VOL. V.
ENGLAND, GENEVA, FERRARA.
NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 530 BROADWAY.
1876.
St. Johnland Stereotype Foundry,
Suffolk County, N. Y.
PREFACE.
This is the tenth volume of the History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, and the fifth of the Second Series. The first series described the history of that great epoch from its commencement down to the Confession of Augsburg (1530). The second will include the years intervening between that period and the triumph of the Reformation in various parts of Europe. It is not always easy to fix the latter limit, which varies according to locality.
Nevertheless, a rule laid down by the author in his first volume sensibly limits the work he has undertaken. 'The history of one of the greatest revolutions that has ever been accomplished in human affairs, and not the history of a mere party, is the object of the present undertaking. The history of the Reformation is distinct from that of Protestantism.' One or two volumes coming, God willing, after this one will bring it to a conclusion. The author divided the history into two series for the convenience of the public, but he does not separate them. Together they form a single work.
The course that he will probably pursue in future will better express the unity of the great event which has made the sixteenth century famous. Streams at first flow apart; they afterwards unite with each other in succession and form a single river. There comes a moment when the waters undergo the law of concentration: the same phenomenon is manifested in a history like ours. After following up successively the facts of the Reformation in Germany, German Switzerland, France, England, Western Switzerland and elsewhere, we shall concentrate our narrative a little, and present the progress of the great transformation in a single picture.
New countries and new men will come before us. In our next volume we shall travel through Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, and other parts of Europe, retracing the great features of their religious history. We shall even return to Luther and Melanchthon, whose society is at once so healthy and so pleasant; and also see Calvin at his work in Geneva.