While Devay was in Saxony, the Reformation was making great progress in Hungary. The two kings had expected to destroy it, but an invisible power, greater than that of courts, was widely extending it; and that old saying in the Gospel was fulfilled—My strength is made perfect in weakness. A powerful magnate, Peter Perenyi, who had embraced the Gospel a year before, had declared with his sons Francis, George, and Gabriel for the doctrine of Luther. The son of Emerick, the former palatine of Hungary, he had just been made vayvode of Transylvania, and he possessed numerous castles in the northern part of the kingdom. It was at the court of Queen Mary, in the time of King Louis, that he had been enlightened, by means of the frequent conversations which he had held with the ministers Kopaczy and Szeray. Not content with allowing the evangelical doctrine to spread in his demesnes, he exerted himself personally to provide pious pastors for the people. Other magnates also, particularly Laelany, Massaly, and Caspar Dragfi, had been converted to Protestantism by the teachings of the ministers Osztoraï and Derezki. Dragfi’s father was in his day vayvode of Transylvania; and King Ladislaus had honored his nuptials with his presence. The son, now a young man of two-and-twenty, sent for evangelical divines to his estates; and Ovar, Isengen, Erdoeil and numerous villages were reformed by their preaching. It was to no purpose that the bishops threatened this young and decided Christian; he cared nothing about it, but gave his protection to all those who were persecuted for the faith. Some women likewise promoted the extension of the Reformation. The widow of Peter Jarit, a venerated woman who had the most ardent love for the Gospel, maintained preachers on her vast estates, so that all the country which lay between the rivers Maros and Koeroes was brought through her influence to the profession of the faith. The palatine
Thomas Nadasdy, Francis Revay, Bebek, the Podmanitzkys, Zobor, Balassa, Batory, Pongratz, Illeshazy, Eszterhazy, Zriny, Nyary, Batthyani, the counts of Salm and Hommona, with many other nobles and magnates, heard the Word of God as the sovereign voice of the Church. The townsmen did the same, and the greater number of the towns embraced the Reformation.[[554]]
Slackening Of Persecution.
The report of all these conversions reached the courts of the two princes who were at this time disputing the crown. They thought they had better spare men of whose support they were ambitious. Persecution therefore slackened, and the transformation of the Church profited thereby. Liberty and truth made conspicuous progress. At Bartfeld, Doctor Esaias preached against Romish traditions, called his hearers to Jesus Christ, and stirred the whole town. At Leutschau, two evangelists, Cyriaci and Bogner, returning from Wittenberg, proclaimed the word of salvation; and the ultramontane churches, in spite of their incense, their images, and their pompous ceremonial, were day by day being deserted. At Hermanstadt the inhabitants, regardless of the outcries against them raised by the priests and their adherents, quickly adopted measures for positively abolishing the Roman services.
The court of Rome, more and more perplexed, was intriguing at Vienna with a view to winning over Ferdinand. The pope wrote to the celebrated general Francisco Frangipani, who had been enrolled as a member of the order of St. Francis of Assisi, and was on this account under especial obligation to obey the pontiff. He entreated him to support with all his might the Catholic religion now so gravely threatened. The monks of Hermanstadt, provoked at seeing that the cruel decree of Ferdinand remained unexecuted, strove to stir up the people against their adversaries; and there were frequent disturbances. The magistrate would have consented that every one should be free to serve God according to his conscience; but persecution on the part of the monks appeared to be a rooted and incorrigible necessity. The council, despairing of enlightening them, ordered them (February 8, 1529) upon pain of death to leave the town within the space of eight days, unless they chose to live in conformity with the Gospel. This order was variously received by the monks. Some of them put off their cowls, dressed themselves like honest citizens, and began to earn their bread. Others left the town. Three days later there was not to be found in Hermanstadt a single Roman Catholic.[[555]] Some people cried out that freedom was trampled under foot by the council of Hermanstadt; others remarked that by the course it had taken it suppressed culpable intrigues.
Liberty is a power which occasionally passes through very strange phases, and of which history presents some singular features. This was the case at this period in Hungary. The two rival kings, Ferdinand and Zapolya, were supported by two powerful emperors, the one eastern, the other western, Solyman and Charles the Fifth. This twofold movement at once endangered and favored religious liberty in Hungary. In 1529 Ferdinand went to Spire, where the emperor Charles the Fifth had convoked the Diet; and, submissive to the dictation of his august brother, annulled there the edict which he had published in 1526 in favor of religious liberty.[[556]]
But while the Austrian king was thus confirmed in intolerance by the influence of Catholic Europe, the Hungarian king took a lesson of liberty from the Mussulman emperor. Solyman was once more marching into Hungary at the head of a hundred and fifty thousand men; and halting on the famous battle-field of Mohacz, he there received Zapolya, who had come to offer him homage. He took Buda on August 14, delivered the evangelical commander-in-chief, Nadasdy, whom his troops with infamous treachery had cast into a cave, and then marched on Gran, whose bishop, escorted by eight hundred nobles on horseback and as many on foot, came to meet him, and kissed his hand. Next, after presenting himself before Vienna, the Grand Sultan returned to Buda, and there confirmed Zapolya as king of Hungary. Although he was not a great admirer of freedom of conscience, he pronounced against the oppression of the Protestants, either because the Romish religion was that of the emperor his enemy, or because the worship of images, which was one of the most conspicuous parts of the Catholic religion, was impious in his eyes. The Gospel of Christ enjoyed greater freedom at Constantinople than at Rome.
Confession Of Augsburg.
In the great year 1530, the Hungarian reformation received a fresh impulse. The faithfulness and joy with which the Protestant princes confessed the truth at Augsburg (June 25), in the presence of the emperor, of King Ferdinand, and of several Hungarian lords—Nicholas Duranz, Wolfgang Frangepertpan, Francis Ujlaky, and others—dispelled in any prejudices. These noblemen on their return gave favorable accounts of what they had seen and heard; and all who understood Latin or German—and these were very numerous in Hungary—could read the admirable Confession, which made many hearts beat high. From this time the disciples of Christ who were desirous of diffusing His light increased in number. The glorious instrument of Augsburg was like a bell, the tones of which, far resounding, brought to Wittenburg, and thus to the Gospel, a great number of students and even of learned men, who desired to become acquainted, in the very seat of the movements, with the great transformation which was taking place in Christendom, and to draw with their own hands at the fountain of living waters.
Devay’s Completeness.