§ 132. The Protest and Confession of the Evangelical Nobles,A.D.1527-1530.For three years after the diet at Spires inA.D.1526 no public proceedings were taken on religious questions. The success of the Reformation however during these years roused the Catholic party to make a great effort. At the next diet at Spires, inA.D.1529, the Catholics were in the majority, and measures were passed which, it was hoped, would put an end to the Reformation. The evangelicals tabled a formal protest (hence the name Protestants), and strove hard to have effect given to it. The union negotiations with the Swiss and uplanders were not indeed successful, but in the Augsburg Confession ofA.D.1530 they raised before emperor and empire a standard, around which they henceforth gathered with hearty goodwill.
For three years after the diet at Spires inA.D.1526 no public proceedings were taken on religious questions. The success of the Reformation however during these years roused the Catholic party to make a great effort. At the next diet at Spires, inA.D.1529, the Catholics were in the majority, and measures were passed which, it was hoped, would put an end to the Reformation. The evangelicals tabled a formal protest (hence the name Protestants), and strove hard to have effect given to it. The union negotiations with the Swiss and uplanders were not indeed successful, but in the Augsburg Confession ofA.D.1530 they raised before emperor and empire a standard, around which they henceforth gathered with hearty goodwill.
§ 132.1.The Pack Incident,A.D.1527, 1528.—InA.D.1527 dark rumours of dangers to the evangelicals began to spread. The landgrave, suspecting the existence of a conspiracy of the German Catholic princes, gave to an officer in Duke George’s government, Otto von Pack, 10,000 florins to secure documents proving its existence. He produced one with the ducal seal, which bound the Catholic princes of Germany to fall upon the elector’s territories and Hesse, and to divide the lands among them, etc. The landgrave was all fire and fury, and even the Elector John joined him in a league to make a vigorous demonstration against the purposed attack. But Luther and Melanchthon pressed upon the elector our Lord’s words, “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and convinced him that he ought to abide the attack and restrict himself to simple defence. The landgrave, highly offended at the failure of his project, sent a copy of the document to Duke George, who declared the whole affair a tissue of lies. Philip had begun operations against the elector, but was heartily ashamed of himself when he came to his sober senses. Pack when interrogated became involved in contradictions, and was found to be a thoroughly bad subject, who had been before convicted of falsehood and intrigues. The landgrave expelled him from his territories. He wandered long a homeless exile, and at last, inA.D.1536, was executed by Duke George’s orders in the Netherlands. All this seriously injured the interests of the gospel. Mutual distrust among the Protestant leaders continued, and sympathy was created for the Catholic princes as men who had been unjustly accused.§ 132.2.The Emperor’s Attitude,A.D.1527-1529.—The faithlessness of the king of France and the ratification of the League of Cognac (§126, 6) led to very strained relations between the pope and the emperor. Old Frundsberg raised an army in Germany, and the German peasants, without pay or reward, crossed the Alps, burning with desire to humiliate the pope. On 6th May,A.D.1527, the imperial army of Spaniards and Germans stormed Rome. The so-called sack of Rome presented a scene of plunder and spoliation scarcely ever paralleled. Clement VII., besieged in St. Angelo, was obliged to surrender himself prisoner. But once again Germany’s hopes were cast to the ground by the emperor. Considering the opinion that prevailed in Spain, and influenced by his own antipathy to the Saxon heresy, besides other political combinations, he forgot that he had been saved by Lutheran soldiers. In June,A.D.1528, at Barcelona, he concluded a peace with the pope and promised to use his whole power in suppressing heresy. By the Treaty of Cambray, in July,A.D.1529, the French war also was finally brought to a conclusion. In this treaty both potentates promised to uphold the papal chair, and Francis I. renewed his undertaking to furnish aid against heretics and Turks. Charles now hastened to Italy to be crowned by the pope, meaning then by his personal attentions to settle the affairs of Germany.§ 132.3.The Diet at Spires,A.D.1529.