290 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters. 
The basis of the Lutheran doctrine was the “ unaltered * Augsburg 
confession,” the Smalcald article, and Luther’s catechisms. 
By the Peace of Augsburg (1555), the only Protestant faith recognized 
in Germany was the Lutheran and that the unaltered Augsburg confes¬ 
sion, but in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), both Lutheranism and Calvin¬ 
ism were given a legal standing. 
At the beginning of the Thirty Years War it is estimated tliat between 
seventy and ninety per cent, of the population of Germany were Protest¬ 
ant and by far the larger part of that number were Lutherans. The seat 
of Lutheranism was northern Germany, while in the south the German 
princes had adopted Calvinism. The Reformed faith or Calvinism had 
taken root in Germany partly from Switzerland, the home of Zwingli, 
and partly through the teachings of Melancthon, but it never gained 
that hardy growth in Germany, says Gardiner, that it had in its native 
soil. It was the religion of the courts, and according to the principle of 
the times, it became the religion of the people, (cujus regio, ejns religio.) 
Prom 1580 to the close of the seventeenth century the lines between 
the two Protestant faiths were drawn still more closely, and the first 
modification of dogmatic principles was effected by the influence of 
Spener and the Pietists. Doctrine became subordinate to “ inner light ” 
and to practical piety, it was like the Methodist revival in England 
but did not result in secession.! 
Meanwhile the thought of union was being revived. Frederick I. of 
Prussia called councils of Lutherans and Reformed theologians at Berlin 
for the sake of obliterating differences, and in 1737, Frederick Wil¬ 
liam I. sought to unify church usages by abolishing certain forms. But 
the times were doing more. Rationalism was at work modifying creeds, 
so that at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth 
century the Lutheran church had but few representatives. J The old 
hatred seemed strange, even incomprehensible to the new race. Ration¬ 
alism was above dogmatic strife and Pietism regarded the eternal love 
as the essence of Christianity. Hence the idea naturally arose that 
Protestantism might well return to its early unity. [| Of this idea 
Schleiermacher was the spokesman and Frederick William III. its propa¬ 
gator, though they differed materially as to the manner in which it was 
to be carried out. 
The beginning of this century was rich with new national life for 
Germany. Romanticism and the War of Liberation gave rise to a revival 
of the past. It was a time of peculiar activity and awakening, which 
called out German patriotism and above all new political aspirations. 
* The Augsburg confession was edited and altered by Melancthon; hence two forms: the 
invciriata editio and variata editio. 
t Brockhaus, XVI, p. 37. 
$ Brockhaus, XI, p. 269. 
|| Treitschke, Staaten-Geschichte der Neuesten Zeit. II, p. 239. 
