The Commendator of Kusnacht.... Zwingle on the sacrifice of the Mass...... 465 and on harsh and violent language...... 466 Its effects at Schaffhausen and Zuric...... 475 Zwingle's Introduction to Christian Doctrine.... 475 CHAPTER X. FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SMALKALDIC A. D. 1546. Ir belongs not to this work to detail the events of the Smalkaldic war. The reader must be referred for them to those authors who have Smalkaldic written the secular history of the times. A few War. of the leading features of these transactions are all that must here be noticed. It will easily be conceived how melancholy an impression would be made upon all peaceable and pious minds by the last recorded event of the preceding volume, when the diet of Ratisbon broke up, and both parties openly July 24. prepared for war. 2 It is interesting to be allowed to contemplate that impression, softened and alleviated by a devout resignation, as it is exhibited in the following letter of Melancthon to his friend Camerarius, dated only four days after. Melancthon "I thank you for repeatedly endeavouring to Letter of abate my sadness by your letters; particularly July 28 because I see that, in doing this, you endeavour to rise above your own distress, by means of the consolations which God has provided for us. I must confess that, under our common calamity, ' Robertson, books viii and ix. vol. iii. 325-369, 386— 427. 2 Vol. i. 427. CHAP. the thought of your affliction often increases my own: but, I entreat you, continue to support yourself with these consolations. Soothe your mind also in the society of your excellent wife and your sweet children.-Ah, but you will say, when I look upon them it does but aggravate my anxiety. True, it must do so sometimes. Yet consider that God makes the families of his servants his care, even amid the ruin of empires. The present is not the first commencement of my painful feelings, or of my conviction. that we should have to suffer oppression. Long since, as you well know, I have been deeply affected by observing, not only the fury of our enemies, but the vices and sins of our own people. Though therefore my feelings are more acute in this crisis of the calamity, yet, as in the case of diseases of long continuance, I have become in some degree prepared for it: and, while I revolve with myself all that is urged concerning the causes of the war, the characters and views of the leaders, the probable conduct of the military enterprises, their issue, and what may be the event of the whole, I rest in the sentence of Gamaliel, If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught; but, if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it: and with earnest sighs and prayers I seek a salutary issue for the church of God.-With my own private danger I am not much affected. Should I lose my life, and thus afford some little triumph to them that rejoice in iniquity, (whose number, 1 Compare Epist. iv. 648, (written in 1544,) where he adopts the words of Pericles, "I am more alarmed at our own corruptions than at the machinations of our enemies;" yet expresses his confidence that God would preserve the church in which his true gospel was proclaimed. |