In East Friesland, on new-year's day, 1527, a Dominican named Resius, having put on his hood,[108] ascended the pulpit at Noorden, and declared himself ready to maintain certain theses according to the tenor of the Gospel. Having silenced the Abbot of Noorden by the soundness of his arguments, Resius took off his cowl, laid it on the pulpit, and was received in the nave by the acclamations of the faithful. Ere long the whole of Friesland laid aside the uniform of Popery, as Resius had done.
A PIOUS PRINCESS.
At Berlin, Elizabeth, electress of Brandenburg, having read Luther's works, felt a desire to receive the Lord's supper in conformity with Christ's institution: a minister secretly administered it at the festival of Easter, 1528; but one of her children informed the Elector. Joachim was greatly exasperated, and ordered his wife to keep her room for several days;[109] it was even said that he intended to shut her up.[110] This princess, being deprived of all religious support, and mistrusting the perfidious manœuvres of the Romish priests, resolved to escape by flight; and she claimed the assistance of her brother, Christian II. of Denmark, who was then residing at Torgau. Taking advantage of a dark night, she quitted the castle in a peasant's dress, and got into a rude country-waggon that was waiting for her at the gate of the city. Elizabeth urged on the driver, when, in a bad road, the wain broke down. The electress, hastily unfastening a handkerchief she wore round her head, flung it to the man, who employed it in repairing the damage, and ere long Elizabeth arrived at Torgau. "If I should expose you to any risk," said she to her uncle, the Elector of Saxony, "I am ready to go wherever Providence may guide me." But John assigned her a residence in the castle of Lichtenberg, on the Elbe, near Wittemberg. Without taking upon us to approve of Elizabeth's flight, let us acknowledge the good that God's Providence drew from it. This amiable lady, who lived at Lichtenberg, in the study of His word, seldom appearing at court, frequently going to hear Luther's sermons, and exercising a salutary influence over her children, who sometimes had permission to see her, was the first of those pious princesses whom the house of Brandenburg has counted, and even still counts, among its members.
At the same time, Holstein, Sleswick, and Silesia decided in favour of the Reformation: and Hungary, as well as Bohemia, saw the number of its adherents increase.
EDICT OF OFEN.
In every place, instead of a hierarchy seeking its righteousness in the works of man, its glory in external pomp, its strength in a material power, the Church of the Apostles reappeared, humble as in primitive times, and like the ancient Christians, looking for its righteousness, its glory, and its power solely in the blood of Christ and in the Word of God.[111]
IV. All these triumphs of the Gospel could not pass unperceived; there was a powerful reaction, and until political circumstances should permit a grand attack upon the Reformation on the very soil where it was established, and of persecuting it by means of diets, and if necessary by armies, they began to persecute in detail in the Romish countries with tortures and the scaffold.
On the 20th August, 1527, King Ferdinand, by the Edict of Ofen in Hungary, published a tariff of crimes and penalties, in which he threatened death by the sword, by fire, or by water,[112] against whoever should say that Mary was a woman like other women; or partake of the sacrament in an heretical manner; or consecrate the bread and wine, not being a Romish priest; and further, in the second case, the house in which the sacrament should have been administered was to be confiscated or rased to the ground.
Such was not the legislation of Luther. Link having asked him if it were lawful for the magistrate to put the false prophets to death, meaning the Sacramentarians, whose doctrines Luther attacked with so much force,[113] the Reformer replied: "I am slow whenever life is concerned, even if the offender is exceedingly guilty.[114] I can by no means admit that the false teachers should be put to death;[115] it is sufficient to remove them." For ages the Romish Church has bathed in blood. Luther was the first to profess the great principles of humanity and religious liberty.