—In the end ofA.D.1528 the emperor issued a summons for another diet at Spires, which met on 21st Feb.,A.D.1529. Things had changed sinceA.D.1526. The Catholics were roused by the Pack episode, halting nobles were terrorized by the emperor, the prelates were present in great numbers, and the Catholics, for the first time since the Diet at Worms, were in a decided majority. The proposition of the imperial commissioners to rescind the conclusions of the diet ofA.D.1526 was adopted by a majority, and formulated as the diet’s decision. No innovations were to be introduced until at least a council had been convened, mass was everywhere to be tolerated, the jurisdiction and revenues of the bishops were in all cases to be fully restored. It was the death-knell of the Reformation, as it gave the bishops the right of deposing and punishing preachers at their will. As Ferdinand was deaf to all remonstrances, the evangelicals presented a solemn protest, with the demand that it should be incorporated in the imperial statute book. But Ferdinand refused to receive it. TheProtestantsnow took no further steps, but drew up a formal statement of their case for the emperor, appealed to a free council and German national assembly, and declared their constant adherence to the decisions of the previous diet. This document was signed by the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, George of Brandenburg, the two dukes of Lüneburg, and Prince Wolfgang of Anholt [Anhalt]. Of the upland cities fourteen subscribed it.§ 132.4.The Marburg Conference,A.D.1529.—The Elector of Saxony and Hesse entered into a defensive league with Strassburg, Ulm, and Nuremberg at Spires. The theologians present agreed only with hesitation to admit the Zwinglian Strassburg. The landgrave at the same time formed an alliance with Zürich, which attached itself to the interests of Francis I. of France. Thus began the most formidable coalition which had ever yet been formed against the house of Austria. But one point had been overlooked which broke it all up again,viz.the religious differences between the Lutheran and Zwinglian confessions. Melanchthon returned to Wittenburg [Wittenberg] with serious qualms of conscience; Luther had declared against any league, most of all against any fraternising with the “Sacramentarians,” and the elector to some extent agreed with him. Even the Nuremberg theologians had their scruples. The proposed league was to have been ratified at Rotach in June. The meeting took place, but no conclusion was reached. The landgrave was furious, but the elector was resolute. Philip now summoned leading theologians on both sides to aconference at Marburgin his castle, which lasted from 1st till 3rd Oct.,A.D.1529. On the one side were Luther, Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, from Wittenberg, Brenz from Swabia, and Osiander from Nuremberg; on the other side, Zwingli from Zürich, Œcolampadius from Basel, Bucer and Hadio [Hedio] from Strassburg. After, by the landgrave’s well-meant arrangement, Zwingli had discussed privately with Melanchthon, and Luther with Œcolampadius, during the first day, the public conference began on the second. First of all several points were discussed on the divinity of Christ, original sin, baptism, the word of God, etc., in reference to which suspicions of Zwingli’s orthodoxy had been current in Wittenberg. On all these Zwingli willingly abandoned his peculiar theories and accepted the doctrines of the œcumenical church. But his views of the Lord’s Supper he stoutly maintained. He took his stand upon John vi. 63, “The flesh profiteth nothing;” but Luther wrote with chalk on the table before him, “This is My body,” as the word of God which no one may explain away. No agreement could be reached. Zwingli declared that notwithstanding he was ready for brotherly fellowship, but this Luther and his party unanimously refused. Luther said, “You are of another spirit than we.” Still Luther had found his opponents not so bad as he expected, and also the Swiss found that Luther’s doctrine was not so gross and capernaitic as they had imagined. They agreed on fifteen articles, in the fourteenth of which they determined on the basis of the œcumenical church doctrine to oppose the errors of Papists and Anabaptists, and in the fifteenth the Swiss admitted that the true body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament, but they could not admit that they were corporeally in the bread and wine. Three copies of these Marburg articles were signed by the theologians present.—Continuation, §133, 8.§ 132.5.The Convention of Schwabach and the Landgrave Philip.—A convention met at Schwabach in Oct.,A.D.1529, at which a confession of seventeen articles was proposed to the representatives of the Swiss, but rejected by them. Meanwhile the imperial answer to the decisions of the diet had arrived from Spain, containing very ungracious expressions against the Protestants. The evangelical nobles sent an embassy to the emperor to Italy; but he refused to receive the protest, and treated the ambassadors almost as prisoners. They returned to Germany with a bad report. Hitherto there had been only a defensive federation against attacks of the Swabian League or other Catholic princes. Luther’s hope that the emperor might yet be won was shattered. The question now was, what should be done if an onslaught upon the reformed should be made by the emperor himself. The jurists indeed were of opinion that the German princes were not unconditionally subject to the emperor; they too have authority by God’s grace, and in the exercise of this are bound to protect their subjects. But Luther did not hesitate for a