veighed against the lenity of the German princes in delaying the execution of the decree of Worms, while he carefully avoided the smallest mention of the promise Adrian had made to reform the corruptions of a superstitious church. The emperor seconded the demands of Campegius, by the orders he sent to his minister to insist upon the execution of the sentence which had been pronounced against Luther and his adherents at the diet of Worms. The princes of the empire, tired out by these importunities and remonstrances, changed in appearance the law they had passed, but confirmed it in reality. For while they promised to observe, as far as was possible, the edict of Worms, they at the same time renewed their demands of a general council, and left all other matters in dispute to be examined and decided at the diet that was soon to be assembled at Spire. The pope's legate, on the other hand, perceiving by these proceedings, that the German princes in general were no enemies to the reformation, retired to Ratisbon, with the bishops and those of the princes that adhered to the cause of Rome, and there drew from them a new declaration, by which they engaged themselves to execute rigorously the edict of Worms in their respective dominions.

XXI. While the efforts of Luther toward the reformation of the church were daily crowned with growing Carlstadt and success, and almost all the nations seemed dis- Zuingle. posed to open their eyes upon the light, two unhappy occurrences, one of a foreign, and the other of a domestic nature, contributed greatly to retard the progress of this salutary and glorious work. The domestic, or internal incident, was a controversy concerning the manner in which the body and blood of Christ were present in the eucharist, that arose among those whom the Roman pontiff had publicly excluded from the communion of the church, and unhappily produced among the friends of the good cause the most deplorable animosities and divisions. Luther and his followers, though they had rejected the monstrous doctrine of the church of Rome with respect to the transubstantiation, or change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, were nevertheless of opinion, that the partakers of the Lord's supper received, along with the bread and wine, the real body and blood of Christ. This, in their judgment, was a mystery which they did not pre

tend to explain. Carlostadt, who was Luther's colleague, understood the matter quite otherwise, and his doctrine, which was afterward illustrated and comfirmed by Zuingle with much more ingenuity than he had proposed it, amounted to this; "That the body and blood of Christ were not really present in the eucharist; and that the bread and wine were no more than external signs or symbols, designed to excite in the minds of Christians the remembrance of the sufferings and death of the divine Saviour, and of the benefits which arise from it." This opinion was embraced by all the friends of the reformation in Switzerland, and by a considerable number of its votaries in Germany. On the other hand, Luther maintained his doctrine, in relation to this point, with the utmost obstinacy; and hence arose, in the year 1524, a tedious and vehement controversy, which, notwithstanding the zealous endeavours that were used to reconcile the contending parties, terminated, at length, in a fatal division between those who had embarked together in the sacred cause of religion and liberty.

peasants.

XXII. To these intestine divisions were added the horThe war of the rors of a civil war, which was the fatal effects of oppression on the one hand, and of enthusiasm on the other; and, by its unhappy consequences, was prejudicial to the cause and progress of the reformation. In the year 1525, a prodigious multitude of seditious fanatics arose like a whirlwind, all of a sudden, in different parts of Germany, took arms, united their forces, waged war against the laws, the magistrates, and the empire in general, laid waste the country with fire and sword, and exhibited daily the most horrid spectacles of unrelenting barbarity. The greatest part of this fu rious and formidable mob was composed of peasants

Iz Luther was not so modest as Dr. Mosheim here represents him. He pretend⚫ ed to explain his doctrine of the real presence, absurd and contradictory as it was, and uttered much senseless jargon on this subject. As in a red hot iron, said he, two distinct substances, viz. iron and fire, are united, so is the body of Christ joined with the bread in the eucharist. I mention this miserable comparison to show into what absurdities the towering pride of system will often betray men of deep sense and true genius.

a See Val. Ern. Loscheri Historia motuum inter Lutheranos et Reformatos, part i. lib. i. cap. ii. p. 55. See also, on the other side of the question, Scultet's Annales Evangelii, published by Von der Hart, in his Historia Liter. Reformat. p. 74. Rud. Hospinianus, and other reformed writers, who have treated of the origin and progress of this dispute. It appears from this representation, which is a just one, of the sentiments of Zuin gle concerning the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper, that they were the same with those maintained by bishop Hoadley, in his Plain Account of the Nature and Design of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

and vassals, who groaned under heavy burdens, and declared they were no longer able to bear the despotic severity of their chiefs; and hence this sedition was called the rustic war, or the war of the peasants." But it is also certain, that this motley crowd was intermixed with numbers, who joined in this sedition from different motives, some impelled by the suggestions of enthusiasm, and others by the profligate and odious view of rapine and plunder, of mending fortunes ruined by extravagant and dissolute living. At the first breaking out of this war, it seemed to have been kindled only by civil and political views; and agreeable to this is the general tenor of the declarations and manifestoes that were published by these rioters. The claims they made in these papers related to nothing farther than the diminution of the tasks imposed upon the peasants, and to their obtaining a greater measure of liberty than they had hitherto enjoyed. Religion seemed to be out of the question; at least, it was not the object of deliberation or debate. But no sooner had the enthusiast Munzer put himself at the head of this outrageous rabble, than the face of things changed entirely, and by the instigation of this man, who had deceived numbers before this time by his pretended visions and inspirations, the civil commotions in Saxony and Thuringia were soon directed toward a new object, and were turned into a religious war. The sentiments, however, of this seditious and dissolute multitude were greatly divided, and their demands were very dif ferent. One part of them pleaded for an exemption from all laws, a licentious immunity from every sort of government; another, less outrageous and extravagant, confined their demands to a diminution of the taxes they were forced to pay, and of the burdens under which they groaned; another insisted upon a new form of religious doctrine, government, and worship, upon the establishment of a pure and unspotted church, and, to add weight to

