CHAPTER IV. CHURCH DIVISIONS IN GERMANY--WAR WITH THE TURKS--THE CONFERENCE AT MARBURG, 1529.

In the war against the Pope and France an imperial army in 1527 had stormed and plundered Borne. God, as Luther said, had so ordained, that the Emperor, who persecuted Luther for the Pope, had to destroy the Pope for Luther. But Charles V. was not then in a position to break with the Head of the Church. In the treaty concluded with the Pope in November, mention was again made of extirpating the Lutheran heresy. And whilst in Italy the war with France was still going on, the Emperor in the spring of 1528 sent an ambassador to the German Courts, to rouse fresh zeal for the Church in this matter.

But before the threatened danger actually reached the Evangelical party, it was preceded by disquieting rumours and false alarms.

In March 1528 a new Diet was to assemble at Ratisbon. Luther heard in February of strange designs being meditated there by the Papists. His wish was that Charles's brother Ferdinand might be detained in Hungary, where he was occupied in fighting the Turks and their protÉgÉ, Prince John Zapolya of Transylvania, and that the Diet should be prevented from meeting. Luther's adversaries, on the other hand, feared an unfavourable decision from the Estates, and the Emperor at length peremptorily forbade their meeting.

Just about this time, John Pack, a steward of the chancery who had been dismissed by Duke George of Saxony, came to the Landgrave Philip and informed him of a league concluded with King Ferdinand by the Dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, the Electors of Mayence and Brandenburg, and several Bishops, to attack the Evangelical princes. The Electorate of Saxony, where John was just then engaged in completing the re-organisation of the Church, was to be partitioned among them, and Hesse was to be allotted to Duke George. John and Philip quickly formed an offensive and defensive alliance, and called out their troops. The whole scheme, as was shortly proved beyond dispute, was an invention, and the pretended treaty a forgery, of Pack, who had been paid a large sum for his revelations. Luther himself had no doubt of the genuineness of the document, and persisted even afterwards in his belief. But while the Landgrave, with his habitual vehemence, was impatient to strike quickly, before their enemies were prepared, both Luther and the other Wittenberg theologians did their utmost to restrain their sovereign from any act of violence. Luther earnestly bade him remember the words: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth' (St. Matt. v. 5),—'As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men' (Rom. xii. 18),—'Those that take the sword, shall perish with the sword' (St. Matt. xxvi. 52). He warned them that 'one durst not paint the devil over one's door, nor ask him to stand godfather.' He feared a civil war among the princes, which would be worse than a rising of the peasants, and utterly ruinous to Germany. Philip accordingly stayed his hand, until the reply of his supposed enemies, from whom he demanded an explanation, puzzled him as to the meaning of Pack's overtures.

A private letter sent by Luther to Link, in which he spoke of George as a fool, and said he mistrusted his promises, led afterwards, on George's learning its contents, to a new and bitter quarrel between the two. The Duke made a violent attack on Luther in a pamphlet, which appeared early in 1521, to which the latter replied with equal violence, denouncing the abuse of 'secret (i.e. private) and stolen letters.' George retorted in the same strain, and persuaded his cousin John, to whom he addressed a formal complaint, to prohibit Luther from printing anything more against him without Electoral permission;—a step which effectually silenced his opponent.

On November 30, 1528, the Emperor summoned a Diet to meet at Spires on February 21 of the following year, in order that decisive and energetic measures should be taken—as recommended once more by the Pope—to secure the unity and sole supremacy of the Catholic Church. The chief subjects named for deliberation were, the armament against the Turks, and the innovations in matters of religion.

As regards the war against the Turks, Luther, who had previously let fall some occasional remarks about certain wholesome effects it would have in checking the designs of the Papacy, let his voice be heard, notwithstanding, in summoning the whole nation to do battle against the fearful and horrible enemy, whom they had hitherto suffered so shamefully to oppress them. Since the latter part of the summer of 1528 he had been engaged upon a pamphlet 'On the War against the Turks,' the publication of which was accidentally delayed till March, when he was busy with his Catechism.