moment to compare the relation of the elector to the emperor with that of the burgomaster of Torgau to the elector; for he maintained the idea of the empire as firmly as that of the church. He insisted that the princes should not withstand the emperor, and that they should bear everything patiently for God’s sake. Only if the emperor should proceed to persecute their own subjects for their faith should they renounce their obedience. The landgrave’s negotiations with Zwingli also led to no result. For political purposes, notwithstanding the opposition of Wittenberg, there was formed a coalition of all the Protestants of the north with the exception of Denmark, extending also to the south and embracing even Venice and France. The Swiss would stop the way of the emperor over the Alps; Venice would be of service with her fleet, and the most Christian king of France was to be summoned as the protector of political and religious freedom of Germany. But these fine plans were seen to be vain dreams when the time for putting them in practice came round.§ 132.6.The Diet of Augsburg,A.D.1530.—From Boulogne, where the pope crowned him, the emperor summoned a diet to meet at Augsburg, at which for the first time in nine he was to be personally present. He would once again seek to induce the Protestants quietly to return to the old faith, and so his missive was very conciliatory. But before its arrival new irritations had arisen at Augsburg. The Elector John allowed the preachers accompanying him, Spalatin and Agricola, to engage freely in preaching. The emperor was greatly displeased at this, and sent him a request to withdraw this permission, which, however, he did not regard. On 15th June, accompanied by the papal legate Campegius (§126, 2,3), he made a brilliant entrance, the Protestants, on the ground of 2 Kings v. 17, 18, offering no opposition to all the civil and ecclesiastical reception ceremonies. This gave the emperor greater confidence in renewing the demand to stop the preaching. But the Protestants stood firm, and Margrave George called down the unmeasured wrath of the emperor by his decided but humble declaration, that before he would deny God’s word, he would kneel where he stood and have his head struck off. Just as decidedly he refused the emperor’s call to join the Corpus Christi procession on the following day, even with the addition that it was “to the glory of Almighty God.” At last they yielded the matter of the preaching so far as to discontinue it during the emperor’s stay, on the other party undertaking to discontinue controversial discourses. On 20th June the diet opened. The matter of the Turkish war was on the emperor’s motion postponed, to allow of the thorough discussion of the religious questions.§ 132.7.The Augsburg Confession, 25th June,A.D.1530.—In view of the diet the evangelical theologians prepared for the elector a short confession in the form of a revision of the seventeen Schwabach Articles, the so called Torgau Articles. Melanchthon employed the days that preceded the opening of the diet in drawing up on the basis of the Torgau Articles, in constant correspondence with the evangelical theologians, theAugsburg Confession,Confessio Augustana. This concise, clear, and decided though temperate document received the hearty approval of Luther, who, as still under the ban, was kept back by the elector at Coburg. It contained twenty-oneArticuli fidei præcipui, and also sevenArticuli in quibus recensentur abusus mutati. On 24th June the Protestants said they desired their confession to be publicly read. But it was with difficulty that they obtained the emperor’s consent to allow its being read on the 25th June, and even then not in the public hall, but in a much smaller episcopal chapel, where only members of the diet could find room. The two chancellors of the electorate, Baier and Brück, appeared, the one with a German, the other with a Latin copy of the confession. The emperor wished the Latin, but the elector insisted that on German soil the German copy should be read. When this was done Dr. Brück handed both copies to the emperor, who kept the Latin one and gave the German one to the Elector of Mainz. Both were subscribed by Elector John, Margrave George, Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, Landgrave Philip, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, and the cities of Nuremberg and Reutlingen. The confession made a favourable impression on many of the assembled princes, and many prejudices were dissipated; while the evangelicals were greatly strengthened by the unanimous confession of their faith before the emperor and the empire. The Catholic theologians Faber, Eck, Cochlæus, and Wimpina were ordered by the emperor to controvert the confession. Meanwhile Melanchthon entered into negotiations with the legate Campegius, in which his love of peace went so far as to withdraw all demands for marriage of the clergy, and the giving of the cup to the laity, and to allow the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishops, reserving the question about the mass to the decision of a council. But these weak