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CHAP.
VII.

a commission to investigate its conduct, and examine into the complaints of the protestants against it; he would rescind nothing that it had done, nor make any change in its constitution, by admitting others than catholics to act as judges. All its decrees, though their execution was suspended, remained in force, to be acted upon when circumstances might permit it.1 Add to this the persecutions carried on under the emperor's sanction, wherever his power was not controlled;2 together with the very obvious reflections, that circumstances imperiously required him for the present to act the part he did in Germany, and that to be so compelled and restrained must have been intolerably galling to a prince of Charles's despotic and ambitious temper: we shall then not wonder at the anxieties of the protestant party, or at hearing the elector thus piously, though gloomily, vent his feelings. "If," says he, "according to the prophecy of Daniel, the empire is doomed to dissolution, and the time of that event is at hand; what is appointed must be borne: but may Almighty God, the Father of all mercy, shew himself the Lord, and the Parent, and the Master in this cause, and direct all things better than human foresight could conceive! May he withstand the pope, the Turk, the emperor, and the French, and preserve his word in safety to the end of time, whatever may become of all beside! "3-We shall admire also the spirit

Seck. iii. 420-422.

* See account of the martyrdom of Peter Bruley at Tournay, &c. Sleid. 341, 342. "The emperor had sent out most severe edicts against the Lutherans of the Lower Germany and the Netherlands, under his dominion, which were twice a year publicly read over in those places."

3 Seck. iii. 417.

manifested by Luther and his friends under these circumstances. The citizens of Augsburg had extensive commercial dealings with Italy; and they had through that channel received intimations, how confidently a speedy suppression of Lutheranism, by the united efforts of the pope and the emperor, was now anticipated. They communicated their apprehensions to the elector, who laid the case before Luther and his colleagues. Their reply was: "We see that we can by no mere human prudence secure this great object the preservation of pure and orthodox religion. Let us do, therefore, whatever we can towards it, that may be agreeable to the will of God; but let us never think that it is in our power to provide against all future dangers; and let us be careful to avoid all unlawful means of attempting it."-In the final clause they especially refer to a disposition intimated on the part of the Augsburgers, to refuse to have the next diet held in their city, in case the emperor should direct it to meet there.

A. D.

1543.

Duke of

Cleves dispossessed of

Ône transaction of the emperor's, at the very time that he was courting the protestants, was personally painful to the elector of Saxony, and Gueldres. at the same time too clearly spoke the real sentiments of its author. William, duke of Cleves, the elector's brother-in-law, had a dispute with the emperor respecting the dutchy of Gueldres, of which the former held possession. He was well affected towards the reformation, and would gladly have availed himself of the assistance of the protestant confederates in support of his claim; but, as they declined to interfere in a dispute merely of a political nature, he sought protection in an alliance with the king of France.

1 Seck. iii. 497.

VII.

1543.

The emperor, however, marched into his country, and compelled him to submit in the most abject maner; and the first article of the treaty August 24. which he made with him was, "That he should not depart from the religion of the catholic church; and, if he had made any alterations, should restore things again as they were before."

The Pope's

remonstrance against Charles's indulgence.

1544:

The proceedings of the late diets were in a high degree offensive to the court of Rome. The pope, considering both Charles's concessions to the protestants, and his consenting to call a council, and to admit of public disputations in Germany, with a view to determining the doctrines in controversy, as sacrilegious encroachments upon the prerogatives of the holy see, addressed to him "a remonstrance, rather than a letter, on this subject, written Aug. 23. in a style of such high authority, as discovered more of an intention to draw on a quarrel than of a desire to reclaim him." He tells him, that" in the discharge of his own duty, and in the love he bore to him, he could not dissemble his thoughts concerning his proceedings, which tended to the danger of his own soul, and the great disturbance of the church." "He had ever before his eyes," he says, "the example of Eli, the high priest, whom God severely punished for his too great indulgence to his sons; the like to which might befal himself, if he suffered the emperor, "the first-born son" of the church, thus to go astray without admonition. It behoved the emperor to follow " the uniform practice of the church, and the custom of his forefathers," which was to refer the whole decision of all

1 Sleid. 315. Seck. iii. 259 (14). does not notice this article, which yet the lead in the treaty.

Robertson (iii. 251.) appears to have taken

matters in debate, relating to religion, to the see of Rome: but, so far from doing this, he had taken upon him to appoint general and national councils, without any regard to him, who " alone had the power of calling councils, and determining the affairs of religion:" nay, not only so, he had "allowed private men, and even the assertors of damned heresies, to judge in such questions; " had presumed "to give judgment concerning ecclesiastical possessions, and had restored to honours and dignity, men who were out of the communion of the church, and long ago condemned by his own edicts." Then, alluding to the emperor's alliance with the king of England, an excommunicated heretic, (which appeared to the pope little less portentous than that of the French king with the Turkish sultan,) he declared "his fears to be still further increased, when he considered who the persons were with whom he had contracted friendship." He refers him to the examples of scripture, Corah, Dathan, Abiram, Uzzah, and king Uzziah, from which he might learn "the wrath and vengeance of God against those who usurped to themselves the offices of the high priest." Many other instances in history also shewed, "that God had signally crowned with honour and blessings those princes who assisted the head of the church, and the see of Rome, and rendered that love and duty which are due to the priesthood; whereas such as did otherwise were afflicted with most grievous punishments." "The care of the churches was, indeed, an office most acceptable to God, but it did not belong to the emperor, a civil governor, but to the priests, and specially to himself, to whom God had given the power of binding and loosing." He called upon him, therefore, to rescind and

A. D. 1544.

CHAP.
VII.

Charles's

reasons for peace with France.

annul what, with too much lenity, he had granted to those rebels and enemies against the see of Rome, for that otherwise he must deal with him more severely than his custom, or his nature and inclination would lead him to do.1

On this and another paper, which issued from Rome, written in the same strain, Luther published severe animadversions: 2 but the emperor contented himself with a brief and general reply, couched, however, in terms which were not suited to give the protestants a favourable impression of his intentions towards them.3

This strong remonstrance of the pope, with the fear of driving him to throw himself entirely into the arms of the king of France, is thought to have had influence, in connexion with other causes, in inducing the emperor hastily to conclude a peace, within three or four months after he had, with so much pains, and at the expence of so great concessions, prevailed upon his German subjects heartily to second him in the French war. Among these other causes the principal were, that "the Turks, almost unresisted, made such progress in Hungary, reducing town after town, that they approached near to the Austrian provinces; and, above all, the extraordinary advances of the protestant doctrines in Germany, and the dangerous combination into which the princes of that profession had entered. Almost one half of Germany had revolted from the established church; the fidelity of the rest was much shaken; the nobility of Austria had demanded of Ferdinand the free exercise of religion; the Bohemians, among whom some seeds of the doctrines of Huss still

Sleid. 337-340. 3 lb, 479 and 494.

2 Seck. iii. 479-494.

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