This doctrine, rather political than theological, was a survival of the errors which had come into being after the Great Schism, and especially at the council of Constance; its object was to put the Church above its head, as the council of Constance had put the ecumenical council above the pope, as though the council could be ecumenical without its head.
With a few exceptions (Poland, Bosnia) it was through their free will that the Empire had come into being.
In the Lutheran church, Striegel taught that the principal effect of Christ's work on the cross was to change the attitude of God towards the whole human race, and that, in consequence, when men come into being and have faith, they can take advantage of the change of attitude effected by the past historical work of Christ.
It is not possible to follow in detail the history of the hundred or' more organized societies of some size that have thus come into being since the end of the 18th century, still less that of the three or four hundred smaller agencies.'
But it is usual, and it will be convenient here, to use the term monasticism in a broader sense, as equivalent to the technical " religious life," and as embracing the various forms that have come into being so prolifically in the Latin Church at all periods since the middle of the r r th century.