concessions found little or no favour among the other Protestants, and the legate could make no binding engagement until he consulted Rome. On 3rd Aug. the confutation of the Catholic theologians was read. The emperor declared that it maintained the views by which he would stand. He expected the princes would do the same. He was defender of the Church, and was not disposed to suffer ecclesiastical schism in Germany. The Protestants demanded for closer inspection a copy of the confutation. This was refused. The landgrave now left the diet. To the elector he said that he gave over to him and to God’s word body and goods, land and people; and to the representatives of the cities he wrote: “Say to the cities that they are not women, but men. There is no fear; God is on our side.” The zealous Papist Duke William of Bavaria declared to Eck, “If I hear well, the Lutherans sit upon the Scripture and we alongside of it.” The cities siding with Zwingli, Strassburg, Memmingen, Constance, and Lindau, presented their own confession drawn up by Bucer and Capilo [Capito], theConfessio Tetrapolitana. In its eighteenth article it taught that Christ gives in the sacrament His true body and His true blood to be eaten and drunk for the feeding of the soul. The emperor had a Catholic reply read, with which he expressed satisfaction. Luther had meanwhile from Coburg supported those contending for the confession by prayer, counsel, and comfort. He preached frequently, wrote many letters, negotiated with Bucer (§133, 8), wrought at the translation of the prophets, and composed several evangelical works of edification.§ 132.8.The Conclusions of the Diet of Augsburg.—The firm bright spirit of the minority made it seem to the Catholic majority too considerable to allow of an open breach. A further attempt was therefore made to reach some agreement. A commission was appointed, comprising from either side two princes, two doctors of canon law, and three theologians. On the twenty-one doctrinal articles, with the exception of that on the sacraments, they were practically agreed, but the Protestants were called upon to abandon everything in regard to constitution and customs. Thus the attempt failed. Five imperial cities took the side of the emperor, the rest attached themselves to the Protestant princes. The Protestants wished to read Melanchthon’s apology for the Augsburg Confession against the charge of the Catholic confutation, but the emperor with unbending stubbornness refused. This was the most decided piece of work Melanchthon ever did. At the close of the diet, 22nd Sept., the Protestant princes were informed that time for reflection would be allowed them till 15th April of the following year; meanwhile they should not enforce any innovations and should allow confession and the mass in their territories. The early calling of a council was expressly promised. The princes of the church had all their rights restored. The emperor declared his firm determination to enforce in its full rigour the edict of Worms, and commissioned the public prosecutor to proceed against the disobedient even to the length of putting them under the ban. The judicature was formally and expressly empowered to carry out the conclusions of the diet. Finally, the emperor expressed the wish that on account of his frequent absence his brother Ferdinand should be chosen King of Rome. The election was accordingly soon carried out at Frankfort; but the elector lodged a protest against it.
§ 132.1.The Pack Incident,A.D.1527, 1528.—InA.D.1527 dark rumours of dangers to the evangelicals began to spread. The landgrave, suspecting the existence of a conspiracy of the German Catholic princes, gave to an officer in Duke George’s government, Otto von Pack, 10,000 florins to secure documents proving its existence. He produced one with the ducal seal, which bound the Catholic princes of Germany to fall upon the elector’s territories and Hesse, and to divide the lands among them, etc. The landgrave was all fire and fury, and even the Elector John joined him in a league to make a vigorous demonstration against the purposed attack. But Luther and Melanchthon pressed upon the elector our Lord’s words, “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and convinced him that he ought to abide the attack and restrict himself to simple defence. The landgrave, highly offended at the failure of his project, sent a copy of the document to Duke George, who declared the whole affair a tissue of lies. Philip had begun operations against the elector, but was heartily ashamed of himself when he came to his sober senses. Pack when interrogated became involved in contradictions, and was found to be a thoroughly bad subject, who had been before convicted of falsehood and intrigues. The landgrave expelled him from his territories. He wandered long a homeless exile, and at last, inA.D.1536, was executed by Duke George’s orders in the Netherlands. All this seriously injured the interests of the gospel. Mutual distrust among the Protestant leaders continued, and sympathy was created for the Catholic princes as men who had been unjustly accused.
