said he, “which is not founded on the Gospel or on the teaching of the Catholic Church; we are prepared to concede everything that is necessary for the episcopal dignity; and, provided the bishops do not condemn the Gospel, we preserve all the rites that appear indifferent to us. In a word, there is no burden that we reject, if we can bear it without guilt.”
Many will think, no doubt, that a little more independence would have been proper in this matter, and that it would have been better to have passed over the ages that have followed the times of the apostles, and have frankly put in practice the grand principle which the Reformation had proclaimed: “There is for articles of faith no other foundation than the Word of God.”
Melancthon’s moderation has been admired; and, in truth, while pointing out the abuses of Rome, he was silent on what is most revolting in them, on their disgraceful origin, their scandalous consequences, and is content to show that they are in contradiction to the Scripture. But he does more; he is silent on the divine right 142
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century claimed by the pope, on the number of the sacraments, and on several other points.
His great business is to justify the renovated, and not to attack the deformed, Church.
“Peace, peace!” was his cry. But if, instead of all this circumspection, the Reformation had advanced with courage, had wholly unveiled the Word of God, and had made an energetic appeal to the sympathies of reform then spread in men’s hearts, would it not have taken a stronger and more honourable position, and would it not have secured more extensive conquests? The interest that Charles the Fifth showed in listening to the Confession seems doubtful. According to some, he endeavoured to understand that foreign language; according to others, he fell asleep.
It is easy to reconcile these contradictory testimonies. When the reading was finished, Chancellor Bruck, with the two copies in his hand, advanced towards the emperor’s secretary and presented them to him. Charles the Fifth, who was wide awake at this moment, himself took the two Confessions, handed the German copy, considered as official, to the Elector of Mentz, and kept the Latin one for himself. He then made reply to the Elector of Saxony and to his allies, that he had graciously heard their Confession; but as this affair was one of extreme importance, he required time to deliberate upon it.
The joy with which the Protestants were filled shone in their eyes. God had been with them; and they saw that the striking act which had so recently been accomplished imposed on them the obligation of confessing the truth with immovable perseverance. “I am overjoyed,” wrote Luther, “that I have lived until this hour, in which Christ has been publicly exalted by such illustrious confessors and in so glorious an assembly.” The whole evangelical church, excited and renovated by this public confession of its representatives, was then more intimately united to its Divine Chief, and baptized with a new baptism. “Since the apostolic age,” said they (these are the words of a contemporary), “there has never been a greater work or a more magnificent confession.”
The emperor, having descended from his throne, approached the Protestant princes, and begged them in a low tone not to publish the Confession; they acceded to his request, and everyone withdrew.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 8
Effect on the Romanists—Luther demands religious Liberty—His dominant Idea—Song of Triumph—Ingenuous Confessions—Hopes of the Protestants—Failure of the Popish Intrigues—The Emperor’s Council—Violent Discussions—A Refutation proposed—Its Authors—Rome and the civil Power—Perils of the Confessors—
Melancthon’s Minimum—The Emperor’s Sister—Melancthon’s Fall—Luther opposes Concession—The Legate repels Melancthon—The Pope’s Decision—Question—
Melancthon’s School-matters—Answer
The Romanists had expected nothing like this. Instead of a hateful controversy, they had heard a striking confession of Jesus Christ; the most hostile minds were consequently disarmed. “We would not for a great deal,” was the remark on every side, “have missed being present at this reading.” The effect was so prompt, that for an instant the cause was thought to be definitively gained. The bishops themselves imposed silence on the sophisms and clamours of the Fabers and the Ecks. “All that the Lutherans have said is true,” exclaimed the Bishop of Augsburg; “we cannot deny it.”—“Well, doctor,” said the Duke of Bavaria to Eck, in a reproachful tone, “you had given me a very different idea of this doctrine and of this affair.” This was the general cry; accordingly the sophists, as they called them, were embarrassed. “But, after all,”
said the Duke of Bavaria to them, “can you refute by sound reasons the Confession made by the elector and his allies?”—“With the writings of the apostles and prophets—no!” replied Eck; “but with those of the Fathers and of the councils—yes!”
“I understand,” quickly replied the duke; “I understand. The Lutherans, according to you, are in Scripture; and we are outside.”
The Archbishop Hermann, elector of Cologne, the Count-palatine Frederick, Duke Erick of Brunswick-Luneburg, Duke Henry of Mecklenburg, and the Dukes of Pomerania, were gained over to the truth; and Hermann sought erelong to establish it in his electorate.
The impression produced in other countries by the Confession was perhaps still greater. Charles sent copies to all the courts; it was translated into French, Italian, and even into Spanish and Portuguese; it circulated through all Europe, and thus accomplished what Luther had said: “Our Confession will penetrate into every court, and the sound thereof will spread through the whole earth.” It destroyed the prejudices that had been entertained, gave Europe a sounder idea of the Reformation, and prepared the most distant countries to receive the seeds of the Gospel.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Then Luther’s voice began to be heard again. He saw that it was a decisive moment, and that he ought now to give the impulse that would gain religious liberty.
He boldly demanded this liberty of the Roman Catholic princes of the diet; and at the same time endeavoured to make his friends quit Augsburg. Jesus Christ had been boldly confessed. Instead of that long series of quarrels and discussions which was about to become connected with this courageous act, Luther would have wished for a striking rupture, even should he seal with his blood the testimony rendered to the Gospel. The stake, in his idea, would have been the real catastrophe of this tragedy.
“I absolve you from this diet, in the name of the Lord,” wrote he to his friends. “Now home, return home, again I say home! Would to God that I were the sacrifice offered to this new council, as John Huss at Constance!”
But Luther did not expect so glorious a conclusion: he compared the diet to a drama. First, there had been the exposition, then the prologue, afterwards the action, and now he waited for the tragic catastrophe, according to some, but which, in his opinion, would be merely comic. Everything, he thought, would be sacrificed to political peace, and dogmas would be set aside. This proceeding, which, even in our own days, would be in the eyes of the world the height of wisdom, was in Luther’s eyes the height of folly.
He was especially alarmed at the thought of Charles’s intervention. To withdraw the Church from all secular influence, and the governments from all clerical influence, was then one of the dominant ideas of the great reformer. “You see,” wrote he to Melancthon, “that they oppose to our cause the same argument as at Worms, to wit, still and for ever the judgment of the emperor. Thus Satan is always harping on the same string, and that emaciated strength of the civil power is the only one which this myriad-wiled spirit is able to find against Jesus Christ.” But Luther took courage, and boldly raised his head. “Christ is coming,” continued he; “he is coming, sitting at the right hand Of whom? not of the emperor, or we should long ago have been lost, but of God himself: let us fear nothing.
Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. If he loses this title at Augsburg, he must also lose it in all the earth, and in all the heavens.” Thus a song of triumph was, on the part of the confessors of Augsburg, the first movement that followed this courageous act, unique doubtless in the annals of the Church. Some of their adversaries at first shared in their triumph, and the others were silent; but a powerful reaction took place erelong.
On the following morning, Charles having risen in ill-humour and tired for want of sleep, the first of his ministers who appeared in the imperial apartments was the 145
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century count-palatine, as wearied and embarrassed as his master. “We must yield something,” said he to Charles; “and I would remind your majesty that the Emperor Maximilian was willing to grant the two kinds in the Eucharist, the marriage of priests, and liberty with respect to the fasts.” Charles the Fifth eagerly seized at this proposition as a means of safety. But Granvelle and Campeggio soon arrived, who induced him to withdraw it.
Rome, bewildered for a moment by the blow that had struck her, rose up again with energy. “I stay with the mother,” exclaimed the Bishop of Wartzburg, meaning by it the Church of Rome; “the mother, the mother!” “My lord,” wittily replied Brentz,
“pray, do not, for the mother, forget either the Father or the Son!”—“Well! I grant it,”
replied the Archbishop of Salzburg to one of his friends, “I also should desire the communion in both kinds, the marriage of priests, the reformation of the mass, and liberty as regards food and other traditions But that it should be a monk, a poor monk, who presumes to reform us all, is what we cannot tolerate.”—“I should have no objection,” said another bishop, “for Divine worship to be celebrated everywhere as it is at Wittenberg; but we can never consent that this new doctrine should issue from such a corner.”
And Melancthon insisting with the Archbishop of Salzburg on the necessity of a reform of the clergy: “Well! and how can you wish to reform us?” said the latter abruptly: “we priests have always been good for nothing.” This is one of the most ingenuous confessions that the Reformation has torn from the priests. Every day fanatical monks and doctors, brimful of sophisms, were seen arriving at Augsburg, who endeavoured to inflame the hatred of the emperor and of the princes. “If we formerly had friends,” said Melancthon on the morrow of the Confession, “now we possess them no longer. We are here alone, abandoned by all, and contending against measureless dangers.”
Charles, impelled by these contrary parties, affected a great indifference. But without permitting it to be seen, he endeavoured, meanwhile, to examine this affair thoroughly. “Let there not be a word wanting,” he had said to his secretary, when requiring from him a French translation of the Confession. “He does not allow anything to be observed,” whispered the Protestants one to another, convinced that Charles was gained; “for if it were known, he would lose his Spanish states: let us maintain the most profound secrecy.” But the emperor’s courtiers, who perceived these strange hopes, smiled and shook their heads. “If you have money,” said Schepper, one of the secretaries of state, to Jonas and Melancthon, “it will be easy for you to buy from the Italians whatever religion you please; but if your purse is empty, your cause is lost.” Then assuming a more serious tone: “It is impossible,” said he, 146
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“for the emperor, surrounded as he is by bishops and cardinals, to approve of any other religion than that of the pope.”
This was soon evident. On the day after the Confession (Sunday, 26th June), before the breakfast hour, all the deputations from the imperial cities were collected in the emperor’s antechamber. Charles, desirous of bringing back the states of the empire to unity, began with the weakest. “Some of the cities,” said the count-palatine,
“have not adhered to the last Diet of Spires: the emperor calls upon them to submit to it.”
Strasburg, Nuremberg, Constance, Ulm, Reutlingen, Heilbronn, Memmingen, Lindau, Kempten, Windsheim, Isny, and Weissemburg, which were thus summoned to renounce the famous protest, thought the moment curiously chosen. They asked for time. The position was complicated: discord had been thrown in the midst of the cities, and intrigue was labouring daily to increase it. It was not only between the popish and the evangelical cities that disagreement existed; but also between the Zwinglian and the Lutheran cities, and even among the latter, those which had not adhered to the Confession of Augsburg manifested great ill-humour towards the deputies of Reutlingen and Nuremberg. This proceeding of Charles the Fifth was therefore skillfully calculated; for it was based on the old axiom, Divide et impera.
But the enthusiasm of faith overcame all these stratagems, and on the next day (27th June), the deputies from the cities transmitted a reply to the emperor, in which they declared that they could not adhere to the Recess of Spires “without disobeying God, and without compromising the salvation of their souls.”
Charles, who desired to observe a just medium, more from policy than from equity, wavered between so many contrary convictions. Desirous nevertheless of essaying his mediating influence, he convoked the states faithful to Rome, on Sunday, 26th June, shortly after his conference with the cities.
All the princes were present: even the pope’s legate and the most influential Roman divines appeared at this council, to the great scandal of the Protestants.
“What reply should be made to the Confession?” was the question set by Charles the Fifth to the senate that surrounded him.
Three different opinions were proposed. “Let us beware,” said the men of the papacy, “of discussing our adversaries reasons, and let us be content with executing the edict of Worms against the Lutherans, and with constraining them by arms.”—
“Let us submit the Confession to the examination of impartial judges,” said the men 147
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century of the empire, “and refer the final decision to the emperor. Is not even the reading of the Confession an appeal of the Protestants to the imperial power?” Others, in the last place (and these were the men of tradition and of ecclesiastical doctrine), were desirous of commissioning certain doctors to compose a refutation, which should be read to the Protestants and ratified by Charles.
The debate was very animated: the mild and the violent, the politic and the fanatical, took a decided course in the assembly. George of Saxony and Joachim of Brandenburg showed themselves the most inveterate, and surpassed in this respect even the ecclesiastical princes. “A certain clown, whom you know well, is pushing them all from behind,” wrote Melancthon to Luther; “and certain hypocritical theologians hold the torch and lead the whole band.” This clown was doubtless Duke George. Even the princes of Bavaria, whom the Confession had staggered at first, immediately rallied around the chiefs of the Roman party. The Elector of Mentz, the Bishop of Augsburg, the Duke of Brunswick, showed themselves the least unfavourable to the evangelical cause. “I can by no means advise his majesty to employ force,” said Albert. “If his majesty should constrain their consciences, and should afterwards quit the empire, the first victims sacrificed would be the priests; and who knows whether, in the midst of these discords, the Turks would not suddenly fall upon us?” But this somewhat interested wisdom of the archbishop did not find many supporters, and the men of war immediately plunged into the discussion with their harsh voices.
“If there is any fighting against the Lutherans,” said Count Felix of Werdenberg,
“I gratuitously offer my sword, and I swear never to return it to its scabbard until it has overthrown the stronghold of Luther.” This nobleman died suddenly a few days after, from the consequences of his intemperance. Then the moderate men again interfered: “The Lutherans attack no one article of the faith,” said the Bishop of Augsburg; “let us come to an arrangement with them; and to obtain peace, let us concede to them the sacrament in both kinds and the marriage of priests. I would even yield more, if it were necessary.” Upon this loud cries arose: “He is a Lutheran,”
they exclaimed, “and you will see that he is fully prepared to sacrifice even the private masses!”—“The masses! we must not even think of it,” remarked some with an ironical smile; “Rome will never give them up, for it is they which maintain her cardinals and her courtiers, with their luxury and their kitchens.” The Archbishop of Salzburg and the Elector of Brandenburg replied with great violence to the motion of the Bishop of Augsburg. “The Lutherans,” said they abruptly, “have laid before us a Confession written with black ink on white paper. Well: If I were emperor, I would answer them with red ink.”—“Sirs,” quickly replied the Bishop of Augsburg, “take 148
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century care then that the red letters do not fly in your faces!” The Elector of Mentz was compelled to interfere and calm the speakers.
