of Luther, expressed approbation of the purity and innocence of the doctrines. John elector of Saxony, and four princes of the empire, viz. George marquis of Brandenburg, Ernest duke of Luneburg, Philip landgrave of Hesse, and Wolfgang prince of Anhalt, with the two imperial cities, Nuremberg and Reutlingen, subscribed their names to the copies [the one Latin, the other German] delivered after the reading to the emperor, in testimony of the accordance of the doctrines there expressed with their own views.1 which they had separated from the Romish community.3 3-The articles in this Confession, or as it might be called Apology, are of very unequal length. Some are proofs or argumentation, and several of them are fol Art. 2d affirms that all men since the fall are born with sin-that is, destitute of faith and the fear of God, and with corrupt propensities; for which hereditary sin they are exposed to eternal death, until they are regenerated by baptism and the Holy Spirit. It rejects the Pelagian doctrine, and denies man's ability to obtain justification by his own works. Art. 3d treats of the person and mediation of Christ, Art. 5th asserts that the word, preaching, and the parts the Holy Spirit to whom he will, in consequence sacraments, are the medium through which God imof which they believe unto righteousness. It rejects the Holy Spirit by their own efforts and without the the doctrine of the Anabaptists, that men can obtain means above stated. 2. As the Augsburg Confession was adopted as a public standard of faith by the whole body of [Lutheran] Protestants, no one of them should be ignorant of its cha-in accordance with the Apostles' Creed. racter and contents. The style is Philip Art. 4th asserts justification to be, solely, on the Melancthon's; which is as much as to say,liever, and not on the ground of his personal righteousground of Christ's righteousness imputed to the beit was drawn up in polished, perspicuousness, agreeably to Rom. chap. iii. iv. language, well adapted to the subject. The matter or contents, it is certain, were supplied principally by Luther, who was at Coburg, a town not far from Augsburg, at the time of the diet, and who examined and approved the form and style which Melancthon gave to it. It was comprised in twenty-eight articles; of which twenty-one stated distinctly the religious faith of those who had receded from the church of Rome, and the other seven recounted the errors or abuses as they were called, on account of Art. 6th asserts that true faith always produces good works; which every man is bound to perform, yet must not rely upon them for salvation. Art. 7th affirms the existence of a holy Catholic church consisting of all the faithful, and which is known not by a uniformity in ceremonies, but by the efficacious preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments in their purity. Art. 8th asserts that the Christian church, though composed of saints, yet has hypocrites in it; and that the efficacy of the sacraments is not destroyed by hypocrisy in the administrators. Art. 9th asserts that baptism is necessary, and is a means of grace, and that infants are to be baptized. Art. 10th asserts that the real body and blood of Christ are truly present in the eucharist under the elements of the bread and wine, and are distributed and received. Art. 11th retains private confession of sins to the pastors, and absolution by them; but denies the necessity of a particular enumeration of all sins. A history of this diet, in a large folio volume, by George Cœlestine [a Lutheran], was published at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in 1577. Histories of the Augsburg Confession were composed by Chytræus, and by others; and especially in the eighteenth century by Cyprian, and by Salig, in the German language. Salig's work is prolix, and is more properly a history of the Reformation than a history of the Augsburg Confession. Cyprian's history is more concise and dense, and is corroborated by well-selected docuArt. 12th maintains that those who sin after baptism, ments. It therefore deserves to pass to a third edition. if they repent, should always be restored by the church; [Webber's Critical History of the Augsburg Confession, that repentance consists in sorrow and regret for sin Frankfort-on-Mayne, 1783, &c. 2 vols. 8vo. The origi- and reliance on Christ for pardon, and is productive of nal subscribers to the confession are mentioned in the good works. It denies sinless perfection in this life, Before the diet rose, the cities Kempten, Heil-the Novatian error of refusing absolution to the penibronn, Windsheim, and Weissenburg, also subscribed, tent, and all dependence on our own satisfactions for and afterwards many more. It was immediately printed and soon spread all over Europe, and was translated into various foreign languages. It thus became of great service to the Protestant cause; for it was a very able document, and was drawn up in a most judicious manner. See Schroeckh's Kirchengesch. seit der Reform. vol. i. p. 445, &c.