§ 132.2.The Emperor’s Attitude,A.D.1527-1529.—The faithlessness of the king of France and the ratification of the League of Cognac (§126, 6) led to very strained relations between the pope and the emperor. Old Frundsberg raised an army in Germany, and the German peasants, without pay or reward, crossed the Alps, burning with desire to humiliate the pope. On 6th May,A.D.1527, the imperial army of Spaniards and Germans stormed Rome. The so-called sack of Rome presented a scene of plunder and spoliation scarcely ever paralleled. Clement VII., besieged in St. Angelo, was obliged to surrender himself prisoner. But once again Germany’s hopes were cast to the ground by the emperor. Considering the opinion that prevailed in Spain, and influenced by his own antipathy to the Saxon heresy, besides other political combinations, he forgot that he had been saved by Lutheran soldiers. In June,A.D.1528, at Barcelona, he concluded a peace with the pope and promised to use his whole power in suppressing heresy. By the Treaty of Cambray, in July,A.D.1529, the French war also was finally brought to a conclusion. In this treaty both potentates promised to uphold the papal chair, and Francis I. renewed his undertaking to furnish aid against heretics and Turks. Charles now hastened to Italy to be crowned by the pope, meaning then by his personal attentions to settle the affairs of Germany.
§ 132.3.The Diet at Spires,A.D.1529.—In the end ofA.D.1528 the emperor issued a summons for another diet at Spires, which met on 21st Feb.,A.D.1529. Things had changed sinceA.D.1526. The Catholics were roused by the Pack episode, halting nobles were terrorized by the emperor, the prelates were present in great numbers, and the Catholics, for the first time since the Diet at Worms, were in a decided majority. The proposition of the imperial commissioners to rescind the conclusions of the diet ofA.D.1526 was adopted by a majority, and formulated as the diet’s decision. No innovations were to be introduced until at least a council had been convened, mass was everywhere to be tolerated, the jurisdiction and revenues of the bishops were in all cases to be fully restored. It was the death-knell of the Reformation, as it gave the bishops the right of deposing and punishing preachers at their will. As Ferdinand was deaf to all remonstrances, the evangelicals presented a solemn protest, with the demand that it should be incorporated in the imperial statute book. But Ferdinand refused to receive it. TheProtestantsnow took no further steps, but drew up a formal statement of their case for the emperor, appealed to a free council and German national assembly, and declared their constant adherence to the decisions of the previous diet. This document was signed by the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, George of Brandenburg, the two dukes of Lüneburg, and Prince Wolfgang of Anholt [Anhalt]. Of the upland cities fourteen subscribed it.
§ 132.4.The Marburg Conference,A.D.1529.—The Elector of Saxony and Hesse entered into a defensive league with Strassburg, Ulm, and Nuremberg at Spires. The theologians present agreed only with hesitation to admit the Zwinglian Strassburg. The landgrave at the same time formed an alliance with Zürich, which attached itself to the interests of Francis I. of France. Thus began the most formidable coalition which had ever yet been formed against the house of Austria. But one point had been overlooked which broke it all up again,viz.the religious differences between the Lutheran and Zwinglian confessions. Melanchthon returned to Wittenburg [Wittenberg] with serious qualms of conscience; Luther had declared against any league, most of all against any fraternising with the “Sacramentarians,” and the elector to some extent agreed with him. Even the Nuremberg theologians had their scruples. The proposed league was to have been ratified at Rotach in June. The meeting took place, but no conclusion was reached. The landgrave was furious, but the elector was resolute. Philip now summoned leading theologians on both sides to aconference at Marburgin his castle, which lasted from 1st till 3rd Oct.,A.D.1529. On the one side were Luther, Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, from Wittenberg, Brenz from Swabia, and Osiander from Nuremberg; on the other side, Zwingli from Zürich, Œcolampadius from Basel, Bucer and Hadio [Hedio] from Strassburg. After, by the landgrave’s well-meant arrangement, Zwingli had discussed privately with Melanchthon, and Luther with Œcolampadius, during the first day, the public conference began on the second. First of all several points were discussed on the divinity of Christ, original sin, baptism, the word of God, etc., in reference to which suspicions of Zwingli’s orthodoxy had been current in Wittenberg. On all these Zwingli willingly abandoned his peculiar theories and accepted the doctrines of the œcumenical church. But his views of the Lord’s Supper he stoutly maintained. He took his stand upon John vi. 63, “The flesh profiteth nothing;” but Luther wrote with chalk on the table before him, “This is My body,” as the word of God which no one may explain away. No agreement could be reached. Zwingli declared that notwithstanding he was ready for brotherly fellowship, but this Luther and his party unanimously refused. Luther said, “You are of another spirit than we.” Still Luther had found his opponents not so bad as he expected, and also the Swiss found that Luther’s doctrine was not so gross and capernaitic as they had imagined. They agreed on fifteen articles, in the fourteenth of which they determined on the basis of the œcumenical church doctrine to oppose the errors of Papists and Anabaptists, and in the fifteenth the Swiss admitted that the true body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament, but they could not admit that they were corporeally in the bread and wine. Three copies of these Marburg articles were signed by the theologians present.—Continuation, §133, 8.
