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 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 BEQUEST OF 
 
 Alice R. Hilgard 
 
LIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER 
 
 BY 
 
 CHEVALIER BUNSEN 
 
 WITH AN ESTIMATE OF LUTHER'S 
 CHARACTER AND GENIUS 
 
 By THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 AND 
 
 AN APPENDIX 
 By SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
GIFT 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 The briefest, most reliable, and, taken 
 til in all, the completest extant life of Lu- 
 ther, is this contributed by the Chevaher 
 Bunsen to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 Author and subject need no praise from 
 us. We are happy to place within the 
 reach of all a good and trustworthy sum- 
 mary of the great Reformer's life. 
 
 From Carlyle is added an estimate of 
 Luther's Character and Genius — one of 
 those spiritual portraits for which Carlyle 
 will be known as long as literature en. 
 dures, and on which his feme will ulti- 
 mately rest. 
 
 Following our general plan, we here 
 give a biographical sketch of the author 
 from whom the Life of Luther has bees 
 taken. 
 
 M878971 
 
iv Pr efa c c . 
 
 Bunsen, Christian Karl Josias, Che. 
 valier De, a philologist, theologian and 
 diplomatist, was born at Corbach, in the 
 small German principality of Waldeck, on 
 the 25th of August, 1791 ; and was educated 
 at the University of Gbttingen, where he 
 studied philology under the famous Heyne. 
 He distinguished himself greatly as a clas- 
 sical scholar, and in 1813 published at 
 Gbttingen a prose essay, " De Jure Athe- 
 niensium Hereditario." After being em- 
 ployed some time as a classical teacher, 
 his desire to perfect himself in Oriental 
 languages induced him to go to Paris, 
 where he studied under the noted Orien- 
 talist Sylvestre de Sacy. He had it next 
 in contemplation to go to India, in com- 
 pany with an Englishman, in order to ac- 
 quire a further knowledge of Sanscrit; but 
 having in the mean time determined to 
 visit Italy, he met at Rome his friend 
 Brandis, then Secretary to the Prussian 
 embassy at Rome under Niebuhr. Intro- 
 duced to Niebuhr, the young scholar 
 
Preface 
 
 fbund in him a friend capable of appreci- 
 ating his merits. Abandoning his inten- 
 tion of going to the East, he settled in 
 Rome as Niebuhr's private secretary — a 
 situation afterwards exchanged for the 
 higher one of secretary to the embassy. 
 Enjoying the benefit of Niebuhr's society 
 and advice, he resumed his classical stu- 
 dies with enthusiasm, turning to advantage 
 the facilities afforded him by his residence 
 in Rome. The results of his inquiries into 
 the antiquities and topography of Rome 
 appeared in his " Beschreibung der Stadt 
 Rom," (Description of the City of Rome.) 
 He also interested himself much at this 
 time in the hieroglyphical researches of 
 Champollion ; and he was instrumental in 
 inciting the savans of Berlin to betake 
 themselves to this branch of archaeology, 
 and more particularly in determining to- 
 wards it the rising talent of the great liv- 
 ing ^Egyptologist, Dr. Lepsius. At Rome 
 Bunsen was one of the chief supports of 
 the Archaeological Institute, and indeed 
 
n Preface, 
 
 acted as its general secretary. The visit 
 of the King of Prussia to Rome in 1822, 
 made that sovereign acquainted with the 
 abilities of the secretary of his legation ; 
 the present king also — then crown prince 
 —made his acquaintance about the same 
 time. The personal esteem which both 
 contracted for Bunsen accounts for his 
 rapid advancement in the Prussian diplo- 
 matic service. On Niebuhr's retirement 
 from the embassy at Rome, Bunsen suc- 
 ceeded him, first as Charge" d'affaires and 
 afterwards as full minister. In this capa- 
 city he interested himself much in the 
 Protestant Church and Protestant worship 
 at Rome, as well as in his classical and 
 historical studies. A difference between 
 the papal court and that of Prussia on a 
 question of ecclesiastical right in the Prus- 
 fcian States, led to his recall in March 1838. 
 After a visit to Munich and to England, 
 he was again in November 1839, in diplo- 
 matic service as ambassador to the Swiss 
 Confederacy; and in 1841 he was appoint 
 
Preface. vh 
 
 ed Prussian ambassador to England. Re- 
 taining this post till 1854, when his pecu- 
 liar opinions on the proper policy of Prus- 
 sia in the approaching European crisis led 
 to his resignation or recall, and having 
 during these thirteen years resided chiefly 
 in London, Chevalier Bunsen became al- 
 most a naturalized Englishman; and in- 
 deed two of his sons have settled in Eng- 
 land, one as a clergyman in the English 
 Church. While discharging with peculiar 
 discretion his duties as Prussian ambassa- 
 dor, he was at the same time widely 
 known in English society as a philologist 
 and a man of letters — a representative, in 
 intellectual English circles, of the erudition 
 and scholarly zeal of Germany. The fol- 
 lowing list of his works, published since 
 1841, will indicate the grounds of his well- 
 earned celebrity: — "The Liturgy of the 
 Passion-week, with a Preface," &c, pub- 
 lished at Hamburg in 1841, not translated ; 
 " The Basilicas of Christian Rome in their 
 Connection with the Idea and History o' 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 Church Architecture," <fcc, published at 
 Munich in 1843, and not translated; "The 
 Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch, with An- 
 notations," and " Ignatius of Antioch and 
 his Age, Seven Letters to Dr. A. Neander," 
 both published by the Academy of Ham- 
 burg in 1844, and the last we believe 
 translated ; " Die Verfassung der Kirche 
 der Zukunft," published at Hamburg in 
 1845, and translated into English in 1847, 
 under the title of u The Constitution of 
 the Church of the Future;" iEgyptens 
 Stelle in der Weltgeschichte," Hamburg, 
 1 845, and the English translation of which, 
 " Egypt's Place in Universal History," is 
 perhaps the best known of the author's 
 works ; " Memoir on the Constitutional 
 Rights of the Duchies of Schleswig and 
 flolstein," presented to Lord Palmerston, 
 April 1848, and published that year (about 
 which time other papers on German poli- 
 tics were published by the author ;) finally, 
 fiince 1848, contributions to "The Life and 
 Letters of B. G. Nieuuhr," published by ai» 
 
P r efa ce. ix 
 
 English alitor in 1852, from the German 
 materials ; and an important and elaborate 
 work published first in 1851, in four vol- 
 umes, under the title of " Hippolytus," 
 and again in a revised and extended form 
 in 1854, as "Christianity and Mankind: 
 their Beginnings and Prospects," in seven 
 volumes — volumes one and two containing 
 " Hippolytus and his Age," volumes three 
 and fcur " Outlines of the Philosophy of 
 Universal History applied to Language 
 and Religion," and volumes five, six, and 
 seven, "Analecta Ante-Nicaena." It is 
 as an Egyptologist and ecclesiastical his- 
 torian that Chevalier Bunsen has most 
 widely affected his time. He now lives 
 in retirement on the Rhine, pursuing his 
 favorite studies, and often reading or writ- 
 ing at a standing-desk sixteen hours a day. 
 An Appendix, entitled by us the Re- 
 verse-side of the Picture, which we con- 
 fess did not enter into our original plan, 
 will show, in the emphatic language of Sir 
 Win. Hamilton, the blemishes of Luther'i 
 
x Preface, 
 
 character. Why should the faults of a 
 great man be concealed ? To err is hu- 
 man, and no one claims for Luther exemp- 
 tion from the common lot of mankind. 
 Sir We Hamilton has stated the faults 
 of Luther with such vigor of style and 
 wealth of erudition, as really to exagger- 
 ate their importance. Archdeacon Hare 
 undertook a defence, but found himseli 
 powerless in the grip of Hercules, and 
 really damaged the cause of which he 
 made himself the champion. We have 
 omitted all passages in Hamilton's notes 
 that are merely personal, retaining such 
 facts as demand a place in history. We 
 must accept Luther, as we accept ourselves, 
 as we accept many things, for better or for 
 worse, and be devoutly thankful to Heaven 
 for whatever good is vouchsafed us. The 
 sun has its spots, and the great Reformer 
 has in his character a touch of earth that 
 Jinks him more closely with our poor hu- 
 manity. O. W. Wight. 
 
 April, 1869 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
MAKTIN LUTHER 
 
 Luther's life is both the epos and the 
 tragedy of his age. It is an epos be- 
 cause its first part presents a hero and 
 a prophet, who conquers apparently in- 
 superable difficulties, and opens a new 
 world to the human mind, without any 
 power but that of divine truth and deep 
 conviction, or any authority but that 
 inherent in sincerity and undaunted, 
 unselfish courage. But Luther's life is 
 also a tragedy: it is the tragedy of Ger- 
 many as well as of the hero, her son, 
 vrho in vain tried to rescue his country 
 from unholy oppression, and to regen- 
 erate her from within, as a nation, by 
 means of the Gospel ; and who died in 
 
14 Martin Luther. 
 
 unshaken faith in Christ and in hia 
 kingdom, although he lived to see his 
 beloved fatherland going to destruction, 
 not through, but in spite of, the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 Both parts of Luther's life are of the 
 highest interest. In the epic part of it 
 we see the most arduous work of the 
 time, — the work for two hundred years 
 tried in vain by councils, and by pro- 
 phets and martyrs, with and without 
 emperors, kings, and princes, — under- 
 taken by a poor monk alone, who car- 
 ried it out under the ban both of the 
 pope and the empire. In the second, 
 we see him surrounded by friends and 
 disciples, always the spiritual head of 
 his nation, and the revered adviser of 
 princes and preacher of the people; 
 living in the same poverty as before, 
 wid leaving his descendants as unpro- 
 vided for as Aristides left his daughter 
 So lived and died the greatest hero of 
 
Martin Luther, 15 
 
 Christendom since the apostles ; the re- 
 storer of that form of Christianity which 
 low sustains Europe, and (with all its 
 defects) regenerating and purifying the 
 whole human race ; the founder of the 
 modern German language and litera- 
 ture ; the first speaker and debater of 
 his country; and, at the same time, the 
 first writer in prose and verse of his 
 age. 
 
 And in what state had he found hip 
 native country? The once free and 
 powerful aggregate of nations, which 
 had overthrown the western empire, con- 
 quered Gaul, and transfused healthier 
 blood into the Romanized Celtic popu- 
 lation of Britain, had gradually been 
 broken up into nearly four hundred 
 (with the barons of the empire twelve 
 hundred) sovereignties, under a power- 
 less imperial government represented 
 by emperors bent upon the destruction 
 of nationality, and by an oligarchic 
 
16 Martin Luther. 
 
 diet with seven electoral princes at its 
 head, three of whom, as ecclesiastics, 
 were creatures of the pope, while the 
 remaining four, imitating the emperor, 
 were occupied rather with the selfish 
 interests of their princely houses than 
 with those of their country. When, 
 in I486, Maximilian was to be elected 
 king of the Romans, and when he be- 
 came emperor (in 1493,) Archbishop 
 Berthold, elector of Mayence, a great 
 and patriotic man, had prepared, with 
 some other German princes, a plan for 
 a sort of national executive, the mem- 
 bers of which were not to be installed, 
 as heretofore, by the emperor alone, but 
 appointed by the Diet and the electors, 
 in order to form a federal senate to co- 
 operate with the emperor. But the 
 Austrian prince, son-in-law of Charles 
 of Burgundy, and heir to his kingly 
 estates, was liberal in promises unful- 
 filled, having lived not only to maintair 
 
Martin Luther, 17 
 
 but to strengthen the imperial autoc- 
 racy. His great comfort on his death* 
 bed was the reflection that his whole 
 life had been devoted to the aggran 
 dizement of his own House of Austria. 
 The smaller German lords and knight* 
 of the empire made a last attempt to 
 maintain their independence, and to 
 restore the ancient liberties of the Ger- 
 man nation; but acting in a lawless 
 manner and without any political wis- 
 dom, they were crushed by the united 
 power of the emperor and the electors. 
 The more eminent and powerful portion 
 of the mass of the nation was repre- 
 sented by the wealthy towns, which 
 had purchased from the emperors the 
 privileges of free imperial cities ; and 
 which, with the Hanseatic towns, would 
 have formed, united with the estate of 
 the knights, the most complete constit- 
 uent parts of a House of Commons, 
 by the side of the princes, dukes, and 
 
18 Martin Luther. 
 
 counts of the empire as House of Peers, 
 The formation of such an effective fed- 
 eral empire must have been in the mind 
 of those enlightened men, who, at the 
 election of Maximilian, perceived that 
 a constitution was necessary to prevent 
 Germany from becoming a mere domain 
 of the emperors. A truly representative 
 government, federal and unitary, mo- 
 narchical, and aristocratical, and popu- 
 lar, would have followed, as a matter 
 of course, from such a beginning as that 
 proposed. But since the failure of that 
 plan nothing effectual had been accom- 
 plished ; isolation and separation became 
 more complete ; the peace of the land 
 was enforced at last, although imper- 
 fectly ; and the imperial tribunal estab- 
 lished by Maximilian acted with in- 
 sufficient authority, and, as was be- 
 lieved, not with equal justice. The 
 greatest iniquity was the condition of 
 the neasantry. The freeholders haa 
 
Martin Luther. 19 
 
 hi many parts of Germany been, 
 if not absorbed, at least considerably 
 diminished by the feudal system ; but 
 the great grievances were the illegal 
 abuses which had grown out of that 
 system and the always increasing exac 
 tions of the lords of the manor, who, 
 particularly in Southern Germany, had 
 reduced the peasants to real serfs, — men 
 who had to render unlimited services 
 and scarcely could support life. There 
 had been insurrections of peasants, par- 
 ticularly along the Upper Rhine, in 
 1491 and again in 1503; but being 
 without leaders, they were each time 
 crushed after a bloody struggle, and 
 the ultimate result was a still greatei 
 amount of hardship. The chains of the 
 iufferers were riveted. In short, Ger- 
 many was suffering from all the same 
 evils as France and England without 
 having gained that unity and strength 
 of government which in those countries 
 
20 Martin Luther. 
 
 had resulted from similar struggles. 
 On the other hand, however, the age 
 was one of general progress. The in- 
 vention of printing had given wings to 
 the human mind ; philology had opened 
 the sources of historical knowledge as 
 well as of philosophy and poetry ; astrol- 
 ogy began to give way to astronomy, 
 and the idea of the universe emerged 
 r>ut of Jewish and other fables. As to 
 Germany in particular, the cradle of the 
 *rt of printing, Augsburg and other 
 great cities were, with the Hanseatic 
 towns, centres of European commerce, 
 and partook of the resources opened by 
 the discovery of America. The religious 
 mind, too, had been awakened since the 
 days of Wycliffe and of Huss. Believ- 
 ing Christendom, and, above all, believ- 
 ing Germany, had hoped for a real re- 
 form of the Church, the abuses of which 
 were doubly felt in consequence of the 
 lhameful immorality of the popes, and 
 
Martin Luther. 21 
 
 the ever-increasing exactions of the 
 court of Koine. The issue of immense 
 efforts on the part of emperors, princes, 
 and people, was, that the Council of 
 Constance delivered Huss to the flames, 
 and both the councils of Constance and 
 Basle ended in a more decided suprem- 
 acy of the Roman pontiffs. Certainly 
 the religious mind of Germany was not 
 a little damped by these disappoint- 
 ments ; but the thirst after a reform was 
 not quenched by the evident unwilling- 
 ness of Rome to reform itself. The wise 
 and good men of the time, however, 
 could not discover any means to achieve 
 what was generally desired and demand- 
 ed, The faith in human, and gradually 
 also in divine justice upon earth, had 
 long disappeared in unfortunate Italy, 
 as the writings of the age prove ; but 
 now it threatened to vanish even in the 
 minds of the Germans, in whom that 
 taith may be called eminently their in- 
 
22 Martin Luther, 
 
 nate individual and national religion, 
 rhe Bible had been repeatedly printed 
 in the vernacular tongue, but it was, 
 and continued to be, a book closed with 
 seven seals. There was a general feel- 
 ing that the gospel ought to be made 
 the foundation of purified religion and 
 doctrine ; but where was the man to re- 
 suscitate its letter and spirit, and to find 
 the way from Christ to the soul through 
 the darkness and the fictions, the usages 
 and the abuses, of the intervening cen- 
 turies? The voice of the Friends of 
 God with Tauler at their head had been 
 choked in blood, like that of the Wal- 
 denses; and then, supposing such an 
 evangelical basis to have been found, 
 was the existing state of injustice and 
 wrong to continue? Were the emper 
 ors to continue to sacrifice the empire 
 to their dynastic interests — the princes 
 and the nobles to their covetousness 
 and licentiousness? Yes; would not 
 
Martin Luther. 23 
 
 the overthrow of the ecclesiastical power 
 .ead to universal conflagration, and re- 
 bellion, and destruction, and thus Chris- 
 tendom be thrown back into a worse 
 barbarism than that out of which they 
 were anxious to emerge ? In short, the 
 work (so it seemed) could not be under- 
 taken but in despair or in enthusiastic 
 faith. In the former case it must suc- 
 cumb necessarily; but even if begun 
 with the faith of Wycliffe and of Huss, 
 would not the attempt in any case lead 
 to a long-continued struggle, the end 
 of which none of those who began it 
 could live to witness? Who should 
 enter on so tremendous a course ? 
 
 Such was the work to be done, and 
 such were the general and peculiar diffi- 
 culties and the state of things in Ger- 
 many, when Luther undertook it. Lu- 
 ther devoted a life of almost supernatu- 
 ral energy and suffering to secure its 
 Basis ; and although at his death he left 
 
24 Martin Luther. 
 
 it surrounded by the greatest dangers, 
 and one hundred years of bloody strug- 
 gle were succeeded by another hundred 
 years of agony and of exhaustion, still 
 the Reformation survived, and proved 
 essentially the renovating element of 
 mankind instead of being (as its enemies 
 prophesied) the promoter of revolution. 
 It subsists to this hour as the only dur- 
 able preserver of all liberties, religious 
 or political ; and the nations and states 
 which have embraced the Reformation 
 are those only which have escaped the 
 revolutions which for seventy years 
 have agitated those of the Roman faith. 
 The life of him who was the beginner 
 of this great and holy work, and who 
 broke down the double tyranny of pope 
 and emperor arrayed against him, must 
 therefore be considered from a highei 
 point of view than that of individual 
 biography, or sectarian panegyric, o* 
 national vanity and prejudices. The 
 
Martin Luther. 25 
 
 article upon Luther will have to be 
 treated from the central point of the 
 oniversal history of mankind. This must 
 be also the rule for fixing the epochs of 
 Luther's life. One of the reasons why 
 this life is not yet fully appreciated is, 
 that it is not sufficiently understood; 
 and this again arises in great measure 
 from the want of due observation of the 
 critical points in the development of the 
 Reformation and of the history of Eu- 
 rope, and of Germany in particular. 
 
 We shall divide the following con- 
 densed but complete survey into three 
 periods. The first will be the period 
 of preparation, extending to Luther's 
 first publication of theses against the 
 kidulgences, 31st October, 1517; the 
 second will comprise the next eight 
 years of preaching the gospel and gospel- 
 uoctrine in its three fundamental parts ; 
 the third is that of political and theo- 
 wogical struggles, from 1525 to his death 
 
26 Martin Luther . 
 
 m 1546; — preparation, progressive ao 
 tion, and then struggle within and with' 
 out. Luther's grand character and 
 true piety shine in both periods of his 
 public career; but the culminating 
 point of his active and creative agency 
 is in the first. It is, according to our 
 view the year 1523 which forms the 
 critical epoch. In 1524 the foundation 
 of the practical realization of the prin- 
 ciples of the Keformation was laid with 
 triumphant success. The year 1525 
 began hopefully, but ended with the 
 preparation for a struggle, of which 
 Luther felt at once that he never should 
 see the end. Before the close of 1525, 
 he gave up the cause of Germany, not 
 in consequence of any fault committed 
 by himself, but because he saw that hii 
 party was not prepared for the struggle 
 with the empire, and was still less re- 
 ligned to leave the matter to God, who 
 as Luther firmly believed to his death. 
 
Martin Luther . 27 
 
 would never allow his work to perish 
 till the end of the world. But was not 
 the end of the world coming now? 
 
 First Period: — The Years of Prepa- 
 ration ; or, the first Thirty foivr Tears 
 of Luther's Life— (1483— 1517.) 
 
 Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, 
 in the county of Mansfeid, in Thuringia, 
 on the 10th November, 1483, on the 
 eve of St. Martin's day, in the same 
 year as Raphael, nine years after Mi- 
 chael Angelo, and ten after Copernicus. 
 His father was a miner, descended from 
 a family of poor but free peasants, and 
 possessed forges in Mansfeid, the small 
 profits of which enabled him to send 
 his son to the Latin school of the place. 
 There Martin distinguished himself so 
 much, that his father (by that time be- 
 come a member of the municipal coun« 
 cil) intended him for the study of the 
 raw. In the mean time, Martin had 
 
28 Martin Luther. 
 
 often to go about as one of the poor 
 choristers, singing and begging at the 
 doors of charitable people at Magde- 
 burg and a,t Eisenach, to the colleges 
 of which towns he was successively 
 sent. His remarkable appearance and 
 serious demeanor, his fine tenor voice 
 and musical talent, procured him the 
 attention and afterwards the support 
 and maternal care of a pious matron, 
 wife of Cotta, burgomaster of Eisenach^ 
 into whose house he was taken. Alrea- 
 dy, in his eighteenth year, he surpassed 
 all his fellow-students in knowledge of 
 of the Latin Classics, and in power of 
 composition and of eloquence. His 
 mind took more and more a deeply re- 
 ligious turn ; but it was not till he had 
 been for two years studying at Eisen- 
 ach that he discovered an entire Bible, 
 having until then only known the ec- 
 clesiastical extracts from the sacred 
 rolume, and the history of Hannah ana 
 
Martin Luther, 29 
 
 Samuel. He now determined to study 
 Greek and Hebrew, the two original 
 languages of the Bible. A dangerous 
 illness brought him within the near 
 prospect of death; but he recovered, 
 and prosecuted his study of philosophy 
 and Taw, and tried hard to gain inward 
 peace by a pious life and the greatest 
 strictness in all external observances. 
 His natural cheerfulness disappeared; 
 and after experiencing the shock of the 
 death of one of his friends by assassi- 
 nation in the summer of 1505, and soon 
 after that, being startled by a thunder- 
 bolt striking the earth by his side, he 
 determined to give up the world and 
 retire into the convent of the Augus- 
 tinians at Erfurt — much against the 
 wishes and advice of his father, who, 
 indeed, most strongly remonstrated. 
 Luther soon experienced the uselessnesa 
 %f monastic life and discipline, and suf- 
 fered from the coarseness of his brethren, 
 
80 Martin Luther , 
 
 who felt his exercises of study and me- 
 ditation to be a reproach upon their 
 own habits of gossiping and mendicancy. 
 It was at this period that he began to 
 study the Old Testament in Hebrew, 
 yet continuing to fulfill scrupulously the 
 rules of his order. " I tormented my- 
 self to death," he said at a later period, 
 " to make my peace with God, but I 
 was in darkness and found it not." The 
 vicar-general of the order, Johann Von 
 Staupitz, who had passed through the 
 same discipline with the same result, 
 comforted him by those remarkable 
 words, which remained forever engraven 
 in Luther's heart : — " There is no true 
 repentance but that which begins with 
 the love of righteousness and of God. 
 Love him then who has loved thee 
 first ! " In the struggles which followed 
 Luther's real beginning of a new life, 
 and in the perplexities into which Au- 
 gustine's doctrine of election threw him 
 
Martin Luther. 31 
 
 the book which, after the Bible, exer- 
 cised the greatest and most beneficial 
 influence upon his mind, was that prac- 
 tical concentration of the sermons and 
 other works of Tauler — the enlightened 
 Dominican preacher and Christian phi 
 losopher of the middle of the fourteenth 
 century — the Theologia Germanica, 
 written by an anonymous author to- 
 wards the latter part of that century, of 
 which we shall have to speak hereafter. 
 When Luther regained his mental 
 health, he took courage to be ordained 
 priest in May 1507. Next year the 
 Elector of Saxony nominated him pro- 
 fessor of philosophy at the university 
 of Wittemberg ; and in 1509 he began 
 to give, as bachelor in divinity, biblical 
 lectures. These lectures were the awa- 
 kening cause of new life in the univer- 
 sity, and soon a great number of stu- 
 dents, from all parts of Germany, gath- 
 ered round Luther. Even professori 
 
82 Martin Luther. 
 
 came to attend .his lectures and hear 
 his preaching. The year 1511 brought 
 an apparent interruption, but in fact 
 only a new development of Luther'i 
 character and knowledge of the world. 
 He was sent by his order to Rome on 
 account of some discrepancies of opinion 
 as to its government. His first impres- 
 sion of the city was that of profound 
 admiration, soon mixed with a melan- 
 choly recollection of Scipio's Homeric 
 exclamation on the ruins of Carthage. 
 The tone of flippant impiety at the court 
 and among the higher clergy of Eome, 
 under Julius XI., shocked the devout 
 German monk. He then discovered 
 the real state of the world in the centre 
 of the Western Church ; and often in 
 after life he used to say — " I would not 
 take 100,000 florins not to have seen 
 Home." Always anxious to leam, he 
 took during his stay Hebrew lessona 
 from a celebrated rabbi, Elias Levita 
 
Martin Luther. 33 
 
 but the grand effect upon him was, that 
 now for the first time he understood 
 Christ and St. Paul—" The just shall 
 live by faith" — that mighty saying 
 with which he had begun at Wittem- 
 berg his interpretation of the Bible, 
 now sounded on his ears in the midst 
 of Rome. He saw that external works 
 are nothing; that the pious spirit in 
 which any work is done or any duty 
 fulfilled — an humble handicraft or the 
 preaching of sermons — is the only thing 
 of value in the eye of God. On his re- 
 turn to the university, the favor of 
 Staupitz and the generosity of the elec- 
 tor procured him a present of fifty flor- 
 ins (ducats) to defray the expenses of 
 his promotion to the degree of Doctor 
 of Divinity at the end of 1512. The 
 solemn oath he had to pronounce on 
 that occasion (to most only a formulary 
 without deep meaning) " to devote his 
 whole life to study, and faithfully to 
 
34 Martin Luther. 
 
 expound and defend the Holy Scrij 
 ture," was to him the seal of his mission 
 He began his biblical teaching by at 
 tacking scholasticism, which at that 
 time was called Aristotelianism. He 
 showed that the Bible was a deeper 
 philosophy: that, teaching the nothing- 
 ness and wickedness of man as long as 
 he is a selfish creature, it refutes and 
 condemns all philosophical tenets which 
 consider man separately from his rela- 
 tion to Deity. All his contemporaries 
 praised as unparalleled the clearness of 
 his Christian doctrine, the impressive 
 eloquence of his preaching, and the 
 mildness and sanctity of his character. 
 Erasmus himself exclaimed — " There ia 
 not an honest divine who does not side 
 with Luther." Christ's self-devoted 
 life and death — Christ crucified, was 
 the centre of his doctrine ; God's eternal 
 love to mankind, and the sure triumph 
 of Faith, were his texts. Already, in 
 
Martin Luther . 3ft 
 
 1516, philosophical tenets deduced from 
 these spiritual principles were publiclj 
 defended at academical disputations 
 over which he presided. Luther him- 
 self preached at Dresden and othei 
 places the doctrine of justifying and 
 vivifying faith ; and then accepted, for 
 a short time, the place of vicar-general 
 of his order in that year. Even in the 
 convents, spiritual, moral Christianity 
 made its way in spite of forms and ob 
 servances. When the plague came to 
 Wittemberg, he remained when all 
 others fled, — " It is my post, and I have 
 to finish my commentary upon the 
 Epistle to the Galatians. Should bro- 
 ther Martin fail, yet the world will not 
 fail." 
 
