# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 07 03_S178
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

178

LORD Jesus in this manner. That brought no harm to the Emperor, their obedience to him would not be lessened thereby; on the contrary, their fidelity to Christ was a pledge of their fidelity to the Emperor. Whoever for temporal gain or danger falls away from the LORD and His command would have far less scruple, for the same reasons, to depart from his imperial Majesty. They were willing, indeed, to be better instructed out of God's Word, but as yet their consciences were firmly grounded in the doctrines proclaimed among them. They therefore begged the Emperor, for the sake of the honor of God and of their salvation, that he would not become ungracious to them, who had always proved themselves loyal, but leave them to what they had recognized as divine truth from God's Word. It would be an acceptable service to the heavenly Father and to Jesus Christ if his imperial Majesty would grant their petition. — The representation availed nothing. The Emperor sent envoys, who at first spoke much of his grace and praised his kindly intentions, but then also pointed very plainly to his wrath and pressed for the speedy acceptance of the Interim. The Council grew weak and wavering; now precisely it was a case of obeying God rather than men, of letting temporal welfare go for the sake of eternal salvation; but the Council wanted to keep both in view, and so had to succumb to the temptation of putting the eternal after the temporal, and to run the risk of losing both. It promised, though very unwillingly, to accept the Interim, and begged for a postponement, in order to gain time, until it should see how the other Estates carried out its introduction.

When this resolution of the Council was announced to the assembled clergy, they withdrew at once without uttering a word, and now began to rail loudly from their pulpits against the Interim. The Council wished to prevent this, but the preachers answered that one could not and would not keep silent. The Council, having once begun to limp, wishing to serve God and men at the same time, fell into an ever more difficult and impure position, in which it was bound to lose moral strength the longer the more. It fell to hypocrisy on all sides, upward and downward, toward the Emperor and toward the preachers and the people. To the imperial envoys it declared that they were ever busy and thoughtful how the Interim might fittingly be introduced, and begged that they should not hurry them in the matter. When Cardinal Granvella, the Emperor's minister, had them pressed anew, and delay would no longer succeed, new proposals were made to the preachers, in order to bring them to yield somewhat: they did not wish to introduce the whole Interim, but yet some parts which could be accepted without injury to conscience, so that the Emperor might be somewhat satisfied with the report that a beginning had been made. The preachers declared that it was best to accept nothing, but if something must needs be done, they could most readily take back some feast and holy days, the singing of Latin songs, and private absolution; yet the people would have to be warned against superstition and errors in these matters. Hardly had the Council wrung so much from the preachers and made a beginning with these things, when it presently sought to smuggle the Mass in again; then the opposition to it grew louder, the struggle against the Interim more burning. Osiander and Veit Dietrich submitted thorough written opinions; the former soon also gave notice, together with his son-in-law, the preacher Besold at the new hospital, of the resignation of their offices, and they left the city. The Council, provoked thereby, took from Osiander's wife the rights of citizenship and the salary, and now deposed still more other clergymen, had an Interim agenda printed and ordered its use in the churches, and since the Emperor still found some things displeasing even in this agenda, it was also altered to please him, and still more Roman trash was taken in, even the feast of Corpus Christi found a place in it, which, however, they sought to make acceptable to the Lutheran, Christian conscience by having only Trinity hymns sung at it and only the pure Word preached. They were not ashamed even to alter the hymn: "Lord, keep us in Thy Word, etc.," and instead of "and check the murder of the Pope and the Turk," to put "and ward off the craft and murder of Satan." — The faithful servants of God were afflicted to the depths by this dangerous and impure business. The noble Veit Dietrich, who was already sick and could not flee, had his heart broken under these struggles. He called his chaplains at St. Sebald and addressed them thus: "Dear sirs and brethren! Almighty God has yoked us together in His ministry; we have hitherto, as I hope, served it faithfully and diligently, and God has richly given His grace thereto and has hitherto protected us by gracious means from all manner of idolatry and hindered wicked designs, so that you have nothing yet in your church that is wrong, but all is still right. But since it looks, as the devil does not rest, as if something would be laid upon you against God's Word, such as holding Mass, etc.; so I would beg you for God's sake, do not set the temporal before the eternal; God will surely keep you. Afterwards you are my witnesses that I meant it faithfully and well with my church, and I would also beg you to be my witnesses against the Interim, that the same is full of devil's poison, and to guard yourselves against it. Finally, pray God diligently for me for patience and strong faith, for it is only a little more that remains to be done, etc." Then he gave his colleagues his hand in parting with many tears, and died a few days afterward, on the 26th of March, 1549. —

Still worse fared the free imperial city of Constance, which among the Upper-German cities was the only one that was not yet reconciled with the Emperor on account of the Smalcaldic War. It sent envoys to Augsburg to beg for mercy. The Emperor laid before it the most unreasonable conditions, of which one of the first was to submit itself entirely to the Interim. The Council thereupon sent in a very humble letter: they would, though their revenues were very small, yet pay 8000 gold gulden and furnish four pieces of heavy ordnance; they only begged to be left in their religion, and that nothing "impossible" be imposed upon them. Only after several weeks did they receive from the Bishop of Arras the scornful answer: "Since the Emperor saw that they cared little for peace, he would now be intent upon other means." On the same day 3000 men received orders to set out in all secrecy and in the morning, when the people were in church, to surprise the city. But the citizens, though taken by surprise, gave the savage enemy a hard reception. They wished to protect wife and child, even if the city should become their churchyard. When the suburb was already taken and the first Spaniards were about to force their way over the Rhine bridge into the gate of the city together with the fugitives, a citizen, in order to give his comrades time to close the bridge gate, seized two enemies who pressed upon him, cried to God for forgiveness of his sins, and plunged with them from the parapet into the deep stream. The city was saved this time, but now the Emperor declared it under the ban of the Empire on account of its resistance. All the intercessions of various princes and of the Swiss cantons remained fruitless. Protection and help they had from no side. Then they betook themselves, as the only means of escaping the Emperor's wrath, into the protection of King Ferdinand, but were by him also deprived in a single day of their liberty of conscience as of their imperial freedom. The King commanded his commissioners to bring "the old true religion" — the old Roman idolatry — "back into being." All clergymen had to leave the city within eight days, and after some time evangelical preaching was forbidden on pain of death. —

Strasburg saved something, indeed little enough, by a settlement with the Emperor and his bishop brought about with much trouble. The envoys of this city also handed to the Emperor's minister at Augsburg a letter which contained the most solemn assurances of rendering the Emperor the strictest obedience in all worldly matters, but at the same time the urgent request to spare the conscience. Granvella, being informed of the contents of this letter, did not accept it at all, and said with visible displeasure: "Nobody indeed shall be compelled to believe. This sentence can be understood only of unchristians who have never had any faith. But whoever has once been a believer — (that is, a Roman papist-slave) — and denies his faith again, him one may burn with fire!" The Council made a second written representation; the Emperor gave the same answer that he had given to other imperial cities: "Nothing can be altered in the Interim now; at the Council the objections against it will be heard, so far as is necessary."