History of the Catholic Church, vol 1 by J. MacCaffrey (color ebook reader .TXT) 📖

short time several of them agreed to accept the invitation. Safe conducts were issued for their representatives by the Council in 1551 and again in 1552. Even the Wittenberg theologians were not unfavourably disposed, and Melanchthon was actually on his way to Trent. But suddenly Maurice of Saxony, who had assembled a large army under pretext of reducing Magdeburg, and had strengthened himself by an alliance with several princes as well as by a secret treaty with Henry II. of France, deserted the Emperor and placed himself at the head of the Protestant forces. When all his plans were completed he advanced suddenly through Thuringia, took Augsburg, and was within an inch of capturing the Emperor who then lay ill at Innsbruck (1552). At the same time the French forces occupied Lorraine. Charles, finding himself unable to carry on the struggle, opened negotiations for peace, and in 1552 the Treaty of Passau was concluded. Philip of Hesse was to be set at liberty; a Diet was to be called within six months to settle the religious differences; in the meantime neither the Emperor nor the princes should interfere with freedom of conscience; and all disputes that might arise were to be referred to a commission consisting of an equal number of Protestant and Catholic members.

 

Owing to the war with France it was not until the year 1555 that the proposed Diet met at Augsburg. The Protestant party, encouraged by their victories, were in no humour for compromise, and as it was evident that there was no longer any hope of healing the religious division in the Empire, it was agreed that peace could be secured only by mutual toleration. In September 1555 the Peace of Augsburg was concluded. According to the terms of this convention full freedom of conscience was conceded in the Empire to Catholics and to all Protestants who accepted the Augsburg Confession. The latter were permitted to retain the ecclesiastical goods which they had already acquired before the Treaty of Passau (1552). For the future each prince was to be free to determine the religion of his subjects, but in case a subject was not content with the religion imposed on him by his sovereign he could claim the right to migrate into a more friendly territory.

 

A great difficulty arose in regard to the disposal of the ecclesiastical property in case a Catholic bishop or abbot should apostatise. Notwithstanding the protests of the Protestant party, it was decreed that if such an event should occur the seceder could claim his own personal property, but not the property attached to his office. This clause, known as the Ecclesiasticum Reservatum, gave rise to many disputes, and was one of the principal causes of the Thirty Years’ War.

 

By the Peace of Augsburg Protestantism was recognised as a distinct and separate form of Christianity, and the first blow was struck at the fundamental principles on which the Holy Roman Empire had been built. Charles V. was blamed at the time, and has been blamed since for having given his consent to such a treaty, but if all the circumstances of the time be duly considered it is difficult to see how he could have acted otherwise than he did. It is not the Emperor who should be held accountable for the unfavourable character of the Augsburg Peace, but “the most Catholic King of France” who allied himself with the forces of German Protestantism, and the Catholic princes who were more anxious to secure their own position than to fight for their sovereign or their religion. Charles V., broken down in health and wearied by his misfortunes and his failure to put down the religious revolt, determined to hand over to a younger man the administration of the territories over which he ruled, and to devote the remainder of his life to preparation for the world to come. In a parting address delivered to the States of the Netherlands he warned them “to be loyal to the Catholic faith which has always been and everywhere the faith of Christendom, for should it disappear the foundations of goodness should crumble away and every sort of mischief now menacing the world would reign supreme.” After his resignation he retired to a monastery in Estremadura, where he died in 1558. Spain and the Netherlands passed to his legitimate son, Philip II., while after some delay his brother, Ferdinand, was recognised as his successor in the Empire.

 

Charles V. was a man of sound judgment and liberal views, of great energy and prudence, as skilful in war as he was in the arts of diplomacy, and immensely superior in nearly every respect to his contemporaries, Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England. Yet in spite of all his admitted qualifications, and notwithstanding the fact that he was the ruler of three-fourths of Western Europe, he lived to witness the overthrow of his dearest projects and the complete failure of his general policy. But his want of success was not due to personal imprudence or inactivity. It is to be attributed to the circumstances of the times, the rebellion in Spain, the open revolt of some and the distrust of others in Germany, the rapid advance of the Turks towards the west, and, above all, the struggle with France. Despite his many quarrels with the Holy See, and in face of the many temptations held out to him to arrive at the worldwide dictatorship to which he was suspected of aspiring, by putting himself at the head of the new religious movement, he never wavered for a moment in his allegiance to the Catholic Church.

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[1] Grisar, Luther (Eng. Trans.), i., p. 4.

 

[2] Id. p. 8.

 

[3] Grisar, Luther (Eng. Trans.), i., p. 14.

 

[4] Id. chap. iv.

 

[5] Keller, Johann von Staupitz und die Anfange der Reformation, 1888.

 

[6] Grisar, op. cit. (Eng. Trans.), i., 34, 323.

 

[7] Id. i., 34, Bd. iii., 957-8.

 

[8] Paulus, Johann Tetzel, der Ablassprediger, 1899. Die Deutschen Dominikaner im Kampfe gegen Luther, 1903.

 

[9] Grisar, op. cit. (Eng. Trans.), i., pp. 341-55.

 

[10] Kidd, Documents of the Continental Reformation, pp. 20-6.

 

[11] Specially, Nos. 43, 45, 59, 86.

 

[12] Dialogus … in presumptuosas M. Lutheri conclusiones de potestate Papae.

 

[13] Greving, Johann Eck, etc., 1906.

