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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Protestantism |
 | | From this time forward the progress of Protestantism is on political rather than on religious lines; the people are not clamouring for innovations, but the rulers find their advantage in being supreme bishops, and by force, or cunning, or both impose the yoke of the new Gospel on their subjects. |
 | | Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, and all the small principalities and imperial towns in Germany are examples in point. |
 | | The supreme heads and governors were well aware that the principles which had brought down the authority of Rome would equally bring down their own; hence the penal laws everywhere enacted against dissenters from the state religion decreed by the temporal ruler. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/12495a.htm (7344 words) |
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