and to encounter the rage of bigotry armed with power, required the utmost vehemence of zeal, as well as a temper daring to excess. A gentle call would neither have reached nor have excited those to whom it was addressed. A spirit more amiable, but less vigorous than Luther's, would have shrunk back from the dangers which he braved and surmounted. Towards the close of Luther's life, though without any perceptible diminution of his zeal or abilities, the infirmities of his temper increased upon him, so that he grew daily more peevish, more irascible, and more impatient of contradiction. Having lived to be a witness of his own amazing success; to see a great part of Europe embrace his doctrines; and to shake the foundation of the papal throne, before which the mightiest monarchs had trembled, he discovered, on some occasions, symptoms of vanity and self-applause. He must have been, indeed, more than man, if, upon contemplating all that he actually accomplished, he had never felt any sentiment of this kind rising in his breast". Some time before his death he felt his strength declining, his constitution being worn out by a prodigious multiplicity of business, added to the labour of discharging his ministerial function with unremitting diligence, to the fatigue of constant study, besides the composition of works as voluminous as if he had enjoyed uninterrupted leisure and retirement. His natural intrepidity did not forsake him at the approach of death: his last conversa a A remarkable instance of this, as well as of a certain singularity and elevation of sentiment, is found in his last will. Though the effects which he had to bequeath were very inconsiderable, he thought it necessary to make a testament, but scorned to frame it with the usual legal formalities. Notus sum,' says he, in cœlo, in terra, et inferno, et auctoritatem ad hoc sufficientem habeo, ut mihi so: credatur, cum Deus mihi, homini licet damnabili, et miserabili peccatori, ex paterna misericordia Evangelium filii sui crediderit, dederitque ut in eo verax et fidelis fuerim, ita ut multi in mundo illud per me acceperint, et me pro Doctore veritatis agnoverint, spreto banno papæ, Cæsaris, regum, principum, et sacerdotum, imo omnium dæmonum odio. Quidni, igitur, ad dispositionem hanc, in re exigua, sufficiat, si adsit manus mea testimonium, et dici possit, hæc scripsit D. Martinus Luther, Notarius Dei, et testis Evangelii ejus.' Seck. 1. iii, p. 651. BOOK VIIL 1546. BOOK tion with his friends was concerning the happiness re VIII. 1546. . The empe ror endeavours to served for good men in a future life, of which he spoke with the fervour and delight natural to one who expected and wished to enter soon upon the enjoyment of it". The account of his death filled the Roman Catholic party with excessive as well as indecent joy, and damped the spirits of all his followers; neither party sufficiently considering that his doctrines were now so firmly rooted, as to be in a condition to flourish independent of the hand which had first planted them. His funeral was celebrated by order of the elector of Saxony with extraordinary pomp. He left several children by his wife Catharine a Boria, who survived him. Towards the end of the last century, there were in Saxony some of his descendants in decent and honourable stations". The emperor, meanwhile, pursued the plan of dissimulation with which he had set out, employing every art amuse and to amuse the Protestants, and to quiet their fears and jeadeceive the lousies. For this purpose, he contrived to have an inter Protest ants. view with the landgrave of Hesse, the most active of all the confederates, and the most suspicious of his designs. To him he made such warm professions of his concern March 28. for the happiness of Germany, and of his aversion to all violent measures; he denied in such express terms, his having entered into any league, or having begun any military preparations which should give any just cause of alarm to the Protestants, as seem to have dispelled all the landgrave's doubts and apprehensions, and sent him away fully satisfied of his pacific intentions. This artifice was of great advantage, and effectually answered the purpose for which it was employed. The landgrave, upon his leaving Spires, where he had been admitted to this interview, went to Worms, where the Smalkaldic confederates were assembled, and gave them such a flattering representation of the emperor's favourable disposition towards them, that they, who were too apt, as well from the b Sleid. 362. Seck. lib. iii, 632, &c. Seck. lib. iii, 651. temper of the German nation, as from the genius of all great associations or bodies of men, to be slow, and dilatory, and undecisive in their deliberations, thought there was no necessity of taking any immediate measures against danger, which appeared to be distant or imaginary. BOOK VIII. 1546. council Protest Such events, however, soon occurred, as staggered the Proceedcredit which the Protestants had given to the emperor's ings of the declarations. The council of Trent, though still com-against the posed of a small number of Italian and Spanish prelates, without a single deputy from many of the kingdoms, which it assumed a right of binding by its decrees, being ashamed of its long inactivity, proceeded now to settle articles of the greatest importance. Having begun with examining the first and chief point in controversy