 Thus came the year of the Reforma- 
 tion, 1517. With more boldness than 
 ever, the new pope Leo had sent, in 
 1516, agents through the world to sell 
 Indulgences, and the man chosen fo» 
 
36 Martin Luther. 
 
 Saxony, Tetzel the Dominican, and his 
 band, were among the most zealous 
 preachers of this iniquity. " I would 
 not exchange," said he in one of his 
 harangues, " my privilege (as vender of 
 the papal letters of absolution) against 
 those which St. Peter has in heaven ; 
 for I have saved more souls by my in- 
 dulgences than the apostle by his ser- 
 mons. Whatever crime one may have 
 committed " — naming an outrage upon 
 the person of the Yirgin Mary — " let 
 him pay well and he will receive par- 
 don. Likewise the sins which you may 
 be disposed to commit in future, may 
 be atoned for beforehand." But he 
 soon found that a spirit had been awa- 
 kened among the serious minds of Ger- 
 many to which such blasphemies were 
 revolting. Luther preached and spoke 
 out against this horrible abuse, which 
 he said he could not believe to be sanc- 
 tioned by the pope. As a great exhi 
 
Martin Luther. 37 
 
   — — — . 
 
 bition of relics, together with indulg- 
 ences, was to take place on the day ol 
 All Saints in the church of Wittemberg, 
 Luther appeared on the eve, 31st Octo- 
 ber, in the midst of the pilgrims who 
 had nocked to the festival, and pasted 
 up at the church door the ninety-five 
 theses against indulgences and the super- 
 stitions connected with them, in firm 
 although guarded language. The Re- 
 formation began, like that of St. John 
 the Baptist, by the preaching of inward 
 penitence, in opposition to penance and 
 to absolution purchasable by gold ; but 
 Luther's preaching had the advan- 
 tage that it was based upon man's re- 
 demption by Christ. Penitence was 
 preached, as originating in the consci- 
 ousness of man's unworthiness, God 'a 
 mercy, and the redemption through 
 Christ as placed before us in the gospel. 
 The entire doctrine of these immortal 
 Theses is summed up in the two last 
 
38 Martin Luther . 
 
 (94, 95,) which run thus :— " The Chris, 
 tians are to be exhorted to make every 
 effort to follow Christ their head through 
 the cross, through death and hell ; for 
 it it much better they should through 
 mneh tribulation enter into the kingdom 
 of heaven, than acquire a carnal security 
 by the consolations of a false peace." 
 A great deed had been done that even- 
 ing ; a door had been opened for man- 
 kind into a course whose end is even 
 now far from being reached. Those 
 words — not the result of design and 
 premeditation, but of the irresistible 
 impulse of an honest mind brought face 
 to face with the horrible reality of blas- 
 phemy — soon echoed through the whole 
 world. Luther's public life had opened ; 
 the Reformation had begun. 
 
 Second Period : — The First Part of 
 the Public Life of Lutfter; or % tht 
 Time of Progressive Action. 
 
Martin Luther, 39 
 
 The pilgrims had come to Wittem- 
 berg to buy indulgences, and returned 
 with the theses of Luther in their hands,, 
 and the impression of his powerful 
 evangelical teaching in their hearts. 
 Luther was urged on in his great work 
 not by his friends, who were timid and 
 terrified, but by the violence and frenzy 
 of Tetzel and his adherents, and soon 
 afterwards by the despotic acts of the 
 Pope Leo X., who having at first de- 
 spised the affair as a monk's quarrel, 
 thought he could crush it by arbitrary 
 acts. The national mind in Germany 
 had taken up the matter with a moral 
 earnestness which made an impression 
 not only upon the princes, but even 
 upon bishops and monks. Compelled 
 to examine the ancient history of the 
 church, Luther soon discovered the 
 whole tissue of fraud and imposture by 
 which the cancn law of the popes — fhe 
 ttecretals — had been,fr'>m the ninth cen- 
 
40 Martin Luther. 
 
 tury downwards; foisted advisedly and 
 purposely, upon the Christian world. 
 There is not one essential point in the 
 ancient ecclesiastical history bearing 
 upon the question of the invocation of 
 saints, of clerical priesthood, and ot 
 episcopal and metropolitan pretensions, 
 which his genius did not discern in its 
 proper light. It is a remarkable fact, 
 and must needs be considered by the 
 philosopher of history as a proof of the 
 Spirit of God having guided Luther, 
 that what he saw and said, at the ear- 
 liest stage of historical criticism, re- 
 specting ecclesiastical forgeries and im- 
 postures, has all proved true. Soon 
 after Luther, the Centuriatores Magde- 
 burgici, the fathers of criticism as tc 
 ecclesiastical history, took the matter 
 up. Of course, the Romanists denied 
 their assertions for two hundred years 
 and wherever they dare, they still come 
 back to the old fables and falsehoods 
 
Martin Luther. 4i 
 
 But the learned discussion has been 
 given up, step by step, reluctantly, 
 and with a very bad grace. Whatever 
 Luther denounced as fraud or abuse 
 from its contradiction to the canonical 
 worship, may be said to have been 
 since openly or tacitly admitted to be 
 such. But what produced the greatest 
 effect at the time were his short popu- 
 lar treatises, exegetical and practical. 
 Among these are particularly remark- 
 able his Interpretation of the Magnifi- 
 cat, or the Canticle of the Virgin Mary, 
 his deep and earnest Exposition of the 
 Ten Commandments, and his Exposition 
 of the LoroVs Prayer, which latter soon 
 found its way into Italy, although with- 
 out Luther's name, and which has never 
 yet been surpassed, either in genuine 
 Christian thought or in style. Having 
 resolved to preach in person throughout 
 Germany, Luther appeared in the spring 
 *f 1518 in Heidelberg, where a general 
 
42 Martin Luther. 
 
 meeting of his Order was held. The 
 count palatine, to whom Luther had 
 been introduced by the elector of Sax- 
 ony, received him very courteously. In 
 order to rouse the spirit of the professors, 
 he held a public disputation on certain 
 theses, called by him paradoxes, by 
 which he intended to make apparent 
 the contrast of the external view of reli- 
 gion taught by the schoolmen, and the 
 spiritual and energetic view of gospel 
 truth based upon justifying faith. It 
 was here that Bucer, then a Dominican 
 monk, but soon a zealous Reformer and 
 controversialist, and the man who, after 
 Calvin, had among foreigners the great- 
 est influence upon the English Refor- 
 mation, heard the voice of the gospel in 
 his own heart, and resolved to confess 
 aud preach it at the university. 
 
 " It is not the pope (said Luther in 
 one of his disputations) who governs 
 Jie church militant of Christ, but Christ 
 
 
Martin Luther . 4:3 
 
 himself ; for it is written that i Christ 
 must reign till he has put all his ene- 
 mies under his feet/ He evidently has 
 not done so yet. Christ's reign, in this 
 our world, is the reign of faith ; we do 
 not see our Head, but we have Him." 
 
 On his return to Wittemberg in May 
 1518, Luther wrote and published an 
 able and moderate exposition of the 
 theses, and sent it to some German 
 bishops. He then proclaimed the ab- 
 solute necessity of a thorough reforma- 
 tion of the Church, which could only be 
 effected, with the aid of God, by an 
 earnest co-operation of the whole of 
 Christendom. But already Rome med- 
 itated his excommunication, uttering 
 threats which he discussed with great 
 courage and equanimity, saying, " God 
 alone can reconcile with himself the 
 fallen soul : He alone can dissolve the 
 'anion of the soul with himself: blessed 
 die man who dies under an unjust ex 
 
Martin Luther . 
 
 In requesting hia 
 superior to send his very humble letter 
 to Pope Leo, in which he declared hit 
 readiness to defend his cause, Luthei 
 added, " Mark, I do not wish to entan- 
 gle you in my own perilous affair, the 
 consequences of which I am ready to 
 bear alone. My cause is Christ's and 
 God's." In the mean time, Luther was 
 cited repeatedly to appear before the 
 pope's tribunal at Rome. Leo, indeed, 
 graciously promised to pay the expenses 
 of his journey, which certainly would 
 have been no large outlay, as none 
 would have been required for his re- 
 turn. But Luther constantly declined 
 summonses and invitations, and pro- 
 posed instead one or other of the Ger- 
 man universities as judge. This pro- 
 posal was, of course, not acceptable to 
 Rome, and therefore he was summoned 
 oefore the pope's legate in Germany. 
 The pope's legate was Cardinal Caje 
 
Martin Luther. 45 
 
 ranus. Luther was summoned to ap- 
 pear before him at Augsburg, and all 
 princes and cities were threatened witb 
 the interdict, if they did not delivet 
 Luther into the hands of the pope's 
 tribunal. It was in these critical cir- 
 cumstances that Luther formed his ac- 
 quaintance with Melancthon, who soon 
 became his most faithful friend, and 
 remained his zealous adherent for life. 
 When Melancthon and all his other 
 friends advised Luther not to go to 
 Augsburg to be given up to the machi- 
 nations of the legate, he replied, — " They 
 have already torn my honor and my 
 reputation, let them have my body, if 
 it is the will of God ; but my soul they 
 shall not take." He undertook the 
 journey, as a good monk, on foot ; only 
 provided with letters of recommenda- 
 tion from the elector, and accompanied 
 fcy two friends, but without a safe con- 
 iuct. He arrived at Augsburg on the 
 
46 Martin Luther. 
 
 ■» 
 
 evening of the 7th October, 1518, almof 
 exhausted by the hardships of the join 
 ney. The cardinal and his assistant! 
 employed in vain alternately threat* 
 and blandishments; scholastic argu- 
 ments fell powerless, as he answered 
 them by the Bible, and demanded tc 
 be refuted by the word of God, to 
 which he showed the decretals to be 
 opposed, and therefore, according even 
 to the declaration of the canonists, of no 
 value. For these reasons he constantly 
 refused to retract, as he was required 
 to do, his two propositions, — the one 
 that the treasure of indulgences is not 
 composed of the merits of Christ ; the 
 other, that he who receives the sacra- 
 ment must have faith in the grace offer- 
 ed to him. Luther left Augsburg after 
 having addressed a firm but respectful 
 letter to the legate; and his friends, 
 who were sure that his life was not safe 
 % moment longer, escorted him before 
 
Martin Luther . 47 
 
 daybreak out of the town on horseback. 
 On his return to Wittemberg, he found 
 the elector in great anxiety of mind, in 
 consequence of an imperious missive of 
 the cardinal legate. Luther wrote to 
 the prince a dignified xetter, saying, — 
 " I would, in your place, answer the 
 cardinal as he deserves for insulting an 
 honest man without proving him to be 
 wrong ; but I do not wish to be an in- 
 cumbrance to your Highness; I am 
 ready to leave your states, but I will 
 not go to Kome." The elector refused 
 to deliver him up to the legate, or to 
 send him out of the states. Luther 
 would have gone to France if deprived 
 of his asylum in Saxony. The elector, 
 however, having desired him to leave 
 Wittemberg, and Luther being on the 
 point of obeying his orders, the prince, 
 couched by his humility and firmness, 
 allowed him to remain and to prepare 
 \iimself for a new conference. At the 
 
f8 Martin Luther . 
 
 end of 1518, the papal bull concerning 
 indulgences appeared, confirming tha 
 old doctrine, without any reference to 
 the late dispute. Luther had already 
 appealed from the pope to a general 
 council. 
 
 The years 1519, 1520, 1521, were 
 the time of a fierce but triumphant 
 struggle with the hitherto irresistible 
 power of Rome, soon openly supported 
 by the empire. The two first of these 
 years passed in public conferences and 
 disputations at Leipzig and elsewhere, 
 with Eck and other Romanist doctors, 
 in which Luther was seconded by the 
 eloquence of the ardent and acute Carl- 
 stadt, as well as by the learning and 
 argumentative powers of Melancthon. 
 People and princes took more and more 
 part in the dispute, and the controversy 
 widened from day to day. Luther 
 openly declared that Huss was right on 
 ft great many points, and had been un 
 
Martin Luther. 49 
 
 justly condemned. Wittemberg be- 
 came crowded with students and in 
 quirers, who nocked there from all sides. 
 Luther not only continued his lectures, 
 but wrote during this period his most 
 important expositions and commenta- 
 ries on the New Testament, — beginning 
 with the Epistle to the Galatians (Sept. 
 1519,) which he used to call his own 
 epistle. During the second year (1520) 
 the first great political crisis occurred, 
 on occasion of the death of Maximilian, 
 and ended fatally, in consequence of 
 the total want of patriotic and political 
 wisdom among the German princes. 
 The elector of Saxony was offered by 
 one of the most eminent and influential 
 of his colleagues, the archbishop of 
 Treves, to be chosen emperor ; but had 
 not the courage to accept a dignity 
 which he supposed to require for its 
 support a more powerful house than his 
 own. Of all the political acts which 
 
5C Martin Luther. 
 
 may be designated, with Dante, ugran 
 vil rifiato, this was the greatest and 
 most to be regretted, supposing the 
 elector to have been wise and courage- 
 ous enough to give the knights and 
 cities their proper share in the govern- 
 ment, and patriotic enough to make the 
 common good his own. 
 
 The German writers have called the 
 Elector Frederic " the Wise," particu- 
 larly also with regard to this question. 
 But long before Ranke pointed out the 
 political elements then existing for an 
 effective improvement of the miserable 
 German constitution, Justus Moser of 
 Osnabruck had prophetically uttered 
 the real truth, — " if the emperor at that 
 time had destroyed the feudal system, 
 this deed would have been, according 
 to the spirit in which it was done, the 
 grandest or the blackest in the history 
 of the world." Mtfser means that if the 
 emperor had embraced the Reformed 
 
Martin Luther, 51 
 
 faith, and placed himself at the head 
 of the lower nobility and the cities, 
 united in one body as the lower house 
 of a German parliament, this act would 
 have saved Germany. But we ought 
 to go further, and say, to expect such a 
 revolution from a Spanish king was 
 simply absurd. Frederic alone could, 
 and probably would, have been led 
 into that course, just because he had 
 nothing to rely upon except the German 
 nation, then more numerous and pow- 
 erful than it ever has been since. The 
 so-called capitulations of the empire, 
 which were accepted by Charles, con- 
 tained not the slightest guarantee 
 against religious encroachments on the 
 side of Rome. 
 
 Persecutions aimed at the life of Lu- 
 ther began very early. Being one day 
 accosted by a stranger, who concealed 
 ft pistol in his sleeve, and asked him, 
 '* Why do you walk thus alone V the 
 
52 Martin Luoher, 
 
 intrepid hero answered, " Because I am 
 on the side of God, who is my strength 
 and my shield." The unknown person 
 turned pale and slunk away. The 
 pope's emissaries in Germany openly 
 demanded the death of Luther. Flat- 
 tery and threats were used alternately 
 to that end. Luther said, " I do not 
 wish for a cardinal's hat : let them allow 
 the way of salvation to be open to 
 Christians, and I shall be satisfied. 
 All their threats do not frighten me, and 
 all their promises do not seduce me." 
 When Francis of Sickingen, the most 
 powerful and spirited of the knights 
 of the empire, and the brave and en- 
 lightened Ulrich Yon Hiitten and 
 others, offered aid, and said, " force of 
 arcns was required to drive out the 
 devil," Luther answered in those im- 
 mortal words: "By the Word the world 
 has been conquered ; by the Word the 
 Church has been saved ; by the Word 
 
Martin Luther. 53 
 
 too, she will be restored : I do not de* 
 gpise your offers, but I will not lean 
 apon any one but Christ." 
 
 Luther's writings of this period are 
 the finest productions of his pen. His 
 book On Good Works is the best expo- 
 sition of the doctrine of justification by 
 faith. Melancthon says, in reference 
 to this treatise, — "No writer ever came 
 nearer St. Paul than Luther has done." 
 In the same year (1520) he published 
 that grand address to the nobles of the 
 German nation, On the Reformation 
 of Christendom, which may be consid- 
 ered as the finest specimen of the poli- 
 tical and patriotic wisdom of a Chris- 
 tian. There he shows the reality and 
 supreme dignity of the universal priest- 
 hood of Christians, and at the same 
 time demands a thorough reform of the 
 locial system of Germany and Italy, 
 beginning with the abrogation of the 
 Usurped power of the pope, while he 
 
54 Martin Luther. 
 
 ealls for a national system of education 
 as the foundation of a better order oi 
 things. This address, published on the 
 26th June 1520, electrified the nation. 
 It was this appeal which first moved 
 the patriotic and sainted spirit of Ul- 
 rich Zwingle, the Swiss Reformer, who 
 tried in vain to dissuade Rome from 
 endeavoring to crush Luther by a bull 
 of excommunication. It was too late. 
 The great step had been decided upon. 
 Luther meanwhile continued his 
 course of preaching and lecturing at 
 Wittemberg, where nearly two thous 
 and students were assembled. He 
 published at this time his Treatise on 
 the Mass, in which he applied to the 
 Sacraments the pervading doctrine of 
 faith, proving from Scripture that every 
 Sacrament is dead without faith in God's 
 word and promises. But his most strik 
 ing work of this period is that on the 
 Babylonian Captivity of the Church 
 
Martin Luther . 55 
 
 (October, 1520), in which he boldly 
 took the offensive against Kome, attack- 
 ing the papacy in its principles. It is 
 remarkable that in this treatise he 
 speaks of the baptism of infants, who 
 necessarily are incapable of faith, as oi 
 an apparent contradiction, which, how- 
 ever, might be defended. Man is to 
 have faith in the baptismal vow, (to be 
 ratified later, after the necessary in- 
 struction), and therefore he must not 
 allow himself to be bound by any othei 
 vow, and must consider the work of 
 his vocation, whatever it be, as equally 
 sacred with that of priest or monk. 
 Till the Christian Church is organized 
 upon that principle, the Christian peo- 
 ple live in Babylonian captivity, in 
 oider to please some of his friends, and 
 show to the world that he was not in 
 tractable, he addressed a letter to Leo 
 X., and inclosed a treatise, On the L%o 
 wty of the Christian. He pities the 
 
66 Martin Luther . 
 
   < 
 
 pope for having been thrown like Dan- 
 iel into the midst of wolves, and pre- 
 dicts that the Roman court (Curia Ro- 
 mano) will fall because she hates re- 
 form, and that the world will be obliged, 
 sooner or later, to apply to her the words 
 of the prophet : " We would have heal- 
 ed Babylon, but she is not healed : for- 
 sake her, and let us go every one unto 
 his own country." (Jerem. li. 9). " O 
 most holy father, (he adds), do not listen 
 to those nattering syrens around you ! " 
 The treatise itself is a sublime and suc- 
 cinct exposition of the two truths, that 
 by faith the soul acquires all that Christ 
 has, and becomes free through Him; 
 but then it begins to serve His brethren 
 voluntarily from thankfulness to God. 
 The pope's bull arrived in due time; 
 but found the German nation deaf to 
 Vts curses, and armed against its argu- 
 ments. It was called Dr. Eck's bull 
 *nd Luther raised, on the 4th Novem 
 
Martin Luther. 57 
 
 ber, his voice of thunder against it in 
 a short treatise Against the Bull of 
 Antichrist; and, on the 17th of the 
 same month, he drew up, before a no- 
 tary and five witnesses, a solemn pro- 
 test, in which he appealed to a general 
 council. After this manifesto, he invit- 
 ed the university, on the 10th of De- 
 cember, 1520, to see the anti-Christian 
 bull burnt before the church door, and 
 said : " Now the serious work begins ; 
 I have begun it in the name of God — 
 it will be brought to an end by his 
 might." But where was the power to 
 resist the pope, if the emperor support- 
 ed the pope's cause ? And, indeed, he 
 had promised this support to the pontif- 
 ical minister soon after his coronation 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 22d October. 
 He declared, however, at the same time, 
 that he must act with every possible 
 regard towards the elector; and this 
 prince had courage enough to propose, 
 
58 Martin Luther . 
 
 as the only just measure, to grant to 
 Luther a safe-conduct, and place him 
 before learned, pious, and impartial 
 judges. Erasmus, whom he invited, 
 in order to learn his opinion, said, — 
 "There was no doubt that the more 
 virtuous and attached to the Gospel 
 any man was, the more he was found 
 to incline towards Luther, who had 
 been condemned only by two universi- 
 ties, and by them had not been con- 
 futed." 
 
