by each in its own favour.

The seizure of the ecclesiastical benefices, the motive which had so
strongly tempted the majority of the Protestant princes to embrace the
doctrines of Luther, was not less powerful after than before the peace;
of those whose founders had not held their fiefs immediately of the
empire, such as were not already in their possession would it was
evident soon be so. The whole of Lower Germany was already secularized;
and if it were otherwise in Upper Germany, it was owing to the vehement
resistance of the Catholics, who had there the preponderance. Each
party, where it was the most powerful, oppressed the adherents of the
other; the ecclesiastical princes in particular, as the most defenceless
members of the empire, were incessantly tormented by the ambition of
their Protestant neighbours. Those who were too weak to repel force by
force, took refuge under the wings of justice; and the complaints of
spoliation were heaped up against the Protestants in the Imperial
Chamber, which was ready enough to pursue the accused with judgments,
but found too little support to carry them into effect. The peace which
stipulated for complete religious toleration for the dignitaries of the
Empire, had provided also for the subject, by enabling him, without
interruption, to leave the country in which the exercise of his religion
was prohibited. But from the wrongs which the violence of a sovereign
might inflict on an obnoxious subject; from the nameless oppressions by
which he might harass and annoy the emigrant; from the artful snares in
which subtilty combined with power might enmesh him--from these, the
dead letter of the treaty could afford him no protection. The Catholic
subject of Protestant princes complained loudly of violations of the
religious peace--the Lutherans still more loudly of the oppression they
experienced under their Romanist suzerains. The rancour and animosities
of theologians infused a poison into every occurrence, however