ABSTRACT
THE medieval presentation of Christianity has been accused of being a system that sought ‘salvation by means of sacraments.’ The effect of the Reformation, at least on the Continent, was to produce an essentially non-sacramental religion, a system in which the sacraments were merely ‘optional appendages’ to religion. The most obvious and immediate change was the reduction of the number of the sacraments from seven to two. Upon this reduction there was a fairly general agreement, although Penance was some time in being dropped. But there the agreement ended. In the discussion of sacramental method bitter controversy arose, and a kind of Hegelian thesis, antithesis, and synthesis was formed by the teaching of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin.
