2)emocracE ant> iReltgton.

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enthusiast revived." 1 The Quakers were accusedof seeking to build up a " New Miinster " on English ground.

While the democratic movement is correlatedwith that wave of religious exaltation which dividesmedieval from modern times, it would be a com-plete mistake to assign the credit or the blame forDemocracy to the official Reformation. NeitherLuther nor Calvin were Democrats, not even in thesense of forerunners. Both, on the contrary,were opposed to the fundamental democratic claim,and this is true as well in the spiritual as in theeconomic and political spheres.

It is true that Luther as a young man by leavingthe free exposition of Scripture to the individuallaid claim within these Biblical limits to freedomof conscience. But he himself not only personallyretained in their essentials the old dogmaticformulae of the Church, but by his catechism im-posed on his followers new formulae in addition,and did not shrink from defending them by out-ward authority. In his later years Luther excom-municated " heretics." But the authority whichhe called to his aid was no longer that of a world-wide church. Luther's support was the power ofthe German princes, who in breaking with thecosmopolitan power of the Empire stood out as theforerunners of the rising tide of Absolutism.

In economic matters Luther's standpoint wastraditional. With the rise of early Capitalismthere was gaining ground a new class stratification.

1 "Johannes Becholdus redivivus or the English Quakerthe German Enthusiast revived," 1659.