After the teachers come the elders, of whom there were to be twelve, that is to say, nearly two elders to each minister. They were to be ‘people of good life and honesty, without reproach and beyond suspicion, above all fearing God and having much spiritual discretion.’ Lastly come the deacons, whose functions we have already pointed out.[146] [Sidenote: The Consistory.] The assembly of the ministers and the elders formed the consistory. The twelve elders were elected, not by the church, but by the Council of State or Little Council. They were not taken indiscriminately from among the members of the church. Two were to belong to the Little Council, four to the Council of Sixty, and six to the Council of the Two Hundred. Before proceeding, however, to the election, the Council summoned the ministers to state their views on the subject; and when election had been made, it was presented to the Council of the Two Hundred, for its approval.[147] These elders appointed or delegated by the Councils were substantially magistrates; but the fact that the ministers were consulted, the influence which the pastors must have over their lay colleagues, and the very nature of their functions made them rather beings of two species, belonging partly to the church and partly to the state. This fact indeed gives peculiar importance to this body. It has frequently been called a tribunal; but it was not such in reality. Exhortation and conciliation played the principal part in its proceedings. It has also been said that matters of doctrine belonged to the ministers, and matters of morality to the elders. This is not the exact truth. The two classes of men who formed the consistory had to do with errors of both kinds. Lastly, this body had been likened to the Inquisition. We cast aside with indignation this assimilation of Genevese presbyterianism to the terrible, secret, and cruel institution which depopulated provinces, which cost Spain alone the loss of five millions of her subjects, which filled her with superstitions and ignorance and lowered her in the scale of nations, while Geneva, under the influence of her pastors, and her elders, increased in intelligence, in morality, in prosperity, in population, in influence, and in greatness.