be in the bond service of the devil, because we, on both sides, appeal to the word of God.
Troubles now began to thicken. Cut off from fellowship with the Lutherans, Schwenkfeld
was none the less an object of the hatred of the Catholics. Even Ferdinand, King of
Bohemia and Hungary, afterwards Emperor of Germany, whose liberality to the
Protestants brought him into such disfavor at Rome that Pope Paul IV. refused to ratify
his elevation to the imperial dignity, could not tolerate his teachings in respect to the
Sacraments of the Lord's Supper and Baptism, misrepresented as they were by the
Catholic clergy, and wrote to the Duke of Liegnitz to proceed to extreme measures for his
repression--Silesia then being under the suzerainty of the Bohemian kings. But the Duke
was so far in sympathy with Schwenkfeld that he had printed for the use of his own
household a "Confession of Faith" drawn up by two of the latter's coworkers and most
intimate friends,--Eckel and Werner,--and embodying the very doctrines which were so
distasteful to the King's spiritual advisers. Moreover, a friendship, formed while
Schwenkfeld was Counsellor to the Duke and never afterwards interrupted, forbade
compliance with the King's command. But the Duke was powerless to protect his friend,
and therefore advised him to retire from Silesia until more tolerant counsels should prevail
at the royal court. He accordingly left Silesia in 1529 for a journey through Germany, but,
as the sequel proved, never to return to his native land,--a circumstance which gave
occasion for the story circulated by his enemies at the time, and since repeated by some
German writers, that he had been expelled by the Duke at the instance of Ferdinand, a
story that Schwenkfeld expressly refuted on several occasions, and which is disproved by his friendly correspondence with the Duke until the latter's death. Thenceforth he had no
settled abiding-place, but moved about from city to city, defending
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