The theological academy of Geneva, founded in 1588, supplied the churches of many foreign countries, especially France, trained in the spirit of Calvin. When Calvin died, in 1564, the continuation of his work devolved upon Theodore Beza. Calvin disagreed in many points with Zwingli, whose views gradually lost ground as those of Calvin advanced. The second Helvetic Confession, the most important among the symbolic books of the Reformed Church, which was compiled by Bullinger in Zurich, published in 1566, and recognized in all reformed countries, completed the supremacy of Calvin’s principles over those of Zwingli. Although the majority of German Protestant Churches remained in connection with the Lutheran Reformation, a German Reformed Church, which bore a moderately Calvinistic aspect, sprang up in several parts of Germany. In 1650 the Elector Frederick II, of the Palatine, embraced the reformed creed, and organized the church of his dominions according to reformed principles. By his authority the Heidelberg Catechism, which soon came to be regarded not only as a standard symbolical book of the German Reformed Church, but was highly esteemed throughout the reformed world, was written. CHAPTER V. THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND To say that the Reformation in England was brought about by the desire of Henry VIII to be divorced from Catharine of Aragon is to ignore the well-established facts of history. No king, however despotic, could have forced on such a revolution unless there was much in the life of the people that reconciled them to the change, and evidence of this is abundant. There was much that was called “heresy” in England long before Luther raised his voice against Catholicism in Germany. Wycliffe’s writings and translations of the Scriptures into English had a tremendous influence on the people in England and for many years the fires of martyrdom were kept burning in the mad endeavor to stop the spread of the “heresy,” and so great was the exasperation that forty years after the death of Wycliffe Romanists dug up his bones and burned them, and still the “heresy” spread. As I have already shown in a former article, the work of Tyndale, “who won a martyr’s crown,” had a wonderful influence over the English people. In the Dictionary of National Biography, Dr. Rashdall says: It is certain that the Reformation had virtually broken out in the secret Bible readings of the Cambridge reformers before either the trumpet call of Luther or the exigencies of Henry VIII’s personal and political position set men free once more to talk openly against the pope and the monks, and to teach a simpler and more spiritual gospel than the system against which Wycliffe had striven. (Wycliffe, Vol. 63, p. 218.)