Product Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ...find adherents among the Italians. Upon their country the temporal ambition of the popes had brought untold evils. They were familiar, as nations more distant from Borne could not be, with corruptions in the papal government of the Church. The vices of the clergy, the arrogance and venality of the Roman court, had been exposed by their greatest writers, beginning with Dante. From the minds of cultivated Italians, through the influence of the new learning, superstition, and even moderate reverence for ecclesiastical authority, had well-nigh vanished. But while these circumstances were favorable to the introduction of Protestantism, there were other circumstances, equally important, which stood in the way of its final success. The Italians looked upon the papacy as a national institution. On this account they were jealous of all attempts from abroad to curtail its prerogatives. To multitudes of them it brought high position, wealth, and influence. The ancient spirit of liberty and patriotism had given place to the desire of personal aggrandizement. Even those whose minds had been emancipated from the sway of medisovalism by their humanistic studies were often either skeptical or indifferent, and far from being inclined to make sacrifices for the sake of their opinions. There were, moreover, here as in other countries, many who clung with unyielding tenacity to every part of the traditional system. The principles of Protestantism were first introduced into Italy through writings of Luther and of the other reformers, which, under fictitious names, were widely circulated, and were for proSrt ntUm a time read without suspicion even in the Vatican itself. tn Ital7-Many Italians, attracted by the fame of Melanchthon, who was held in esteem by...