While the Protestants had taken their stand on the Scriptures, their adversaries supported the divine origin of the hierarchy, and laid down absolute submission to its laws. Thus, the essential character, which still distinguishes Rome from the Reformation, stood prominently forth in this first combat.
Among the auditors who filled the chapel of the Palatinate Palace, concealed in the midst of the deputies of Nuremberg, was Joachim Camerarius, who, while Schweiss was reading, leant over his tablets and carefully noted down all he could collect. At the same time others of the Protestants, speaking to one another, were indignant, and even laughed, as one of their opponents assures us.[686] "Really," said they with one consent, "the whole of this Refutation is worthy of Eck, Faber, and Cochlœus!"
As for Charles, little pleased with these theological dissertations, he slept during the reading;[687] but he awoke when Schweiss had finished, and his awakening was that of a lion.
IMPERIAL COMMANDS.
The Count-palatine then declared that his majesty found the articles of this Refutation orthodox, catholic, and conformable to the Gospel; that he therefore required the Protestants to abandon their Confession, now refuted, and to adhere to all the articles that had just been set forth;[688] that, if they refused, the Emperor would remember his office, and would know how to show himself the advocate and defender of the Roman Church.
This language was clear enough: the adversaries imagined they had refuted the Protestants by commanding the latter to consider themselves beaten. Violence—arms—war—were all contained in these cruel words of Charles's minister.[689] The princes represented that, as the Refutation adopted some of their articles and rejected others, it required a careful examination, and they consequently begged a copy should be given them.
The Romish party had a long conference on this demand: night was at hand; the Count-palatine replied that, considering the late hour and the importance of this affair, the Emperor would make known his pleasure somewhat later. The diet separated, and Charles the Fifth, exasperated at the audacity of the Evangelical princes, says Cochlœus, returned in ill-humour to his apartments.[690]
The Protestants, on the contrary, withdrew full of peace; the reading of the Refutation having given them as much confidence as that of the Confession itself.[691] They saw in their adversaries a strong attachment to the hierarchy, but a great ignorance of the Gospel—a characteristic feature of the Romish party; and this thought encouraged them. "Certainly," said they, "the Church cannot be where there is no knowledge of Christ."[692]
POLICY OF CHARLES.
Melancthon alone was still alarmed; he walked by sight and not by faith, and, remembering the legate's smiles, he had another interview with him, as early as the 4th August, still demanding the cup for the laity, and lawful wives for the priests. "Then," said he, "our pastors will place themselves again under the government of bishops, and we shall be able to prevent those innumerable sects with which posterity is threatened."[693] Melancthon's glance into the future is remarkable: it does not, however, mean that he, like many others, preferred a dead unity to a living diversity.