"Luther, a man of coarse and vigorous animalism, was no ascetic." (P. 350.)
The doctrine of Zwinglius, he tells us, was simply pantheism, and that of Calvin he considers undeserving the name of Christianity.
"Alongside of Mohammedanism must be placed a parallel development in Europe, which, though nominally Christian, is intrinsically deistic. Consciously it was not so, but logically it was; and in its evolution it proved a striking counterpart to Islamism.
"Zwinglius had taught that God was infinite essence, absolute being, (τὸ Esse.) The being of creatures, he said, was not opposed to the being of God, but was in and by him. Not man only, but all creation, was of divine race. Nature was the force of God in action, and every thing is one. Sin he held to be the necessary consequence of the development of man, and to be, not a disturbance of moral order, but the necessary process in the development of man, who has no free-will.
"Calvin's idea of God was quite as absolute as that formed by Zwinglius, but it was not so pantheistic, though he did not shrink from calling nature God. The Deity was to him the great autocrat, whose absolute will allotted to man his place in time and in eternity. Beyond the pale of the church, he taught, there was no remission to be hoped for, nor any chance of salvation; for the church was the number of the predestined, and God could not alter his decision without abrogating his divinity." (P. 266.)
"He swept away the sacramental system; if he held to Christianity, it was in name, not in theory, for his doctrine excluded it as a necessary article. He deprived the atonement of its efficacy and significance, and he left the Incarnation unaccounted for, save by the absolute decree of the divine and arbitrary will which he worshipped as God." (P. 267.)
He thus speaks of the Reformation and of its cardinal principle:
"But what was the result of the Reformation? The establishment of a royal along side of a biblical theocracy. The crown became the supreme head to order what religion is to consist of, how worship is to be conducted, and what articles of faith are to be believed." (P. 139.)
"The Scriptures were then assumed to be the ultimate authority on doctrine and ethics; they were supposed to contain 'all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.'
"This mode of arresting modification is not, however, final, and cannot in the nature of things be final; for, firstly, the significance of the terms in which the revelation is couched must be subject to the most conflicting interpretations; and secondly, the authority of the revelation will be constantly exposed to be questioned, and the genuineness of the documents to be disputed." (P. 134.)
Buddhism he calls the Protestantism of the East.
"Its cold philosophy and thin abstractions, however they might exercise the faculties of anchorites, have proved insufficient of themselves to arrest man in his career of passion and pursuit; and the bold experiment of influencing the heart and regulating the conduct of mankind by the external decencies and the mutual dependencies of morality, unsustained by higher hopes, has proved in this instance an unredeemed and hopeless failure." (P. 353.)
"In confiding all to the mere strength of the human intellect, and the enthusiastic self-reliance and determination of the human heart, it makes no provision for defence against those powerful temptations before which ordinary resolution must give way." (P. 354.)
"The mass of the population are profoundly ignorant of, and utterly indifferent to, the tenets of their creed.... 'The same results appear in the phases of Buddhism beyond India,' says M. Maupied; 'in the north of Asia and in China it has arrived at a sort of speculative atheism, which has not only arrested proselytism, but which is self-destructive, and which in the end will completely ruin it.' It is not a religion but a philosophy. (P. 355.)
"This close resemblance seems to have been felt on first contact of Calvinism and Buddhism; for we find in 1684 the Dutch government importing at its own expense Buddhist missionaries from Arracan to Ceylon to oppose the progress of Catholicism." (P. 353.)
He is not in line with those, so numerous in this age and country, who hold to the Chinese notion that intellectual and material progress is every thing.
"On the whole, it will be found that the amount of happiness in a race not highly civilized is far more general, and its sum total far higher, than that of an over-civilized race. The rude and simple Swiss peasantry are thoroughly happy, while in a large city like London, the upper stratum of society is engaged in nervous quest of pleasure which ever eludes them, while the lower is plunged in misery. Besides, what is really meant by the progress of the species? The only tangible superiority of a generation over that which has preceded it, appears to consist in its having within its reach a larger accumulation of scientific or literary materials for thought, or a greater mastery over the forces of inanimate nature; advantages not without their drawbacks, and at any rate of a somewhat superficial kind. Genius is not progressive from age to age; nor yet the practice, however it may be with the science, of moral excellence. And, as this progress of the species is only supposed, after all, to be an improvement of its condition during men's first lifetime, the belief—call it, if you will, but a dream—of a prolonged existence after death reduces the whole progress to insignificance. There is more, even as regards quantity of sensation, in the spiritual well-being of one single soul, with an existence thus continuous, than in the increased physical or intellectual prosperity, during one lifetime, of the entire human race." (P. 59-60.)
Nor does he appear to believe in the Protestant method of converting people, and causing them to "experience religion." We read on page 358 that, while Wesley was preaching at Bristol,