At a great meeting of the townsfolk, those who meant to remain Catholics were bidden to go apart. Only one person stirred from his place. The Council was in want of money and demanded it of the townsmen, who in reply demanded religious liberty. In 1529 the banished ministers were recalled. In 1530 the Catholic preachers had to evacuate all the pulpits; and in 1531 Pomeranus gave the town an ecclesiastical ordinance.[489]
CHAPTER II.
THE PRINCIPALITY OF ANHALT.
(1522-1532.)
DUKE GEORGE OF ANHALT.
The Reformation met with difficulties in the principality of Anhalt, but the young princes who now ruled the two duchies of which the principality consisted, had had a pious mother, and the seed which her hand had sown in their hearts overcame all obstacles. One of the princes, Wolfgang, had held intercourse with Luther as early as 1522 and had, as we have seen, most willingly signed the Confession of Augsburg.[490] The other three, however, had not followed his example. John, on the contrary, had signed the Compromise of Augsburg, and it was not easy for him to draw back. Surrounded by powerful neighbors entirely devoted to Rome, the elector of Brandenburg, Duke George of Saxony, and the archbishop elector of Mentz, it seemed scarcely possible for them to extricate themselves from the net. Joachim was of a feeble and gloomy temper. Moreover, Prince George was an ecclesiastic at the age of eleven, a canon of Merseburg since 1524, and provost of the chapter of Magdeburg, and seemed to be called to the highest offices of the church. He was born at Dessau in 1501. From his childhood he had shown a strong attachment to church ceremonies and to the traditions of the fathers; and the doctrines of Luther were afterwards depicted to him in the blackest colors. 'This man,' they told him, 'proscribes good books, authorizes bad ones, and abolishes all the holy ordinances. All his followers are Donatists and Wickliffites.' He was henceforth a vehement opponent of a system which, according to his judgment, was destructive of Christianity. When the ministers of Magdeburg attempted to win over the members of the Chapter to the Reformation, he roughly rebuked them. As he was an honest man and was desirous of qualifying himself to contend against the errors of the Protestants, he began to search for arguments in the Holy Scriptures and in the fathers of the church, but it was not possible for him to find any. On the contrary, he was utterly astonished to find that Holy Scripture was opposed to many of the established customs of the church; and that in what was called the new doctrine there were many articles which were found in the Bible, and which had been held by the fathers. His mother, although she continued in the church and counselled her sons not to violate its unity, had believed that she was saved by grace alone, and had with special emphasis professed this faith at the time of her death. George had embraced this faith at an early age; and the bishop of Merseburg had confirmed him in it by rebuking one day a preacher who had exalted human merits, and to whom he had said energetically: 'Not a single living man is righteous.' He repeated the words three times in the presence of George; and now George found the doctrine distinctly asserted in the sacred writings. He wondered within himself whether it could be on this account that the friends of Rome spoke of the Bible as a heretical book and forbade people to read it. But at other times recognizing in it this truth, of which God had kept alive a spark in his heart,[491] he was not a little alarmed, for he saw that it was the very doctrine of Luther. 'I see,' he said to himself, 'that the fathers very much praised the Holy Scriptures, considered them the foundation, and would have no other.' And now the doctors of the church refuse to test their teaching by Scripture! He therefore put to some of them the question on what basis the doctrines of the church were made to rest; and they could not tell him. He observed at the same time, in many of those who defended abuses, spiteful passions, injustice, and calumny; and honest George was at a loss what to think about it. He fell into a deep melancholy, a state of restlessness and distress of mind which nothing could relieve.[492] 'On the one hand,' said he, 'I see the building threatening to fall; on the other I see troubles, disagreements, and the revolt of the peasants.' Luther had indeed opposed this revolt; but, for all that, the prince was terrified and in great distress. 'What shall I do? Which side must I take? God grant that I may determine to do only that which is right, and resolve not to act against my own conscience.' He was haunted by these thoughts day and night. At a later time he said: 'How many a night have I been agitated and depressed, suffering unutterable heaviness of heart. Something dreadful appeared before me; He knows, from whom nothing is concealed. My whole being shuddered. How often this passage came into my mind,—"The sword without, and terrors within." I could do nothing else but cry unto God, as a poor sinner who supplicates his grace.'
In 1530 he received a copy of the Confession of Augsburg, which Wolfgang had signed. He had up to this time read very little the writings of the reformers; and he found that the evangelical doctrine, as set forth in this document, was entirely different from what had been told him. The fundamental doctrines of the apostolical churches were clearly asserted in it, and the ancient heresies were convincingly refuted. The refutation of the Protestant Confession drawn up by the Roman doctors disgusted him. He now began to read the works of Luther, and was struck by the fact that the author exhorted men to good works, although he would have no one place confidence in them. He found, indeed, that Luther was sometimes rather fiery; 'but,' said he, 'so are Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and other prophets.' He found that the Gospel of Christ was again in the pulpits. He recollected that his mother had one day said to him with sorrow,—'How is it that our preachers, when they have to speak of the Gospel of Christ, do so with less warmth than the new ministers?' And he thought within himself,—'While the poor people to whom the cowl of St. Francis, satisfaction, and their own merits are recommended, die wretchedly, those who are now directed to Jesus Christ leave this world with joyful hearts.'
HIS ZEAL FOR THE TRUTH.