812 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
The influence of Calvinism and Presbyterian Church government extended, indirectly, also over the Lutheran Church and was modified in turn by Lutheranism.
John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and ancestor of the Kings of Prussia and Emperors of Germany, adopted the Calvinistic faith in a moderate form (1613). ^ Frederick William, "the great Elector," the proper founder of the Prussian Monarchy, secured the legal recognition of the Reformed Church in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), and answered the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) by a hospitable invitation of the persecuted Huguenots to his country, where they settled in large numbers. King Frederick William III. introduced, at the third centenary of the Reformation (1817), the Evangelical Union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of Prussia ; and among the chief advocates of the union was Schleiermacher, the son of a Calvinistic minister, the pupil of the Moravians, and the renovator of German theology, which itself is the result of a commingling of Lutheran and Reformed elements with a decided advance upon narrow confessionalism.
We may add that, while Calvin's rigorous doctrine of predestination in its dualistic form will never satisfy the German mind, his doctrine of the sacraments has made great progress in the Lutheran Church and seems to offer a solid basis for a satisfactory theory on the mystery of the spiritual real presence and fruition of Christ in the Holy Supper.
Calvin and Holland.
The Netherlands derived the Reformation first from Germany, and soon afterwards from Switzerland and France. The Calvinists outnumbered the Lutherans and Anabaptists, and the Reformed Church became the State religion in Holland.
1 Creeds of Christendom, I. 555 sqq.
§ 162. CALVIN'S INFLUENCE UPON THE CHURCHES. 813
Two Aiigustinian monks were burned for heresy in Brussels in 1523, and were celebrated by Luther in a stirring hymn as the first evangelical martyrs. This was the fiery signal of a fearful persecution, which raged during the reigns of Charles V. and Philip II., and resulted at last in the establishment of national independence and civil and religious liberty. During that memorable struggle of eighty years, more Protestants were put "to death for their conscientious belief by the Spaniards than Christians suffered martyrdom under the Roman Emperors in the first three centuries. William of Orange, the hero of the war and a liberal Calvinist, was assassinated by an obscure fanatic (1584).i His second son, Maurice, a strict Calvinist (d. 1625), carried on and completed the conflict (1609). The horrible barbarities practised upon men, women, and unborn children, especially during the governorship of that bloodhound, the Duke of Alva, from 1567-1573, are almost beyond belief. We quote from the classical history of Motley : " The number of Netherlanders who were burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried alive, in obedience to the edicts of Charles V., and for the offences of reading the Scriptures, of looking askance at a graven image, or of ridiculing the actual presence of the body and blood of Christ in a wafer, have been placed as high as one hundred thousand by distinguished authorities, and have never been put at a lower mark than fifty thousand. The Venetian envoy Navigero placed the number of victims
1 Motley {The Rise of the Dutch Bepublic, III. 617) thus characterizes William of Orange, the Washington of Holland : " He was more than anything else a religious man. From his trust in God, he ever derived support and consolation in the darkest hours. Implicitly relying upon Almighty wisdom and goodness, he looked danger in the face with a constant smile, and endured incessant labors and trials with a serenity which seemed more tlian human. While, however, his soul was full of piety, it was tolerant of error. Sincerely and deliberately himself a convert to the Reformed Ciiurch, he was ready to extend freedom of worship to Catholics on the one hand, and to Anabaptists on the other, for no man ever felt more keenly than he that the Reformer who becomes in his turn a bigot is doubly odious."