have stimulated the zeal of the Count of Embden, who boasted that he had assisted and encouraged the marriage of no fewer than five hundred monks and nuns ;1 yet the process of secularising the monastic foundations was in many places by no means sudden or violent. Thus, when the Abbot of Ilgenthal in Saxony died in 1526, the Elector John simply forbade the election of a successor, and placed the abbey in charge of a prefect, while the remaining monks were liberally supplied until they one after another died out; and in 1529, when Philip, Count of Waldeck, took possession of the ancient monastery of Hainscheidt, he caused all the monks to be supported during life.3

Through all this period the hope had never been abandoned of such an arrangement as would prevent an irrevocable separation in the Church. Moderate and temperate men on both sides were ready to make such concessions of form as would enable Christendom to remain united, as the great vital truths on which all were agreed so far outweighed the points of divergence. Whether these hopes were well or ill founded was to be determined at the Diet of Augsburg, to which, in June 1530, both parties were summoned for the purpose of submitting their differences to the Emperor. Charles came to Germany in the full flush of his recent extraordinary triumphs, the most powerful prince since the days of Charlemagne. Europe was at length at peace, even the Turk only looming in the East as a probable, not as an existing, enemy. But Charles, newly crowned at Bologna, came ostensibly as the steadfast ally of the Pope, and Clement VII. had not the slightest intention of renouncing the traditional and imprescriptible rights of the Holy See. The Catholic princes of Germany, too, had their grounds

1 Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1526.

2 Thammii Chron. Coldicens.

3 Chron. Waldeccense (Hahnii Collect. Monument. I. 851).

of private quarrel with their Protestant peers, and, holding an unquestioned majority, were not disposed to abandon their position. The Protestant princes, on the other hand, were firm in their new-found faith, and, however disposed to avert the threatened storm by the sacrifice of nonessentials, their convictions were too strong for them to retrace the steps which they had taken during so many long and weary years. It is evident that, with such materials on either side, no reunion was probable; and, even had an accommodation on points of doctrine been possible, there was one subject which scarcely seemed to admit of satisfactory compromise. In the states of the reform the downfall of monachism had placed in the hands of the temporal powers large bodies of sequestrated abbey lands. To the Catholic it was sacrilege to leave these in the hands of the spoiler; the Protestant would not willingly give up the spoil.

The contest was opened by the Protestants submitting a statement of their belief, divided into two parts, the one devoted to points of faith, the other to matters of practice. Prepared principally by Melanchthon, it presents their tenets in the mildest and least objectionable form, and becoming the recognised standard of their creed, it has attained a world-wide renown under the name of the Confession of Augsburg. The questions of celibacy and monastic vows were ably and temperately argued; their post-scriptural origin was shown, and the reasons which induced the reformers to reject them were placed in a light as little offensive as possible.1 At first a counter-statement was anticipated from the Catholics, and negotiations were expected to be carried on by a comparison of the two, but they took higher ground, and contented themselves with

1 Confess. Augustanæ P. II. Art. ii., vi.

In his Apology for the Augsburg Confession, however, even the coldness of Melanchthon is warmed in describing the hideous licentiousness caused by the law of celibacy (Lutheri Opp. T. IV. p. 252-3).

VOL. II.

E

drawing up a refutation of the Confession. The Emperor was firm. His aspirations for the universal monarchy, which ever eluded his grasp, did not comport with encouraging independence of thought and freedom of religious belief. In his theory, uniformity of religion was a necessary element of the political system which was to make him sovereign of Europe, and he would listen to no compromise. He was inclined to summary measures, but the Catholic princes were hardly prepared for the consequences of an immediate rupture, and, after a threatening interval, another effort was made to effect a reconciliation. Conferences between the leading theologians on both sides took place, and the Lutherans, warned of their danger, were more disposed than ever to make concessions and to accept such terms as the stronger party were willing to offer them. At length, on the 8th of September, the draft of a proposed plan of accord was laid before the Diet. In this the points in dispute were referred to that future Ecumenic council which had so long been demanded as the panacea for all ecclesiastical ills, and which, after more than thirty years of continued expectation, was destined to fail so miserably in reconciling difficulties. Such monasteries as had not been destroyed were to be maintained in the exercise of the customary rites and observances of religion. Abbots and communities who had been ejected were to be allowed to return; and all religious houses which had been emptied of their occupants were to be placed in the hands of officers appointed by the Emperor, who were to administer their possessions until the future council should decide upon all the points relating to monachism; the Protestants thus relieving themselves of the accusation that they were actuated by motives of worldly gain. Similar proposals were made with regard to communion in the two elements and clerical marriage. These were left as open questions for the council to settle, while a phrase

