СНАР.

V.

rather fierce and bitter persecutors. If indeed the public and universal proclamation of the doctrines agreed upon were enjoined, then the really weak would become strong, and great progress would be made: but without this they would only be confirmed in their errors. This therefore he earnestly recommended; urging that, if it were refused, the insincerity of their adversaries, who had professedly assented to these doctrines would be manifest, and that terms could not then be made with them. concluded, however, with observing, that, as the conference had been held on this condition, that all their conclusions should be submitted to the decision of the diet, he could do nothing to interfere with that arrangement."

He

Seckendorf applauds the prudence, temper, and constancy of Luther on this occasion, and thinks the latter quality scarcely less advantageously displayed, in now withstanding the flattering solicitations of his friends, than it had formerly been, at Worms and Augsburg, in disregarding the threats of his enemies.-His advice concerning the promulgation of the doctrines agreed upon by them, the same historian says, was approved by the emperor, and many of the princes and cities, and even (as Pallavicini himself testifies,) by the states of the catholic persuasion; and nothing prevented its being acted upon but the papal artifices, and the preponderance of the episcopal votes in the diet.1

To the elector Luther soon after wrote his sentiments more unreservedly. "He never expected any thing, he said, "from such conferences; Christ and the serpent could never agree but he was willing that the evangelical

1 Seck. iii. 361-363.

doctrine should be thoroughly sifted, and, through discussion, should be more widely made known-as had been the case at Augsburg. But, if the emperor, or those who made use of his name, seriously proposed concord in religion, let them first seek to be reconciled to God; and, in order to this, confess their past errors-that the papacy had with the last six hundred years ruined unnumbered souls, and the emperor within twenty years destroyed by water, and fire, and sword very many truly pious men. God," he says, "is the supreme judge, and, though we should make peace with them, He will not hold his peace; the blood of Abel will not be silent, and it will condemn us if we are so."!

A. D.

1541.

The difficulty of conducting conferences of Cardinal this kind to the satisfaction of either party may be judged of by this circumstance, that, while Melancthon and Bucer were censured by their friends for conceding so much, the legate Contarini, a man of talents and reputation, notwithstanding that he prevailed, in the end, to have the whole matter referred to the pope or a council,2 was yet charged by cardinal Caraffa, (afterwards pope Paul IV,) with having betrayed the cause of the church, especially on the question of justification. 3

The firmness and zeal of the elector of Saxony, The Elector

1 Seck. iii. 364.

of Saxony.

Sleid. 279. Seck. iii. 365. Dr. Robertson's statement, that the recess of the diet enjoined that the articles agreed upon by the divines" should be observed inviolably by all," seems not to be correct. This was rather what Luther urged; but what was ultimately decreed seems to have been, that, though these articles were not to be considered as finally settled, the protestants should not go beyond them-an in-d junction which was, however, rendered nugatory by the first sentence of the emperor's declaration, allowing them to be interpreted according to the sentiments of the protestants themselves. Seck. iii. 366. s Maimb. in Seck. iii. 349.

VOL. I.

CHAP.

V.

Bigamy of the Land

grave of Hesse.

throughout the whole of these proceedings, were most conspicuous. "No one," said he, "would more gladly see peace established in Germany than I should do, but I would not for the sake of it yield any thing contrary to the will of God and the dictates of my own conscience; and he, I trust, will keep me free from all such sin. Peace established on those terms would be a judgment from God, and would prove the occasion of irreconcileable discord." He reprobated the counsels of those who

put religion and outward peace on the same footing, whereas, when the two came in competition, the latter ought always to give way to the former." He looked with great jealousy upon a sort of middle party which he thought had risen up among the protestants, and in which he reckoned the elector of Brandenburg: and he feared much more, he said, the caresses of Ratisbon than the severity of Augsburg. He would have his representatives, therefore, adhere" to the very terms, as well as to the sense of the Confession, and reject all ambiguous language which might be twisted to opposite meanings. He declares that, "even if Luther himself should give way, which he trusted would never be the case, it should not be with his concurrence."1_ All this will be condemned as bigotry by the lukewarm and latitudinarian: but the better informed Christian will pronounce it a " zeal according to knowledge "-the result of a deep acquaintance with the word of God, and an accurate observation of the history of the church.

The truth of history requires us here to record a different and very painful account of another leading patron of the reformation. The reader will have traced, both in this volume, and in

1 Seck. iii. 356 (1, 3), 360 (6), 361 (10), 363 (1).

those of Dr. Milner, the zealous support given to the sacred cause, even from an early period, by Philip landgrave of Hesse: yet it has been already intimated that his conduct in private life was not consistent with his religious professions. By his own confession it appears, that he had long indulged in licentious habits, though against the most alarming remonstrances of his own conscience; and a short time before the commence ment of these conferences he had persuaded himself, that the only remedy to be found for his incontinence was in marrying another wife, in addition to the daughter of the late duke George, to whom he had been for many years united, and who had brought him a pretty numerous family of children. Having contrived most sophistically to satisfy himself that the scriptures allowed him this indulgence, he resolved upon it, and sought to obtain the sanction of Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer, confidentially communicating to the two former, through the medium of the latter, the most secret grounds of his proceeding. This was a step exceedingly to be deprecated, as it tended to involve the most venerable reformers, and even the reformation itself, in all the scandal of the landgrave's conduct and accordingly it has been made the occasion of virulent invective against both protestants and protestantism at large, and by no one in a more unmeasured manner than by the celebrated Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. '

It is by no means necessary, however, to the defence of the reformation, that we should either apologize for the landgrave, or assert the unerring wisdom of Luther himself; than whom no man ever more sincerely disavowed all pretentions to infallibility. I shall not enter particularly into so painful a subject; but, after

A. D.

1540.

CHAP.

V.

a careful examination of the documents furnished by Bossuet, I am bold to affirm, that they by no means warrant the charges and insinuations which he has founded upon them. On the contrary, they are in many respects highly honourable to the protestant divines. The landgrave's own confessions shew the holy nature of the instructions which he had received; for he acknowledges that for many years he had not dared to approach the holy communion, and had lived under the awful conviction, that, even if he should die fighting for the gospel, he had no prospect but that of eternal damnation before him. Would no means, short of an utter renunciation of the indulged sin, have been found in the church of Rome for relieving the mind of a sovereign prince, a devoted " son of the church," from such terrors of conscience as these?-Further, in their answer to the landgrave, the divines seriously and faithfully charge his crimes home upon his conscience, and warn him of their consequences: they utterly reject his conclusions in favour of polygamy generally: and the advice which they give seems fairly to admit of no harsher construction than this, that, since the landgrave professes to have made up his mind, and will hear of no other alternative between his present course of life and a second marriage, less scandal will be given, and perhaps less guilt incurred, by the latter than the former. At the same time they recommend

1 The strongest expression (according to the Latin version furnished by Bossuet of the German papers,) is, "Sic et in tantum hoc approbamus; ""Thus and so far we approve it" -that is, with all the suppositions and limitations which he had stated, or they had urged. And this is connected with the following admonition: "Your highness has therefore not only the testimony of us all in a case of necessity, but also our previous considerations, which we entreat you....to weigh."