The other lesson so plainly written on the foregoing pages is this-that God is a jealous God, and will not give His glory to another. He will have His work done by His own means and in His own way. No greater calamity could have befallen the Reformation than that its friends should have given up the divine position of faith, and descended to the world's platform of diplomacy and arms. Had it triumphed by these means, it would have lost its true character, or perished in the land of its birth, and the Reformers would have become a mere political power. But God would not have it so, and He suffered them to be shamefully defeated and stripped, until they were utterly defenseless and cast upon Himself. They had neither league nor sword, nor treasures, nor castles, nor any means of defense. They were brought back to their first principles-faith in the word of God, and martyrdom. But these divine and invincible principles seemed to have died with their great leader and to have been buried in his grave; and it was only through great suffering and humiliation that his followers were led to see their mistake.
But no sooner were they brought to feel that they had no means of defense but the word of God and a good conscience before Him, than deliverance came. The Lord had said, "The rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous." (Psa. 125:33For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity. (Psalm 125:3).) Such is the goodness and the tender mercy of our God. He withdraweth not His eyes from the righteous. But it is always dangerous to give up the principles of God's word, and to be governed in our ways by the maxims and policy of this world; and this holds true in all the affairs of life; but on the subject before us the word of God is plain, as saith the apostle, "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,but mighty through God to the pulling down of
The Reformation in Germany, embracing the Lutheran churches, was now definitively established. But the Reformed churches, embracing the followers of Zwingle and Calvin, were excluded from the privileges secured in the treaties of Passau and Augsburg, nor was legal toleration extended to them till the peace of Westphalia, nearly a century later. By this famous treaty the pacification of Passau was confirmed to the members of the Reformed churches, and the independence of Switzerland declared for the first time. "The balance of power," by which the weak amongst the nations might be effectually protected, and the powerful restrained from those aggressive schemes of ambition which had been too frequently indulged, was one of the important results of the negotiations and discussions in Westphalia.