Augsburg.

But however divided on other points, they concurred in this--that the
security which had resulted from equality of power could only be
maintained by the preservation of that balance. In the meanwhile, the
continual reforms of one party, and the opposing measures of the other,
kept both upon the watch, while the interpretation of the religious
treaty was a never-ending subject of dispute. Each party maintained
that every step taken by its opponent was an infraction of the peace,
while of every movement of its own it was asserted that it was essential
to its maintenance. Yet all the measures of the Catholics did not, as
their opponents alleged, proceed from a spirit of encroachment--many of
them were the necessary precautions of self-defence. The Protestants
had shown unequivocally enough what the Romanists might expect if they
were unfortunate enough to become the weaker party. The greediness of
the former for the property of the church, gave no reason to expect
indulgence;--their bitter hatred left no hope of magnanimity or
forbearance.

But the Protestants, likewise, were excusable if they too placed little
confidence in the sincerity of the Roman Catholics. By the treacherous
and inhuman treatment which their brethren in Spain, France, and the
Netherlands, had suffered; by the disgraceful subterfuge of the Romish
princes, who held that the Pope had power to relieve them from the
obligation of the most solemn oaths; and above all, by the detestable
maxim, that faith was not to be kept with heretics, the Roman Church, in
the eyes of all honest men, had lost its honour. No engagement, no
oath, however sacred, from a Roman Catholic, could satisfy a Protestant.
What security then could the religious peace afford, when, throughout
Germany, the Jesuits represented it as a measure of mere temporary