Page:History of Freedom.djvu/189

 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 145

For the Lutherans were not disposed to recognise the victims of Charles IX. as martyrs for the Protestant cause. During the wars of religion Lutheran auxiliaries \vere led by a Saxon prince, a margra ve of Baden, and other German magnates, to aid the Catholic forces in putting down the heresy of Calvin. These feelings were so well kno\vn that the French Government demanded of the Duke of Wirtemberg the surrender of the Huguenots who had fled into his dominions. 1 Lutheran divines flattered themselves at first with the belief that it was the Calvinistic error, not the Protestant truth, that had invited and received the blow. 2 The most influential of them, Andreæ, declared that the Huguenots were not martyrs but rebels, who had died not for religion but sedition; and he bade the princes beware of the contagion of their spirit, which had deluged other lands with blood. When Elizabeth proposed a league for the defence of Protestantism, the North German divines protested against an alliance with men whose crime was not only religious error but blasphemous obstinacy, the root of many dread- ful heresies. The very proposal, they said, argued a disposition to prefer human succour rather than the \vord of God. 8 When another invitation came from Henry of Navarre, the famous divine Chemnitz declared union with the disciples of Calvin a useless abomination. 4 The very men whose own brethren had perished in France \vere not hearty or unanimous in execrating the deed. 5 There were Huguenots who thought that their party had brought ruin on itself, by provoking its enemies, and following the rash counsels of ambitious men. 6 This

1 Sattler, Geschichte'von rrürlemlerg, v, 23. 2 Audio quosdam etiam nostralium theologorum cruentam istam nuptiarum feralium celebrationem pertinaciae Gallorum in semel recepta de sacramentalibus mysteriis sententia acceptam referre et praeter illos pati neminem somniare (Steinberger to Crato, Nov. 23, 1572; Gillet, Cralo von CraJ1tlleim, ii. 519). 3 Heppe, Geschichte des deutschell ProlestalltisllluS, iv. 37, 47, 49, 4 Hachfeld, Afar/in Chemnitz, p, 137, 1\ Sunt tamen qui hoc factum et excusare et defendere tentant (Bullinger to Hotoman, Oct, II, 1572; Hotoman, Eþis, 35). , 6, Nec dubium est melius cum ipsis actum fuisse, si quemadmodum a principio mstltuerant, cum disciplinam ecclesiasticam introduxere, viros modestos et piae veraeque reformationis cupidos tantU'11 in suos coetus admisissent, reiectls

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