In this pamphlet he spoke to his fellow-Germans, with the noblest fire and in the fulness of his strength, as a Christian, a citizen, and a patriot, and with a clearness and decision derived from convictions and principles of his own. He had no wish to preach a new crusade; for the sword had nothing to do with religion, but only with bodily and temporal things. But he exhorted and encouraged the authority, whom God had entrusted with temporal power, to take up the sword against the all-devouring enemy, with sure trust in God and certain confidence in his mission. By the 'authority' he meant the Emperor, in whom he recognised the head of Germany. He it was who must fight against the Turks; under his banner they must march, and upon that banner should be seen the command of God, which said 'Protect the righteous, but punish the wicked.' 'But,' asked Luther, 'how many are there who can read those words on the Emperor's banner, or who seriously believe in them?' He complained that neither Emperor nor princes properly believed that they were Emperor and princes, and therefore thought little about the protection they owed to their subjects. Further on he rebuked the princes for letting matters go on as if they had no concern in them, instead of advising and assisting the Emperor with all the means in their power. He knew well the pride of some of the princes, who would like to see the Emperor a nonentity and themselves the heroes and masters. Rebellion, he said, was punished in the case of the peasants; but if rebellion were punished also among princes and nobles, he fancied there would be very few of them left. He feared that the Turk would bring some such punishment upon them, and he prayed God to avert it. Finally, he bade them remember not to buckle on their armour too loosely, and underrate their enemies, as Germans were too prone to do. He warned them not to tempt God by inadequate preparation, and sacrifice the poor Germans at the shambles, nor as soon as the victory was won to 'sit down again and carouse until the hour of need returned.'

At Spires, however, the whole zeal of the imperial commissaries and of the Catholic Estates was directed, not against the common enemy of Germany and Christendom, but to the internal affairs of the Church. They succeeded in passing a resolution or article, declaring that those States which had held to the Edict of Worms should continue to impose its execution on their subjects; the other States should abstain at least from further innovations. The celebration of the mass was not to be obstructed, nor was anyone to be prevented from hearing it. The subjects of one State were never to be protected by another State against their own. By these means, not only was the Reformation prevented from spreading farther, but it was cut off at a blow in those places where it had already been in full swing. By the decision respecting the mass, room was given for attempts to reinstate it on Evangelical territory; by the other decision respecting the subjects of different States, power was given to the bishops of the German Empire to coerce, if they chose, the local clergy, as their subordinates. Further steps in the exercise of this power could easily be anticipated.

This resolution of the majority was answered on April 19 by the Evangelical party with a formal protest, from which they received the name their descendants still bear—Protestants. They insisted that the Imperial Recess unanimously agreed on at the first Diet of Spires in 1526 could only be altered by the unanimous consent of the States; and they declared 'that, even apart from that, in matters relating to the honour of God and the salvation of our souls, every man must stand alone before God and give account for himself.' In these matters, therefore, "they could not submit to the resolution of the majority."

The majority, however, as well as Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother and representative, refused to admit their right of opposition. The minority must prepare to submit to coercion and the exercise of force. Against this the Elector and Landgrave concluded, on April 22, a 'secret agreement' with the cities of NÜremberg, Strasburg, and Ulm. The Landgrave was eager that this alliance should be strengthened by the admission of Zurich and the other Evangelical towns in Switzerland. And a similar proposal was made to him by Zwingli, who, in connection with his ecclesiastical labours, was carrying on a bold and high policy, in striving to effect an alliance with the republic of Venice and the King of France against the Emperor, He certainly far overrated the importance of his town in the great affairs of the world, and placed a strangely naive confidence in the French monarch.

Luther, on the contrary, set his face as resolutely now as in the affair of Pack, against any appeal to the sword in support of the gospel. He would have his friends rely on God and not on the wit of man; and, with regard to the last Diet, he was quite content that God had not allowed their enemies to rage even more. He was willing even to trust to the Emperor for relief; the Evangelical party, he said, should represent to his Majesty how their sole concern was for the gospel and for the removal of abuses which no one could deny to exist; how, at the same time, they had resisted the iconoclasts and other riotous fanatics, nay, how the suppression of the Anabaptists and the peasants was pre-eminently due to them, and how they had been the first to bring to light and vindicate the rights and majesty of authority. A representation of this kind, he hoped, must surely have an influence on the Emperor. He flatly rejected any alliance with those,—namely, the Swiss,—who 'strive thus against God and the Sacrament;' such an alliance would disgrace the gospel and draw down their sins upon their heads. This opinion, in which the other Wittenberg theologians, and especially Melancthon, concurred, determined that of the Elector.

