8 THE SWISS REFOKMATION.
But Calvin is the great theologian, organizer, and disciplinarian of the Reformed Church. He brought it nearer the Lutheran Church in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but he widened the breach in the doctrine of predestination.
Zwingli and BuUinger connect the Swiss Reformation with that of Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia ; Calvin and Beza, with that of France, Holland, England, and Scotland.
§ 3. The G-enius of the Swiss Reformation compared with
the Grerman.
On the difference between the Lutheran and the Reformed Confessions see GoBEL, Hdndeshagen, Schnekenburger, Schweizer, etc., quoted in SCHAFF, Greeds of Christendom, vol. I. 211.
Protestantism gives larger scope to individual and national freedom and variety of development than Romanism, which demands uniformity in doctrine, discipline, and worship. It has no visible centre or headshi]3, and consists of a number of separate and independent organizations under the invisible headship of Christ. It is one flock, but in many folds. Variety in unity and unity in variety are the law of God in nature and history. Protestantism so far has fully developed variety, but not yet realized unity.
The two original branches of evangelical Christendom are the Lutheran and the Reformed Confessions. They are as much alike and as much distinct as the Greek and the Roman branches of Catholicism, which rest on the national bases of philosophical Greece and political Rome. They are equally evangelical, and admit of an organic union, which has actually been effected in Prussia and other parts of Germany since the third anniversary of the Reformation in 1817. Their differences are theological rather than religious ; they affect the intellectual conception, but not the heart and soul of piety. The only serious doctrinal difference which divided Luther and Zwingli at Marburg was the mode of the real presence in the eucharist; as the double procession of the
§ 3. SWISS KEFOKMATION COMPARED WITH GERMAN. 9
Holy Spirit was for centuries the only doctrinal difference between the Greek and Roman Churches. But other differences of government, discipline, worship, and practice developed themselves in the course of time, and overshadowed the theological lines of separation.
The Lutheran family embraces the churches which bear the name of Luther and accept the Augsburg Confession ; the Reformed family (using the term Reformed in its historic and general sense) comprehends the churches which trace their origin directly or indirectly to the labors of Zwingli and Calvin. 1 \i\ England the second or Puritan Reformation gave birth to a number of new denominations, which, after the Toleration Act of 1689, were organized into distinct Churches. In the eighteenth century arose the Wesleyan revival movement, which grew into one of the largest and most active churches in the English-speaking world.
Thus the Reformation of the sixteenth century is the mother or grandmother of at least half a dozen families of evangelical denominations, not counting the sub-divisions. Lutheranism has its strength in Germany and Scandinavia ; the Reformed Church, in Great Britain and North America.
The Reformed Confession has developed different types. Travelling westward with the course of Christianity and civilization, it became more powerful in Holland, England, and Scotland than in Switzerland ; but the chief characteristics which distinguish it from the Lutheran Confession were already developed by Zwingli and Calvin.
1 On the Continent and in works of church history the designation Reformed includes Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and other non-Lutheran Protestants. Calvinism and Puritanism are not church terms, but denote schools and parties within the Reformed churches. The Anglican Reformed Church stands by itself as a communion which was reformed under Lutheran and Calvinistic influences, but occupies a position between Catholicism and Protestantism. In modern English and American usage, the term Reformed has assumed a restricted sectional sense in connection with other terms, as Reformed Dutch, Reformed German, Reformed Presbyterian, Reformed Episcopalian.
10 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
The Swiss and the German Reformers agreed in opposition to Romanism, but the Swiss departed further from it. The former were zealous for the sovereign glory of God, and, in strict interpretation of the first and second commandments, abolished the heathen elements of creature worship; while Luther, in the interest of free grace and the peace of conscience, aimed his strongest blows at the Jewish element of monkish legalism and self-righteousness. The Swiss theology proceeds from God's grace to man's needs ; the Lutheran, from man's needs to God's grace.
Both agree in the three fundamental principles of Protestantism : the absolute supremacy of the Divine Scriptures as a rule of faith and practice ; justification by free grace through faith ; the general priesthood of the laity. But as regards the first principle, the Reformed Church is more radical in carrying it out against human traditions, abolishing all those which have no root in the Bible ; while Luther retained those which are not contrary to the Bible. As regards justification by faith, Luther made it the article of the standing or falling Church; while Zwingli and Calvin subordinated it to the ulterior truth of eternal foreordination by free grace, and laid greater stress on good works and strict discipline. Both opposed the idea of a special priesthood and hierarchical rule ; but the Swiss Reformers gave larger scope to the popular lay element, and set in motion the principle of congregational and synodical self-government and self-support.
Both brought the new Church into close contact with the State ; but the Swiss Reformers controlled the State in the spirit of republican independence, which ultimately led to a separation of the secular and spiritual powers, or to a free Church in a free State (as in the free churches of French Switzerland, and in all the churches of the United States) ; while Luther and Melanchthon, with their native reverence for monarchical institutions and the German Empire, taught