Constitution Of The Church.
The very day on which the bishops were consecrated the constitution of the Church was promulgated. It treated, in the first place, of pure evangelical doctrine and of the sacraments; next of the education of the young and of schools; of ecclesiastical customs and of their uniformity; of the duties of the superintendents and of provosts; of the revenues of the Church for the maintenance of ministers and the poor; and of the books which might be used by the pastors to enlarge their knowledge. The writings of Luther and Melanchthon were especially recommended.[[368]]
The Danish Church was thus transformed; and from a church of the pope had become a church of the Word of God. Unfortunately it was unable to stand fast in the liberty into which it was born. The state claimed too much authority over its affairs.
The Reformation was likewise established in other countries bordering on Denmark, and these demand at least a moment’s attention. We must take a hasty survey of Norway and Iceland.
The Reformation in Denmark involved in it that of Norway. The commercial relations of this country with England and its proximity to Sweden had contributed to increase the number of Protestants within its borders. But there was no region of the north in which Roman Catholicism had more resolute adherents. We have seen that Christian II. had been favorably received there when he appeared as champion of the papacy. Archbishop Olaf Engelbrechtsen was one of his partisans, and kept up intercourse with the protectors of the prince, with his brother-in-law, Charles the Fifth, and his son-in-law the elector-palatine. As soon as this prelate heard of the imprisonment of the Danish bishops he fancied himself likewise a ruined man, and, struck with terror, had his vessels equipped and all his property and the most costly treasures of the Church put on board, and then fled to the Netherlands. Christian III. was acknowledged in Norway; but the country lost its independence and was united with the kingdom as one of its provinces. The Norwegian Church was for some time in a lamentable condition.
‘Our brethren in Norway,’ said Palladius, bishop of Zealand, ‘are like sheep that have no shepherd.’[[369]] Nevertheless, one or two influential men of the country took part in the work of reform. Johan Reff, bishop of Opzloe, went to Copenhagen, and there resigned his temporal power and accepted the new constitution of the Church. Geble Petersen, bishop of Bergen, also declared publicly for the Reformation. He refused to marry, he said, in order that he might be able to devote himself entirely to the public service. He gave up his whole fortune towards the foundation of a school, the repair of his cathedral, and the erection of a parsonage-house. He gave instruction daily in the school which he had founded, and urgently requested Palladius, bishop of Zealand, who held him in high esteem, to send him masters and ministers; but he did not succeed in getting them. The fervent Catholicism of certain Norwegians was alarming to the Danes. It was rumored at Copenhagen that in Norway people were killing the pastors. The constitution of the Danish Church was, however, introduced into the country. Christian III. commanded that the Word of God should be purely and plainly taught there. But there was an active party which offered a vigorous opposition to Protestantism. A gale was blowing in the country districts which threw to the ground whatever the Government attempted to set up. The monks were stirring up the peasantry to revolt. The people when urged to build parsonage-houses for their pastors refused to do so. Nevertheless the Reformation gradually got the ascendency; but it appears to have been mainly the work of the Government.[[370]]
We have already spoken of the Reformation in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.[[371]] The townsmen of Flensborg, in 1526, discharged twelve priests and set evangelical ministers in their places. In the same and the following years the Reformation was established at Hadersleben, Schleswig, Itzehoe, Rendsburg, Kiel, Oldenburg, and other towns. All the measures of the Government were marked by mildness and patience; and the kingdom of Christ made progress by its own inward power.
The Bishops Of Iceland.
Iceland, that island of frozen mountains and subterranean fires which heave up and shake the land, and then burst forth in eruptions, so that the region is a wonderful combination of burning lava and eternal ice—Iceland also was to become acquainted with the Reformation. Icebergs floating down from the polar regions sometimes environ it and destroy the crops; but knowledge, Divine words, and evangelical teachers were one day to arrive there from the East; and this remote island of the North was thus to be exposed to the beneficent shining of a sun which brings life and prosperity into the most desolate regions.
For more than a century before this time the Icelanders had made bitter complaint of the harshness of their bishops. Real despots they were—whose punishments were so cruel that the unhappy persons on whom they were inflicted declared that they should prefer death. At the epoch of the Reformation the two prelates of the island were—Oegmund Paulsen, bishop of Skalholt, and Johan Aresen, bishop of Holum, both priests worthy of their predecessors. The latter, an ignorant, domineering, obstinate, and vindictive man gave himself out for a descendant of the kings of Denmark and Norway, and even of Priam, king of Troy, and he was very proud of it. The character of Bishop Oegmund was less violent; but both he and his colleague were far more like feudal barons of the Middle Ages than shepherds of the Lord’s flock. At the time of the election of the bishop of Holum, Oegmund had supported a different candidate; consequently Aresen had sworn mortal hatred to him. This hostility of the two prelates occasioned division among the inhabitants of the island to such an extent that, in 1527, civil war was on the point of breaking out. They were, however, at last induced to settle the quarrel by a trial by single combat, a method not very agreeable to the spirit of the Gospel. Each of the two prelates selected his champion; and the two knights, representatives of the bishops, appeared armed cap à pied, and struck terrible blows at each other. Oegmund’s champion was the victor.[[372]] How would these strange characters, who were two or three centuries behind the rest of the world, receive the Reformation, which, all unknown to them, had begun to stir all Europe? The answer was not doubtful.