The emperor, desirous of playing the character of an umpire, would have wished the Roman party at least to have placed in his hands an act of accusation against the Reform: but all was now altered; the majority, becoming daily more compact since the Diet of Spires, no longer sided with Charles. Full of the sentiment of their own strength, they refused to assume the title of a party, and to take the emperor as a judge. “What are you saying,” cried they, “of diversity between the members of the empire? There is but one legitimate party. It is not a question of deciding between two opinions whose rights are equal, but of crushing rebels, and of aiding those who have remained faithful to the constitution of the empire.” This haughty language enlightened Charles: he found they had outstripped him, and that, abandoning his lofty position of arbiter, he must submit merely to be the executer of the orders of the majority. It was this majority which henceforward commanded in Augsburg. They excluded the imperial councillors who advocated more equitable views, and the Archbishop of Mentz himself ceased for a time to appear in the diet.
The majority ordered that a refutation of the Evangelical doctrine should be immediately drawn up by Romish theologians. If they had selected for this purpose moderate men like the Bishop of Augsburg, the Reformation would still have had some chance of success with the great principles of Christianity; but it was to the enemies of the Reform, to the old champions of Rome and of Aristotle, exasperated by so many defeats, that they resolved to intrust this task.
They were numerous at Augsburg, and not held in very great esteem. “The princes,” said Jonas, “have brought their learned men with them, and some even their unlearned and their fools.” Provost Faber and Doctor Eck led the troop; behind them was drawn up a cohort of monks, and above all of Dominicans, tools of the Inquisition, and impatient to recompense themselves for the opprobrium they had so long endured.
There was the provincial of the Dominicans, Paul Hugo, their vicar John Bourkard, one of their priors Conrad Koelein, who had written against Luther’s marriage; with a number of Carthusians, Augustines, Franciscans, and the vicars of several bishops.
Such were the men who, to the number of twenty, were commissioned to refute Melancthon.
One might beforehand have augured of the work by the workmen. Each one understood that it was a question, not of refuting the Confession, but of branding it.
Campeggio, who doubtless suggested this ill-omened list to Charles, was well aware that these doctors were incapable of measuring themselves with Melancthon; but 149
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century their names formed the most decided standard of popery, and announced to the world clearly and immediately what the diet proposed to do. This was the essential point.
Rome would not leave Christendom even hope.
It was, however, requisite to know whether the diet, and the emperor who was its organ, had the right of pronouncing in this purely religious matter. Charles put the question both to the Evangelicals and to the Romanists.
“Your highness,” said Luther, who was consulted by the elector, “may reply with all assurance: Yes, if the emperor wish it, let him be judge! I will bear everything on his part; but let him decide nothing contrary to the Word of God. Your highness cannot put the emperor above God himself. Does not the first commandment say, Thou shalt have no other Gods before me?”
The reply of the papal adherents was quite as positive in a contrary sense. “We think,” said they, “that his majesty, in accord with the electors, princes, and states of the empire, has the right to proceed in this affair, as Roman Emperor, guardian, advocate, and sovereign protector of the Church and of our most holy faith.” Thus, in the first days of the Reformation, the Evangelical Church frankly ranged itself under the throne of Jesus Christ, and the Roman Church under the Sceptre of kings.
Enlightened men, even among Protestants, have misunderstood this double nature of Protestantism and Popery.
The philosophy of Aristotle and the hierarchy of Rome, thanks to this alliance with the civil power, were at length about to see the day of their long-expected triumph arrive. So long as the schoolmen had been left to the force of their syllogisms and of their abuse, they had been defeated; but now Charles the Fifth and the diet held out their hands to them; the reasonings of Faber, Eck, and Wimpina were about to be countersigned by the German chancellor, and confirmed by the great seals of the empire. Who could resist them? The Romish error has never had any strength except by its union with the secular arm; and its victories in the Old and in the New World are owing, even in our days, to state patronage.
These things did not escape the piercing eye of Luther. He saw at once the weakness of the argument of the papist doctors and the power of Charles’s arm. “You are waiting for your adversaries’ answer,” wrote he to his friends in Augsburg; “it is already written, and here it is: The Fathers, the Fathers, the Fathers; the Church, the Church, the Church; usage, custom; but of the Scriptures-----nothing!” Then the emperor, supported by the testimony of these arbiters, will pronounce against you; 150
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and then will you hear boastings from all sides that will ascend up to heaven, and threats that will descend even to hell.”
Thus changed the situation of the Reform. Charles was obliged to acknowledge his weakness; and, to save the appearance of his power, he took a decisive part with the enemies of Luther. The emperor’s impartiality disappeared: the state turned against the Gospel, and there remained for it no other saviour than God.
At first many gave way to extreme dejection: above all, Melancthon, who had a nearer view of the cabals of the adversaries, exhausted moreover by long vigils, fell almost into despair. “In the presence of these formidable evils,” cried he, “I see no more hope.” And then, however, he added—“Except the help of God.”
The legate immediately set all his batteries to work. Already had Charles several times sent for the elector and the landgrave, and had used every exertion to detach them from the Evangelical Confession. Melancthon, uneasy at these secret conferences, reduced the Confession to its minimum, and entreated the elector to demand only the two kinds in the Eucharist and the marriage of priests. “To interdict the former of these points,” said he, “would be to alienate a great number of Christians from the communion; and to forbid the second would be depriving the Church of all the pastors capable of edifying it. Will they destroy religion and kindle civil war, rather than apply to these purely ecclesiastical constitutions a mitigation that is neither contrary to sound morals nor to faith?” The protestant princes begged Melancthon to go himself and make these proposals to the legate.
Melancthon agreed; he began to flatter himself with success; and, in truth, there were, even among the papists, individuals who were favourable to the Reformation.
There had recently arrived at Augsburg, from beyond the Alps, certain propositions tolerably Lutheran, and one of the emperor’s confessors boldly professed the doctrine of justification by faith, cursing “those asses of Germans,” said he, “who are incessantly braying against this truth.” One of Charles’s chaplains approved even the whole of the confession. There was something farther still: Charles the Fifth having consulted the grandees of Spain, who were famous for their orthodoxy: “If the opinions of the Protestants are contrary to the articles of the faith,” they had replied, “let your majesty employ all his power to destroy this faction; but if it is a question merely of certain changes in human ordinances and external usages, let all violence be avoided.”
“Admirable reply!” exclaimed Melancthon, who persuaded himself that the Romish doctrine was at the bottom in accordance with the Gospel.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century The Reformation found defenders in even still higher stations. Mary, sister of Charles the Fifth, and widow of King Louis of Hungary, arriving at Augsburg three days after the reading of the Confession, with her sister-in-law the Queen of Bohemia, Ferdinand’s wife, assiduously studied the Holy Scriptures; she carried them with her to the hunting parties, in which she found little pleasure, and had discovered therein the jewel of the Reform,—the doctrine of gratuitous salvation. This pious princess made her chaplain read evangelical sermons to her, and often endeavoured, although with prudence, to appease her brother Charles with regard to the Protestants.
Melancthon, encouraged by these demonstrations, and at the same time alarmed by the threats of war that the adversaries did not cease from uttering, thought it his duty to purchase peace at any cost, and resolved in consequence to descend in his propositions as low as possible. He therefore demanded an interview with the legate in a letter whose authenticity has been unreasonably doubted. At the decisive moment the heart of the reform champion fails,—his head turns—he staggers—he falls; and in his fall he runs the risk of dragging with him the cause which martyrs have already watered with their blood.
Thus speaks the representative of the Reformation to the representative of the papacy:— “There is no doctrine in which we differ from the Roman Church; we venerate the universal authority of the Roman Pontiff, and we are ready to obey him, provided he does not reject us, and that of his clemency, which he is accustomed to show towards all nations, he will kindly pardon or approve certain little things that it is no longer possible for us to change Now then, will you reject those who appear as suppliants before you? Will you pursue them with fire and sword? Alas! nothing draws upon us in Germany so much hatred, as the unshaken firmness with which we maintain the doctrines of the Roman Church. But with the aid of God, we will remain faithful, even unto death, to Christ and to the Roman Church, although you should reject us.”
Thus did Melancthon humble himself. God permitted this fall, that future ages might clearly see how low the Reformation was willing to descend in order to maintain unity, and that no one might doubt that the schism had come from Rome; but also, assuredly, that they might learn how great, in every important work, is the weakness of the noblest instruments.
Fortunately there was then another man who upheld the honour of the Reformation. At this very time Luther wrote to Melancthon: “There can be no concord between Christ and Belial. As far as regards me, I will not yield a hair’s breadth.
Sooner than yield, I should prefer suffering everything, even the most terrible evils.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Concede so much the less, as your adversaries require the more. God will not aid us until we are abandoned by all.” And fearing some weakness on the part of his friends, Luther added: “If it were not tempting God, you would long ago have seen me at your side!”
Never, in fact, had Luther’s presence been so necessary, for the legate had consented to an interview, and Melancthon was about to pay court to Campeggio. The 8th of July was the day appointed by the legate. His letter inspired Philip with the most sanguine hopes. “The cardinal assures me that he will accede the usage of the two kinds, and the marriage of priests,” said he; “I am eager to visit him!”
This visit might decide the destiny of the Church. If the legate accepted Philip’s ultimatum, the evangelical countries would be replaced under the power of the Romish bishops, and all would have been over with the Reformation; but it was saved through the pride and blindness of Rome. The Papists, believing it on the brink of the abyss, thought that a last blow would settle it, and resolved, like Luther, to concede nothing, “not even a hair’s breadth.” The legate, however, even while refusing, assumed an air of kindness, and of yielding to foreign influence. “I might have the power of making certain concessions, but it would not be prudent to use it without the consent of the German princes; their will must be done; one of them in particular conjures the emperor to prevent us from yielding the least thing. I can grant nothing.”
The Roman prince, with the most amiable smile, then did all he could to gain the chief of the protestant teacher. Melancthon retired filled with shame at the advances he had made, but still deceived by Campeggio. “No doubt,” said he, “Eck and Cochloeus have been beforehand with me at the legate’s.” Luther entertained a different opinion. “I do not trust to any of these Italians,” said he; “they are scoundrels.
When an Italian is good, he is very good; but then he is a black swan.”
It was truly the Italians who were concerned. Shortly after the 12th of July arrived the pope’s instructions. He had received the Confession by express, and sixteen days had sufficed for the transmission, the deliberation, and the return.
Clement would hear no mention either of discussions or of council. Charles was to march straight to the mark, to send an army into Germany, and stifle the Reformation by force. At Augsburg, however, it was thought best not to go so quickly to work, and recourse was had to other means. “Be quiet; we have them,” said the Romish doctors. Sensible of the reproach that had been made against them, of having misrepresented the Reformation, they accused the Protestants themselves of being the cause. “These it is,” they said, “who, to give themselves an air of being in accord with us, now dissemble their heresy; but we will catch them in their own nets. If they confess to not having inserted in their Confession all that they reject, it will be proved 153
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century that they are trifling with us. If, on the contrary, they pretend to have said everything, they will by that very circumstance be compelled to admit all that they have not condemned.” The protestant princes were therefore called together, and they were asked if the Reformation was confined to the doctrines indicated in the Apology, or if there was something more.
The snare was skillfully laid. The papacy had not even been mentioned in Melancthon’s Confession; other errors besides had been omitted, and Luther himself complained of it aloud. “Satan sees clearly,” said he, “that your Apology has passed lightly over the articles of purgatory, the worship of saints, and, above all, of the Pope and of Antichrist.” The princes requested to confer with their allies of the towns; and all the Protestants assembled to deliberate on this momentous incident.
They looked for Melancthon’s explanation, who did not decline the responsibility of the affair. Easily dejected through his own anxiety, he became bold whenever he was directly attacked. “All the essential doctrines,” said he, “have been set forth in the Confession, and every error and abuse that is opposed to them has been pointed out. But was it necessary to plunge into all those questions so full of contention and animosity, that are discussed in our universities? Was it necessary to ask if all Christians are priests, if the primacy of the pope is of right divine, if there can be indulgences, if every good work is a deadly sin, if there are more than seven sacraments, if they may be administered by a layman, if divine election has any foundation in our own merits, if sacerdotal consecration impresses an indelible character, if auricular confession is necessary to salvation? No, no! all these things are in the province of the schools, and by no means essential to faith.”
It cannot be denied that in the questions thus pointed out by Melancthon there were important points. However that may be, the evangelical committee were soon agreed, and on the morrow they gave an answer to Charles’s ministers, drawn up with as much frankness as firmness, in which they said “that the Protestants, desirous of arriving at a cordial understanding, had not wished to complicate their situation, and had proposed not to specify all the errors that had been introduced into the Church, but to confess all the doctrines that were essential to salvation; that if, nevertheless, the adverse party felt itself urged to maintain certain abuses, or to put forward any point not mentioned in the Confession, the Protestants declared themselves ready to reply in conformity with the Word of God.” The tone of this answer showed pretty clearly that the evangelical Christians did not fear to follow their adversaries wherever the latter should call them. Accordingly the Roman party said no more on this business.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 9
The Refutation—Charles’s Dissatisfaction—Interview with the Princes—The Swiss at Augsburg—Tetrapolitan Confession—Zwingle’s Confession—Afflicting Divisions—The Elector’s Faith—His Peace—The Lion’s Skin—The Refutation—One Concession—Scripture and the Hierarchy—Imperial Commands—Interview between Melancthon and Campeggio—Policy of Charles—Stormy Meeting—Resolutions of the Consistory—The Prayers of the Church—Two Miracles—The Emperor’s Menace—
The Princes’ Courage—The Mask—Negotiations—The Spectres at Spires—Tumult in Augsburg
The commission charged to refute the Confession met twice a-day, and each of the theologians who composed it added to it his refutations and his hatred.
On the 13th July the work was finished. “Eck with his band, said Melancthon,
“transmitted it to the emperor.” Great was the astonishment of this prince and of his ministers at seeing a work of two hundred and eighty pages filled with abuse. “Bad workmen waste much wood,” said Luther, “and impious writers soil much paper.”
This was not all; to the Refutation were subjoined eight appendices on the heresies that Melancthon had dissembled (as they said), and wherein they exposed the contradictions and “the horrible sects” to which Lutheranism had given birth. Lastly, not confining themselves to this official answer, the Romish theologians, who saw the sun of power shining upon them, filled Augsburg with insolent and abusive pamphlets.
