93 104 V THE POWERS OF LOCAL CHURCHES VI DOGMATIC RELIGION VII PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. VIII THE INCARNATION AS THE MEANS OF XIV THE AGE FOR CONFIRMATION XV THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN Η I PROTESTANTISM T the diet of Speier which met on February 21, 1529, the controlling Catholic majority, in conformity with the directions of the Emperor Charles V, adopted a recess, or decree, which was intended to settle the religious controversy of the time. In substance, it provided that there should be a complete toleration of Catholics in Lutheran states, but no toleration of Lutherans in Catholic states; and no toleration anywhere of Zwinglians or Anabaptists. Further, it was provided that Lutherans should make no other innovations in their states. Against the recess six princes and fourteen cities protested in the name of God and of conscience whose dictates they held to be above human law. Those who signed the protest and their adherents came soon to be called Protestants. From this beginning the name came to be applied to all those who, however much they might differ among themselves, had this at least in common, that they had abandoned the communion of the bishop of Rome; thus Protestant became the equivalent of antiRoman. It is to be noted that Protestant was not adopted as the designation of any religious organization. In Germany the reformers usually called themselves Evangelicals, holding that while repudiating the claims of the papacy they were not repudiating the Catholic religion, nor ceasing to be of the Catholic Church. Later, the Calvinists called themselves the Reformed Church, and the Lutherans the Lutheran Church. The same was true of the English Reformation. While the English reformers spoke of themselves as Protestants it was in this broad sense of antiRoman and without any notion of thereby compromising their Catholicity. Canon Dixon points out that much confusion was introduced into England by the adoption of the title Protestant by those who at the same time strenuously insisted that they were Catholics. In this use of the terms the true opposite of Protestant is not Catholic but Papist; and the true opposite of Catholic is not Protestant but heretic. While English writers speak of the Protestant Religion, the word was not adopted as a formal designation of the Church of England. Indeed, in 1689 the Lower House of Convocation after "a lively debate as to whether the Church of England |