2

of doubtful import subjected them in the meantime to the governments of the several states.1 The concessions in this project, however, though they might suit the views of the temperate doctors and princes in Germany, and though even the Roman Curia might be willing to grant them in order to save its threatened temporal power over the Teutonic states, did not suit the policy of Charles, who regarded the Church as simply one of the instruments with which he was to build up his universal empire. It was not difficult for him, therefore, to bring to naught all such schemes of conciliation. The restoration of all abbots and monks was ordered; restitution of Church lands was commanded, or their delivery to the Emperor, to be held until the assembling of the future council; and when the Diet adjourned, Charles issued a decree enjoining on all married priests to abstain from their wives, to eject them, and to seek absolution from their ordinaries.3

The threatening aspect of affairs warned the Protestant princes that no time was to be lost in making provision for mutual defence, and ere the year was out the famous League of Schmalkalden enabled them to present a united front to the powers which they had virtually defied. Into the political history of that eventful time it is not my province to enter. Suffice it to say that they were able to maintain their position, and in their own states to oppose the reactionary movement which at times seemed to be on the point of destroying all that had been accomplished.

In this their task was complicated by the extravagances of those whose enthusiasm, unbalanced by reason, carried them beyond restraint. If Luther had found it no easy task to break the chains which for so many ages had kept

1 Deliberat. de Concordia etc. c. iii., v. (Goldast I. 509).

2 See Letter of Bergenroth to Romilly, from Simancas, June 14, 1863 (Cartwright's Memoir of Bergenroth, London, 1870, p. 124).

3 Sentent. Caroli V. § 5 (Ibid. I. 510).-Rescript. Caroli V. § 5 (Ibid. III. 512). Henke, Append. ad Calixt. pp. 595-6.

in check the spirit of free inquiry, he discovered that it was impossible to control that spirit once let loose; and the wild excesses of Anabaptism were at once the exaggeration and the opprobrium of Lutheranism. Originally earnest and self-denying, the primitive Anabaptists had captivated the fiery soul of Carlostadt, while Luther was in his Patmos of Wartburg. The ensuing development was in some sort a resuscitation of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, remnants of whom doubtless existed in many hidden quarters. The inner light was the guide which every man should follow, and this was to result in the Kingdom of God, wherein all should be equal and live in brotherly affection, without subjection to government of any kind. These alluring dreams spread through the populations with amazing rapidity, calling forth the severest repression by the authorities, who recognised in them the danger not only to religion, but to the whole social organisation. The sectaries manifested the sincerity of their convictions by the steadfast cheerfulness with which they endured imprisonment, torture, and the stake; but this ardent fanaticism also found expression in lawless licentiousness among those who mistook the impulses of the flesh. for the dictates of the spirit. There is doubtless much exaggeration in the description of the igneum baptisma by which in Munster John Mathison encouraged promiscuous licence among the elect, but the history of mystic ardour furnishes too many examples of such aberrations for us to question the probability of their occurrence among such an assemblage of disordered and disorderly minds.1

Luther, moreover, was quite as resolute in setting limits to his movement as Rome had been in forbidding all progress, and the Anabaptists were to him enemies as detestable as Catholics. The Protestant princes, more

1 Kerssenbroch Bell. Anabaptist. cap. 15, 31.-Janssen, Geschichte der Deutschen Volkes. III., 99 sqq. (Ed. 1887.)