Thenceforth, the progress of Lutheranism was more
rapid, although a Catholic reaction was threatened several times in the
second half of the sixteenth century. The Confession of Augsburg was
adopted as the creed of the Swedish Church in 1593, and in 1604
Catholics were deprived of offices and estates and banished from the
realm.
CALVINISM
The second general type of Protestantism which appeared in the
sixteenth century was the immediate forerunner of the modern
Presbyterian, Congregational, and Reformed Churches and at one time or
another considerably affected the theology of the Episcopalians and
Baptists and even of Lutherans. Taken as a group, it is usually called
Calvinism. Of its rise and spread, some idea may be gained from brief
accounts of the lives of two of its great apostles--Calvin and Knox.
But first it will be necessary to say a few words concerning an older
reformer, Zwingli by name, who prepared the way for Calvin's work in
the Swiss cantons.
[Sidenote: Zwingli]
Switzerland comprised in the sixteenth century some thirteen cantons,
all of which were technically under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman
Empire, but constituted in practice so many independent republics,
bound together only by a number of protective treaties.
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