supported as a sort of champions in the papal cause, withdrew from the country. A. D. 1539. Branden Other important changes, still tending to the Reforma advancement of the protestant religion, fol- tion of lowed. They are thus stated by Maimbourg. burg, "Joachim II. elector of Brandenburg, who, after the example of his father Joachim, a zealous catholic, had hitherto professed the ancient religion, now yielded to the earnest entreaties of the states of his dominions, who offered him as an inducement the liquidation of all his debts; and he made the same changes in his provinces as Henry had made in his. And even his uncle Albert archbishop of Mentz, and though himself a devoted catholic, was com- Magdeburg. pelled to bow before the torrent that swept across the north of Germany, and to allow to his dioceses of Magdeburg and Halberstadt the liberty of embracing the confession of Augsburg." 2 "2 This brief but striking statement, which tells important truths sorely contrary to the writer's wishes, will deserve to be corrected and enlarged from authors who looked with a different eye upon the facts recorded. We may observe, however, on the very first view of it, that it furnishes an antidote to the misrepresentation of the sentences immediately preceding. There these changes in religion were attributed to the ca 1 Seck. iii. 217-222. This excellent writer states, that, owing to one cause or other, he had never been allowed to examine the archives of Dresden, (which would furnish much fuller information upon all these events,) though those archives had been ordered to be opened to him by a rescript of the elector of Saxony, which he annexes to his preface. He hopes that they will not always remain unexplored. 217 (1). 2 In Seck. iii. 233, 234. Magdeburg and Halberstadt formed a separate archbishopric, which Albert held along with that of Mentz. S V. CHAP. price of princes, to which the fickleness of the people was ever ready to conform itself: but here we find the popular torrent in favour of reformation was so strong, and that not only among the lower orders, but even in the assembled "states" of the provinces, that the most powerful and most zealous catholic princes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, were obliged to give way to it! Joachim II. The history of Joachim II. will be found interesting. The reader will have in remembrance the zeal of his father for popery at the period of the diet of Augsburg. It was so great as led him to carry persecution into the bosom of his own family. He had married His mother Elizabeth the sister of Christiern II, the (expelled) king of Denmark, and niece of John, elector of Saxony. She was inclined to the doctrine of the reformers, and had received the sacrament in both kinds. Her own daughter, named also Elizabeth, was the person to discover this to Joachim, who was so incensed that he confined her to her own apartments, and was understood to be taking measures for her perpetual imprisonment. In consequence of this she fled from Berlin, and came to her uncle the elector of Saxony in a mere rustic car, and with only one female attendant. This was in the year 1528. The elector received her, and she continued in his dominions till the year 1546. Here she cultivated the acquaintance of Luther, and sometimes spent several months together at his house, deeply engaged in the study of the word of God. It is remarkable that the daughter who thus "betrayed her own mother," not indeed "to 1 Luth, and Spalatin. in Seck. ii. 122. death," but to bonds or to exile, herself, within ten years, embraced the faith she had, not in this instance only but in others,1 laboured "to destroy," and became zealous in its support. The elector of Saxony, indeed, looked upon both her sincerity and her prudence with some distrust: but his caution seems to have been in this instance excessive: she continued steadfast in the good cause, and after the death of her husband, Eric duke of Brunswick, effected the full reformation of that dutchy.2 tion. A. D. 1539. Such being the temper and the principles of His educathe elder Joachim, there could be no doubt of the care which would be taken, in the education of his son and heir, to fix him in the tenets of the catholic church. This was made an object of special attention, both to Joachim himself and to his brother the archbishop of Mentz; and, as if to render the barrier thus placed around the young man insurmountable, he was married to the daughter of the inveterate George duke of Saxony. An apparently accidental circumstance, however, defeated all these precautions. In the year 1519, the younger Joachim, while yet only a boy of fourteen, accompanied his father to Francfort, to the diet which raised Charles V. to the imperial throne. On the way, His impresat Wittemberg, he happened to hear Luther favour of discourse on the articles of the Christian faith, Protestantand particularly on that of justification; and was much captivated with him. Thus appears to have been sown in the mind of the youth that seed, which, fostered by his mother's pious care, afterwards richly expanded itself; and to this occurrence, probably, it may be traced that Prussia is at the present day a protestant kingdom! Seck. iii. 90, 91. Ib. ii. 122, iii. 182. ism. CHAP. V. His accession. 1535. Several years indeed passed, as might have been expected, ere the impression which had been made produced its effects, and ere Joachim was brought openly to avow himself on the side of the reformation. During the lifetime of his father, however, in the year 1532, while he was himself leading the troops of Saxony to the Turkish war, we find him in correspondence with Luther, and affording to the reformer much satisfaction by the spirit which he manifested.1 In 1535, his father died, and he succeeded him: and the next year the landgrave addressed to him a very excellent letter, which we should have had greater pleasure in quoting, had the character of the writer been more consistent with the principles he professed. It was designed to confirm Joachim in his attachment to scriptural doctrine, and to excite him to a bold avowal of it. "You know," he says, "that we must all die, and that the time of our death is altogether uncertain: you know also the words of Christ, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Many," he observes," and one in particular,2 would aim to draw him away from the truth of the gospel; but he trusts he would stand firm, alike against threats and caresses, and prefer the glory of God to all that the world could offer." 3-Still, however, Joachim had not the courage to act up to this advice, or various considerations restrained and, I fear we must say, ensnared him. From his accession, indeed, he willingly connived at the introduction of evangelical teachers amongst his subjects; but it was slowly and gradually that he was induced to go fur1 Seck. iii. 40 (4). 2 George, the landgrave's father-in-law, as well as Joachim's. 3 Seck. iii. 125. ther. His brother, the margrave John, who according to the customs of Germany inherited a part of his father's dominions, outstripped him in his religious course, by publicly establishing the reformation throughout his territories, in the year 1538. At length, however, perhaps excited by his brother's example, Joachim adopted more decisive measures, and, in the year 1539, published such an ecclesiastical regulation, both for doctrine and discipline, as could scarcely have been surpassed, especially under the head of doctrine, had Luther himself drawn it up. A. D. 1539. siastical From this document, a few sentences, bearing His Eccleespecially upon the great doctrine of justifica- Regulation. tion, may deserve to be transcribed. They may serve to shew, how uniformly that doctrine, upon this fundamental point, which numbers to this day so much revile, and numbers more, by every refinement, or rather perversion, strive to evade, was maintained by the reformers of different countries." This," says the regulation, "is Justificathe chief topic of all, and herein lies the whole tion: sum of the gospel, namely, in its being taught clearly and purely, and held fast even unto death, in spite of all contradiction that can be offered to it, that we obtain the remission of sins, justification, and final and eternal salvation, by the mere grace of God, and only through faith in the redemption of Christ, and by no worthiness, work, or desert of our own." The necessity of retaining the exclusive term only" that we are justified by faith only, without our own works "-is then insisted on; and the term is affirmed to be fully borne out by the tenor of scripture, and to be indispen 1 Seck. iii. 234, 182. |