would soon be suppressed, as they had so often been in the
past. The situation tended to become more, rather than less,
complicated, and there was every variety of reformer and
every degree of conservatism, for there were no standards
for those who had rejected the papal supremacy, and even
those who continued to accept it differed widely. For
example, George of Saxony viewed Aleander, the pope’s
nuncio, with almost as much suspicion as he did Luther
himself.
The religious ideas in South Germany were affected by the development of a reform party in Switzerland, under the influence of Zwingli, who claimed that at Einsiedeln, near the lake of Zurich, he had begun to preach the gospel of Christ in the year 1516 “before any one in my localityZwingli and the Reformation in Switzerland. had so much as heard the name of Luther.” Three years later he became preacher in the cathedral of Zurich. Here he began to denounce the abuses in the Church, as well as the traffic in mercenaries which had so long been a blot upon his country’s honour. From the first he combined religious and political reform. In 1523 he prepared a complete statement of his beliefs, in the form of sixty-seven theses. He maintained that Christ was the only high priest and that the gospel did not gain its sanction from the authority of the Church. He denied the existence of purgatory, and rejected those practices of the Church which Luther had already set aside. Since no one presented himself to refute him, the town council ratified his conclusions, so that the city of Zurich practically withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church. Next year the Mass, processions and the images of saints were abolished. The shrines were opened and the relics burned. Some other towns, including Bern, followed Zürich’s example, but the Forest cantons refused to accept the innovations. In 1525 a religious and political league was arranged between Zürich and Constance, which in the following year was joined by St Gallen, Biel, Miihlhausen, Basel and Strassburg, Philip of Hesse was attracted by Zwingli’s energy, and was eager that the northern reformers should be brought into closer relations with the south. But the league arranged by Zwingli was directed against the house of Habsburg, and Luther did not deem it right to oppose a prince by force of arms.Zwingli and Luther. The Marburg Articles. Moreover, he did not believe that Zwingli, who conceived the Eucharist to be merely symbolical in its character, “held the whole truth of God.” Never-theless, Philip of Hesse finally arranged a religious conference in the castle of Marburg (1529) where Zwingli and Luther met. They were able to agree on fourteen out of the fifteen “Marburg Articles,” which stated the chief points in the Christian faith as they were accepted by both. A fundamental difference as to the doctrine of the Eucharist, however, stood in the way of the real union.
The diet of Spires (1529) had received a letter from the emperor directing it to look to the enforcement of the edict of Worms against the heretics. No one was to preach against the Mass, and no one was to be prevented from attending it freely. This meant that the evangelicalThe diet of Spires, 1529, and the “Protestants.” princes would be forced to restore the most characteristic Catholic rite. As they formed only a minority in the diet, they could only draw up a protest, which was signed by John Frederick of Saxony, Philip of Hesse, and fourteen of the three towns, including Strassburg, Nuremberg and Ulm. In this they claimed that the majority had no right to abrogate the stipulations of the former diet of Spires, which permitted each prince to determine religious matters provisionally for himself, for all had unanimously pledged themselves to observe that agreement. They therefore appealed to the emperor and to a future council against the tyranny of the majority. Those who signed this appeal were called Protestants, a name which came to be generally applied to those who rejected the supremacy of the pope, the Roman Catholic conceptions of the clergy and of the Mass, and discarded sundry practices of the older Church, without, however, repudiating the Catholic creeds.
During the period which had elapsed since the diet of Worms, the emperor had resided in Spain, busy with a series of wars waged mainly with the king of France.[1] In 1530 the emperor found himself in a position to visit Germany once more, and summoned the diet to meet at Augsburg,The diet and confession of Augsburg, 1530 with the hope of settling the religious differences and bringing about harmonious action against the Turk. The Protestants were requested to submit a statement of their opinions, and on June 2 5th the “Augsburg Confession” was read to the diet. This was signed by the elector of Saxony and his son and successor, John Frederick, by George, margrave of Brandenburg, two dukes of Lüneburg, Philip of Hesse and Wolfgang of Anhalt, and by the representatives of Nuremberg and Reutlingen. The confession was drafted by Melanchthon, who sought consistently to minimize the breach which separated the Lutherans from the old Church. In the first part of the confession the Protestants seek to prove that there is nothing in their doctrines at variance with those of the universal Church “or even of the Roman Church so far as that appears in the writings of the Fathers.” They made it clear that they still held a great part of the beliefs of the medieval Church, especially as represented in Augustine’s writings, and repudiated the radical notions of the Anabaptists and of Zwingli. In the second part, those practices of the Church are enumerated which the evangelical party rejected; the celibacy of the clergy, the Mass, as previously understood, auricular confession, and monastic vows, the objections to which are stated with much vigour. “ Christian perfection is this: to fear God sincerely, to trust assuredly that we have, for Christ’s sake, a gracious and merciful God; to ask and look with confidence for help from him in all our affairs, accordingly to our calling, and outwardly to do good works diligently, and to attend to our vocation. In these things doth true perfection and a true worship of God consist. It doth not consist in going about begging, or in wearing a black or a grey cowl.” The Protestant princes declared that they had no intention of depriving the bishops of their jurisdiction, but this one thing only is requested of them, “that they would suffer the gospel to be purely taught, and would relax a few observances in which we cannot adhere without sin.”
The confession was turned over to a committee of conservative theologians, including Eck, Faber and Cochlaeus. Their refutation of the Protestant positions seemed needlessly sharp to the emperor, and five drafts were made of it. Charles finally reluctantly accepted it, although heCourse of events in Germany, 1531–1540. would gladly have had it milder, for it made reconciliation hopeless. The majority of the diet approved a recess, allowing the Protestants a brief period of immunity until the 15th of April 1531, after which they were to be put down by force. Meanwhile, they were to make no further innovations, they were not to molest the conservatives, and were to aid the emperor in suppressing the doctrines of Zwingli and of the Anabaptists. The Lutheran princes protested, together with fourteen cities, and left the diet. The diet thereupon decided that the edict of Worms should at last be enforced. All Church property was to be restored, and, perhaps most important of all, the jurisdiction of the Imperial court (Reichskammergericht), which was naturally Catholic in its sympathies, was extended to appeals involving the seizure of ecclesiastical benefices, contempt of episcopal decisions and other matters deeply affecting the Protestants. In November the Protestants formed the Schmalkaldic League, which, after the death of Zwingli, in 1 531, was joined by a number of the South German towns. The period of immunity assigned to the Protestants passed by; but they were left unmolested, for the emperor was involved in many difficulties, and the Turks were threatening Vienna. Consequently, at the diet of Nuremberg (1532) a recess was drafted indefinitely extending the religious truce and quashing such cases in the Reichskammergericht as involved Protestant
- ↑ In 1527 the pope’s capital was sacked by Charles’s army. This was, of course, but an incident in the purely political relations of the European powers with the pope, and really has no bearing upon the progress of the Protestant revolt.
