This last point of view is the true one; but there were sometimes circumstances which modified this state of things. Much depended on the relations of Calvin with the governing body. If he were not on good terms with them, the Council rigorously imposed its authority. Thus it was that in the affair of Servetus, Calvin, in spite of reiterated demands, could not induce the magistrate to soften the punishment of the unhappy Spaniard. But when their relations were agreeable, Calvin’s influence was undoubtedly powerful. There is no need to suppose that the state of things was always the same and absolutely self-consistent. But if the legislation be considered by itself, apart from the circumstances, which we have just pointed out, and without regard to the conviction which possessed Calvin’s mind that when essential matters of faith are at stake we must obey God, and not man, then it is not untrue to say that ‘Calvin impressed on his organization a lay, not to say a democratic, stamp; that he did not invest the clergy either with exclusive authority or even with the presidency of the church; and that assigning carefully the part of the magistrate and that of the ministry he set at the summit of his scheme a secular episcopate, which he placed in the hands of the state.’[160] It is true that this episcopate was placed in the hands of the state; but it is not certain that it was Calvin who placed it there. It was the state that assumed it. Before Calvin’s arrival, and while Farel and his friends were evangelizing Geneva, the Council had constantly exercised this overseership; and it was unwilling to throw it up by resigning it afterwards to the ministers. The Ordinances were not accepted exactly in the form in which Calvin had conceived them. The commission, of which the majority were laymen, and the Council itself, introduced corrections and additions, as we have previously remarked. But we insist on this point in order that the part of Calvin and that of the Council in this business may be clearly distinguished from each other. If the draft names the _elders_, the official copy adds, ‘Otherwise named _appointees of the seignory_ (_commis par la seigneurie_);’ and elsewhere, ‘_deputies of the seignory to the consistory_.’[161] This is important. If the subject be the examination of a minister, and his introduction to the people, the official copy adds, ‘being first of all, after examination had, _presented to the seignory_.’ If the draft says, ‘To obviate any scandals of life it will be necessary that there should be some form of correction;’ the official copy adds, ‘_which shall pertain to the seignory_.’ If the draft says of the schoolmaster, ‘that no one is to be received unless he is approved by the ministers;’ the official copy adds, ‘_having first of all presented him to the seignory_, and that the examination must be made _in the presence of two lords of the Little Council_.’ If the draft set out how the elders and the ministers