on account of persecution, found a refuge at Geneva, of which city he became a sort of Protestant pope.[1]
The great Protestant communions quickly broke up into a large number of denominations, or churches, each holding to some minor point of doctrine, or adhering to some form of worship disregarded by the others, yet all agreeing in the central doctrine of the Reformation, "Justification by faith."
Now the contentions between these different sects were sharp and bitter. The liberal-minded reformer had occasion to lament the same state of things as that which troubled the apostle Paul in the early days of Christianity. One said, I am of Luther; another said, I am of Calvin; and another said, I am of Zwingle. Even Luther himself denounced Zwingle as a heretic; and the Calvinists would have no dealings with the Lutherans.
The influence of these sectarian divisions upon the progress of the Reformation was most disastrous. They afforded the Catholics a strong and effective argument against the entire movement as tending to uncertainty and discord.
The Catholic Counter-Reform.—While the Protestants were thus breaking up into numerous rival sects, the Catholics were removing the causes of dissension within the old Church by a
- ↑ Calvin was, next after Luther, the greatest of the reformers. The doctrines of Calvin came to prevail very widely, and have exerted a most remarkable influence upon the general course of history. "The Huguenots of France, the Covenanters of Scotland, the Puritans of England, the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, were all the offspring of Calvinism."