 The emperor agreed at last to the 
 proposal of the elector Frederic, and 
 convened a diet at Worms for 6th Jan- 
 uary 1521, where the two questions of 
 religion and of a reform in the consti- 
 tution of the empire were to be treated. 
 Luther, though in a suffering state of 
 health, resolved immediately to appear 
 when summoned. " If the emperor calls, 
 it is God's call, — I must go : if I am too 
 weak to go m good health, I shall havt 
 
Martin Luther. 59 
 
 myself carried thither sick. They will 
 not have my blood, after which they 
 thirst, unless it is God's will. Two 
 things I cannot do, — shrink from the call 
 nor retract my opinions." The nuncio 
 and his party, on their side, moved 
 heaven and earth to procure Luther's 
 condemnation, and threatened the Ger- 
 mans with extermination, saying, " We 
 shall excite the one to fight against the 
 other, that all may perish in their own 
 blood," — a threat which the papists 
 have carried out to the best of their 
 power during two hundred years. The 
 emperor permitted the nuncio to appear 
 officially in the diet, and to try to con- 
 vince the princes of the empire there 
 assembled. Alexander tried in vain to 
 communicate to the assembly his theo 
 logical hatred, or to obtain that Luthei 
 should be condemned as one judged by 
 the pope, his books burnt, and his ad- 
 Uwents persecuted. The impression 
 
60 Martin Luther . 
 
   i   
 
 produced by his powerful harangue waa 
 only transitory : even princes who hated 
 Luther personally, would not allow his 
 person and writings and the general 
 cause of reform to be confounded, and 
 all crushed together. The abuses and 
 exactions of Rome were too crying. A 
 committee, appointed by the diet, pre- 
 sented a list of one hundred and one 
 grievances of the German nation against 
 Rome. This startled the emperor, who, 
 instead of ordering Luther's books to 
 be burned, issued only a provisional 
 order that they should be delivered to 
 the magistrates. When Luther heard 
 of the measures preparing against him, 
 he composed one of his most admirable 
 treatises, — The Exposition of tie Mag- 
 nificat, or the Canticle of the Virgin 
 Mary. He soon learnt what he waa 
 expected to retract. " If that is meant, 
 I remain where I am : if the emperor 
 will call me to have me put to death, I 
 
Martin Luther. 61 
 
 shall go." The emperor summoned 
 him, indeed, on the 6th March, 1521, 
 to appear before him, and granted him 
 at last a safe-conduct, on which all his 
 friends insisted. Luther, in spite of all 
 warnings, set out with the imperial 
 herald on the 2d April. Everywhere 
 on the road he saw the imperial edict 
 against his book posted up, but wit- 
 nessed also the hearty sympathies of the 
 nation. At Erfurt the herald gave way 
 to the universal request, and, against 
 his instructions, consented to Luther's 
 preaching a sermon, — none the less re- 
 markable for not containing a single 
 word about himself. On the 16th Lu- 
 ther entered the imperial city amidst 
 an immense concourse of people. On 
 his approach to Worms, the elector's 
 chancellor entreated him, in the name 
 of his master, not to enter a town where 
 hie death was decided. The answer 
 which Luther returned was simply this: 
 
 i 
 
62 Martin Luther. 
 
 " Tell jour master, that if there wer& 
 bs many devils at Worms as tiles on its 
 roofs, I would enter." When surround- 
 ed by his friends on the morning of the 
 17th, on which day he was to appear 
 before the august assembly, he said : — 
 " Christ is to me what the head of the 
 gorgon was to Perseus : I must hold it 
 up against the devil's attack." When 
 the hour approached, he fell upon his 
 knees, and uttered in great agony a 
 prayer such as can only be pronounced 
 by a man filled with the spirit of Him 
 who prayed at Gethsemane. Friends 
 took down his words ; and the authen- 
 tic document has been published by 
 the great historian of the Reformation, 
 fie rose from prayer and followed the 
 herald. Before the throne he was asked 
 two questions, — Whether he acknowl- 
 edged the works before him tc have 
 been written by himself? and whether 
 be would retract what he had said in 
 
Martin Luther. 63 
 
 them ? Luther requested to be told the 
 titles of the books, and then, addressing 
 the emperor, acknowledged them as 
 his ; as to the second, he asked for time 
 to reflect, as he might otherwise con- 
 found his own opinions with the declar 
 ations of the Word of God, and either 
 say too much, or deny Christ and say 
 too little, incurring thus the penalty 
 which Christ had denounced, — " Who- 
 soever shall deny me before men, him 
 will I also deny before my Father 
 which is in heaven." The emperor, 
 struck by this very measured answer, 
 which some mistook for hesitation, 
 after a short consultation, granted a 
 day's delay for the answer, which was 
 to be by word of mouth. Luther's re- 
 solution was taken : he only desired to 
 convince his friends, as well as his ene- 
 mies, that he did not act with precipi- 
 tation at so decisive a moment. The 
 next day he employed in prayer and 
 
Martin Luther, 
 
 meditation, making a solemn vow upon 
 the volume of Scripture to remain faith- 
 ful to the gospel, should he have to seal 
 his confession with his blood. Luther's 
 address to the emperor has been pre- 
 served, and is a master-piece of elo- 
 quence as well as of courage. Confin- 
 ing his answer to the first point, he said, 
 that " nobody could expect him to re- 
 tract indiscriminately all he had written 
 in those books, since even his enemies 
 admitted that they contained much that 
 was good and conformable to Scripture. 
 But I have besides," he continued, 
 "laid open the almost incredible cor- 
 ruptions of popery, and given utterance 
 to complaints almost universal. By 
 retracting what I have said on this 
 score, should I not fortify rank tyranny, 
 and open a still wider door to enormoua 
 impieties? Nor can I recall what, in 
 my controversial writings, I have ex- 
 pressed with too great harshness against 
 
Martin Luther. 65 
 
 the supporters of popery, my opponents, 
 lest I should give them encouragement 
 to oppress Christian people still more. 
 I can only say with Christ, — * If I have 
 spoken evil, bear witness of the evil,' 
 (John xviii. 23.) I thank God I see how 
 that the gospel is in our days, as it was 
 before, the occasion of doubt and discord. 
 This is the doctrine of the word of God, 
 • — 1 1 am not come to send peace but a 
 sword,' (Matt. x. 34.) May this new reign 
 not begin, and still less continue under 
 pernicious auspices. The Pharaohs of 
 Egypt, the kings of Babylon and of 
 Israel, never worked more effectually 
 for their own ruin than when they 
 thought to strengthen their power, 
 speak thus boldly, not because I thinl 
 that such great princes want my advice, 
 but because I will fulfill my duty to- 
 wards Germany, as she has a right to 
 expect from her children." The emper- 
 or, probably in order to confound the 
 
 6* 
 
66 Martin Luther. 
 
 poor monk, who having been kept 
 standing bo long in the midst of such 
 an assembly, and in a suffocating heat, 
 was almost exhausted in body, ordered 
 him to repeat the discourse in Latin. 
 His friends told him he might excuse 
 himself, but he rallied boldly, and pro- 
 nounced his speech in Latin with the 
 same composure and energy as at first ; 
 and to the reiterated question, whether 
 he would retract ? Luther replied, — " 1 
 cannot submit my faith either to the 
 pope or to councils, for it is clear that 
 they have often erred and contradicted 
 themselves. I will retract nothing, un- 
 less convicted by the very passages of 
 the word of God which I have quoted." 
 And then, looking up to the august 
 assembly before him, he concluded, 
 saying, — " Here I take my stand : I can- 
 not do otherwise: so help me God. 
 A.men !" The courage of Luther mado 
 a deep impression even upon the em 
 
Martin Luther, 67 
 
 peror, who exclaimed, — " Forsooth, the 
 monk speaks with intrepidity, and with 
 a confident spirit." The chancellor of 
 the empire said, — "The emperor and th» 
 state will see what steps to take against 
 an obstinate heretic." All his friendg 
 trembled at this nndisgnised declara- 
 tion. Lnther repeated, "So help me 
 God! I can retract nothing." Upon 
 this he was dismissed, then recalled, 
 and again asked whether he wonld re- 
 tract a part of what he had written. 
 " I have no other answer to make," was 
 his reply. The Italians and Spaniards 
 were amazed. Luther was told the diet 
 would come to a decision the next day. 
 When returning to his inn, he quieted 
 the anxious multitude with a few words, 
 who, seeing the Spaniards and Italians 
 of the emperor's household follow him 
 with imprecations and threats, exclaim- 
 ed lcudly, in the apprehension that he 
 Vas about to be conducted to prison. 
 
68 Martin Luther . 
 
 The elector and other princes now 
 saw it was their duty to protect such a 
 man, and sent their ministers to assure 
 him of their support. The next day 
 the emperor declared, "he could not 
 allow that a single monk should disturb 
 the peace of the Church, and he was re- 
 solved to let him depart, under condi- 
 tion of creating no trouble ; but to pro- 
 ceed against his adherents as against 
 heretics who are under excommunica- 
 tion, and interdict them by all means 
 in his power ; and he demanded of the 
 estates of the empire to conduct them- 
 selves as faithful Christians." This ad- 
 dress, the suggestion of the Italian and 
 Spanish party, created great commotion. 
 The most violent members of that party 
 demanded of the emperor that Luther 
 should be burnt, and his ashes thrown 
 into the Rhine, and it is now proved 
 that, towards the end of his life, Charles 
 reproached himself bitterly for not hav 
 
Martin Luther . 69 
 
 ing thus sacrificed his word for the good 
 of the Church. But the great majority 
 of the German party, even Luther's 
 personal enemies, rejected such a pro- 
 position with horror, as unworthy of 
 the good faith of Germans. Some said 
 openly they had a child, misled by for- 
 eigners, for an emperor. The emperor 
 decided at last that three days should 
 be given to Luther to reconsider what 
 he had said. The theologians began to 
 try their skill upon him. " Give up 
 the Bible as the last appeal ; you allow 
 all heresies have come from the Bible." 
 Luther reproached them for their unbe- 
 lief; and added: "The pope is not judge 
 in the things that belong to the word 
 of God ; every Christian man must see 
 and understand himself how he is to 
 I ve and to die." Two more days were 
 granted, without producing any other 
 "esult than Luther's declaration, — "I 
 »m ready to renounce the safe-conduct, 
 
TO Martin Luther. 
 
 to deliver my life and body into the 
 hands of the emperor, but the word of 
 God, never 1 I am also ready to accept 
 a council, but one which shall judge 
 only after the Scripture." " What re- 
 medy can you then name ?" asked the 
 venerable archbishop of Treves. " Only 
 that indicated by Gamaliel," replied 
 Luther ; " if this council or this work be 
 of men, it will come to naught ; but if 
 it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, 
 lest haply ye be found even to fight 
 against God." (Acts v., 38, 39.) 
 
 Frederic the Wise knew well that 
 Luther's life was no longer 6afe any- 
 where at this moment. Charles pro- 
 nounced an edict of condemnation, 
 couched in the severest terms. Luther 
 was placed under the ban of the empire. 
 After twenty-one days his safe-conduct 
 would expire, and all persons be forbid- 
 den to feed or to give him shelter, and 
 enjoined to deliver him to the emperoj 
 
Martin Luther. 71 
 
 or to place him in safe keeping* till the 
 imperial orders should arrive; all his 
 adherents were to be seized, and their 
 goods confiscated; his books burnt; 
 and the authors of all other books and 
 prints obnoxious to the pope and the 
 church were to be taken and punished. 
 Whoever should violate this edict 
 should incur the ban of the empire. 
 
 This Draconian edict had been passed 
 by the majority; the friends of Luther, 
 foreseeing the issue, had left Worms 
 previously. Such was the condign pun- 
 nishment that befell the Germans for 
 having chosen as their emperor the 
 most powerful foreign prince of Europe, 
 brought up among the most bigoted of 
 nations Under these circumstances, 
 Frederic did what he could. In the 
 forest if Thuringia, not far from Eise- 
 nach, i/uther (who was not in the se- 
 cret) was stopped by armed knights, 
 ■et upon a horse, and conducted to the 
 
72 Martin Luther. 
 
 fortified castle a Dove Eisenach — the 
 Wartburg. Here the dress of a knight 
 was ready for him. He was desired to 
 consider himself as a prisoner, and to 
 *et his beard grow. None of his friends, 
 even at Wittemberg, knew what had 
 become of him. He had disappeared ; 
 the majority believed he had been kid- 
 napped by his powerful enemies. Such 
 was the indignation of the people at 
 this supposed treachery, that the princes 
 opposed to the Reformation, and even 
 the pope's agents, began to be alarmed, 
 and took pains to convince the people 
 that Luther had not met with ill usage. 
 Luther remained ten months at the 
 Wartburg; and it was here that he 
 began his greatest work, the translation 
 of the Bible from the original Hebrew 
 and Greek text. Although suffering 
 much in health from the confinement 
 which he modified latterly by excur 
 •ions in the woods around the castle, 
 
 Mh 
 
Martin Luther . 73 
 
 he soon also began to compose ne* 
 works, and obtained the necessary book* 
 through Melancthon, to whom he id 
 time made known that he was safe. 
 
 It is a most astonishing fact, highly 
 characteristic both of Lnther and of the 
 German nation, that, though for nearly 
 four years, the true doctrine of the gos- 
 pel had been preached through Ger- 
 many, and the Romish rites and cere- 
 monies exhibited as abuses, that yet 
 not one single word or portion of these 
 ceremonies had been changed. Luther 
 consciously believed, what may be called 
 the latent conviction of his countrymen, 
 that inward truth will necessarily cor- 
 rect outward errors, and mold for itself 
 fitting forms of expression. " The Spirit 
 bi God," he often said, " must first have 
 regenerated minds, imbued with true 
 gospel doctrine; then the new forma 
 will result naturally from that Spirit." 
 But it was clearly an unnatural and 
 
74 Martin Luther. 
 
 highly dangerous state of things, that 
 the outward acts of worship should be 
 utterly at variance with the belief of 
 the worshipers; and Luther saw that 
 if he would not take the matter in hand, 
 others were certain to do so ; the people 
 themselves might proceed to precipitate 
 acts. Luther felt this, and so strongly, 
 that he broke silence ; and in September 
 published a declaration against monk- 
 ish vows, in the form of theses, ad- 
 dressed to the bishops and deacons of 
 Wittemberg. The audacious attempt 
 of the Cardinal- Archbishop of Mayence, 
 Albert of Brandenburg, to renew at 
 Halle the sale of indulgences, called 
 forth Luther's philippic (1st November) 
 Against the new Idol of Halle. 
 
 This attack frightened even the court 
 of the elector of Saxony, who was at 
 that time rather of opinion that Luther 
 could do nothing better than to cause 
 himself to be forgotten. " I canno* 
 
Martin Luther . 75 
 
 a. low him to attack my brother elector, 
 and to disturb the public peace." Lu- 
 ther's greatness of soul had elevated 
 the minds of the princes for the mo- 
 ment ; they had saved his life, but they 
 wished now to live in peace, such as 
 they had before. Luther was indignant. 
 " Do they think I suffered a defeat at 
 Worms? It was a brilliant victory: so 
 many against me, and not one to gain- 
 say the truth." To Spalatin, the chap- 
 lain and adviser of the elector, he thus 
 writes : " How, the elector will not al- 
 low me to write ! and I, for my part, 
 will not allow him to disallow my 
 writing. I will rather destroy you, and 
 the prince, and every creature ! Hav- 
 ing resisted the pope, should I not resist 
 his agents?" At the request of Me* 
 lancthon, he laid aside the treatise he 
 aad prepared, but wrote to the Cardinal 
 Archbishop : " Thf>. God who raised 
 *uch a fire out of the spark kindled by 
 
76 Ma i tin Luther . 
 
 the words of a poor mendicant monk 
 Lives still ; doubt it not. He will resist 
 a cardinal of Mayence, even though 
 supported by four emperors ; for above 
 all He lives to lay low the high cedar, 
 and humble the proud Pharaohs. Put 
 down the idol within a fortnight, or I 
 shall attack you publicly." 
 
 The cardinal was frightened by the 
 sternness of the man of God, and had 
 the meanness to play the hypocrite. 
 He thanked Luther by letter for his 
 " Christian and brotherly reproof," 
 promising, " with the help of God, to 
 live henceforth as a pious bishop and 
 Christian prince." Luther, however, 
 could not credit the sincerity of this 
 declaration: "This man, scarcely ca- 
 pable to rule over a small parish, will 
 stand in the way of salvation as long 
 as he does not throw off the mask of a 
 cardinal and the pomp of a bishop." 
 
 The fact was the cardinal elccto? 
 
Martin Luther . 77 
 
 wanted money. He had had to pay 
 26.000 ducats to Kome for his pallium, 
 and half of that sum he had charged 
 upon the Tenders of indulgences in his 
 ecclesiastical province ; he himself hav- 
 ing to spend all his princely income on 
 his court. 
 
 During these nearly ten months of 
 seclusion, Luther's health suffered great- 
 ly, and subjected him to visions and 
 hallucinations, in which he believed he 
 saw the devil in form. His absence 
 from his congregation, his students, and 
 his friends and books at "Wittemberg, 
 weighed heavily upon him. Still, he held 
 out patiently till events occurred which 
 called upon the Reformer no longer 
 to absent himself. He reappeared, 
 without previous notice, among hia 
 friends at Wittemberg, whom he found 
 in great commotion. Thirteen monks 
 af Luther's own convent had left it on 
 the ground of religious conviction, with 
 
78 Martin Luther, 
 
 the approbation of Melancthon, who 
 also countenanced the general demand 
 for the abrogation of the mass. " What 
 we are to celebrate," said he, " in the 
 communion, is a sign of the grace 
 giyen us through Christ, but differing 
 from symbols invented by man by its 
 inward power of rendering the heart 
 certain of the will of God." This is 
 the simplest and truest form of Luther's 
 own view of the Lord's Supper, when 
 he looked on it not scholastically. 
 There is a reality in Christ's sacrifice 
 for us ; indeed, it is the reality of our 
 destiny that we remember it, as He has 
 bidden His disciples to do : it has there- 
 fore naturally an inward force, not ar 
 imaginary effect, like looking on a cross 
 and similar outward forms. What ca- 
 lamities would the world have been 
 spared if this view, in its profound sim- 
 olicity and depth, had not been dressed 
 up in formularies partaking of that 
 
Martin Luther. 79 
 
 very scholasticism which the Reforma- 
 tion was to abolish ! The prior of the 
 convent discontinued from that time 
 low masses. It was high time, indeed, 
 that this central point of Christian wor- 
 ship should be taken in hand by the 
 Reformers ; for at Zwickau, in Saxony, 
 an enthusiast, named Stork, arose, who 
 pretended to have a commission from 
 the archangel Gabriel to reform and 
 govern the Church and the world, and 
 who was supported in this by a fanatic 
 named Thomas Munzer. When they 
 appeared at Wittemberg announcing 
 their visions, even Melancthon was 
 startled, and especially hesitated as to 
 the question of psedo-baptism. Carl- 
 stadt, Luther's disciple and friend, ad- 
 vocated the most revolutionary changes. 
 Be broke down the images, preached 
 bgainst learning and study, and ex- 
 norted his hearers to go home and gain 
 \heir bread by digging the ground. 
 
80 Martin Luther. 
 
 Luther did not hesitate a moment to 
 3ondemn the whole movement as a de- 
 .usion for men who gloried in their own 
 wisdom, which could only cause a tri- 
 umph to the enemies of reform. At an 
 interview which he had with Munzer 
 and Horst, they said they could prove 
 to him that they had the Spirit ; for 
 they would tell him what now passed 
 in his mind. Luther challenged them 
 to the proof. " You think in your own 
 heart that we are right." Luther ex- 
 claimed, — " Get thee behind me, Satan," 
 and dismissed them. " They are quite 
 right," he said to his friends afterwards ; 
 " that thought crossed my mind as to 
 some of their assertions. A spirit evi- 
 dently was in them, but what could it 
 be but the evil one?" Here we see the 
 difference between Luther and Melanc- 
 thon. Luther was not startled from 
 his solid judgment as Melancthon had 
 been by this movement; and Melano* 
 
Martin Luther. 81 
 
 » — 
 
 thon, in after years, was a more violent 
 antagonist of anabaptism than Luther. 
 It was on the 3d of March, 1522, that 
 Luther left for ever his asylum, and 
 plunged into the midst of struggles 
 verj different in their character from 
 those which he had hitherto so victori- 
 ously overcome. Before arriving at 
 Wittemberg, he wrote a remarkable 
 letter to the elector: — "You wish to 
 know what to do in the present trouble- 
 some circumstances. Do nothing. As 
 for myself, let the command of the em- 
 peror be executed in town and country. 
 Do not resist if they come to seize and 
 kill me ; only let the doors remain open 
 for the preaching of the word of God." 
 One of the editors of Luther's works 
 observes on the margin, — "This is a 
 marvelous writing of the third and last 
 Elijah." The elector was touched by 
 Luther's magnanimity. " I will take 
 up his defence at the diet ; only let him 
 
Martin Luther 
 
 explain his reasons for having returned 
 to Wittemberg, and say he did so with- 
 out my orders." Luther complied, add- 
 ing, — " I can bear your highness' dis- 
 favor. I have done my duty towards 
 those whom God has intrusted to me. w 
 A nd, indeed, he made it his first duty to 
 preach almost daily the gospel of peace 
 to his flock. "No violence!" he ex- 
 claimed, " against the superstitious 01 
 unbelieving. Let him who believes 
 draw near, and let him who does not 
 believe stand aloof. Nobody is to be 
 constrained ; liberty is essential to faith 
 
 and all that belongs to it You 
 
 have acted in faith," he said, " but do 
 not forget charity, and the wisdom which 
 mothers show in the care of their child- 
 ren. Let the reform of the mass be un« 
 dertaken with earnest prayer. The power 
 of the word is irresistible : the idols of 
 Athens fell not by force, but before the 
 mighty words of the apostle." This 
 
Martin Luther. 8b 
 
 evangelical meekness of the man who had 
 braved pope and emperor, and knew not 
 fear, acted with divine power upon all 
 minds. The agitation and sedition dis- 
 appeared. The pretended prophets dis- 
 persed, or were silenced in public debate. 
 On the 21st September, 1522, the 
 translation of the New Testament ap- 
 peared in two volumes folio, which 
 sold at about a ducat and a half. The 
 translation of the Old Testament wa 
 commenced in the same year. Thou- 
 sands of copies were read with inde- 
 scribable delight by the people; who 
 had now access to the words of Him 
 whom Luther had preached to them as 
 the author of our salvation, in theii 
 mother tongue, in a purity and clear 
 ness unknown before, and never sui< 
 Oassed since. By choosing the Fran- 
 conian dialect in use in the imperial 
 chancery, Luther made himself intelli 
 gille both to those whose vernacular 
 
84 Martin Luther. 
 
 dialect was High German or Low Ger- 
 man. Luther translated faithfully but 
 vernacularly, with a native grace which 
 op to this day makes his Bible the stand* 
 ard of the German language. It is 
 Luther's genius applied to the Bible 
 which has preserved the only unity, 
 which is. in our days, remaining to the 
 German nation, — that of language, lit- 
 erature, and thought. There is no simi- 
 lar instance in the known history of the 
 world of a single man achieving such 
 a work. His prophetic mind foresaw 
 that the Scripture would pervade the 
 living languages and tongues all over 
 the earth — a process going on still with 
 more activity than ever. 
 
 Meanwhile the vanity and presump- 
 tion of Henry YHI. induced him to 
 £iublish a book against Luther, in which 
 ho heaped upon Luther every oppro- 
 Drious epithet ; even called in question 
 his honesty and sincerity, and declared 
 
Martin Luther . 85 
 
 him worthy to be burned. His Defence 
 of the Seven Sacraments merely reca- 
 pitulates the old scholastic tradition 
 without the slightest understanding of 
 the Bible or of the evangelical doctrine. 
 Henry's ambassador declared to the 
 pope, in presenting the book, that the 
 king was now ready to use the sword 
 against Luther's adherents, after hav- 
 ing refuted the errors of Luther him- 
 self. Luther, after having read the book, 
 declared, contrary to the desire of the 
 elector and of his other friends, that 
 he must answer it. " Look," he writes, 
 "what weapons are used against me: 
 fire and the fury of those stupid Thom- 
 ists. Let them burn me : alive I shall 
 be the enemy of popery; burnt I shall 
 be its ruin. Everywhere they will find 
 me in their way, like a bear or a lion.' 
 In the answer itself he pays the king in 
 ais own coin. After having taken th< 
 
 wown from his head and beaten hin* 
 a 
 
86 Martin Luther. 
 
 like any other controversial writer, he 
 exclaims, — " I cry gospel ! gospel ! — 
 Christ I Christ ! and they cease not to 
 answer, — Usages, usages 1 ordinances, 
 ordinances ! fathers, fathers ! The apos- 
 tle St. Paul annihilates with a thunder- 
 storm from heaven all these fooleries of 
 Henry." The king wrote to the elector 
 and the Dukes of Saxony, exhorting 
 ♦hem to extirpate this heresy, as being 
 the revival of that of Wyeliffe. Their 
 answer referred Henry to the future 
 council. The cause of the Reformation 
 suffered nothing from Henry's attacks 
 and the invectives of his courtiers. The 
 movement against the sacerdotal and 
 monkish vows extended through the 
 whole of Germany — affecting equally 
 priests and laymen. Zealous preachers 
 of the gospel rose from all ranks. Noble 
 and pious women came forward to de- 
 clare their faith. Luther's activity waa 
 tnparalleled. In 1522 he published 
 
Martin Luther . 87 
 
 one hundred and thirty treatises, and 
 eighty-three in the following year. 
 
 The whole national literature of Ger- 
 many became Protestant ; and it is cer- 
 tainly a remarkable fact, that, in spite 
 of the Reformation having since lost 
 almost one-half 01 Germany, its litera- 
 ture, as well as its historical learning 
 and philology, still remains Protest- 
 ant. All the free cities, which were 
 the cradle of the fine arts as well as of 
 the wealth of the country, declared in 
 favor of the Reformation. In Saxony 
 there was, as Luther had proposed and 
 demanded, perfect liberty of conscience : 
 the Romish bishops had their preachers 
 as well as the Reformers. 
 
 Luther's heart expanded in the con- 
 sciousness of the Reformers' success 
 Buch as he had never hoped to see. 
 But he shrunk from the idea that this 
 work should be regarded as his, and 
 that he should have the honor of it 
 
Martin Luther, 
 
 " My true disciples," he said, " do no* 
 be'ieve in Luther, but in Jesus Christ; 
 I myself care nothing about Luther. 
 What is it to me whether he be a saint 
 or a miscreant ? It is not him I preach, 
 but Christ. If the devil can, let him 
 have Christ ; but if Christ remains ours, 
 we also shall subsist." 
 
