Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/553

CHRISTIANITY 541 the true exponents of the spirit that ruled in the Catholic church of that age. They were sacrificed to expediency, and were restored on a- change of circumstances. But owing to the continued operation of those causes, in a great- er or less degree, which led to their suppression, the nominal restoration of the order does not place it where it was before. The Lutheran church has felt the influence of time still more than the Catholic. In the controversy between Luther and Erasmus on the liberty of the will, the former carried his church with him; but on the mind of Melanchthon and some others the arguments of Erasmus made a deep impres- sion. Before his death Melanchthon, no longer restrained by Luther, who was now deceased, put forth views on this subject quite at variance with those held by Luther, and the Lutheran church followed Melanchthon rather than Lu- ther. Since the days of the reformers, the principal controversies of the Lutheran church have turned on the question whether the refor- mation should be further developed and com- pleted, or whether it shall be considered as having received its completion and fixed char- acter from Luther. This question has never been settled for the whole Lutheran church, but the two parties, taking opposite sides, have each contended, and are still contending, for victory. Crypto-Calvinism, the doctrine of Calvin in respect to the eucharist, was intro- duced into Saxony by the progressive party, which sprang from the school of Melanchthon. It was afterward suppressed by the strict Lu- therans, and condemned in the "Formula of Concord." The theologians of this school were more rigid in maintaining the authority of hu- man creeds, after the manner of the scholas- tic dialecticians, than zealous in propagating a spiritual Christianity. As opposite extremes usually produce each other, so this called forth the pietistic school of Spener and Franke, who placed the Bible far above the creeds of their church. In opposition to both these parties sprang up, about the middle of the last century, the school of rationalists, who set aside the authority of all creeds, and acknoAvledge the authority of the Bible only in a modified sense. After a century of triumph it seems to be approaching its dissolution, and the Lutheran theologians are returning either to their old orthodoxy, or to an evangelical faith founded upon a deeper study and truer interpretation of the Scriptures than was possible before the rise of rationalism. So the parties now stand divided more than ever on the question whether the normal Christianity of the church is that which has been handedtlown from the reform- ers, or that broad historical Christianity brought to light by a more extended and more critical study both of the Scriptures and of history. In the Reformed church, Geneva was as much the centre of influence as Wittenberg was in the Lutheran. The preeminence of Zurich was limited to the lifetime of Zwingli. After his death Calvin rallied the forces of the Swiss churches, and guided them with unsurpassed ability and energy. Besides, he wrote for all who used the French language, as Luther did for those who used the German. Luther was a practical leader, and controlled alike the thoughts, feelings, and actions of his followers. Calvin, more learned and more philosophic, aimed chiefly to master the intellects of men, and in this lay his great power out of his. own city. Luther never wrote so complete a work as the " Institutes" of Calvin, nor are his com- mentaries so well adapted to all countries and all ages as are Calvin's. The Genevan reform- er, though educated for the bar, was much more rigid in his views of Christian morality than was the monk of Wittenberg. Luther, while he aimed to put men right on the main points of morality, was content with the spirit of Christianity, and was quite easy about the particular acts of the individual. He was the advocate of great freedom in the individual, and allowed him to choose his own pleasures and amusements. He was even jovial in his own character. Calvin was just the opposite of all this. The churches founded by these great men differ as much, in respect to freedom or strictness of Christian conduct, as they themselves did. What was called a Christian life in Wittenberg would have been pronounced unchristian in Geneva. While Luther lament- ed the easy and lax morality of Wittenberg toward the end of life, without any attempt to control it by church discipline, Calvin was in a state of constant warfare with the "liber- tines" of Geneva in the matter of discipline. These two different types of Christian charac- ter are observable in the whole history of the two confessions. The Genevan church main- tained its character through the 16th and 17th centuries, but during the 18th it gradually re- laxed its theology, and in the beginning of the 19th was decidedly Socinian. From Geneva proceeded,. chiefly through Calvin and Beza, those influences which introduced the doctrines of the reformation into France. During the life of Beza, the Huguenots, as the French Protestants were called, became a numerous and powerful party; but for the greater part of three centuries they were persecuted by the French government. Twenty thousand or more perished in one month. Twenty-six years later, Henry IV., who had been educated in their faith, secured to them a political exist- ence by the edict of Nantes, after which they flourished again in France for nearly a century. They had distinguished schools of theology at Saumur and Sedan, and numbered among their theologians such men as Blondel, Daill6, Bo- chart, Basnage, Beausobre, and Saurin. By tho revocation of that edict by Louis XIV., hun- dreds of thousands of Huguenots were driven into exile. The refugees filled large cities and districts in several Protestant countries, par- ticularly in the Netherlands and in Branden- burg. Now followed the period of " the church in the desert," during which, in the