T H E H ISTORY OF P ROTESTANTISM B Y T H E REV. J. A. W Y L I E, L L.D. WITH FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE BEST ARTISTS ________________________________ “PROTESTANTISM, THE SACRED CAUSE OF GOD'S LIGHT AND TRUTH AGAINST THE DEVIL'S FALSITY AND DARKNESS.”—Carlyle ____________________________ VOL. III. C A S S E L L AND C O M P A N Y , L IMITED LONDON, PARI, NEW YORK & M E L B O U R N E 1899 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1 Book Nineteenth. PROTESTANTISM IN POLAND AND BOHEMIA. ________________ CHAPTER I. The “Catholic Restoration”—First Introduction of Christianity into Poland—Influence of Wicliffe and Huss—Luther—The Light Shines on Danzig—The Ex-Monk Knade— Rashness of the Danzig Reformers—The Movement thrown back—Entrance of Protes- tantism into Thorn and other Towns—Cracow—Secret Society, and Queen Bona Sforza—Efforts of Romish Synods to Arrest the Truth—Entrance of Bohemian Protestants into Poland—Their great Missionary Success—Students leave Cracow: go to Protestant Universities—Attempt at Coercive Measures —They Fail—Cardinal Ho- sius—A Martyr—The Priests in Conflict with the Nobles—National Diet of 1552— Auguries—Abolition of the Temporal Jurisdiction of the Bishops. WE are now approaching the era of that great “Catholic Restoration “which, cunningly devised and most perseveringly carried on by the Jesuits, who had now perfected the organisation and discipline of their corps, and zealously aided by the arms of the Popish Powers, scourged Germany with a desolating war of thirty years, trampled out many flourishing Protestant Churches in the east of Europe, and nearly succeeded in rehabilitating Rome in her ancient dominancy of all Christendom. But before entering on the history of these events, it is necessary to follow, in a brief recital, the rise and progress of Protestantism in the countries of Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, and parts of Austria, seeing that these were the Churches which fell before the spiritual cohorts of Loyola, and the military hordes of Austria, and seeing also that these were the lands, in conjunction with Germany, which became the seat of that great struggle which seemed as though it were destined to overthrow Protestantism wholly, till all suddenly, Sweden sent forth a champion who rolled back the tide of Popish success, and restored the balance between the two Churches, which has remained much as it was then settled, down to al- most the present hour. We begin with Poland. Its Reformation opened with brilliant promise, but it had hardly reached what seemed its noon when its light was overcast, and since that disastrous hour the farther Poland’s story is pursued, it be- comes but the sadder and more melancholy; nevertheless, the history of Pro- testantism in Poland is fraught with great lessons, specially applicable to all free countries. Christianity, it is believed, was introduced into Poland by mis- sionaries from Great Moravia in the ninth century. In the tenth we find the sovereign of the country receiving baptism, from which we may infer that 2 the Christian faith was still spreading in Poland.1 It is owing to the simplicity and apostolic zeal of Cyrillus2 and Methodius, two pastors from Thessalo- nica, that the nations, the Slavonians among the rest, who inhabited the wide territories lying between the Tyrol and the Danube on the one side, and the Baltic and Vistula on the other, were at so early a period visited with the light of the Gospel. Their first day was waxing dim, notwithstanding that they were occa- sionally visited by the Waldenses, when Wicliffe arose in England. This splendour which had burst out in the west, travelled, as we have already nar- rated, as far as Bohemia, and from Bohemia it passed on to Poland, where it came in time to arrest the return of the pagan night. The voice of Huss was now resounding through Bohemia, and its echoes were heard in Cracow. Po- land was then intimately connected with Bohemia; the language of the two countries was almost the same; numbers of Polish youth resorted to the Uni- versity of Prague, and one of the first martyrs of Huss’s Reformation was a Pole. Stanislav Pazek, a shoemaker by trade, suffered death, along with two Bohemians, for opposing the indulgences which were preached in Prague in 1411. The citizens interred their bodies with great respect, and Huss preached a sermon at their funeral.3 In 1431, a conference took place in Cracow, be- tween certain Hussite missionaries and the doctors of the university, in pres- ence of the king and senate. The doctors did battle for the ancient faith against the “novelties” imported from the land of Huss, which they described as doctrines for which the missionaries could plead no better authority than the Bible. The disputation lasted several days, and Bishop Dlugosh, the his- torian of the conference, complains that