The Landgrave did his utmost to remove this obstacle to an alliance with the Swiss. He urged a personal conference between the rival theologians on the question of the Sacrament. Luther and Melancthon were strongly opposed to such a step, inasmuch as the course of the controversy hitherto had not revealed a single point which offered any hope of reconciliation or mutual approach. Luther reminded him how, ten years before, the Leipzig disputation served only to make bad worse. Intrigues, moreover, were apprehended from the other side, lest the Lutherans should be held up to odium as the enemies of unity and obstacles to an alliance, and the Landgrave be alienated from them. Melancthon, indeed, had brought with him from Spires, where he had been staying with Philip, a suspicion that the latter inclined to the Zwinglians, and was right in his conjecture at least so far, that their doctrine did not appear to him nearly so questionable as to the Wittenbergers. But the simple fear of consequences made Luther unwilling and unable to refuse the Landgrave's urgent invitation, backed as it was with the concurrence of the Elector. He wrote to him on June 23, declaring his readiness to 'render him this useless service with all diligence,' and only entreated him to consider once more whether it would do more good than harm. The conference was to take place at the Castle of Marburg on Michaelmas day (1529).

Luther's sentiments in the interval are expressed in a letter which he wrote on August 2 to a distant friend, the pastor Brismann at Eiga. 'Philip (Melancthon) and myself,' he says, 'after many refusals and much vain resistance, have been at length compelled to give our consent, because of the Landgrave's importunity; but I know not yet whether our going will come to anything. We have no hopes of any good result, but suspect artifice on all sides, that our enemies may be able to boast of having gained the victory…. I am pretty well in body, but inwardly weak, suffering like Peter from want of faith; but the prayers of my brethren support me…. That youth of Hesse is restless, and boiling over with projects…. Thus everywhere we are threatened with more danger from our own people than from our enemies. Satan rests not, in his bloodthirstiness, from the work of murder and bloodshed.'

In the same letter Luther tells of the panic caused by a new pestilence—the Sweating Sickness—which had appeared in Germany and at Wittenberg itself. It was a plague, known already many years before, which used to attack its victims with fever, sweat, thirst, intense pain and exhaustion, and snatch them off with fearful rapidity. Luther knew well the danger of it when once it actually appeared. But he watched without terror the supposed symptoms of its appearance at Wittenberg, and remarked that the sickness there was mainly caused by fright. On the 27th he told another friend how the night before he had awoke bathed in sweat, and tormented with anxious thoughts, so much so, that had he given way to them he might very likely have fallen ill like so many others. He named also several of his acquaintances, whom he had driven out of bed, when they lay there fancying themselves ill, and who were now laughing at their own fancies.

The Emperor, meanwhile, concluded a final treaty with the Pope on June 29, and on August 5 made peace with King Francis. By this treaty of Barcelona he pledged himself to provide a suitable antidote to the poisonous infection of the new opinions. By the peace of Cambray he renewed the promise, given in the treaty of Madrid, of a mutual cooperation of the two monarchs for the extirpation of heresy.

At Marburg the meeting now actually took place between the theological champions of that great religious movement which strove to set up the gospel against the domination of Rome, and was therefore condemned by Rome as heretical. It was now to be decided whether the anti-Romanists could not become united among themselves; whether the two hostile parties in this movement could not, at least in face of the common danger, join to make a powerful united Church. Zwingli's political conduct, and the cheerful and submissive readiness with which he had complied with the Landgrave's proposal, afforded ground for expecting that, while steadfastly adhering to his own doctrine, he would embrace such an alliance, notwithstanding their doctrinal differences. Everything now really depended upon Luther.

Zwingli and Oecolampadius met the Strasburg theologians, Butzer and
Hedio, and Jacob Sturm, the leading citizen of that town, on
September 29, at Marburg. The next day they were joined by Luther
and Melancthon, together with Jonas and Cruciger from Wittenberg and
Myeonius from Gotha; and afterwards came the preachers Osiander from
NÜremberg, Brenz from SchwÄbish Hall, and Stephen Agricola from
Augsburg. The Landgrave entertained them in a friendly and sumptuous
manner at his castle.