— Mur. text. 2 Ranke has, as usual, given an admirable sketch of the proceedings and results of this memorable diet, comprising additional matter from unpublished sources, in his Hist. of the Reformation, Mrs. Austin's transl. vol. iii. p. 254, &c. Dr. Merle D'Aubigné has devoted an entire book to the proceedings of this Diet (Hist. of the Ref. Edin. edit. vol. iv. p. 103-260); and at this point he proposes to close his account of the German Reformation. Milner's History of the Church also terminates at this period-the opening of the Diet at Augsburg. Scott, the continuator of Milner, opens his first volume with a detailed account of this Diet and an elaborate analysis of the confession. See also the excellent work of Dean Waddington on both these points -the Diet and the Confession; and also on Luther's views and sentiments at Coburg during that eventful period. History of the Reformation, vol. iii. chap. xxxv. -xxxix.-R. sin. Art. 13th asserts that the sacraments are not merely significant signs, but are tokens and evidence of God's gracious disposition towards us, calculated to awaken and strengthen our faith, and requiring faith to a worthy receiving of them. and administer the sacraments unless duly called. Art. 15th. Rites of human institution, so far as they are not sinful and tend to peace and good order in the church (as certain feasts, fasts, &c.) are to be observed. But all human institutions designed to appease God, are contrary to the Gospel. Art. 16th. Civil government is ordained of God, and Christians may lawfully hold offices, civil and military, and may pursue the various occupations of citizens; contrary to the views of the Anabaptists, and such as deem all worldly business inconsistent with a truly religious life. Art. 17th asserts that at the last day Christ will come, will raise the dead, and will adjudge the believing and elect to eternal life, and wicked men and devils to hell and cternal torment. It rejects the Anabaptist notion of a final restoration of devils and the damned; 3. The friends of the pontiff present at | not satisfied with this answer of the papal the diet drew up a confutation of the divines, and wished to have a copy of it Protestant Confession, of which, John that they might point out its fallacies. Faber afterwards bishop of Vienna, with The emperor, more obedient to the exhorthe aid of John Eck and John Cochlæus, tations of the pontiff's legate and his is said to have been the composer. This companions than to the demands of right confutation being likewise read before the and equity, refused their request and diet on the 3d of August, the emperor would not allow the controversy to be required the Protestants to acquiesce in it, protracted by any new writings about it. and to abandon their whole cause and Nevertheless the Protestants caused an controversy. But they declared themselves answer to be drawn up by Philip Melanc and also the Jewish notion of a temporal reign of Art. 18th asserts that men have some free will to live Art. 19th asserts that God is not the cause and author of sin; but that the perverse wills of ungodly men and devils are the sole cause of it. Art. 20th maintains that the Reformers do not discourage good works, though they inculcate the doctrine of justification by faith alone; but only discourage useless works, as the rosary, worshipping saints, pilgrimages, monastic rows, stated fasts, &c.; and it evinces at considerable length, from Scripture and the fathers, that a man cannot be justified by works. Art. 21st admits that the saints are to be respected, and to be imitated as patterns of piety; but denies that they are to be worshipped, prayed to, or regarded as mediators. Such for substance (say they) is the doctrine taught in our churches; and being the doctrine of the Bible, we cannot but hold to it. All should embrace it. The abuses (they say) which havo crept into the church, and which we could not conscientiously endure, are chiefly the following: Art. 22d. Denying the sacramental cup to the laity, contrary to Scripture and early Christian practice. Art. 23d. Imposing celibacy on the clergy, contrary to reason and Scripture and the practice of the purer ages, and with very injurious consequences. Lindau, and Memmingen, offered a separate confession called the Confession of the Four Cities, Confessio Tetrapolitana. It agreed substantially with the Augsburg Confession, except in regard to the corporeal presence. They maintained a real yet a spiritual or sacramental presence, a presence which the devout soul could feel and enjoy, but which implied no physical