he Electoral Princes, under cover of the privilege due to them as
members of the Empire. Now also the resolutions of the Imperial Diet
were communicated by the Emperor, and a demand made upon them for their
execution. It is easy to imagine that the Protestant Princes would
strive likewise to gain them over to their party. Philip of Hesse
especially, looked toward Zurich and Zwingli. Early in April, he had
addressed him from Spire. He desired a personal interview. At the same
time it might serve to heal the dispute between the Saxon and Swiss
Reformers, which had taken a disagreeable turn, and contributed more
than anything else to make the cause of the Gospel suspicious in the
eyes of the Catholics, yea, even hateful to them. The chief obstacle in
the way of an understanding lay in the manner of seeking it--by a
general formula, a declaration drawn up in words, though the Gospel
itself did not contain such a thing. Few in that age had the sound
judgment of the later _landgrave_ William of Hesse, who, in the year
1566, wrote to Bullinger: "What Christ, the Chief Schoolmaster, has not
seen fit to explain, we men should not undertake to explain for
ourselves." _That_ Christ, offering himself up in love, would continue
to live in all the members of his church to the remotest ages, and so
declared at the last breaking of bread and pouring out of wine in the
circle of his disciples, must be clear to every reader of the Gospel.
_Whether_ and _how_ he continues to live in them, deeds only can show:
the confession of the heart, not that of the lips, which Christ himself
does not require of us.

But when, in spite of this, such a thing was required, it was
necessarily apprehended in a plainer sense by some of the Reformers,
and in a more profound one by others, according to the individual
peculiarities; at the same time it was regarded as more free or more
binding according to the spirit of the nations and the governments,
which they represented. This will best appear from the history viewed
in its connection.

It has already been intimated in this work that the mass, in view of
its significance and determining power, forms the ground-work of the
_cultus_, or form of worship in the Catholic Church. Yet Catholic
writers themselves have admitted and publicly expressed it, that, long
before the Reformation, dangerous ideas concerning the mass prevailed
among the people, which, fostered designedly by the clergy, and even by
the Pop