in the Protestant church, such as Methodism, were, like the original
movement, returns to personal piety and biblicism. The Old Catholic
schism in its repudiation of the papal supremacy, and even Modernism,
notwithstanding its {745} disclaimers, are animated in part by the same
motives as those inspiring the Reformers. In Judaism the Sadducees, in
their bibliolatry and in their opposition to the traditions dear to the
Pharisees, were Protestants; a later counterpart of the same thing is
found in the reform the Karaites by Anan ben David. Mohammed has been
a favorite subject for comparison with Luther by the Catholics, but in
truth, in no disparaging sense, the proclamation of Islam, with its
monotheism, emphasis on faith and predestination, was very like the
Reformation, and so were several later reforms within Mohammedanism,
including two in the sixteenth century. Many parallels could doubtless
be adduced from the heathen religions, perhaps the most striking is the
foundation of Sikhism by Luther's contemporary Nanak, who preached
monotheism and revolted from the ancient ceremonial and hierarchy of
caste.

What is the etiology of religious revolution? The principal law
governing it is that any marked change either in scientific knowledge
or in ethical feeling necessitates a corresponding alteration in the
faith. All the great religious innovations of Luther and his followers
can be explained as an attempt to readjust faith to the new culture,
partly intellectual, partly social, that had gradually developed during
the later Middle Ages.

[Sidenote: Faith vs. works]

The first shift, and the most important, was that from salvation by
works to salvation by faith only. The Catholic dogma is that salvation
is dependent on certain sacraments, grace being bestowed automatically
(_ex opere operato_) on all who participate in the celebration of the
rite without actively opposing its effect. Luther not only reduced the
number of sacraments but he entirely changed their character. Not
they, but the faith of the participant mattered, and {746} this faith
was bestowed freely by God, or not at all. In this innovation one
primary cause was the individualism of the age; the sense of the worth
of the soul or, if one pleases, of the ego. This did not mean
subjectivism, or religious autonomy, for the Reformers held
passionately to an ideal of objective truth, but it did mean that every
soul had the right to make its perso