led by Melanchthon, opposed the
motion. A breach seemed unavoidable. For Duke John Frederick had decided
that his theologians could not participate in the colloquy with
Lutherans who refused to reject errors conflicting with the _Augsburg
Confession_, nor recognize them as pure, faithful, loyal, and true
members and adherents of the _Augsburg Confession_, the _Apology_, and
the _Smalcald Articles_. (Preger 2, 67.) The imminent clash was
temporarily warded off by the concession on the part of the
Melanchthonians that the Thuringian theologians should be allowed freely
to express their opinion on any article discussed at the colloquy. At
the session held September 11, 1667, however, Bishop Michael Helding
demanded to know whether the Lutherans excluded the Zwinglians,
Calvinists, Osiandrists and Flacians (in the doctrine _de servo
arbitrio_) from the _Augsburg Confession_. The Jesuit Canisius plied the
Lutherans with similar questions: Whether they considered Osiander,
Major, and others adherents of the _Augustana_. Melanchthon declared
evasively that all evangelical delegates and pastors present were agreed
in the _Augsburg Confession_. As a result the Thuringians decided to
enter their protest. In a special meeting of the Lutherans the majority
threatened to exclude the Thuringians from all following sessions if
they dared to express their protest [containing the list of errors which
they rejected] before the Papists. The consequence was that the
Thuringians presented their protest in writing to the President, Julius
Pflug, and departed from Worms. The Romanists, who from the beginning
had been opposed to the colloquy, refused to treat with the remaining
Lutheran theologians, because they said, it was impossible to know who
the true adherents of the _Augsburg Confession_ were with whom,
according to the Regensburg Resolution, they were to deal.

272. Efforts of Princes to Restore Unity: Frankfort Recess.

The Colloquy of Worms had increased the enmity and animosity among the
Lutherans. It had brought their quarrels to a climax, and given official
publicity to the dissensions existing among them,--a situation which was
unscrupulously exploited by the Romanists also politically, their
sinister object being to rob the Lutherans of the privileges guaranteed
by the Augsburg Peace, and to compel them to return to the Roman fold.
In particular the Jesuits stressed the point that the dissensions among
the Lutherans proved conc