Chapter 36

CHURCH DIVISIONS IN GERMANY--WAR WITH THE TURKS--THE CONFERENCE AT MARBURG, 1529.

In the war against the Pope and France an imperial army in 1527 had stormed and plundered Borne. God, as Luther said, had so ordained, that the Emperor, who persecuted Luther for the Pope, had to destroy the Pope for Luther. But Charles V. was not then in a position to break with the Head of the Church. In the treaty concluded with the Pope in November, mention was again made of extirpating the Lutheran heresy. And whilst in Italy the war with France was still going on, the Emperor in the spring of 1528 sent an ambassador to the German Courts, to rouse fresh zeal for the Church in this matter.

But before the threatened danger actually reached the Evangelical party, it was preceded by disquieting rumours and false alarms.

In March 1528 a new Diet was to assemble at Ratisbon. Luther heard in February of strange designs being meditated there by the Papists. His wish was that Charles's brother Ferdinand might be detained in Hungary, where he was occupied in fighting the Turks and their _protégé,_ Prince John Zapolya of Transylvania, and that the Diet should be prevented from meeting. Luther's adversaries, on the other hand, feared an unfavourable decision from the Estates, and the Emperor at length peremptorily forbade their meeting.

Just about this time, John Pack, a steward of the chancery who had been dismissed by Duke George of Saxony, came to the Landgrave Philip and informed him of a league concluded with King Ferdinand by the Dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, the Electors of Mayence and Brandenburg, and several Bishops, to attack the Evangelical princes. The Electorate of Saxony, where John was just then engaged in completing the re-organisation of the Church, was to be partitioned among them, and Hesse was to be allotted to Duke George. John and Philip quickly formed an offensive and defensive alliance, and called out their troops. The whole scheme, as was shortly proved beyond dispute, was an invention, and the pretended treaty a forgery, of Pack, who had been paid a large sum for his revelations. Luther himself had no doubt of the genuineness of the document, and persisted even afterwards in his belief. But while the Landgrave, with his habitual vehemence, was impatient to strike quickly, before their enemies were prepared, both Luther and the other Wittenberg theologians did their utmost to restrain their sovereign from any act of violence. Luther earnestly bade him remember the words: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth' (St. Matt. v. 5),--'As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men' (Rom.