In order to obtain his liberty, the vacillating Philip of Hesse, though
he had declined to submit to the resolutions of the Council of Trent,
declared himself willing to adopt the Interim. "It is better," he is
reported to have said, "to hear a mass than to play cards," etc. (Jaekel
1, 130. 162.) Special efforts were also made by the Emperor to induce
John Frederick to declare his submission to the Council and to sanction
the Interim. But the Elector solemnly protested that this was impossible
for him. All attempts to induce him to abandon his religious convictions
met with quiet but determined resistance. One of the cruel conditions
under which the Emperor was willing to rescind the death-sentence passed
on the Elector was, that he should consent to everything the Emperor or
the Council would prescribe in matters of religion. But the Elector
declared: "I will rather lose my head and suffer Wittenberg to be
battered down than submit to a demand that violates my conscience.
_Lieber will ich meinen Kopf verlieren und Wittenberg zusammenschiessen
lassen, als eine Forderung eingehen, die mein Gewissen verletzt._" (1,
116.) Through Granvella the Emperor promised the Elector liberty if he
would sign the Interim. But again the Elector declared decidedly that
this was impossible for him.
In a written answer to the Emperor the ex-Elector declared, boldly
confessing his faith: "I cannot refrain from informing Your Majesty that
since the days of my youth I have been instructed and taught by the
servants of God's Word, and by diligently searching the prophetic and
apostolic Scriptures I have also learned to know, and (this I testify as
in the sight of God) unswervingly to adhere in my conscience to this,
that the articles composing the Augsburg Confession, and whatever is
connected therewith, are the correct, true, Christian, pure doctrine,
confirmed by, and founded in, the writings of the holy prophets and
apostles, and of the teachers who followed in their footsteps, in such a
manner that no substantial objection can be raised against it.... Since
now in my conscience I am firmly persuaded of this, I owe this
gratefulness and obedience to God, who has shown me such unspeakable
grace, that, as I desire to obtain eternal salvation and escape eternal
damnation, I do not fall away from the truth of His almighty will which
His Word has revealed to me, and which I know to be the truth. For such
is the comforting and also the terrible word of God: 'Whosoever
therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My
Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him
will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven,' If I should
acknowledge and adopt the Interim as Christian and godly, I would have
to condemn and deny against my own conscience, knowingly and
maliciously, the Augsburg Confession, and whatever I have heretofore
held and believed concerning the Gospel of Christ, and approve with my
mouth what I regard in my heart and conscience as altogether contrary
to the holy and divine Scriptures. This, O my God in heaven, would
indeed be misusing and cruelly blaspheming Thy holy name,... for which I
would have to pay all too dearly with my soul. For this is truly the sin
against the Holy Ghost concerning which Christ says that it shall never
be forgiven, neither in this nor in the world to come, _i.e._, in
eternity." (Walther, 16.)
The Emperor was small enough to punish the heroic refusal and bold
confession of the Elector by increasing the severity of his
imprisonment. For now he was deprived of Luther's writings and even of
the Bible. But the Elector, who drew the line of submission at his
conscience and faith, declared, "that they were able indeed to deprive
him of the books, but could not tear out of his heart what he had
learned from them." And when Musculus and the Lutheran preachers of
Augsburg whom the Emperor had banished because of their refusal to
introduce the Interim, took leave of the Elector, the latter said:
"Though the Emperor has banished you from the realm, he has not banished
you from heaven. Surely, God will find some other country where you may
preach His Word." (Jaekel. 164.)