b These kinds of wars and commotions, arising from the impatience of the peasants, under the heavy burdens that were laid on them, were very common long before the time of Luther. Hence the author of the Danish Chronicle, published by the learned Ludewig, in the ninth volume of his Reliq. M. Storum, p. 59, calls these insurrections a common evil. This will not appear surprising to such as consider, that in most places, the condition of the peasants was much more intolerable and grievous before the reformation, than it is in our times; and that the tyranny and cruelty of the nobility, before that happy period, were excessive and insupportable.

c Or Munster, as some call him.

d These burdens were the duties of vassalage or feudal services, which, in many respects, were truly grievous.

this demand, pretended that it was suggested by the Holy Ghost, with which they were divinely and miraculously inspired; while a very considerable part of this furious rabble were without any distinct view or any fixed purpose at all, but, infected with the contagious spirit of sedition, and exasperated by the severity of their magistrates and rulers, went on headlong, without reflection or foresight, into every act of violence and cruelty which rebellion and enthusiasm could suggest. So that, if it cannot be denied that many of these rioters had perversely misunderstood the doctrine of Luther concerning Christian liberty, and took occasion from thence of committing the disorders that rendered them so justly odious, yet, on the other hand, it would be a most absurd instance of partiality and injustice to charge that doctrine with the blame of those extravagant outrages that arose only from the manifest abuse of it. Luther himself has indeed sufficiently defended both his principles and his cause against any such imputations by the books he wrote against this turbulent sect, and the advice he addressed to the princes of the empire to take arms against them. And accordingly, in the year 1525, this odious faction was defeated and destroyed, in a pitched battle fought at Mulhausen ; and Munzer, their ringleader, taken and put to death. XXIII. While this fanatical insurrection raged in Germany, Frederic the Wise, elector of Saxony, deWise dies, and parted this life. This excellent prince, whose is succeeded by character was distinguished by an uncommon de1527. gree of prudence and moderation, had, during his life, been a sort of a mediator between the Roman pontiff and the reformer of Wittemberg, and had always entertained the pleasing hope of restoring peace in the church, and of so reconciling the contending parties as to prevent a separation either in point of ecclesiastical jurisdiction or religious communion. Hence it was, that while on the one hand he made no opposition to Luther's design of reforming a corrupt and superstitious church, but rather encouraged him in the execution of this pious purpose; yet on the other it is remarkable, that he was at no pains to introduce any change into the churches that were established

Frederic the

John, 1525

e Petri Gnodalii Historia de Seditione repentina Vulgi, præcipue Rusticorum, A. 1525, tempore verno per universam fere Germaniam exorta, Basil. 1570, in 8vo. See also B. Tenzelii Histor. Reform. tom. ii. p. 331.

in his own dominions, nor to subject them to his jurisdiction. The elector John, his brother and successor, acted in a quite different manner. Convinced of the truth of Luther's doctrine, and persuaded that it must lose ground and be soon suppressed, if the despotic authority of the Roman pontiff remained undisputed and entire, he, without hesitation or delay, assumed to himself that supremacy in ecclesiastical matters that is the natural right of every lawful sovereign, and founded and established a church in his dominions, totally different from the church of Rome, in doctrine, discipline, and government. To bring this new and happy establishment to as great a degree of perfection as was possible, this resolute and active prince ordered a body of laws, relating to the form of ecclesiastical government, the method of public worship, the rank, offices, and revenues of the priesthood, and other matters of that nature, to be drawn up by Luther and Melancthon, and promulgated by heralds throughout his dominions in the year 1527. He also took care that the churches should every where be supplied with pious and learned doctors, and that such of the clergy as dishonoured religion by their bad morals, or were incapable of promoting its influence by their want of talents, should be removed from the sacred functions. The illustrious example of this elector was followed by all the princes and states of Germany, who renounced the papal supremacy and jurisdiction, and a like form of worship, discipline, and government was thus introduced into all the churches, which dissented from that of Rome. Thus may the elector John be considered as the second parent and founder of the Lutheran church, which he alone rendered a complete and independent body, distinct from the superstitious church of Rome, and fenced about with salutary laws, with a wise and well-balanced constitution of government. But as the best blessings may, through the influence of human corruption, become the innocent occasions of great inconveniences, such particularly was the fate of those wise and vigorous measures which this elector took for the reformation of the church; for, from that time the religious differences between the German princes which had been hitherto kept within the bounds of moderation, broke out into a violent and lasting flame. The prudence, or rather timorousness, of Frederic the Wise, who avoided every resolute