Calvinism, doctrine of Calvin and his sectarians with respect to religion.

One may reduce to six principal points the characteristic dogmas of Calvinism : 1. That Jesus Christ is not really present in the sacrament of the Eucharist but is there only as a sign or figure; 2. That predestination and reprobation are anterior to the divine prescience of good or bad works; 3. That predestination and reprobation depend on the pure will of God, without regard to the merits or demerits of men; 4. That God gives to those he has predestined faith and justice that cannot be removed; he does not impute to them any sins; 5. That the just are incapable of doing any good works as a consequence of original sin; 6. That men are justified by faith alone, which makes good works and the sacraments useless. With the exception of the first article that they have constantly retained, modern Calvinists either reject or soften all the others. See Arminians and Gomarists.

It is true that these capital errors have many consequences, which are themselves errors, and they also have several errors in common with other heretics; but it is a visible exaggeration to attribute a hundred to them, as does Father Gauthier, a Jesuit, in his Chronologie ; and even more so the fourteen hundred imputed to them by the Cordelier Feuardent in his book entitled Theomachia calvinistica .

Calvinism from its establishment has always maintained itself in Geneva that was its cradle, where it still survives and from where it spreads in France, in Holland, and in England. It was the dominant religion of the United Provinces until 1572; and although since then this republic has tolerated all sects, one may still say that rigid Calvinism is the state religion there. In England, it has been in decadence since the reign of Elizabeth, despite the efforts made by the Puritans and the Presbyterians to make it predominate: now it is scarcely any more professed except by the Non-Conformists, although it still subsists, but much mitigated, in the doctrine of the Anglican Church. But it is still vigorous in Scotland, as well as in Prussia. Of the thirteen Swiss cantons, six profess Calvinism . The religion is also mixed in some parts of Germany, as in the Palatinate, but Roman Catholicism is starting to be dominant there. It was tolerated in France until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The Protestants who on this occasion left the kingdom and withdrew to Holland and to England, filled the universe with complaints and writings. It is not the place here to examine whether it is useful to a state to suffer but one religion: but we cannot prevent ourselves from remarking that when they on this occasion caused the most hurtful murmurs and reproaches to burst forth, a space of more than eighty years had made them lose from sight the means used by their fathers to tear from Henry IV, at the time unsteady on his throne, an edict that was after all only provisional, and which one of the successors of this prince has consequently been able to revoke without injustice.