§ 132.5.The Convention of Schwabach and the Landgrave Philip.—A convention met at Schwabach in Oct.,A.D.1529, at which a confession of seventeen articles was proposed to the representatives of the Swiss, but rejected by them. Meanwhile the imperial answer to the decisions of the diet had arrived from Spain, containing very ungracious expressions against the Protestants. The evangelical nobles sent an embassy to the emperor to Italy; but he refused to receive the protest, and treated the ambassadors almost as prisoners. They returned to Germany with a bad report. Hitherto there had been only a defensive federation against attacks of the Swabian League or other Catholic princes. Luther’s hope that the emperor might yet be won was shattered. The question now was, what should be done if an onslaught upon the reformed should be made by the emperor himself. The jurists indeed were of opinion that the German princes were not unconditionally subject to the emperor; they too have authority by God’s grace, and in the exercise of this are bound to protect their subjects. But Luther did not hesitate for a moment to compare the relation of the elector to the emperor with that of the burgomaster of Torgau to the elector; for he maintained the idea of the empire as firmly as that of the church. He insisted that the princes should not withstand the emperor, and that they should bear everything patiently for God’s sake. Only if the emperor should proceed to persecute their own subjects for their faith should they renounce their obedience. The landgrave’s negotiations with Zwingli also led to no result. For political purposes, notwithstanding the opposition of Wittenberg, there was formed a coalition of all the Protestants of the north with the exception of Denmark, extending also to the south and embracing even Venice and France. The Swiss would stop the way of the emperor over the Alps; Venice would be of service with her fleet, and the most Christian king of France was to be summoned as the protector of political and religious freedom of Germany. But these fine plans were seen to be vain dreams when the time for putting them in practice came round.
§ 132.6.The Diet of Augsburg,A.D.1530.—From Boulogne, where the pope crowned him, the emperor summoned a diet to meet at Augsburg, at which for the first time in nine he was to be personally present. He would once again seek to induce the Protestants quietly to return to the old faith, and so his missive was very conciliatory. But before its arrival new irritations had arisen at Augsburg. The Elector John allowed the preachers accompanying him, Spalatin and Agricola, to engage freely in preaching. The emperor was greatly displeased at this, and sent him a request to withdraw this permission, which, however, he did not regard. On 15th June, accompanied by the papal legate Campegius (§126, 2,3), he made a brilliant entrance, the Protestants, on the ground of 2 Kings v. 17, 18, offering no opposition to all the civil and ecclesiastical reception ceremonies. This gave the emperor greater confidence in renewing the demand to stop the preaching. But the Protestants stood firm, and Margrave George called down the unmeasured wrath of the emperor by his decided but humble declaration, that before he would deny God’s word, he would kneel where he stood and have his head struck off. Just as decidedly he refused the emperor’s call to join the Corpus Christi procession on the following day, even with the addition that it was “to the glory of Almighty God.” At last they yielded the matter of the preaching so far as to discontinue it during the emperor’s stay, on the other party undertaking to discontinue controversial discourses. On 20th June the diet opened. The matter of the Turkish war was on the emperor’s motion postponed, to allow of the thorough discussion of the religious questions.
