of controversy; that all Christians should submit to its decrees as the infallible rule of their faith; and therefore they besought him to exert the power with which he was invested by the Almighty in protecting that assembly, and in compelling the Protestants to acquiesce in its determinations. The Protestants, on the other hand, presented a memorial, in which, after repeating their objections to the council of Trent, they proposed, as the only effectual method of deciding the points in dispute, that either a free general council should be assembled in Germany, or that a select number of divines should be appointed out of each party to examine and define articles of faith. They mentioned the recesses of several diets favourable to this proposition, and which had afforded them the prospect of terminating all their differences in this amicable manner; they now conjured the emperor not to depart from his former plan, and, by offering violence to their consciences, to bring calamities upon Germany, the very thought of which must fill every lover of his country with horror. The emperor, receiving this paper with a contemptuous smile, paid no further regard to it. Having already taken his final resolution, and perceiving that nothing but force could compel them to acquiesce in it, he despatched the Cardinal of Trent to Rome, in order to conclude an alliance with the pope, the terms of which were already agreed on; he commanded a body of troops, levied on purpose in the Low Countries, to advance towards Germany; he gave commissions to several officers for raising men in different parts of the empire; he warned John and Albert of Brandenburg, that now was the proper time of exerting themselves, in order to rescue their ally, Henry of Brunswick, from captivity. Alarmed by such proceedings," the deputies of the confede rates demanded audience of the emperor, and, in the name of their masters, required to know whether these military preparations were carried on by his command, and for what end, and against what enemy ? To a question put in such a tone, and at a time when facts were become too notorious to be denied, it was necessary to give an explicit answer Charles owned the order he had issued, and, professing his purpose not to molest on account of religion those who should act as dutiful subjects, declared that he had nothing in view but to maintain the rights and prerogatives of the imperial dignity, and, by punishing some factious members,

to preserve the ancient constitution of the empire from being impaired or dissolved by their irregular and licentious conduct. Though the emperor did not name the persons whom he charged with such high crimes, and destined to be the objects of his vengeance, it was obvious that he had the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse in view. Their deputies considering what he had said as a plain declaration of his hostile intentions, immediately retired from Ratisbon." The diet soon after broke up (on the 24th of July), and both parties openly prepared for war.

On the emperor's conduct in all this business we must pronounce, that the meanness, deceit, and tyranny by which it was characterized, are in the highest degree offensive to every sentiment of honour and justice. Yet all is vindicated, and even applauded, both by Pallavicini and Maimbourg, because it was to serve the church! Nothing could have been more agreeable to our feelings, than to have seen Charles, after all his artifice and contrivance, taken unprepared, and defeated at the head of the troops which he had got together, and the forces of his prompter, the pope, cut off before they could reach the scene of action; all which had wellnigh taken place, and, humanly speaking, might easily have been effected. Thus the liberty of Germany might have been established, and the Protestant religion placed in security. This would have exactly met our wishes; but to that higher Wisdom which controls all occurrences, and watches with an eye of special regard over the affairs of the church, it seemed good to permit a widely different course of events. It pleased Him, indeed, ultimately to establish the cause of the German Protestants in safety but, according to the anticipations which we have repeatedly seen the leading reformers entertaining, their church was to be previously humbled and purified. was His good pleasure also to bring down the pride, and to disappoint the ambition of Charles V., as effectually, and in as mortifying a manner, as if it had been accomplished by the elector and the landgrave; but it was to be by the hand of a man of far less principle than either of them, whom the emperor himself was, with the most unsuspecting confidence, nourishing up to execute both these great designs of Providence. Here then we are strikingly taught to commit our ways to God, to leave all with him, and in faith and

It

patience to wait the unfolding of his dispensations, who will infallibly bring about the events most to be desired in the time and by the means which are the best to be chosen.

Such were, in fact, the sentiments with which the pious Elector of Saxony received the news of the emperor's virtual denunciation of him as a rebel, whom he would forthwith proceed to punish as he deserved. In directing his deputies quietly to withdraw from Ratisbon, he said, " he had merited no such treatment from the emperor's hands; that, whatever might be pretended, his religion was the real cause of it; and that he committed the event to God, who would undoubtedly direct the whole to the glory of his own name. By his grace," he added, "I have resolved to persevere even to the end in the confession of his word and truth, though it should be at the risk of my person, my life, and all that I possess." He rejoiced to hear that the confederates were not dispirited! he relied on the Divine aid; and, in conjunction with the landgrave, resolved to do every thing in his power for the common cause.

