The Protest at Speyer embodied the principle, not a new one, that a minority of German States, when they felt themselves oppressed by a majority, could entrench themselves behind the laws of the Empire; and the idea is seen at work onward to the Diet of 1555, when it was definitely recognised. Such a minority, to maintain a successful defence, had to be united and able to protect itself by force if necessary. This was at once felt; and three days after the Protest had been read in the Diet (April, 22nd), Electoral Saxony, Hesse, and the cities of Stra.s.sburg, Ulm, and Nurnberg had concluded a "secret and particular treaty." They pledged themselves to mutual defence if attacked on account of G.o.d"s word, whether the onslaught came from the Swabian League, from the _Reichsregiment_, or from the Emperor himself. Soon after the Diet, proposals were brought forward to make the compact effective and extensive,-one drafted by representatives of the cities and the other by the Elector of Saxony,-which provided very thoroughly for mutual support; but neither took into account the differences which lay behind the Protest. These divergences were strong enough to wreck the union.
The differences which separated the German Protestants were not wholly theological, although their doctrinal disputes were most in evidence.
-- 3. Luther and Zwingli.
A movement for reformation, which owed little or nothing to Wittenberg, had been making rapid progress in Switzerland, and two of the strongest cantons, Zurich and Bern, had revolted from the Roman Church. Its leader, Huldreich Zwingli, was utterly unlike Luther in temperament, training, and environment.
He had never gone through the terrible spiritual conflicts which had marked Luther for life, and had made him the man that he was. No deep sense of personal sin had ever haunted him, to make his early manhood a burden to him. Long after he had become known as a Reformer, he was able to combine a strong sense of moral responsibility with some laxity in private life. Unlike both Luther and Calvin, he was not the type of man to be leader in a deeply spiritual revival.
He had been subjected to the influences of Humanism from his childhood.
His uncle, Bartholomew Zwingli, parish priest at Wildhaus, and the dean of Wesen, under whose charge the boy was placed, had a strong sympathy for the New Learning, and the boy imbibed it. His young intellect was fed on Homer and Pindar and Cicero; and all his life he esteemed the great pagans of antiquity as highly as he did any Christian saint. If it can be said that he bent before the dominating influence of any one man, it was Erasmus and not Luther who compelled him to admiration. He had for a teacher Thomas Wyttenbach, who was half Reformer and half disciple of Erasmus; and learned from him to study the Scriptures and the writings of such earlier Church Fathers as Origen, Jerome, and Chrysostom. Like many another Humanist north of the Alps, the mystical Christian Platonism of Pico della Mirandola had some influence on him. He had never studied the Scholastic Theology, and knew nothing of the spell it cast over men who had been trained in it. Of all the Reformers, Luther was the least removed from the mediaeval way of looking at religion, and Zwingli had wandered farthest from it.
His earliest ecclesiastical surroundings were also different from Luther"s. He had never been taught in childhood to consider the Church to be the Pope"s House, in which the Bishop of Rome was ent.i.tled to the reverence and obedience due to the house-father. In his land the people had been long accustomed to manage their own ecclesiastical affairs. The greater portion of Switzerland had known but little either of the benefits or disadvantages of mediaeval episcopal rule. Church property paid its share of the communal taxes, and even the monasteries and convents were liable to civil inspection. If a stray tourist at the present day wanders into the church which is called the Cathedral in that survival of ancient mediaeval republics, San Marino, he will find that the seats of the "consuls" of the little republic occupy the place where he expects to find the bishop"s chair. The civil power a.s.serted its supremacy over the ecclesiastical in most things in these small mediaeval republics. The Popes needed San Marino to be a thorn in the side of the Malatesta of Rimini, they hired most of their soldiers from the Swiss cantons, and therefore tolerated many things which they would not have permitted elsewhere.
The social environment of the Swiss Reformer was very different from that of Luther. He was a free Swiss who had listened in childhood to tales of the heroic fights of Morgarten, Sempach, Morat, and Nancy, and had imbibed the hereditary hatred of the House of Hapsburg. He had no fear of the "common man," Luther"s bugbear after the Peasants" War. Orderly democratic life was the air he breathed, and what reverence Luther had for the Emperor "who protected poor people against the Turk," and for the lords of the soil, Zwingli paid to the civic fathers elected by a popular vote.
