Quote:The Reformation movement then started gaining a fast growing momentum as more and more enlightened Christians began speaking out against this corruption.
I bet this old fuck head doesn't think his precious protestants had any atrocities of their own?
Quote:I. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE: AN INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
1. Views of Catholic and Protestant Historians
A. Johann von Dollinger
"Historically nothing is more incorrect than the assertion that the Reformation was a movement in favour of intellectual freedom. The exact contary is the truth. For themselves, it is true, Lutherans and Calvinists claimed liberty of conscience . . . but to grant it to others never occurred to them so long as they were the stronger side. The complete extirpation of the Catholic Church, and in fact of everything that stood in their way, was regarded by the reformers as something entirely natural." (51;v.6:268-9/1)
B. Preserved Smith (Secularist)
"If any one still harbors the traditional prejudice that the early Protestants were more liberal, he must be undeceived. Save for a few splendid sayings of Luther, confined to the early years when he was powerless, there is hardly anything to be found among the leading reformers in favor of freedom of conscience. As soon as they had the power to persecute they did." (115:177)
C. Hartmann Grisar
"At Zurich, Zwingli's State-Church grew up much as Luther's did . . . Oecolampadius at Basle and Zwingli's successor, Bullinger, were strong compulsionists. Calvin's name is even more closely bound up with the idea of religious absolutism, while the task of handing down to posterity his harsh doctrine of religious compulsion was undertaken by Beza in his notorious work, On the Duty of Civil Magistrates to Punish Heretics. The annals of the Established Church of England were likewise at the outset written in blood." (51;v.6:278)
D. Henry Hallam (P)
"The Reform was brought about by intemperate and calumnious abuse, by outrages of an excited populace or by the tyranny of princes . . . it instantly withdrew . . . liberty of judgment and devoted all who presumed to swerve from the line drawn by law to virulent obloquy, and sometimes to bonds and death. These reproaches, it may be a shame to us to own, can be uttered and cannot be refuted." (50:295-6/2)
E. Francois Guizot (P)
"The Reformation of the 16th century was not aware of the true principles of intellectual liberty . . . At the very moment it was demanding these rights for itself it was violating them towards others." (50:297/3)
F. William Lecky (P)
"What shall we say of a church . . . that had as yet no services to show, no claims upon the gratitude of mankind . . . which nevertheless suppressed by force a worship that multitudes deemed necessary to salvation? . . . So strong and so general was its intolerance that for some time it may, I believe, be truly said that there were more instances of partial toleration being advocated by Roman Catholics than by orthodox Protestants. " (50:298/4)
G. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (P)
"The Reformers themselves . . . e.g., Luther, Beza, and especially Calvin, were as intolerant to dissentients as the Roman Catholic Church." (78:1383)
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apol...protin.htm
