Except in England, where ecclesiastical con ditions were different, state control of religion among the followers of Calvin, even if it once existed, rarely lasted very long, for Calvinism always encouraged the growth of a republican type of government. One of the best examples of this growth is found in the French town of La Rochelle where a political as well as an ecclesiastical system was developed which for a time threatened the existence of royal absolu tism in France. Although in not a few cases the Calvinistic regime produced intolerance, yet Calvinism itself was based upon a principle which sooner or later was bound to result in freedom. It would, therefore, be an error to assume that, because in Geneva or in Massa chusetts Bay there existed a theocracy, there must of necessity be theocratic government wherever the principles of Calvin are taught.
Lutherans and Calvinists may further be distinguished from each other by their attitude toward the Bible. Generally speaking Lutherans believed that the Church might properly retain whatever doctrines or ceremonies were not obviously prohibited in Scripture. Calvinists on the other hand believed that only such doctrines and ceremonies should be retained as were ex pressly commanded there. The general prin ciple of biblical authority was, to be sure, maintained in both churches, as over against the principle of ecclesiastical authority held by the Papacy, but the difference to which refer ence has just been made proved to have an im portant bearing upon the development of the two branches of Protestantism. It is obvious that the appeal to Scripture, constantly made by Protestants, contains within itself a correc tive for such errors as might from time to time come into existence through its use. Thus the verbal authority of Scripture, upon which in the latter part of the 16th century not a few Protestants both Lutheran and Calvinist relied, gave place in time to a much less mechanical conception. The more the Bible was studied and the better it was understood, the less it showed itself to be a legal code and the more it came to be regarded as a history and source of spiritual and religious power. Modern critical study of the Bible, including what is commonly called the Higher Criticism, is a legitimate outgrowth of the Protestant principle of Scriptural authority.
The connection between Protestantism, as a religious movement, and politics is real and historically of the highest importance. In French Switzerland is to be found a model of the self-governing churches which belonged to the Calvinistic wing of the Reformation. That model was
Geneva, where religion was the controlling in fluence, and where the ecclesiastical organiza Lion was hardly less significant than the civil. In the history of the Netherlands, as well as of Scotland and England, one may find constant illustration of the interplay of the same two forces. James I's famous declaration, allo bishop, no king,D was not only true for the Stuart monarchy at the time, but also affords a key to the history of the relations between politics and religion throughout the 17th cen tury. It was the spirit of self-government, ex hibited among Presbyterians and Independents which inspired the Puritan Revolution, that dramatic interruption of the Stuart line, and from the same spirit arose the long and tragic struggle for freedom in the Netherlands.
Lutheranism on the other hand proved hos pitable to a union between Church and State; but in the Germanic lands in modern times it has produced a merely nominal religious con formity. During the • last 100 years some of the most undesirable effects of the state-church system have become visible in Germany,— secularism, formalism and the inevitable de tachment of morality from the controlling sanc tions of a vital religious faith. Within the United States Lutheranism has suffered from sectarian movements not unlike those which have divided and subdivided other Protestant churches. In spite of the traditional boast that Lutherans know no sects, there are more dif ferent Lutheran organizations in the United States to-day than there are of any other Protestant denomination. Western and north ern Germany and German Switzerland became almost wholly Protestant in the 16th century. The Reformed faith also made important gains in France, showing an especially vigorous growth so long as the Edict of Nantes continued in force (1598-1685). With the revocation of that edict a Roman Catholic reaction set in and the gains which Protestantism had made were mostly wiped out. Denmark and Sweden early received the Lutheran Reformation and have remained Lutheran down to modern times. The Calvinistic faith was the controlling one in French Switzerland, the Netherlands, the British Islands and New England. Protestant liberalism in the form of Socinianism early found a home in Poland and Transylvania. The European lands least affected by the Ref ormation were Italy, Austria, Spain and the countries where the Eastern Church held sway.