The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power

by John S. C. Abbott

[CHAPTER XI].

DEATH OF FERDINAND I.—ACCESSION OF MAXIMILIAN II.

From 1562 to 1576.

The Council of Trent.—Spread of the Reformation.—Ferdinand's Attempt to Influence the Pope.—His Arguments against Celibacy.—Stubbornness of the Pope.—Maximilian II.—Displeasure of Ferdinand.—Motives for not Abjuring the Catholic Faith.—Religious Strife in Europe.—Maximilian's Address to Charles IX.—Mutual Toleration.—Romantic Pastime of War.—Heroism of Nicholas, Count Of Zrini.—Accession of Power to Austria.—Accession of Rhodolph III.—Death of Maximilian.

This celebrated council of Trent, which was called with the hope that by a spirit of concession and reform the religious dissensions which agitated Europe might be adjusted, declared, in the very bravado of papal intolerance, the very worst abuses of the Church to be essential articles of faith, which could only be renounced at the peril of eternal condemnation, and thus presented an insuperable barrier to any reconciliation between the Catholics and the Protestants. Ferdinand was disappointed, and yet did not venture to break with the pope by withholding his assent from the decrees which were enacted.

The Lutheran doctrines had spread widely through Ferdinand's hereditary States of Austria. Several of the professors in the university at Vienna had embraced those views; and quite a number of the most powerful and opulent of the territorial lords even maintained Protestant chaplains at their castles. The majority of the inhabitants of the Austrian States had, in the course of a few years, become Protestants. Though Ferdinand did every thing he dared to do to check their progress, forbidding the circulation of Luther's translation of the Bible, and throwing all the obstacles he could in the way of Protestant worship, he was compelled to grant them very considerable toleration, and to overlook the infraction of his decrees, that he might secure their aid to repel the Turks. Providence seemed to overrule the Moslem invasion for the protection of the Protestant faith. Notwithstanding all the efforts of Ferdinand, the reformers gained ground in Austria as in other parts of Germany.

The two articles upon which the Protestants at this time placed most stress were the right of the clergy to marry and the administration of the communion under both kinds, as it was called; that is, that the communicants should partake of both the bread and the wine. Ferdinand, having failed entirely in inducing the council to submit to any reform, opened direct communication with the pope to obtain for his subjects indulgence in respect to these two articles. In advocacy of this measure he wrote:

"In Bohemia no persuasion, no argument, no violence, not even arms and war, have succeeded in abolishing the use of the cup as well as the bread in the sacrament. In fact the Church itself permitted it, although the popes revoked it by a breach of the conditions on which it was granted. In the other States, Hungary, Austria, Silesia, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Bavaria and other parts of Germany, many desire with ardor the same indulgence. If this concession is granted they may be reunited to the Church, but if refused they will be driven into the party of the Protestants. So many of the priests have been degraded by their diocesans for administering the sacrament in both kinds, that the country is almost deprived of priests. Hence children die or grow up to maturity without baptism; and men and women, of all ages and of all ranks, live like the brutes, in the grossest ignorance of God and of religion."

In reference to the marriage of the clergy he wrote: "If a permission to the clergy to marry can not be granted, may not married men of learning and probity be ordained, according to the custom of the eastern church; or married priests be tolerated for a time, provided they act according to the Catholic and Christian faith? And it may be justly asked whether such concessions would not be far preferable to tolerating, as has unfortunately been done, fornication and concubinage? I can not avoid adding, what is a common observation, that priests who live in concubinage are guilty of greater sin than those who are married; for the last only transgress a law which is capable of being changed, whereas the first sin against a divine law, which is capable of neither change nor dispensation."