There was but one opinion on the Papist Refutation; it was found confused, violent, thirsting for blood. Charles the Fifth had too much good taste not to perceive the difference that existed between this coarse work and the noble dignity of Melancthon’s Confession.
He rolled, handled, crushed, and so damaged the two hundred and eighty pages of his doctors, that when he returned them two days after, says Spalatin, there were not more than twelve entire. Charles would have been ashamed to have such a pamphlet read in the diet, and he required, in consequence, that it should be drawn up anew, shorter and in more moderate language. That was not easy, “for the adversaries, confused and stupified,” says Brentz, “by the noble simplicity of the evangelical Confession, neither knew where to begin nor where to end; they accordingly took nearly three weeks to do their work over again.”
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Charles and his ministers had great doubts of its success; leaving, therefore, the theologians for a moment, they imagined another manoeuvre. “Let us take each of the protestant princes separately,” said they: “isolated, they will not resist.”
Accordingly, on the 15th July, the Margrave of Brandenburg was visited by his two cousins, the Electors of Mentz and of Brandenburg, and by his two brothers the Margraves Frederick and John Albert. “Abandon this new faith,” said they to him,
“and return to that which existed a century ago. If you do so, there are no favours that you may not expect from the emperor; if not, dread his anger.”
Shortly after, the Duke Frederick of Bavaria, the Count of Nassau, De Rogendorf, and Truchses were announced to the Elector on the part of Charles. “You have solicited the emperor,” said they, “to confirm the marriage of your son with the Princess of Juliers, and to invest you with the electoral dignity; but his majesty declares, that if you do not renounce the heresy of Luther, of which you are the principal abettor, he cannot accede to your demand.” At the same time the Duke of Bavaria, employing the most urgent solicitations, accompanied with the most animated gestures and the most sinister threats, called upon the elector to abandon his faith. “It is asserted,” added Charles’s envoys, “that you have made an alliance with the Swiss. The emperor cannot believe it; and he orders you to let him know the truth.”
The Swiss! it was the same thing as rebellion. This alliance was the phantom incessantly invoked at Augsburg to alarm Charles the Fifth. And in reality deputies or at least friends of the Swiss, had already appeared in that city, and thus rendered the position still more serious.
Bucer had arrived two days before the reading of the Confession, and Capito on the day subsequent to it. There was even a report that Zwingle would join them. But for a long time all in Augsburg, except the Strasburg deputation, were ignorant of the presence of these doctors. It was only twenty-one days after their arrival that Melancthon learned it positively, so great was the mystery in which the Zwinglians were forced to enshroud themselves. This was not without reason: a conference with Melancthon having been requested by them: “Let them write,” replied he; “I should compromise our cause by an interview with them.”
Bucer and Capito in their retreat, which was like a prison to them, had taken advantage of their leisure to draw up the Tetrapolitan Confession, or the confession of the four cities. The deputies of Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, presented it to the emperor. These cities purged themselves from the reproach of war and revolt that had been continually objected against them. They declared that their 156
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century only motive was Christ’s glory, and professed the truth “freely, boldly, but without insolence and without scurrility.”
Zwingle about the same time caused a private confession to be communicated to Charles, which excited a general uproar. “Does he not dare to say,” exclaimed the Romanists, “that the mitred and withered race (by which he means the bishops) is in the Church what hump-backs and the scrofula are in the body?”—“Does he not insinuate,” said the Lutherans; “that we are beginning to look back after the onions and garlic of Egypt?”—“One might say with great truth that he had lost his senses,”
exclaimed Melancthon. “All ceremonies, according to him, ought to be abolished; all the bishops ought to be suppressed. In a word, all is perfectly Helvetic, that is to say, supremely barbarous.”
One man formed an exception to this concert of reproaches, and this was Luther.
“Zwingle pleases me tolerably,” wrote he to Jonas, “as well as Bucer.” By Bucer, he meant no doubt the Tetrapolitan Confession: this expression should be noted.
Thus three Confessions, laid at the feet of Charles the Fifth, attested the divisions that were rending Protestantism. In vain did Bucer and Capito endeavour to come to an understanding with Melancthon, and write to him: “We will meet where you will, and when you will; we will bring Sturm alone with us, and if you desire it, we will not even bring him.” All was unavailing. It is not enough for a Christian to confess Christ; one disciple should confess another disciple, even if the latter lies under the shame of the world; but they did not then comprehend this duty. “Schism is in the schism,” said the Romanists, and the emperor flattered himself with an easy victory. “Return to the Church,” was the cry from every side, “which means,”
interrupted the Strasburgers, “let us put the bit in your mouths, that we may lead you as we please.”
All these things deeply afflicted the elector, who was besides still under the burden of Charles’s demands and threats. The emperor had not once spoken to him, and it was everywhere said that his cousin George of Saxony would be proclaimed elector in his stead. On the 28th July, there was a great festival at the court. Charles, robed in his imperial garments, whose value was said to exceed 200,000 gold ducats, and displaying an air of majesty which impressed respect and fear, conferred on many princes the investiture of their dignities; the elector alone was excluded from these favours. Erelong he was made to understand more plainly what was reserved for him, and it was insinuated, that if he did not submit, the emperor would expel him from his states, and inflict upon him the severest punishment.”
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century The elector turned pale, for he doubted not that such would certainly be the termination. How with his small territory could he resist that powerful monarch who had just vanquished France and Italy, and now saw Germany at his feet? And besides, if he could do it, had he the right? Frightful nightmares pursued John in his dreams.
He beheld himself stretched beneath an immense mountain under which he lay painfully struggling, while his cousin George of Saxony stood on the summit and seemed to brave him.
John at length came forth from this furnace. “I must either renounce God or the world,” said he. “Well! my choice is not doubtful. It is God who made me elector,—me, who was not worthy of it. I fling myself into his arms, and let him do with me what shall seem good to him.” Thus the elector by faith stopped the mouths of lions and subdued kingdoms.
All evangelical Christendom had taken part in the struggle of John the Persevering. It was seen that if he should now fall, all would fall with him; and they endeavoured to support him. “Fear not,” cried the Christians of Magdeburg, “for your highness is under Christ’s banner.” “Italy is in expectation,” wrote they from Venice;
“if for Christ’s glory you must die, fear nothing.” But it was from a higher source that John’s courage was derived. “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,” said his Master. The elector, in like manner, beheld in his dreams George fall from the top of the mountain, and lie dashed in pieces at his feet.
Once resolved to lose everything, John, free, happy, and tranquil, assembled his theologians. These generous men desired to save their master. “Gracious lord,” said Spalatin, “recollect that the Word of God, being the sword of the Spirit, must be upheld, not by the secular power, but by the hand of the Almighty.”—“Yes!” said all the doctors, “we do not wish that, to save us, you should risk your children, your subjects, your states, your crown We will rather give ourselves into the hands of the enemy, and conjure him to be satisfied with our blood.” John, touched by this language, refused, however, their solicitations, and firmly repeated these words, which had become his device: “I also desire to confess my Saviour.”
It was on the 20th July that he replied to the pressing arguments by which Charles had endeavoured to shake him. He proved to the emperor that, being his brother’s legitimate heir, he could not refuse him the investiture, which, besides, the Diet of Worms had secured to him. He added, that he did not blindly believe what his doctors said, but that, having recognised the Word of God to be the foundation of their teaching, he confessed anew, and without any hesitation, all the articles of the Apology. “I therefore entreat your majesty,” continued he, “to permit me and mine to 158
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century render an account to God alone of what concerns the salvation of our souls.” The Margrave of Brandenburg made the same reply. Thus failed this skilful manoeuvre, by which the Romanists had hoped to break the strength of the Reformation.
Six weeks had elapsed since the Confession, and as yet there was no reply. “The Papists, from the moment they heard the Apology,” it was said, “suddenly lost their voice.” At length the Romish theologians handed their revised and corrected performance to the emperor, and persuaded this prince to present it in his own name.
The mantle of the state seemed to them admirably adapted to the movements of Rome.
“These sycophants,” said Melancthon, “have desired to clothe themselves with the lion’s skin, to appear to us so much the more terrible.” All the states of the empire were convoked for the next day but one.
On Wednesday, 3rd August, at two o’clock in the afternoon, the emperor, sitting on his throne in the chapel of the Palatinate Palace, attended by his brother, with the electors, princes, and deputies, the Elector of Saxony and his allies were introduced, and the countpalatine, who was called “Charles’s mouthpiece,” said to them: “His majesty having handed your Confession to several doctors of different nations, illustrious by their knowledge, their morals, and their impartiality, has read their reply with the greatest care, and submits it to you as his own.”
Alexander Schweiss then took the papers and read the Refutation. The Roman party approved some articles of the Confession, condemned others, and in certain less salient passages, it distinguished between what must be rejected and what accepted.
It gave way on an important point; the opus operatum. The Protestants having said in their 13th Article that faith was necessary in the sacrament, the Romish party assented to it; thus abandoning an error which the papacy had so earnestly defended against Luther in that very city of Augsburg, by the mouth of Cajetan.
Moreover, they recognised as truly christian the evangelical doctrine on the Trinity, on Christ, on baptism, on eternal punishment, and on the origin of evil.
But on all the other points, Charles, his princes, and his theologians, declared themselves immovable. They maintained that men are born with the fear of God, that good works are meritorious, and that they justify in union with faith. They upheld the seven sacraments, the mass, transubstantiation, the withdrawal of the cup, the celibacy of priests, the invocation of saints, and denied that the Church was an assembly of the saints.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century This Refutation was skilful in some respects, and, above all, in what concerned the doctrine of works and of faith. But on other points, in particular on the withdrawal of the cup and the celibacy of priests, its arguments were lamentably weak, and contrary to the well known facts of history.
While the Protestants had taken their stand on the Scriptures, their adversaries supported the divine origin of the hierarchy, and laid down absolute submission to its laws. Thus, the essential character, which still distinguishes Rome from the Reformation, stood prominently forth in this first combat.
Among the auditors who filled the chapel of the Palatinate Palace, concealed in the midst of the deputies of Nuremberg, was Joachim Camerarius, who, while Schweiss was reading, leaned over his tablets and carefully noted down all he could collect. At the same time others of the Protestants, speaking to one another, were indignant, and even laughed, as one of their opponents assures us. “Really,” said they with one consent, “the whole of this Refutation is worthy of Eck, Faber, and Cochloeus!”
As for Charles, little pleased with these theological dissertations, he slept during the reading; but he awoke when Schweiss had finished, and his awakening was that of a lion.
The count-palatine then declared that his majesty found the articles of this Refutation orthodox, catholic, and conformable to the Gospel; that he therefore required the Protestants to abandon their Confession, now refuted, and to adhere to all the articles which had just been set forth; that, if they refused, the emperor would remember his office, and would know how to show himself the advocate and defender of the Roman Church.
This language was clear enough: the adversaries imagined they had refuted the Protestants by commanding the latter to consider themselves beaten. Violence—
arms—war—were all contained in these cruel words of Charles’s minister. The princes represented that, as the Refutation adopted some of their articles and rejected others, it required a careful examination, and they consequently begged a copy should be given them.
The Romish party had a long conference on this demand: night was at hand; the count-palatine replied that, considering the late hour and the importance of this affair, the emperor would make known his pleasure somewhat later. The diet 160
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century separated, and Charles the Fifth, exasperated at the audacity of the evangelical princes, says Cochloeus, returned in ill-humour to his apartments.
The Protestants, on the contrary, withdrew full of peace; the reading of the Refutation having given them as much confidence as that of the Confession itself.
They saw in their adversaries a strong attachment to the hierarchy, but a great ignorance of the Gospel—a characteristic feature of the Romish party; and this thought encouraged them. “Certainly,” said they, “the Church cannot be where there is no knowledge of Christ.”
Melancthon alone was still alarmed: he walked by sight and not by faith, and, remembering the legate’s smiles, he had another interview with him, as early as the 4th August, still demanding the cup for the laity, and lawful wives for the priests.
“Then,” said he, “our pastors will place themselves again under the government of bishops, and we shall be able to prevent those innumerable sects with which posterity is threatened.” Melancthon’s glance into the future is remarkable: it does not, however, mean that he, like many others, preferred a dead unity to a living diversity.
Campeggio, now certain of triumphing by the sword, disdainfully handed this paper to Cochloeus, who hastened to refute it. It is hard to say whether Melancthon or Campeggio was the more infatuated. God did not permit an arrangement that would have enslaved his Church.
Charles passed the whole of the 4th and the morning of the 5th August in consultation with the Ultramontane party. “It will never be by discussion that we shall come to an understanding,” said some; “and if the Protestants do not submit voluntarily, it only remains for us to compel them.” They nevertheless decided, on account of the Refutation, to adopt a middle course. During the whole of the diet, Charles pursued a skilful policy. At first he refused everything, hoping to lead away the princes by violence; then he conceded a few unimportant points, under the impression that the Protestants, having lost all hope, would esteem so much the more the little he yielded to them. This was what he did again under the present circumstances. In the afternoon of the 5th, the count-palatine announced that the emperor would give them a copy of the Refutation, but on these conditions; namely, that the Protestants should not reply, that they should speedily agree with the emperor, and that they would not print or communicate to anyone the Refutation that should be confided to them.
This communication excited murmurs among the Protestants. “These conditions,”
said they all, “are inadmissible.”—“The Papists present us with their paper,” added 161
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century the Chancellor Bruck, “as the fox offered a thin broth to his gossip the stork.” The savoury broth upon a plate by Reynard was served up. But Mistress Stork, with her long beak, she could not get a sup. “If the Refutation,” continued he, “should come to be known without our participation (and how can we prevent it?), we shall be charged with it as a crime. Let us beware of accepting so perfidious an offer. We already possess in the notes of Camerarius several articles of this paper, and if we omit any point, no one will have the right to reproach us with it.”
On the next day (6th August), the Protestants declared to the diet that they preferred declining the copy thus offered to them, and appealed to God and to his majesty. They thus rejected all that the emperor proposed to them, even what he considered as a favour.
Agitation, anger, and affright were manifested on every bench of that august assembly. This reply of the evangelicals was war—was rebellion. George of Saxony, the Princes of Bavaria, all the violent adherents of Rome, trembled with indignation; there was a sudden, an impetuous movement, an explosion of murmurs and of hatred; and it might have been feared that the two parties would have come to blows in the very presence of the emperor, if Archbishop Albert, the Elector of Brandenburg, and the Dukes of Brunswick, Pomerania, and Mecklenburg, rushing between them, had not conjured the Protestants to put an end to this deplorable combat, and not drive the emperor to extremities. The diet separated, their hearts filled with emotion, apprehension, and trouble.