between the church of Rome and the reformers, concerning the rule which should be held as supreme and decisive in matters of faith, the council, by its infallible authority, determined, That the books to which the designation of April 8. apocryphal hath been given, are of equal authority with those which were received by the Jews and primitive Christians into the sacred canon; that the traditions handed down from the apostolic age, and preserved in the church, are entitled to as much regard as the doctrines and precepts which the inspired authors have committed to writing; that the Latin translation of the Scriptures, made or revised by St Jerome, and known by the name of the vulgate translation, should be read in churches, and appealed to in the schools, as authentic and canonical, Against all who disclaimed the truth of these tenets, anathemas were denounced in the name and by the authority of the Holy Ghost. The decision of these points, which undermined the main foundation of the Lutheran system, was a plain warning to the Protestants what judg ment they might expect when the council should have leisure to take into consideration the particular and subordinate articles of their creed e. BOOK 1546. This discovery of the council's readiness to condemfr the opinions of the Protestants, was soon followed by a striking instance of the pope's resolution to punish such as embraced them. The appeal of the canons of Cologne against their archbishop having been carried to Rome, Paul eagerly seized on that opportunity, both of displaying the extent of his own authority, and of teaching the German ecclesiastics the danger of revolting from the established church. As no person appeared in behalf of the archbishop, he was held to be convicted of the crime April 16. of heresy, and a papal bull was issued, depriving him of his ecclesiastical diguity, inflicting on him the sentence of excommunication, and absolving his subjects from the oath of allegiance which they had taken to him as their civil superior. The countenance which he had given to the Lutheran heresy was the only crime imputed to him, as well as the only reason assigned to justify the extraordinary severity of this decree. The Protestants could hardly believe that Paul, how zealous soever he might be to defend the established system, or to humble those who invaded it, would have ventured to proceed to such extremities against a prince and clector of the empire, without having previously secured such powerful protection as would render his censure something more than an impotent and despicable sally of resentment. They were of course deeply alarmed at this sentence against the archbishop, considering it as a sure indication of the malevolent intentions, not only of the pope, but of the emperor, against the whole party. Charles about to conmenc against the Piotrk ants. Upon this fresh revival of their fears, with such violeuce as is natural to men roused from a false security, hostilin and conscious of their having been deceived, Charles sav that now it became necessary to throw asile the mask, and to declare openly what pa t he determined to act. By a long series of artifice and fallacy, he had gained so ruch time, that his measures, though not alte ner ripe for execution, were in great forwardness. The pope, by f Sleid. 354 b. Faul, 155. Pailavic. 224. VIII. 1546. his proceedings againt the elector of Cologne, as well as BOOK by the decree of the council, had precipitated matters into such a situation, as rendered a breach between the emperor and the Protestants almost unavoidable. Charles had therefore no choice left him but either to take part with them in overturning what the see of Rome had determined, or to support the authority of the church openly by force of arms. Nor did the pope think it enough to Negociates have brought the emperor under a necessity of acting; with the he pressed him to begin his operations immediately, and pope. to carry them on with such vigour as could not fail of securing success. Transported by his zeal against heresy, Paul forgot all the prudent and cautious maxims of the papal see, with regard to the danger of extending the imperial authority beyond due bounds; and, in order to crush the Lutherans, he was willing to contribute towards raising up a master that might one day prove formidable to himself as well as to the rest of Italy. But, besides the certain expectation of assistance from Concludes the pope, Charles was now secure from any danger of a truce with Solyinterruption to his designs by the Turkish arms. His man. negociations at the Porte, which he had carried on with great assiduity since the peace of Crespy, were on the point of being terminated in such a manner as he desired. Solyman, partly in compliance with the French king, who, in order to avoid the disagreeable obligation of joining the emperor against his ancient ally, laboured with great zeal to bring about an accommodation between them, and partly from its being necessary to turn his arms towards the east, where the Persians threatened to invade his dominions, consented without difficulty to a truce for five years. The chief article of it was, that each should retain possession of what he now held in Hungary; and Ferdinand, as a sacrifice to the pride of the sultan, submitted to pay an annual tribute of fifty thousand crowns. Istuanhaff Hist. Hung. 180. Mem. de Ribier, tom. i, 582. |