The controversies among the Protestants in the sixteenth century roused all the religious
and political passions and cast a gloom over the bright picture of the Reformation. Melanchthon
declared that with tears as abundant as the waters of the river Elbe he could not express his grief
over the distractions of Christendom and the "fury of theologians." Calvin also, when invited, with
Melanchthon, Bullinger and Buzer, in 1552, by Archbishop Cranmer to Lambeth Palace for the
purpose of framing a concensus-creed of the Reformed churches, was willing to cross ten seas for
the cause of Christian union.^41 But the noble scheme was frustrated by the stormy times, and still
remains a pium desiderium.
Much as we must deplore and condemn sectarian strife and bitterness, it would be as unjust
to charge them on Protestantism, as to charge upon Catholicism the violent passions of the trinitarian,
christological and other controversies of the Nicene age, or the fierce animosity between the Greek
and Latin Churches, or the envy and jealousy of the monastic orders of the Middle Ages, or the
unholy rivalries between Jansenists and Jesuits, Gallicans and Ultramontanists in modern Romanism.
The religious passions grow out of the selfishness of depraved human nature in spite of Christianity,
whether Greek, Roman, or Protestant., and may arise in any denomination or in any congregation.
Paul had to rebuke the party spirit in the church at Corinth. The rancor of theological schools and
parties under one and the same government is as great and often greater than among separate rival
denominations. Providence overrules these human weaknesses for the clearer development of
doctrine and discipline, and thus brings good out of evil.
The tendency of Protestantism towards individualism did not stop with the three Reformation
Churches, but produced other divisions wherever it was left free to formulate and organize the
differences of theological parties and schools. This was the case in England, in consequence of
what may be called a second Reformation, which agitated that country during the seventeenth
century, while Germany was passing through the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War.
The Toleration Act of 1689, after the final overthrow of the semi-popish and treacherous
dynasty of the Stuarts, gave the Dissenters who were formerly included in the Church of England,
the liberty to organize themselves into independent denominations under the names of Presbyterians,
Independents or Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers; all professing the principles of the
Reformation, but differing in minor points of doctrine, and especially in discipline, and the mode
of worship.
The Methodist revival of religion which shook England and the American colonies during
the eighteenth century, gave rise to a new denomination which spread with the enthusiasm of an
army of conquest and grew into one of the largest and most influential communions in
English-speaking Christendom.
In Scotland, the original unity of the Reformed Kirk was likewise broken up, mostly on the
question of patronage and the sole headship of Christ, so that the Scotch population is now divided
chiefly into three branches, the Established Church, the United Presbyterian Church, and the Free
Church of Scotland; all holding, however, to the Westminster standards.
In Germany, the Moravian brotherhood acquired a legal existence, and fully earned it by
its missionary zeal among the heathen, its educational institutions, its pure discipline and stimulating
influence upon the older churches.
(^41) See the correspondence in Cranmer’s Works publ. by the Parker Society, Vol.II. 430-433.