Greetings once again in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and let me invite you to join me in prayer as we begin. Let us pray: Good and gracious Lord, we come to you once again asking for your guidance by your Spirit so that what we think and what we say will be honoring to your great name, for it’s in that name that we pray, Amen.
We were talking in our class about the life and work of the first great Protestant Reformer, Dr. Martin Luther. From his ministry in the sixteenth century came the first major branch of Protestantism, one which, of course, bears his name—the Lutheran tradition. Its beginnings are usually dated from the posting of the now-famous Ninety-Five Theses on October 31, 1517. This forms a kind of convenient, symbolic starting point for the Protestant Reformation.
Luther had affirmed in his teaching and life those three great Reformation principles: justification by grace through faith, the authority of Scripture, and the priesthood of all believers. And those great theological affirmations form the foundation for all of the Protestant Reformed groups of whatever branch. We’ll be coming back to those again and again as we move through these next lectures.
Lutheranism, which of course started in the heart of Germany, began to spread rapidly to the east through Prussia, Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Transylvania; to the north through Denmark, Norway, Sweden, becoming, in fact, established church life in those areas; to the west, via the Swedes in Delaware and the Germans in Pennsylvania. The Lutherans throughout the world held together doctrinally by the Book of Concord, more particularly by the great Augsburg Confession, which forms the theological foundation for much of worldwide Lutheranism today.
Garth M. Rosell, PhD Experience: Professor of Church History
and Director Emeritus, Ockenga Institute at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
We’re fortunate to have some wonderful resources for the study of Martin Luther in those early years of the Reformation. The best thing to do is to read Luther himself; and you may want to begin with this marvelous little collection of his writings by John Dillenberger called Martin Luther: Selections, published by Anchor Books, 1961. You can also find Lutheran materials quite easily in most of your libraries, in such series as The Library of Christian Classics, the Westminster Press series, volumes 15, 16, 17, and 18—all of them dealing with Luther material. You may want to read Luther’s introduction to his Commentary to the Galatians and on Romans. Those two have been used across the centuries to bring new faith to a good many people, including John Wesley, whose Aldersgate experience was triggered in part by the reading of Luther’s preface to the Commentary on the Romans.
There are some excellent Luther biographies available as well. Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand is one of the classics and is an excellent place to begin. John Todd’s Luther: A Life, produced by Crossroads in 1982, is another good one. James Kittelson’s Luther, The Reformer, Augsburg Press, 1986; or James Atkinson’s Martin Luther, Eerdmans, 1983. Those are all very fine sources for us. An interesting two-volume series, the first written by Martin Brecht, looks at Martin Luther’s early life, from 1483 to 1521. And then Heinrich Bornkamm picks up at 1521 and carries through to 1530 in Luther at Mid-Career, both of these published by Fortress Press in 1985 and 1983, respectively.
Those of you who are reading along with us in Kenneth Scott Latourette will want to make note, especially, of that section in volume 2 which is our text for the course, “The Reformation to the Present,” pages 689 to 898, which focus particularly on the various branches of Reformed thought which we are exploring.
Today, however, I want us to look together primarily at the Reformed branch of Protestantism. It started in Zurich under the ministry of Ulrich Zwingli. It was consolidated in Geneva, under the work of John Calvin, and then spread throughout France by the Huguenots, through Bohemia via the Hussites, and then by way of Presbyterians through the Netherlands, Scotland, England, Ireland, and right here into America.
These first two branches of Protestantism which we are exploring, Lutheranism and the Reformed branch, together form the core of what we call the Magisterial Reformation. These folk are distinguished by their commitment to the integration
of church and state, that church and state are to work hand in hand reinforcing and encouraging one another. This tradition also stresses such practices as infant baptism, the allowance of both wheat and tares to exist within the one membership of the church (and we’ll talk more about that in particular in a bit), the stress upon parish membership, state support of church and of its ministry, and the like.
This basic emphasis on Magisterial Reform characterizes both Lutheranism and the Reformed group that we’ll be focusing on primarily today. Let’s take a look at that tradition and begin where it started—in the heart of Switzerland, in this case in Zurich.
Although John Calvin is better known than Ulrich Zwingli, Zwingli is properly called “the father of the Reformed tradition.” While Calvin gave ultimate shape and substance to the tradition, Zwingli is properly seen as its originator. Luther and Zwingli, ironically, were born within seven weeks of each other. The starting point for Luther’s reformation was his own inner struggle for salvation as a monk, and we looked a bit at that process and its effect upon Luther’s own thought and work.
