But if Luther employed the scourges of sarcasm, he also blew the trumpet of the prophets; and this he did in a work entitled The Destruction of Jerusalem. Shedding tears like Jeremiah, he denounced to the German people a ruin like that of the Holy City, if like it they rejected the Gospel.[25] "God has imparted to us all his treasures," exclaimed he; "he became man, he has served us,[26] he died for us, he has risen again, and he has so opened the gates of heaven, that all may enter......The hour of grace is come......The glad tidings are proclaimed......But where is the city, where is the prince that has received them? They insult the Gospel: they draw the sword, and daringly seize God by the beard.[27]......But wait......He will turn round; with one blow will he break their jaws, and all Germany will be but one wide ruin."
These works had a very great sale.[28] It was not only the peasants and townspeople who read them, but nobles also and princes. Leaving the priests alone at the foot of the altar, they threw themselves into the arms of the new Gospel.[29] The necessity of a reform of abuses was proclaimed on the 1st of August by a general committee.
THE INSTRUCTIONS OF SEVILLE.
Then Rome, which had appeared to slumber, awoke. Fanatical priests, monks, ecclesiastical princes, all beset Ferdinand. Cunning, bribery, nothing was spared. Did not Ferdinand possess the instructions of Seville? To refuse their publication was to effect the ruin of the Church and of the empire. Let the voice of Charles oppose its powerful veto to the dizziness that is hurrying Germany along, said they, and Germany will be saved! Ferdinand made up his mind, and at length, on the 3d August, published the decree, drawn up more than four months previously in favour of the edict of Worms.[30]
The persecution was about to begin; the reformers would be thrown into dungeons, and the sword drawn on the banks of the Guadalquivir would pierce at last the bosom of Reform.
The effect of the imperial ordinance was immense. The breaking of an axle-tree does not more violently check the velocity of a railway train. The Elector and the Landgrave announced that they were about to quit the diet, and ordered their attendants to prepare for their departure. At the same time the deputies from the cities drew towards these two princes, and the Reformation appeared on the brink of entering immediately upon a contest with the Pope and Charles the Fifth.
But it was not yet prepared for a general struggle. It was necessary for the tree to send out its roots deeper, before the Almighty unchained the stormy winds against it. A spirit of blindness, similar to that which in former times was sent out upon Saul and Herod,[31] then seized upon the great enemy of the Gospel; and thus was it that Divine Providence saved the reform in its cradle.
CHANGE OF POLICY.
The first movement of trouble was over. The friends of the Gospel began to consider the date of the imperial instructions, and to weigh the new political combinations which seemed to announce to the world the most unlooked-for events. "When the Emperor wrote these letters," said the cities of Upper Germany, "he was on good terms with the Pope, but now everything is changed. It is even asserted that he had told Margaret, his deputy in the Low Countries, to proceed gently with respect to the Gospel. Let us send him a deputation." That was not necessary. Charles had not waited until now to form a different resolution. The course of public affairs, taking a sudden turn, had rushed into an entirely new path. Years of peace were about to be granted to the Reform.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PROPOSED.