§ 132.7.The Augsburg Confession, 25th June,A.D.1530.—In view of the diet the evangelical theologians prepared for the elector a short confession in the form of a revision of the seventeen Schwabach Articles, the so called Torgau Articles. Melanchthon employed the days that preceded the opening of the diet in drawing up on the basis of the Torgau Articles, in constant correspondence with the evangelical theologians, theAugsburg Confession,Confessio Augustana. This concise, clear, and decided though temperate document received the hearty approval of Luther, who, as still under the ban, was kept back by the elector at Coburg. It contained twenty-oneArticuli fidei præcipui, and also sevenArticuli in quibus recensentur abusus mutati. On 24th June the Protestants said they desired their confession to be publicly read. But it was with difficulty that they obtained the emperor’s consent to allow its being read on the 25th June, and even then not in the public hall, but in a much smaller episcopal chapel, where only members of the diet could find room. The two chancellors of the electorate, Baier and Brück, appeared, the one with a German, the other with a Latin copy of the confession. The emperor wished the Latin, but the elector insisted that on German soil the German copy should be read. When this was done Dr. Brück handed both copies to the emperor, who kept the Latin one and gave the German one to the Elector of Mainz. Both were subscribed by Elector John, Margrave George, Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, Landgrave Philip, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, and the cities of Nuremberg and Reutlingen. The confession made a favourable impression on many of the assembled princes, and many prejudices were dissipated; while the evangelicals were greatly strengthened by the unanimous confession of their faith before the emperor and the empire. The Catholic theologians Faber, Eck, Cochlæus, and Wimpina were ordered by the emperor to controvert the confession. Meanwhile Melanchthon entered into negotiations with the legate Campegius, in which his love of peace went so far as to withdraw all demands for marriage of the clergy, and the giving of the cup to the laity, and to allow the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishops, reserving the question about the mass to the decision of a council. But these weak concessions found little or no favour among the other Protestants, and the legate could make no binding engagement until he consulted Rome. On 3rd Aug. the confutation of the Catholic theologians was read. The emperor declared that it maintained the views by which he would stand. He expected the princes would do the same. He was defender of the Church, and was not disposed to suffer ecclesiastical schism in Germany. The Protestants demanded for closer inspection a copy of the confutation. This was refused. The landgrave now left the diet. To the elector he said that he gave over to him and to God’s word body and goods, land and people; and to the representatives of the cities he wrote: “Say to the cities that they are not women, but men. There is no fear; God is on our side.” The zealous Papist Duke William of Bavaria declared to Eck, “If I hear well, the Lutherans sit upon the Scripture and we alongside of it.” The cities siding with Zwingli, Strassburg, Memmingen, Constance, and Lindau, presented their own confession drawn up by Bucer and Capilo [Capito], theConfessio Tetrapolitana. In its eighteenth article it taught that Christ gives in the sacrament His true body and His true blood to be eaten and drunk for the feeding of the soul. The emperor had a Catholic reply read, with which he expressed satisfaction. Luther had meanwhile from Coburg supported those contending for the confession by prayer, counsel, and comfort. He preached frequently, wrote many letters, negotiated with Bucer (§133, 8), wrought at the translation of the prophets, and composed several evangelical works of edification.
§ 132.8.The Conclusions of the Diet of Augsburg.—The firm bright spirit of the minority made it seem to the Catholic majority too considerable to allow of an open breach. A further attempt was therefore made to reach some agreement. A commission was appointed, comprising from either side two princes, two doctors of canon law, and three theologians. On the twenty-one doctrinal articles, with the exception of that on the sacraments, they were practically agreed, but the Protestants were called upon to abandon everything in regard to constitution and customs. Thus the attempt failed. Five imperial cities took the side of the emperor, the rest attached themselves to the Protestant princes. The Protestants wished to read Melanchthon’s apology for the Augsburg Confession against the charge of the Catholic confutation, but the emperor with unbending stubbornness refused. This was the most decided piece of work Melanchthon ever did. At the close of the diet, 22nd Sept., the Protestant princes were informed that time for reflection would be allowed them till 15th April of the following year; meanwhile they should not enforce any innovations and should allow confession and the mass in their territories. The early calling of a council was expressly promised. The princes of the church had all their rights restored. The emperor declared his firm determination to enforce in its full rigour the edict of Worms, and commissioned the public prosecutor to proceed against the disobedient even to the length of putting them under the ban. The judicature was formally and expressly empowered to carry out the conclusions of the diet. Finally, the emperor expressed the wish that on account of his frequent absence his brother Ferdinand should be chosen King of Rome. The election was accordingly soon carried out at Frankfort; but the elector lodged a protest against it.