presence of Christ's body. Yet they expressed themselves in terms which need not have given offence to the Lutherans. They say: "All that the evangelists, Paul, and the holy fathers have written respecting the venerable sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, our preachers teach, recommend, and inculcate, with the greatest fidelity. Hence, with singular earnestness, they constantly proclaim that goodness of Christ towards his followers, whereby, no less now than at his last supper, to all his sincere disciples as oft as they repeat this supper, he condescends to give, by the sacraments, his real body and his real blood, to be truly caten and drunken as the food and drink of their souls, by which they are nourished to eternal life, so that he lives and abides in them and they in him." This confession they presented to the emperor in Latin and German, but he would not allow it to be read in public. Yet when the popish priests had made out a confutation of it, he called them before him to hear that confutation read; and then, without allowing discussion or permitting them to have a copy of the confutation, demanded of them submission to the church of Rome. They refused. This confession of the four cities, which was drawn up by Martin Bucer and had been adopted by the senate and people of Augsburg, was the confession of that city for a number of years. But afterwards the four cities, feeling the necessity of a union with the Lutherans lest their popish enemies should swallow them up, brought themselves to believe that the Lutherans and they differed more in words than in reality; and therefore they subscribed to the Augsburg Confession, and became a part of the Lutheran church. See Hospinian's Historia Sacramentaria, par. ii. p. 162, &c.-At the same Diet Zwingli presented his private confession, which is a long and elaborate performance. He says: "Grace is conferred along with the sacraments, but not by them as the channels; or in other words, that the Holy Spirit imparts grace to the devout communicants in the ordinance; but does not annex the grace to the sacrament, so that it may go along with it as water through a channel, or by a physical process.' And respecting the Lord's Supper he says: "I believe that in the holy eucharist or supper of thanksgiving, the real body of Christ is present to the eye of faith (fidei Art. 28th discriminates between civil and ecclesiasti- contemplatione); that is, to those who thank the Lord for cal power, and allows neither to infringe upon the the benefits conferred on us in Christ his Son, acknowother. The spiritual or episcopal power is limited to ledge that he assumed a real body, truly suffered in it, preaching, administering the sacraments, and loosing and washed away our sins in his own blood; and thus and binding sins. If bishops teach contrary to the the whole that Christ has done is, as it were, present to Scriptures, they are and must be treated as false the eye of their faith. But that the body of Christ in prophets. If allowed to try causes relating to marriage substance and reality, or that his natural body is pre. and tithes, it is only as civil officers. They have no sent in the supper, and is received into our mouth and legislative power over the church; and they can bind masticated by our teeth-as the papists and some who the conscience only by showing that the Gospel enjoins look back upon the fleshpots of Egypt represent-that what they inculcate. As to Sundays and other holy I not only deny but unhesitatingly pronounce an error days and rites and forms of worship, bishops may and and contrary to the word of God." He subjoins elaboshould appoint such as are convenient and suitable, and rate proofs from the Scripture, reason, and the fathers, the people should observe them, not as divine ordi- in support of these views. To this confession Eck, the nances, but as conducive to good order and edification. Catholic divine, replied; and Zwingli or the 27th of Though the Lutherans expressed their doctrine of August defended himself in a letter addressed to the consubstantiation in the most inoffensive terms which emperor and to the Protestant princes. See Hospinian, would be explicit, yet the Reformed or Zwinglians ubi supra, p. 167, &c.-Mur. [See also on this Con could not subscribe to the Augsburg Confession. fession the works of Scott and Waddington referred to Hence the imperial cities of Strasburg, Constance, I in the preceding note.