Never had the diet proposed such fatal alternatives. The hopes of agreement, set forth in the edict of convocation, had only been a deceitful lure: now the mask was thrown aside; submission or the sword—such was the dilemma offered to the Reformation. All announced that the day of tentatives was passed, and that they were beginning one of violence.
In truth, on the 6th July, the pope had assembled the consistory of cardinals in his palace at Rome, and had made known to them the protestant ultimatum; namely, the cup for the laity, the marriage of priests, the omission of the invocation of saints in the sacrifice of the mass, the use of ecclesiastical property already secularised, and for the rest, the convocation of a council. “These concessions,” said the cardinals, “are opposed to the religion, discipline, and laws of the Church. We reject them, and vote our thanks to the emperor for the zeal which he employs in bringing back the deserters.”
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century The pope having thus decided, every attempt at conciliation became useless.
Campeggio, on his side, redoubled in zeal. He spoke as if in his person the pope himself were present at Augsburg. “Let the emperor and the right-thinking princes form a league,” said he to Charles; “and if these rebels, equally insensible to threats and promises, obstinately persist in their diabolical course, then let his majesty seize fire and sword, let him take possession of all the property of the heretics, and utterly eradicate these venomous plants. Then let him appoint holy inquisitors, who shall go on the track of the remnants of Reformation, and proceed against them, as in Spain against the Moors. Let him put the university of Wittenberg under ban, burn the heretical books, and send back the fugitive monks to their convents.
But this plan must be executed with courage.” Thus the jurisprudence of Rome consisted, according to a prophecy uttered against the city which is seated on seven hills, in adorning itself with pearls that it had stolen, and in becoming drunk with the blood of the saints.
While Charles was thus urged on with blind fury by the diet and the pope, the protestant princes, restrained by a mute indignation, did not open their mouths, and hence they seemed to betray a weakness of which the emperor was eager to profit.
But there was also strength concealed under this weakness. “We have nothing left,”
exclaimed Melancthon, “but to embrace our Saviour’s knees.” In this they laboured earnestly. Melancthon begged for Luther’s prayers; Brentz for those of his own church: a general cry of distress and of faith ran through evangelical Germany. “You shall have sheep,” said Brentz, “if you will send us sheep: you know what I mean.” The sheep that were to be offered in sacrifice were the prayers of the saints.
The Church was not wanting to itself. “Assembled every day,” wrote certain cities to the electors,” we beg for you strength, grace, and victory,—victory full of joy.” But the man of prayer and faith was especially Luther. A calm and sublime courage, in which firmness shines at the side of joy—a courage that rises and exults in proportion as the danger increases—is what Luther’s letters at this time present in every line.
The most poetical images are pale beside those energetic expressions which issue in a boiling torrent from the reformer’s soul. “I have recently witnessed two miracles,”
wrote he on the 5th August to Chancellor Bruck; “this is the first. As I was at my window, I saw the stars, and the sky, and that vast and magnificent firmament in which the Lord has placed them. I could nowhere discover the columns on which the Master has supported this immense vault, and yet the heavens did not fall 163
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century
“And here is the second. I beheld thick clouds hanging above us like a vast sea.
I could neither perceive ground on which they reposed, nor cords by which they were suspended; and yet they did not fall upon us, but saluted us rapidly and fled away.
“God,” continued he, “will choose the manner, the time, and the place suitable for deliverance, and he will not linger. What the men of blood have begun, they have not yet finished Our rainbow is faint their clouds are threatening the enemy comes against us with frightful machines But at last it will be seen to whom belong the ballistae, and from what hands the javelins are launched. It is no matter if Luther perishes: if Christ is conqueror, Luther is conqueror also.”
The Roman party, who did not know what was the victory of faith, imagined themselves certain of success. The doctors having refuted the Confession, the Protestants ought, they imagined, to declare themselves convinced, and all would then be restored to its ancient footing: such was the plan to the emperor’s campaign.
He therefore urged and called upon the Protestants; but instead of submitting, they announced a refutation of the Refutation. Upon this Charles looked at his sword, and all the princes who surrounded him did the same.
John of Saxony understood what that meant, but he remained firm. “The straight line,” said he (the axiom was familiar to him), “is the shortest road.” It is this indomitable firmness that has secured for him in history the name of John the Persevering. He was not alone: all those protestant princes who had grown up in the midst of courts, and who were habituated to pay an humble obedience to the emperor, at that time found in their faith a noble independence that confounded Charles the Fifth.
With the design of gaining the Marquis of Brandenburg, they opened to him the possibility of according him some possessions in Silesia on which he had claims. “If Christ is Christ,” replied he, “the doctrine that I have confessed is truth.”—“But do you know,” quickly replied his cousin the Elector Joachim, “what is your stake?”—
“Certainly,” replied the margrave, “it is said I shall be expelled from this country.
Well! may God protect me!” One day Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt met Doctor Eck.
“Doctor,” said he, “you are exciting to war, but you will find those who will not be behindhand with you. I have broken many a lance for my friends in my time. My Lord Jesus Christ is assuredly worthy that I should do as much for him.”
At the sight of this resolution, each one asked himself whether Charles, instead of curing the disease, was not augmenting it. Reflections, criticisms, jests, passed 164
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century between the citizens; and the good sense of the people manifested in its own fashion what they thought of the folly of their chief. We will adduce one instance.
It is said that one day, as the emperor was at table with several Roman Catholic princes, he was informed that some comedians begged permission (according to custom) to amuse their lordships. First appeared an old man wearing a mask, and dressed in a doctor’s robe, who advanced with difficulty carrying a bundle of sticks in his arms, some straight and some crooked. He approached the wide fireplace of the Gothic hall, threw down his load in disorder, and immediately withdrew. Charles and the courtiers read on his back the inscription—John Reuchlin. Then appeared another mask with an intelligent look, who made every exertion to pair the straight and the crooked pieces; but finding his labour useless, he shook his head, turned to the door, and disappeared. They read—Erasmus of Rotterdam. Almost immediately after advanced a monk with bright eye and decided gait, carrying a brasier of lighted coals. He put the wood in order, set fire to it, blew and stirred it up, so that the flame rose bright and sparkling into the air. He then retired, and on his back were the words—Martin Luther.
Next approached a magnificent personage, covered with all the imperial insignia, who, seeing the fire so bright, drew his sword, and endeavoured by violent thrusts to extinguish it; but the more he struck, the fiercer burnt the flames, and at last he quitted the hall in indignation. His name, as it would seem, was not made known to the spectators, but all divined it. The general attention was soon attracted by a new character. A man, wearing a surplice and a mantle of red velvet, with an alb of white wool that reached to his heels, and having a stole around his neck, the ends ornamented with pearls, advanced majestically. Beholding the flames that already filled the hearth, he wrung his hands in terror, and looked around for something to extinguish them. He saw two vessels at the very extremity of the hall, one filled with water, and the other with oil. He rushed towards them, seized unwittingly on that containing the oil, and threw it on the fire. The flame then spread with such violence that the mask fled in alarm, raising his hands to heaven; on his back was read the name of Leo X.
The mystery was finished; but instead of claiming their remuneration, the pretended actors had disappeared. No one asked the moral of this drama.
The lesson, however, proved useless; and the majority of the diet, assuming at the same time the part assigned to the emperor and the pope, began to prepare the means necessary for extinguishing the fire kindled by Luther. They negotiated in Italy with the Duke of Mantua, who engaged to send a few regiments of light cavalry 165
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century across the Alps; and in England with Henry VIII, who had not forgotten Luther’s reply, and who promised Charles, through his ambassador, an immense subsidy to destroy the heretics.
At the same time frightful prodigies announced the gloomy future which threatened the Reform. At Spires fearful spectres, in the shape of monks with angry eyes and hasty steps, had appeared during the night. “What do you want?” they had been asked.—“We are going,” they replied, “to the Diet of Augsburg!” The circumstance had been carefully investigated, and was found perfectly trustworthy.
“The interpretation is not difficult,” exclaimed Melancthon: “Evil spirits are coming to Augsburg to counteract our exertions, and to destroy peace. They forebode horrible troubles to us.” No one doubted this. “Everything is advancing towards war,” said Erasmus. “The diet will not terminate,” wrote Brentz, “except by the destruction of all Germany.” “There will be a slaughter of the saints,” exclaimed Bucer, “which will be such that the massacres of Diocletian will scarcely come up to it.” War and blood!—
this was the general cry.
Suddenly, on the night of Saturday, 6th August, a great disturbance broke out in the city of Augsburg. There was running to and fro in the streets; messengers from the emperor were galloping in every direction; the senate was called together and received an order to allow no one to pass the gates of the city. All were afoot in the imperial barracks; the soldiers got ready their arms; the regiments were drawn up, and at daybreak (about three o’clock on Sunday morning) the emperor’s troops, in opposition to the custom always observed in the diet, relieved the soldiers of the city and took possession of the gates. At the same time it was reported that these gates would not be opened, and that Charles had given orders to keep a strict watch upon the elector and his allies. A terrible awakening for those who still flattered themselves with seeing the religious debates conclude peacefully! Might not these unheard-of measures be the commencement of wars and the signal of a frightful massacre?
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 10
Philip
of
Hesse—Temptation—Union
resisted—The
Landgrave’s
Dissimulation—The Emperor’s Order to the Protestants—Brandenburg’s threatening Speeches—Resolution of Philip of Hesse—Flight from Augsburg—
Discovery—Charles’s Emotion—Revolution in the Diet—Metamorphosis—Unusual Moderation—Peace! Peace!
Trouble and anger prevailed in the imperial palace, and it was the landgrave who had caused them. Firm as a rock in the midst of the tempest with which he was surrounded, Philip of Hesse had never bent his head to the blast. One day, in a public assembly, addressing the bishops, he had said to them, “My lords, give peace to the empire; we beg it of you. If you will not do so, and if I must fall, be sure that I will drag one or two of you along with me.” They saw it was necessary to employ milder means with him, and the emperor endeavoured to gain him by showing a favourable disposition with respect to the county of Katzenellenbogen, about which he was at variance with Nassau, and to Wurtemberg, which he claimed for his cousin Ulric. On his side Duke George of Saxony, his father-in-law, had assured him that he would make him his heir if he would submit to the pope. “They carried him to an exceeding high mountain, whence they showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof,” says a chronicler, but the landgrave resisted the temptation.
One day he heard that the emperor had manifested a desire to speak to him. He leapt instantly on his horse and appeared before Charles. The latter, who had with him his secretary Schweiss and the Bishop of Constance, represented that he had four complaints against him; namely, of having violated the edict of Worms, of despising the mass, of having, during his absence, excited all kinds of revolt, and, finally, of having transmitted to him a book in which his sovereign rights were attacked. The landgrave justified himself; and the emperor said that he accepted his replies, except with regard to the faith, and begged him to show himself in that respect entirely submissive to his majesty. “What would you say,” added Charles, in a winning tone, “if I elevated you to the regal dignity? But, if you show yourself rebellious to my orders, then I shall behave as becomes a Roman emperor.”
These words exasperated the landgrave, but they did not move him. “I am in the flower of my age,” replied he, “and I do not pretend to despise the joys of life and the favour of the great; but to the deceitful goods of this world I shall always prefer the ineffable grace of my God.” Charles was stupified; he could not understand Philip.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century From this time the landgrave had redoubled his exertions to unite the adherents of the Reformation. The Zwinglian cities felt that, whatever was the issue of the diet, they would be the first victims, unless the Saxons should give them their hand. But this there was some difficulty in obtaining.
“It does not appear to me useful to the public weal, or safe for the conscience,”
wrote Melancthon to Bucer, “to load our princes with all the hatred your doctrine inspires.” The Strasburgers replied, that the real cause of the Papists’ hatred was not so much the doctrine of the eucharist as that of justification by faith. “All we, who desire to belong to Christ,” said they, “are one, and have nothing to expect but death.”
This was true; but another motive besides checked Melancthon. If all the Protestants united, they would feel their strength, and war would be inevitable.
Therefore, then, no union! The landgrave, threatened by the emperor, rejected by the theologians, began to ask himself what he did at Augsburg. The cup was full.
Charles’s refusal to communicate the Romish Refutation, except on inadmissible conditions, made it run over. Philip of Hesse saw but one course to take—to quit the city.
Scarcely had the emperor made known the conditions which he placed on the communication of the reply, than on Friday evening, 5th August, the landgrave, going alone to the count-palatine, Charles’s minister, had begged for an immediate audience with his majesty. Charles, who did not care to see him, pretended to be busy, and had put off Philip until the following Sunday. But the latter answered that he could not wait; that his wife, who was dangerously ill, entreated him to return to Hesse without delay; and that, being one of the youngest princes, the meanest in understanding, and useless to Charles, he humbly begged his majesty would permit him to leave on the morrow. The emperor refused.
We may well understand the storms this refusal excited in Philip’s mind: but he knew how to contain himself; never had he appeared more tranquil; during the whole of Saturday (6th August), he seemed occupied only with a magnificent tourney in honour of the emperor and of his brother Ferdinand. He prepared for it publicly; his servants went to and fro, but under that din of horses and of armour, Philip concealed very different designs. “The landgrave conducts himself with very great moderation,”
wrote Melancthon to Luther the same day. “He told me openly that, to preserve peace, he would submit to conditions still harder than those which the emperor imposes on us, and accept all that he could without dishonouring the Gospel.”
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Yet Charles was not at ease. The landgrave’s demand pursued him; all the Protestants might do the same, and even quit Augsburg unexpectedly. The clue, that he had hitherto so skillfully held in his hands, was perhaps about to be broken: it was better to be violent than ridiculous. The emperor therefore resolved on striking a decisive blow. The elector, the princes, the deputies, were still in Augsburg: and he must at every risk prevent their leaving it. Such were the heavy thoughts that on the night of the 6th August, while the Protestants were calmly sleeping, banished repose from Charles’s eyes; and which made him hastily arouse the councillors of Augsburg, and send his messengers and soldiers through the streets of the city.
