804 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



authority, each of which gave occasion for protest. Hence 

 such sects, arising in the third century and onward to the 

 seventh century, as the Noetians, Novatians, Meletians, 

 Aerians, Donatists, Joainites, Haesitantes, Tiinotheans, and 

 Athingani. 



Passing over that period during which ecclesiastical power 

 throughout Europe was rising to its climax, we come, in the 

 twelfth century, to dissenters of more advanced types ; who, 

 with or without differences of doctrine, rebelled against the 

 then-existing church government. Such sects as the Arnold - 

 ists in Italy, the Petrobrusians, Caputiati and Waldenses in 

 France, and afterwards the Stedingers in Germany and the 

 Apostolicals in Italy, are examples; severally characterized 

 by assertion of individual freedom, alike in judgment and 

 action. Ordinarily holding doctrines called heretical, the 

 promulgation of which was itself a tacit denial of ecclesias 

 tical authority (though a denial habitually based on submis 

 sion to an alleged higher authority) sects of this kind went on 

 increasing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There 

 were the Lollards in England ; the Fraticelli in Italy ; the 

 Taborites, Bohemian Brethren, Moravians and Hussites, in 

 Bohemia : all setting themselves against church-discipline. 

 And then the rebellious movement of the reformation, as 

 carried forward by the Lutherans in Germany, the Zwinglians 

 and Calvinists in Switzerland, the Huguenots in France, the 

 Anabaptists and Presbyterians in England, exhibited, along 

 with repudiation of various established doctrines, ceremonies, 

 and usages, a more pronounced anti-sacerdotalism. Charac 

 terized in common by opposition to Episcopacy, protestanfc 

 or catholic, we see first of all in the government by pres 

 byters, adopted by sundry of these dissenting bodies, a 

 step towards freedom of judgment and practice in religious 

 matters, accompanied by denial of priestly inspiration. 

 And then in the subsequent rise of the Independents, 

 taking for their distinctive principle the right of each con 

 gregation to govern itself, we see a further advance in that 



