dead, and every essential to popery', were also retained. The language, indeed, was rendered as ambiguous as possible, but no sound Protestant could mistake it. The partisans of the court of Rome disliked it, because it allowed the cup in the sacrament to the laity, and mitigated the vows of celibacy; but chiefly, because it was promulgated by the authority of a secular prince.

In the autumn of this year, 1548, Charles proceeded in earnest to enforce this odious measure. He began with the city of Augsburg, which he disfranchised, and compelled the new magistrates to swear to observe the Interim. From Augsburg he proceeded to Ulm, and seizing all the pastors who refused to subscribe, committed them to prison, and when he departed led them in chains after him. The example had its full effect; not in changing the public sentiment of the German Protestants, but in enforcing that degree of conformity to a measure they abhorred, which might just screen them from a violence which they could not resist. The inhabitants of Strasburg and Constance, after a long struggle, were compelled to submit. Melancthon laments, that "Upwards of four hundred pastors in Suabia and the circles of the Rhine are driven from their stations; there is but a single officiating minister at this moment at Tubingen, who conforms to the book published at Augsburg; it has had the effect of driving away a!! the pastors and teachers." Some who did not quit their stations, gave it a feigned compliance, or through connivance were never brought to the decisive test. Melancthon, who at this time appeared as the successor of Luther, though his testimony is clear that on no condition would he receive the Interim, was far from withstanding it with the spirit and consistency which Luther shewed on similar occasions. He gave it as his opinion, that though the whole of the book could not be received, yet it might be received as an authoritative rule in things indifferent; and some things on which Luther would perhaps have hazarded all, Melancthon, as some represent, from his yielding disposition, was content to consider as indifferent. From Melancthon's reply to the Interim, and from

1 Sleid. Hist.

It is remarkable, that the Liturgy of the Church of England bears to this day a mark of the alarm of our reformers, in consequence of this victory of the emperor over the Protestants in Germany. On this occasion was added to the petition, "Give peace in our time, O Lord"-the concluding sentence, cause there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God."

"Be

the documents which remain of his answer to his calumniators, we have no difficulty in concluding, in the language of a contemporary, "That the highly learned, and no less godly, gentle, and loving man, Philip Melancthon, is highly belied, in that a great sort openly say that he has denied the truth: or, that I may use their own words-recanted." But still it may be feared, that the public testimony of this amiable reformer, was not sufficiently firm and decided for him on whom the mantle of Luther had fallen. It is certain that the elector Maurice, in the pursuit of his political scheme, had prevailed with his divines to have the INTERIM publicly acknowledged in Saxony, and Melancthon's qualifying distinction "as a rule in indifferent things," smoothed the way for it. This doubtless was the design of the peaceful reformer. Maurice, however, intended that the public construction upon the act should, at least, for a time, be very different in the eyes of the emperor and of the world! And, what had already been yielded, and what the Interim, if a longer reign had been permitted to it, would have led to, appears from Melancthon's own complaint: "We do not call magical consecrations, worshipping of images, the procession of the Host, and other similar services, openly condemned both in our discourses and writings, nor other absurdities, as nocturnal visits to the tombs of saints, indifferent things; but they are shockingly multiplied ; either for the purpose of provoking us, or with a crafty design to impose heavier burdens upon the pastors, and they do us an injury while they humour their own passions1." It is plain, however, that Charles V. was not satisfied with the concurrence of Melancthon, and had even summoned him to appear before him; but the crafty Maurice knew how to screen him by apologies. And it is equally plain, that could the emperor have fully established and rendered permanent the measure of the INTERIM, Protestantism had been lost in Germany.

But Charles had not time to reap the fruits of his victory, or entirely to extinguish the sparks of the religious and civil liberty which he was trampling beneath his feet, before the arts of political dissimulation, in which he was so well versed, were turned against himself, to the sudden and complete overthrow of all his preponderating power in Germany. Maurice, indeed, had so satisfied Charles, that he was appointed generalissimo to enforce the INTERIM at Magdeburg, which still held out. This

he accomplished; but after having long amused the emperor, he openly took the field against him, March 18th, 1552. From this moment, the Interim, so ill and so reluctantly obeyed by the favourers of the Reformation, became a dead letter. When the oppressor's hand was removed, things naturally returned to their former state. "Maurice proceeded by rapid marches towards upper Germany. All the towns in his way opened their gates to him, and every where he re-instated the magistrates whom the emperor had deposed, and gave possession of the churches to the Protestant ministers whom he had ejected." The emperor was taken by surprise, and fled in great confusion from Inspruck. The Council of Trent, which was to have been his great instrument in riveting the chains he had already cast upon Germany, at the report of Maurice's approach, took the alarm also and dispersed. A proclamation was immediately issued, "That as the enemies of the truth had no other aim than that the teachers of the holy religion being first oppressed, the popish errors might be restored and the youth brought up in them, having imprisoned some, and made others to swear to depart, and not return again, which oath doth not bind because it is wicked, they are all recalled and commanded to resume their office of teaching, according to the Augsburg Confession."

