ages, against which many times ineffective protest had been made, the
Lutheran Reformation insisted on reducing religion to its simplest
terms, faith and the word of God."*
*Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums.

The traditional conception of the Church with all its apparatus and
claims of authority it repudiated, and in the few and simple statements
of the seventh article of the Augustana, it set forth its doctrine of
the Church:

"Also they teach, that One holy Church is to continue forever. The
Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly
taught and the Sacraments rightly administered. And to the true unity of
the Church, it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel
and the administration of the Sacraments."

This was the Lutheran position as against Rome.

But properly to understand our history we must also take account of
another movement with which our churches had to contend at the same time
that they were making their protest against Rome. This was a more
radical form of Protestantism which found its expression among what are
known as the Reformed Churches. It had its home in Switzerland, and made
its way along the Rhine to Germany, France and Holland. Through John
Knox it came to Scotland, and subsequently superseded Lutheranism in
Holland and in England. It was from these countries that the earliest
colonists came to America, and thus American Christianity early received
the impress of the Reformed system. The few and scattered Lutheran
churches which were established here in the early history of our country
were brought into contact with a form of Protestantism at variance with