The starting point for Zwingli was quite different. Zwingli was not a monk troubled by the predicament of his own soul. He doesn’t seem to have the same intense soul searching struggle that Luther had, though he did engage in a battle with his own appetites, his own lusts, his own sensuous interests. He confessed that he had great difficulty in maintaining the requirement of clerical celibacy, for example; but he knew that he wasn’t alone in that failure. He said, in fact, “Out of one hundred, nay, out of one thousand, there is scarcely one chaste priest.” Whether or not that was actually the case, it certainly was something that he felt was a part of his own struggle and a part of the church life at the time.
Zwingli was a strong Swiss nationalist, a partisan of Swiss independence. The Swiss states—then called cantons, and in fact they still are—gradually bound themselves together in a kind of confederacy in order to get freedom from their Hapsburg overlords. Because of their fierce love of liberty and individualism and because of their own valor as soldiers, the Swiss were successful in wresting their independence from the rulers of Austria and much of Germany. Zwingli remembered that already as a child he was a zealous patriot. “Even as a child, if anyone teased us Confederates and upbraided or slandered us,” he wrote, “I resisted them and
even ran into danger on that account, for anyone who dishonors the Confederation also dishonors me.”
As John Payne points out in his interesting article in Christian History, an issue which is given over completely to Zwingli, he comments,
He showed himself to be a courageous pastor, and he gave very little though to his own safety as he ministered to victims of the plague that hit Zurich shortly after he began his ministry there. He himself was smitten and nearly died. This experience, no doubt, led to a maturing in his religious development. While in the grip of this illness, he wrote The Song of the Plague, in which he shows a sturdy faith in the all-sufficiency of God’s grace.
He agreed completely with Luther regarding the matter of justification by faith, but his reflections during his illness went far beyond himself and his own misery. They included also his people. He compared his own mortal illness with the sickness of his people, which could lead to spiritual death. Conversely, Zwingli compared his recovery with the Reformation of the church and society.
Zwingli had some strong differences with Luther over the issue of the Eucharist. The Reformed branch of the church and the Lutheran branch were to divide over a whole variety of other issues, as well, but the initial break came in its understanding of the Eucharist. Zwingli rejected Luther’s belief in the real bodily presence of Christ in the elements. Christ is present, Zwingli felt, not physically but spiritually in the hearts of the believers. Luther, on the other hand, held to what we now know as consubstantiation—that the body and blood of our Lord are present, as the Lutherans put it, “in, with, and under the bread and the wine.” And you see that argument taking shape in the fascinating Colloquy of Marburg at the end of the 1520s. Those of you who may want to read more deeply in this subject will want to look at that colloquy and some of its arguments pro and con. We have here, then, the initial beginnings of that division between these two great branches of Protestantism—the Reformed and Lutheran—taking shape primarily in these early years over the issue of the Eucharist.
We are going to talk a good deal more about Zwingli in our next lecture, when we look at the Anabaptist tradition, the left wing of the Reformation as it’s often called. For the Anabaptist tradition emerges out of Zwingli’s own ministry and out of Zurich at the time of Zwingli’s ministry. We’ll come back to that story in our next lecture. Those who wish to read more on Zwingli at this time, however, may want to look at books such as G. R. Potter’s Zwingli, produced by Cambridge University Press in 1977; or Potter’s Ulrich Zwingli, produced by the Historical Association of London in 1983; or Jacque Courvoisier’s Zwingli: A Reformed Theologian, published by Knox Press in 1963. Or if you want convenient form of materials on Zwingli, you may want to look at Geoffrey Bromily’s Zwingli and Bullinger. Bullinger, of course, was Zwingli’s successor in Zurich, and this is part of that Library of Christian Classics series that we’ve talked about before.
Let me leave Zwingli now for a bit—we’ll come back to him—and focus on the primary figure who gave shape to Reformed theology and Reformed thought, namely, John Calvin. Few figures in history have been viewed in such a wide variety of ways and with deeper feelings than has John Calvin. There’s an issue of Christian History, actually volume 4 published in 1986, which is focused completely on Calvin. If you look in the initial pages, you have some interesting contrasts of views toward Calvin reflected there.