 When Leo X. died in this year (1522,) 
 Adrian, the Flemish tutor of Charles Y., 
 his successor, a single-minded professor, 
 could not (as Jarus tells us) at first con- 
 ceive how people could find a difficulty 
 in the matter of indulgences, which he 
 had explained so well in his lectures, 
 till a cardinal remarked to him, that 
 the unbelieving people had no faith in 
 indulgences whatsoever, and that some 
 of those who believed in Christ, thought 
 that exactly for that reason they did 
 not want them. "The Church must 
 reform," said he, " but step by step.' 
 * Yes," said Luther, " putting som« 
 
Martin Luther. 89 
 
 eenturies between every step." No- 
 body wanted his reforms less than the 
 Romans ; and Adrian exclaimed at last, 
 -— ■" How unfortunate is the position of 
 the popes, who are not even free to do 
 good," 
 
 In November 1522, the diet assem- 
 bled at Nuremberg on account of an 
 impending war with the Turks. While 
 the nuncio and the bishops demanded 
 Luther's death, the churches of the im- 
 perial free city resounded with the 
 doctrine of the gospel; monks being 
 amongst the most zealous preachers. 
 What a change from the state of things 
 at Worms in April, 1521 ! The muni- 
 cipal council of the free city declared 
 that if those preachers were to be seized 
 by force, they would instantly set them 
 free by force. The legate was obliged 
 to abandon his plan of arresting them 
 in the pope's name, as the diet declared 
 itself incompetent to do so. Adrian's 
 
 8* 
 
90 Ma i tin Luther. 
 
 sincere avowal of the horrible abuses 
 of Rome confirmed the people in the 
 belief that Luther' and the gospel were 
 right, and made his threatening brief, 
 addressed to the elector, whom he de- 
 clared worthy of death and eternal 
 damnation, appear as ridiculous as it 
 was arrogant. Luther and all his 
 friends, whose advice the elector asked 
 at this critical moment, declared that 
 he ought not to fight for the gospel, 
 seeing that the people without whose 
 consent he could not declare war, would 
 not in the spirit of faith declare for such 
 a measure. But other princes were 
 frightened, because they had no faith 
 whatever, except in superior strength 
 and power of pope and emperor. " Let 
 diem take care," said Luther, " if they 
 persecute the gospel, there will be a 
 rebellion and civil war, and the prince* 
 will be in danger of losing their 
 dominions. They wish to destroy me, 
 
Martin Luther, 91 
 
 » i .1 . . 
 
 but I wish to save them. Christ lives 
 and reigns ; and I shall live and reign 
 with Him." Indeed, a bloody perse- 
 cution began in many parts of Germany 
 arid in the Netherlands. Four Augus- 
 tinian monks of Antwerp were the first 
 martyrs; they were burnt on the 1st 
 July, 1523. Their blood called forth 
 a rich harvest of new witnesses in Brus- 
 sels and elsewhere. 
 
 When the successor of Adrian VI., 
 Clement VH., (Julius de Medici,) sent 
 in 1524 the celebrated legate Cam- 
 peggi to Nuremberg, he intended, ac- 
 coiding to usage, on passing through 
 Augsburg, to give the people the papai 
 benediction ; but finding that the cere- 
 mony called forth public derision, the 
 legate entered Nuremberg as much in- 
 ecgnito as Luther had entered Worms 
 two years before. The German princes 
 Asked what had become of the one hun- 
 dred and one grievances of the German 
 
92 Martin Luther . 
 
 nation, to which Rome never had deign • 
 ed to return an answer. Campeggi de- 
 clared the document to have been con- 
 Bidered at Home merely as a private 
 pamphlet ; on which the diet in great 
 indignation, insisted upon the necessity 
 of an universal council, and proceeded 
 to annul the edict of Worms ; declaring, 
 however, in their communication to the 
 pope, that " it should be conformed to 
 as much as possible ;" which, with re- 
 spect to many princes and cities, meant 
 not at all. Finally, it was resolved 
 that a diet, to be held at Spires in No- 
 vember, was to decide on religious dif- 
 ferences. Many states which had hith- 
 erto kept aloof, — the landgrave of 
 Brandenburg, (not the elector, a strong 
 papist,) at the head, — declared imme- 
 diately for the reform, and against the 
 *even sacraments, the abuses of the 
 mass, the worship of saints and su- 
 premacy of the pope. " That is a good 
 
Martzn Luther . 93 
 
 move," said Luther. "Frederic must 
 lose his electoral hat," cried the Roman 
 agent, " and France and England must 
 interfere." A catholic league was 
 formed, by Bavarian and other bishops, 
 at Eatisbon, under Campeggi's direction 
 and presidency. But the princes were 
 still afraid of the universally spreading 
 national movement. Charles threw his 
 power into the balance, and declared 
 that not the German nation, but the 
 emperor alone, had a right to demand 
 a council, and the pope alone had the 
 right to grant it. His designated sue 
 cessor, his brother Ferdinand, began 
 the bloody work of persecution in the 
 hereditary states of Austria immediate- 
 ly after the congress of the league at 
 Ratisbon. At Passau in Bavaria, and 
 at Buda in Hungary, the fagots were 
 lighted. The dukes of Bavaria followed 
 the same impulse. 
 
 Meanwhile, began at Wittemberg 
 
94 Martin Luther, 
 
 the unhappy dispute about the mode in 
 which the consecration affected the ele- 
 ments in the celebration of the commu- 
 nion enjoined by Christ. Luther as yet 
 f lad not taken up that doctrinal scholastic 
 opinion, which afterwards produced the 
 fatal schism. In opposing Carlstadt'a 
 view, he combated not so much the later 
 Swiss exposition as Carlstadt's false in- 
 terpretation of the words, " This is my 
 body," which was, that Christ, in pro- 
 nouncing them, had pointed to his own 
 body, which soon would die. He ad- 
 mitted soon afterwards, in reference to 
 that exposition, in 1520, that he was 
 very near thinking the Swiss interpre- 
 tation the reasonable view of the case, 
 but that he had rejected the notion as 
 a " temptation," the words of the text 
 seeming to him not to allow of that in- 
 terpretation. 
 
 But in the same manner as this dis- 
 pute was a prelude t:> the fatal sacra- 
 
Martin Luther. 95 
 
 mental disputes with Zwingle and Cal 
 rin, Luther's defeat in the attempt tc 
 detach the congregation of a small town 
 (Orlamunde near Jena,) from Carlstadt, 
 who introduced iconoclastic and violent 
 proceedings, proved an index of the 
 critical state of public feeling. Luther 
 felt the urgent necessity of applying 
 the principles of the gospel to Chris- 
 tian worship and to the constitutions 
 of the Church. But, on the first point, 
 he wished changes to be introduced 
 gradually, and rather as a purifica- 
 tion of the existing forms, than by an 
 abrogation. While as to the second, 
 he felt that it was not his immediate 
 vocation, and he thought he must leave 
 t-,he work to the princes, and content 
 himself with preaching to them the 
 leading evangelical principles. This, 
 of course, was not the view of the real 
 iriends of the Reformation, nor was it 
 consistent with Luther's usual profound 
 
96 Martin Lutfier . 
 
 sagacity, but must be regarded as a 
 remnant of the effect produced by bis 
 monkish scholastic education brought 
 into accordance with Christianity. His 
 more practical, and perhaps impatiert 
 friends wanted to see the pagan condi- 
 tion of the world, with its social rela- 
 tions, changed into a Christian state of 
 things, as an earnest and pledge of the 
 reality of the gospel preaching. Still, 
 for some time longer, Luther and the 
 popular feeling marched peaceably to- 
 gether, and he remained the national 
 as well as the theological leader. It 
 was at this time that he directed a pow- 
 erful address to the municipal councils 
 of the German towns, in order to ex- 
 hort them to establish everywhere 
 Christian schools, as well elementary 
 as learned. " Oh, my dear Germans," 
 he exclaims, " the divine word is now 
 in abundance offered to you. God 
 knocks at your door ; open it to him . 
 
 mh 
 
Martin Luther, 97 
 
 Forget not the poor youth. Look how 
 the ancient Jewish, Greek, and Roman 
 world lost the word of God, and perish- 
 ed. The strength of a town does not 
 consist in its towers and buildings, but 
 in counting a great number of learned, 
 serious, honest, well-educated citizens. 
 Do not fancy Hebrew and Greek to be 
 unnecessary. These languages are the 
 sheath which covers the sword of the 
 Spirit. The ignorance of the original 
 Scriptures was an impediment to the 
 progress of the Waldenses, whose doc- 
 trine is perfectly pure. How could I 
 have combated and overthrown pope 
 and sophists, even having the true faith, 
 if I had not possessed the languages ? 
 You must found libraries for learned 
 books, — not only the fathers, but also 
 the pagan writers, the fine arts, law, 
 history, medicine, must be represented 
 in such collections." These expressions 
 prove that from the very beginning 
 
98 Ma rtin Zv I her. 
 
 and in the very person of Luther, the 
 Reformation was .connected with schol- 
 arship, — with philology in its most 
 extended sense, and equally with the 
 highest aspiration* of the fine arts. 
 
 Here we must conclude this first 
 glorious period of Luther's life, which, 
 taken altogether, has no parallel since 
 the days of the apostle Paul. But the 
 problem to be solved was not to be 
 solved by Luther and by Germany: 
 the progressive, vital element of refor- 
 mation passed from Germany to Swit- 
 zerland, and through Switzerland to 
 France, Holland, England and Scotland. 
 Before he descended into the grave and 
 Germany into thraldom, Luther saved 
 (as much as was in him) his country 
 and the world, by maintaining the fun 
 damental principles of the Reformation 
 against Melancthon's pusillanimity: 
 but three Protestant princes and the 
 free cities were the leaders ; the confe* 
 
Martin Luther, 99 
 
 Bion was the work of Melancthon. out 
 the deed of the laity of the nation. Thr 
 German Reformation was made by & 
 scholastically trained monk, seconded 
 by professors; the Swiss Reformation 
 was the work of a free citizen, an honest 
 Christian, trained by the classics of an 
 tiqnity, and nursed in true, hard-won 
 civil liberty. That was the providential 
 saving of the world. Luther's work 
 was continued, preserved, advanced by 
 the work of the Swiss and French Re- 
 formers. The monk and the Semitic 
 element began; the citizens and the 
 Japhetic element finished. If the one 
 destroyed Judaism, the other converted 
 paganism, then most powerful, both as 
 idolatry and as irreligious learning. 
 But as long as Luther lived he did not 
 lose his supremacy, and he deserved to 
 keep it. His mind was universal, and 
 therefore catholic in the proper sense 
 of the word. 
 
100 Martin Luther. 
 
 Third Period : — Luther's Life from 
 1525 to 1546; or the Period of Stag- 
 nation. 
 
 The first year after Luther's return to 
 Wittemberg was a glorious period : the 
 true halcyon days of the Reform and 
 of Luther's personal history. In the 
 second period of his life, the epic was 
 changed into tragedy; for the Anabap- 
 tist tumult arose, and the war of the 
 peasants broke out in the Black Forest 
 in July, 1524. 
 
 The Anabaptist movement of Thomas 
 Munzer was the movement of Carlstadt 
 mixed up with wild enthusiasm, igno- 
 rance, rebellion, and imposture. Lu- 
 ther's doctrinal opposition to it was 
 constant and consistent ; but it would 
 have been more effectual if Luther had 
 not involved himself as a schoolman in 
 an indissoluble difficulty. He was safe 
 in defending paedo-baptism ; but that 
 
Martin Luther. Ill 
 
 could be done without ascribing to it 
 the power of individual regeneration; 
 «*n opinion from which the greatest part 
 of Christendom has most decisively de- 
 clared its dissent all over the globe. He 
 was equally justified in maintaining the 
 word of the gospel : " "Whoever believes, 
 and is baptized, shall be saved ; " but 
 he ought not to have forgotten that this 
 is a juxtaposition of two things, of which 
 the one can only be of value as a conse- 
 quence of the first. This brings the 
 question back to a solemn profession 
 and vow before the Christian congre- 
 gation of him who, having been in- 
 structed in Christ's saving faith, finds 
 himself ready and compelled to make 
 that solemn promise, which St. Peter 
 calls (1st Peter, iii. 21,) — " the promise 
 (or vow) of a good conscience." Mun- 
 zer and all the other so-called apostles 
 of the Spirit, attacked Luther as a mere 
 worldly man who had sold himself to 
 
102 Martin Luther. 
 
 the princes. They abolished chaunting 
 and all ceremonies, and committed acts 
 of violence against churches and con- 
 vents. Luther said to Munzcr, — " The 
 spirit who moves thee must be an evil 
 one, for it brings forth nothing but 
 pillage of convents and churches ; the 
 greatest robbers on the earth could do 
 no more." "WTiile combating them by 
 preaching and writing, he advised, how- 
 ever, the elector to let them preach 
 freely. " The word of God itself must 
 come forward and contend with them. 
 If their spirit is the true one, Munzer 
 will fear our constraint ; if ours is the 
 true one, he will not fear their violence. 
 Let the spirits meet with all might, and 
 fight each other. Perhaps some will 
 be seduced; well, there is no battle 
 without wounds; but he that fighta 
 faithfully will be crowned. But if they 
 ha^e recourse to the sword, then defend 
 
Martin Luther. 103 
 
 your own subjects, and order the Ana 
 baptists to leave the country." 
 
 It was indeed a wonderful faith that 
 produced such toleration in these times, 
 and it had a wonderful result; — the 
 elector's states remained undisturbed. 
 Munzer fled into Switzerland. 
 
 It was otherwise with the war of the 
 peasants. "We have already observed 
 that the Reformation did not originate 
 the rebellion of the peasants, but found 
 it prepared. The first coalitions of the 
 peasants against the intolerable ra- 
 pacity and cruelty of the feudal aris- 
 tocracy had begun before the close of 
 the fifteenth century ; then they broke 
 out along the Upper Rhine, in Alsace, 
 and the palatinate, in 1503; conse- 
 quently eighteen years before the be- 
 ginning of Luther's Reformation. No 
 aoubt Luther's preaching, in the spirit 
 df the gospel, against all the revolting 
 injustice and oppression of the con 
 
104 Martin Luther. 
 
 science of Christian men, had kept back 
 that movement for a time ; but Munzei 
 carried the spirit of rebellion and fanat- 
 icism among the peasants and part oi 
 the citizens of the countries of the Upper 
 Rhine. The fact was, that all the op- 
 pressed inclined towards Luther, and 
 the oppressors, most of whom were the 
 sovereigns, bishops, and abbots, toward* 
 the pope. The struggle which now 
 began was therefore between the re- 
 forming and the papist party, and it 
 was easily to be foreseen that Luther 
 would soon be dragged into it. Indeed, 
 the revolutionary movement, was alrea- 
 dy, in January, 1525, extending from 
 the Black Forest to Thuringia and Sax- 
 ony, the very heart of Luther's sphere 
 of action. The peasants had proclaimed 
 twelve articles, of half biblical half po- 
 litical character. In the introduction 
 to these articles they protest against tho 
 imputation of wanting anything but 
 
Martin Luther. 105 
 
 the gospel applied to the social body. 
 They declare their desire to uphold it* 
 injunctions — peace, patience, and union 
 There is no doubt that many of them 
 were sincere in their professions. At 
 all events, neither the gospel nor its 
 true preachers and followers were the 
 revolutionists, but the wild, selfish, 
 passionate enthusiasts among them and 
 their leaders. Like the Puritans in the 
 following century, the peasants say they 
 raise their voice to God who saved the 
 people of Israel ; and they believe that 
 God can save them as well from their 
 powerful oppressors as he did the Israel- 
 ites from the hand of Pharaoh. 
 
 As to what they demanded in their 
 twelve articles, all impartial historians 
 declare that on the whole their demands 
 were just ; and all of them are now the 
 law of Germany. As to the influence 
 of the Reformation, the very words of 
 Scripture brought forward this time by 
 
106 Martin Luther. 
 
 the peasants, prove clearly that Luther's 
 preaching of the gospel and of truth 
 had not acted upon the movement as 
 an incentive but as a corrective. It was 
 Luther himself who now, in the critical 
 moment, brought the Word of God to 
 6peak out against the insurrection, as be- 
 ing in itself an act of unchristian self-de- 
 fence, although he acknowledged their 
 case to be very hard, and their cause, on 
 the whole, a j ust one. Luther's position 
 was grand ; he spoke as the arbiter be- 
 tween lord and peasant; in the name 
 of Christ exhorting both parties to 
 peace, and as a good citizen and patriot 
 giving them advice equally practical 
 and Christian. He first speaks thus in 
 substance to the lords : — " I might now 
 make common cause with the peasants 
 against you, who impute this insurrec- 
 tion to the gospel and to my teaching • 
 whereas I have never ceased to enjoin 
 •bedience to authority, even to one m 
 
 DM 
 
Martin Luther. 107 
 
 tyrannical and intolerable as yours. 
 But I will not envenom the wound; 
 therefore, my lords, whether friendly 
 or hostile to me, do not despise either 
 the advice of a poor man, or this sedi- 
 tion ; not that you ought to fear the in- 
 surgents, but fear God the Lord, who 
 is incensed against you. He may pun- 
 ish you and turn every stone into a 
 peasant, and then neither your cuirasses 
 nor your strength would save you. Put 
 then bounds to your exactions, — pause 
 in your hard tyranny, — consider them 
 as intoxicated, — and treat them with 
 kindness, that God may not kindle a 
 fire throughout Germany which none 
 will be able to extinguish. What you 
 may perhaps lose will be made good to 
 you a hundredfold by peace. Some of 
 the twelve articles of the peasants are 
 60 equitable that they dishonor you 
 before God and the world ; they cover 
 the princes with shame, as the 109th 
 
208 Martin Luther. 
 
 Psalm says. I should have yet grave; 
 things to tell you respecting the gov 
 ernment of Germany, and I have ad- 
 dressed you in this cause in my book 
 to the German nobility. But you have 
 considered my words as wind, and there- 
 fore all these demands come now upon 
 you. You must not refuse their demand 
 as to choosing pastors who preach to 
 them the gospel ; the government has 
 only to see that insurrection and rebel- 
 lion be not preached; but there must 
 be perfect liberty to preach the true 
 gospel as well as the false. The remain 
 ing articles, which regard the social 
 state of the peasant, are equally just. 
 Government is not established for its 
 own interest, nor to make the people 
 subservient to caprice and evil passions, 
 but for the interest of the people. Your 
 exactions are intolerable; you tako 
 away from the peasant the fruit of his 
 abor, in order to spend his money upon 
 
Martin Luther. 109 
 
 your finery and luxury. So much for 
 you." 
 
 " Now, as regards you, my dear 
 friends, the peasants. You want the 
 free preaching of the gospel to be se- 
 cured to you. God will assist your just 
 cause if you follow up your work with 
 conscience and justice. In that case 
 you are sure to triumph in the end. 
 Those of you who may fall in the strug- 
 gle will be saved. But if you act other- 
 wise you are lost, soul and body, even 
 if you have success, and defeat the 
 princes and lords. Do not believe the 
 false prophets who have come among 
 you, even if they invoke the holy name 
 of the gospel. They will call me a 
 hypocrite, but I do not mind that. I 
 wish to save the pious and honest men 
 among you. I fear God and none else. 
 Do you fear Him also, and use not His 
 name in vain, that He may not punish 
 
 you. Does not the word of God say ; 
 10 
 
110 Martin Luther. 
 
 1 He who takes up the sword, shall per- 
 ish by the sword :' and ' Let every soul 
 be subject to the "higher powers.' You 
 must not take justice into your own 
 hands ; that is also the prescription of 
 the natural law. Do you not see that 
 you put yourself in the wrong by rebel- 
 lion ? The government takes away part 
 of what is yours, but you take away all 
 in destroying principle. Fix your eye 
 on Christ at Gethsemane rebuking St. 
 Peter for using the sword although in 
 defence of his Master, and on Christ on 
 the cross praying for his persecutors. 
 And has not his kingdom triumphed ? 
 Why have pope and emperor not been 
 able to put me down ? Why has the 
 gospel spread the more the greater the 
 effort they made to hinder and destroy 
 it ? Because I have never had recourse 
 to force, but preached obedience even 
 towards those who persecuted me, de« 
 pending exclusively on God. But what 
 
Martin Luther. Ill 
 
 ever you do, do not try to cover your 
 enterprise by the cloak of the gospeJ 
 and the name of Christ. If war there 
 must be, it will be a war of pagans, for 
 Christians use other weapons; their 
 general suffered the cross, and their 
 triumph is humility: that is their chiv- 
 alry. Pray, my dear friends, stop and 
 consider before you proceed further. 
 Your quotations from the Bible do not 
 prove your case." 
 
 After having thus spoken out boldly 
 and fearlessly to each party, Luther con- 
 cludes with a touching expostulation to 
 both. The substance of his address is in 
 these words : — " You see you are both in 
 the wrong, and are drawing the divine 
 punishments upon you and upon your 
 common country, Germany. My ad- 
 vice would be that arbitrators should 
 oe chosen, some from the nobility, and 
 some from the towns. You both have 
 to give up something: let the ma1> 
 
112 Martin Luther. 
 
 ter be settled equitably by human 
 law." 
 
 This certainly was the voice of the 
 true prophet of the age, if ever there 
 was any. It was not heard. The lords 
 showed little disposition towards con- 
 cessions, and what they did offer came 
 too late, when the bloody struggle had 
 already begun. The peasants, excited 
 by Munzer, exceeded, on their side, ail 
 bounds, and Luther felt himself obliged, 
 when the stream of rebellion and de- 
 struction rolled on to Thuringia and 
 Saxony, to speak out most strongly 
 against them. The princes leagued to- 
 gether (for the empire, of course, did 
 nothing, Charles having full employ- 
 ment in Spain,) and the peasants were 
 routed everywhere. Fifty thousand 
 of their party were slain or butchered 
 by wholesale executions. Among thig 
 number there were many of the quiet* 
 est and most moderate people made 
 
Martin Luther. 113 
 
 victims in the general slaughter, be- 
 cause they were known or suspected to 
 be friends of the Keformation and of 
 Luther, which, indeed all the citizens 
 and peasants of Germany were at that 
 time. 
 
 None felt more deeply this misery, 
 and what it involved in its effects on the 
 cause of the gospel in Germany; and 
 he never recovered the shock. He 
 thus unburdens his soul at the close of 
 this fatal year, which crushed for cen- 
 turies the rights and hopes of the 
 peasants and laborers, and weakened the 
 towns and cities, the seats of all that 
 was best in the national life: — "The 
 spirit of these tyrants is powerless — 
 cowardly — estranged from every honest 
 Ihought. They deserve to be the slaves 
 of the people. But by the grace of 
 Christ I am sufficiently revenged by 
 the contempt I have for them, and 
 for Satan their God." And in the next 
 
 10* 
 
114 Martin Luther. 
 
 year he said, " I fear Germany is lost j 
 it cannot be otherwise, for they will 
 employ nothing but the sword." 
 
 In all this Luther stands higher than 
 ever, but as a sufferer. He sees the 
 work in Germany is lost for this time. 
 He submits, and is supported by hia 
 faith. So he is consoled when he sees 
 how Ferdinand of Austria and the 
 Duke of Bavaria imprison and slaugh- 
 ter Christians on account of the gospel, 
 and that not only the pope and the em- 
 peror are leagued together against the 
 Reformation, but also the king of 
 France, besides the king of England. 
 All the powers of the world are against 
 him : Germany is doomed to perish, but 
 the word and the work of God cannot 
 perish. Even the sad results of a gen- 
 eral visitation of the churches which he 
 undertook throughout the states of the 
 elector did not shake his faith. Ho 
 sees how ignorant and savage all these 
 
Martin Luther . 115 
 
 wars and revolts have rendered even 
 the Protestant congregations; but he 
 says the Spirit of God will not forsake 
 them. The elector Frederic, Luther's 
 timid but honest supporter, had de- 
 scended into the tomb on the 5th May, 
 1525, confessing on his death-bed his 
 firm belief in Christ as his only Saviour. 
 His successor, John, known by the 
 well-deserved name, John the Constant, 
 followed in his footsteps, and was a firm 
 friend to Luther. 
 
 But the Romish league also gained 
 friends in the north of Germany. Duke 
 George of Saxony had, in July of this 
 year, concluded at Dessau an alliance 
 against the Reformation with Albert 
 of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mainz 
 and Magdeburg, and with the Dukes of 
 Brunswick, and proved himself in ear- 
 nest by causing two citizens of Leipzig 
 to be beheaded for having the writings 
 &f Luther in their houses. At the same 
 
116 Martin Luther, 
 
 time, Charles declared from Spain hif 
 intention to hold a diet at Augsburg, 
 evidently in order to crush the Refor- 
 mation by means of the Catholic league 
 acting in the name of the empire. His 
 victory at Pavia made him more than 
 ever the master of Germany. Finally, 
 the remains of the party of Munzer, 
 declared they would take the life of 
 Luther as a traitor. 
 