although, “in the opinion of all pre- sent, the heretics were vanquished, they never acknowledged their defeat.”4 It is interesting to find these three countries—Poland, Bohemia, and Eng- land—at that early period turning their faces toward the day, and hand-in- hand attempting to find a path out of the darkness. How much less happy, one cannot help reflecting, the fate of the first two countries than that of the last, yet all three were then directing their steps into the same road. Many of the first families in Poland embraced openly the Bohemian doctrines; and it is an interesting fact that one of the professors in the university, Andreas Galka, expounded the works of Wicliffe at Cracow, and wrote a poem in honour of the English Reformer. It is the earliest production of the Polish muse in existence, a poem in praise of the Virgin excepted. The author, ad- dressing “Poles, Germans, and all nations,” says, “Wicliffe speaks the truth! Heathendom and Christendom have never had a greater man than he, and 1 Krasinski, History Reform. in Poland, vol. i., p. 2; Lond.; 1838. 2 A remarkable man, the inventor of the Slavonic alphabet. 3 Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. i., p. 61. 4 Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 174. 3 never will.” Voice after voice is heard in Poland, attesting a growing oppo- sition to Rome, till at last in 1515, two years before Luther had spoken, we find the seminal principle of Protestantism proclaimed by Bernard of Lublin, in a work which he published at Cracow, and in which he says that “we must believe the Scriptures alone, and reject human ordinances.”1 Thus was the way prepared. Two years after came Luther. The lightnings of his Theses, which flashed through the skies, of all countries, lighted up also those of Polish Prussia. Of that flourishing province Danzig was the capital, and the chief emporium of Poland with Western Europe. In that city a monk, called James Knade, threw off his habit (1518), took a wife, and began to preach publicly against Rome. Knade had to retire to Thorn, where he continued to diffuse his doctrines under the protection of a powerful nobleman; but the seed he had sown in Danzig did not perish; there soon arose a little band of preachers, composed of Polish youths who had sat at Luther’s feet in Wittemberg, and of priests who had found access to the Reformer’s writings, who now proclaimed the truth, and made so numerous converts that in 1524 five churches in Danzig were given up to their use. Success made the Reformers rash. The town council, to whom the king, Sigismund, had hinted his dislike of these innovations, lagged behind in the movement, and the citizens resolved to replace that body with men more zealous. They surrounded the council, to the number of 400, and with arms in their hands, and cannon pointed on the council-hall, they demanded the resignation of the members. No sooner had the council dissolved itself than the citizens elected another from among themselves. The new council pro- ceeded to complete the Reformation at a stroke. They suppressed the Roman Catholic worship, they closed the monastic establishments, they ordered that the convents and other ecclesiastical edifices should be converted into schools and hospitals, and declared the goods of the “Church” to be public property, but left them untouched.2 This violence only threw back the move- ment; the majority of the inhabitants were still of the old faith, and had a right to exercise its worship till, enlightened in a better way, they should be pleased voluntarily to abandon it. The deposed councillors, seating themselves in carriages hung in black, and encircling their heads with crape, set out to appear before the king. They implored him to interpose his authority to save his city of Danzig, which was on the point of being drowned in heresy, and re-establish the old order of things. The king, in the main upright and tolerant, at first temporised. The members of council, by whom the late changes had been made, were 1 Krasinski, Slavonia, p. 182; Lond., 1849. 2 Krasinski, Hist. Reform. Poland, vol. i., pp. 115, 116. 4 summoned before the king’s tribunal to justify their doings; but, not obeying the summons, they were outlawed. In April, 1526, the king in person visited Danzig; the citizens, as a precaution against change, received the monarch in arms; but the royal troops, and the armed retainers of the Popish lords who accompanied the king, so greatly outnumbered the Reformers that they were overawed, and submitted to the court. A royal decree restored the Roman Catholic worship; fifteen of the leading Reformers were beheaded, and the rest banished; the citizens were ordered to return within the Roman pale or quit Danzig; the priests and monks who had abandoned the Roman Church were exiled, and the churches appropriated to Protestant worship were given back to mass.