It was the intervention of Charles which especially alarmed him. To withdraw the Church from all secular influence, and the governments from all clerical influence, was then one of the dominant ideas of the great Reformer. "You see," wrote he to Melancthon, "that they oppose to our cause the same argument as at Worms, to wit, still and for ever the judgment of the Emperor. Thus Satan is always harping on the same string, and that emaciated strength[605] of the civil power is the only one which this myriad-wiled spirit is able to find against Jesus Christ." But Luther took courage, and boldly raised his head. "Christ is coming," continued he; "he is coming, sitting at the right hand......Of whom? not of the Emperor, or we should long ago have been lost, but of God himself: let us fear nothing. Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. If he loses this title at Augsburg, he must also lose it in all the earth, and in all the heavens."
Thus a song of triumph was, on the part of the Confessors of Augsburg, the first movement that followed this courageous act, unique doubtless in the annals of the Church. Some of their adversaries at first shared in their triumph, and the others were silent; but a powerful reaction took place erelong.
On the following morning, Charles having risen in ill-humour and tired for want of sleep, the first of his ministers who appeared in the imperial apartments was the Count-palatine, as wearied and embarrassed as his master. "We must yield something," said he to Charles; "and I would remind your majesty that the Emperor Maximilian was willing to grant the two kinds in the Eucharist, the marriage of priests, and liberty with respect to the fasts." Charles the Fifth eagerly seized at this proposition as a means of safety. But Granvelle and Campeggio soon arrived, who induced him to withdraw it.
AN INGENUOUS CONFESSION.
Rome, bewildered for a moment by the blow that had struck her, rose up again with energy. "I stay with the mother," exclaimed the Bishop of Wartzburg, meaning by it the Church of Rome; "the mother, the mother!" "My lord," wittily replied Brenz, "pray, do not, for the mother, forget either the Father or the Son!"—"Well! I grant it," replied the Archbishop of Salzburg to one of his friends, "I also should desire the communion in both kinds, the marriage of priests, the reformation of the Mass, liberty as regards food and other traditions......But that it should be a monk, a poor monk, who presumes to reform us all, is what we cannot tolerate."[606]—"I should have no objection," said another bishop, "for the Divine worship to be celebrated everywhere as it is at Wittemberg; but we can never consent that this new doctrine should issue from such a corner."[607] And Melancthon insisting with the Archbishop of Salzburg on the necessity of a reform of the clergy: "Well! and how can you wish to reform us?" said the latter abruptly: "we priests have always been good for nothing." This is one of the most ingenuous confessions that the Reformation has torn from the priests. Every day fanatical monks and doctors, brimful of sophisms, were seen arriving at Augsburg, who endeavoured to inflame the hatred of the Emperor and of the princes.[608] "If we formerly had friends," said Melancthon on the morrow of the Confession, "now we possess them no longer. We are here alone, abandoned by all, and contending against measureless dangers."[609]
FAILURE OF THE POPISH INTRIGUES.
Charles, impelled by these contrary parties, affected a great indifference. But without permitting it to be seen, he endeavoured, meanwhile, to examine this affair thoroughly. "Let there not be a word wanting," he had said to his secretary, when requiring from him a French translation of the Confession. "He does not allow anything to be observed," whispered the Protestants one to another, convinced that Charles was gained; "for if it were known, he would lose his Spanish states: let us maintain the most profound secresy." But the Emperor's courtiers, who perceived these strange hopes, smiled and shook their heads. "If you have money," said Schepper, one of the secretaries of state, to Jonas and Melancthon, "it will be easy for you to buy from the Italians whatever religion you please;[610] but if your purse is empty, your cause is lost." Then assuming a more serious tone: "It is impossible," said he, "for the Emperor, surrounded as he is by bishops and cardinals, to approve of any other religion than that of the Pope."
This was soon evident. On the day after the confession (Sunday, 26th June), before the breakfast hour,[611] all the deputations from the imperial cities were collected in the Emperor's antechamber. Charles, desirous of bringing back the states of the Empire to unity, began with the weakest. "Some of the cities," said the count palatine, "have not adhered to the last Diet of Spire: the Emperor calls upon them to submit to it."
Strasburg, Nuremberg, Constance, Ulm, Reutlingen, Heilbronn, Memmingen, Lindau, Kempten, Windsheim, Isny, and Weissemburg, which were thus summoned to renounce the famous protest, found the moment curiously chosen. They asked for time.
The position was complicated; discord had been thrown in the midst of the cities, and intrigue was labouring daily to increase it.[612] It was not only between the Popish and the Evangelical cities that disagreement existed; but also between the Zwinglian and the Lutheran cities, and even among the latter, those which had not adhered to the Confession of Augsburg manifested great ill-humour towards the deputies of Reutlingen and Nuremberg. This proceeding of Charles the Fifth was therefore skilfully calculated; for it was based on the old axiom, Divide et impera.