Let me mention a few of these: “Calvin has, I believe, caused untold millions of souls to be damned,” that statement by Jimmy Swaggart. “Calvin was the most Christian man of his age,” said Ernest Renan, a French historian. “If Calvin ever wrote anything in favor of religious liberty, it was a typographical error.” That’s Roland Bainton, the Yale historian. “Calvin is the man who, next to Saint Paul, has done most good to mankind,” William Cunningham, a Scottish theologian. “But we shall always find it hard to love the man who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense,” Will Durant, the great historian. “I have been a witness of his for sixteen years, and I think I am fully entitled to say that in Calvin there was exhibited to all an example of the life and death of the Christian such as it will not be easy to deprecate, and it will be difficult to imitate,” Theodore Beza, Calvin’s successor. “It was the fact that Calvin’s own character was compulsive-neurotic, which transformed the God of love, as experienced and taught by Jesus, into a compulsive character bearing absolutely diabolical traits in His practice,” Oskar Pfister, a psychologist. And one could read on and on of views of John
Calvin. “Calvin was one of those strong and consistent men,” said Lewis Spitz, “who people either liked or disliked, adored or abhorred.” And probably you, as you listen, will have your own feelings about Calvin.
Who was this man, this remarkable figure, the fountainhead of the Reformed wing of the Protestant Reformation? I think we get to know Calvin best through his own writings. There are great numbers of materials now available to us on John Calvin. It’s best to read the things he’s written himself. His correspondence fills eleven volumes. He wrote commentaries on nearly every biblical book, but the place I like to encourage people to begin reading Calvin is in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. The very best edition of this is the Library of Christian Classics edition, the translation of Ford Lewis Battles. It’s a two-volume set published by Westminster in 1960. Some of you may be put off by the thought of reading The Institutes, a dry theological tome, but let me encourage you by saying that Calvin originally wrote The Institutes as a manual for those who wanted to understand their faith. It’s a very pastoral kind of document, and those of you who begin reading it will be utterly surprised at how accessible this remarkable person is through the writings of The Institutes. If you want to begin in reading Calvin, I would ask that you start there.
Or you can read about Calvin through some classics such as John T. McNeill’s The History and Character of Calvinism, Oxford University Press, 1954; or T. H. L. Parker’s John Calvin: His Biography, Westminster, 1975; or W. Stanford Reid, John Calvin, His Influence in the Western World, Zondervan, 1982; or John Murray, Calvin on Scripture and Divine Sovereignty, Baker, 1960; or Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, Eerdmans, 1931. And the list goes on and on.
Calvin’s father was a successful lawyer. He had a substantial standing in the community as well, and he had planned a career for his son—a career first in the church—but then he changed his mind and decided that he should send his son in the direction of the study of law. He was educated privately, at first, and then sent to the University of Paris when he was fourteen. He studied law at the University of Orleans, 1528 and following. He learned Greek and Hebrew, he studied the classics. At the age of twenty-two he wrote his first book, A Commentary on Seneca’s Latin Work De Clementia. This was published in 1532. In Paris and Orleans, there were Lutherans, and he came to know the work of Martin Luther, continued to esteem Luther’s work highly, even though
he and Luther never had a chance to actually meet. This led to Calvin’s conversion in 1533.
His own account of his conversion is included in his preface to the Commentary on the Psalms. And you can find it in his sets of works in that commentary series, if you want to dig it out for yourselves. Let me read this relevant section to you:
God drew me from obscure and lowly beginnings and conferred on me that most honorable office of herald and minister of the Gospel. What happened first was that, by an unexpected conversion, He tamed to teachableness a mind too stubborn for its years, for I was strongly devoted to the superstitions of the papacy, that nothing less could draw me from such depths of mire.
Very interesting reflections. It’s understandable that he was early on branded a Lutheran and persecuted in Paris—in fact, persecuted so strongly that he had to flee ultimately and seek refuge in Basel. It was in 1536 that the first editions of The Institutes were published, and he was still in his twenties when this took place. He continued to revise these over the next number of years, until they’d come to the form that we have today.
Calvin is known primarily, of course, as the “Reformer of Geneva.” Actually, he should be called the “pastor of Geneva,” for his work as a Reformer was an extension of his pastoral ministry. At the age of twenty-seven, Calvin was pushed into pastoral responsibilities by William Farel, the leader of the Christian community in Geneva. This was in July of 1536. The road there was rocky, and ultimately both Calvin and Farrell were driven out of the city. Calvin went to Strasbourg, where Martin Bucer asked him to take care of a group of French Protestant refugees and to teach at the academy which had been formed there. In fact, in a sense, Calvin gained his pastoral skills by working with a remarkable teacher, Martin Bucer.