The protestant princes were still slumbering, when they received, on the part of the emperor, the unexpected order to repair immediately to the Hall of the CHAPTER.
It was eight o’clock when they arrived. They found there the Electors of Brandenburg and Mentz, the Dukes of Saxony, Brunswick, and Mecklenburg, the Bishops of Salzburg, Spires, and Strasburg, George Truchses, the Margrave of Baden’s representative, Count Martin of Oelting, the Abbot of Weingarten, and the Provost of Bamberg. These were the commissioners nominated by Charles to terminate this great affair.
It was the most decided among them, Joachim of Brandenburg, who began to speak. “You know,” said he to the Protestants, “with what mildness the emperor has endeavoured to re-establish unity. If some abuses have crept into the Christian Church, he is ready to correct them, in conjunction with the pope. But how contrary to the Gospel are the sentiments you have adopted! Abandon then your errors, do not any longer remain separate from the Church, and sign the Refutation without delay.
If you refuse, then through your fault how many souls will be lost, how much blood shed, what countries laid waste, what trouble in all the empire! And you,” said he, turning towards the elector, “your electorate, your life, all will be torn from you, and certain ruin will fall upon your subjects, and even upon their wives and children.”
The elector remained motionless. At any time this language would have been alarming: it was still more so now that the city was almost in a state of siege. “We now understand,” said the Protestants to one another, “why the imperial guards occupy the gates of the city.” It was evident, indeed, that the emperor intended violence.
The Protestants were unanimous: surrounded with soldiers, at the very gates of the prison, and beneath the thousand swords of Charles, they remained firm. All these threats did not make them take one step backwards. It was important for them, however, to consider their reply. They begged for a few minutes’ delay, and retired.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century To submit voluntarily, or to be reduced by force, such was the dilemma Charles proposed to the evangelical Christians. At the moment when each was anxious about the issue of this struggle, in which the destinies of Christianity were contending, an alarming rumour suddenly raised the agitation of all minds to its height.
The landgrave, in the midst of his preparations for the tournament, meditated the most serious resolution. Excluded by Charles from every important deliberation, irritated at the treatment the Protestants had undergone during this diet, convinced that they had no more chance of peace, not doubting that their liberty was greatly endangered in Augsburg, and feeling unable to conceal under the appearance of moderation the indignation with which his soul was filled, being besides of a quick, prompt, and resolute character, Philip had decided on quitting the city and repairing to his states, in order to act freely, and to serve as a support to the Reformation.
But what mystery was required! If the landgrave was taken in the act, no doubt he would be put under arrest. This daring step might therefore become the signal of those extreme measures from which he longed to escape. It was Saturday, the 6th August, the day for which Philip had requested the emperor’s leave of absence. He waits until the commencement of the night, and then, about eight o’clock, disguised in a foreign dress, without bidding farewell to any of his friends, and taking every imaginable precaution, he makes for the gates of the city, about the time when they are usually closed. Five or six cavaliers follow him singly, and at a little distance. In so critical a moment will not these men-at-arms attract attention?
Philip traverses the streets without danger, approaches the gate, passes with a careless air through the midst of the guard, between the scattered soldiers; no one moves, all remain idly seated, as if nothing extraordinary was going on. Philip has passed without being recognised. His five or six horsemen come through in like manner. Behold them all at lasts in the open country. The little troop immediately spur their horses, and flee with headlong speed far from the walls of the imperial city.
Yet Philip has taken his measures so well, that no one as yet suspects his departure.
When during the night Charles occupies the gates with this own guards, he thinks the landgrave still in the city. When the Protestants were assembled at eight in the morning in the Chapter-hall, the princes of both parties were a little astonished at the absence of Philip of Hesse. They were accustomed, however, to see him keep aloof, and thought he might be out of humour. No one imagined he was between twelve and fifteen leagues from Augsburg.
After the termination of the conference, and as all were returning to their hotels, the Elector of Brandenburg and his friends on the one hand, elated at the speech they 170
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century had delivered, the Elector of Saxony and his allies on the other, resolved to sacrifice everything, inquiries were made at the landgrave’s lodgings as to the reason of his absence; they closely questioned Saltz, Nuszbicker, Mayer, and Schnepf. At last the Hessian councillors could no longer keep the secret. “The landgrave,” said they, “has returned to Hesse.”
This news circulated immediately through all the city, and shook it like the explosion of a mine. Charles especially, who found himself mocked and frustrated in his expectations—Charles, who had not had the least suspicion, trembled, and was enraged. The Protestants, whom the landgrave had not admitted to his secret, were as much astonished as the Roman Catholics themselves, and feared that this inconsiderate departure might be the immediate signal for a terrible persecution.
There was only Luther, who, the moment he heard of Philip’s proceeding, highly approved of it, and exclaimed: “Of a truth all these delays and indignities are enough to fatigue more than one landgrave.”
The Chancellor of Hesse gave the Elector of Saxony a letter that his master had left for him. Philip spoke in this ostensible document of his wife’s health; but he had charged his ministers to inform the elector in private of the real causes of his departure. He announced, moreover, that he had given orders to his ministers to assist the Protestants in all things, and exhorted his allies to permit themselves in no manner to be turned aside from the Word of God. “As for me,” said he, “I shall fight for the Word of God, at the risk of my goods, my states, my subjects, and my life.”
The effect of the landgrave’s departure was instantaneous; a real revolution was then effected in the diet. The Elector of Mentz and the Bishops of Franconia, Philip’s near neighbours, imagined they already saw him on their frontiers at the head of a powerful army, and replied to the Archbishop of Salzburg, who expressed astonishment at their alarm: “Ah! if you were in our place you would do the same.”
Ferdinand, knowing the intimate relations of Philip with the Duke of Wurtemberg, trembled for the estates of this prince, at that time usurped by Austria; and Charles the Fifth, undeceived with regard to those princes whom he had believed so timid, and whom he had treated with so much arrogance, had no doubt that this sudden step of Philip’s had been maturely deliberated in the common council of the Protestants. All saw a declaration of war in the landgrave’s hasty departure. They called to mind that at the moment when they thought the least about it, they might see him appear at the head of his soldiers, on the frontiers of his enemies, and no one was ready; no one even wished to be ready! A thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the diet. They repeated the news to one another, with troubled eyes and affrighted 171
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century looks. All was confusion in Augsburg; and couriers bore afar, in every direction, astonishment and consternation.
This alarm immediately converted the enemies of the reform. The violence of Charles and of the princes was broken in this memorable night as if by enchantment; and the furious wolves were suddenly transformed into meek and docile lambs.
It was still Sunday morning: Charles the Fifth immediately convoked the diet for the afternoon. “The landgrave has quitted Augsburg,” said Count Frederick from the emperor; “his majesty flatters himself that even the friends of that prince were ignorant of his departure. It is without the emperor’s knowledge, and even in defiance of his express prohibition, that Philip of Hesse has left, thus failing in all his duties.
He has wished to put the diet out of joint. But the emperor conjures you not to permit yourselves to be led astray by him, and to contribute rather to the happy issue of this national assembly. His majesty’s gratitude will thus be secured to you.”
The Protestants replied, that the departure of the landgrave had taken place without their knowledge; that they had heard of it with pain, and that they would have dissuaded him. Nevertheless they did not doubt that this prince had solid reasons for such a step; besides he had left his councillors with full powers, and that, as for them, they were ready to do everything to conclude the diet in a becoming manner. Then, confident in their rights, and decided to resist Charles’s arbitrary acts, they continued: “It is pretended that the gates were closed on our account. We beg your majesty to revoke this order, and to prevent any similar orders being given in future.”
Never was Charles the Fifth less at ease; he had just spoken as a father, and they remind him that a few hours back he had acted like a tyrant. Some subterfuge was requisite. “It is not on your account,” replied the count-palatine, “that the emperor’s soldiers occupy the gates Do not believe those who tell you so Yesterday there was a quarrel between two soldiers, and a mob was collected This is why the emperor took this step. Besides, such things will not be done again without the Elector of Saxony, in his quality of marshal of the empire, being first informed of them.” An order was given immediately to reopen the gates.
No exertions were now spared by the Roman party to convince the Protestants of their good will: there was an unaccustomed mildness in the language of the countpalatine and in the looks of Charles. The princes of the papal party, once so terrible, were similarly transformed. They had been hastily forced to speak out; if they desired war, they must begin it instantly.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century But they shrunk back at this frightful prospect. How, with the enthusiasm that animated the Protestants, take up arms against them! Were not the abuses of the Church everywhere acknowledged, and could the Roman princes be sure of their own subjects? Besides, what would be the issue of a war but the increase of the emperor’s power? The Roman Catholic states, and the Duke of Bavaria in particular, would have been glad to see Charles at war with the Protestants, in the hope that he would thus consume his strength; but it was, on the contrary, with their own soldiers that the emperor designed attacking the heretics. Henceforth they rejected the instrumentality of arms as eagerly as they had first desired it.
Everything had thus changed in Augsburg; the Romish party was paralysed, disheartened, and even broken up. The sword already drawn was hastily thrust back into the sheath. Peace! peace! was the cry of all.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 11
The Mixed Commission—The Three Points—Romish Dissimulation—Abuses—
Concessions—The Main Question—Bishops and Pope conceded—Danger of Concession—Opposition to the pretended Concord—Luther’s opposing Letters—The Word above the Church—Melancthon’s Blindness—Papist Infatuation—A new Commission—Be Men and not Women—The Two Phantoms—Concessions—The Three Points—The great Antithesis—Failure of Conciliation—The Gordian Knot—A Council granted—Charles’s Summons—Menaces—Altercations—Peace or War—
Romanism concedes—Protestantism resists—Luther recalls his Friends The diet now entered upon its third phasis, and as the time of tentatives had been followed by that of menaces; now that of arrangements was to succeed the period of threatenings. New and more formidable dangers were then to be encountered by the Reformation. Rome, beholding the sword torn from its grasp, had seized the net, and enlacing her adversaries with “cords of humanity and bands of love,” was endeavouring to drag them gently into the abyss.
At eight o’clock in the morning of the 16th August, a mixed commission was framed, which counted on each side two princes, two lawyers, and three theologians.
In the Romish party, there were Duke Henry of Brunswick, the Bishop of Augsburg, the Chancellors of Baden and Cologne, with Eck, Cochloeus, and Wimpina; on the part of the Protestants, were the Margrave George of Brandenburg, the Prince Electoral of Saxony, the Chancellors Bruck and Heller, with Melancthon, Brentz, and Schnepf.
They agreed to take as basis the Confession of the evangelical states, and began to read it article by article. The Romish theologians displayed an unexpected condescension. Out of twenty-one dogmatical articles, there were only six or seven to which they made any objection. Original Sin stopped them some time; at length they came to an understanding; the Protestants admitted that Baptism removed the guilt of the sin, and the Papists agreed that it did not wash away concupiscence. As for the Church, they granted that it contained sanctified men and sinners; they coincided also on Confession. The Protestants rejected especially as impossible the enumeration of all the sins prescribed by Rome. Dr. Eck yielded this point.
There remained three doctrines only on which they differed.
The first was that of Penance. The Romish doctors taught that it contained three parts: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. The Protestants rejected the latter, and 174
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century the Romanists clearly perceiving that with satisfaction would fall indulgences, purgatory, and other of their doctrines and profits, vigorously maintained it. “We agree,” said they, “that the penance imposed by the priest does not procure remission of the guilt of sin: but we maintain that it is necessary to obtain remission of the penalty.”
The second controverted point was the Invocation of Saints; and the third, and principal one, Justification by Faith. It was of the greatest importance for the Romanists to maintain the meritorious influence of works: all their system in reality was based on that. Eck therefore haughtily declared war on the assertion that faith alone justifies. “That word sole,” said he, “we cannot tolerate. It generates scandals, and renders men brutal and impious. Let us send back the sole to the cobbler.”
But the Protestants would not listen to such reasoning; and even when they put the question to each other, Shall we maintain that faith alone justifies us gratuitously?
“Undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” exclaimed one of them with exaggeration, “gratuitously and uselessly.” They even adduced strange authorities: “Plato,” said they, “declares that it is not by external works, but by virtue that God is to be adored; and everyone knows these verses of Cato’s: “Si deus est animus, nobis ut carmina dicunt, Hic tibi praecipue pura sit mente colendus.”
“Certainly,” resumed the Romish theologians: “it is only of works performed with grace that we speak; but we say that in such works there is something meritorious.”
The Protestants declared they could not grant it.
They had approximated however beyond all hope. The Roman theologians, clearly understanding their position, had purposed to appear agreed rather than be so in reality. Everyone knew, for instance, that the Protestants rejected transubstantiation: but the article of the Confession on this point, being able to be taken in the Romish sense, the Papists had admitted it. Their triumph was only deferred. The general expressions that were used on the controverted points, would permit somewhat later a Romish interpretation to be given to the Confession; ecclesiastical authority would declare this the only true one; and Rome, thanks to a few moments of dissimulation, would thus re-ascend the throne. Have we not seen in our own days the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church unfairly interpreted in accordance with the Council of Trent? There are causes in which falsehood is never wanting. This plot was as skillfully executed, as it was profoundly conceived.
The commissioners were on the best terms with one another, and concord seemed restored. One single uneasiness disturbed that happy moment: the idea of the 175
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century landgrave: “Ignorant that we are almost agreed,” said they, “this young madbrain is doubtless already assembling his army; we must bring him back, and make him a witness of our cordial union.” On the morning of the 13th, one of the members of the Commission (Duke Henry of Brunswick), accompanied by a councillor of the emperor, set out to discharge this difficult mission. Duke George of Saxony supplied his place as arbitrator.
They now passed from the first part of the Confession to the second: from doctrines to abuses. Here the Romish theologians could not yield so easily, for if they appeared to agree with the Protestants, it was all over with the honour and power of the hierarchy. It was accordingly for this period of the combat that they had reserved their cunning and their strength.
They began by approaching the Protestants as near as they could, for the more they granted, the more they might draw the Reform to them and stifle it. “We think,”
said they, “that with the permission of his holiness, and the approbation of his majesty, we shall be able to permit, until the next council, the communion in both kinds, wherever it is practiced already; only, your ministers should preach at Easter, that it is not of divine institution, and that Christ is wholly in each kind.
