Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/552

 540 CHRISTIANITY modified Judaism, a system of law and obser- vances ; that personal merit by works took the place of justification by faith. In addition to these and other theoretical differences, and the objections growing out of them, there was a long list of alleged abuses, which the reformers freely used to give point to their invectives. Among these they referred to the profligacy of the Roman court, the simony almost universally practised, the neglect of the Scriptures, the ig- norance, idleness, and vices of the monks, the sale of indulgences, the draining of the coffers both of the rich and the poor on various pre- tences, the saying of masses for the souls of the departed, and the practice of holding religious services in a dead language, and leaving the people in a general state of ignorance, and then taking advantage of that ignorance for purposes of ambition. In the writings of the reformers, and especially in those of Luther, we find a per- petual recurrence to these and similar topics. The reformation commenced on similar princi- ples, and nearly at the same time, in Germany and in Switzerland. Both Luther in Witten- berg and Zwingli in Zurich set themselves openly and resolutely against the sale of indul- gences. The clergy, on the other hand, de- fended indulgences as a part of the established ecclesiastical system, and this controversy led by degrees to a questioning, and finally to a denial of the system itself. Both the reformers insisted on removing from the church whatever doctrines and principles were without founda- tion in the Bible. They came independently to the same conclusion in this respect, and were thus accidentally united in their opposition to the papacy. But in their positive construction of Christianity they represented different ten- dencies. Luther was more mystical, and al- lowed of more historical development in the church. Zwingli and his followers had less feeling, less imagination, less love of mystery, and represented rather the philosophic and ra- tionalistic tendency in religion. The terms mys- tical and rationalistic are here used in a good sense. Nothing was better adapted to bring out the peculiarities of both orders of mind and types of theology than the question of the eu- charist. While both rejected the Catholic doc- trine of transubstantiation as unscriptural and unreasonable, Luther adopted a theory, some- what inaccurately termed consubstantiation, as mysterious and inexplicable as that which he rejected ; while Zwingli stripped the whole sub- ject of its mystery, and exhibited it as a plain and simple emblematical rite, just as it is now viewed by most Protestant denominations in this country. The appearance of Calvin at Geneva, and his powerful metaphysical genius, gave a decidedly metaphysical and logical cast to the theology of the Reformed (Calvinistic) church, distinguishing it from that of the Lutheran church. The Loci Communes of Melanchthon and the " Institutes " of Calvin, the most cele- brated Protestant theological productions of the age, favorably represent the ground type, as the Germans would say, of the theology of the two confessions. Perhaps, in the more logical char- acter of the Reformed churches, as distinguished from the Lutheran, the reason predominating over the feelings, is to be found the causeof their greater individuality in matters of opinion, and greater diversity of creeds in different cities of Switzerland, and in different countries of Eu- rope. The fact is unquestionable that the Lu- theran church was much more homogeneous and united than the Reformed. In general the south of Europe remained Catholic, while the north became Protestant; and of Protestant countries, Switzerland and the west were Reformed, while the east, that is, the most of Germany and Denmark, Sweden and Norway, were Lutheran. The Genevan church was the model for France, Holland, Scotland, and in part for England, and consequently for North America. In the opin- ion of many Lutheran writers, the prominence given to the understanding over the religious sentiment in the Reformed church is the reason why Socinianism flourishes so much more in that church than in their own. The Reformed theologians, in turn, find in the mysticism of the Lutheran theology the cause of that revul- sion of which rationalism is the result. We leave these points for others to decide. United as the- church and state were in the 16th century, a reformation in religion could not take place without political convulsions. Not only were the Swiss cantons and the German states, espe- cially the northern and western, immediately affected by the religious change, but the politi- cal rights of Protestants in general were long and fiercely contested, and were conceded only after the desolations of a thirty years' religious war. By the peace of Westphalia, Protestants were, in respect to political rights, put on an equal footing with Catholics. Up to the time of the reformation there had always been Prot- estant elements in the Catholic church. Now these were drained off. The last appearance of anything kindred to Protestantism was in the Jansenists, and that was suppressed. The council of Trent established by its decrees an authoritative rule of the Catholic faith, confirm- ing, though in very general terms, the mediaeval theology, condemning Protestantism, and cor- recting some abuses no longer tolerable. It was the province of Jesuitism to make up for the loss sustained by the separation of the Prot- estants from the church by new conquests to the faith in heathen lands. By the missions of the Jesuits many converts were won in China, Japan, India, and America. At home, in Cath- olic countries, they have been a kind of standing army of the church. As they were very active and influential in the council of Trent through Laynez, the general of their order, and as their principles, with some slight exceptions, were the principles by which the church was main- tained against Protestantism at home, and chief- ly extended by means of missions abroad, it i? hardly too much to say that up to the time of the suppression of the order in 1773 they were