On October 1, the day after his arrival, Luther was summoned by the Landgrave to a private conference with Oecolampadius, towards whom he had always felt more confidence, and whom he had greeted in a friendly manner when they met. Melancthon, being of a calmer temperament, was left to confer with Zwingli. As regards the main subject of the controversy, the question of the Sacrament, no practical result was arrived at between the parties. But on certain other points, in which Zwingli had been suspected by the Wittenbergers, and in which he partly differed from them—for instance, concerning the Church doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, and the Godhead of Christ, and the doctrine of original sin—he offered explanations to Melancthon, the result of which was that the two came to an agreement.

The general debate began on Sunday, October 2, at six o'clock in the morning. The theologians assembled for that purpose in an apartment in the east wing of the castle, before the Landgrave himself, and a number of nobles and guests of the court, including the exiled Duke Ulrich of WÜrtemberg. Out of deference to the audience, the language used was to be German. Zwingli had wished, instead, that anyone who desired it might be admitted to hear, but that the discussion should be held in Latin, which he could speak with greater fluency. The four theologians last mentioned, who were to conduct the debate, sat together at a table. Luther, however, assumed the lead of his side; Melancthon only put in a few remarks here and there. The Landgrave's chancellor, Feige, opened the proceedings with a formal address.

Luther at the outset requested that his opponents should first express their opinions upon other points of doctrine which seemed to him doubtful; but he waived this request on Oecolampadius's replying that he was not aware that such doubts involved any contradiction to Luther's doctrine, and on Zwingli's appealing to his agreement recently effected with Melancthon. All he himself had to do, said Luther, was to declare publicly, that with regard to those doubts he disagreed entirely with certain expressions contained in their earlier writings. The chief question was then taken in hand.

The arguments and counter-arguments, set forth by the combatants at various times in their writings, were now succinctly but exhaustively recapitulated. But they were neither strengthened further nor enlarged. The disputants were constrained to listen during this debate to the oral utterances of their opponents with more deference than they had done for the most part in their literary controversy, with its hasty and passionate expressions on each side.

Luther from the outset took his stand, as he had done before, on the simple words of institution, 'This is my Body.' He had chalked them down before him on the table. His opponents, he maintained, ought to give to God the honour due to Him, by believing His 'pure and unadorned Word.'

Zwingli and Oecolampadius, on the contrary, relied mainly, as heretofore, on the words of Christ in the sixth chapter of St. John, where He evidently alluded to a spiritual feeding, and declared that 'the flesh profiteth nothing.' Honour must be given to God, he said, by accepting from Him this clear interpretation of His Word. Luther agreed with them, as previously, that Jesus there spoke only of the spiritual partaking by the faithful, but maintained that in the Sacrament He had, in his words of institution, superadded the offer of His Body for the strengthening of faith and that these words were not useless or unmeaning, but of potent efficacy through the Word of God. 'I would eat even crab-apples,' said Luther, without asking why, if the Lord put them before me, and said "Take and eat."' He fired up when Zwingli answered that the passage in St. John 'broke Luther's neck,' the expression not being as familiar to him as to the Swiss: the Landgrave himself had to step in as a mediator and quiet them.

In the afternoon Luther's opponents proceeded to argue 'that Christ could not be present with His Body at the Sacrament, because His Body was in heaven, and the body, as such, was confined within circumscribed limits, and could only be present in one place at a time. Luther then asked, with reference to the objection that Christ was in heaven and at the right hand of God, why Zwingli insisted on taking those words in such a nakedly literal sense. He declined to enter upon explanations as to the locality of the Body, though he could well have disputed for a long time on that subject: for the omnipotence of God, he said, by virtue whereof that Body was present everywhere at the Sacrament, stood above all mathematics. Of greater weight to him must have been the argument of Zwingli, which at any rate had a Christian and biblical aspect, that Christ with His flesh became like his human brethren, while they again at the last day are to be fashioned like unto his glorified Body, though incapable, nevertheless, of being in different places at the same time. Luther rejected this argument, however, on the ground of the distinction he was careful to draw between the actual attributes which Christ possessed in common with all Christians, and those which He did not so possess at all, or possessed in a manner peculiar to Himself, and exalting him far above mankind. For example, Christ had no wife, as men have.

The next day, Sunday, Luther preached the early morning sermon. He connected his remarks with the Gospel for the day, and dwelt with freshness and power, but without any reference to the controversy then pending, on forgiveness of sin and justification by faith.