In 1540 he married the widow of an Anabaptist, Idelette de Bure. Unfortunately, she died in 1549. She had two children, and he found great happiness in his marriage with her, though it was all too brief. It was in that same year that he published his Commentary on the Romans, that great text which many have referred to for their own learning and is still worth reading today.
In 1540 a delegation from Geneva came to beg Calvin to return. Even though they had pushed him out, they now wanted him back for his leadership. Calvin reluctantly agreed, returned to Geneva in September of 1541, and remained there in Geneva for twenty-three years, right down to his own death. By November 1541 the government in Geneva had adopted Calvin’s Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and it’s there that we find the basic structuring of the religious life of that community. It formed the foundation for what we’ve come to know today as Reformed or Presbyterian church practice.
Calvin outlined a fourfold ministry. It’s a ministry first of worship, second of education, third of purity, and fourth works of love and mercy. The four orders of ministers, which Calvin identified, were linked to those four types of ministry. Leading in worship in the Word and sacrament was to be the pastor. Leading in the education of the community were to be the doctors; and classes were held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in Latin. In 1559, the great Geneva Academy was established to carry on that task of education.
The third order were the elders. They were given the task of the purity of the church. They formed together the consistory, as it was called. This is a collection of elders who taught and ruled in the life of the church. They met every Thursday to censure or excommunicate those who were guilty of offenses against morality or doctrine.
And the fourth order was the deacon. These were the ones given to the task of love and mercy. They carried out many of the normal duties which had accrued over the years to the deacons—caring for the sick and infirm, taking communion to those who were not able to come to the service, and the like.
Calvin himself was appointed by the city council and paid by them. You see here again that stress upon the Magisterial Reformers’ commitment to the integration of church and state. Geneva itself had three churches at this time; eighteen ministers served those churches preaching about an hour or more. This was the normal length of the sermons every day and twice on Sundays. Calvin himself preached an average of five sermons every week, which is remarkable, given all the other tasks which he had.
Geneva also had committed itself to the Psalm tradition, rather than the hymn tradition. You have another interesting division
between these two major branches of Magisterial Reformers. Luther himself was a great writer of hymns. These hymns grew out of his own devotion and were used in the worship of the church. The Reformed camp, including Calvin, would not allow anything but scriptural words to be used in the worship of God. Therefore, only the Psalms were allowable for singing in church, and the division between Lutherans and Reformed in those early years is in terms of church music, along the lines of hymnody and psalmody, in that particular division.
Geneva itself became a kind of receiving center for Protestant refugees from all over the place. John Knox, about whom we’ll talk later, visited Geneva at this time and called Geneva “the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the apostles.” That’s quite a commendation. You find here in Geneva, under Calvin’s leadership, all of the basic elements that ultimately emerge in the various forms of Reformed thought and Reformed church practice and in Presbyterianism, as many of us know it today. We’ll pick up some of those strands as we move along.
Calvin himself suffered again and again with illness. He had migraines, lung hemorrhages, bladder stones, gout, and numerous other problems. Exhausted and ill, on May 27, 1564, Calvin died; but his legacy lives on through a wide variety of different church practices and structures. Let me mention, in particular, the Reformed and Presbyterian development that emerged out of Calvin’s teaching in Geneva. And Presbyterianism looks to Geneva and Calvin as its fountainhead for practice and for life.
We see that spread from France into the Netherlands; ultimately into other parts of Europe and around the world, taking root most firmly, perhaps, in Scotland; making its way to Ireland, to Wales, and ultimately to America itself. We’ll be talking about all of these emerging patterns, but let me mention a few of those in the time that we have remaining in this lecture.
The first Protestant congregation in France was organized in1555. It was actually organized in a home, the home of Ferrier. He had a group of Christians gathered with him and desired his child to be baptized. There was no minister available, so what they did was to organize themselves as a church. They elected a pastor, elders, and deacons—those basic church offices that were needed—and then they administered baptism to the child. Within four years, there were enough Protestant congregations of this type in
France to organize the first synod of the French Reformed Church. This synod, not surprisingly, adopted the Confession of Faith which had been written by John Calvin; and it adopted a book of discipline which went even farther than Geneva did, in terms of organizing and structuring the disciplined life of the church community, and this became the foundation for French Reformed churches. It had four levels of judicatory so called. There were the consistories, and then the colloquies, and then the provincial synods, and ultimately the final court of appeal—the national synod. This relates directly to what we find in Presbyterianism in the sessions of the local congregations in presbyteries and synods and ultimately in the general assembly.
