If it should be asked on which side the victory really was, perhaps we ought to say that Luther assumed the air of a conqueror, but Zwingle was so in reality. The conference propagated through all Germany the doctrine of the Swiss, which had been little known there till that time, and it was adopted by an immense number of persons. Among these were Laffards, first rector of St. Martin's School at Brunswick, Dionysius Melander, Justus Lening, Hartmann, Ibach, and many more. The Landgrave himself, a short time before his death, declared that this conference had induced him to renounce the oral manducation of Christ.[306]
Still the dominant principle at this celebrated epoch was unity. The adversaries are the best judges. The Roman-catholics were exasperated that the Lutherans and Zwinglians had agreed on all the essential points of faith. "They have a fellow-feeling against the Catholic Church," said they, "as Herod and Pilate against Jesus Christ." The enthusiastic sects said the same,[307] and the extreme hierarchial as well as the extreme radical party deprecated equally the unity of Marburg.
THREATENING PROSPECTS.
Erelong a greater agitation eclipsed all these rumours, and events which threatened the whole evangelical body, proclaimed its great and intimate union with new force. The Emperor, it was everywhere said, exasperated by the Protest of Spire, has landed at Genoa with the pomp of a conqueror. After having sworn at Barcelona to reduce the heretics under the power of the Pope, he is going to visit this pontiff, humbly to bend the knee before him; and he will rise up only to cross the Alps and accomplish his terrible designs. "The Emperor Charles," said Luther, a few days after the landing of this prince, "has determined to show himself more cruel against us than the Turk himself, and he has already uttered the most horrible threats. Behold the hour of Christ's agony and weakness. Let us pray for all those who will soon have to endure captivity and death."[308]
Such was the news that then agitated all Germany. The grand question was, whether the Protest of Spire could be maintained against the power of the Emperor and of the Pope. This was seen in the year 1530.
BOOK XIV.
THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 1530.
I. The Reformation was accomplished in the name of a spiritual principle. It had proclaimed for its teacher the Word of God; for salvation, Faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. Rome had been established by the law of a carnal commandment; the Reformation, by the power of an endless life.[309]