-R. Art. 24th. The Protestants are falsely taxed with abolishing the mass. They only purified it, and discarded the idea of its being a work of merit, an offering for the sins of the living and the dead, which militates with the scriptural doctrine that Christ's sacrifice is the only sin-offering. Art. 25th. The Protestants had not abolished private confession, for they made it a necessary preparation for the eucharist. Yet they did not consider it a sacrament, nor require a particular enumeration of sins. Art. 26th censures the multitude of fasts and other ceremonies of human invention, and the undue stress laid upon them as meritorious acts; thus obscuring the doctrine of salvation by faith, holding these human prescriptions more sacred than the commands of God, and burdening the consciences of men with them. Art. 27th represents the whole system of monkery as a great abuse, and exceedingly injurious to piety. thon, to so much of the pontifical confuta- special pains to conciliate, very clearly tion as the theologians had been able to appeared. He seemed easy of access, and gather from hearing it read; and on the ready to make concessions when his oppo22d of September they presented it to the sers dealt in compliments and promises; emperor, who refused to receive it. This but when they would terrify him by threats answer (though afterwards corrected and and denunciations, he seemed quite another enlarged by Melancthon upon obtaining a man, bold, courageous, and regardless of copy of the pontifical confutation) is that life and fortune. For in this great man, Apology for the Augsburg Confession, a mild and tender spirit was united with which was afterwards published in the the strictest fidelity and an invincible year 1531, and which constitutes a part of attachment to what he regarded as the the symbolical books of the Lutheran truth. church.1 4. Three modes of getting rid of these very troublesome contentions remained. One was, to allow those who would not obey the mandates of the pontiff to enjoy their own sentiments on religion, and to worship God as they saw fit, without allowing the public tranquillity to be thereby destroyed. Another was, to compel them by force of arms to cease from dissenting from the Romish church, and make them return to the spurned friendship of the Roman prelate. A third was, to attempt an honourable and equitable compromise, by each party's relinquishing some portion of what it considered as its just claims. The first method was accordant with reason and justice, and would meet the wishes of the wise and good; but it was totally repugnant to the arrogant claims of the pontiff and to the ignorance of the age, which abhorred all liberty of opinion concerning religion. The second accorded with the customs and views of the age, and with the violent counsels of the Romish court; but it was opposed to the prudence, the moderation, and the equity, both of the emperor and of all good men. The third therefore was adopted, and met the approbation of all who were solicitous for the good of the empire; nor did the sovereign pontiff himself seem to be wholly averse from it. Hence various consultations were held between select individuals of both parties, and every means was adopted which seemed calculated to allay mutual hatred, and bring discordant minds to harmonize. But the parties were too wide apart in their first principles, for any thing to be effected. In these discussions the character of Philip Melancthon, whom, as the principal doctor among the Protestants, the adherents to the pontiff took Melancthon composed the Apology in Latin, but afterwards Justus Jonas translated it into German, in which language it was published in the first collection of all the symbolical books of the Lutheran church, Dresden, 1580, fol. 21-134 The Augsburg Confession in German immediately precedes it, fol. 3-20 See Waich's Introductio in Libros Symbolicos, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 409, &c.-Mur. 2 5. This middle course having been tried in vain for a sufficient length of time, it was resolved, in order to terminate these religious controversies, to resort to the method so repugnant to reason and to the principles of Christianity, but which the perverseness of the times recommended. Accordingly on the 19th of November, a severe dec ce was passed by command and authority of the emperor, in the absence of the two leaders of the Protestants, the landgrave of Hesse and the elector of Saxony; in which there was nothing that could solace the Protestants, except an equivocal and deceptive promise of a council to be called within six months by order of the pontiff. For, the dignity and excellence of the old religion were extravagantly extolled; new energy was imparted to the edict of Worms against Luther and his followers; the religious reformations entered upon in one place and another were severely censured; and the princes and cities which had been alienated from the pontiff were admonished to return to their duty within some months, unless they wished to incur the vengeance of the emperor, as the patron and protector of the church.3 6. On learning the sad issue of the diet, the elector of Saxony and his associates, in the year 1530 and the year following, assembled at Smalcald and afterwards at Frankfort, and formed a league among themselves, for their mutual protection against the evils which the edict of Augsburg portended, but excluding all offensive operations against any one. They also of the delegates, from the second day of August till the 2 The conferences continued, with repeated changes end of the month.