 It was under such auspices that Lu- 
 ther decided at last to take a wife, as 
 he had long advised his friends among 
 the priests and monks to do. They had 
 often reminded him of his profession, 
 and of the duty of himself setting an 
 example to prove his sincerity. His 
 father himself urged him continually 
 to marry. All around him was now in 
 & stationary, if not a retrograde state. 
 The university of Wittemberg had suf- 
 fered much during the late troubles, 
 and it was generally believed that \h% 
 
 i 
 
Martin Luther. 117 
 
 Hew elector did not mean to support it. 
 Luther's warm and loving heart opened 
 the more readily to the contemplation of 
 matrimonial union with Catherina von 
 Bora, a lady twenty-four years of age, 
 of a noble Saxon family, in 1523, who 
 had left her convent, together with eight 
 other sisters, in order to worship Christ 
 without the oppression of endless cere- 
 monies, which gave neither light to the 
 mind nor peace to the soul. Since that 
 time they had lived together in utter 
 retirement, forming a free Christian 
 community. Pious citizens at Torgau 
 were their protectors, and by them they 
 were presented to Luther in the convent 
 of the Augustinians. Soon followed, 
 as we have seen, the great regenerative 
 movement of the Christian worship; 
 and Luther appeared, on the 9th Octo- 
 ber, 1524, before the congregation in 
 the simple habit of a secular priest 
 Luther soon remained alone in the con 
 
118 Martin Luther, 
 
 vent ; all the monks had left it. At the 
 end of the year he sent the key to the 
 elector, who, however, desired him to 
 continue to inhabit it. In the mean 
 time, Luther had observed and wit- 
 nessed the Christian faith and life of 
 Catherina von Bora, and on the 11th 
 of June he married her, in the presence 
 of Lucas Cranach, the celebrated paint- 
 er, and of another friend, as witnesses. 
 Catherina von Bora had no dowry, and 
 Luther lived on his appointment as pro- 
 fessor ; he would never take money for 
 any of his books, but only some copiea 
 for presents. His marriage was a happy 
 one, and was blessed with six children. 
 Luther was a tender husband and the 
 most loving of fathers. 
 
 The princes who were friendly to the 
 Reformation gradually gained more 
 courage ; the Elector John of Saxony 
 established a principle in his states that 
 all rites should be abrogated which 
 
 .wtf.fl 
 
Martin Luther. 119 
 
 « — —   ■" — ~ ~ "~ ~ — ~~ m 
 
 were contrary to the Scriptures, and 
 that the masses for the dead be abolish- 
 ed at once. The young Landgrave 
 Philippe of Hesse gained over the son 
 of the furious Duke George to the cause 
 of the Keformation. Albert, Duke of 
 Prussia, had established it at Konigs- 
 berg, as hereditary duke, abolishing the 
 tows of the Order, whose master ho 
 had been, saying : — " There is only one 
 Order, and that is Christendom." At 
 the request of the pope, Charles placed 
 Albert under interdict as an apostate 
 monk. The evangelical princes found 
 in all these circumstances a still stronger 
 motive to act at Augsburg as allies in 
 the cause of the evangelical party ; and 
 when the diet opened in December, 
 1525, they spoke out boldly: — "It is 
 \iolence which brought on the war of 
 the peasants. If you will by violence 
 tear the truth of God out of the hearts of 
 those who believe, you will draw greater 
 
120 Martin Luther, 
 
 dangers and evils upon you." The Ro- 
 manist party was startled. " The cause 
 of the holy faith " 'was adjourned to the 
 next diet at Spires. The landgrave and 
 the elector made a formal alliance in 
 February, 1526, at Torgau. 
 
 Luther being consulted as to his 
 opinion, felt helpless. " You have no 
 faith ; you put not your trust in God ; 
 leave all to him." The landgrave, the 
 real head of the evangelical alliance, 
 perceived that Luther's advice was not 
 practical — that Luther forsook the duty 
 of self-defence and the obligation to do 
 one's duty according to the dictates of 
 reason, in religious matters as well as 
 in other political questions. But the 
 alliance found no new friends. Ger- 
 many showed all her misery by the 
 meanness of her princes and the absence 
 of any great national body to oppose 
 the league formed by the pope, the em 
 peror, and the Romanists, throughout 
 
Martin Luther, 121 
 
 Europe. The archbishop of Treves pre- 
 ferred a pension from Charles to the 
 defence of the national canse. The 
 evangelically-disposed palatine desired 
 to avoid getting into trouble on that 
 account. The imperial city of Frank- 
 fort, thus surrounded by open enemies 
 and timid friends, declined to accede to 
 the alliance. There was more nationa. 
 feeling and courage in the Anglo-Sax- 
 on north of Germany. The princes of 
 Brunswick, Luxemburg, Mecklenburg, 
 Anhalt, and Mansfeld, assembled at 
 Magdeburg, and made a solemn and 
 heroic declaration of their resolution to 
 pledge their " estates, lives, states, and 
 subjects, for the maintenance of the 
 holy word of God, relying on Almighty 
 God, as whose instrument they would 
 act." The town of Magdeburg (which 
 then had about three times as many in- 
 habitants as now) and Duke Albert of 
 
 Prussia adhered to the alliance The 
 11 
 
122 Martin Luther. 
 
 league doubled its efforts. Charles, 
 strong and rendered safe by the peace 
 of Madrid concluded with Francis, sent 
 word from Seville in March, 1526, 
 through the Romish Duke Henry of 
 Brunswick, that he would soon come 
 himself to crush the heresy. Luther 
 saw the dangers crowding around him: 
 his advice was, — " "We are threatened 
 with war ; let us force our enemies to 
 keep the peace, conquered by the Spirit 
 of God, before whose throne we must 
 now combat with the arms of prayer ; 
 that is the first work to be done." 
 
 Towards the end of 1525, Luther had 
 resolved to answer a book which had 
 been written against him in the previ- 
 ous autumn by Erasmus, under the 
 catching title * On Free Will." Eras- 
 mus was in his heart rather a skeptic : 
 he would in his earlier days have pro 
 fessed openly the cause of the gospel, 
 and defended it with his superior eru 
 
Martin Luther. 123 
 
 dition and knowledge, had lie believed 
 in its success ; but neither the Swiss nor 
 the German Reformation gave him that 
 certainty, and thus, at last, he gave way 
 to King Henry and others, who urged 
 him to attack Luther. No controversy 
 has been less generally understood than 
 this ; but it may also be said that it 
 might have been carried on not only 
 with less malice by Erasmus, but also 
 with more speculative skill by Luther. 
 The antagonism is essentially the same 
 as that of Augustine and Pelagius, or 
 that between the Jansenists and Jesuits ; 
 a better speculative method and a deep- 
 er philosophy of the mind have since 
 shown how the scholastic method never 
 could solve that most important as well 
 as most difficult problem. We have 
 no hesitation in saying that the result 
 of dialectic metaphysics is no other than 
 that Luther was perfectly right and 
 Erasmus totally wrong, in this dispute ; 
 
 y 
 
124 Martin Lu titer. 
 
 but it was hopeless from the beginning 
 Erasmus defined free will as the faculty 
 of man to decide for himself, be it for 
 good or evil. Consequently to deny 
 his thesis in this sense would have been 
 to deny the moral responsibility of man. 
 But Luther's ideas respecting moral 
 free will were as dissonant from this 
 terminology as St. Paul's reasoning on 
 faith, from the use of that word in the 
 sense in which St. James employs or 
 rather attacks it. In regard to Luther's 
 terms and fundamental ideas, we have 
 touched upon them in speaking of the 
 influence of Tauler and of the Theologia 
 Germanica upon his mind, when he 
 was disturbed by what appeared to him 
 the dreadful consequences of the doc- 
 trine of grace and election. The the- 
 ology of the German school of the four- 
 teenth century rested upon a simpler 
 because a deeper basis than that of Au 
 Justine, and, more lately, of CalviD 
 
Martin Luther. 125 
 
 » . 
 
 and Pascal. There is in man, as a crea- 
 ture, the power of self-will ; this is not 
 only evil as such, but the root of all evil, 
 and sin. The power of deciding whe- 
 ther or not to commit an action is 
 therefore nothing but the power of mea 
 during and contrasting selfish principles, 
 neither of which being good, can pro- 
 duce good actions. There is no power 
 against this selfishness of the creature 
 but the divine principle. This, the old 
 German school maintained, is equally 
 an inherent element in man, — not as a 
 creature, but as God's image, — and the 
 instrument of the infinite, divine Spirit, 
 which is essentially goodness, and love 
 of what is good and true as such, apart 
 from any reference to ourselves. To 
 follow up this view successfully, it is 
 evidently necessary not to establish an 
 absolute separation between the divine 
 principle in itself (in God, the infinite) 
 %nd in man/ and this was not clearly 
 
126 Martin Luther. 
 
 understood by Augustine (whose influ- 
 ence upon Luther was paramount, in 
 consequence of his earliest impressions,) 
 and still less skillfully used by Luther. 
 The absurdities to which, as each of the 
 combatants proved of his opponent, the 
 consistent following up of an antago- 
 nistic principle conducts, are shown by 
 Kant to be the necessary organic con- 
 sequence of our reasoning with finite 
 notions upon the infinite ; his antinomies 
 of free will and necessity are those of 
 Erasmus and Luther, divested of theo- 
 logical and dogmatic terms. But the 
 same philosophy (and Kant himself in 
 his Moral Philosophy r , and his Philos- 
 ophy of Religion^) shows that Christi- 
 anity and the analysis of conscience 
 and moral consciousness of ourselves 
 teach equally what Luther maintained 
 against Erasmus. The rationalism of 
 Erasmus and the Jesuits is condemned 
 by this philosophy ; and whatever may 
 
Martin Luther. 127 
 
 be thought of the philosophical demon- 
 stration (which we think capable of 
 great simplification,) St. John and St. 
 Paul are certainly irreconcilable with 
 it. " Erasmus ignores God," said Lu- 
 ther, " and that word is more powerful 
 than any scholastic argument." Eras- 
 mus felt himself crushed by Luther's 
 strong hits, against which his eloquence 
 availed him nothing. "The victory 
 must remain," Luther said, "with stam- 
 mering truth, not with lying elo- 
 quence ;" and he concluded thus : " Who 
 ever possessed so much science and 
 eloquence, and such art in speaking 
 and in writing ? I have nothing of all 
 this ; but I glory in one thing — I am a 
 Christian. May God raise you in the 
 knowledge of the gospel infinitely above 
 me, so that you may surpass me as much 
 in this respect as you do already in all 
 others." Erasmus henceforth lost all 
 measure and philosophical equanimity, 
 
138 Martin Luther, 
 
 never having sought truth for its own 
 pake. 
 
 The diet of Spires, which was to put 
 An end to Luther's Reformation, opened 
 on June 25, 1526. Ferdinand indeed 
 republished, on the 3d of August, the 
 decree of Seville, enjoining strict exe- 
 cution of the edict of Worms ; but, in 
 the mean time, Clement the Vii. hav- 
 ing quarreled with Charles, and Fer- 
 dinand being called to Hungary in 
 order to maintain against Soliman and 
 other competitors the crowns of Hun- 
 gary and Bohemia, left to him by 
 King Louis after the battle of Mohacz, 
 Charles commissioned the famous Cap- 
 tain Frundsberg (the same who had 
 good-naturedly accosted Luther at 
 Worms, and who was devoted to the 
 evangelical cause) to enlist an army in 
 Germany against the pope, and thou- 
 sands hastened to join his ranks in con- 
 sequence. And thus the Reformation 
 
Martin Luther. 129 
 
 was saved this time, and a proposition 
 presented by the cities was accepted, 
 " that nntil a council met, every gover- 
 nor should, within his own states, act 
 according to his conscience." Within 
 a year, if not a universal, at least a na- 
 tional council was to meet. In conse- 
 quence, the Reformation had time to 
 consolidate itself from 1526 to 1529. 
 The man of Germany at that time 
 among the princes was the landgrave, 
 Philip of Hesse, and he was enlightened 
 by a citizen. James Sturm, the deputy 
 of Strasburg at the diet of Spires, had 
 convinced him that the basis of the true 
 evangelical church was the acknowl- 
 edgment of the self-government of the 
 church by synods composed of repre- 
 sentatives of the whole Christian people. 
 Thus the first Protestant constitution — 
 that agreed upon in Hesse — was assen- 
 tially that which has proved since to bo 
 the most universal and tne most power 
 
130 Martin Luther. 
 
 ful. For that constitution is neithel 
 Lutheran nor Anglican, but synodal 
 Christianity, which has converted and 
 is now converting and conquering the 
 world. The constitution acknowledged 
 the episcopal element, but not episcopal 
 rule, — sovereignty being invested in 
 the people of God. "We admit (say the 
 articles) no word but that of our sove- 
 reign pastor. Bishops and deacons are 
 to be elected by the Christian people ; 
 bishops are to be consecrated by the 
 imposition of hands of three bishops ; 
 and deacons may be instituted by im- 
 position of the hands of the elders. The 
 general synod is to be held annually, 
 consisting of the pastor of each parish 
 and of pious men elected from the midst 
 of each church, or rather congregation, 
 or from single churches. Three men 
 are to be elected yearly to exercise the 
 right of visitation. This was soon 
 found to be an inconvenient form ; su 
 
Martin, Luther . 131 
 
 Buperintendents (episcopi) for life were 
 substituted. This board of superintend- 
 ents became afterwards an oligarchy 
 and at last a mere instrument of the 
 state — the consequence of the disruption 
 of Germany and the paralysis of all 
 national institutions. Luther had pro- 
 fessed already, in 1523 and in 1524, 
 principles entirely identical with those 
 established in 1526 in Hesse. But there 
 his action ceased ; he left to the princes 
 what they had no mind to carry out ; 
 and what could a people do cut up intc 
 four hundred sovereignties? Never, 
 however, did Luther acknowledge Ce 
 saropapism or Erastianism, as a princi- 
 ple and as a right. He considered the 
 rights of the Christian people as a sa- 
 rred trust, provisionally deposited in 
 the hands of their representatives. 
 " Where (he asked) are the people to 
 form the synods I I cannot find them." 
 This was a political calamity or mistake, 
 
132 Martin Luther, 
 
 but it was not a treason to the rights 
 of the Christian people. Still more did 
 Luther abhor the rapacity of the nobil- 
 ity and of the courtiers to possess them- 
 selves of the spoils of the Church. It 
 was Melancthon's influence which fa- 
 cilitated the despotic system, and ham- 
 pered the thorough reform of the forms 
 of worship. Luther withdrew from a 
 sphere which was not his. He com- 
 posed, in 1529, the small and great Cat- 
 echisms, of which the former has main- 
 tained its place as a guide of popular 
 doctrine up to this day ; but when mea- 
 sures of persecution were proposed, he 
 raised his voice against them. lie 
 wrote, in 1528, False Teachers are not 
 to he put to Death / it suffices to Remaoe 
 them. While Luther preached this doc- 
 trine, the most bloody persecution went 
 on in the estates of the elector of Bran- 
 denburg (where the electress professed 
 courageously the principles of the gos» 
 
Martin Luther. 135 
 
 pel,) in Bavaria, and above all, in the 
 hereditary states of Austria. In Febru- 
 ary 1528, the impetuous landgrave was 
 on the point of committing a rash act, in 
 consequence of a forged document which 
 had been shown to him, purporting to 
 be a secret convention to assassinate 
 Luther and Melancthon, and crush the 
 evangelical princes. Philip infected 
 the elector with his apprehensions, and 
 violent measures of persecution were to 
 be resorted to, when Luther and Me- 
 lancthon both gave, as their solemn ad- 
 vice, this verdict, — "The attack must 
 not come from our side, and the guilt 
 of bloodshedding must not come upon 
 us. Let the emperor know of this odi- 
 ous conspiracy." The elector, however, 
 assembled his troops ; but the forgery 
 was soon discovered when the document 
 was communicated to the Romanist 
 princes. The attitude taken by the 
 Vrotestant princes had, however, the 
 
134 Martin Luther, 
 
 effect of making the archbishop oi 
 Mainz renounce, in 1528, the spiritual 
 jurisdiction he had hitherto exercised 
 over Saxony and Hesse. But among 
 the public at large, all believed in the 
 existence of a secret plot against the 
 evangelical party. 
 
 Under these auspices was opened the 
 celebrated diet of Spires in 1529. The 
 emperor, who, in the mean time, had 
 taken Kome, and annihilated the ambi- 
 tious plans of Clement TIL, now took 
 again to his natural part. German 
 credulity and good nature had served 
 his turn. Now that he felt himself 
 master of the field, he spoke as a Span- 
 ish despot; the elector and landgrave 
 were forbidden to celebrate divine wor- 
 ship in their hotels, as they had done 
 Im 1527, after the use of a church had 
 been denied them. The imperial com- 
 missioners desired to return to the edict 
 of Worms of 1521. The solemn act of 
 
Martin Luther. 135 
 
 toleration voted by the diet of 1527 was 
 abrogated by an arbitrary act of the 
 emperor alone, contrary to the consti- 
 tution of the empire. Luther, the pro- 
 scribed, was not present ; but Melanc- 
 thon, who had accompanied the princes, 
 reported to him what passed. The ma- 
 jority of the diet passed at last, on 7th 
 April, a resolution, that where the edict 
 of Worms could not be executed with 
 out fear of revolution, no further reform 
 would be allowed. This evidently was 
 nothing but the intended forerunner of 
 the restoration of Popery. 
 
 It was against this iniquitous decree 
 that the elector, the landgrave, the mar- 
 grave of Brandenburg, the prince of 
 Anhalt, and the chancellor of Luneburg, 
 together with the dignitaries of the 
 towns, laid down that solemn protesta- 
 tion from which originates the name of 
 * Protestants." " The diet has over- 
 stepped its authority," they said ; " our 
 
136 Martin Luther. 
 
 acquired right is, that the decree of 
 1526, unanimously adopted, do remain 
 in force until a council can be convened. 
 Up to this time the decree has main- 
 tained the peace since, and we protest 
 against abrogation." Of thirty-five free 
 cities, fourteen stood out firmly, when 
 Ferdinand threatened them with the 
 loss of their privileges. Strasburg, 
 which was at the head of the protesting 
 cities, was placed by this most arbitrary 
 act under the interdict. To the princes 
 Ferdinand declared there remained no- 
 thing for them but to submit ; and he 
 closed the diet without awaiting the 
 resolutions of the evangelical princes, 
 who had passed, as was the constitu- 
 tional custom, into an adjoining apart- 
 ment in order to deliberate. The princes 
 then drew up their declaration, and 
 caused it to be read to the diet, which 
 had remained sitting when Ferdinand 
 rose with the imperial commissioners. 
 
Martin Luther. 337 
 
 The celebrated Protest of the 15th 
 April, 1529, is one of the finest and no- 
 blest documents of Christian history, 
 displaying an apostolic faith in Christ 
 and Scripture, and a dignified adher- 
 ence to national law as far as constitu- 
 tional liberties are concerned. The 
 protesting princes and cities claim as 
 their right, as Germans, what they con- 
 sider a sacred duty as Christians, — 
 freely to preach the word of God and 
 the message of salvation, that all who 
 will hear it may join the community 
 of the believers. This great act was, 
 besides, an earnest of true evangelical 
 union ; for it was well known that most 
 of the cities inclined more towards 
 Zwingle's than towards Luther's view 
 pf the sacrament. And this union was 
 not a negative but a positive one; it 
 was founded on the faith, energetically 
 and sincerely professed by (Ecolampa- 
 ilius, as the organ of the Swiss .Reform- 
 
 12* 
 
138 Martin Luther. 
 
 ed churches, that, " with the visible 
 symbols invisible grace is given and 
 received." 
 
 If one considers this great act impar- 
 tially, it is impossible not to see that 
 neither Luther nor Melancthon were 
 the real leaders of the time. Already 
 in 1526, Luther had so little real com- 
 prehension of what ought to be done, or 
 was now doing in Germany, to preserve 
 the gospel from destruction, that he 
 wrote to a friend on the very same day 
 that the decree of that first diet at Spires 
 was published : — " The diet is going on 
 in the German way, — they drink and 
 they gamble; for the rest, nothing is 
 done there." He shows no sympathy 
 for the first attempt made in Hesse at 
 self-government of the church ; still less 
 did he see the importance of the great 
 act now achieved at Spires by the com 
 oined courage and Christian commoc 
 tense of some few princes, and all citiei 
 
Martin Luther. 139 
 
 flrhicli could act freely. It was evident 
 that Charles was now, after the peace 
 of Cambray, perfect master of Germany; 
 so far, at least, as to make it impossible 
 that Germany should become a Prot- 
 estant nation, and that the protesting 
 princes and cities had seen the necessity 
 of strengthening that alliance of which 
 they had just laid the foundation. Lu- 
 ther dissuaded the elector from sending 
 deputies to the meeting agreed upon to 
 be held at Schmalkalden. " In silence 
 and rest will be your strength," was his 
 vote. The elector sent deputies in order 
 to hinder that anything should be de- 
 cided. Luther was proud of this suc- 
 cess. " Christ the Lord will deliver ue 
 without the landgrave, and even against 
 the landgrave," was his saying. This 
 apparent blindness and perversion of 
 mind in Luther at this time admits of 
 *wofold explanation. The first is Lu- 
 ther's loyal and sound policy. He ab 
 
140 Marttn Luther, 
 
 horred rebellion, and shuddered from a 
 civil war, even if it should be unavoid- 
 able as self-defence. He besides saw 
 clearly that the princes, divided among 
 themselves as they were, could do no- 
 thing against the emperor without the 
 best part of the nation, represented by 
 the cities ; and that here, too, there was 
 want of mutual trust and good will, 
 and above all of unity. But this key 
 opens only the outer door to Luther's 
 mind. To understand him, when he 
 seems proof against reason, and reason- 
 ing even his own, it is necessary to con- 
 sider his unshaken faith, and that he 
 partook of the quietism of his German 
 master, Tauler, and the Theologia Ger- 
 mcmica. " Suffer God to do his work 
 in you and about you," was the mottc 
 of that school. But the scholastic train- 
 ing also had its influence as to his view 
 of the Zwinglian Eeformation, and it 
 tentred in Luther's sacramentalism 
 
Martin Luther. 141 
 
 This point requires a more ample con- 
 Bid eration. 
 
 It must be confessed that there was 
 a theological scruple at the bottom of 
 Luther's opposition to a vigorous Prot- 
 estant alliance and national attitude, 
 which was sure not to bring on war, 
 but to prevent it by making the execu- 
 tion of the aggressive plans of the pope 
 and emperors impossible. This be- 
 trays itself, first, in an uneasiness about 
 Zwingle's rising influence in Germany ; 
 and, second, as a doctrinal idiosyncrasy 
 respecting the sacrament of the com- 
 munion. Philip of Hesse instantly saw 
 through this, and said, — "I see they 
 are against the alliance on account of 
 the Zwinglians ; well, let us see whether 
 we cannot make these theological dif 
 ferences disappear." It is well known 
 ihat all the efforts made to effect a 
 union between the Zwinglian and Lu 
 theran parties, from the conference at 
 
142 Martin Luther. 
 
 Marburg, in 1529, to the end of Luther's 
 life, were fruitless ; and it is impossible 
 not to admit that the fault was Luther's, 
 and that he became aware of that only 
 on his deathbed. As we are thus ar- 
 rived at the deepest tragedy of Luther's 
 life and of the history of Protestantism, 
 and as we must endeavor, within the 
 narrow limits of an article, to establish 
 historical truth on these important 
 points, as far as it is indispensable for 
 a true and philosophical view of Lu- 
 ther's life, we think it unnecessary to 
 prove that there were no mean passions 
 at work in Luther'a mind ; but we will 
 say shortly that it was the great tragedy 
 of the Christian mind during more than 
 one thousand years to which Luthei 
 l>aid now his tribute. 
 
