CHAP. Celebration Lutherans!" The pious Seckendorf more justly rejoins: "It was the triumph indeed of the pope and his party, not of Christ; but so conducted that the real honour of the triumph, in the sight of God and his saints, belonged to those princes and others, few in number, and of comparatively small power, whom neither the dread majesty of Cesar, nor all the dangers that threatened them, could prevail with to do any thing contrary to their consciences." 1 This "contumacy" of the protestant leaders of Mass. was peculiarly offensive to the legate, and he determined, if possible, to make them go, as he thought, further than had just been required of them. The emperor was to attend mass before he opened the diet; and Campeggio instigated him2 to require the elector of Saxony, by virtue of his office of marshal, to carry the sword before him, and stand at the mass. This, he thought, would be not merely attending, but actually assisting at popish ceremonies. The elector's divines and advisers, however, viewed the matter in a different light. They argued, that the case varied materially from that of the procession. There their master had no official duty to perform: he was required to give his personal countenance to an idolatrous ceremony. Not so here. He was now called to discharge a civil office, not to perform a religious duty-" to render service to the emperor, not worship to God."3 They observed also, that the mass (as including the sacrament of the Lord's supper,) was a thing substantially good in itself, and evil only by abuse, and by 1 Seck. ii. 161-163. * Seck. ii. 167. F. Paul, 49, 50. the superstitious observances mixed up with it; whereas the procession of the host was altogether unscriptural and idolatrous. They concluded, therefore, that he might lawfully attend the emperor; which accordingly he did, accompanied by the marquis of Brandenburg. -Both Father Paul and Maimbourg say, that the Lutheran divines alleged the case of Naaman lending his arm to his sovereign when he went into the house of Rimmon to worship; and the former seems to think the soundness of the advice given very questionable while the latter insults over it, as an instance of the vacillation and inconsistency" to which heresy must always be subject." But, admitting the reference to have been made, it is doubtful how much was meant by Naaman's "bowing in the house of Rimmon;" while the elector is distinctly recorded to have premised an explanation of his views, 2 and to have signified his dissent from what was going on by abstaining from bowing to the host.3-At all events, however, as the late instance proved how firm the protestants could be where principle required it, their present conduct would shew their readiness to comply where conscience would permit ; and that they would make a discrimination of cases, and not fanatically confound all distinctions. "In that mass," says Father Paul, "Vincenzo Pimpinello, archbishop of Rosano, the pope's nuncio, made an oration in Latin before the offertory, in which he spake not a word of any spiritual or religious matter, but upbraided 1 Seck. ii. 203. 2 "Præmissâ prius fidei suæ de missâ confessione.' Scultet. 3 Sleid. 127. Seck. ii. 167, 203 (h). F. Paul, 50. A. D. 1530. CHAP. 1.. Preaching of the protestant divines. Germany for having suffered so many wrongs by the Turks, without revenge; and exhorted them, by many examples of ancient captains of the Roman commonwealth, to make war against them. He said that the disadvantage of Germany was, that, whereas the Turks obeyed one prince only, in Germany many obeyed not at all that the Turks lived in one religion, and the Germans every day invented new ones, and mocked the old, as if it were become mouldy. He taxed them, that, being desirous to change their faith, they had not found one more holy, at the least, and more wise than that of Luther. Finally, he exhorted them, that, imitating Scipio Nasica, Cato, and the people of Rome, their ancestors, they should observe the catholic religion, forsake those novelties, and apply themselves to the war." On another subject, some degree of contention had commenced even before the emperor's arrival at Augsburg. It has been observed, that the protestant princes brought with them some of their principal divines, as well for the benefit of their counsel in the religious discussions which were expected, as for their assistance in the offices of divine worship. These ministers, both in the places they passed through, and after they arrived at Augsburg, preached frequently in the churches and, though they abstained as much as might be from controversy, and applied themselves directly to the edification of the people, the proceeding naturally gave umbrage to their enemies. The emperor, accordingly, before he moved from Inspruck, signified his pleasure that the practice should cease. This opposition had been foreseen, and it had consequently been made the subject of previous deliberation, : whether the preaching in the churches should be continued, notwithstanding any prohibition from the emperor, till it was forcibly suppressed and likewise whether such services should be retained privately, in the hotels of the princes, contrary to his will. On both questions the divines decided in favour of submission; though they would have the latter practice to be earnestly contended for, as a matter both of right and of usage. Melancthon thought the emperor ought to be obeyed-especially as the elector had no jurisdiction in Augsburg: and Luther, on being referred to, was decidedly in favour of yielding, if they could not prevail by entreaties. "We ought," said he, "patiently to bear unjust treatment: we have done our duty, and have no more to answer for."-Indeed, on such subjects, even Maimbourg is constrained to eulogize the conduct of the two reformers. "It must be allowed," he says, "that these two men, heretics as they were, taught a good lesson to all who are under authority-to acknowledge, that, if any commands are laid upon them, which they think unjust, they are not, in such a case, to make their own judgment their rule of action, nor to imagine themselves absolved from their obligation to obedience; unless the thing commanded be positively sinful." 2-The princes, however, seem to have been somewhat more tenacious than the divines; 3 and, notwithstanding the emperor's letters, the preaching was not discontinued till some days after his own arrival; and not even then by an absolute surrender, but only by compromise-the 1 Melanc. Epist. i. 14. A. D. 1530. CHAP. I. Devotions peror and emperor engaging to impose silence on the divines of the popish as well as of the protestant party, and to appoint such preachers, exclusively, as all might hear without offence to their consciences. Though the sermons, therefore, which were preached, were very vapid and barren of scriptural truth, yet Seckendorf thinks the protestants were rather gainers than losers by the arrangement, as the minds of the persons assembled from all parts of Germany were prevented from being poisoned by the invectives of such preachers as Faber and Cochlæus.1 It may deserve to be recorded, at least for of the Em- the purpose of shewing what the habits of the the Elector. times required and produced, that the day before the diet opened (being Sunday,) the emperor received the holy sacrament, and spent two hours of the evening in retired devotion, "besides the hour which he thus employed every morning."2 It is to be feared, that there is no breach of charity in suspecting that the emperor's prayers, at this period, at least, and for many years after, were marked by little of that sincerity which is the first element of "spiritual worship." His character and conduct, governed solely by the principles of an ambitious policy, force this judgment upon us. But, from the same decisive evidence of character, we may draw a different conclusion concerning 1 Sleid. 127. Seck. ii. 153, 155, 163-165, 181, 202.— How much and how earnestly this question, concerning the preaching, was considered among the protestant leaders, may be learned from the Epistles of Melancthon, and particularly from Pezelius's Melancthonis, Consilia Theologica i. 102-109. On the subjects treated of by the preachers, Melancthon writes, "Nothing controversial is introduced, but edifying instruction concerning the Saviour, and such as is necessary for the reformation of men's lives." 2 Seck. ii. 167. |