in which faith
only should be necessary. How far he carried this idea may be seen in
his _Sermon on the New Testament, that is on the Holy Mass_,[2]
published in the same year as the pamphlets just analysed. In it he
makes the essence of the sacrament forgiveness, and the vehicle of this
forgiveness the word of God apprehended by {74} faith, _not_ the actual
participation in the sacred bread and wine. Had he always been true to
this conception he would have left no place for sacrament or priest at
all. But in later years he grew more conservative, until, under
slightly different names, almost the old medieval ideas of church and
religion were again established, and, as Milton later expressed it,
"New presbyter was but old priest writ large."

[1] In Latin _penitentia_ means both penance and repentance.

[2] _Cf_. Matthew, xxvi, 28.

SECTION 2. THE REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: Germany]

Although the Germans had arrived, by the end of the fifteenth century,
at a high degree of national self-consciousness, they had not, like the
French and English, succeeded in forming a corresponding political
unity. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, though continuing
to assert the vast claims of the Roman world-state, was in fact but a
loose confederacy of many and very diverse territories. On a map drawn
to the scale 1:6,000,000 nearly a hundred separate political entities
can be counted within the limits of the Empire and there were many
others too small to appear. The rulers of seven of these territories
elected the emperor; they were the three spiritual princes, the
Archbishops of Mayence, Treves and Cologne, the three German temporal
princes, the Electors of the Rhenish Palatinate, Saxony, and
Brandenburg, and in addition the King of Bohemia, who, save for
purposes of the imperial choice, did not count as a member of the
Germanic body. Besides these there were some powerful dukedoms, like
Austria and Bavaria, and numerous smaller bishoprics and counties.
There were also many free cities, like Augsburg and Nuremberg, small
aristocratic republics. Finally there was a large body of "free
knights" or barons, whose tiny fiefs amounted often to no more than a
castle and a few acres, but who owned no feudal superior save {75} the
emperor. The unity of the Empire was expressed not only in the person
of the emperor, but in the Diet which met at different places at
frequent intervals. Its authority, though on the who