of two years ago * has been abrogated, and many heavy penal- ties are appointed for those who do not observe the new edict. The rest concerns the Turkish war. From this sum- mary of what has been done so far, you can easily perceive in what danger we are. There has never been so large an at- tendance of high ecclesiastics at any other diet as at this one. Some of them show in their very faces how they hate us and what they are plotting against us. But Christ will have regard to His poor people and save them. In this city we are indeed dregs and off scouring. You know that I have felt that our people are not all they ought to be, but what is done here is not for the correction of our faults, but for the sup- pression of a good cause. I hope Christ will hinder them and bring to nought the counsels of the nations who long for wars. . . . ^tXjLinro^
823. JOHN VON MINKWITZ TO PRINCE JOHN FREDERIC AT
WEIMAR. ZKG., xxix, 1908, 341. Spires^ March 30, 1529.
Minkwitz (ti534), one of the most trusted councillors of Frederic the Wise and of John the Steadfast On March 24, 1532, he was made Grand Marshal of the court by John Frederic. He was now at Spires with John. Much of his correspondence at this time is published in Menz: Johann Friedrich, voL i, and a facsimile of a letter from him to John Frederic, dated Spires, April 13, 1529, is given in Menz: Handschnften^, no. 41a.
There is a plan to have Dr. Luther and Philip Melanchthon meet Zwingli and Oecolampadius at Nuremberg to confer about the schism concerning the sacrament. We have good hope that they will come together and agree in Christian wise.*
^The first Diet of Spires (1526). It had left the enforcement of the Bdict of Worms to the discretion of the territorial powers* pending the convention of a Council of the Church.
'This project was later carried out at Marburg, in the sane year. The political weakness of the Protestants, due to their division, made Philip of Hesse very anxious to unite the two parties. The idea of a conference between the leaders was first suggested by James Sturm, at Spires, in 1526. Duke Ulrich of Wflrt- temberg was anxious to see it accomplished. Philip approached Luther on the subject in 1527, but found him unwilling to consider it, cf. Schubert in ZKG., xxix, 1908, 33off. Raising the question again in the summer of 1529, Melanch- thon objected, and suggested that if a conference were held, some "honorable and reasonable papists** ought to be present. H. von Schubert: Bekermtnubildung und Rel%gionspolit*k, 1529-30. 1910.
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