These French Protestants were known as Huguenots. Like others of their time, they were bitterly persecuted. Some sixty of them were massacred one Sunday as they were on their way to church in the little town of Vesey. This opened up a religious war, which engaged the whole of France, on and off, for the next thirty years. The Synod of La Rochelle, in 1571, was the high water mark for Huguenot church growth. More than two thousand congregations were listed as a part of that synodical meeting. But soon, as a result of the intense persecutions—and particularly the great St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre on August 24, 1572—thousands of Huguenots were put to death. In fact, that original over-two-thousand-member church body was reduced by more than two-thirds. The devastation of that persecution is incredible. Many of these folk fled the country, others went up into the mountains, and it’s ironic in a sense that in 1715, when Louis XIV declared that this heresy had finally been officially exterminated in the land, up in the mountains in an old stone quarry this church of dissent, with some three thousand members in attendance, met for worship.
Persecution often strengthens the church, rather than destroying it. And we see that strong ongoing Huguenot tradition in France down to this day, so that the Presbyterian church, or the Huguenot church, or the Reformed Church in France continues. It endures despite all of the enormous hardships which it has endured across its history.
Presbyterianism also spread into the Netherlands. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, modern Holland and Belgium were a single country known then as the Netherlands. This was ruled at that time by Spain. Reformation thought had entered the Netherlands very early, and we know that less than a decade
after the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses, the first two martyrs were put to death—Protestant martyrs in the Netherlands. It was Calvin and Geneva, however, that established the basic pattern for church life and growth in major sections of the Netherlands. We see that, as happened in France, great persecution was brought against these people, and yet they continued to grow and prosper.
Late in the sixteenth century, Holland and Belgium actually divided—Belgium remaining committed to the Roman Catholic faith and under the authority of Spain, Holland becoming independent and becoming committed to the Reformed wing of the Protestant Reformation. William of Orange, at that time, granted official toleration for all churches. Holland became the great center for trading and banking, and it became the great refuge for people from many lands who were persecuted for religious sake. We know that the Huguenots from France, and Puritans from England, and Covenanters from Scotland, and many others came again and again into Holland seeking refuge from enormous persecutions going on in their own countries. So it became a sort of central focal area for much of Reformed thought, and some of mature Reformed thought emerged, then, out of Holland at this period simply because it put folk together regularly from a variety of different wings of the Reformed camp.
It did have its theological struggles. The best known of these came at the hands of a well-known theologian, Jacob Arminius, professor of theology at the newly formed University of Leiden. He began to teach views of human goodness and moral ability which differed markedly from the earlier Reformed emphasis, certainly the Calvinistic teaching upon human sin and God’s grace. This divided the church in the country, as it continues to divide many churches today.
A synod was convened at Dordt in 1618. Representatives from throughout The Netherlands and twenty-eight other countries came. The result of those deliberations was a rejection of the doctrine of Arminius and the adoption of a somewhat more rigid form of Calvinism. Those of you who have studied the results of Dordt will know exactly what I mean. Those who would like to read further will find a very useful book, Carl Bangs’s Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, Abingdon, 1971.
The Netherlands, then, became central to the spread of Presbyterianism, this Reformed branch of Reformation thought. Not only the Reformed churches in that country but, through
their influence and through the many refugees and, in fact, through Dutch colonial expansion, the development of Calvinism and the Presbyterian wing of the church in many other parts of the world—in the Dutch Indies, in America, South Africa, to name just a few. The Reformed Church is still strong in Holland today, and those who visit Holland will find ready access to that ongoing branch of the church.
Presbyterianism, then, met with its greatest acceptance in Europe, in Switzerland, and in Holland. It also spread rapidly through the British Isles and into America, and we’ll come to those stories in just a bit; but what about the other parts of Europe? Germany, of course, was dominated by Lutheranism in the early years; but in the nineteenth century Lutheran and Reformed churches in Germany combined form what is now called the Evangelical Church, and that’s the branch that you will find in church life in Germany today if you visit.
In Bohemia, present-day Czechoslovakia, John Huss had protested against corruptions in the church a century before Luther came; but by the late sixteenth century, many of these Hussites had accepted Calvin’s views, so that by 1600 some four-fifths of the population of Bohemia were Calvinist Protestants. Then came the persecution, as it did in so many places, and this was devastating in Bohemia, so that Presbyterianism was reduced by at least three-fourths. Many of them either left or recanted the faith or returned to other forms of faith, and in that country were left only a small minority of Reformed thinkers.