-Mur. 3 See, in addition to the authors before mentioned, Müller's Historie der Protestation und Appellation der Evangelischen Stände, book iii. chap. xlviii. p. 997. 4 The first meeting of the Protestants subsequently to the diet, was held at Smalcald on the 22d of December, 1530. But it was found that many of the representatives of cities had received no instruction in regard to a confederacy, and that many other cities were to be invited to join them. As the emperor had entered into a coalition with the Catholic states against them, they assembled again in the following year on empire. took measures to bring the kings of France, in the diet of Cologne, A.D. 1531, had England, and Denmark, as well as other been elected contrary to the laws of the princes and states, into the confederacy.' When things began to wear this warlike 7. After various consultations, therefore, aspect, the electors of Mentz and the in the year 1532 a peace was concluded Palatinate interposed as mediators between at Nuremberg between the emperor and the parties. And the emperor Charles V. the Protestants on the following terms for various reasons was very anxious for that the latter should contribute money peace. For the Protestants would not for the Turkish war, and should acknowafford their aid to a Turkish war which the ledge Ferdinand as king of the Romans; emperor exceedingly needed; and they also and that Charles should annul the edicts of contended that Ferdinand, the emperor's Worms and Augsburg, and should allow brother, who had been created king of the the followers of Luther full liberty to|| Romans by the major part of the princes regulate their religious matters as they pleased, until either a council (which was to be held within six months) or a diet of the empire should determine what religious principles were to be adopted and obeyed. Scarcely was the apprehension of war removed by this convention, when John, the elector of Saxony, died and was succeeded by his son, John Frederick, unfortunate prince though possessed of invincible fortitude and magnanimity. the 29th of March, to form a closer union for their mutual defence. The landgrave of Hesse took great pains to have the Swiss included in the confederacy. But the elector of Saxony, who was guided by Luther, absolutely refused to admit them. And in general, Luther had great scruples in regard to the whole transaction, and the jurists had much debate with him respecting the lawfulness of such a confederacy; for according to his monkish principles, he held all human means for preserving peace in religious matters to be unallowable, and supposed that men should repose themselves wholly on the providence of God, without venturing upon any measures suggested by policy in such cases. But the jurists informed him that the constitution of the empire allowed the states to combine together, and probably also to declare war against the emperor; for, by virtue of the compact between to infringe upon the laws of the empire and the rights and liberties of the Germanic church. This compact a right to combine together against him. Luther replied that he had not been aware of this, and that if it was so, he had no objections to make; for the gospel was not opposed to civil government. Yet he could not approve of an offensive war.-Schl. [The fullest and most authentic information respecting these negotiations, accessible to the English reader, is to be found in Ranke's History of the Reformation, vol. iii. book vi. chap. 1 and 5.-R. the emperor and the states, the emperor engaged not the emperor had violated, and therefore the states had 1 In their meeting at Smalcald, A.D. 1531, after an 8. The truce of Nuremberg with the emperor, gave so much courage and fortitude to the concealed and feebler enemies of the pontiff, that they would no longer obey his mandates. This is attested by various regions and towns of Germany, which year after year from this time onward fearlessly made profession of the religion which Luther had restored. Moreover, as the only hope of removing the disagreement about religion now depended on the promised council, the emperor did not cease to urge the sovereign pontiff Clement VII. to hasten its meeting. But Clement, whom the recollection of former councils filled with apprehensions, contrived there was for it, and the sufferings and dangers to which they were exposed on