Protestantism had outgrown and discarded Luther, that
Arminians in Holland, the Lutherans of the University of Helmstedt,
the French schools of Sedan and Saumur, the Caroline divines in
England, and even Puritans like Leighton and Baxter, were as much
opposed as themselves to the doctrine of justification, which was the
origin of the Protestant movement. At the same time, the abuses which
roused Luther's opposition had disappeared, if not everywhere, at
least in France. Between Protestants in that later variation and
Gallicans, the difference was not that which subsisted with
Ultramontanes. Bossuet and two Englishmen, Holden and Cocker, drew up
statements of what they acknowledged to be essentials in religion,
which were very unlike the red-hot teaching of Salamanca and Coimbra.
As the Protestants were no longer the Protestants who had seceded, the
Catholics were no longer the Catholics who had cast them out. The
best men of the Sorbonne were as unlike Tetzel and Prierias as Leibniz
was unlike John Knox. It was unscientific, it was insincere, to
regard the present controversy as a continuation of the old.

These sentiments were very heartily reciprocated among the Lutherans,
and people spoke much of a misunderstanding, and represented the
Reformation as the result of the unfinished theology, the defective
knowledge of Church history, in the sixteenth century. Thus it was
that nobody went further than Bossuet at one time in the direction of
union, and nobody was more strongly in favour of the harsh measures of
Louvois. If the policy of the Revocation had been to divide the
European Powers, it proved a failure; for it helped to make them
coalesce.

In the following year, 1686, a league was concluded at Augsburg
between the emperor, part of the empire, Spain, Sweden, and the
Netherlands. This was the old story. Against nearly the same
combination of discordant forces Lewis had held his own in the Dutch
war and the negotiations of Nimeguen. England was wanting. William
attempted to bring over his father-in-law, and, having failed by
friendly arts, undertook to compel him. The Revolution threw the
weight of England into the scales, and the war that ensued became the
war of the Grand Alliance.

This was the turn in the fortunes of Lewis. He ravaged twenty miles
of the Palatinate for the sake of a claim on the part of the Duchess
of Orleans, who was a Princess Palatine. His armies were victorious,
as usual,