When the German Reformer thought of Zwingli he was always muttering what Archbishop Parker said of John Knox-"G.o.d keep us from such visitations as Knockes hath attempted in Scotland; the people to be orderers of things!"(330)
Owing doubtless to this republican training, Zwingli had none of that aloofness from political affairs which was a marked characteristic of Luther. He believed that his mission had as much to do with politics as with religion, and that religious reformation was to be worked out by political forces, whether in the more limited sphere of Switzerland or in larger Germany. He had never taken a step forward until he had carried along with him the civic authorities of Zurich. His advance had always been calculated. Luther"s _Theses_ (November 1517) had been the volcanic outburst of a conscience troubled by the sight of a great religious scandal, and their author had no intention of doing more than protesting against the one great evil; he had no idea at the time where his protest was leading him. Zwingli"s _Theses_ (January 1523) were the carefully drafted programme of a Reformation which he meant to accomplish by degrees, and through the a.s.sistance of the Council of Zurich. His mind was full of political combinations for the purpose of carrying out his plans of reformation. As early as 1524 he was in correspondence with Pirkheimer about the possibility of a league between Nurnberg and Zurich-two powerful Protestant towns. This league did not take shape. But in 1527 a religious and political league (_das christliche Burgerrecht_) was concluded between Zurich and Constance, an imperial German town; St. Gallen joined in 1528; Biel, Muhlhausen, and Basel in 1529; even Stra.s.sburg, afraid of the growing power of the House of Hapsburg, was included in 1530. The feverish political activity of Zwingli commended him to Philip of Hesse almost as strongly as it made him disliked, and even feared, by Ferdinand of Austria. The Elector of Saxony and Luther dreaded his influence over "the young man of Hesse."
Melanchthon was the first to insist on the evil influences of Zwingli"s activity for the peace of the Empire. He persuaded himself that had the Lutherans stood alone at Speyer, the Romanists would have been prepared to make concessions which would have made the Protest needless. He returned to Wittenberg full of misgivings. The Protest might lead to a defiance of the Emperor, and to a subversion of the Empire. Was it right for subjects to defend themselves by war against the civil power which was ordained of G.o.d? "My conscience," he wrote, "is disquieted because of this thing; I am half dead with thinking about it."
He found Luther only too sympathetic; resolute to maintain that if the prince commanded anything which was contrary to the word of G.o.d, it was the duty of the subject to offer what pa.s.sive resistance he was able, but that it was never right to oppose him actively by force of arms. Still less was it the duty of a Christian man to ally himself for such resistance with those who did not hold "the whole truth of G.o.d." Luther would therefore have nothing to do with an alliance offensive and defensive against the Emperor with cities who shared in what he believed to be the errors of Zwingli.
This meant a great deal more than a break with the Swiss. The south German towns of Stra.s.sburg, Memmingen, Constance, Lindau, and others were more Zwinglian than Lutheran. It was not only that they were inclined to the more radical theology of the Swiss Reformer; they found that his method of organising a reformed Church, drafted for the needs of Zurich, suited their munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions better than the territorial organisations being adopted by the Lutheran Churches of North Germany. To Luther, whose views of the place of the "common man" in the Church had been changed by the Peasants" War, this was of itself a danger which threatened the welfare of the infant Churches. It made ecclesiastical government too democratic; and it did this in the very centres where the democracy was most dangerous. He could not forget that the mob of these German towns had taken part in the recently suppressed social revolution, that their working-cla.s.s population was still the recruiting ground of the Anabaptist sectaries, and that at Memmingen itself Zwinglian partisans had helped to organise the revolution, and to link it on to the religious awakening.
Besides, the attraction which drew these German cities to the Swiss might lead to larger political consequences which seemed to threaten what unity remained to the German Empire. It might result in the detachment of towns from the German Fatherland, and in the formation of new cantons cut adrift from Germany to increase the strength of the Swiss Confederation.
