult, perhaps impossible of realization in this world, but to which he desired that Geneva should make as near an approach as possible. Luther had announced with power the doctrine of remission of sins, without concerning himself much about the constitution of the Church. That doctrine, by penetrating the hearts of men, was to form the congregation of the Lord. The great aim of Calvin was certainly to proclaim before everything, like Luther, the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ, and the salvation which it gives; but he sought also, more than the German reformer, to found a faithful Church, which, being quickened and sanctified by the virtue of God’s word and the grace of the Holy Spirit, should truly be the body of the Lord. Zwingli had also busied himself with this subject; but there is an important difference between the labors of the reformers of Zurich and Geneva. At Zurich, Zwingli had looked downward: it was the people, so far as they believed in the Scriptures, who were the foundation of the Church. Calvin, on the other hand, looked upward, and placed the origin and the subsistence of the Church in God himself. At Zurich, the Church existed by the will of the reformed majority of the nation; at Geneva, it was the will and the Word of God that formed it. At Zurich, the _fulcrum_ was in liberty; at Geneva, in authority. Both of these are salutary; but each has its own danger. The best system is that in which authority and liberty are combined; but this is not always easy to realize.