The disputation, however, was resumed later on in the morning. The subject of discussion was still the presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament. Luther persisted in refusing to regard that Body as one involving the idea of limits: the Body here was not local or circumscribed by bounds. The Swiss, on the other hand, did not deny the possibility of a miracle, whereby God might permit a body to be in more than one place at the same time; but then they demanded proof that such a miracle was really; effected with the Body of Christ. Luther again appealed to the words before him: 'This is My Body.' He said: 'I cannot slur over the words of our Lord. I cannot but acknowledge that the Body of Christ is there.' Here Zwingli quickly interrupted him with the remark that Luther himself restricted Christ's Body to a place, for the adverb 'there' was an adverb of place. Luther, however, refused to have his off-hand expression so interpreted, and again deprecated the mathematical argument. The same day, the second of the debate, Zwingli and Oecolampadius sought to fortify their theory by evidence adduced from Christian antiquity. On some points at least they were able to appeal to Augustine. But Luther put a different construction on the passages they quoted, and refused altogether to accept him as an authority against Scripture. That evening the disputation was concluded by each party protesting that their doctrine remained unrefuted by Scripture, and leaving their opponents to the judgment of God, by whom they might still be converted. Zwingli broke into tears.

Philip in vain endeavoured to bring the contending parties to a closer understanding. Just then the news came that the fearful pestilence, the Sweating Sickness, had broken out in the town. All further proceedings were stopped at once, and everyone hurried away with his guests. The Landgrave only hastily arranged that in regard to the points of Christian belief in which it was doubtful how far the Swiss agreed with the Evangelical faith, a series of propositions should be drawn up by Luther, and signed by the theologians on both sides. This was done on the Monday. They are the fifteen 'Articles of Marburg.' They expressed unity in all other doctrines, and in the Sacrament also, in so far as they declared that the Sacrament of the Altar is a Sacrament of the true Body and Blood of Christ, and that the 'spiritual eating' of that Body is the primary condition required. The only point left in dispute was 'whether the true Body and Blood of Christ are present bodily in the bread and wine.'

[Illustration: Fig. 89. FACSIMILE OF THE SUPERSCRIPTION AND
SIGNATURES TO THE MARBURG ARTICLES.]

If we compare the manner in which this disputation at Marburg was conducted with the previous character of the contest, in which the one party had denounced their opponents as diabolical fanatics, and the other as reactionary Papists and worshippers of 'a god made of bread,' it will be evident that some results of importance at least had been attained by the discussion itself and the mode in which it had been held. The tone here, from first to last, was more courteous, nay, even friendly in comparison. And the moderation now used by these frank, outspoken men, so passionately excited hitherto, could not have resulted solely from self-imposed restraint. Luther, when he wished to speak very emphatically, addressed his opponents as 'my dearest sirs.' Brenz, who was an eye-witness, tells us one might have thought Luther and Zwingli were brothers. And, in fact, on all the main doctrines but that one they agreed. Finer distinctions of theory, which might have furnished food for argument, were mutually waived. But the essential divergence between them on the one great point of the Sacrament, and the spirit manifested in regard to it, made it impossible for Luther to hold out to Zwingli the right hand of fellowship, which the latter and his party so earnestly desired. Luther held to his opinion: 'Yours is a different spirit from ours.' His companions unanimously agreed with him that though they might entertain sentiments of friendship and Christian love towards them, they dared not acknowledge them as brethren in Christ. In the 'Articles' the only mention made of this matter was that although they had not yet agreed on that point, still 'each party should treat the other with Christian charity, so far as each one's conscience would permit.'

On Tuesday afternoon Luther left Marburg, and set out on his journey homeward. At the wish of the Elector he travelled by way of Schleiz, where John was then consulting with the Margrave George of Brandenburg about the Protestant alliance. They desired of Luther a short and comprehensive confession of evangelical faith, as members of which they wished to enrol themselves. Luther immediately compiled one accordingly, upon the basis of the Marburg Articles, making some additions and strengthening some expressions in accordance with his own views. About October 18 he returned to Wittenberg.

This confession was submitted without delay to a meeting of Protestants at Schwabach. The result was, that Ulm and Strasburg declined to subscribe a compact from which the Swiss were excluded.