In Hungary Lutheranism entered early but soon was replaced by Calvinistic or Reformed thought. By 1600 Protestants of all kinds were a majority in the land, but persecution again cut their numbers, and they continue now as a small minority in that country.
Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, all had small branches of Reformed church life. Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Poland were dominantly Roman Catholic, but even in those countries a good number of Presbyterians or Reformed Christians began to emerge.
Scotland became the great center of Reformed life and, in fact, remains that down to our own day. For some three hundred years now, people have looked to Scotland as a kind of homeland for Calvinist Presbyterian Reformed thinking. The major figure there
was the remarkable John Knox. We first catch up with Knox at St. Andrew’s, that marvelous, beautiful city in Scotland. Besieged then by the French, Knox was taken prisoner and condemned to serve on the French galleys for nineteen months, rowing as one of the oarsmen. He was then exiled from his homeland; he lived in England and France and Switzerland and Germany. This covered a period of twelve years before he was allowed to return to his homeland of Scotland. He did return in 1559. When he had left Scotland in 1547, there were only a small number of Protestants anywhere in the land. Now, in 1559, the land was seething with discontent and was ripe for reformation. After some fighting, aided by England’s Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, the French were finally driven out.
The Scottish parliament met in 1560, they abolished Roman Catholicism, and they established Presbyterianism as the official religion of the land. The following year, 1561, Mary Stuart, the young Queen of Scotland, returned to take over control of her country after a sojourn in France. Knox and Queen Mary had some classic confrontations with one another. This produced vigorous conflict. Knox thundered from the pulpit of St. Giles Church, that remarkable church on the High Street in Edinburgh. It’s a beautiful place with a unique kind of tower. Those of you who have visited will remember. He thundered not only against the queen, but against Roman Catholicism itself. There was a standoff for a time, until a moral scandal caused Mary to flee to England, where she was ultimately executed by Queen Elizabeth.
In 1603 James VI of Scotland became also the king of England. From that day to this, England and Scotland have been under the same sovereign, even though both of them retain their own individual parliaments. Under James, attempts were made to change the Scottish church from Presbyterian form to Episcopalian form, and one can understand why that would be the case. His son and successor, Charles I, ordered in 1637 a strict form of worship to be followed by the Church of Scotland. When this was first introduced at St. Giles Church in Edinburgh, it caused an uproar. The people threw stools and Bibles and anything else that they could find at the bishop, calling him a pope. This caught the national attention, and in 1638 a meeting was organized at the old Greyfriars Church to draw up a national covenant. This covenant pledged to defend to the death the doctrine and discipline of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
Charles was furious and sent his army twice against Scotland, only to be forced to retreat twice. Charles, with troubles at home, soon gave in; and in 1643 a solemn league and covenant was established between England and Scotland. This was against the king. Six years later, Charles was executed. Oliver Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector, and after Cromwell’s death, the old line was reestablished with Charles II. We’ll talk about that whole process in just a bit, when we come to the Reformation in England, but I’ll leave it with that for the time being; only to say that there were those who, under the attempts to reinstitute Episcopalian religion in Scotland, vigorously resisted. A group led by the Covenanters, as they were called, who charged Charles with usurping the national covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant.
In the midst of this struggle, Charles II died, succeeded by his brother, James II. The English Parliament, fearing lest James reintroduce Roman Catholicism, invited William of Orange, ruler of The Netherlands, and his wife, Mary, to take the throne of England. This has been hailed as the glorious revolution of 1688 and had profound impact upon the life of the church.
William III had been reared in the Presbyterian church in the Netherlands and was sympathetic to their ideals. So in 1689 the Scottish Parliament declared Presbyterianism to be the official religion of Scotland; and, in fact, it continues as the official religion down to this day, though there have been splits and reunited forms that have taken place across the years.
The largest church then, this Church of Scotland, today has some one million members and follows the normal Presbyterian practice.
From Scotland the Presbyterian form moves into Ireland through the so-called Scotch-Irish; into Wales, in a unique process that relates to some of the revival practices of that country; and ultimately into the great Presbyterian movement here in the Americas. We’ll pick that story up in one of our subsequent lectures.
What we have, then, emerging out of Zurich under Zwingli, then taking its form and shape under John Calvin in Geneva, and then spreading through the Huguenots in France, through the Presbyterians and Reformed group in the Netherlands and on into Scotland, where it takes up firm root, is a pattern of church
life, a major branch of Protestant Reformed thought that we know of as the Reformed tradition. We’ll be picking that story up as we move along throughout the coming days.