-- 4. The Marburg Colloquy.(331)
All these thoughts were in the minds of Luther and of his fellow theologians, and had their weight with the Elector of Saxony, when their refusal to join rendered the proposed defensive league impossible. No one was more disappointed than the Landgrave of Hesse, the ablest political leader whom the German Reformation produced. He knew more about Zwingli than his fellow princes in North Germany; he had a keen interest in theological questions; he sympathised to some extent with the special opinions of Zwingli; and he had not the dread of democracy which possessed Luther and his Elector. He believed, rightly as events showed, that differences or suspected differences in theology were the strongest causes of separation; he was correct in supposing that the Lutheran divines through ignorance magnified those points of difference; and he hoped that if the Lutherans and the Swiss could be brought together, they would learn to know each other better. So he tried to arrange for a religious conference in his castle at Marburg. He had many a difficulty to overcome so far as the Lutherans were concerned. Neither Luther nor Melanchthon desired to meet Zwingli. Melanchthon thought that if a conference was to be held, it would be much better to meet Oecolampadius and perhaps some learned Romanists. Zwingli, on the other hand, was eager to meet Luther.
He responded at once. He came, without waiting for leave to be given by the Zurich Council, across a country full of enemies. The conference met from October 30th to November 5th, 1529. Luther was accompanied by Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and Cruciger, Frederick Mec.u.m from Gotha, Osiander from Nurnberg, Brenz from Hall, Stephan Agricola from Augsburg, and others. With Zwingli came Oecolampadius, Bucer, and Hedio from Stra.s.sburg, Rudolph Collin (who has left the fullest account of the discussion), two councillors from Basel and from Zurich, and Jacob Sturm from Stra.s.sburg. After a preliminary conference between Zwingli and Melanchthon on the one hand, and Luther and Oecolampadius on the other, the real discussion took place in the great hall of the Castle. The tourist is still shown the exact spot where the table which separated the disputants was placed.
This _Marburg Colloquy_, as the conference was called, had important results for good, although it was unsuccessful in fulfilling the expectations of the Landgrave. It showed a real and substantial harmony between the two sets of theologians on all points save one. Fifteen theological articles (_The Marburg Articles_) stated the chief heads of the Christian faith, and fourteen were signed by Luther and by Zwingli.
The one subject on which they could not come to an agreement was the relation of the Body of Christ to the elements Bread and Wine in the Sacrament of the Supper. It was scarcely to be expected that there could be harmony on a doctrinal matter on which there had been such a long and embittered controversy.
Both theologians found in the mediaeval doctrine of the Sacrament of the Supper what they believed to be an overwhelming error destructive to the spiritual life. It presupposed that a priest, in virtue of mysterious powers conferred in ordination, could give or withhold from the Christian people the benefits conveyed in the Sacrament. It a.s.serted that the priest could change the elements Bread and Wine into the very Body and Blood of Christ, and that unless this change was made there was no presence of Christ in the sacrament, and no possibility of sacramental grace for the communicant. Luther attacked the problem as a mediaeval Christian, content, if he was able to purge the ordinance of this one fault, to leave all else as he found it. Zwingli came as a Humanist, whose fundamental rule was to get beyond the mediaeval theology altogether, and attempt to discover how the earlier Church Fathers could aid him to solve the problem. This difference in mental att.i.tude led them to approach the subject from separate sides; and the mediaeval way of looking at the whole subject rendered difference of approach very easy. The mediaeval Church had divided the Sacrament of the Lord"s Supper into two distinct parts-the Ma.s.s and the Eucharist.(332) The Ma.s.s was inseparably connected with the thought of the great Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, and the Eucharist with the thought of the believer"s communion with the Risen Living Christ. Zwingli attacked the Romanist doctrine of the Ma.s.s, and Luther sought to give an evangelical meaning to the mediaeval conception of the Eucharist. Hence the two Protestant antagonists were never exactly facing each other.
Luther"s convent studies in D"Ailly, Biel, and their common master, William of Occam, enabled him to show that there might be the presence of the Glorified Body of Christ, extended in s.p.a.ce, in the elements Bread and Wine in a natural way, and without any priestly miracle: and that satisfied him; it enabled him to deny the priestly miracle and keep true in the most literal way to the words of the inst.i.tution, "This is My Body."