Within the league itself, the question was now seriously considered, how far the Protestant States might go, in the event of the Emperor really seeking to coerce them to submission—whether, in a word, they could venture to oppose force to force. Luther's opinion, however, on this point remained unshaken. Whatever civil law and counsellors might say, it was conclusive for them as Christians, in his opinion, that civil authority was ordained by God, and that the Emperor, as the lord paramount of Germany, was the supreme civil authority in the nation. His first consideration was the imperial dignity, as he conceived it, and the relative position and duties of the princes of the Empire. As subjects of the Emperor, he regarded these princes in the same light as he regarded their own territorial subjects, the burgomasters of the towns and the various other magnates and nobles, to whom they themselves had never conceded any right to oppose, either by protest or force, their own regulations, as territorial sovereigns, in matters affecting the Church. Not, indeed, that he required a simply passive obedience, however badly the authorities and the Emperor might behave; on the contrary, he admitted the possibility of having to depose the Emperor. 'Sin itself,' he said, 'does not destroy authority and obedience; but the punishment of sin destroys them, as, for instance, if the Empire and the Electors were unanimously to dethrone the Emperor, and make him cease to be one. But so long as he remains unpunished and Emperor, no one should refuse him obedience.' Nothing, therefore, in his opinion, short of a common act of the Estates could provide a remedy against an unjust, tyrannical, and law-breaking Emperor, while at present it was apparent that Charles and the majority of the Diet were agreed. Hence he refused to recognise the right of individual States to an appeal to force, for his theory of the German Empire involved the idea of a firm and united community or State, and not in any way that of a league or federation, the independent members of which might take up arms against a breach of their articles of agreement. This theory was shared by his Elector and the NÜrembergers. Just as these Protestants for conscience sake had refused obedience to the resolution of the Diet at Spires, so they felt themselves bound by conscience to submit to the consequences of that refusal. Luther's opinion, therefore, as to the proper attitude for the Protestant States was the same as he had expressed to the Elector Frederick on his return from the Wartburg. It was their duty, he said, if God should permit matters to go so far, to allow the Emperor to enter their territory and act against their subjects, without, however, giving their assent or assisting him. But he added: 'It is sheer want of faith not to trust to God to protect us, without any wit or power of man…. "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."'

Meanwhile Luther was anxious to respond still further to the call of duty against the Turks. Their multitudinous hosts had advanced as far as Vienna, and had severely harassed that city, which, though defended with heroic valour, was but badly fortified. A general assault was made in force while Luther was on his homeward journey. The news stirred him to his inmost soul. He ascribed to it, and to their god, the devil, the violent temptations and anguish of soul from which he was then suffering again. Immediately after his return, he undertook to write a 'War sermon against the Turks.' On October 26 he received the tidings that they were compelled to retreat. This was a 'heavensent miracle' to him. But though his former exhortations and warnings had seemed to many exaggerated, he was right in perceiving that the danger was only averted. He published his sermon, a new edition of which had to be issued with the new year.

He saw in the Turks the fulfilment of the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Revelation of St. John about Gog and Magog, and therewith a judgment of God for the punishment of corrupt Christendom. But just as in his first pamphlet he had called on the authorities, in virtue of their appointment by God, to protect their own people against the enemy, so he now wished further to make all German Christians strong in conscience and full of courage, to take the field under their banner, according to God's command. He set before them the example of the 'beloved St. Maurice and his companions,' and of many other saints, who had served in arms their Emperor as knights or citizens. He would, if danger came in earnest, 'fain have, whoever could, defend themselves,—young and old, husband and wife, man-servant and maid-servant,' just as, according to ancient Roman writers, the German wives and maidens fought together with the men. He looked on no house as so mean that it might not do something to repel the foe. Was it not better to be slain at home, in obedience to God, than to be taken prisoners and dragged away like cattle to be sold? At the same time he exhorted and encouraged those whom this misfortune befell, that, as Jeremiah admonished the Jews in Babylon, they should be patient in prison, and cling firmly to the faith, and neither through their misery nor through the hypocritical worship of the Turks, allow themselves to be seduced into becoming renegades.

Such is what he preached to the people, while he had to complain in his letters to friends that 'the Emperor Charles threatens us even still more dreadfully than does the Turk; so that on both sides we have an Emperor as our enemy, an Eastern and a Western one.' And in those days also he expressed his opinion that those who confessed the gospel should keep their hands 'unsoiled by blood and crime' as regards their Emperor, and, even though his behaviour might be a 'very threat of the devil,' should keep steadfastly to their God, with prayer, supplication, and hope,—to that God Whose manifest help had hitherto been so abundantly vouchsafed to them.