CHAP.

I.

these dissentions; and that the emperor, on the other hand, had passed his word to bend all his force and power to that object, and not again to quit the limits of the empire before he had seen it accomplished. These things, the elector said, " he now represented to them by order of the princes and states."

1

99

To the latter part of this address, the protestant princes replied with spirit, by Pontanus: "That they heard it with astonishment: that they had given no cause for it; being as ready as any persons to venture their lives and fortunes in the service of the emperor and the empire." Several of the princes also afterwards apologized for it, declaring that it was unauthorized, and that they had told the emperor so; 2 who is said himself to have pronounced it "iniqua et nimia"-unwarranted and more than was called for.3-As to the rest, the protestants declared, that " they would do nothing obstinately, but were ready to yield every thing which they could consistently with the word of God: that, seeing they could not obtain a copy of the decree, nor time to consider it, it was to no purpose for them to urge any thing further; and that they therefore committed themselves to God, in whom was their hope of salvation." 4

1 Melch. Adam gives the speech of Pontanus on this occasion, which is very noble. In vita Pont.-See Appendix below, "Gregory Pontanus."

2 Sleid. 137.

3 Seck. ii. 201 (8).

4 Even Maimbourg acknowledges: "Seeing the emperor fixed in his purpose, they resolved not to comply with the decree, but told him in a very respectful manner, that they would give him no further trouble, but would commit the affair to divine providence." In Seck. ii. 200.-Father Paul and Du Pin do not at all vary from the account of these concluding transactions here given from Sleidan and Seckendorf.

A. D.

1530.

Augsburg.

This was on the morning of the twenty-third of September. The elector had not been present at the commencement, but he came in The Protesafterwards; and, at the close, with singular tants leave cheerfulness and alacrity of manner,2 taking Sept. 23. leave of the emperor, he again expressed his confidence, "That the doctrine of the confession was firmly founded on scripture, and that the gates of hell could never prevail, nor even stand, against it."-The emperor then gave his hand to the princes, and allowed them to depart.

The elector left Augsburg that evening, and passed the night in a neighbouring castle, where he the next day took the opportunity of hearing a sermon from one of his divines. Three days after, at Nuremberg, being asked by the senate his opinion concerning the measures which it would be proper to adopt, he wisely and piously replied, "That he had no doubt God would mercifully uphold his holy word, and the confessors of it that his intention was, to take the advice of all his counsellors and divines, and that he recommended to them and the other protestant states to do the same: after which they might communicate counsels with one another."-On the eleventh of October he arrived at Torgau, and heard Luther preach there on the following sabbath. Some days before, he had been congratulated by the reformer on his release from Augsburg, in a letter, the anticipations of which proved almost prophetically correct. "I rejoice with all my heart that your highness, released from the infernal regions of Augsburg, has returned in safety to your friends and country. Though the malice of men and devils against us is great, yet I have

1 "Ad iter paratus jentaculum sumebat." Seck. ii. 200 (4). "Quasi tripudians." Ib. 201.

I.

CHAP. great hope that the grace of God, already manifested, shall increase and wax stronger in us... I have committed the whole business to my Lord God, and I doubt not that he, who hath wrought in us to will, will grant us also to perform. Certainly it proceeds not from men, to devise and proclaim doctrine like our's. Since then the work is God's, and all things depend not on our skill or power, but on his, we shall see who they are that dare to fight against him. Let no hindrance be put in the way of those who wish to do it; for it is written, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days. They may make a beginning, and threaten terrible things, but they shall never be able to perform their devices.-May Christ by his Holy Spirit comfort your highness! Amen." 1

It appears that, in his closing communications with the protestant princes, the emperor charged their preachers with having had "no small hand in the rebellion and wars of the boors ;" and themselves with injustice and robbery in the deprivation of the monks, and alienation of religious houses,-the full restoration of which he demanded. With respect to the former, they utterly denied the charge; affirming that both themselves and their preachers had done every thing in their power to prevent and put down those disorders, and appealing to what had passed at the diet of Spires, four years before, as fully exculpating them, and sufficiently explaining the true cause of those insurrections: and indeed this charge afterwards drew from the elector of Mentz some apology. With respect to the latter charge, they alleged that

Seck. ii. 201, 202.

2 Sleid. 137. Seck. ii. 205.

the monks had not been turned out, but had fled in the time of the rustic war; and that the elector was ready to put the revenues under sequestration till the decision of a general council should take place, the accounts to be rendered to the emperor: that, if the design of holding a council did not take effect, then the proceeds should be applied to pious uses: in short, that nothing of a pecuniary nature should be an obstacle to accommodation. But this did not give satisfaction; the restitution of the superstitious rites and religion, by means of the monks, being the object really aimed at.1

A. D. 1530.

Besides the "Confession of Augsburg," two Other others were presented to the diet: one, called Confessions the Tetrapolitan, deriving its name from the four cities of Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindaw; and the other from Zuinglius.2 The former of these was drawn up by Bucer, and, as well as that of which we have so largely treated, was esteemed a masterpiece. Indeed the two differed, in sentiment, in little else than the article of the eucharist; namely, concerning the manner, or sense, in which Christ's body and blood are present in that sacrament.3 Bucer, who perhaps occupied a middle ground between Luther and Zuinglius upon that point, and more nearly the ground of our own church than either of them, earnestly pleaded that, as the

1 Seck. ii. 204. also iii. 11, 12.

2 See Milner v. 522-525. (1123-1125.) Mosheim iii. 355. (e.)

3 On the difference which unhappily arose between the great continental reformers on this subject, I refer the reader to dean Milner's History, v. 191 &c, 396 &c. (772, 990.)

Milner iv appendix, Bucer. (v. p. (5.)) According to Du Pin (vi. 121.) he taught "that the body and blood of Christ are received by faith" in the Lord's supper

I.

CHAP. danger seemed to thicken, and their difference did not appear very essential, they should all join in one confession-an union which the landgrave of Hesse also had long been labouring to effect: but here even the mild and. yielding Melancthon was as tenacious as Luther himself could be, and would by no means admit of it, or hold communion with those who differed from him upon this subject! Such, alas! is the weakness, and, on one point or another, the narrowness of human nature, even in the best and greatest of men.2

Zuinglius's confession, probably as proceeding from an individual, and that individual not so immediately connected with the empire, seems to have engaged but little attention: but of the confession of the four cities a separate refutation, and that of a sharper kind, was prepared by Faber and Eccius. The same part was acted over again with their deputies, as with the protestant princes; except that, as being less powerful, and in some respects more obnoxious, they were treated with greater harshness. The authors of these repeated popish refutations were liberally rewarded for the services they had rendered-Faber, in particular, soon after obtaining from Ferdinand the archbishopric of Vienna: which gave occasion

which is precisely the language of the church of England. See Catechism, and Article xxviii.

1 Milner v. 518–522. (1118–1123.) Du Pin vi. 121, 122. Some subsidiary motives also operated. Zuinglius's confession seems to have been justly objectionable in its doctrine concerning obedience to rulers, and perhaps in some other points and all the Sacramentarians' lay under peculiar odium, with which Melancthon frankly tells Bucer he was not willing needlessly to load the protestant princes. Seck. ii. 199.