The Luther renaissance of our century was in large part a consequence of the determination of German scholars to find an explanation for the debacle of their nation following the First World War. For this reason the attitude of the first truly German genius of modern times toward the German territorial states and the Holy Roman Empire has been a matter of primary concern. This concern was intensified by the resurgence of German nationalism under the totalitarianism of the National Socialists who set about to interpret the life and work of every important historical figure of Germany in the light of the new national faith. German scholars will again study Luther's writings for the purpose of finding hope and inspiration after the catastrophic consequences of the Second World War is already indicated by the frequent references to the importance of religion in Germany's historical evolution.

On November 25, 1948, the churches of the English speaking world celebrated the bicentenary of the death of Isaac Watts. In the sifting process of two hundred years it is possible to view his contribution in perspective; and as one seeks to estimate what is permanent and abiding in his work, one becomes convinced that he is an important figure by any standard, and in the field of hymnology he is outstanding.

Our interest in Luther's struggle for faith is not merely historical. We do not investigate this subject as we do Luther's views on monstrosities or the names for the gems in the Apocalypse, nor do we probe into his spiritual trials in order to collect additional specimens of abnormal psychology. If he was abnormal then the abnormal has become the normal. All of us today are engaged in a struggle for faith and our concern is not so much with the disease as with the cure. How was it that Luther, despite his travailing of spirit, could be so tremendous in his faith, so incredible in his courage, so astounding in his output? Luther's faith is our quest.

All too frequently writers have been tempted to over-simplify the German Reformation. The literature in the field is enormous, contradictory, kaleidoscopic, and infinitely complex, requiring decades to master the more important sources and standard works. Such labels as “Reformation,” the “Protestant Revolt,” and the “Protestant Revolution” are, in a large measure, propaganda terms presupposing fundamental assumptions and lines of reasoning not entirely supported in fact. Often the casual reader in this field receives the impression that Reformers like Wyclif, Hus, Savonarola, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were merely out of step with the accepted, centuries-old teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. He is not aware of the fact that he is reading history in reverse.

Richard Hooker's Of The Laws of Ecclesiasticall Polity is in many ways the great explicit crystallization of the whole philosophic scheme by which Elizabethan England lived. Historically it represents the doctrinal “Thus far and no farther” which the English monarchy flung at the forces of the Reformation. Published at a moment of crisis in 1593, the first four Books provided a base upon which the hard-pressed Anglicans could rally against the renewed attacks of Presbyterianism. With the Fifth Book (published in 1597) they remained the great touchstone of Anglican doctrine throughout the seventeenth century. It is no small weapon in controversy to have your doctrines demonstrated so unanswerably as Hooker did the Anglican to be the logical manifestation of the one great integrated scheme of the universe which all parties already accept as valid.

The period of the Civil Wars and Commonwealth in England was one of the most momentous epochs in British history. For small groups of people the decade of the 1640's inaugurated a New Age—an age in which the Holy Spirit reigned triumphant. Such believers reached the zenith of Puritan “spiritualism,” or that movement which placed the greatest emphasis upon the Third Person of the Trinity.

The contributions made to American Presbyterianism during the colonial period by those of its members who were of New England stock have never been adequately recognized. For various reasons this contribution was so greatly minimized during the nineteenth century that even today an essentially false picture of the origins of American Presbyterianism has become currently accepted. Typical of the nineteenth-century propaganda which was later to be accepted as fact, was the attitude of Samuel Miller, the first professor of Church History at Princeton Seminary. In 1833, Miller wrote a series of open letters to Presbyterians as part of the Old School party's polemic against the New England element in the Church.

Since the close of World War I the study of Calvin has been advanced by the labors of many scholars. This article presents a classified bibliography of what in the writer's judgment are the materials of chief importance in this enlarging field of research. A similar treatment of the historical literature concerned with the Reformed churches of Europe to the opening of the Thirty Years' War is in preparation.

Few men in modern Dutch history have played such a significant role as Abraham Kuyper. A theologian of European renown, a church reformer whose activities lastingly changed the existing church order in his country, a statesman who during five decades of an active political career combined his religion with a unique theory of government, and last but not least, a journalist and outstanding man of letters, Kuyper, during the course of his long life, placed a stamp upon the civilization of the Netherlands which it never was to lose. The immense breadth of his intellect, sustained by a tremendous energy, allowed him to speak with authority on subjects ranging from Calvin's concept of grace, through Islamic architecture, to the future of colonial reform, and earned him the epithet of Abraham de Geweldige (Abraham the Magnificent). His greatest achievement, however, was the foundation of a system of religious dogma upon which he erected a political and social philosophy which in the Protestant Netherlands since 1850 was the only one of lasting influence.1