Zwingli, on the other hand, insisted that the primary reference in the Lord"s Supper was to the death of Christ, and that it was above all things a commemorative rite. He transformed the mediaeval Ma.s.s into an evangelical sacrament, by placing the idea of commemoration where the mediaeval theologian had put that of repet.i.tion, and held that the means of appropriation was faith and not eating with the mouth. This he held to be a return to the belief of the early centuries, before the conception of the sacrament had been corrupted by pagan ideas.
Like Luther, he served himself heir to the work of earlier theologians; but he did not go to Occam, Biel, or D"Ailly, as the German Reformer had done. Erasmus, who had no liking for the priestly miracle in the Ma.s.s, and cared little for a rigid literal interpretation of the words of the inst.i.tution, had declared that the Sacrament of the Supper was the symbol of commemoration, of a covenant with G.o.d, and of the fellowship of all believers in Christ, and this commended itself to Zwingli"s conception of the social character of Christianity; but he was too much a Christian theologian to be contented with such a vague idea of the rite. Many theologians of the later Middle Ages, when speculation was more free than it could be after the stricter definitions of the Council of Trent, had tried to purify and spiritualise the beliefs of the Church about the meaning of the central Christian rite. Foremost among them was John Wessel (_c._ 1420-1489), with his long and elaborate treatise, _De Sacramento Eucharistiae_. He had taught that the Lord"s Supper is the rite in which the death of Christ is presented to and appropriated by the believer; that it is above all things a commemoration of that death and a communion or partic.i.p.ation in the benefits which followed; that communion with the spiritual presence of Jesus is of far more importance than any corporeal contact with the Body of Christ; and that this communion is shared in through faith. These thoughts had been taken over by Christopher Honius, a divine of the Netherlands, who had enforced them by insisting that our Lord"s discourse in the 6th chapter of St. John"s Gospel had reproved any materialistic conception of the Lord"s Supper; and that _therefore_ the words of the inst.i.tution must not be taken in their rigid literal meaning.
He had been the first to suggest that the word _is_ in "This is My Body"
must mean _signifies_. Wessel and Honius were the predecessors of Zwingli, and he wove their thoughts into his doctrine of the Lord"s Supper. It should be remembered that Luther had also been acquainted with the labours of Wessel and of Honius, and that so far from attracting they had repelled him, simply because he thought they failed to give the respect due to the literal meaning of the words of the inst.i.tution.
It must not be forgotten that Luther knew Zwingli only as in some way connected with Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt. Carlstadt had professed to accept the theory of Honius about the nature of the relation of the Presence of Christ to the elements of Bread and Wine-saying that the latter were _signs_, and nothing more, of the former. A controversy soon raged in Wittenberg to the scandal of German Protestantism. Luther insisted more and more on the necessity of the Presence in the elements of the Body of Christ "corporeally extended in s.p.a.ce"; while Carlstadt denied that Presence in any sense whatsoever. Luther insisted with all the strength of language at his command that the literal sense of the words of the inst.i.tution must be preserved, and that the words "This is My Body"
must refer to the Bread and to the Wine; while Carlstadt thought it was more likely that while using the words our Lord pointed to His own Body, or if not, that religious conviction compelled another interpretation than the one on which Luther insisted.
The dust of all this controversy was in the eyes of the theologians when they met at Marburg, and prevented them carefully examining each other"s doctrinal position. In all essential matters Luther and Zwingli were not so far apart as each supposed the other to be. Their respective theories, put very shortly, may be thus summed up.
