Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ...taken away the independence and self-government of the local churches of the western lands, she instituted the system of papal despotism, concentrating in the hands of the Pope unlimited authority. Besides this she accepted many new dogmas, such as the procession 'and from the Son' of the Holy Spirit, sprinkling in baptism, the depriving of the laity of the holy wine in the Eucharist, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mother, and the infallibility of the Pope. And in many other things the Western Church made innovations, such as in the compulsory celibacy of the clergy of all the grades, as also in the imposition in worship of the dead Latin language upon all peoples. Little by little the high-handedness of the Pope reached such a point that he wished to enslave even the emperors and kings of the West; and through the celebrated courts of the Holy Inquisition, which the wickedness of the Pope and his tools devised, thousands of men as alleged heretics were burned at the stake. "On account of these great errors of the Western When the haughty papal legates deposited upon the Altar of St. Sophia a fierce anathema. Church, there arose during the 16th century the socalled Protestants, under the leadership of Luther in Germany (1517) and of Zwingli and Calvin in Switzerland, who broke off from the Western Church. But these men again, who so powerfully protested against the errors (excesses) of the Western Church, in fleeing these were reduced to opposite exaggerations and excesses; for they rejected not only the traditions of later origin of the Western Church, but also all the ancient traditions of Christianity, and held Holy Scripture alone as source of the Christian teaching, which each interprets as he wills. They stripped...
