Then, returning to the grand doctrine of the Reformation, and recalling to mind that the doctors of the Pope "have never ceased impelling the faithful to puerile and useless works, as the custom of chaplets, invocations of saints, monastic vows, processions, fasts, feast-days, brotherhoods," the Protestants added, that as for themselves, while urging the practice of truly Christian works, of which little had been said before their time,[569] "they taught that man is justified by faith alone; not by that faith which is a simple knowledge of the history, and which wicked men and even devils possess, but by a faith which believes not only the history, but also the effect of the history;[570] which believes that through Christ we obtain grace; which sees that in Christ we have a merciful Father; which knows this God; which calls upon him; in a word, which is not without God, as the heathen are."
"Such," said Bayer, "is a summary of the doctrine professed in our Churches, by which it may be seen that this doctrine is by no means opposed to Scripture, to the universal Church, nor even to the Romish Church, such as the doctors describe it to us;[571] and since it is so, to reject us as heretics is an offence against unity and charity."
LUTHER ON THE CONFESSION.
Here terminated the first part of the Confession, the aim of which was to explain the Evangelical doctrine. The Chancellor read with so distinct a voice, that the crowd which was unable to enter the hall, and which filled the court and all the approaches of the episcopal palace, did not lose a word.[572] This reading produced the most marvellous effect on the princes who thronged the chapel. Jonas watched every change in their countenances,[573] and there beheld interest, astonishment, and even approbation depicted by turns. "The adversaries imagine they have done a wonderful thing, by forbidding the preaching of the Gospel," wrote Luther to the Elector; "and they do not see, poor creatures! that by the reading of the Confession in the presence of the diet, there has been more preaching than in the sermons of ten preachers. Exquisite subtlety! admirable expedient! Master Agricola and the other ministers are reduced to silence; but in their place appear the Elector of Saxony, and the other princes and lords, who preach before his imperial majesty, and the members of the whole Empire, freely, to their beard, and before their noses. Yes, Christ is in the diet, and he does not keep silence: the word of God cannot be bound. They forbid it in the pulpit, and are forced to hear it in the palace; poor ministers cannot announce it, and great princes proclaim it; the servants are forbidden to listen to it, and their masters are compelled to hear it; they will have nothing to do with it during the whole course of the diet, and they are forced to submit to hear more in one day than is heard ordinarily in a whole year......When all else is silent, the very stones cry out, as says our Lord Jesus Christ."[574]
THE CONFESSION—ABUSES.
That part of the Confession destined to point out errors and abuses still remained. Bayer continued: he explained and demonstrated the doctrine of the two kinds; he attacked the compulsory celibacy of priests, maintained that the Lord's Supper had been changed into a regular fair, in which it was merely a question of buying and selling, and that it had been re-established in its primitive purity by the Reformation, and was celebrated in the Evangelical churches with entirely new devotion and gravity. He declared that the Sacrament was administered to no one who had not first made confession of his faults, and he quoted this expression of Chrysostom: "Confess thyself to God the Lord, thy real Judge; tell thy sin, not with the tongue, but in thy conscience and in thy heart."
Bayer next came to the precepts on the distinction of meats and other Roman usages. "Celebrate such a festival," said he; "repeat such a prayer, or keep such a fast; be dressed in such a manner, and so many other ordinances of men—this is what is now styled a spiritual and christian life; while the good works prescribed by God, as those of a father of a family who toils to support his wife, his sons, and his daughters—of a mother who brings children into the world, and takes care of them—of a prince or of a magistrate who governs his subjects, are looked upon as secular things, and of an imperfect nature." As for monastic vows in particular, he represented that, as the Pope could give a dispensation from them, those vows ought therefore to be abolished.
The last article of the Confession treated of the authority of the bishops: powerful princes crowned with the episcopal mitre were there; the Archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, Salzburg, and Bremen; the Bishops of Bamberg, Wurzburg, Eichstadt, Worms, Spire, Strasburg, Augsburg, Constance, Coire, Passau, Liege, Trent, Brixen, and of Lebus and Ratzburg, fixed their eyes on the humble confessor. He fearlessly continued, and energetically protesting against that confusion of Church and State which had characterized the Middle Ages, he called for the distinction and independence of the two societies.
THE CONFESSION—DUTY OF THE BISHOPS.