 When Luther was raised above him 
 self by the great problem before him 
 in that glorious period of action, from 
 1518 to 1524, he considered the sacra- 
 
Martin Luther. 143 
 
 ments altogether as a part of the ser- 
 vices of the church, and a secondary 
 point, in comparison with the right 
 view of faith, or the inward Christi- 
 anity which implies necessarily an un- 
 selfish, believing, and thankful mind. 
 Having come to the conviction that 
 there was no inherent virtue in the ele- 
 ments abstractedly from the commun- 
 ion, it was indifferent to him how the 
 spirituality of the action and the real 
 presence, even the transubstantiation, 
 might be reconciled with that faith. 
 But when he felt himself called upon 
 at a later period to form a theory re- 
 specting the doctrine of the sacrament, 
 he could never get free from the action 
 of those two theological schools, the 
 mystical German and the Latin scholas- 
 tic, in the point where they combined. 
 Dius, to his end Luther firmly be- 
 lieved that the act of the priest pro- 
 aouncing the words, "This is my body,' 1 
 
144 Martin Luther. 
 
 produced a change in the elements, 
 making them the body and blood oi 
 Christ, which he interpreted, however, 
 as meaning the whole creature of Christ. 
 Now, nothing was ever more historical- 
 ly erroneous. It has been shown else- 
 where by the writer of this article, 
 through an uninterrupted chain of doc- 
 umentary evidence of the very litur- 
 gies, from the second to the sixth cen- 
 tury, that the recital of the words of the 
 institution was nothing but the histori- 
 cal introduction to a prayer of blessing 
 for the communicants. This prayer 
 invoked the Spirit of God to descend 
 upon the assembled worshiping con- 
 gregation. The first step which uncon- 
 sciously led to misunderstandings, was, 
 that the blessing of God was also called 
 down upon the elements in order to make 
 the food prepared for the faithful the 
 body and blood of Christ. The consecra- 
 tion, in other words, was not the recita) 
 
Martin Luther. 145 
 
 of the w< rds of institution, but a prayer, 
 down te- the time of Basilius, extem- 
 porized, or at least freely spoken, and 
 always ending with the Lord's Prayer. 
 It is a tragical complication that the 
 question as to what the elements be- 
 came, — a question unknown and even 
 unintelligible during the first five centu- 
 ries, — should have entangled the mighty 
 evangelical mind of the Eeformer, 
 whose appointed work was the destruc- 
 tion of the Romish system of delusion, 
 founded upon a total perversion of the 
 fundamental Christian notions respect- 
 ing sacrifice, priest, and atonement. It 
 was this fatal ignorance of the oblation 
 of the sound and organic, as well as the 
 morbid Christian worship development, 
 which blinded Luther to such a degree 
 ^s not only to put a simply absurd in- 
 terpretation upon the words of the in- 
 stitution, but to base the question of 
 Christian communion between evangel- 
 
 13 
 
146 Martin Luther. 
 
 ical Christians upon the same instead 
 of allowing it to be freely discussed as 
 a scholastic question. When staking 
 all upon what he called a literal inter- 
 pretation of the words, "This is my 
 body," he ought to have acknowledged 
 at least, that others might as well take 
 objection, if not to the absurdity of such 
 a meaning, at least to the liberty which 
 Luther claimed for himself at the same 
 time, of making the body stand for the 
 whole life contained in it, not to speak 
 of the objection founded upon the words 
 of institution as we find them in Luke 
 and St. Paul. 
 
 After these general observations, our 
 historical relation of what remains to be 
 told of Luther's life may be very short. 
 
 The first event was the conference of 
 Marburg. The undaunted spirit of the 
 landgrave, and the heroic self-devoted 
 Bpirit of Zwingle, who accepted the in 
 citation at the evident risk of his life 
 
Martin Luther. 147 
 
 brought about that celebrated meeting 
 on the first five days of October, 1527. 
 The frank and liberal declarations and 
 concessions of the Swiss Keformers 
 Boon cleared away all shadows of differ- 
 ence and dissent, except that about the 
 sacrament. In the half public disputa- 
 tion of the 2d of October, Zwingle em- 
 barrassed Luther by observing, that if 
 the body of Christ was in the bread 
 and wine, in any other than a spiritual 
 sense, he must be present in a given 
 place, by the very nature of matter, and 
 not above matter, in heaven. Luther 
 parried that stroke by saying, — " I do 
 not mind its contradicting nature, pro- 
 vided it do not contradict the faith." 
 Still less could he disentangle himselt 
 from the words of Christ in the sixth 
 chapter of St. John, which Zwingle 
 declared he could not discard, as it 
 was a text and a clear one. Not more 
 tatisfactory was Luther's appeal to the 
 
148 Martin Luther. 
 
 fathers. The discussions of the fom 
 following days, however, resulted in 
 recognizing the point of difference, but 
 reducing its expression to the mildest 
 form, and placing it in the background, 
 as compared with the full statement of 
 the points on which both parties were 
 united. Tears of joy filled all eyes ; 
 and Zwingle, with (Ecolampadius and 
 Bucer, returned satisfied, although the 
 promised alliance between Germany and 
 Switzerland was not concluded owing to 
 Luther's reluctance. Zwingle had tri- 
 umphed ; his views became naturalized 
 in Germany where hitherto they were 
 little known, and the dreadful words of 
 Luther, — " Submit yourselves ; believe 
 as we do, or you cannot be acknowledged 
 as Christians," were forgotten. But no 
 Booner had Luther returned to Wittem* 
 berg than he modified the articles in an 
 exclusive sense, which necessarily shock- 
 ed and alienated the Keformed party. 
 
Martin Luther. 149 
 
 The issue of the conference at Mar- 
 burg was a sad prelude to the great and 
 decisive diet to be held at Augsburg 
 in 1530, — the diet immortalized by the 
 first confession of evangelical Chris- 
 tendom. All the appearances were 
 changed ; the elector, who, as well as 
 the landgrave, went there in great 
 pomp, was received by the emperor in 
 the most flattering manner. All was to 
 be peace and concord in Germany. Be- 
 hind the scenes we see the emperor 
 quieting his brother Ferdinand, the 
 head of the Eomish and fanatical party, 
 who protested against such encourage- 
 ment to heresy. He writes to him : — 
 " I shall go on negotiating without 
 concluding anything ; fear nothing if I 
 even should conclude ; there will never 
 be pretexts wanting to you to chastise 
 the rebels, and you will find people 
 enough too happy to offer you theii 
 Dower as a means of vengeance." 
 
 13* 
 
150 Martin Luther. 
 
 Charles was an Austrian tyrant and 
 a Spanish bigot, and a great politician 
 of the Italian school, which has pro- 
 cured him, even from historians of our 
 time, che name of a great man. The 
 only reason why he did not now follow 
 the advice of the cardinal-legate and 
 the Spaniards, and of his own brother 
 Ferdinand, was simply that he thought 
 the good Germans would do the work 
 of destruction themselves, and that in 
 the mean time he would have in them 
 check upon the pope. But in his own 
 mind he was ready to sacrifice to the 
 bigoted party all the constitutional 
 rights of the diet, as he had sacrificed 
 that wonderful republic of Florence to 
 the Medici family at the request of the 
 holy father, who (said Charles) could 
 not demand anything wrong: of course, 
 least of all in a case which regarded 
 his own house ! 
 
 The diet of Augsburg is the bright 
 
Martin Luther. 153 
 
 point in the life of the Elector John the 
 Constant, as the conference of Marburg 
 is in that of the landgrave. When the 
 emperor's ministers, who preceded him 
 at Augsburg, announced to the elector 
 the emperor's intentions, in order to 
 intimidate him, he said, — " If the em- 
 peror intends to stop the preaching of 
 the gospel, I shall immediately betake 
 myself to my home." Luther had been 
 left at Coburg, the nearest safe place 
 for the proscribed, and was consulted 
 daily. He told the elector he had no 
 right to say so ; " the emperor was his 
 master, and Augsburg was an imperial 
 town." Grand and heroic, although 
 erroneous, advice of the man whose life 
 must have been the first sacrifice of a 
 policy which the elector meant to resist ! 
 The lawyers, however, were here also 
 in fault ; their Bysantine notions of im- 
 perial rights made them timid in the 
 application of the principles of the 
 
152 Martin Luther, 
 
 German constitution. The Protestant 
 princes had a clear constitutional right 
 to resist the emperor, standing upon 
 the resolutions and the edict of Worms, 
 and the solemn declaration of Spires. 
 Melancthon himself thought they might 
 maintain the right of preaching the gos- 
 pel, only abstaining from any contro- 
 versial point. But undoubtedly those 
 were right who advised the elector to 
 remain. As to the chief practical point, 
 Chancellor Bruck confirmed the elector 
 in his resolution not to allow the preach- 
 ing of the gospel to be interdicted to 
 him and his friends. As to alliances 
 and leagues, the elector said, — " I have 
 formed no secret alliances ; but I will 
 show those I have entered into if the 
 others will show theirs." In the mean 
 time Melancthon had by the middle of 
 April prepared the articles of the con- 
 fession with their defence, the so-called 
 tnology. Luther sat all the time in his 
 
Martin Luther. 153 
 
 Bolitary castle. "It is my Sinai," lie 
 said, " where I lift up my hands to pray, 
 as Moses did during the battle." He 
 worked at the psalms and the prophets 
 (he translated here Jeremiah and Eze- 
 kiel,) and dedicated his hours of recre- 
 ation to a popular edition of what was 
 called JEsop's Fables^ as Socrates did 
 in his prison. " I am making a Zion 
 out of this Sinai, and build there three 
 tents, viz., one for the psalms, one for 
 the prophets, one for ^Esop ;" a truly 
 German saying, which the historian 
 of the Reformation ought not to have 
 censured. How could Luther endure 
 his solitude in that tremendous crisis 
 which, as far as the affairs of Germany 
 were concerned, he saw in darker colors 
 than anybody, unless he had some re- 
 creation of this kind. But besides, his 
 object was to place his ^Esop (which 
 contains many compositions of his own) 
 *ai the hands of the people, instead of a 
 
154 Martin Luther. 
 
 common popular book of the time, of 
 the same title, of Jhe lowest and most 
 immoral description. It was also in 
 this solitude that he wrote that admir- 
 able letter to his son Hans, with tne 
 description of the garden of wonders. 
 While here he received the news of his 
 father's death, which affected him deep* 
 ly, so that his health began to give 
 way, and his hallucinations, or waking 
 dreams, recommenced. The news of the 
 league between Charles V., Francis I., 
 the Pope, and Venice, roused at times 
 the political spirit which was in him. 
 " I do not believe a word," he said, " as 
 to the reality of such a league. Mon- 
 sieur par ma foil (Francis) cannot for- 
 get the battle of Pa via ; Monsieur in 
 nomme domini (Clement VIII.) is, first, 
 a Welsh (Italian,) which is bad enough ; 
 secondly, a Florentine, which is worse 
 thirdly, a bastard, a child of the devil ; 
 *nd, fourthly, he will never forget th« 
 
Martin Luther. 155 
 
 indignity of the plundering of Rome. 
 The Venetians, finally, are "Venetians, 
 and they have reasons enough to hate 
 the posterity of Maximilian. Poor 
 Charles, he is like a sheep among 
 wolves; God will save him ! " There is 
 the sound politician and the loyal Ger- 
 man, hoping against hope, and trusting 
 his prince's promises as long as he 
 breathes! 
 
 He wrote letters full of comfort to the 
 elector, and at the same time addressed 
 one of his most powerful writings to the 
 clergy assembled in the diet at Augs- 
 burg, in which he shows them the ab- 
 surdity of their system, and the un- 
 christian spirit of their claims. The 
 address concludes with the prophetic 
 verse : — 
 
 u Pestis eram vivus; moriens ero mors tua 
 Papa!" 
 
 1" O Pope, thy plague I was in life; in death ] 
 shall be thy destruction I *| 
 
156 Martin Luther. 
 
 On the 4th of June Gattinara, the 
 chancellor of Charles, died — an Italian, 
 who most earnestly wished a real reform 
 of the church ; and the advocates of per- 
 secution got, the upper hand. On the 
 side of the Protestants, the Swiss party 
 began to suspect Melancthon, and com- 
 plained of the use of Latin chants and 
 surplices in Saxony; while, on his side, 
 Melancthon detested what he called the 
 seditious principles and worldly reason- 
 ing of the Swiss. Soon afterwards, we 
 see him ready to give up some of the 
 essential points to the emperor, who, 
 on his approach to Augsburg, said : — 
 " What do the electors want ? I shall 
 do what I like." Well had he learned 
 in Spain the lessons of tyranny which 
 Cardinal Ximenes knew so well to ap- 
 ply under Philip II. But he prayed 
 four hours every day, so that the people 
 Baid (as he scarcely ever spoke,) — " He 
 talks more with God than with men."' 
 
Martin Luther, 157 
 
 When in the conference with the Pro- 
 testant princes, he demanded of them 
 to cease from their present mode oi 
 worship, they declared that their con- 
 science did not allow them to do so, 
 and the margrave of Brandenburg, 
 bowing down towards Charles, and 
 putting his hands upon his neck, cried 
 out, — " Eather than allow myself to be 
 deprived of the word of the Lord, and 
 rather than deny my God, I will have 
 my head cut off at your majesty's feet." 
 This startled the Spaniard. " Dear 
 prince," he exclaimed, " not the head, 
 not the head ! " Imprisonment will do, 
 he thought all the while, and those in- 
 cautious words betray that thought. 
 This was all his Sacred Csesarean Ma- 
 jesty deigned to utter during the diet. 
 Great was his wrath when the princes 
 declared indignantly that they would 
 5iot consent to follow the procession oi 
 the host at the festivals of Corjnu> Do* 
 
 14 
 
158 Martin Luther. 
 
 mini. Why not worship a wafer which 
 the priest has made God? And why 
 not show this respect to the emperor 
 and cardinal ? asked Ferdinand. " We 
 can and we will worship none but God," 
 they unanimously declared. Their wor- 
 ship went on, and the vast church of 
 the Franciscans was always crowded; 
 an eloquent Zwinglian preached pow- 
 erful sermons from the book of Joshua 
 about the people of Israel in the face 
 of Canaan. Charles was furious; an 
 insidious compromise was proposed ; the 
 emperor would name preachers who 
 should simply read the epistles and 
 gospel of the day, and the ordinary 
 prayer of confession before the mass. 
 The pusillanimity of Melancthon, and 
 the legal opinions of some of the law- 
 yers of the Protestant princes as to the 
 emperor's power in an imperial town 
 overcame the repugnance of the elector 
 A.11 the Protestant preachers left the 
 
Martin Luther. 159 
 
 place in dismay. The whole town was 
 in consternation. "Our Lord God," 
 exclaimed the elector, "has received 
 order to hold his tongue at the diet ! " 
 Luther all the while had been quiet, 
 waiting in patience. But this was too 
 much for him. " This is the first step," 
 said he, " to the demand that we give 
 up our faith. We have to fight against 
 the gates of hell." " Keep up your 
 courage," he wrote to Melancthon, " for 
 you are the ambassador of a great King." 
 The elector and his theologians thought 
 it justifiable that, in virtue of his office 
 as grand marshal of the empire, he 
 should bear before the emperor the 
 sword of state, when the latter attended 
 the mass of the Holy Ghost at the open 
 ing of the diet, on which occasion an 
 Italian archbishop preached a most fa» 
 natical and insulting sermon against 
 the Germans, as being worse enemies 
 of God than the Turks. In the imperial 
 
160 Martin Luther. 
 
 opening speech, Charles spoke of the 
 lamentable dissensions which encroach- 
 ed upon the imperial majesty, and must 
 produce sedition and murder. The 
 Protestants were required to present 
 their confession. The elector signed it 
 first ; four other princes and two cities 
 dfter him, without any observation ; the 
 landgrave of Hesse, however, did not 
 sign it without saying he did not agree 
 as to the doctrine of the communion. 
 The article says, — " That the body and 
 blood of Christ are verily present, and 
 are administered in the Lord's Supper 
 to those who partake of it [and we dis- 
 approve those who teach otherwise."] 
 The words in brackets were left out in 
 later editions made during Luther's 
 afetime. On this occasion the princes 
 took really the lead, and the whole was 
 done as a great national, not as a sacer- 
 dotal work, in spite of poor Melanc- 
 thon's scruples. This good man wai 
 
Martin Luther. 161 
 
 Indeed entirely out of his sphere, and 
 lost his time, and committed the cause 
 of Protestantism, by trying to bring 
 about a compromise where there was 
 no possibility of an honest understand- 
 ing. In the mean time, Luther was 
 eft in complete and cruel ignorance of 
 all that was going on ; and when at last 
 the letters of Melancthon arrived, they 
 were full of fears and sad misgivings. 
 During all this anxious time, Luther 
 sought and found his comfort in con- 
 stant prayer and occupation with the 
 word of God. " Where is Christ's 
 Church, if it is not with us? Faith 
 alone is required. I will rather fall 
 with Christ than stand with Caesar." 
 Luther reprimanded Melancthon sharp- 
 ly for his pusillanimity, and some ot 
 his letters to him are addressed — " To 
 Master Philip Kleinmuth" (pusillani- 
 mous.) 
 
 After many tergiversations, the Prot- 
 
 14* 
 
102 Martin Luther. 
 
 estants obtained their just demand ; 
 the confession, drawn up by Melane- 
 thon and approved by Luther, was read 
 in public sitting on the 25th June, 1530. 
 A great day, worthy of the most glori- 
 ous days of the apostolic times. Lu- 
 ther was not present ; he was dead as a 
 public man. But he lived in God, and 
 for his faith and country. Nothing 
 could damp his spirits. " I also have 
 my diet," he said ; " and what lively 
 discussions ! " — referring playfully to 
 the rooks which swarmed round his 
 tower. 
 
 The emperor ordered the confession 
 to be read in Latin. " No," said the 
 elector ;"we are Germans, and on Ger- 
 man ground. I hope, therefore, your 
 majesty will allow us to speak German." 
 The emperor gave way, recollecting for 
 the nonce he was in Germany, and that 
 the Germans had a language of their 
 >wn, and the strange fancy of using if 
 
Martin Luther. 163 
 
 even in theological affairs. When the 
 chancellor of the elector had read the 
 first part of that grand confession, 
 which expounds the principles of the 
 Reformation, and, in particular, the 
 doctrine of justification by faith — " that 
 faith which is not the mere knowledge 
 of a historical fact, but that which be- 
 lieves not only the history, but also the 
 effect of that history upon the mind," — 
 there was an indescribable effect visibly 
 produced upon the assembly. The oppo- 
 nents felt that there was a reality before 
 them which they had never imagined ; 
 and others said, such a profession of faith 
 by such princes was a more effectual 
 preaching than that which had been 
 stopped. " Christ," exclaimed Jonas 
 (Melancthon's companion,) " is in the 
 diet, and he does not keep silence : the 
 Word of God is indeed not to be bound." 
 And forth these words have gone 
 through a world wider than that to 
 
164 Martin Luther. 
 
 which the apostles preached. After a 
 pause, the second part, the articles about 
 the abuses of the Church of Rome, was 
 read and heard with profound silence 
 by them itred prelates of that church 
 who were there assembled. As to 
 the emperor, he slept during the whole 
 of the reading, or seemed to sleep, like 
 a tiger ready to espy the most conven- 
 ient moment for leaping upon its prey. 
 In the mean time, he calculated un- 
 doubtedly, what political capital he 
 could make of the Protestants against 
 the pope. 
 
 Luther addressed a letter to the car- 
 dinal elector of Mainz, demanding 
 nothing but one article, but insisting 
 upon that unconditionally — the liberty 
 of preaching the gospel. " Neither 
 emperor," he says, " nor pope has the 
 tight of forcing any one to believe." 
 With Melancthon and the other friends 
 he insisted upon their leaving Augs* 
 
Martin Luther. 165 
 
 burg immediately. " Home — home — 
 home ! " he exclaimed. " Might it 
 please God that I should be immolated 
 at this council, as John Huss was at 
 Constance ! " All the sayings of Luther 
 during this crisis are sublime and of a 
 truly prophetic character. He foresaw 
 that now every effort would be made 
 at Augsburg to destroy the principles 
 of the Reformation by a treacherous 
 compromise and a false peace. " The 
 diet," he said, " is a regular dramatic 
 piece : first, there is the prologue, then 
 the exposition, then the action, — now 
 comes the catastrophe ; but I think it 
 will not be a tragic, but a comic end." 
 And, indeed, so it turned out to be, 
 tragical as it was. The first triumphant 
 effect of the confession soon passed 
 away; the new converts, particularly 
 among the prelates, withdrew ; the fan- 
 atical party doubled its efforts, and 
 Charles gave way to it, and aided its 
 
166 Martin Luther. 
 
 ends by all diplomatic artifices. Me- 
 lancthon was caught. He entered into 
 conferences in the vain hope they would 
 lead to concord; he declared himself 
 ready to maintain and obey the su- 
 preme authority of the pope, if he would, 
 by an act of clemency, connive at, if 
 not approve, some points which they 
 could not change. During the treach- 
 erous conferences which now began, 
 the emperor tried to intimidate the 
 elector by threatening not to grant him 
 the investiture, which the elector claim- 
 ed, however, as his hereditary right as 
 brother of his predecessor ; and to fright- 
 en all the Protestant princes and the 
 Protestant imperial city of Augsburg 
 with measures of violence, by calling 
 m the imperial troops, and keeping the 
 gates closed. The landgrave escaped. 
 This act caused dismay among the 
 ranks of the catholics, for a war could 
 uot be risked at this moment. The Ko» 
 
Martin Luther, 167 
 
 manists changed their tactics ; they con- 
 ceded, or rather feigned to concede; 
 for meanwhile, the pope had declared 
 solemnly that he would not give up 
 those very points. The Protestants 
 acknowledged the jurisdiction of the 
 bishops and the supremacy of the pope, 
 A cry of indignation rose among the 
 princes, and, among all, among the 
 brave citizens of Augsburg. " Rather 
 die with Jesus Christ," they declared, 
 " than conquer without Him the favor 
 of the whole world." 
 
 At this critical moment Luther's in- 
 dignation rose to a holy wrath, like that 
 of the prophets of old. "I understand," 
 said he to Melancthon, " that you have 
 begun a marvelous work, namely to 
 make Luther and the pope agree toge- 
 ther ; but the pope will say that he will 
 not, and Luther begs to be excused. 
 Should you, however, after all, succeed 
 in your affair, I will follow your exam- 
 
168 Martin Luther. 
 
 pie, and make an agreement between 
 Christ and Belial. Take care that you 
 give not up the justification by faith ; 
 that is the heel of the seed of the wo- 
 man to crush the serpent's head. Take 
 care not to acknowledge the jurisdiction 
 of the bishops ; they will soon take all. 
 In short, all your negotiations have no 
 chance of success unless the pope will 
 renounce papacy. Now, mind, if you 
 mean to shut up that glorious eagle, 
 the gospel, in a sack, as sure as Christ 
 lives, Luther will come to deliver that 
 eagle with might." 
 
 But Melancthon was changed: Lu- 
 ther's voice had lost its power over him. 
 The extreme Protestant views maintain- 
 ed in a declaration which Zwingle had 
 delivered to the emperor, disposed him 
 to cling still more to Rome. All seem- 
 ed for the moment lost; but Luther's 
 faith had discerned the way in which 
 €k>d meant to save the Protestant cause. 
 
Martin Luther, 169 
 
 and had said, — " Christ lives ; he who 
 has vanquished the violence of our en- 
 emies, can also give us the power of 
 breaking through their artifices." The 
 Romanists fortunately insisted upon 
 four points, — celibacy, confession, the 
 denial of the cup to the laity, and the 
 retaining of private masses. This was 
 too much: the conference separated. 
 The Romanists now conceded the cup 
 and the marriage of the priests; but 
 they would not give up the private 
 masses, nor the obligation of confession 
 and penance for the remission of sin, 
 and required an acknowledgment of the 
 meritorious character of good works. 
 Melancthon stood firm, on which the 
 emperor and Clement played out their 
 last card ; an ecumenical council should 
 be convened ; but, in the mean time, 
 the Protestants should conform to the 
 doctrine and rites of the Catholic church. 
 Charles accompanied this communica 
 
 15 
 
170 Martin Luther. 
 
 tion with the most insulting threati 
 against the Protestant princes, who de- 
 clined to negotiate", and declared their 
 resolution to abide by the status quo oi 
 Worms until the council should assem- 
 ble. The emperor indeed went so far 
 as to forbid the princes to quit Augs- 
 burg, but the elector was firm as a 
 rock : his son left the town on the 12th 
 of September. Melancthon had re- 
 gained his courage and sagacity. When 
 Luther heard what was taking place, 
 he raised his voice from Coburg — " De- 
 part ! depart ! even if it must be, with 
 the curse of pope and emperor upon 
 you. You have confessed Jesus Christ, 
 you have offered peace, you have obey- 
 ed the emperor, you have supported 
 insults of every kind, you have with- 
 stood blasphemies : now I will encour- 
 age you, — as one of the faithful mem- 
 bers of Jesus Christ. He is making 
 ready our enemies as victims for thf 
 
Martin Luther. 171 
 
 sacrifice; he will presently consume 
 their pride and deliver his people. Yes, 
 he will bring us safely out of Babylon 
 and her burning walls." When the 
 emperor saw that the elector was re- 
 solved on departing, he communicated 
 to the five princes and the six towns 
 (four more having joined since Nurem- 
 berg and Reutlingen,) a proposal for a 
 recess, or definitive decree of the diet, 
 — that six months should elapse to give 
 time for an arrangement; and mean- 
 time, Protestants and Catholics should 
 unite in a common attack upon the 
 Anabaptists and those who denied the 
 holy sacrament, the Zwinglians; but 
 the Protestants alike withstood threats 
 and flatteries ; and the elector took his 
 leave, as he had announced, on the 23d 
 of September. 
 
 The author of this article cannot 
 agree with the saying of the eloquent 
 Historian of the Reformation, that if tne 
 
172 Martin Luther. 
 
 glorification of man was the purpose and 
 end of God's ways, and not God's glory 
 alone, one must wish Luther had died 
 at the Wartburg. "We have seen that 
 it was he who, in 1524, pacified Wit tern 
 berg and Saxony by his reappearance, 
 and achieved wonders as a practical 
 Reformer; and in 1525, attempted, as 
 pacificator of Germany, what nobody 
 but himself could and would have done. 
 But whose was the never-shaken mind ? 
 Who among the German theologians 
 and Reformers was the organ of God 
 and of the German nation during the 
 greater part of the momentous diet of 
 Augsburg ? Who else but the man in 
 the solitary tower at Coburg! From 
 this time forth, however, he had nothing 
 left to do but to look the tragedy in the 
 face, as a believer in God and his king- 
 dom on earth, praying and preach- 
 ing, and finally to die the death of a 
 faithful and hopeful Christian saint 
 
Martin Luther. 173 
 
 All the rest is patient, suffering mar- 
 tyrdom. 
 