“Moreover, as for the married priest,” continued they, “desirous of sparing the poor women whom they have seduced, of providing for the maintenance of their innocent children, and of preventing every kind of scandal, we will tolerate them until the next council, and we shall then see if it will not be right to decree that married men may be admitted to holy orders, as was the case in the primitive Church for many centuries.
“Finally, we acknowledge that the sacrifice of the mass is a mystery, a representation, a sacrifice of commemoration, a memorial of the sufferings and death of Christ, accomplished on the cross.” This was yielding much: but the turn of the Protestants was come; for if Rome appeared to give, it was only to take in return.
The grand question was the Church, its maintenance and government: who should provide for it? They could see only two means: princes or bishops. If they feared the bishops, they must decide for the princes: if they feared the princes, they must decide for the bishops. They were at that time too distant from the normal state to discover a third solution, and to perceive that the Church ought to be maintained by the Church itself—by the christian people. “Secular princes in the long-run will be defaulters to the government of the Church,” said the Saxon divines in the opinion they presented on the 18th August; “they are not fit to execute it, and besides it would 176
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century cost them too dear: the bishops, on the contrary, have property destined to provide for this charge.”
Thus the presumed incapacity of the state, and the fear they entertained of its indifference, threw the Protestants into the arms of the hierarchy.
They proposed, therefore, to restore to the bishops their jurisdiction, the maintenance of discipline, and the superintendence of the priests, provided they did not persecute the evangelical doctrine, or oppress the pastors with impious vows and burdens. “We may not,” added they, “without strong reasons rend that order by which bishops are over priests, and which existed in the Church from the beginning. It is dangerous before the Lord to change the order of governments.” Their argument is not founded upon the Bible, as may be seen, but upon ecclesiastical history.
The Protestant divines went even farther, and, taking a last step that seemed decisive, they consented to acknowledge the pope as being (but of human right) supreme bishop of Christendom. “Although the pope is Antichrist, we may be under his government, as the Jews were under Pharaoh, and in later days under Caiaphas.”
We must confess these two comparisons were not flattering to the pope. “Only,” added the doctors, “let sound doctrine be fully accorded to us.”
The chancellor Bruck alone appears to have been conscious of the truth: he wrote on the margin with a firm hand: “We cannot acknowledge the pope, because we say he is Antichrist, and because he claims the primacy by divine right.”
Finally, the Protestant theologians consented to agree with Rome as regards indifferent ceremonies, fasts, and forms of worship; and the elector engaged to put under sequestration the ecclesiastical property already secularised, until the decision of the next council.
Never was the conservative spirit of Lutheranism more clearly manifested. “We have promised our adversaries to concede to them certain points of church government, that may be granted without wounding the conscience,” wrote Melancthon. But it began to be very doubtful whether ecclesiastical concessions would not drag with them doctrinal concessions also. The Reform was drifting away still a few more fathoms, and it would be lost. Already disunion, trouble, and affright were spreading among its ranks. “Melancthon has become more childish than a child,”
said one of his friends; and yet he was so excited, that the Chancellor of Luneburg having made some objections to these unprecedented concessions, the little master of 177
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century arts proudly raised his head, and said with a sharp, harsh tone of voice: “He who dares assert that the means indicated are not christian is a liar and a scoundrel.”
On which the chancellor immediately repaid him in his own coin. These expressions cannot, however, detract from Melancthon’s reputation for mildness.
After so many useless efforts, he was exhausted, irritated, and his words cut the deeper, as they were the less expected from him. He was not the only one demoralised.
Brentz appeared clumsy, rude, and uncivil; Chancellor Keller had misled the pious Margrave of Brandenburg, and transformed the courage of this prince into pusillanimity: no other human support remained to the elector than his chancellor Bruck. And even this firm man began to grow alarmed at his isolation.
But he was not alone: the most earnest protests were received from without. “If it is true that you are making such concessions,” said their affrighted friends to the Saxon divines, “christian liberty is at an end. What is your pretended concord? a thick cloud that you raise in the air to eclipse the sun that was beginning to illumine the Church. Never will the christian people accept conditions so opposed to the Word of God; and your only gain will be furnishing the enemies of the Gospel with a specious pretext to butcher those who remain faithful to it.” Among the laymen these convictions were general. “Better die with Jesus Christ,” said all Augsburg, “than gain the favour of the whole world without him!”
No one felt so much alarm as Luther when he saw the glorious edifice that God had raised by his hands on the point of falling to ruin in those of Melancthon. The day on which this news arrived, he wrote five letters,—to the elector, to Melancthon, to Spalatin, to Jonas, and to Brentz, all equally filled with courage and with faith. “I learn,” said he, “that you have begun a marvellous work, namely, to reconcile Luther and the pope; but the pope will not be reconciled, and Luther begs to be excused. And if, in despite of them, you succeed in this affair, then after your example I will bring together Christ and Belial.
“The world I know is full of wranglers who obscure the doctrine of justification by faith, and of fanatics who persecute it. Do not be astonished at it, but continue to defend it with courage, for it is the heel of the seed of the woman that shall bruise the head of the serpent.
“Beware also of the jurisdiction of the bishops, for fear we should soon have to recommence a more terrible struggle than the first. They will take our concessions widely, very widely, always more widely, and will give us theirs narrowly, very 178
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century narrowly, and always more narrowly. All these negotiations are impossible, unless the pope should renounce his papacy.
“A pretty motive indeed our adversaries assign! They cannot, say they, restrain their subjects, if we do not publish everywhere that they have the truth on their side: as if God only taught his Word, that our enemies might at pleasure tyrannise over their people. “They cry out that we condemn all the Church. No, we do not condemn it; but as for them, they condemn all the Word of God, and the Word of God is more than the Church.”
This important declaration of the reformers decides the controversy between the evangelical Christians and the Papacy: unfortunately we have often seen Protestants return, on this fundamental point, to the error of Rome, and set the visible Church above the Word of God.
“I write to you now,” continues Luther, “to believe with all of us (and that through obedience to Jesus Christ), that Campeggio is a famous demon. I cannot tell how violently I am agitated by the conditions which you propose. The plan of Campeggio and the pope had been to try us first by threats, and then, if these do not succeed, by stratagems; you have triumphed over the first attack, and sustained the terrible coming of Caesar: now, then, for the second.
Act with courage, and yield nothing to the adversaries, except what can be proved with evidence from the very Word of God. “But if, which Christ forbid! you do not put forward all the Gospel; if, on the contrary, you shut up that glorious eagle in a sack; Luther—doubt it not!—Luther will come and gloriously deliver the eagle. As certainly as Christ lives, that shall be done!”
Thus spoke Luther, but in vain: everything in Augsburg was tending towards approaching ruin; Melancthon had a bandage over his eyes that nothing could tear off. He no longer listened to Luther, and cared not for popularity. “It does not become us,” said he, “to be moved by the clamors of the vulgar: we must think of peace and of posterity. If we repeal the episcopal jurisdiction, what will be the consequence to our descendants? The secular powers care nothing about the interests of religion. Besides, too much dissimilarity in the churches is injurious to peace: we must unite with the bishops, lest the infamy of schism should overwhelm us for ever.”
The evangelicals too readily listened to Melancthon, and vigorously laboured to bind to the papacy by the bonds of the hierarchy that Church which God had so wonderfully emancipated. Protestantism rushed blindfold into the nets of its enemies.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Already serious voices announced the return of the Lutherans into the bosom of the Romish Church. “They are preparing their defection, and are passing over to the Papists,” said Zwingle.
The politic Charles the Fifth acted in such a manner that no haughty word should compromise the victory; but the Roman clergy could not master themselves: their pride and insolence increased every day. “One would never believe,” said Melancthon, “the airs of triumph which the Papists give themselves.” There was good reason! the agreement was on the verge of conclusion: yet one or two steps and then, woe to the Reformation! Who could prevent this desolating ruin? It was Luther who pronounced the name towards which all eyes should be turned: “Christ lives,” said he,
“and He by whom the violence of our enemies has been conquered will give us strength to surmount their wiles.” This, which was in truth the only resource, did not disappoint the Reformation.
If the Roman hierarchy had been willing, under certain admissible conditions, to receive the Protestants who were ready to capitulate, all would have been over with them. When once it held them in its arms, it would have stifled them; but God blinded the Papacy, and thus saved his Church. “No concessions,” had declared the Romish senate; and Campeggio, elated with his victory, repeated, “No concessions!” He moved heaven and earth to inflame the Catholic zeal of Charles in this decisive moment.
From the emperor he passed to the princes. “Celibacy, confession, the withdrawal of the cup, private masses!” exclaimed he: “all these are obligatory: we must have all.”
This was saying to the evangelical Christians, as the Samnites to the ancient Romans:
“Here are the Caudine Forks; pass through them!” The Protestants saw the yoke, and shuddered. God revived the courage of confessors in their weakened hearts. They raised their heads, and rejected this humiliating capitulation. The commission was immediately dissolved.
This was a great deliverance; but soon appeared a fresh danger. The evangelical Christians ought immediately to have quitted Augsburg; but, said one of them, “Satan, disguised as an angel of light, blinded the eyes of their understanding.” They remained.
All was not yet lost for Rome, and the spirit of falsehood and of cunning might again renew its attacks. It was believed at court that this disagreeable termination of the commission was to be ascribed to some wrong-headed individuals, and particularly to Duke George. They therefore resolved to name another, composed of six members only: on the one side, Eck, with the Chancellors of Cologne and Baden; 180
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century on the other, Melancthon, with the Chancellors Bruck and Heller. The Protestants consented, and all was begun anew.
The alarm then increased among the most decided followers of the Reformation.
“If we expose ourselves unceasingly to new dangers, must we not succumb at last?”
The deputies of Nuremberg in particular declared that their city would never place itself again under the detested yoke of the bishops. “It is the advice of the undecided Erasmus that Melancthon follows,” said they. “Say rather of Ahithophel” (2 Samuel 15.), replied others. “However it may be,” added they; “if the pope had bought Melancthon, the latter could have done nothing better to secure the victory for him.”
The landgrave was especially indignant at this cowardice. “Melancthon,” wrote he to Zwingle, “walks backwards like a crab.” From Friedwald, whither he had repaired after his flight from Augsburg, Philip of Hesse endeavoured to check the fall of Protestantism.
“When we begin to yield, we always yield more,” wrote he to his ministers at Augsburg. “Declare therefore to my allies that I reject these perfidious conciliations.
If we are Christians, what we should pursue is, not our own advantage, but the consolation of so many weary and afflicted consciences, for whom there is no salvation if we take away the Word of God. The bishops are not real bishops, for they speak not according to the Holy Scriptures. If we acknowledge them, what would follow? They would remove our ministers, silence the Gospel, re-establish ancient abuses, and the last state would be worse than the first. If the Papists will permit the free preaching of the pure Gospel, let us come to an understanding with them; for the truth will be the strongest, and will root out all the rest. But if not!—No. This is not the moment to yield, but to remain firm even to death. Bafile these fearful combinations of Melancthon, and tell the deputies of the cities, from me, to be men, and not women.
Let us fear nothing: God is with us.”
Melancthon and his friends, thus attacked, sought to justify themselves: on the one hand, they maintained, that if they preserved the doctrine it would finally overthrow the hierarchy. But then why restore it? Was it not more than doubtful whether a doctrine so enfeebled would still retain strength sufficient to shake the Papacy? On the other hand, Melancthon and his friends pointed out two phantoms before which they shrunk in affright. The first was war, which, in their opinion, was imminent. “It will not only,” said they, “bring numberless temporal evils with it,—the devastation of Germany, murder, violation, sacrilege, rapine; but it will produce spiritual evils more frightful still, and inevitably bring on the perturbation of all religion.” The second phantom was the supremacy of the state. Melancthon and his 181
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century friends foresaw the dependence to which the princes would reduce the Church, the increasing secularisation of its institutions and of its instruments, the spiritual death that would result, and shrank back with terror from the frightful prospect. “Good men do not think that the court should regulate the ministry of the Church,” said Brentz.
“Have you not yourselves experienced,” added he ironically, “with what wisdom and mildness these boors (‘tis thus I denominate the officials and prefects of the princes) treat the ministers of the Church, and the Church itself. Rather die seven times!”—“I see,” exclaimed Melancthon, “what a Church we shall have if the ecclesiastical government is abolished. I discover in the future a tyranny far more intolerable than that which has existed to this day.” Then, bowed down by the accusations that poured upon him from every side, the unhappy Philip exclaimed: “If it is I who have aroused this tempest, I pray his majesty to throw me, like Jonas, into the sea, and to drag me out only to give me up to torture and to the stake.”
If the Romish episcopacy were once recognised, all seemed easy. In the Commission of Six, they conceded the cup to the laity, marriage to the pastors, and the article of prayer to saints appeared of little importance. But they stopped at three doctrines which the evangelicals could not yield. The first was the necessity of human satisfaction for the remission of the penalties of sin; the second, the idea of something meritorious in every good work; the third, the utility of private masses. “Ah!” quickly replied Campeggio to Charles the Fifth, “I would rather be cut in pieces than concede anything about masses.”
“What!” replied the politicians, “when you agree on all the great doctrines of salvation, will you for ever rend the unity of the Church for three such trivial articles?
Let the theologians make a last effort, and we shall wee the two parties unite, and Rome embrace Wittenberg.”
It was not so: under these three points was concealed a whole system. On the Roman side, they entertained the idea that certain works gain the Divine favour, independently of the disposition of him who performs them, and by virtue of the will of the Church. On the evangelical side, on the contrary, they felt a conviction that these external ordinances were mere human traditions, and that the only thing which procured man the Divine favour was the work that God accomplished by Christ on the cross; while the only thing that put him in possession of this favour was the work of regeneration that Christ accomplishes by his Spirit in the heart of the sinner. The Romanists, by maintaining their three articles, said: “The Church saves,” which is the essential doctrine of Rome; the evangelicals, by rejecting them, said: “Jesus Christ alone saves,” which is Christianity itself. This is the great antithesis which then 182
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century existed, and which still separates the two Churches. With these three points, which placed souls under her dependence, Rome justly expected to recover everything; and she showed by her perseverance that she understood her position. But the evangelicals were not disposed to abandon theirs. The christian principle was maintained against the ecclesiastical principle which aspired to swallow it up: Jesus Christ stood firm in presence of the Church, and it was seen that henceforward all conferences were superfluous.
