Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/97

Rh LUTHER 83 Saxony, George of Brandenburg, Ernest of Liineburg, Philip of Hesse, and Wolfgang of Anhalt, and by the representatives of the towns of Nuremberg and Reutlingen, and during the sitting of the diet by the representatives of Kempten, Heilbronn, Windsheim, and Weissenburg. Smalkald The edict of the diet was published on November 19, league, and the Protestant princes, after having overcome the resistance of Luther, met for conference at Smalkald on Christmas 1530, and formed an armed league for mutual defence. It had been declared that the edict would be put into execution in the spring of 1531, but when the time came the emperor had other work on hand : France had become troublesome, and the Turks were again moving. He found also that he could not count on the support of the Roman Catholic princes in the suppression of the Protestants. In presence of danger the Zwinglians and Lutherans showed a united front, and the Smalkald league grew to be a formidable power. The emperor resolved to come to terms with his Protestant subjects, and the result was the religious peace or rather truce of Nuremberg, which left things as they were until a general council should settle matters. The years following this peace of Nuremberg were comparatively prosperous to the Reformation. The Smalkald league was the only organ ized power in Germany, and very effectually prevented the oppression of Protestants by Roman Catholics. Year by year their numbers increased, and Luther saw the evangelical cause prospering. First Wiirtemberg was won back for young Duke Christopher, who had become a Protestant, and found on his entry to his dukedom that his people were already secret Protestants. In northern and central Germany whole districts embraced the evangelical doctrines. Electoral Brandenburg and ducal Saxony had received Protestant rulers, who found their people more than willing to accept the creed of their new sovereigns. At last the only large states that were able to maintain a firm front against the Lutheran doctrines were Austria, Bavaria, the Palatinate, and the great ecclesiastical pro vinces on the Rhine, and even in these regions visitations of the churches had shown that the people were forsaking the old faith. It appeared that a more serious defection than any might at any moment be made. The elector- archbishop of Cologne showed signs of abandoning the Roman Catholic faith and secularizing his vast episcopal territories, and this threatened defection made Charles bestir himself. If the elector became a Protestant the Lutherans would be in a majority in the electoral college, and a Protestant emperor might he elected. Work of During all these years Luther was quietly at work at Luther s Wittenberg, lecturing, preaching, and writing. At first he felt anxious lest civil war should break out, and he had scruples about many of the doings, and even about the very existence, of that league which was really giving the land peace. Under Philip of Hesse the Reformation was assuming a national and political shape which alarmed Luther, who was more than ever content to keep out of public life and keep himself to his books. He began publishing his lectures on various portions of Scripture, on the Epistle to the Galatians and on the Psalms of Degrees. He wrote one or two controversial tracts, mainly to show how the Reformed could not accept the conditions offered by the Roman Catholics at Augsburg. In 1534, to his great joy, the first complete translation of the whole Bible was published, and next year appeared a new edition of the Wittenberg hymn-book, containing several new hymns. Philip of Hesse, notwithstanding the failure of the con ference at Marburg, still thought that something might be done to remove the theological differences between Switzerland and Saxony, or at least between Swabia, Strasburg, and Wittenberg. The divines of Switzerland later vears. and of South Germany had by their publications made this somewhat easier. The confession of Basel, drafted by (Ecolampadius (1531), revised by Myconius, and published by the magistracy of Basel, had declared that in the Lord s Supper Christ is the food of the soul to everlasting life, and Bucer and the other South-German divines were anxious for a union. Philip of Hesse, Bucer, and Melanchthon met in conference at Cassel to arrange preliminaries, not without suspicion on Luther s part, for he could not trust Melanchthon at a conference, and, as he remarked to Justus Jonas, he hated trimmers above all men on the earth s round. The result, however, was better than he had hoped for. Bucer drew up a short confession which was to be submitted to the Wittenberg theologians, and was favourably received by them, and the South German theologians were invited to a further conference at Wittenberg. The meeting very fairly represented all the German states, and the result was the document known as the Wittenberg Concordia. This document, mainly drawn up by Bucer and Melanchthon, contains a statement of the doctrine of the sacrament of the supper expressed according to the Lutheran formula, with the declaration that unworthy or faithless partakers really do not participate in the sacrament. Melanchthon and Bucer had used too much diplomatic skill in drawing up the formula, for the essential differences between the Wittenberg and the Strasburg school were not really faced and explained ; they were covered over with ambiguous language. Nor could the document be accepted by the Swiss ; but for a time it seemed as if a satisfactory basis of peace had been established. The general satisfaction was increased by the publication of the First Helvetic Confession, which, while stating the doctrine of the sacrament of the supper in a manner essentially Zwinglian, laid special emphasis on the real spiritual presence of Christ in the elements. Luther in a letter to Meyer, burgomaster of Basel, and also in his answer to the Reformed cantons, acknowledged the earnest Christianity of the confession, and promised to do his best to promote union with the Swiss. It is sad to think that only three years later his old animosity to Zwingli and his countrymen broke out again in his book against the Turks, and that he renewed the sacramental controversy with even more than the old fury in his Short Confession of the Holy Sacrament, published in 1544. This first Helvetic confession was drawn up, however, for another purpose than to appease the Wittenberg theologians. Charles V. was urging the pope to call a general council to end the disputes within the Christian church, and it seemed so probable that a council would meet that the Protestants were everywhere preparing themselves by doctrinal statements for taking their share in its work. The German princes and their theologians were also greatly exercised about this council, and the thought of it and how Protestants should bear themselves in its presence was filling Luther s mind. He wrote several short papers on the subject in the years 1534-39, begin ning with the Convocatio Goncilii liberi and ending with Von den Conciliis tmd Kirclien. The pope, Paul III., yielding to the pressure of the emperor and of such liberal Roman Catholics as Vergerius, his legate in Germany, called a council to meet in May 1537 at Mantua, and invited the Lutherans to be present. The Lutheran princes and theologians felt compelled to face the question whether they could or could not accept the invitation, and Luther, at the request of the elector of Saxony, prepared a creed to be used as a basis of negotiations. This was submitted to the princes and theologians assembled at Smalkald, and was in substance adopted by them. It is called the Smalkald Articles, and is important because in its state ment of the doctrine of the sacrament of the supper it