(2) The princes and governments of the Free Cities were to be allowed to choose between the Roman and the Lutheran faith, but their subjects must either conform to this faith—on the maxim famous as cujus regio ejus religio—or emigrate. In Imperial Free Cities, however, it was specially provided that Catholic minorities be tolerated.
(3) The "ecclesiastical reservation," or principle that when a Catholic spiritual prince became Protestant he should be deposed and a successor appointed {131} so that his territory might remain under the church. In respect to this Ferdinand privately promised to secure toleration for Protestant subjects in the land of such a prince. All claims of spiritual jurisdiction by Catholic prelates in Lutheran lands were to cease. All estates of the church confiscated prior to 1552 were to remain in the hands of the spoliators, all seized since that date to be restored.
The Peace of Augsburg, like the Missouri Compromise, only postponed civil war and the radical solution of a pressing problem. But as we cannot rightly censure the statesmen of 1820 for not insisting on emancipation, for which public opinion was not yet prepared, so it would be unhistorical and unreasonable to blame the Diet of Augsburg for not granting the complete toleration which we now see was bound to come and was ideally the right thing. Mankind is educated slowly and by many hard experiences. Europe had lain so long under the domination of an authoritative ecclesiastical civilization that the possibility of complete toleration hardly occurred to any but a few eccentrics. And we must not minimize what the Peace of Augsburg actually accomplished. It is true that choice of religion was legally limited to two alternatives, but this was more than had been allowed before. [Sidenote: Actual results] It is true that freedom of even this choice was complete only for the rulers of the territories or Free Cities; private citizens might exercise the same choice only on leaving their homes. The hardship of this was somewhat lessened by the consideration that in any case the nonconformist would not have to go far before finding a German community holding the Catholic or Lutheran opinions he preferred. Finally, it must be remembered that, if the Peace of Augsburg aligned the whole nation into two mutually hostile camps, it at least kept them from war for more than {132} half a century. Nor was this a mere accident, for the strain was at times severe. When the imperial knight, Grumbach, broke the peace by sacking the city of Würzburg, [Sidenote: 1563-7] he was put under the ban, captured and executed. His protector, Duke John Frederic of Saxony, was also captured and kept in confinement in Austria until his death.
Notwithstanding such an exhibition of centralized power, it is probable that the Peace of Augsburg increased rather than diminished the authority of the territorial states at the expense of the imperial government. Charles V, worn out by his long and unsuccessful struggle with heresy, after giving the Netherlands to his son Philip in 1555, abdicated the crown of the Empire to his brother Ferdinand in 1556. [Sidenote: Ferdinand, 1556-64] He died two years later in a monastery, a disappointed man, having expressed the wish that he had burned Luther at Worms. The energies of Ferdinand were largely taken up with the Turkish war. His son, Maximilian II, [Sidenote: Maximilian II, 1564-76] was favorably inclined to Protestantism.
[Sidenote: Catholic reaction]
Before Maximilian's death, however, a reaction in favor of Catholicism had already set in. The last important gains to the Lutheran cause in Germany came in the years immediately following the Peace of Augsburg. Nothing is more remarkable than the fact that practically all the conquests of Protestantism in Europe were made within the first half century of its existence. After that for a few years it lost, and since then has remained, geographically speaking, stationary in Europe. It is impossible to get accurate statistics of the gains and losses of either confession. The estimate of the Venetian ambassador that only one-tenth of the German empire was Catholic in 1558 is certainly wrong. In 1570, at the height of the Protestant tide, probably 70 per cent. of Germans—including Austrians—were Protestant. In 1910 the Germans of the {133} German Empire and of Austria were divided thus: Protestants 37,675,000; Catholics 29,700,000. The Protestants were about 56 per cent., and this proportion was probably about that of the year 1600.
[Sidenote: Lutheran schisms]
Historically, the final stemming of the Protestant flood was due to the revival of energy in the Catholic Church and to the internal weakness and schism of the Protestants. Even within the Lutheran communion fierce conflicts broke out. Luther's lieutenants fought for his spiritual heritage as the generals of Alexander fought for his empire. The center of these storms was Melanchthon until death freed him from "the rage of the theologians." [Sidenote: April 19, 1560] Always half Catholic, half Erasmian at heart, by his endorsement of the Interim, and by his severe criticisms of his former friends Luther and John Frederic, he brought on himself the bitter enmity of those calling themselves "Gnesio-Lutherans," or "Genuine Lutherans." Melanchthon abolished congregational hymn-singing, and published his true views, hitherto dissembled, on predestination and the sacrament. He was attacked by Flacius the historian, and by many others. The dispute was taken up by still others and went to such lengths that for a minor heresy a pastor, Funck, was executed by his fellow-Lutherans in Prussia, in 1566. "Philippism" as it was called, at first grew, but finally collapsed when the Formula of Concord was drawn up in 1580 and signed by over 8000 clergy. This document is to the Lutheran Church what the decrees of Trent were to the Catholics. The "high" doctrine of the real presence was strongly stated, and all the sophistries advanced to support it canonized. The sacramental bread and wine were treated with such superstitious reverence that a Lutheran priest who accidentally spilled the latter was punished by having his fingers cut off. Melanchthon was against such "remnants of {134} papistry" which he rightly named "artolatry" or "bread-worship."
But the civil wars within the Lutheran communion were less bitter than the hatred for the Calvinists. By 1550 their mutual detestation had reached such a point that Calvin called the Lutherans "ministers of Satan" and "professed enemies of God" trying to bring in "adulterine rites" and vitiate the pure worship. The quarrel broke out again at the Colloquy of Worms. Melanchthon and others condemned Zwingli, thus, in Calvin's opinion, "wiping off all their glory." Nevertheless Calvin himself had said, in 1539, that Zwingli's opinion was false and pernicious. So difficult is the path of orthodoxy to find! In 1557 the Zwinglian leader M. Schenck wrote to Thomas Blaurer that the error of the papists was rather to be borne than that of the Saxons. Nevertheless Calvinism continued to grow in Germany at the expense of Lutheranism. Especially after the Formula of Concord the "Philippists" went over in large numbers to the Calvinists.
[Sidenote: Effect on the nation]