Time pressed: for two months and a half Charles the Fifth had been labouring in Augsburg, and his pride suffered because four or five theologians checked the triumphal progress of the conqueror of Pavia. “What!” said they to him, “a few days sufficed to overthrow the King of France and the pope, and you cannot succeed with these gospellers!” They determined on breaking off the conferences. Eck, irritated because neither stratagem nor terror had been effectual, could not master himself in the presence of the Protestants. “Ah!” exclaimed he, at the moment of separation,
“why did not the emperor, when he entered Germany, make a general inquest about the Lutherans? He would then have heard arrogant answers, witnessed monsters of heresy, and his zeal suddenly taking fire, would have led him to destroy all this faction. But now Bruck’s mild language and Melancthon’s concessions prevent him from getting so angry as the cause requires.” Eck said these words with a smile; but they expressed all his thoughts. The colloquy terminated on the 30th August.
The Romish states made their report to the emperor. They were face to face, three steps only from each other, without either side being able to approach nearer, even by a hair’s breadth.
Thus, then, Melancthon had failed; and his enormous concessions were found useless. From a false love of peace, he had set his heart on an impossibility.
Melancthon was at the bottom a really christian soul. God preserved him from his great weakness, and broke the clue that was about to lead him to destruction. Nothing could have been more fortunate for the Reformation than Melancthon’s failure; but nothing could, at the same time, have been more fortunate for himself. His friends saw that though he was willing to yield much, he could not go so far as to yield Christ himself, and his defeat justified him in the eyes of the Protestants.
The Elector of Saxony and the Margrave of Brandenburg sent to beg Charles’s leave to depart. The latter refused at first rather rudely, but at last he began to conjure the princes not to create by their departure new obstacles to the arrangements they soon hoped to be able to conclude. We shall see what was the nature of these arrangements.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century The Romanists appeared to redouble their exertions. If they now let the clue slip, it is lost for ever: they laboured accordingly to reunite the two ends. There were conferences in the gardens, conferences in the churches, at St. George’s, at St.
Maurice’s, between the Duke of Brunswick and John Frederick the elector’s son, the Chancellors of Baden and of Saxony, the Chancellor of Liege and Melancthon; but all these attempts were unavailing. It was to other means they were going to have recourse.
Charles the Fifth had resolved to take the affair in hand, and to cut the Gordian knot, which neither doctors nor princes could untie. Irritated at seeing his advances spurned and his authority compromised, he thought that the moment was come for drawing the sword. On the 4th September, the members of the Roman party, who were still endeavouring to gain over the Protestants, whispered these frightful intentions in Melancthon’s ears. “We scarcely dare mention it,” said they: “the sword is already in the emperor’s hands, and certain people exasperate him more and more.
He is not easily enraged, but once angry, it is impossible to quiet him.”
Charles had reason to appear exacting and terrible. He had at length obtained from Rome an unexpected concession—a council. Clement VII had laid the emperor’s request before a congregation: “How will men who reject the ancient councils submit to a new one?” they had replied. Clement himself had no wish for an assembly, which he dreaded alike on account of his birth and conduct. However, his promises at the Castle of St. Angelo and at Bologna rendered it impossible for him to give a decided refusal. He answered, therefore, that “the remedy would be worse than the disease; but that if the emperor, who was so good a Catholic, judged a council absolutely necessary, he would consent to it, under the express condition, however, that the Protestants should submit in the meanwhile to the doctrines and rites of the Church.”
Then as the place of meeting he appointed Rome!
Scarcely had news of this concession spread abroad, than the fear of a Reformation froze the papal court. The public charges of the Papacy, which were altogether venal, immediately fell, says a cardinal, and were offered at the lowest price, without even being able to find purchasers. The Papacy was compromised; its merchandise was endangered; and the price current immediately declined on the Roman exchange.
On Wednesday, 7th September, at two in the afternoon, the protestant princes and deputies having been introduced into the chamber of Charles the Fifth, the countpalatine said to them, “that the emperor, considering their small number, had not 184
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century expected they would uphold new sects against the ancient usages of the Universal Church; that, nevertheless, being desirous of appearing to the last full of kindness, he would require of his holiness the convocation of a council; but that in the meanwhile they should return immediately into the bosom of the Catholic Church, and restore everything to its ancient footing.”
The Protestants replied on the morrow, the 8th September, that they had not stirred up new sects contrary to the Holy Scriptures; that, quite the reverse, if they had not agreed with their adversaries, it was because they had desired to remain faithful to the Word of God; that, by convoking in Germany a general, free, and Christian council, it would only be doing what preceding diets had promised; but that nothing should compel them to re-establish in their churches an order of things opposed to the commandments of God.”
It was eight in the evening when, after a long deliberation, the Protestants were again called in. “His majesty,” said George Truschses to them, “is equally astonished, both that the catholic members of the commissions have accorded so much, and that the protestant members have refused everything. What is your party in the presence of his imperial majesty, of his papal holiness, of the electors, princes, estates of the empire, and other kings, rulers, and potentates of Christendom? It is but just that the minority should yield to the majority. Do you desire the means of conciliation to be protracted, or do you persist in your answer? Speak frankly; for if you persist, the emperor will immediately see to the defense of the Church. Tomorrow at one o’clock you will bring your final decision.”
Never had such threatening words issued from Charles’s mouth. It was evident he wished to subdue the Protestants by terror; but this end was not attained. They replied the next day but one—a day more having been accorded them—that new attempts at conciliation would only fatigue the emperor and the diet; that they only required regulations to maintain political peace until the assembling of the council.
“Enough,” replied the redoubtable emperor; “I will reflect upon it; but in the mean time let no one quit Augsburg.”
Charles the Fifth was embarrassed in a labyrinth from which he knew not how to escape. The State had resolved to interfere with the Church, and saw itself compelled to have immediate recourse to its ultima ratio—the sword. Charles did not desire war, and yet how could he now avoid it? If he did not execute his threats, his dignity was compromised, and his authority rendered contemptible. He sought an outlet on one side or the other, but could find none. It therefore only remained for him 185
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century to close his eyes, and rush forward heedless of the consequences. These thoughts disturbed him: these cares preyed upon him; he was utterly confounded.
It was now that the elector sent to beg Charles would not be offended if he left Augsburg. “Let him await my answer,” abruptly replied the emperor: and the elector having rejoined that he would send his ministers to explain his motives to his majesty:
“Not so many speeches,” resumed Charles, with irritation; “let the elector say whether he will stay or not!”
A rumour of the altercation between these two powerful princes having spread abroad, the alarm became universal; it was thought war would break out immediately, and there was a great disturbance in Augsburg. It was evening: men were running to and fro; they rushed into the hotels of the princes and of the protestant deputies, and addressed them with the severest reproaches. “His imperial majesty,” said they, “is about to have recourse to the most energetic measures!” They even declared that hostilities had begun: it was whispered that the commander of Horneck (Walter of Kronberg), elected by the emperor grand-master of the Teutonic order, was about to enter Prussia with an army, and dispossess Duke Albert, converted by Luther. Two nights successively the same tumult was repeated. They shouted, they quarrelled, they fought, particularly in and before the mansions of the princes: the war was nearly commencing in Augsburg.
At that crisis (12th September), John Frederick, prince-electoral of Saxony, quitted the city. On the same day, or on the morrow, Jerome Wehe, chancellor of Baden, and Count Truchses on the one side; Chancellor Bruck and Melancthon on the other, met at six in the morning in the church of St. Maurice.
Charles, notwithstanding his threats, could not decide on employing force. He might no doubt by a single word to his Spanish bands or to his German lansquenets have seized on these inflexible men, and treated them like Moors. But how could Charles, a Netherlander, a Spaniard, who had been ten years absent from the empire, dare, without raising all Germany, offer violence to the favourites of the nation?
Would not the Roman Catholic princes themselves see in this act an infringement of their privileges?
War was unseasonable. “Lutheranism is extending already from the Baltic to the Alps,” wrote Erasmus to the legate: “You have but one thing to do: tolerate it.”
The negotiation begun in the church of St. Maurice was continued between the Margrave of Brandenburg and Count Truchses. The Roman party only sought to save 186
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century appearances, and did not hesitate, besides, to sacrifice everything. It asked merely for a few theatrical decorations—that the mass should be celebrated in the sacerdotal garment, with chanting, reading, ceremonies, and its two canons. All the rest was referred to the next council, and the Protestants, till then, should conduct themselves so as to render account to God, to the council, and to his majesty.
But on the side of the Protestants the wind had also changed. Now they no longer desired peace with Rome: the scales had at last fallen from their eyes, and they discovered with affright the abyss into which they had so nearly plunged. Jonas, Spalatin, and even Melancthon were agreed. “We have hitherto obeyed the commandment of St. Paul, Be at peace with all men,” said they; “now we must obey this commandment of Christ, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. On the side of our adversaries is nothing but cunning and perfidy, and their only aim is to stifle our doctrine, which is truth itself. They hope to save the abominable articles of purgatory, indulgences, and the Papacy, because we have passed them by in silence. Let us beware of betraying Christ and his Word in order to please Antichrist and the devil.”
Luther at the same time redoubled his entreaties to withdraw his friends from Augsburg. “Return, return,” cried he to them; “return, even if it must be so, cursed by the pope and the emperor. You have confessed Jesus Christ, offered peace, obeyed Charles, supported insults, and endured blasphemies. I will canonise you, I, as faithful members of Jesus Christ. You have done enough, and more than enough: now it is for the Lord to act, and he will act! They have our Confession, they have the Gospel; let them receive it, if they will; and if they will not, let them go----.If a war should come, let it come! We have prayed enough; we have discussed enough. The Lord is preparing our adversaries as the victim for the sacrifice; he will destroy their magnificence, and deliver his people. Yes! he will preserve us even from Babylon, and from her burning walls.”
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 12
The Elector’s Preparations and Indignation—Recess of Augsburg—Irritating Language—Apology of the Confession—Intimidation—Final Interview—Messages of Peace—Exasperation of the Papists—Restoration of Popery—Tumult in the Church—Union of the Churches—The Pope and the Emperor—Close of the Diet—
Armaments—Attack on Geneva—Joy of the Evangelicals—Establishment of Protestantism
Thus Luther gave the signal of departure. They replied to the reformer’s appeal, and all prepared to quit Augsburg on Saturday, 17th September. At ten at night, Duke Ernest of Luneburg assembled the deputies of Nuremburg and the ministers of the landgrave in his hotel, and announced to them that the elector was determined to leave the next morning, without informing anyone, and that he would accompany him. “Keep the secret,” said he to them, “and know that if peace cannot be preserved, it will be a trifling matter for me to lose, combating with you, all that God has given me.”
The elector’s preparations betrayed his intentions. In the middle of the night Duke Henry of Brunswick arrived hastily at his hotel, beseeching him to wait; and towards morning Counts Truchses and Mansfeldt announced that, on the morrow between seven and eight, the emperor would give him his conge.
On Monday, 19th September, the elector purposing to leave Augsburg immediately after his audience with Charles, breakfasted at seven o’clock, then sent off his baggage and his cooks, and ordered his officers to be ready at ten o’clock. At the moment when John quitted the hotel to wait upon the emperor, all the members of his household were drawn up on each side booted and spurred; but, having been introduced to Charles, he was requested to wait two, four, or six days longer.
As soon as the elector was alone with his allies, his indignation burst forth, and he even became violent. “This new delay will end in nothing,” he said; “I am resolved to set out, happen what may. It seems to me, from the manner in which things are arranged, that I have now completely the air of a prisoner.” The Margrave of Brandenburg begged him to be calm. “I shall go,” the elector still replied. At last he yielded, and having appeared again before Charles the Fifth, he said, “I will wait until Friday next; and, if nothing is done by that time, I shall leave forthwith.”
Great was the anxiety of the Protestants during these four days of expectation.
Most of them doubted not that, by acceding to Charles’s prayers, they had delivered 188
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century themselves into the hands of their enemies. “The emperor is deliberating whether he ought to hang us or let us live,” wrote Brentz. Fresh negotiations of Truchses were without success.
All that now remained for the emperor was to draw up in common with the Romish states, the recess of the diet. This was done; and that the Protestants might not complain of its having been prepared without their knowledge, he assembled them in his palace on Thursday, 22nd September, the day previous to that fixed for the elector’s departure, and had his project read to them by the countpalatine. This project was insult and war. The emperor granted to the elector, the five princes, and the six cities, a delay of six months, until the 15th April next year, to come to an arrangement with the Church, the Pope, the Emperor, and all the princes and monarchs of Christendom. This was clearly announcing to them that the Romanists were very willing to delay until the usual period for bringing armies into the field.
Nor was this all: the delay was granted only on the express condition that the Protestants should immediately join the emperor in reducing the Anabaptists, and all those who opposed the holy sacrament, by which were meant the Zwinglian cities.
He wished by this means to tie the hands of the Protestants, and prevent the two families of the Reformation from uniting during the winter.
Finally, the Protestants were forbidden to make any innovations, to print or sell anything on the objects of faith, or to draw anyone whatever to their sect, “since the Confession had been soundly refuted by the Holy Scriptures.” Thus the Reformation was officially proclaimed a sect, and a sect contrary to the Word of God.
Nothing was more calculated to displease the friends of the Gospel, who remained in Charles’s presence astonished, alarmed, and indignant. This had been foreseen; and, at the moment when the Protestants were about to enter the emperor’s chamber, Truchses and Wehe, making signs to them, mysteriously slipped a paper into their hands, containing a promise that if, on the 15th April, the Protestants required a prolongation of the delay, their request would certainly be granted. But Bruck, to whom the paper was given, was not deceived. “A subtle ambuscade,” said he; “a masterpiece of knavery! God will save his own, and will not permit them to fall into the snare.” This trick, in fact, served only still more to increase the courage of the Protestants.
Bruck, without discussing the recess in a political point of view, confined himself to what was principally at stake, the Word of God. “We maintain,” said he, “that our Confession is so based on the holy Word of God, that it is impossible to refute it. We 189
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century consider it as the very truth of God, and we hope by it to stand one day before the judgment-seat of the Lord.” He then announced that the Protestants had refuted the Refutation of the Romish theologians, and holding in his hand the famous Apology of the Confession of Augsburg written by Melancthon, he stepped forward, and offered it to Charles the Fifth. The count-palatine took it, and the emperor was already stretching out his hand, when Ferdinand having whispered a few words, he beckoned to the count, who immediately returned the Apology to Doctor Bruck. This paper, and the “Commonplaces,” are the reformer’s masterpieces. The embarrassed emperor told the Protestants to come again at eight the next morning.