 Some of the most powerful Komanist 
 princes, the archbishop of Mayence at 
 their head, assured the elector on his de- 
 parture, that they would never join the 
 emperor in adopting any violent meas- 
 ures against him, although the brother 
 of the archbishop Joachim, elector of 
 Brandenburg, had presumed to promise 
 in their name that they would. Even 
 Ferdinand said some civil words. But 
 why? Simply because (as Charles 
 could not refrain from saying in his 
 wrath) the emperor was more than ever 
 resolved to resort to arms. " Nothing 
 but armaments will have any effect,' , 
 he said. Indeed, he announced this as 
 his resolution immediately to the pope, 
 and requested him to summon all Chris- 
 tian princes to assist him. The Catho- 
 lic league was signed on the 13th of 
 
 October. The anti -reformatory move- 
 is* 
 
174 Martin Luther, 
 
 ment was begun in the town of Aupi 
 burg itself. The answer to this was th* 
 declaration of sixteen imperial towns, 
 instead of six, that they would not grant 
 any subsidies against the Turks so long 
 as the affairs of Germany remained un 
 settled. The Zwinglian and Lutheran 
 towns shook hands; and this was the 
 expression of the real feeling of the 
 whole German nation, only priests, 
 pastors, and theologians excepted. The 
 Protestant dignitaries declared that they 
 rej ected the imperial closing declaration, 
 as the emperor had no right to command 
 in matters of faith. Luther was the 
 organ of the universal feeling of the 
 German people, when he exclaimed, 
 " Our enemies do not fill me with fear 
 I, on the contrary, shall put them down 
 in the strength of the Lord. My life 
 shall be their executioner; my death 
 their hell " Indeed, his work was ac- 
 complished for all countries and for ah 
 
Martin Luther* 175 
 
 ages. The rest of his life was one long 
 pang, although he did not live to see 
 the most dreadful calamity, — the break- 
 ing ont of the civil war of religioo 
 which began immediately after hig 
 death. He wrote an address to th« 
 German nation, warning them not to 
 yield to Rome, and not to trust any ne- 
 gotiations ; " for," said he, " they know 
 no argument but force. Be not deceiv- 
 ed by their words about obedience to the 
 church. The church is a poor erring 
 sinner, without Christ ; not the church, 
 but Christ is the faith." The cause of 
 the Reformation made progress; the 
 Protestant alliance, begun by the con- 
 vention of Schmalkalden, gained new 
 members ; Denmark acceded, and Joa 
 chim II. became as staunch a defendei 
 of the faith of his mother as Joachim I. 
 had been its violent enemy. As Luthei 
 had prophesied, the negotiations with 
 the polish party in 1541, renewed a1 
 
176 Martin Luther. 
 
 Ratisbon, led to no result. The emper- 
 or, at the Diet of Spires in 1544, dared 
 no longer refuse to the Protestants the 
 equal right which they claimed. The 
 Romish council opened at Trent in 
 1544, and its firet proceeding was to 
 lead the pope's anathema against the 
 Protestants. 
 
 It is in this latter period (from 1539 
 to 1543) that a secret letter of advice, 
 drawn up by Melancthon, was given 
 by Luther and his friends to the land- 
 grave Philip in answer to his pressing 
 request (sanctioned by the landgravine, 
 who suffered from an incurable inward 
 disorder) to deliver him from the sin 
 of fornication, by allowing him to 
 marry a lady of the landgravine's court. 
 After the masterly discussion of this sub- 
 ject by Archdeacon Hareinhis Vindica- 
 tion of Luther, republished (1855) from 
 the notes to his Mission of the Comfort- 
 er, it is not necessary, least of all to Eng 
 
Martin Luther. 177 
 
 ash readers, to enter into details in 
 order to prove the report of Bossuet to 
 be a tissue of falsehoods and malignity. 
 We limit, therefore, ourselves to stating 
 the decisive facts. First. The error 
 committed in this secret advice by the 
 Reformers was a perfectly sincere one ; 
 it arose from an indistinct view of the 
 applicability of the patriarchal ordi- 
 nances and of the Mosaic law, which 
 admits a second wife legally, as indeed 
 Moses himself seems to have had two 
 wives at the same time. Now, as the 
 Reformers could not show an express 
 abrogation of those ordinances and of 
 this law, they were led into this sad 
 mistake. Secondly. There was in their 
 advice no worldly regard whatever, as 
 to any benefits and advantages which 
 might accrue to themselves, or to the 
 cause of the Reformation. They knew 
 that the landgrave had his whole heart 
 In the cause of the Reformation, and 
 
178 Martin Luther. 
 
 had often risked his life and states for 
 it. Thirdly. When in 1540, Philip 
 divulged the secret, contrary to his 
 promise, they spoke out and confessed 
 their mistake, and Melancthon was 
 brought by his grief to the verge of the 
 grave. Fourthly. When, in the course 
 of the controversy, Bucer published, in 
 1541, his pamphlet in defence of polyg- 
 amy (under the name of Hulderic 
 Neobulus,) Luther pronounced his judg- 
 ment upon the book and on the subject 
 in the following solemn words : — " He 
 who desires my judgment upon this 
 book, let him hear. Thus says Dr. 
 Martin Luther on the book of Neobu- 
 lus: He who follows this rogue and 
 book, and thereupon takes more than 
 one wife, and means that this should 
 be a matter of right, may the devil 
 bless his bath in the bottom of hell. 
 This, God be praised, I well know how 
 lo maintain Much less shall thej 
 
Martin Luther. 179 
 
 establish the law, that a man may sep- 
 arate himself from his wife rightfully, 
 when she has not already separated 
 herself by open adultery, which this 
 rogue would also like to teach." We 
 possess also the sketch of his intended 
 full reply to Bucer's book ; and there 
 we find the following sentence : — " We 
 have already shown in a number of 
 books, that the law of Moses does not 
 concern us, and that we are not to look to 
 the examples in the history of the saints, 
 much less of the kings, to their faith, 
 and to God's commandments." 
 
 The dark side of this latter portion of 
 Luther's life is his controversy with the 
 Reformed. He seemed now and then 
 inclined to yield to their entreaties for 
 a union, as is shown by his letter oi 
 1531 to Bucer of Strasburg ; and he de- 
 clared his sincere wish for a union to 
 the landgrave in 1534. He does not 
 think the work ought to be precipitated, 
 
180 Martin Luther. 
 
 but he prays to live to see it take place. 
 The concord of "VYittemberg, begun by 
 Bucer in 1536, which left it just possi- 
 ble to the Reformed not to see their 
 view of the sacrament excluded, has his 
 cordial sympathy. Finally, on the 17th 
 FeDruary, 1537, he writes to tha Bur- 
 gomaster of Basel, James Meyer, in 
 terms which excited among the Swiss 
 the hope he would give up his exclusive 
 views. But when (Ecolampadius pub- 
 lished the writings of Zwingle, after 
 this great and holy man had died a 
 patriot's death in the battle of Cappel, 
 Luther became so incensed, that he 
 wrote, in 1544, two years before hia 
 death, the most violent of all his sacra- 
 mentary treatises, — A Short Confession 
 respecting the Lortfs Supper. 
 
 However, his last word on his death- 
 bed, was one of peace. He is credibly 
 reported to have said to Melancthon in 
 tfie course of a dying conversation- 
 
Martin Luttier, 181 
 
 f< Dear Philip, I confess to have gone 
 too far in the affair of the sacrament." 
 
 The year 1546 began with "unmistak- 
 able indications that Charles was now 
 ready to strike a decisive blow. 
 
 Luther had been suffering much du- 
 ring the last few years, and he felt his 
 end to be near at hand. In the month 
 of January, 1546, he undertook a jour- 
 ney to Eisleben in very inclement wea- 
 ther, in order to restore peace in the 
 family of the counts of Mansfeld; he 
 caught a violent cold; preached four 
 times ; and took all the time an active 
 part in the work of conciliation. On 
 the 17th of February he felt that his 
 release was at hand ; and at Eisleben, 
 where he was born, he died, in faith 
 and prayer, on the following day. No- 
 thing can be more edifying than the 
 scene presented by the last days of Lu- 
 ther, of which we have the most authen- 
 tic and detailed accounts. When dying, 
 
 16 
 
182 Martin Luther. 
 
 he collected his last strength and offered 
 up the following prayer : — " Heavenly 
 Father, eternal, merciful God, thou hast 
 revealed to me thy dear Son, our Lord 
 Jesus Christ : Him I have taught — Him 
 I have confessed — Him I love as my 
 Saviour and Redeemer, whom the wick- 
 ed persecute, dishonor, and reprove. 
 Take my poor soul up to thee ! " Then 
 two of his friends put to him the solemn 
 question, — "Reverend Father, do you 
 die in Christ and in the doctrine you 
 have constantly preached?" He an- 
 swered by an audible and joyful "yes;" 
 and repeating the verse, " Father, into 
 thy hands I commend my spirit," he 
 expired peaceably, without a struggle, 
 on the 18th of February, 1546, at fom 
 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
SPIRITUAL, 
 
 PORTRAIT OF LUTHER. 
 
 Br THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Luther's birthplace was Eisleben in 
 Baxony ; lie came into the world there 
 on the 10th of November 1483. It was 
 an accident that gave this honor to 
 Eisleben. His parents, poor mine-labor- 
 ers in a village of that region, named 
 Mohra, had gone to the Eisleben Win- 
 ter-Fair : in the tumult of this scene the 
 Frau Luther was taken with travail, 
 found refuge in some poor house there, 
 and the boy she bore was named Mar- 
 tin Luther. Strange enough to reflect 
 upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she 
 had gone with her husband to make 
 her small merchandisings ; perhaps to 
 
184 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 Bell the lock of yarn she had been spin- 
 ning, to buy the small winter-necessa- 
 ries for her narrow hut or household ; 
 in the whole world, that day, there was 
 not a more entirely unimportant-look- 
 ing paii of people than this Miner and 
 his Wife. And yet what were all Em- 
 perors, Popes and Potentates, in com- 
 parison? There was born here, once 
 more, a Mighty Man ; whose light was 
 to flame as the beacon over long cen- 
 turies and epochs of the world; the 
 whole world and its history was waiting 
 for this man. It is strange, it is great. 
 It leads us back to another Birth-hour, 
 in a still meaner environment, Eighteen 
 Hundred years ago, — of which it is fit 
 that we say nothing, that we think only 
 in silence ; for what words are there ! 
 The Age of Miracles past ? The Age 
 of Miracles is forever here ! 
 
 I find it altogether suitable to Lu- 
 ther's function in this Earth, and doubt 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 185 
 
 Less wisely ordered to that end by the 
 Providence presiding over him and us 
 and all things, that he was born poor, 
 and brought up poor, one of the poor- 
 est of men. He had to beg, as the 
 school-children in those times did ; sing- 
 ing for alms and bread, from door to 
 door. Hardship, rigorous Necessity 
 was the poor boy's companion ; no man 
 nor no thing would put on a false face 
 to flatter Martin Luther. Among things, 
 not among the shows of things, had he 
 to grow. A boy of rude figure, yet 
 with weak health, with his large greedy 
 soul, full of all faculty and sensibility. 
 he suffered greatly. But it was his 
 task to get acquainted with realiUes 1 
 and keep acquainted with them, at 
 whatever cost: his task was to bring 
 the whole world back to reality, for it 
 had dwelt too long with semblance! 
 A youth nursed-up in wintry whirl- 
 winds, in desolate darkness and dim 
 
 16* 
 
186 Spiritual Pwtrait of Luther, 
 
 eulty, that he may step forth at last 
 from his stormy Scandinavia, strong as 
 a true man, as a god: a Christian Odin, 
 — a right Thor once more, with his 
 thunder-hammer, to smite asunder ugly 
 enough Jotuns and Giant-monsters I 
 
 Perhaps the turning incident of his 
 life, we may fancy, was that death of 
 his friend Alexis, by lightning, at the 
 gate of Erfurt. Luther had struggled 
 up through boyhood, better and worse ; 
 displaying, in spite of all hindrances, 
 the largest intellect, eager to learn : his 
 father judging doubtless that he might 
 promote himself in the world, set him 
 upon the study of Law. This was the 
 path to rise ; Luther, with little will in 
 it either way, had consented ; he was 
 now nineteen years of age. Alexis and 
 he had been to see the old Luther people 
 at Mansfeld ; were got back again near 
 Erfurt, when a thunderstorm came on ; 
 the bolt struck Alexis, he fell dead at 
 
by Thomas Cwrlyle. 187 
 
 Luther's feet. "What is this Life of 
 ours ? — gone in a moment, burnt up like 
 a scroll, into the blank Eternity ! What 
 are all earthly preferments, Chancellor- 
 Bhips, Kingships? They lie shrunk 
 together — there ! The Earth has open- 
 ed on them; in a moment they are 
 not, and Eternity is. Luther, struck 
 to the heart, determined to devote 
 himself to God, and God's service 
 alone. In spite of all dissuasions from 
 his father and others, he became a 
 Monk in the Augustine Convent at 
 Erfurt. 
 
 This was probably the first light-point 
 in the history of Luther, his purer will 
 now first decisively uttering itself; but, 
 for the present, it was still as one light- 
 point in an element all of darkness. He 
 says he was a pious monk, ich bin ein 
 frommer Mdnch gewesen; faithfully, 
 painfully struggling to work out the 
 truth of this high act of his ; but it was 
 
188 Spiritual Portrait of .Lather. 
 
 to little purpose. His misery had net 
 lessened; had rather, as it were, in- 
 creased into infinitude. The drudgeriea 
 he had to do, as novice in his Convent, 
 all sorts of slave-work, were not his 
 grievance : the deep earnest soul of the 
 man had fallen into all manner of black 
 scruples, dubitations ; he believed him- 
 self likely to die soon, and far worse 
 than die. One hears with a new inter- 
 est for poor Luther that, at this time, 
 he lived in terror of the unspeakable 
 misery ; fancied that he was doomed to 
 eternal reprobation. Was it not the 
 humble sincere nature of the man? 
 What was he, that he should be raised 
 to Heaven ! He that had known only 
 misery, and mean slavery: the news 
 was too blessed to be credible. It could 
 not become clear to him how, by fasts, 
 vigils, formalities and mass-work, a 
 man's soul could be saved. He fell 
 into the blackest wretchedness ; had to 
 
"by Ihomas CarCyZe. 189 
 
 wander staggering as on the verge oi 
 bottomless Despair. 
 
 It must have been a most blessed 
 discovery, that of an old Latin Bible 
 which he found in the Erfurt Library 
 about this time. He had never seen 
 the Book before. It taught him another 
 lesson than that of fasts and vigils. A 
 brother monk too, of pious experience, 
 was helpful. Luther learned now that 
 a man was saved not by singing masses, 
 but by the infinite grace of God : a more 
 credible hypothesis. He gradually got 
 himself founded, as on the rock. No 
 wonder he should venerate the Bible, 
 which had brought this blessed help to 
 him. He prized it as the "Word of the 
 Highest must be prized by such a man. 
 He determined to hold by that; as 
 through life and to death he firmly did. 
 
 This then is his deliverance from 
 darkness, his final triumph over dark- 
 aess, what we call his conversion ; for 
 
190 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 himself the most important of all epochs. 
 That he should now grow daily in peace 
 and clearness ; that, unfolding now the 
 great talents and virtues implanted in 
 him, he should rise to importance in 
 his Convent, in his country, and be 
 found more and more useful in all hon- 
 est business of life, is a natural result. 
 He was sent on missions by his Augus- 
 tine Order, as a man of talent and fidel- 
 ity fit to do their business well: the 
 Elector of Saxony, Friedrich, named 
 the Wise, a truly wise and just prince, 
 had cast his eye on him as a valuable 
 person ; made him Professor in his new 
 University of Wittenberg, Preacher 
 too at Wittenberg ; in both which ca- 
 pacities, as in all duties he did, this Lu- 
 ther, in the peaceable sphere of common 
 life, was gaining more and more esteem 
 with all good men. 
 
 It was in his twenty-seventh year 
 that he first saw Kome; being sent 
 
hy Thomas Carlyle. 191 
 
 thither, as I said, on mission from hia 
 Convent. Pope Julius the Second, and 
 what was going on at Rome, must 
 have filled the mind of Luther with 
 amazement. He had come as to the 
 Sacred City, throne of God's Highpriest 
 on Earth ; and he found it — what we 
 know! Many thoughts it must have 
 given the man ; many which we have 
 no record of, which perhaps he did not 
 himself know how to utter. This Rome, 
 this scene of false priests, clothed not in 
 the beauty of holiness, but in far other 
 vesture, is false : but what is it to Lu- 
 ther ? A mean man he, how shall he 
 reform a world? That waa far from 
 his thoughts. An humble, solitary man, 
 why should he at all meddle with the 
 world ? It was the task of quite higher 
 men than he. His business was to 
 guide his own footsteps wisely through 
 the world. Let him do his own obscure 
 duty in it well ; the rest, horrible and 
 
i92 Spiritual Portrait of luther, 
 
 dismal as it looks, is in God's hand, not 
 3n his. 
 
 It is curious to reflect what might 
 have been the issue, had Roman Popery 
 happened to pass this Luther by ; to go 
 on in its great wasteful orbit, and not 
 come athwart his little path, and force 
 him to assault it ! Conceivable enough 
 that, in this case, he might have held 
 his peace about the abuses of Rome; 
 left Providence, and God on high, to 
 deal with them ! A modest quiet man; 
 not prompt he to attack irreverently 
 persons in authority. His clear task, 
 as I say, was to do his own duty ; to 
 walk wisely in this world of confused 
 wickedness, and save his own soul alive. 
 But the Roman Highpriesthood did 
 come athwart him : afar off at Witten- 
 berg he, Luther, could not get lived in 
 Uonesty for it ; he remonstrated, resist- 
 ed, came to extremity; was struck at, 
 •truck again, and so it came to wager 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 193 
 
 of battle between them ! This is worth 
 attending to in Luther's history. Per- 
 haps no man of so humble, peaceable a 
 disposition ever filled the world with 
 contention. We cannot but see that 
 he would have loved privacy, quiet dil- 
 igence in the shade ; that it was against 
 his will he ever became a notoriety. 
 Notoriety : what would that do for him ? 
 The goal of his march through this 
 world was the Infinite Heaven ; an in- 
 dubitable goal for him : in a few years, 
 he should either have attained that, or 
 lost it forever ! We will say nothing 
 at all, I think, of that sorrowfullest 01 
 theories, of its being some mean shop- 
 keeper grudge, of the Augustine Monk 
 against the Dominican, that first kin- 
 dled the wrath of Luther, and produced 
 the Protestant Eeformation. We will 
 say to the people who maintain it, if 
 mdeed any such exist now: Get first 
 
 into the sphere of thought by which it 
 it 
 
194 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 . 
 
 is so much as possible to judge of Lu- 
 ther, or of any man like Luther, other- 
 wise than distractedly; we may then 
 begin arguing with you. 
 
 The Monk Tetzel, sent out carelessly 
 in the way of trade, by Leo Tenth, — 
 who merely wanted to raise a little mo- 
 ney, and for the rest seems to have been 
 a Pagan rather than a Christian, so far 
 as he was anything, — arrived at Witten- 
 berg, and drove his scandalous trade 
 there. Luther's flock bought Indul- 
 gences; in the confessional of his 
 Church, people pleaded to him that they 
 had already got their sins pardoned. 
 Luther, if he would not be found want- 
 ing at his own post, a false sluggaid and 
 coward at the very centre of the little 
 space of ground that was his own and 
 nc other man's, had to step forth against 
 Indulgences, and declare aloud that 
 they were a futility and sorrowful mock 
 ery, that no man's sins could be pardoi* 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 1U5 
 
 ed by them. It was the beginning of 
 the whole Reformation. We know how 
 it went ; forward from this first public 
 challenge of Tetzel, on the last day of 
 October, 1517, through remonstrance 
 and argument ; — spreading ever wider, 
 rising ever higher ; till it became un- 
 quenchable, and enveloped all the world. 
 Luther's heart's desire was to have this 
 grief and other griefs amended; his 
 thougnt was still far other than that of 
 introducing separation in the Church, 
 or revolting against the Pope, Father 
 of Christendom. — The elegant Pagan 
 Pope cared little about this Monk and 
 his doctrines ; wished, however to have 
 done with the noise of him : in a space 
 of some three years, having tried vari- 
 ous softer methods, he thought good to 
 end it \>jfire. He dooms the Monk's 
 writings to be burnt by the hangman, 
 %nd his body to be sent bound to Rome, 
 ^-probably for a similar purpose. It 
 
196 Spiritual Portrait of LutK&r, 
 
 was the way they had ended with Hubs, 
 with Jerome, the, century before. A 
 short argument, fire. Poor Hubs : he 
 came to that Constance Council with 
 all imaginable promises and safe-con- 
 ducts ; an earnest, not rebellious kind 
 of man : they laid him instantly in a 
 stone dungeon " three feet wide, six 
 feet high, seven feet long ;" burnt the 
 true voice of him out ot this world; 
 choked it in smoke and fire. That was 
 not well done ! 
 
 I, for one, pardon Luther for now 
 altogether revolting against the Pope. 
 The elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree 
 of his, had kindled into noble just 
 wrath the bravest heart then living in 
 this world. The bravest, if also one of 
 the humblest, peaceablest ; it was now 
 kindled. These words of mine, words 
 of truth and soberness, aiming faith- 
 fully, as human inability would allow 
 to promote God's truth on Earth, and 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 197 
 
 lave men's souls, you, God's vicegerent 
 on earth, answer them by the hangman 
 and fire ? You will burn me and them, 
 for answer to the God's message they 
 strove to bring you 8 You are not God 'a 
 vicegerent ; you are another's than his, 
 I think ! I take your Bull, as an em- 
 parchmented Lie, and burn it. You 
 will do what you see good next : this is 
 what I do. — It was on the 10th of De- 
 cember 1520, three years after the be- 
 ginning of the business, that Luther 
 " with a great concourse of people,'* 
 took this indignant step of burning the 
 Pope's fire-decree " at the Elster-Gate 
 of Wittenberg." Wittenberg looked 
 on " with shoutings ;" the whole world 
 was looking on. The Pope should not 
 have provoked that " shout ! " It was 
 the shout of the awakening of nations. 
 The quiet German heart, modest, patient 
 of much, had at length got more than 
 
 »t could bear. Formulism, Pagan Pop 
 11* 
 
198 Sjwitual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 ism, and other Falsehood and corrupt 
 Semblance had ruled long enough : 
 and here once more was a man found 
 who durst tell all men that God's 
 world stood not on semblances but on 
 realities; that Life was a truth, and not 
 a lie! 
 
 At bottom, as was said above, we 
 are to consider Luther as a Prophet 
 Idol-breaker ; a bringer-back of men to 
 reality. It is the function of great men 
 and teachers. Mahomet said, These idols 
 of yours are wood ; you put wax and oil 
 on them, the flies stick on them, they are 
 not God, I tell you, they are black wood ! 
 Luther said to the Pope, This thing of 
 yours that you call a Pardon of Sins, 
 it is a bit of rag-paper with ink. It is 
 nothing else; it, and so much like it, 
 is nothing else. God alone can pardon 
 tins. Popeship, spiritual Fatherhood 
 of God's Church, is that a vain sem 
 blance, of cloth and parchment ? It ii 
 
by Thomas Cariy v e. 199 
 
 an awful fact. God's Church is not a 
 leniblance, Heaven and Hell are not 
 semblances. I stand on this, since you 
 drive me to it. Standing on this, I a 
 poor German Monk am stronger than 
 you all. I stand solitary, friendless, 
 but on God's Truth; you with your 
 tiaras, triple-hats, with your treasuries 
 and armories, thunders spiritual and 
 temporal, stand on the Devil's Lie, and 
 are not so strong ! 
 
