Melancthon and his friends, thus attacked, sought to justify themselves: on the one hand, they maintained, that if they preserved the doctrine it would finally overthrow the hierarchy. But then why restore it? Was it not more than doubtful whether a doctrine so enfeebled would still retain strength sufficient to shake the Papacy? On the other hand, Melancthon and his friends pointed out two phantoms before which they shrunk in affright. The first was _war_: it was, in their opinion, imminent. "It is not only," said they, "numberless temporal evils that it will bring with it,--the devastation of Germany, murder, violation, sacrilege, rapine; but it will produce spiritual evils more frightful still, and will inevitably bring on the perturbation of all religion."[786] The second phantom was the supremacy of the state. Melancthon and his friends foresaw the dependence to which the princes would reduce the Church, the increasing secularization of its institutions and of its instruments, the spiritual death that would result, and they shrunk back with terror from the frightful prospect. "Good men do not think that the court should regulate the ministry of the Church,"[787] said Brenz. "Have you not yourselves experienced," added he ironically, "with what wisdom and mildness these boors ('tis thus I denominate the officials and prefects of the princes) treat the ministers of the Church, and the Church itself. Rather die seven times!"--"I see," exclaimed Melancthon, "what a Church we shall have if the ecclesiastical government is abolished. I discover in the future a tyranny far more intolerable than that which has existed to this day."[788] Then, bowed down by the accusations that poured upon him from every side, the unhappy Philip exclaimed: "If it is I who have aroused this tempest, I pray his majesty to throw me, like Jonas, into the sea, and to drag me out only to give me up to torture and to the stake."[789] [786] Confusio et perturbatio religionum. (Corp. Ref. ii. p. 382.) [787] Ut aula ministerium in ecclesia ordinet bonis non videtur consultum. (Ibid. p. 362.) [788] Video postea multo intolerabiliorem futuram tyrannidem quam unquam antea fuisse. (Corp. Ref. ii. p. 334.) [789] Si mea causa hæc tempestas coacta est, me statim velut Jonam in mare ejiciat. (Ibid. p. 382.) [Sidenote: ROME AND CHRISTIANITY.] The Romish episcopacy once recognised, all seemed easy. In the Commission of Six, they conceded the cup to the laity, marriage to the pastors, and the article of prayer to saints appeared of little importance. But they stopped at three doctrines which the Evangelicals could not yield. The first was the necessity of human satisfaction for the remission of the penalties of sin; the second, the idea of something meritorious in every good work; the third, the utility of private masses. "Ah!" quickly replied Campeggio to Charles the Fifth, "I would rather be cut in pieces than concede anything about Masses."[790]