Zwingli, looking mainly at the mediaeval doctrine of the Ma.s.s, taught: (1) The Lord"s Supper is not a _repet.i.tion_ of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, but a _commemoration_ of that sacrifice once offered up; and the elements are not a newly offered Christ, but the _signs_ of the Body and Blood of the Christ who was once for all offered on Calvary. (2) That forgiveness for sin is not won by _partaking_ in a newly offered Christ, but by _believing_ in a Christ once offered up. (3) That the benefits of the work of Christ are always appropriated by faith, and that the atonement is so appropriated in the sacrament, whereby Christ becomes our food; but the food, being neither carnal nor corporeal, is not appropriated by the mouth, but by faith indwelling in the soul. Therefore there is a Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament, but it is a spiritual Presence, not a corporeal one. A real and living faith always involves the union of the believer with Christ, and therefore the Real Presence of Christ; and the Presence of Christ, which is in every act of faith, is in the sacrament to the faithful partaker. (4) That while the Lord"s Supper primarily refers to the sacrifice of Christ, and while the elements, Bread and Wine, are the symbols of the crucified Body of Christ, the partaking of the elements is also a symbol and pledge of an ever-renewed living union with the Risen Christ. (5) That as our Lord Himself has specially warned His followers against thinking of feeding on Him in any corporeal or carnal manner (John vi.), the words of the inst.i.tution cannot be taken in a strictly literal fashion, and the phrase "This is My Body" means "This signifies My Body." The fourth position had been rather implicitly held than explicitly stated.
Luther, looking mainly at the mediaeval doctrine of the Eucharist, taught: (1) That the primary use of the sacrament was to bring believing communicants into direct touch with the Living Risen Christ. (2) That to this end there must be in the Bread and Wine the local Presence of the Glorified Body of Christ, which he always conceived as "body extended in s.p.a.ce"; the communicants, coming into touch with this Body of Christ, have communion with Him, such as His disciples had on earth and as His saints now have in heaven. (3) That this local Presence of Christ does not presuppose any special priestly miracle, for, in virtue of its _ubiquity_, the Glorified Body of Christ is _everywhere_ naturally, and therefore is in the Bread and in the Wine: this natural Presence becomes a sacramental Presence because of the promise of G.o.d attached to the reverent and believing partaking of the sacrament. (4) That communion with the Living Risen Christ implies the appropriation of the Death of Christ, and of the Atonement won by this death; but this last thought of Luther"s, which is Zwingli"s first thought, lies implicitly in his teaching without being dwelt upon.
The two theories, so far as doctrinal teaching goes, are supplementary to each other rather than antagonists. Each has a weak point. Luther"s depends on a questionable mediaeval idea of _ubiquity_, and Zwingli"s on a somewhat shallow exegesis. It was unfortunate, but only natural, that when the two theological leaders were brought together at Marburg, instead of seeking the mutual points of agreement, each should attack the weak point in the other"s theory. Luther began by chalking the words _Hoc est Corpus Meum_ on the table before him, and by saying, "I take these words literally; if anyone does not, I shall not argue but contradict"; and Zwingli spent all his argumentative powers in disputing the doctrine of _ubiquity_. The long debate went circling round these two points and could never be got away from them. Zwingli maintained that the Body of Christ was at the Right Hand of G.o.d, and could not be present, extended in s.p.a.ce, in the elements, which were signs representing what was absent. Luther argued that the Body of Christ was in the elements, as, to use his own ill.u.s.tration, the sword is present in the sheath. As a soldier could present his sheathed sword and say, truly and literally, _This is my sword_, although nothing but the sheath was visible; so, although nothing could be seen or felt but Bread and Wine, these elements in the Holy Supper could be literally and truly called the Body and Blood of Christ.
The substantial harmony revealed in the fourteen articles which they all could sign showed that the Germans and the Swiss had one faith. But Luther insisted that their difference on the Sacrament of the Supper prevented them becoming one visible brotherhood, and the immediate purpose of the Landgrave of Hesse was not fulfilled.
Undaunted by his defeat, Philip next attempted a less comprehensive union.
If Luther and Zwingli could not be included within the one brotherhood, might not the German cities of the south and the Lutheran princes be brought together? Another conference was arranged at Schwabach (October 1529), when a series of theological articles were to be presented for agreement. Luther prepared seventeen articles to be set before the conference. They were based on the Marburg Articles; but as Luther had stated his own doctrine of the Holy Supper in its most uncompromising form, it is not to be wondered at that the delegates from the southern cities hesitated to sign. They said that the confession (for the articles took that form) was not in conformity with the doctrines preached among them, and that they would need to consult their fellow-citizens before committing them to it. Thus Philip"s attempts to unite the Protestants of Germany failed a second time, and a divided Protestantism awaited the coming of the Emperor, who had resolved to solve the religious difficulty in person.