account of it. Copies of to put it off, and wished the cause of his this apology they sent both to Francis I. the king of France, and to Henry VIII. of England. Both those see might be decided rather by arms than kings returned very civil answers; but nothing was by arguments. He promised indeed by said on either side about an alliance for mutual defence. his legate in 1533, that a council should Gerdes, Historia Evang Renovati, tom. iv. p. 222, &c. be called in Italy either at Mantua, PlaIn 1535, the Protestants had another meeting at Smal- centia, or Bologna. But the Protestants cald, in which they extended their league of 1531 for declared themselves not satisfied with an 10 years longer. About this time, Dr. Barnes, an English clergyman, arrived in Saxony, as envoy from Italian council, and maintained that a the king of England; and he was soon followed by controversy arising in Germany ought to be decided within the limits of Germany. forming a league for mutual defence for six years, they drew up an apology for their conduct; in which they gave a concise history of the Reformation, the necessity See Seckendorf's Historia Lutheranismi, lib. iii. sec. i.; Edward Fox, bishop of Hereford, and Nicholas Heath, an English archdeacon. They attended the convention at Smalcald, and a negotiation was held for forming a coalition of some sort between the German confederates and the king of England. See Seckendorf, ubi supra, lib. iii. sec. 39. In 1538, the German confederates sent an embassy to the king of France (which however effected very little), and also three ambassadors to the king of England. They proposed to king Henry to adopt the Augsburg Confession, and consent to be the head and patron of the Protestant confederacy; they also stated what aid each should afford to the other in case of attack from the enemy. But Henry was not yet prepared to go so far in the Reformation, nor did he wish to embroil himself with the emperor. See Seckendorf, ubi supra, lib. iil. sec. 166, p. 197, &c.; Gerdes, ubi supra, p. 287, &c.; Burnet's History of the Reformation, book ill. vol. i. p. 329, &c. ed. London, 1825.-Idur. 2 Besides the causes which, since the councils of Constance and Basil, had divested the popes of all relish for such clerical parliaments, pope Clement had his own peculiar reasons. It was his misfortune to be the illegitimate son of Julius de Medicis, and he was afraid his enemies in the council might avail themselves of this circumstance, to pronounce him unworthy of the papal dignity. For it was a disputed point, which had never been decided, whether a bastard could be a legitimate pope. That a profligate might be, had been decided by usage long since, especially by the example of Alexander VI. See Paul Safpi, tom. 1. p. 54, &c.; and Jac. Ziegler's Historia Clementis VII. in Schelhorn's Amanitat. Hist. Eccles. et Literar. vol. i. p. 210, &c.-Schl. 604 And the pontiff himself managed so artfully as to get rid of his own promise, and soon after died in the year 1534.1 9. His successor, Paul III. seemed more tractable, when the emperor addressed him on the subject of a council. For he first made a promise in 1535, that he would assemble a council at Mantua; and afterwards, A.D. 1536, he actually proclaimed one by letters despatched through all the Catholic countries. The Protestants, on the other hand, foresceing that in such a council everything would go according to the opinion, and pleasure of the pontiff, declared in a convention held at Smalcald in 1537, their entire dissatisfaction with such a servile council; yet they procured a new summary of their religious faith to be drawn up by Luther, which they might present to the assembled bishops if occasion should call for it. This production of Luther is called the Articles of Smalcald; and it was admitted among the books from which the religious sentiments of those called Lutherans are to be learned.? Everything pertaining to this council is fully and intelligently stated, pre-eminently by Paul Sarpi, Historia Concilii Tridentini, lib. i.-[The Protestants met at Smalcald to consider the proposed plan of an Italian council, and remonstrated against it, as being to be held in Italy. They also insisted that the pope, as one of the parties whose cause was to be tried, should have should be founded solely on the Holy Scriptures.