Charles the Fifth, resolving to employ every means to get his decree accepted, began by entreaties; and scarcely was the Margrave of Brandenburg seated to take his evening repast, when Truchses and Wehe appeared before him, using every kind of discourse and argument, but without success.
The next day (Friday, 23rd September), the evangelical princes and the deputies of the cities assembled at five in the morning at the margrave’s hotel, where the recess was again read in the presence of Truchses and Wehe, Chancellor Bruck assigning seven reasons for its rejection. “I undertake,” said Wehe, “to translate the recess into German in such a manner that you can accept it. As for the word sect, in particular, it is the clerk who placed it there by mistake.” The mediators retired in haste to communicate to Charles the complaints of the Protestants.
Charles and his ministers gave up every idea of reconciliation, and hoped for nothing except through fear. The Protestants having reached the imperial palace at eight o’clock, they were made to wait an hour; the Elector of Brandenburg then said to them in Charles’s name: “His majesty is astonished beyond measure that you still maintain your doctrine to be based on the Holy Scriptures. If you say the truth, his majesty’s ancestors, so many kings and emperors, and even the ancestors of the Elector of Saxony, were heretics!
There is no Gospel, there is no Scripture, that imposes on us the obligation of seizing by violence the goods of another, and of then saying that we cannot conscientiously restore them. It is for this reason,” added Joachim, after these words, which he accompanied with a sardonic smile, “I am commissioned to inform you, that if you refuse the recess, all the Germanic states will place their lives and their property at the emperor’s disposal, and his majesty himself will employ the resources of all his kingdoms to complete this affair before leaving the empire.”
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“We do not accept it,” replied the Protestants firmly. “His majesty also has a conscience,” then resumed the Elector of Brandenburg, in a harsh tone; “and if you do not submit, he will concert with the pope and the other potentates on the best means of extirpating this sect and its new errors.” But in vain did they add threat to threat: the Protestants remained calm, respectful, and unshaken. “Our enemies, destitute of all confidence in God,” said they, “would shake like a reed in presence of the emperor’s anger, and they imagine that we should tremble in like manner; but we have called unto God, and he will keep us faithful to his truth.”
The Protestants then prepared to take their final leave of the emperor. This prince, whose patience had been put to a severe trial, approached to shake hands according to custom; and beginning with the Elector of Saxony, he said to him in a low voice: “Uncle, uncle! I should never have expected this of you.” The elector was deeply affected: his eyes filled with tears: but, firm and resolute, he bent his head and quitted Charles without reply. It was now two in the afternoon.
While the Protestants were returning to their hotels, calm and happy, the Romish princes retired to theirs, confused and dispirited, uneasy and divided. They doubted not that the conge which had just been granted to the Protestants would be regarded by them as a declaration of war, and that on quitting Augsburg, they would rush to arms. This thought terrified them. Accordingly, the Elector of Saxony had hardly reached his palace, when he saw Dr. Ruhel, councillor of the Elector of Mentz, hastening towards him, commissioned by his master to deliver this message:
“Although my brother the elector (Joachim of Brandenburg) has declared that the states of the empire are ready to support the emperor against you, know that both myself and the ministers of the elector-palatine and of the Elector of Treves immediately declared to his majesty that we did not adhere to this declaration, seeing that we thought very favourably of you. I intended saying this to the emperor in your presence, but you left so precipitately, that I was unable.”
Thus spoke the primate of the German Church, and even the choice of his messenger was significant: Dr. Ruhel was Luther’s brother-in-law. John begged him to thank his master.
As this envoy retired, there arrived one of the gentlemen of Duke Henry of Brunswick, a zealous Romanist. He was at first refused admittance on account of the departure, but returned hastily, just as Bruck’s carriage was leaving the courtyard of the hotel. Approaching the carriage-door, he said: “The duke informs the elector that he will endeavour to put things in a better train, and will come this winter to kill a wild boar with him.” Shortly after, the terrible Ferdinand himself declared that he 191
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century would seek every means of preventing an outbreak. All these manifestations of the affrighted Roman Catholics showed on which side was the real strength.
At three o’clock in the afternoon the Elector of Saxony, accompanied by the Dukes of Luneburg and the Princes of Anhalt, quitted the walls of Augsburg. “God be praised,” said Luther, “that our dear prince is at last out of hell!”
As he saw these intrepid princes thus escaping from his hands, Charles the Fifth gave way to a violence that was not usual with him. They want to teach me a new faith,” cried he; “but it is not with the doctrine that we shall finish this matter: we must draw the sword, and then shall we see who is the strongest.” All around him gave way to their indignation. They were astonished at the audacity of Bruck, who had dared call the Romanists—heretics! But nothing irritated them so much as the spirit of proselytism which in those glorious days characterised evangelical Germany; and the anger of the Papists was particularly directed against the Chancellor of Luneburg, “who,” said they, “had sent more than a hundred ministers into different places to preach the new doctrine, and who had even publicly boasted of it.”—“Our adversaries thirst for our blood,” wrote, as they heard these complaints, the deputies of Nuremburg, who remained almost alone at Augsburg.
On the 4th October, Charles the Fifth wrote to the pope; for it was from Rome that the new crusade was to set out: “The negotiations are broken off; our adversaries are more obstinate than ever; and I am resolved to employ my strength and my person in combating them. For this reason I beg your holiness will demand the support of all christian princes.”
The enterprise began in Augsburg itself. The day on which he wrote to the pope, Charles, in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast it was, re-established the Cordeliers in that city, and a monk ascending the pulpit said: “All those who preach that Jesus Christ alone has made satisfaction for our sins, and that God saves us without regard to our works, are thorough scoundrels. There are, on the contrary, two roads to salvation: the common road, namely, the observance of the commandments; and the perfect road, namely, the ecclesiastical state.” Scarcely was the sermon finished ere the congregation began to remove the benches placed in the church for the evangelical preaching, breaking them violently (for they were fixed with chains), and throwing them one upon another. Within these consecrated walls two monks, in particular, armed with hammers and pincers, tossed their arms, and shouted like men possessed. “From their frightful uproar,” exclaimed some, “one would imagine they were pulling down a house. It was in truth the house of God they wished to begin destroying.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century After the tumult was appeased, they sang mass. As soon as this was concluded, a Spaniard desired to recommence breaking the benches, and on being prevented by one of the citizens, they began to hurl chairs at each other; one of the monks, leaving the choir, ran up to them and was soon dragged into the fray; at length the captain of police arrived with his men, who distributed their well directed blows on every side.
Thus began in Germany the restoration of Roman Catholicism: popular violence has often been one of its most powerful allies.
On the 13th October the recess was read to all the Romish states, and on the same day they concluded a Roman league. Two cities had signed the Confession, and two others had assented to it; the imperialists hoped, however, that these powerless municipalities, affrighted at the imperial authority, would withdraw from the protestant union. But on the 17th October, instead of two or four cities, sixteen imperial towns, among which were the most important in Germany, declared it was impossible to grant any support against the Turks, so long as public peace was not secured in Germany itself.
An event more formidable to Charles had just taken place. The unity of the Reformation had prevailed. “We are one in the fundamental articles of faith,” had said the Zwinglian cities, “and in particular (notwithstanding some disputes about words among our theologians), we are one in the doctrine of the communion in the body and blood of our Lord. Receive us.” The Saxon deputies immediately gave their hands. Nothing unites the children of God so much as the violence of their adversaries.
“Let us unite,” said all, “for the consolation of our brethren and the terror of our enemies.” In vain did Charles, who was intent on keeping up division among the Protestants, convoke the deputies of the Zwinglian cities; in vain, desiring to render them odious, had he accused them of fastening a consecrated wafer to a wall and firing bullets at it; in vain did he overwhelm them with fierce threats;—all his efforts were useless. At length the evangelical party was one.
The alarm increased among the Roman party, who resolved on fresh concessions.
“The Protestants call for public peace,” said they; “well then, let us draw up articles of peace.” But, on the 29th October, the Protestants refused these offers, because the emperor enjoined peace to all the world, without binding himself. “An emperor has the right to command peace to his subjects,” haughtily answered Charles; “but it has never been heard that he commanded it to himself.”
Nothing remained but to draw the sword; and for that Charles made every preparation. On the 25th October, he wrote to the cardinals at Rome: “We inform you 193
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century that we shall spare neither kingdoms nor lordships; and that we shall venture even our soul and our body to complete such necessary matters.”
Scarcely had Charles’s letter been received, before his majordomo, Pedro de la Cueva, arrived in Rome by express. “The season is now too far advanced to attack the Lutherans immediately,” said he to the pope; “but prepare everything for this enterprise. His majesty thinks it his duty to prefer before all things the accomplishment of your designs.” Thus Clement and the emperor were also united, and both sides began to concentrate their forces.
On the evening of the 11th November, the recess was read to the protestant deputies, and on the 12th they rejected it, declaring that they did not acknowledge the emperor’s power to command in matters of faith. The deputies of Hesse and of Saxony departed immediately after, and on the 19th November the recess was solemnly read in the presence of Charles the Fifth, and of the princes and deputies who were still in Augsburg. This report was more hostile than the project communicated to the Protestants. It bore, among other things (and this is only a sample of the urbanity of this official doctrine), that “to deny free will was the error not of man, but of a brute.”—“We beg his majesty,” said the Elector Joachim, after it was read, “not to leave Germany, until by his cares one sole and same faith be reestablished in all the empire.”
The emperor replied, that he would not go farther than his states of the Low Countries. They desired that deeds should follow close upon words. It was then nearly seven in the evening; a few torches, lighted up here and there by the ushers, and casting a pale light, alone illuminated this assembly: they separated without seeing each other; and thus ended, as it were by stealth, that diet so pompously announced to the christian world.
On the 22nd November, the recess was made public, and two days after Charles the Fifth set out for Cologne. The ruler of two worlds had seen all his influence baffled by a few Christians; and he who had entered the imperial city in triumph, now quitted it gloomy, silent, and dispirited. The mightiest power of the earth was broken against the power of God.
But the emperor’s ministers and officers, excited by the pope, displayed so much the more energy. The states of the empire were bound to furnish Charles, for three years, 40,000 foot, 8000 horse, and a considerable sum of money; the Margrave Henry of Zenete, the Count of Nassau, and other nobles, made considerable levies on the side of the Rhine; a captain going through the Black Forest called its rude inhabitants 194
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century to his standard, and there enrolled six companies of lansquenets; King Ferdinand had written to all the knights of the Tyrol and of Wurtemburg to gird on their cuirasses and take down their swords; Joachim of Talheim collected the Spanish bands in the Low Countries, and ordered them towards the Rhine; Peter Scher solicited from the Duke of Lorraine the aid of his arms; and another chief hastily moved the Spanish army of Florence in the direction of the Alps. There was every reason to fear that the Germans, even the Roman Catholics , would take Luther’s part; and hence principally foreign troops were levied. Nothing but war was talked of in Augsburg.
On a sudden a strange rumour was heard. The signal is given, said everyone. A free city, lying on the confines of the Germanic and Roman world,—a city at war with its bishop, in alliance with the Protestants, and which passed for reformed even before really being so, had been suddenly attacked. A courier from Strasburg brought this news to Augsburg, and it circulated through the town with the rapidity of lightning. Three days after Michaelmas, some armed men, sent by the Duke of Savoy, pillaged the suburbs of Geneva, and threatened to take possession of the city, and put all to the edge of the sword. Everyone in Augsburg was amazed. “Ho!” exclaimed Charles the Fifth, in French, “the Duke of Savoy has begun too soon.” It was reported that Magaret, governor of the Low Countries, the pope, the Dukes of Lorraine and Gueldres, and even the King of France, were directing their troops against Geneva.
It was there that the army of Rome intended fixing its point d’appui. The avalanche was gathering on the first slopes of the Alps, whence it would rush over all Switzerland, and then roll into Germany, burying the Gospel and the Reformation under its huge mass.
This sacred cause appeared to be in great danger, and never in reality had it gained so noble a triumph. The coup de main attempted on those hills, where six years later Calvin was to take his station, and plant the standard of Augsburg and of Nazareth, having failed, all fears were dispelled, and the victory of the confessors of Christ, for an instant obscured, shone forth anew in all its splendour.
While the Emperor Charles, surrounded by a numerous train of princes, was approaching the banks of the Rhine sad and dispirited, the evangelical Christians were returning in triumph to their homes. Luther was the herald of the victory gained at Augsburg by Faith. “Though our enemies should have around them, beside them, with them, not only that puissant Roman emperor, Charles, but still more the emperor of the Turks and his Mahomet,” said he, “they could not intimidate, they could not frighten me. It is I who in the strength of God am resolved to frighten and overthrow them. They shall yield to me—they shall fall! and I shall remain upright and firm. My life shall be their headsman, and my death their hell! God blinds them 195
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and hardens their hearts; he is driving them towards the Red Sea: all the horses of Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen, cannot escape their inevitable destiny. Let them go then, let them perish, since they will it so! As for us, the Lord is with us.”
Thus the Diet of Augsburg, destined to crush the Reformation, was what strengthened it for ever. It has been usual to consider the peace of Augsburg (1555) as the period when the Reform was definitely established. That is the date of legal Protestantism; evangelical Christianity has another—the autumn of 1530. In 1555
was the victory of the sword and of diplomacy; in 1530 was that of the Word of God and of Faith; and this latter victory is in our eyes the truest and the surest. The evangelical history of the Reformation in Germany is nearly finished at the epoch we have reached, and the diplomatic history of legal Protestantism begins.
Whatever may now be done, whatever may be said, the Church of the first ages has reappeared; and it has reappeared strong enough to show that it will live. There will still be conferences and discussions; there will still be leagues and combats; there will even be deplorable defeats; but all these are a secondary movement. The great movement in accomplished: the cause of faith is won by faith. The effort has been made: the evangelical doctrine has taken root in the world and neither the storms of men nor the powers of hell will ever be able to tear it up.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century BOOK XV—Switzerland—Conquests 1526-1530