The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

Xlii
INTRODUCTION.
the more necessary as the attacks of the innovators were
always increasing in violence.
In the new and ever extending form of Protestantism
founded by Calvin there existed a far more dangeroas, sys-
tematic and consistent enemy than in Lutheranism, which
was now growing torpid, and Was being torn to pieces by
disputes within itself. Calvinism, with its rigid organization,
its harsh doctrines, its demand for the bloody extermination
of Catholics,^ and its propaganda, was fanning to fever heat
the lust of Protestantism to attack the old Church. An
international monument was thereby called into being to
such an extent that Geneva became almost a second Rome,
and Calvin another Pope, who carried on a correspondence in
every direction with the whole of Europe. In Germany and
Scandinavia, Protestantism in its Lutheran form had already
gained a firm footing, and Calvinism therefore threw itself
with all its force upon the west of Europe, in order completely
to annihilate the Catholic Church beyond the Alps. Together
with the Germans, the Romans, as well as the Slavs and Mag-
yars were always being more and more involved in the religious
changes, and led into opposition to the Papacy. A third form
of Protestantism had at the same time arisen in England,
in the Episcopal State Church. The one point on which the
reformers were agreed was the complete subjection and
eradication of Catholic worship, the practice of which was in
many places, especially in England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark
and Sweden, even punishable by death.
The Catholics were, therefore, carrying on a war of self-
preservation when they sacrificed everything to prevent the
^ Calvin, in his endeavours to suppress the Catholic Church
in foreign countries as well, repeatedly demanded that those
remaining true to the old faith should be put to the sword. See
also the passage quoted by Paulus (p. 250) in his book Protestant-
ismus und Toleranz im 16 Jahrhnndert (Freiburg, 1911), and also
the letter addressed to England in the Corp. Ref., XLL, 81, in
which the sentence occurs :
All Catholics who will not renounce
their superstition, " merentur gladio ultore coerceri, cum non
in regem tantum insurgant, sed in Deum ipsum."