-Mur. 9 The Articles of Smalcald were drawn up in German by Luther, in his own acrimonious style. The Augsburg Confession was intended to soften prejudice against the Lutherans, and to conciliate the good will no authority over the council; and that the decision of the Catholics. Of course the gentle Melancthon was employed to write it. The Articles of Smalcald, Thus on the contrary, were a preparation for a campaign against an enemy with whom no compromise was decmed possible, and in which victory or death was the only alternative. Of course all delicacy towards the Catholics was dispensed with, and Luther's fiery style was chosen and was allowed full scope. In words, the Articles flatly contradict the Confession in some instances; though in sense they are the same. the Confession (Article xxiv.) says: "We are unjustly charged with having abolished the mass. For it is manifest that without boasting we may say, the mass is observed by us with greater devotion and earnestness than by our opposers." But in the Articles of Smalcald, (Part II. Art. II.) it is said: "That the popish mass is the greatest and most horrid abomination, as militating directly and violently against these articles; and yet it has become the chief and most splendid of all the popish idolatries." In the Confession, they applied the name of the mass to the Lutheran form of the eucharist. But in these Articles, they confine that term to its proper import, the ordinary public service among the Catholics.-The Articles of Smalcald cover 28 folio pages, and are preceded by a preface and followed by a treatise on the power and supremacy of the pope. The first part contains four concise articles, respecting God, the Trinity, and the incarnation, passion, and ascension of Christ, in accordance with the Apostles' and the Athanasian Creeds. On these Articles the Protestants professed to agree altogether with the papists. The second part also contains four articles of fundamental importance, but in which the Protestants and papists are declared to be totally and irreconcilably at variance. They relate to the nature and the grounds of justification, the mass and saint worship, ecclesiastical and monkish 10. During these consultations two most important events occurred, the one very injurious to the general interests of religion and especially to the cause of the Reformation, the other no less so to the papal dominion. The former was, a new sedition of the furious and fanatical tribe of the Anabaptists; the latter was, a revolt of Henry VIII. the king of England from the Roman pontiff. In the year 1533, certain persons of the class of Anabaptists, who were more insane and distracted than the rest, came to Munster, a city of Westphalia, and gave out that they were divinely commissioned to set up a sort of holy empire on the ruins of all human institutions. The whole city being excited and thrown into great commotion, they proceeded to erect the new commonwealth conformably to their crude opinions and fancies; and placed John Bockholt, a tailor of Leyden, at the head of it. But the city being taken in the year 1535, by the bishop of Munster who was aided by other German princes, this delirious king and his associates were executed without mercy; and the new republic was thus overthrown soon after its establishment. This seditious procedure of certain Anabaptists induced most of the princes of Europe to enact severe laws against the entire sect; in consequence of which, in subsequent years vast numbers of them, both the innocent and the guilty, were miserably put to death.3 11. Henry VIII. king of England, who had before warmly opposed Luther, a prince falling behind none of that age either in vice or in talents, being smitten with the charms of Anne Boleyn, an English virgiu establishments, and the claims of the pope. The third part contains 15 articles, which the Protestants considered as relating to very important subjects, but on which the papists laid little stress. The subjects are, sin, the law, repentance, the gospel, baptism, the sacrament of the altar, the keys (or spiritual power), confession, excommunication, ordination, celibacy of the clergy, churches, good works, monastic yows, and human satisfactions for sin. When the Protestants subscribed these Articles, Melancthon annexed a reservation to his signature, purporting that he could admit of a pope, provided he would allow the gospel to be preached in its purity, and would give up his pretensions to a divine right to rule, and would found his claims wholly on expediency and human compact. In consequence of this dissent from Luther, Melancthon was requested to draw up an article on the power and supremacy of the pope. He did so; and the Protestants were well pleased with it and subscribed to it. It is annexed to the Articles of Smalcald. See Walch's Introductio in Libros Symbol. lib. i. cap. v.-Mur. 3 Hamelmann's Historia Ecclesiast. renati Evangelii, per Inferiorem Saxoniam et Westphaliam, par. ii. p. 1196, &c. in his collected works; Von Printz, Specimen Historia Anabaptist. cap. x. xi. xii. p. 94. [Śleidan, Commentarii de Statu Relig. et Reipublicæ, sub Carolo V. lib. x.; Gerdes, Scrinium Antiquarium, tom. il. p. 377, &c. 569, &c.; Robertson's History of the Reign of Charles V. book v. p. 245—250.— Mur. R R |