Ten Epochs of Church History (Volume 9) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1900. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X. THE STRUGGLE FOR MASTERY. -Y the opening of the seventh decade of the sixteenth century, the various types of the Reformation had crystallized into durable form. No new doctrinal principles of importance were being developed. No further attempts at a compromise which should unite Catholics and Protestants were undertaken. The Reformation had worked out its character. The most conspicuous of its leaders had passed away or had about run their course. Zwingli and Luther had gone long before. The year 1555 had seen Germany divided between Catholicism and Lutheranism by the Peace of Augsburg. In 1556 Ignatius Loyola died. In 1558 Charles V. closed his eventful career, and the accession of Elizabeth gave the upper hand permanently to Protestantism in England. The next year Calvin published the completed form of his Institutes, and Caraffa ended his long life. Melanchthon passed from the storms of a world which so wearied him in 1560, and the same year witnessed the determination of Scotland for the Protestant side. In 1563 the Council of Trent finished a work a large part of which had been completed ten years before, and the year following Calvin ceased from his Genevan labors. With the exception of John Knox, none of the formative men of the creative period of the Reformation age remained. As a movement, the character of the Reformation, Protestant and Catholic, was determined. But though the character of the Reformation had thus become fixed, the question of the division of western Christendom between its various types was never more unsettled. If northern Germany, several of the great cities of its southern portion, a considerable part of Switzerland, and the Scandinavian lands could be reckoned as Protestant, and England and Scotland, though wi...