-- 5. The Emperor in Germany.
Charles V. was at the zenith of his power. The sickly looking youth of Worms had become a grave man of thirty, whose nine years of unbroken success had made him the most commanding figure in Europe. He had quelled the turbulent Spaniards; he had crushed his brilliant rival of France at the battle of Pavia; he had humbled the Pope, and had taught His Holiness in the Sack of Rome the danger of defying the Head of the Holy Roman Empire; and he had compelled the reluctant Pontiff to invest him with the imperial crown. He had added to and consolidated the family possessions of the House of Hapsburg, and but lately his brother Ferdinand had won, in name at least, the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary. He was now determined to visit Germany, and by his personal presence and influence to end the religious difficulty which was distracting that portion of his vast dominions. He also meant to secure the succession to the Empire for his brother Ferdinand, by procuring his election as King of the Romans.
Charles came from Italy over the Brenner Pa.s.s in the spring time, and was magnificently received by the Tyrolese, eager to do all honour to the grandson of their beloved Kaiser Max. His letters to his brother, written on the stages of the journey, reveal as fully as that reserved soul could unbosom itself, his plans for the pacification of Germany. He meant to use every persuasion possible, to make what compromises his conscience permitted (for Catholicism was a faith with Charles), to effect a peaceful settlement. But if these failed, he was determined to crush the Reformation by force. He never seems to have doubted that he would succeed. Never a thought crossed his mind that he was about to encounter a great spiritual force whose depth and intensity he was unable to measure, and which was slowly creating a new world unknown to himself and to his contemporaries. While at Innsbruck he invited the Elector of Saxony to visit him, and was somewhat disappointed that the Lutheran prince did not accept; but this foretaste of trouble did not give him any uneasiness.
The summons to the Diet, commanding the Electors, princes, and all the Estates of the Empire to meet at Augsburg on the 8th of April 1530, had been issued when Charles was at Bologna. No threats marred the invitation.
The Emperor announced that he meant to leave all past errors to the judgment of the Saviour; that he wished to give a charitable hearing to every man"s opinions, thoughts, and ideas; and that his only desire was to secure that all might live under the one Christ, in one Commonwealth, one Church, and one Unity.(333) He left Innsbruck on the 6th of June, and, travelling slowly, reached the bridge on the Lech, a little distance from Augsburg, on the evening of the 15th. There he found the great princes of the Empire, who had been waiting his arrival from two o"clock in the afternoon. They alighted to do him reverence, and he graciously dismounted also, and greeted them with all courtesy. Charles had brought the papal nuncio, Cardinal Campeggio, in his train. Most of the Electors knelt to receive the cardinal"s blessing; but John of Saxony stood bolt upright, and refused the proffered benediction.
The procession-one of the most gorgeous Germany had ever seen-was marshalled for the ceremonial entry into the town. The retinues of the Electors were all in their appropriate colours and arms-Saxony, by ancient prescriptive right, leading the van. Then came the Emperor alone, a baldachino carried over his head. He had wished the nuncio and his brother to ride beside him under the canopy; but the Germans would not suffer it; no Pope"s representative was to be permitted to ride shoulder to shoulder with the head of the German Empire entering the most important of his imperial cities.(334)
Augsburg was then at the height of its prosperity. It was the great trading centre between Italy and the Levant and the towns of Northern Europe. It was the home of the Welsers and of the Fuggers, the great capitalists of the later mediaeval Europe. It boasted that its citizens were the equals of princes, and that its daughters, in that age of deeply rooted cla.s.s distinctions, had married into princely houses. To this day the name of one of its streets-Philippine Welser Stra.s.se-commemorates the wedding of an heiress of the Welsers with an archduke of Austria; and the wall decorations of the old houses attest the ancient magnificence of the city.(335)
At the gates of the town, the clergy, singing _Advenisti __ desiderabilis_, met the procession. All, Emperor, clergy, princes, and their retinues, entered the cathedral. The _Te Deum_ was sung, and the Emperor received the benediction. Then the procession was re-formed, and accompanied Charles to his lodgings in the Bishop"s Palace.