Two honourable instances of states which joined the Protestant cause, even in its present perilous circumstances, demand to be here recorded. One of these was the Palatinate of the Rhine. We have before related the reformation of the Upper Palatinate, or that of Bavaria. In the year 1545, the Lower Palatinate, or Palatinate of the Rhine, which is of much superior importance, its prince enjoying the electoral dignity, followed the example. Frederic the present elector had married the emperor's niece, the daughter of Christiern King of Denmark. He was a great favourite with the emperor, and had been repeatedly employed by him in his transactions with the Protestants: the consequence of which was, very contrary to what had been intended, that he became strongly impressed in favour of their principles. He succeeded his brother Lewis in the year 1544. Like many others, he had indulged in the hope that a general reformation, or at least a legal establishment of the reformed religion, would be the result of so many conferences and so much discussion; and he was willing to wait for this happy event. Finding all these, however, issue in nothing, he thought himself called, at length, to countenance by his authority the system which he approved, and to gratify the

LUTHER'S APPROACHING DISSOLUTION.

179

wishes of his subjects, who, by their intercourse with the Protestant states, had universally imbibed their opinions. In all this he was materially prompted and aided by his relation and destined successor, Otho Henry, of whom mention has been made in speaking of the other Palatinate.

The case of Leutkirk, a free imperial city of Suabia, is still more honourable, because its avowal of the principles of the reformation was made when the danger had still further increased, and notwithstanding formidable opposition, both from persons possessing civil authority in the city, and from powerful eclesiastical establishments in the neighbourhood. The thirst after evangelical truth appears to have been first excited here by the publication of the Confession of Augsburg, in the year 1531: but it was strenuously resisted by Faber, a native of the place-the same who was afterward raised to the see of Vienna for his opposition to Luther. By his influence a faction was kept up in the city, which effectually withstood the public reception of the reformation till the year 1546, when the opposition was overborne; not, it must be confessed, without some disorders taking place. Protestantism was then introduced, and, notwithstanding many conflicts and some reverses, it has been maintained there to this day.

CHAPTER XXV.

Closing Transactions of Luther's Life-His Death-His Character-His later Writings.

We now proceed more particularly to describe the closing scenes of Luther's life.

He completed his sixty-second year in the month of November, 1545; and he did not survive that period so much as three months. For some years previously he seems scarcely to have written a letter in which he did not anticipate his approaching dissolution; and often his expressions of desire for his dismissal, and for the heavenly rest, are very ardent. Indeed, he had, in his many and increasing infirmities, sufficient warning that the time of his departure

was at hand. He was troubled with excruciating pains in the head, which nearly deprived him of the sight of one eye; his legs swelled, and he suffered severely from the stone. His enemies, however, were not able to wait with patience for an event which could not now be far distant; and a pretended account of his death, as having been accompanied with "a miracle, wrought by God for the honour of Christ, the terror of the wicked, and the comfort of good men," was in the year 1545 printed and circulated in Italy. The story is so absurd that it hardly deserves to be repeated, except to show what some men were wicked enough to invent, and others weak enough to receive at that time. It set forth that Luther, finding death approaching, had called for the sacrament, and immediately after receiving it had expired; that before his death he had desired that his corpse might be placed upon the altar, and there receive Divine honours-which desire, however, had not been complied with; that when his body was interred a tremendous storm arose, which threatened destruction to every thing around, and that the affrighted spectators looking up saw the host, which the impious man had presumed to receive, hovering in the air; that this having been taken with great reverence and deposited in a sacred place, the tempest ceased, but at night returned with still greater fury; that in the morning, the grave being opened, no vestige of the body could be found, but a horrible stench of brimstone proceeded from the place, by which the health of the bystanders was seriously affected; and that the consequence of all this had been, the return of many persons into the bosom of the Catholic Church. The paper containing this account was brought to Luther, and he caused it to be reprinted with this addition, "I, Doctor Martin Luther, testify under my hand, that I have received this extravagant fiction this 21st day of March, and read it with great pleasure-except for the abominable lies against the Divine Majesty which it contains. It gratifies me exceedingly to find myself so obnoxious to Satan, and to his agents, the pope and papists. May God convert and recover them from the power of the devil! or, if my prayers for them must be in vain, owing to their having committed 'the sin unto death,' then may God grant that they may soon fill up their measure, and that they may find their joy and