 

[14] “Beatissime Pater, prostratum me pedibus tuae beatitudinis offero cum omnibus quae sum et habeo. Vivifica, occide, voca, revoca, approba, reproba, ut placuerit. Vocem tuam vocem Christi in te praesidentis et loquentis agnoscam. Si mortem merui, mori non recusabo.”

 

[15] Pastor, op. cit., iv., 177-9.

 

[16] Creutzberg, Karl von Miltitz, 1907.

 

[17] “Coram Deo et tota creatura sua testor, me neque voluisse neque hodie velle Ecclesiae Romanae ac Beatitudinis Tuae potestem ullo modo tangere aut quacunque versutia demoliri; quin plenissime confiteor huius ecclesiae potestatem esse super omnia, nec ei praeferendum quidquid sive in coelo sive in terra praeter unum Jesum Christum Dominum omnium” (3rd March, 1519). Kidd, op. cit., p. 43.

 

[18] Grisar, op. cit. (Eng. Trans.), i., 359.

 

[19] Cambridge Modern History, ii., chaps. ii., iii.

 

[20] Imperatorum nationis Germanicae gravamina ad Sadem Romanam, 1725.

 

[21] De Weldige-Kremer, De Joannis Cochlaei Vita et Scriptis, 1865.

He was one of the most energetic opponents of the Reformation party.

 

[22] Schwane, Dogmengeschichte der neuren zeit, 1890, pp. 131-51, 210-240, 251-92.

 

[23] Grisar, op. cit., Bd. iii., 228.

 

[24] De Libero Arbitrio, etc., 1524.

 

[25] Grisar, op. cit., Bd. i., pp. 483-502.

 

[26] Raynaldus, Ann. Eccl. (ann. 1522).

 

[27] Pastor, op. cit., Bd. iv., pp. 212-393.

 

[28] “Of such slender dimensions was the original Protestant Church; small as it was, it was only held together by the negative character of its protest.”—/Camb. Mod. Hist./, ii., p. 205.

 

[29] Negwer, Wimpina, 1909.

 

[30] Hergenrother-Kirsch, op. cit., Bd. iii., p. 80.

 

[31] Pastor, op. cit., Bd. iv., 473-5.

 

[32] Hergenrother-Kirsch, op. cit., iii., pp. 102-8.

 

[33] For Luther’s own views on the results of his preaching, cf.

Dollinger, Die Reformation, Bd. ii., pp. 426-52.

 

[34] Grisar, op. cit., Bd. ii., 382-436.

 

[35] Grisar, op. cit., Bd. iii., 211-30.

 

[36] That there can be no question of suicide is admitted (Paulus Luthers Lebensende, 1898).

 

[37] Tischreden (/Table Talk/), cf. Grisar, ii., 178 sqq. Smith, Luther’s Table Talk, 1907. Am. Ecc. Review (1906, pp. 1-18).

 

[38] Personal Character of Luther (/Ir. Theol. Quart./, viii., p.

77-85).

 

(b) Zwingli in Switzerland: His attitude towards Lutheranism.

 

See works mentioned above (II. a). Dandliker, Geschichte der Schweiz, 3 Bde, 1904. Dandliker-Salisbury, A Short History of Switzerland, 1899. De Haller, Histoire de la revolution religieuse ou de la reforme protestante dans la Suisse occidentale, 1837. Gelpke, Kirchengeschichte der Schweiz, 1856-61. Schuler-Schulthess, Opera Huldrici Zwinglii, 8 vols., 1828-42. Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, 1901.

 

The territory now known as Switzerland formed portion of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1291, however, during the reign of Rudolph of Habsburg, the three states or cantons of Uri, Schweiz, and Unterwalden, formed a confederation to defend their rights and privileges, thus laying the foundation for the existence of Switzerland as an independent nation. Other cantons joined the alliance, more especially after the victory at Morgarten in 1315, when the Austrian forces despatched against the Swiss were almost annihilated. Austria made various attempts to win back the Swiss to their allegiance but without success, and in 1394 the independence of the allied cantons was practically recognised.

 

About the time of the Reformation in Germany Switzerland consisted of thirteen cantons and several smaller “allied” or “friendly” states not admitted to full cantonal rights. Though bound together by a loose kind of confederation for purposes of defence against aggression, the various states enjoyed a large measure of independence, and each was ruled according to its own peculiar constitution. The Federal Diet or General Assembly was composed of representatives appointed by the cantons, and its decisions were determined by the votes of the states, the largest and most populous possessing no greater powers than the least influential member of the confederation. Some of the states were nominally democratic in their form of government, but, as in most countries during this period, the peasants had many grounds for reasonable complaint, particularly in regard to taxation, treasury pensions, and the enlisting and employment of the Swiss mercenary troops, then the best soldiers in Europe.

 

As in Germany, many causes were at work to prepare the ground for the new religious teaching. On account of the free character of its institutions refugees of all kinds fled to Switzerland for asylum, and were allowed great liberty in propagating their views. Again, the Swiss mercenaries, returning from their campaigns and service, during which they were brought into contact with various classes and nations, served much the same purpose as does the modern newspaper. In both these ways the peasants of Switzerland were kept in touch with the social, political, and religious condition of the rest of Europe, and with the hopes and plans of their own class in other kingdoms.

Humanism had not, indeed, made very striking progress in Switzerland, though the presence of Erasmus at Basle, and the attacks that he directed against the monks and the clergy, could not fail to produce some effect on a people whose minds were already prepared for such methods by their acquaintance with modern developments.

 

If, however, the Church in Switzerland had been free from abuses not all the wit and eloquence of Erasmus and his followers could have produced a revolt, but unfortunately, the influences that led to the downfall of religion in other countries