There the Emperor made his first attempt on his Lutheran subjects. He invited the Elector of Saxony, George of Brandenburg, Philip of Hesse, and Francis of Luneburg to accompany him to his private apartments. He told them that he had been informed that they had brought their Lutheran preachers with them to Augsburg, and that he would expect them to keep them silent during the sittings of the Diet. They refused. Then Charles asked them to prohibit controversial sermons. This request was also refused. In the end Charles reminded them that his demand was strictly within the decision of 1526; that the Emperor was lord over the imperial cities; and he promised them that he would appoint the preachers himself, and that there would be no sermons-only the reading of Scripture without comment. This was agreed to. He next asked them to join him in the Corpus Christi procession on the following day. They refused-Philip of Hesse with arguments listened to by Ferdinand with indignation, and by Charles with indifference, probably because he did not understand German. The Emperor insisted. Then old George of Brandenburg stood forth, and told His Majesty that he could not, and would not obey. It was a short, rugged speech, though eminently respectful, and ended with these words, which flew over Germany, kindling hearts as fire lights flax: "Before I would deny my G.o.d and His Evangel, I would rather kneel down here before your Majesty and have my head struck off,"-and the old man hit the side of his neck with the edge of his hand. Charles did not need to know German to understand.
"Not head off, dear prince, not head off," he said kindly in his Flemish-German (_Nit Kop ab, lover Forst, nit Kop ab_). Charles walked in procession through the streets of Augsburg on a blazing hot day, stooping under a heavy purple mantle, with a superfluous candle sputtering in his hand; but the evangelical princes remained in their lodgings.(336)
-- 6. The Diet of Augsburg 1530.(337)
The Diet was formally opened on June 20th (1530), and in the _Proposition_ or Speech from the Throne it was announced that the a.s.sembly would be invited to discuss armament against the Turk, and that His Majesty was anxious, "by fair and gentle means," to end the religious differences which were distracting Germany. The Protestants were again invited to give the Emperor in writing their opinions and difficulties. It was resolved to take the religious question first. On June 24th the Lutherans were ready with their "statement of their grievances and opinions relating to the faith." Next day (June 25th) the Diet met in the hall of the Episcopal Palace, and what is known as the _Augsburg Confession_ was read by the Saxon Chancellor, Dr. Christian Bayer, in such a clear resonant voice that it was heard not only by the audience within the chamber, but also by the crowd which thronged the court outside.(338) When the reading was ended, Chancellor Bruck handed the doc.u.ment and a duplicate in Latin to the Emperor. They were signed by the Elector of Saxony and his son John Frederick, by George, Margrave of Brandenburg, the Dukes Ernest and Francis of Luneburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, and the delegates of the cities of Nurnberg and Reutlingen. These princes knew the danger which threatened them in putting their names to the Confession. The theologians of Saxony besought their Elector to permit their names to stand alone; but he answered calmly, _I, too, will confess my Christ_. He was not a brilliant man like Philip of Hesse. He was unpretentious, peace-loving, and retiring by nature-John the Steadfast, his people called him. Recent historians have dwelt on the conciliatory att.i.tude and judicial spirit manifested by the Emperor at this Diet, and they are justified in doing so; but the mailed hand sometimes showed itself. Charles refused to invest John with his Electoral dignities in the usual feudal fashion, and his entourage whispered that if the Elector was not amenable to the Emperor"s arguments, he might find the electorate taken from him and bestowed on the kindred House of Ducal Saxony, which in the person of Duke George so stoutly supported the old religion.(339) While possessing that "laudable, if crabbed const.i.tutionalism which was the hereditary quality of the Ernestine line of Saxony,"(340) he had a genuine affection for the Emperor. Both recognised that this Diet of Augsburg had separated them irrevocably. "Uncle, Uncle," said Charles to Elector John at their parting interview, "I did not expect this from you."
The Elector"s eyes filled with tears; he could not speak; he turned away in silence and left the city soon afterwards.(341)
-- 7. The Augsburg Confession.(342)