First let’s look at just the Reformation period alone.
The Netherlands: In the Netherlands the Reformation was received early. Lutheranism, Calvinism, and then the Anabaptists—all of them were already numerous. Between 1513 and 1531 there were 25 different translations of the Bible in Dutch, Flemish and French. The Netherlands were a part of the dominion of Charles V. In 1522 he prohibited religious meetings in which the Bible would be read. In 1546 he prohibited the printing or possession of the Bible (either vulgate or translation). In 1535 it was decreed “death by fire” for Anabaptists. Then, Phillip II (1566-98), successor to Charles V, re-issued the edicts of his father, and with Jesuit help carried on the persecution with still greater fury. By one sentence of the Inquisition of the whole population was condemned to death, and under Charles V and Phillip II more than 100,000 were massacred with unbelievable brutality. Some were chained to a stake near the fire and slowly roasted to death; some were thrown into dungeons, scourged, tortured on the rack, before being burned. Women were buried alive, pressed into coffins too small, trampled down with the feet of the executioner. Those that tried to flee to other countries were intercepted by soldiers and massacred. Thus was the nature of the Inquisition in the Netherlands.
In France: First Luther’s teachings entered France in 1520, and then Calvin’s soon followed. By 1559, ho0wever, there were hundreds of thousands of Protestants that were called “Hugenots.” Their earnest piety and pure lives were in striking contrast to the scandalous lives of the Roman clergy. In 1557 Pope Pius urged their extermination. The king issued a decree for their massacre, and ordered all loyal subjects to help in hunting them out. The Jesuits went through France persuading the faithful to bear arms for their destruction.
Catherine de Medici, mother of the King, an ardent Romanist and willing tool of the Pope, gave the order, and on the night of August 24, 1572, 70,000 Hugenots, including most of their leaders, were massacred. There was great rejoicing in Rome. The Pope and his College of Cardinals went in, in solemn procession to the Church of San Marco and ordered the Te Deum to be sung in thanksgiving. This was known as “St. Barholomew’s Massacre.” Following this massacre were the Hugenot wars. By 1598 they were finally granted the right of freedom of conscience and worship. But in the meantime some 200,000 had perished as martyrs. Pope Clement VIII called the “Toleration Edict of Nantes” a ‘cursed thing’ and after years of underground work by the Jesuits, the Edict was revoked in 1685. Then 500,000 Hugenots fled to Protestant Countries.
In Bohemia: By 1600, in a population of 4,000,000 80% were Protestant. When the Hapsburgs and Jesuits had done their work, 800,000 were left, all Catholics. There are your millions.
In Austria and Hungary: More than half of the population had become Protestant, but under the Hapsburgs and Jesuits they were slaughtered.
In Poland: By the end of the 16th century, it seemed as if Romanism was about to be entirely swept away, but here too, the Jesuits, by persecution, killed the Reform.
In Italy: The Pope’s own country, the Reformation was getting out of hand. But the Inquisition got busy, and hardly a trace of Protestantism was left.
In Spain: The Reformation never made much headway, because the Inquisition was already there. Every effort fro freedom or independent thinking was crushed with a ruthless hand. Torquemada (1420-98), a Dominican monk, arch-inquisitor, in 18 years burned 10,200, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment 97,000. Victims were burned alive in the public square; made the occasion of religious festivities. From 1481 to 1808 there were at least 100,000 martyrs and 1,500,000 banished. “In the 16th and 17th centuries the Inquisition extinguished the literary life of Spain, and put the nation outside the circle of European civilization.” When the Reformation began Spain was the most powerful nation in the world. Its present negligible standing among the nations shows what the Papacy can do for a country.
Papal Persecutions:
The number of martyrs under papal persecutions far outnumbered the early Christian martyrs under pagan Rome: hundreds of thousands among the Albigenses, Waldenses, and Protestants of Germany, Netherlands, Bohemia, and other countries. Truly “the Great Harlot was Drunk with the Blood of Saints.” It is common to excuse the popes in this matter by saying that it was the “spirit of the age,” and that “Protestants also persecuted.” As for the “spirit of the age,” whose age was it? And who made it so? The popes. It was their world. For a thousand years they had been training the world to be in subjection to them. If the Popes had not taken the Bible from the people, the people would have known better, and it would not have been “the spirit of the age.” It was NOT the “spirit of Christ, and “Vicars of Christ” should have known better. Persecution is the spirit of the Devil, even though carried on in the name of Christ.