66

At Passau, on the 26th of May, a stipulation was entered into for the public exercise of the Protestant religion, and the "peace of religion" was afterwards concluded in the same place. Such was the memorable peace of Passau, that overturned the vast fabric, in erecting which Charles had employed so many years, and had exerted the utmost efforts of his power and policy; that annulled all his regulations with regard to religion; defeated all his hopes of rendering the imperial authority absolute and hereditary in his family; and established the Protestant church, which had hitherto subsisted precariously in Germany, through connivance or by expedients, upon a firm and secure basis." The result of the triumph of Maurice is very remarkably described in Father Paul's history of the Council of Trent'. "The cities recalled their preachers and the teachers of the Augustine Confession, and restored the churches and schools, and exercise of religion, and though on account of the banishments and persecutions against the preachers and teachers, there remained but few of them, and

1 End of Book IV.

those concealed under the protection of the princes; yet, as if THEY HAD RISEN AGAIN, there wanted not to furnish all places1."

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

THE EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THIS REFORMATION, ON THE NATIONS OF EUROPE.

THE German Empire, which had been chosen by Divine Providence for the early seat of the revived Gospel, and where the rising interests of the Reformation had stood the chief conflict with the powers of darkness, and in the sight of its enemies had shared its dominion with them, was more likely than any other nation, to affect by its revolutions, whether religious or political, the general state of the rest of Europe. The position of Germany with respect to other countries, but more especially the peculiarity of its constitution, which gave all surrounding potentates a stake of interest in its divisions and internal contests, called, in a particular manner, the attention of mankind to any thing of importance that should happen therein. Accordingly we find, that every nation of Europe was more or

1

Philip Melancthon died in 1560, at the age of sixty-three, continuing the labours of his station till the last. A little before his death, he had written down on a piece of paper, in two columns, the reasons why he should like to leave the world, and why he should be glad to enter on the more blessed state. On the left he wrote, "You will cease from sin;"" you will be freed from the vexations and raging of the theologians." On the right, "You will come to the light;"" you will see God;" "you will look upon the Son of God;" « you will learn those wonderful mysteries which you could not understand in this life;" "why we are made as we are;" "what is the union"-" copulatio'—of the two natures in Christ." He had conversed much with Camerarius, on the language of St. Paul: "I have a desire to depart and be with Christ;" and had observed the Greek word should be rendered, to remove, pass on or set about, proceeding on a journey." In allusion to this, when removed a little before his death to a bed in his study, he observed; "This may be called, I think, mytravelling couch, if I should remove in it." He had his request," that he might depart in peace." To the solicitous requests of his attendants, if he would have any thing, his reply was, Nothing else but Heaven." He begged of them several times, when they would adjust his clothes, or try to anticipate some want, "not to disturb his delightful repose." Thus, in the death of this gentle reformer, it seemed, indeed, as though "the fruit of righteousness was sown in peace of them that make peace." Compare the death and resurrection of the Witnesses, in the Revelation.

less affected, at a very early stage, by the progress of the reforming principles in that country. The public mind was every where agitated by the spirit of inquiry which had been awakened, and the political constitutions of the most ancient kingdoms were shaken in this new contest about religion.

In

Switzerland, as we have seen, nourished the same leaven in her bosom; and being similarly constituted in her government, was, like Germany, divided in her different sovereignties, between the Roman catholic and the Protestant faith. England, a kingdom of the first rank in the Roman world, the popedom fell to the ground. France was long convulsed, and seemed at one time half Protestant. Even Spain and Italy felt for a time the shocks of the distant explosion. The rest of Europe situated to the north, beyond the ancient boundaries of Roman civilisation, particularly Denmark and Sweden, soon united themselves with the Protestant part of Germany.

The reformers, however, it will be recollected, had differed among themselves on the question of the nature of the Presence in the sacrament of the Lord's supper. This proved to be the occasion of a division which could not be healed, and which was followed with injurious consequences. The Protestant world was separated into two great classes, the Lutheran and the Helvetian. The latter was so called from the country of Zuinglius and his associates; but its churches were afterwards more generally distinguished from those of the immediate followers of Luther, by the appellation of the Reformed,' or Calvinistic churches.' The sacramentarian controversy is to be considered as that which alone produced this division. Luther was stern upon the point of consubstantiation, and the maintaining of this doctrine was the distinctive mark of Lutheranism. All who could not accede to this article of belief, whether, with Zuinglius himself, they explained the words of the institution of the Lord's supper as merely figurative, or with Bucer and Calvin, and by far the greater part of the divines of the reformed church, maintained a real presence, and actual participation of Christ in that sacrament,-all fell under this latter denomination.

With Luther sided, generally, at first, the northern part of Protestant Germany, with the kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark. He had also his followers in Belgium, and for a short period, in most other countries. The sentiments of the reformed church, however, spread in the south of Germany, as