At length they quitted the cathedral. No one, except the friends of the nuncio, was pleased with the sermon. Even the Archbishop of Mentz was offended at it. "What does he mean," exclaimed he, "by calling on St. Paul to cut the Germans with his sword?" Nothing but a few inarticulate sounds had been heard in the nave; the Protestants eagerly questioned those of their party who had been present in the choir. "The more these priests inflame people's minds, and the more they urge their princes to bloody wars," said Brenz at that time, "the more we must hinder ours from giving way to violence."[496] Thus spoke a minister of the Gospel of peace after the sermon of the priest of Rome.
After the mass of the Holy Ghost, the Emperor entered his carriage,[497] and having reached the town-hall, where the sittings of the diet were to take place, he took his seat on a throne covered with cloth of gold, while his brother placed himself on a bench in front of him; then all around them were ranged the Electors, forty-two sovereign princes, the deputies from the cities, the bishops, and ambassadors, forming, indeed, that illustrious assembly which Luther, six weeks before, had imagined he saw sitting in the air.[498]
The Count-palatine read the imperial proposition. It referred to two points; the war against the Turks, and the religious controversy. "Sacrificing my private injuries and interests to the common good," said the Emperor, "I have quitted my hereditary kingdoms to pass, not without great danger, into Italy, and from thence to Germany. I have heard with sorrow of the divisions that have broken out here, and which, striking not only at the imperial majesty, but still more, at the commandments of Almighty God, must engender pillage, conflagration, war, and death."[499] At one o'clock the Emperor, accompanied by all the princes, returned to his palace.
On the same day the Elector gathered around him all his co-religionists, whom the Emperor's speech had greatly excited, and exhorted them not to be turned aside by any threats from a cause which was that of God himself.[500] All seemed penetrated with this expression of Scripture: "Speak the word, and it shall not stand; for God is with us."[501]
THE ELECTOR'S PRAYER.
The Elector had a heavy burden to bear. Not only had he to walk at the head of the princes, but he had further to defend himself against the enervating influence of Melancthon. It is not an abstraction of the state which this prince presents to our notice throughout the whole of this affair: it is the most noble individuality. Early on Tuesday morning, feeling the necessity of that invisible strength which, according to a beautiful figure in the holy Scriptures, causes us to ride upon the high places of the earth; and seeing, as was usual, his domestics, his councillors, and his son assembled around him, John begged them affectionately to withdraw.[502] He knew that it was only by kneeling humbly before God that he could stand with courage before Charles. Alone in his chamber, he opened and read the Psalms, then falling on his knees, he offered up the most fervent prayer to God;[503] next, wishing to confirm himself in the immovable fidelity that he had just vowed to the Lord, he went to his desk, and there committed his resolutions to writing. Dolzig and Melancthon afterwards saw these lines, and were filled with admiration as they read them.[504]
Being thus tempered anew in heavenly thoughts, John took up the imperial proposition, and meditated over it; then, having called in his son and the chancellor Bruck, and Melancthon shortly after, they all agreed that the deliberations of the diet ought to commence with the affairs of religion; and his allies, who were consulted, concurred in this advice.
VALDEZ AND MELANCTHON.
The legate had conceived a plan diametrically opposed to this. He desired to stifle the religious question, and for this end required that the princes should examine it in a secret committee.[505] The Evangelical Christians entertained no doubt that if the truth was proclaimed in the great council of the nation, it would gain the victory; but the more they desired a public confession, the more it was dreaded by the Pope's friends. The latter wished to take their adversaries by silence, without confession, without discussion, as a city is taken by famine without fighting and without a storm: to gag the Reformation, and thus reduce it to powerlessness and death, were their tactics. To have silenced the preachers was not enough: the princes must be silenced also. They wished to shut up the Reformation as in a dungeon, and there leave it to die, thinking they would thus get rid of it more surely than by leading it to the scaffold.