546 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 τὸ 1580.
but brought it under the bondage of lawyers and politicians who, with some honorable exceptions, knew less and ruled worse than the bishops. The Reformers often and bitterly complained in their later writings of the rapacity of princes and nobles who confiscated the property of churches and convents, and applied it to their own use instead of schools and benevolent purposes. Romish historians make the most of this fact to the disparagement of the Reformation. But the spoliations of Protestant princes are very trifling, as compared with the wholesale confiscation of church property by Roman-Catholic powers, as France, Spain, and Italy in the last and present centuries.
The union of church and state accounts for the persecution of papists, heretics, and Jews; and all the Reformers justified persecution to the extent of deposition and exile, some even to the extent of death, as in the case of Servetus.!
The modern progress of the principle of toleration and religious liberty goes hand in hand with the loosening of the bond of union between church and state.
§ 88. Church Visitation in Saxony.
MELANCHTHON: Articuli de quibus egerunt per visitatores in regione Sazoniw. Wittenb., 1527. Reprinted in the Corpus Reform., vol. XXVI. (1858), 9-28. The same in German with preface by LUTHER: Unterricht der Visitatoren an die Pfarrherrn im Kurfiirstenthum zu Sachsen. Wittenb., 1528. In WALcH, X. 1902, and in Corp. Reform., X XVI. 29-40. Also LUTHER’S Letters to Elector John, from the years 1525 to 1527, in DE WETTE, vol. III. 38 sqq.
BURKHARDT: Gesch. der sdchsischen Kirchen- und Schulvisitationen von 1524-45. Leipzig, 1879. ΚΌΒΤΙΙΝ: M.L., 11. 23-49.
In order to abolish ecclesiastical abuses, to introduce reforms in doctrine, worship, and discipline, and to establish Christian schools throughout the electorate of Saxony, Luther proposed a general visitation of all the churches. This was properly the work of bishops. But, as there were none in
1 See § 12, p. ὅθ sqq.
ὃ 88. CHURCH VISITATION IN SAXONY. 547
Saxony who favored the Reformation, he repeatedly urged the Elector John, soon after he succeeded his brother Frederick, to institute an episcopal visitation of the churches in his territory, and to divide it into three or four districts, each to be visited by two noblemen or magistrates. He presented to him, in his strong way, the deplorable condition of the church: the fear of God, and discipline are gone; the common people have lost all respect for the preachers, pay no more offerings, and let them starve; since the Pope’s tyranny is abolished, everybody does as he pleases. We shall soon have no churches, no schools, no pupils, unless the magistrates restore order, and take care at least of the youth, whatever may become of the old people.”
It was a dangerous step, and the entering wedge of a new cesaropapacy, — the rule of statecraft over priestcraft. But it seemed to be the only available help under the circumstances, and certainly served a very useful purpose. Luther had full confidence in the God-fearing Elector, that he would not abuse the authority thus temporarily conferred on him.
The Elector, after considerable delay, resolved upon the visitation in July, 1527, on the quasi-legal basis of the Diet of Speier, which a year before had temporarily suspended, but by no means abolished, the Edict of Worms. He directed Melanchthon to prepare a “formula of doctrine and rites” for the instruction of the visitors. Melanchthon elaborated in Latin, and more fully in German, a summary of the evangelical doctrines of faith and duty, which may be regarded as the first basis of the Augsburg Confession. He treats, in seventeen articles, of faith, the cross (affliction), prayer, the
1 See his letters of Oct. 31, 1525, Nov. 30, 1525, Nov. 22, 1526, Feb. 5, 1527, Oct. 12, 1527.
2“ Wollen die Alten ja nicht, mégen sie immer zum Teufel hinfahren. Aber wo die Jugend versiumet und unerzogen bleibt, da ist die Schuld der Obrigkeit’’ (De Wette, ITI. 186). In the same letter he says that the people live ‘‘ wie die Stiue: da ist keine Furcht Gottes, noch Zucht mehr, weil des, Papstes Bann ist abgegangen, und thut jedermann was er nur will,’’