REFORMATION. 



ony. as the emperor, engaged in 1521, in the war 

 with Fnmrr, or occupied in Spain, almost wholly 

 loxt sight of religious atl'airs in Germany, and each 

 prince did what he pleased in his own territory. 

 Hut that Frederic the Wise, although he did not 

 call himself an adherent of the reformers, yet pro- 

 tected the heroes of the reformation, is easily ex- 

 plained from the concern which he took in the pro- 

 sperity of the Wittenberg university, from his 

 nichtaqH, his gradually increasing conviction 

 ot tiie justice of the views of Luther and his 

 triend Spalatin, who managed every thing at the 

 court of Frederic. Leo's successor, Adrian VI, 

 who was himself desirous of a reformation, in 

 answer to his demand for the extirpation of the 

 doctrines of Luther, received a list of a hundred 

 complaints from the German states assembled at 

 the diet of Nuremberg in 1522, in which even the 

 Catholics joined against the papal chair. The 

 people of Wittenberg were , therefore, as little im- 

 peded in their attempts at a reform in religious 

 worship (beginning with the mass), as those of Zii- 

 rich, whose rapid progress in the change of their 

 religious doctrines and rites found the most power- 

 ful support in the governments of the northern can- 

 tons; and Luther was even obliged to hasten from 

 the Wartburg to quell the .tumults excited by the 

 turbulent zeal of Carlstadt. While he was pub- 

 lishing his translation of the New Testament, the 

 fruit of his exile, which was soon followed by the 

 Old, and Melancthon his Loci Communes (the first, 

 and, for a long time, the best exposition of the Lu- 

 theran doctrines, first published in 1521), serious 

 preparations for the reform of papal abuses were 

 made in Deux-Ponts, Pomerania, Silesia, in the 

 Saxon cities (of which Leissnig was the first after 

 Vittenberg), and in Suabia. Luther's liturgy had 

 no sooner appeared, in 1523, than it was adopted 

 in Magdeburg and Elbingen. The new church 

 was not without its martyrs. In 1522, the inquisi- 

 tion in the Netherlands secured it this honour by 

 the execution of some Augustines, who favoured 

 the new doctrines. Translations of the Bible into 

 French and Dutch now appeared. In the very 

 heart of France, at Meaux, a Lutheran church was 

 organized. In vain did the Sorbonne condemn the 

 principles of Luther; in vain was the execution of 

 the edict of Worms against religious innovations 

 resolved upon at the diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, 

 and the convention of Ratisbon ; in vain did George, 

 duke of Saxony, Henry, duke of Brunswick, Aus- 

 tria, France, Spain, and the spiritual princes of the 

 empire, labour to suppress the reformation by the 

 persecution of the followers of Luther in their 

 states. The same year, Luther laid aside his cowl; 

 monasteries were deserted; priests in Saxony and 

 Switzerland married. In 1525, John, successor of 

 Frederic in the Saxon electorate, Philip, landgrave 

 of Hesse, and Albert of Brandenburg, duke of 

 Prussia, publicly declared themselves Lutherans. 

 All their territories, Livonia, a considerable part of 

 Hungary and Austria (Bohemia had already been 

 gained by the Hussites), Liineburg, Celle, Nurem- 

 berg, Strasburg, Frankfort on the Maine, Nord- 

 hausen, Brunswick, Bremen, embraced the new 

 doctrines, and a great number of the most respect- 

 able clergymen and theologians in Germany followed 

 the example of Luther, who married Catharine 

 von Bora, formerly a nun. Sweden received the 

 reformation in 1527, under Gustavus Vasa, through 

 the labours of Olaf and Lorenzo Petri ; and its ex- 

 ample was soon followed by the greater part of 

 Lower Saxony and the north of Westphalia, Ham- 

 burg and Litbeck. The tranquillity of this period, 

 resulting from the absence of the emperor, during 



which the reformation advanced with astonishing 

 rapidity, and almost without any impediment, inter- 

 rupted the dispute of Luther with Zuinglius and 

 Erasmus (see these articles, and Lord's Supper) 

 less than the apprehensions of a war, excited in 

 1 52S by the information of a secret alliance of the 

 Catholic states against the Protestant ; and violent 

 measures on the part of the latter were with diffi- 

 culty prevented by Luther's earnest exhortations to 

 peace. This circumstance, however, united the 

 party in favour of reform more closely ; and from 

 their general protest against a decree of the diet of 

 Spires, in 1529, they received, in 1541, the name 

 of Protestants. They now, therefore, formed a dis- 

 tinct political party (Corpus Ev/tngelicorum); and, 

 as the emperor returned to Germany at this time in 

 a threatening attitude, they were forced to adopt 

 decisive measures. After the visitations under- 

 taken for the organization of the church system, 

 with the aid of Melanchthon's instructions and Lu 

 ther's catechisms, which appeared in 1529, while 

 the teaching of the people in schools and churches 

 by faithful ministers was gradually improving, 

 Melanchthon was employed to draw up a full expo- 

 sition of the Lutheran doctrines ; which was sub- 

 scribed by the princes already united by the league 

 of Torgau (1526) and the convention of Schwabach 

 (1529) (see Schwabach, Articles of), transmitted to 

 the emperor at the diet of Augsburg in 1530, antl 

 solemnly read before a full assembly (June 25th), 

 whence the declaration was called the ditgslurg 

 Confession, (q. v.) The emperor caused a reply 

 from the Catholic party to be read, which was to 

 put the question at rest ; rejected the defence 

 (Apology) of the Augsburg confession, written by 

 Melanchthon in answer to this confutation, and in- 

 sisted upon the suppression of religious innovations. 

 A similar reply was given to Strasburg, Constance, 

 Memmingen and Lindau, which had sent the em- 

 peror a similar paper, styled the Confession of the 

 Four Cities, or Confessio Tctrapolilana. This con- 

 clusion of the diet was a new motive of union to 

 the Lutherans. (For a history of subsequent events, 

 see Smalcaldic League, Interim, and Peace, Ileli 

 gious.) The German Protestants were united by 

 common political interests and a common creed, 

 contained in the Augsburg confession, and its Apol- 

 ogy (see Melanchthon), and illustrated by the arti- 

 cles of Smalcalden and the two catechisms, and 

 finally confirmed, in 1580, by the Form of Concord. 

 (See Concord, Form of, and Creed.) The Luther- 

 ans, or adherents of the Augsburg confession, were 

 the three electors of the Palatinate, Saxony, and 

 Brandenburg, twenty dukes and princes, twenty- 

 four counts, four barons, and thirty-five imperial 

 cities ; in all eighty-six members of the empire. 

 Sweden and Denmark (since 1536 a Protestant 

 country), Sleswick, Pomerania, Silesia, and many 

 important cities, on political grounds, Hesse and 

 Bremen, from a preference for Calvinism, refused 

 to adopt the Form of Concord. The Palatinate 

 fell back, and the court of Berlin became Calvinis- 

 tic (or Reformed). The dispute concerning the 

 presence of the body of Christ in the sacrament of 

 the supper (see Lord's Supper), between the Swiss 

 and French Protestants, on one side, among whom, 

 after the death of Zuinglius, Calvin was the cham- 

 pion, and the Saxon Protestants on the other, re- 

 sulted in a total separation of the reformed church 

 (q. v.) from the Evangelical Lutheran. The foun- 

 dation of this difference between the two churches 

 so unfavourable to the progress of the reformation, 

 was deeply laid in the diversity of the characters ol 

 their founders. Luther, more accustomed to think 

 systematically, and to adhere implicitly to the letter 



