German reformation by the same sort of means which had, a few centuries previous, quenched the light of Albigensian faith in the blood of its martyred witnesses? Yet this result did not follow. Charles won victories; yet these to the main purpose were ultimately fruitless; he experienced disasters, and in some of these his great armies were badly broken. His abdication, at last, in behalf of his son Philip, was a virtual confession of his own final defeat. His successor took up the same championship of tyranny and bigotry, and at the end of the forty years struggle in the Netherlands, ended as the father had done in disgraceful discomfiture. In this latter struggle Protestantism and Republicanism for the first time fought side by side. Then came The Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1618 and ending with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It was declared between the Evangelical Union of Germany, under the Elector Palatine, son-in-law of King James I., of England, and the Catholic League under the Duke of Bavaria. It was in this war that the Protestant hero, Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, won imperishable In the civil wars of England, which came next, beginning in 1642, Protestantism and Republicanism were again in alliance. Then followed the series of wars instigated by Louis Fourteenth. Various issues were at stake in these. To some extent they were occasioned by the grasping and unprincipled ambition of the French King, and the exigencies of state policy sometimes compelled Catholics and Protestants to unite in resisting him. Such alliances, however, were temporary, and the brunt of the struggle against the repeated aggressions upon the rights and possessions of the European nationalities was borne by the Protestant governments of England and Holland, with the Protestant German states. Complicated with these events were the changes of dynasty in England, when the Catholic Stuarts were driven from the throne, and first the Prince of Orange, afterwards the House of Hanover, established there. How largely the great Protestant issue was involved in these changes is shown in the fact that the line since occupying the English throne is designated

renown.

in history as the Protestant Succession. The Peace of Utrecht, in the reign of Queen Anne, and when King Louis, infirm with age and completely exhausted in his resources, was at last glad to surrender his claims to dictate law to all Europe, may be said to have closed the Protestant struggle. Everywhere Protestantism was victorious; and if anything has since been wanting to demonstrate the strength to which it has attained, it was furnished in the result of the sanguinary duel in 1870, between Protestant Germany and Catholic France.

cussion.

During the last century and a half, the 3. Third Period, Dis- mission of Protestantism, its struggle with the sword having victoriously terminated, has been the maintenance of its principles in the exercise of that free discussion, the right to which it won at such heavy cost. These principles may be summarized as follows: (1) That of the true nationality, as against those extraordinary claims of the Papacy in which this principle was virtually denied. Protestantism says nothing as to the form of government any nation shall maintain. It asserts the right of each nation to choose what form it pleases, and exercise this without interference from any power, secular or spiritual, beyond itself. To us, in this age, this seems a matter of course. It was not always so, by any means. (2) Protestantism denies the right of any spiritual authority within the nation to direct in the management of national affairs. To a certain extent, all church and state systems are a violation of this principle, a relic of the old hierarchical usurpation. It is fundamental in Protestantism that religion shall guide politics only as it guides other things, through the influence of right teaching and consistent example. (3) Protestantism asserts the equality of all religions before the law. (4) It holds to the freedom of the human conscience, as a vital principle; involving in itself, along with the precious immunities of religious freedom, all those rights which belong to man as man, to individuals and nations.

In concluding this study of Protestantism there are some

things interesting and worthy of notice in the present attitude of the two great forces in modern life, Protestantism and the Papacy. Upon the one hand, Protestantism has so long been in the enjoyment of those immunities which, as even this hasty review shows, were secured at such immense cost, that it seems almost to forget that it has not always had them, or could by any possibility lose them. Upon the other hand, the Roman church, standing where it has always stood, really yielding not one of its enormous pretensions, divisions in its own body healing with almost miraculous suddenness, preserves its unity, its fixedness of character, its steadiness of aim, and seems to be waiting for some crisis in human affairs which will be for it the long looked-for opportunity.

There are those, and the historian Froude is one of them, who think that Romanism has by no means ceased to be a challenge and a menace to all that should be most dear to patriots and to the friends of human rights. Perhaps it is simply that balancing of forces which we so often see in the providential government of the world. Perhaps Protestantism needs the consciousness of danger to protect it from itself. Perhaps, too, there are other collisions to occur, that out of these may come the clearer unfolding of right principles, and the more entire casting off, among Protestants themselves, of those relics of the old papal associations to which some of them so much cling. Some of those now living may see a time, and a juncture of events and causes, in which all the world will have reason to know, should any now be doubtful in the matter, that the great Protestant battle is not yet done.

V.

CALVINISM.

I.

IN MODERN THOUGHT—(1) RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.

THE word " Calvinism" is used in this and the three following papers to some extent as a matter of convenience. The thought is this: There is a large amount of post-Reformation history which is in more or less intimate relations with a certain form of theological teaching-a certain aspect of our modern Christianity. This history is mainly religious, and where it is in a main degree secular, there is in it a large religious element, and a religious element of that precise character which we denote by the word "Calvinism:" Huguenot history, Covenanter history, Puritan history; historical characters, such as William the Silent, John of Barneveldt, Cromwell, Milton, the statesmen so conspicuous in the Commonwealth period of English history, the Pilgrim founders and fathers of New England. There is also what we may call revolutionary history, dealing with those changes in society, in government, in the recognition and application of fundamental principles in thought and life, which have put such a new face upon the modern world; literary history, scientific discovery and investigation, philosophy, dealing with all great questions-it is very notable, when we come to look into the matter, how much that which we venture to call the representative theology of the Reformation has to do with all this history.

Now, in dealing with the immense amount of matter thus laid open to view in such a study as the present one, we must try to give it some kind of order and system. And so we select the term “Calvinism” as summarizing better than any other that religious aspect of the history which we are to consider in its relation to these other aspects;-an element, in fact, which enters into the whole great story in a mosteurious, and notable, and suggestive way. We will arrange this history, then, in those two chief spheres of human activity which all history assumes, thought and life. Modern thought may then be considered in its four aspects as religious, philosophical, literary, scientific. Modern life may mean all that in the history which relates to historical movements, historical persons, whatever is most important and significant in the outward life of the period. In the present paper we shall consider the Reformation theology in its representative form with reference to religious thought first, then philosophy; in the next paper in its relation to literature and science.

Religious thought is not apt to engage Religious Thought in the attention of ordinary history, save as, Special Aspects. in the form of creed systems, or of ecclesiasticism, it enters into and influences the ordinary current of human affairs. Apart, however, from what relates to doctrinal systems and church institutions, there are aspects of the religious thought of any period which become highly interesting as we make ourselves more familiar with them. These are seen, sometimes, in movements of change, perhaps of revolt, that take place within what seems outwardly established and permanent, exhibiting, often, the operation of elements of change which may be in such systems themselves, often the operation and effect of what is personal to conspicuous men, often, too, controllings of Divine Providence, significant of great results. We may instance that movement, led by Dr. Chalmers, resulting in the formation of the Free Church of Scotland, the Tractarian movement in England, in which such men as Newman, Pusey, Keble, Hurrell Froude, and others shared so largely, and important movements in this country