 The Diet of Worms, Luther's appear- 
 ance there on the 17th of April, 1521, 
 may be considered as the greatest scene 
 in Modern European History ; the point, 
 indeed, from which the whole subse- 
 quent history of civilization takes its 
 rise. After multiplied negotiations, 
 disputations, it had come to this. The 
 young Emperor Charles Fifth, with all 
 the Princes of Germany, Papal nuncios, 
 dignitaries spiritual and temporal, are 
 assembled there: Luther is to appear 
 
200 Spiritual Pcrtrwit of Luther, 
 
 and answer for himself, whether he will 
 recant or not. Tlje world's pomp and 
 power sits there on this hand : on that, 
 stands up for God's Truth, one man, the 
 poor miner Hans Luther's son. Friends 
 had reminded him of Huss, advised him 
 not to go ; he would not be advised. A 
 large company of friends rode out to 
 meet him, with still more earnest warn- 
 ings; he answered, "Were there as 
 many Devils in Worms as there are 
 roof-tiles, I would on." The people, on 
 the morrow, as he went to the Hall of 
 the Diet, crowded the windows and 
 housetops, some of them calling out to 
 him, in solemn words, not to recant : 
 " Whosoever denieth me before men ! " 
 they cried to him, — as in a kind of 
 solemn petition and adjuration. Was 
 it not in reality our petition too, the 
 petition of the whole world, lying in 
 dark bondage of soul, paralysed undei 
 a black spectral Nightmare and triple* 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 201 
 
 hatted Chimera, calling itself Father in 
 God, and what not : " Free us ; it rests 
 with thee ; desert us not ! " Luther did 
 not desert us. His speech, of two hours, 
 distinguished itself by its respectful, 
 wise and honest tone; submissive to 
 whatsoever could lawfully claim sub- 
 mission, not submissive to any more 
 than that. His writings, he said, were 
 partly his own, partly derived from the 
 Word of God. As to what was his own, 
 human infirmity entered into it; un- 
 guarded anger, blindness, many things 
 doubtless which it were a blessing for 
 him could he abolish altogether. But 
 as to what stood on sound truth and the 
 "Word of God, he could not recant it. 
 How could he? " Confute me," he 
 concluded, " by proofs of Scripture, or 
 else by plain just arguments : I cannot 
 decant otherwise. For it is neither safe 
 Qor prudent to do aught against con* 
 •cience. Here stand I; I can do no 
 
202 Spiritual Portrait of Zuther, 
 
 other: God assist me!" — It is, as we 
 say, the greatest moment in the Modern 
 History of Men. English Puritanism, 
 England and its Parliaments, Americas, 
 and vast work these two centuries; 
 French Revolution, Europe and its 
 work everywhere at present : the germ 
 of it all lay there : had Luther in that 
 moment done other, it had all been 
 otherwise ! The European World was 
 asking him : Am I to sink ever lower 
 into falsehood, stagnant putrescence, 
 loathsome accursed death; or, with 
 whatever paroxysm, to cast the false- 
 hoods out of me, and be cured and 
 live? 
 
 Great wars, contentions and disunion 
 followed out of this Reformation ; which 
 last down to our day, and are yet fai 
 from ended. Great talk and crimina- 
 tion has been made about these. They 
 we lamentable, undeniable; but afte 
 
hy Thomas Carlyle. 203 
 
 all, what has Luther or his cause to do 
 with them ? It seems strange reasoning 
 to charge the Reformation with all this. 
 When Hercules turned the purifying 
 river into King Augeas's stables, I have 
 no doubt the confusion that resulted 
 was considerable all around : but I think 
 it was not Hercules's blame; it was 
 some other's blame ! The Reformation 
 might bring what results it liked when 
 it came, but the Reformation simply 
 could not help coming. To all Popes 
 and Popes's advocates, expostulating, 
 lamenting and accusing, the answer of 
 the world is : Once for all, your Pope- 
 hood has become untrue. No matter 
 how good it was, how good you say it 
 Is, we cannot believe it ; the light of our 
 whole mind, given us to walk by from 
 tEeaven above, finds it henceforth a 
 thing unbelievable. We will not be- 
 lieve it, we will not try to believe it, — 
 we dare not! The thing is untrue; 
 
204 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 , L-. 
 
 we were traitors against the Giver of all 
 Truth, if we durst ^pretend to think it 
 true. Away with it ; let whatsoever likes 
 come in the place of it ; with it we can 
 have no farther trade ! Luther and his 
 Protestantism is not responsible for 
 wars; the false Simulacra that forced 
 him to protest, they are responsible. 
 Luther did what every man that God 
 has made has not only the right, 
 but lies under the sacred duty to do : 
 answered a Falsehood when it ques- 
 tioned him, Dost thou believe me? — 
 No! — At what cost soever, without 
 counting of costs, this thing behoved to 
 be done. Union, organization spiritual 
 and material, a far nobler than any 
 Popedom or Feudalism in their truest 
 days, I never doubt, is coming for the 
 world; sure to come. But on Fact 
 alone, not on Semblance and Simula- 
 crum, will it be able either to come, or tc 
 stand when come. With union ground 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 205 
 
 ©d on falsehood, and ordering us to 
 speak and act lies, we will not have 
 anything to do. Peace % A brutal leth» 
 argy is peaceable, the noisome grave 
 is peaceable. We hope for a living 
 peace, not a dead one ! 
 
 And yet, in prizing justly the indis- 
 pensable blessings of the New, let us 
 not be unjust to the Old. The Old was 
 true, if it no longer is. In Dante's days 
 it needed no sophistry, self-blinding or 
 other dishonesty, to get itself reckon- 
 ed true. It was good then ; nay there 
 is in the soul of it a deathless good. 
 The cry of "No Popery," is foolish 
 enough in these days. The speculation 
 that Popery is on the increase, building 
 uew chapels, and so forth, may pass for 
 one of the idlest ever started. Yery curi- 
 ous : to count up a few Popish chapels, 
 listen to a few Protestant logic-chop- 
 pings, — to much dull-droning drowsy 
 inanity that still calls itself Protestant, 
 
 18 
 
206 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 and say: See, Protestantism is dead) 
 Popism is more alive than it, will be 
 alive after it! — Drowsy inanities, not 
 a few, that call themselves Protestant 
 are dead; but Protestantism has not 
 died yet, that I hear of! Protestantism, 
 if we will look, has in these days pro- 
 duced its Goethe, its Napoleon ; Ger- 
 man Literature and the French Revo- 
 lution; rather considerable signs of life! 
 Nay, at bottom, what else is alive out 
 Protestantism? The life of most else 
 that one meets is a galvanic one merely 
 — not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of 
 life! 
 
 Popery can build new chapels ; wel- 
 come to do so, to all lengths. Popery 
 cannot come back, any more than Pa- 
 ganism can, — which also still lingers in 
 Bome countries. But, indeed, it is with 
 these things, as with the ebbing of the 
 lea : you look at the waves oscillating 
 hither, thither on the beach ; for min- 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 207 
 
 utes you cannot tell how it is going ; 
 look in half an honr where it is, — look 
 in half a century where your Popehood 
 is ! Alas, would there were no greater 
 danger to our Europe than the poor old 
 Pope's revival ! Thor may as soon try 
 to revive. — And withal this oscillation 
 has a meaning. The poor old Pope- 
 hood will not die away entirely, as Thor 
 has done, for some time yet ; nor ought 
 it. We may say, the Old never dies 
 till this happen, till all the soul of good 
 that was in it have got itself transfused 
 into the practical New. "While a good 
 work remains capable of being done by 
 the Romish form ; or, what is inclusive 
 of all, while a pious Ufe remains capa- 
 ble of being led by it, just so long, if 
 we consider, will this or the other hu- 
 man soul adopt it, go about as a living 
 witness of it. So long it will obtrude 
 itself on the eye of us who reject it, 
 .ill we in our practice too have appro- 
 
208 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 priated whatsoever of truth was in it 
 Then, but also not till then, it will have 
 no charm more for any man. It lasts 
 here for a purpose. Let it last as *ong 
 as it can. 
 
 Of Luther 1 will add now, in refer- 
 ence to all these wars and bloodshed, 
 the noticeable fact that none of them 
 began so long as he continued living. 
 The controversy did not get to fighting 
 so long as he was there. To me it is 
 proof of his greatness in all senses, this 
 fact. How seldom do we find a man 
 that has stirred up some vast commo- 
 tion, who does not himself perish, swept 
 away in it ! Such is the usual course 
 of revolutionists. Luther continued, in 
 » good degree, sovereign of this greatest 
 revolution; all Protestants, of what 
 rank or function soever, looking much 
 to him for guidance: and he held it 
 peaceable, continued firm at the centre 
 
hy Thomas Carh/le. 209 
 
 of it. A man to do this must have a 
 kingly faculty: he must have the gift 
 to discern at all turns where the true 
 heart of the matter lies, and to plant 
 himself courageously on that, as a 
 strong true man, that other true men 
 may rally round him there. He will 
 not continue leader of men otherwise. 
 Luther's clear deep force of judgment, 
 bis force of all sorts, of silence, of toler- 
 ance and moderation, among others, 
 are very notable in these circumstances. 
 Tolerance, I say ; a very genuine kind 
 of tolerance : he distinguishes what is 
 essential and what is not ; the unessen- 
 tial may go very much as it will. A 
 complaint comes to him that such and 
 such a Reformed Preacher "will not 
 preach without a cassock." Well, an 
 ewers Luther, what harm will a cassock 
 do the man ? " Let him have a cassock 
 to preach in ; let him have three cas- 
 socks if he find benefit in them !" His 
 18* 
 
210 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 conduct in the matter of Carlstadt'f 
 wild image-breaking; of the Anabap- 
 tists; of the Peasants' War, shows a 
 noble strength, very different from spas- 
 modic violence. With sure prompt in- 
 sight he discriminates what is what : a 
 strong just man, he speaks forth what 
 is the wise course, and all men follow 
 him in that. Luther's Written Works 
 give similar testimony of him. The dia- 
 lect of these speculations is now grown 
 obsolete for us ; but one still reads them 
 with a singular attraction. And in- 
 deed the mere grammatical diction is 
 still legible enough ; Luther's merit in 
 literary history is of the greatest : his 
 dialect became the language of all writ 
 ing. They are not well written, these 
 Four-and-twenty Quartos of his ; written 
 hastily, with quite other than literary 
 objects. But in no Books have I found 
 more robust, genuine, I will say no* 
 ole faculty of a man than in these. A 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 211 
 
 rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; 
 a rugged sterling sense and strength. 
 He flashes out illumination from him ; 
 his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to 
 cleave into the very secret of the mat- 
 ter. Good humor too, nay tender affec- 
 tion, nobleness, and depth: this man 
 could have been a Poet too ! He had 
 to work an Epic Poem, not write one. 
 I call him a great Thinker ; as indeed 
 his greatness of heart already betokens 
 that. 
 
 Eichter says of Luther's words, " his 
 words are half battles." They may be 
 called so. The essential quality of him 
 was, that he could fight and conquer ; 
 that he was a right piece of human 
 Valor. ~No more valiant man, no mor- 
 tal heart to be called braver, that one 
 has record of, ever lived in that Teu- 
 tonic Kindred, whose character is ^alor. 
 His defiance of the "Devils " in Worms 
 #as not a mere boast, as the like might 
 
212 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 be if now spoken. It was a faith of 
 Luther's that there were Devils, spirit- 
 ual denizens of the Pit, continually be- 
 setting men. Many times, in his writ- 
 ings, this turns up ; and a most small 
 Bneer has been grounded on it by some. 
 In the room of the Wartburg where he 
 sat translating the Bible, they still show 
 you a black spot on the wall ; the strange 
 memorial of one of these conflicts. Lu- 
 ther sat translating one of the Psalms ; 
 he was worn down with long labor, 
 with sickness, abstinence from food: 
 there rose before him some hideous in- 
 definable Image, which he took for the 
 Evil One, to forbid his work : Luther 
 started up, with fiend-defiance ; flung 
 his inkstand at the spectre, and it dis- 
 appeared ! The spot still remains there; 
 a curious monument of several things. 
 Any apothecary's apprentice can now 
 tell us what we are to think of this ap- 
 parition, in a scientific sense : but th« 
 
by Thomas Carlyle. 213 
 
 man's heart that dare rise defiant, face 
 to face, against Hell itself, can give no 
 higher proof of fearlessness. The thing 
 he will quail before, exists not on this 
 Earth or under it. — Fearless enough! 
 H The Devil is aware," writes he on one 
 occasion, " that this does not proceed 
 out of fear in me. I have seen and de- 
 fied innumerable Devils. Duke George," 
 of Leipzig, a great enemy of his, " Duke 
 George is not equal to one Devil," — far 
 short of a Devil ! " If I had business 
 at Leipzig, I would ride into Leipzig, 
 though it rained Duke Georges for nine 
 days running." What a reservoir of 
 Dukes to ride into ! 
 
 At the same time, they err greatly 
 who imagine that this man's courage 
 was ferocity, mere coarse disobedient 
 obstinacy and savagery, as many do. 
 Far from that. There may be an ab- 
 sence of fear which arises from the ab- 
 ience of thought or affection, from the 
 
214 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 presence of hatred and stupid fury. 
 We do not value the courage of the 
 tiger highly ! With Luther it was far 
 otherwise ; no accusation could be more 
 unjust than this of mere ferocious vio- 
 lence brought against him. A most 
 gentle heart withal, full of pity and 
 love, as indeed the truly valiant heart 
 ever is. The tiger before a stronger foe 
 — flies : the tiger is not what we call 
 valiant, only fierce and cruel. I know 
 few things more touching than those 
 soft breathings of affection, soft as a 
 child's or a mother's, in this great wild 
 heart of Luther. So honest, unadul- 
 terated with any cant ; homely, rude in 
 their utterance ; pure as water welling 
 from the rock. What, in fact, was all 
 that downpressed mood of despair and 
 reprobation, which we saw in his youth 
 but the outcome of preeminent thought- 
 ful gentleness, affections too keen and 
 line? It is the course such men as 
 
by Tho?/ias Ca/rlyle. 215 
 
 Ihe poor Poet Cowper fall into. Lu- 
 ther to a slight observer, might have 
 seemed a timid, weak man ; modesty, 
 affectionate shrinking tenderness the 
 chief distinction of him. It is a noble 
 valor which is roused in a heart like 
 this, once stirred up into defiance, all 
 kindled into a heavenly blaze. 
 
 In Luther's Table-Talk^ a posthumous 
 Book of anecdotes and sayings collected 
 by his friends, the most interesting now 
 of all the Books proceeding from him, 
 we have many beautiful unconscious 
 displays of the man, and what sort of 
 nature he had. His behavior at the 
 deathbed of his little Daughter, so still, 
 so great and loving, is among the most 
 affecting things. He is resigned that 
 his little Magdalene should die, yet 
 longs inexpressibly that she might live ; 
 —follows in awe-struck thought, the 
 flight of her little soul through those 
 unknown realms. Awestruck; most 
 
216 Spiritual Portrait of Luther, 
 
 heartfelt, we can see ; and sincere, — foi 
 after all dogmatic creeds and articles, 
 he feels what nothing it is that we know, 
 or can know : His little Magdalene shall 
 be with God, as God wills ; for Luther 
 too that is all ; Islam is all. 
 
 Once, he looks out from his solitary 
 Patmos, the Castle of Coburg, in the 
 middle of the night : The great vault of 
 Immensity, long nights of clouds sailing 
 through it, — dumb, gaunt, huge : — who 
 supports all that ? " None ever saw the 
 pillars of it ; yet it is supported." God 
 supports it. We must know that God 
 is great, that God is good ; and trust, 
 where we cannot see. — Returning home 
 from Leipzig once, he is struck by the 
 beauty of the harvest-fields: How it 
 stands, that golden yellow corn, on its 
 fair taper stem, its golden head bent, 
 all rich and waving there, — the meek 
 Earth, at God's kind bidding, has pro» 
 duced it once again ; the bread of man ' 
 
by Thomas Cariyle. 217 
 
 In the garden at Wittenberg one even- 
 ing at sunset, a little bird has perched 
 for the night : That little bird, says Lu- 
 ther, above it are the stars and deep 
 Heaven of worlds ; yet it has folded its 
 little wings; gone trustfully to rest 
 there as in its home : the Maker of it 
 has given it too a home ! — Neither are 
 mirthful turns wanting : there is a great 
 free human heart in this man. The 
 common speech of him has a rugged 
 nobleness, idiomatic, expressive, genu- 
 ine ; gleams here and there with beau- 
 tiful poetic tints. One feels him to be 
 a great brother man. His love of Music, 
 indeed, is not this, as it were, the sum- 
 mary of all these affections in him? 
 Many a wild unutterability he spoke 
 forth from him in the tones of his flute. 
 The Devils fled from his flute, he says. 
 Death-defiance on the one hand, and 
 mich love of music on the other ; I could 
 eall these the two opposite poles of a 
 
 19 
 
218 Spiritual Portrait of Jsuther, 
 
 great soul ; between these two all great 
 things had room. 
 
 Luther's face is* to me expressive of 
 him ; in Kranach's best portraits I find 
 the true Luther. A rude, plebeian face; 
 with its huge crag-like brows and bones, 
 the emblem of rugged energy; at first, 
 almost a repulsive face. Yet in the 
 eyes especially there is a wild silent 
 sorrow ; an unnamable melancholy, the 
 element of all gentle and fine affections ; 
 giving to the rest the true stamp of no- 
 bleness. Laughter was in this Luther, 
 as we said ; but tears also were there. 
 Tears also were appointed him ; tears 
 and hard toil. The basis of his life was 
 Sadness, Earnestness. In his latter days, 
 after all triumphs and victories, he ex- 
 presses himself heartily weary of living; 
 he considers that God alone can and 
 will regulate the course things are tak- 
 ing, and that perhaps the Day of Judg 
 ment is not far. As for him, he longa 
 
hy Thomas Carlyle. 21$ 
 
 for one thing : that God would release 
 him from his labor, and let him depart 
 and be at rest. They understand little 
 of the man who cite this in ^'scredit of 
 him! — I will call this Luther a true 
 Great Man ; great in intellect, in cour- 
 age, affection and integrity ; one of our 
 most lovable and precious men. Great, 
 not as a hewn obelisk ; but as an Alpine 
 mountain, — so simple, honest, sponta- 
 neous, not setting up to be great at all ; 
 there for quite another purpose than 
 being great! Ah yes, unsubduable 
 granite, piercing far and wide into the 
 Heavens ; yet in the clefts of it foun- 
 tains, green beautiful valleys with flow- 
 ers ! A right Spiritual Hero and Pro- 
 phet ; once more, a true Son of Nature 
 And Fact, for whom these centuries, 
 and many that are to come yet, will be 
 thankful to Heaven. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 REVERSE-SIDE OF THE PICTURE 
 
 By SIR WM. HAMILTON.* 
 
 The following hasty anthology ol 
 some of Luther's opinions, and, in his 
 own words, literally translated, may 
 render it doubtful, whether the heresies 
 of his followers are to be traced no 
 higher than to the relaxation, (not a 
 century old,) of religious tests. We 
 must not, however, set down Luther 
 for a rationalist, howbeit the rational- 
 ists may adduce Luther's practice as 
 the precedent of their own. For, while 
 far from erring through any overween 
 
 1 Discussions on Philosophy and Literature. 
 Education and University Reform, second Loi> 
 don edition, p. 505, et sequent. 
 19* 
 
Appendix, 
 
 ing reliance on the powers of human 
 reason in general,, still Luther was be* 
 trayed into corresponding extravagan- 
 cies by an assurance of his personal in- 
 spiration, of which he was, indeed, no 
 [ess confident than of his ability to per- 
 form miracles. He disclaimed the Pope, 
 he spurned the Church, but varying in 
 almost all else, he never doubted of his 
 own infallibility. He thus piously 
 regarded himself as the authoritative 
 judge, both of the meaning, and of the 
 authenticity of Scripture. Yet though 
 it is our duty, in refuting an untenable 
 hypothesis, to allege various untenable 
 and even obnoxious opinions of the 
 great reformer ; so far from entertain- 
 ing any dislike of Luther, we admire 
 him, with all his aberrations, (for he 
 never paltered with the truth,) not only 
 as ore of the ablest, but as one of the 
 best of men. Only, in renouncing, 
 with Luther, the Pope, we are cer- 
 
Appendix. 223 
 
 tainly not willing to make a Pope of 
 Luther. 2 
 
 8 In stating the troth regarding Luther, I 
 should regret to be thought by any, to utter 
 aught in disparagement of Protestantism. Pro- 
 testantism is not the doctrine of this or that 
 individual Protestant ; and with reference even 
 to the man Luther, I am sorry that it is here 
 incumbent on me, to notice his faults without 
 dwelling on his virtues. That what is now to 
 be alleged, should not long ago have been famil- 
 iar to all, only shows that Church History has 
 not yet been written, as alone written it ought to 
 be, — with truth and knowledge. Church History 
 falsely written, is a school of vain glory, hatred, 
 and uncharitableness ; truly written, it is a dis- 
 cipline of humility, of charity, of mutual love. 
 Written in a veracious and unsectarian spirit, 
 every religious community is herein taught, thai 
 it has cause enough to blush for its adherents, 
 " Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra ;" 
 
 gad that others, though none be perfect, are all 
 •ntitled to respect, as all reflections, though 
 partial reflections, of the truth. Ecclesiastical 
 History, indeed, may and ought to be the on* 
 
224 Appendix. 
 
 L Speculative Theology. — " God 
 pleaseth you when he crowns the un- 
 worthy ; he ought not to displease you 
 when he damns the innocent." [Jena 
 Latin, iii. f. 207.]— "All things take 
 place by the eternal and invariable will 
 of God, who [which] blasts and shat- 
 ters in pieces the freedom of the human 
 will." [F. 165.]—" God creates in us 
 the evil, in like manner as the good. 
 [Ff. 170, 216.]— "The high perfection 
 of faith, 8 is to believe that God is just, 
 
 best, as the one unexclusive, application of reli- 
 gious principle to practice, — at once Oatholio 
 and Protestant and Christian; vindicating to 
 the Church at large its inheritance of authority; 
 manifesting the fallibility of all human agents, 
 nor substituting merely one papacy for another; 
 whilst yielding " Christ the truth," as its last 
 and dominant result. 
 
 * Assurance, Personal Assurance, Special 
 Faith, {the feeling of certainty that God is pro- 
 oitious to me, — that my sins are forgiven, Fidu. 
 wa, Plerophoria Fidei, Fides Specialis,) — A» 
 
Appendix. 225 
 
 notwithstanding that, by his will he 
 
 entrance was long universally held in the Pro- 
 testant communities to be the criterion and 
 condition of a true or saving Faith. Luther 
 declares, that, " he who hath not Assurance 
 spews Faith out;" and Melancthon, that "As- 
 surance is the discriminating line of Christianity 
 from Heathenism." Assurance is, indeed, the 
 punctum saliens of Luther's system ; and an un- 
 acquaintance with this, his great central doo- 
 trine, is one prime cause of the chronic misre- 
 presentation which runs through our recent 
 histories of Luther and the Reformation. As- 
 surance is no less strenuously maintained by 
 Calvin ; is held even by Arminius ; and stands, 
 essentially, part and parcel of all the Confessions 
 of all the Churches of the Reformation, down 
 to the "Westminster Assembly. In that Synod 
 Assurance was, in Protestantism, for the first, 
 indeed only, time formally declared " not to oe 
 of the essence of Faith ;" and accordingly, the 
 Scottish General Assembly has, subsequently, 
 once and again, condemned and deposed the 
 holders of this, the doctrine of Luther, of Cal- 
 vin, of ali the other Churches of the Reforma- 
 tion, and of the older Scottish Church itseli 
 
226 A pj) enaix. 
 
 renders us necessarily damnable, and 
 
 In the English, and, more articulately, in the 
 Irish Establishment, Assurance still stands a 
 necessary tenet of ecclesiastical belief. (See 
 Homilies, Book I., Number iii., Part 3, specialty 
 referred to in the Eleventh of the Thirty-niru 
 Articles, and Number iv., Parts 1 and 3 ; like- 
 vise the Sixth Lambeth Article.) Assurance 
 iras consequently held by all the older Anglican 
 Churchmen, of whom Hooker may stand for 
 the example : but Assurance is now openly dis- 
 avowed, without scruple, by Anglican Church- 
 men high and low, when apprehended ; but o* 
 these, many, like Mr. Hare, are blissfully incog- 
 nisant of the opinion, its import, its history, 
 and even its name. 
 
 This dogma, with its fortune, past and pre- 
 sent, affords indeed a series of the most curious 
 contrasts. — For it is curious, that this cardinal 
 point of Luther's doctrine should, without ex- 
 ception, have been constituted into the funda- 
 mental principle of all the Churches of the Re- 
 formation, and as their common and uncatholio 
 doctrine, have been explicitly condemned at 
 Trent. — Again, it is curious, that this common 
 and differential doctrine of the Churches of the 
 
App endix. 227 
 
 aeemeth to find pleasure in the torments 
 
 Reformation, should now be abandoned virtu- 
 ally in, or formally by, all these Churches 
 themselves. — Again, it is curious, that Protest- 
 tuts should now generally profess the countei 
 Joctrine, asserted at Trent in condemnation oj 
 their peculiar principle. — Again, it is curioue 
 that this most important variation in the faith 
 of Protestants, as, in fact, a gravitation of Pro- 
 testantism back towards Catholicity, should 
 have been overlooked, as indeed in his days 
 undeveloped, by the keen-eyed author of " The 
 History of the Variations of the Protestant 
 Churches." — Finally, it is curious, that, though 
 now fully developed, this central approximation 
 of Protestantism to Catholicity should not, as 
 far as I know, have been signalized by any 
 theologian, Protestant or Catholic; whilst the 
 Protestant symbol, (Fides sola justificat — Faith 
 alone justifies,) though now eviscerated of its 
 eal import, and now only manifesting an unim- 
 portant difference of expression, is still supposed 
 to mark the discrimination of the two religious 
 denominations. For both agree, that the three 
 tieavenly virtues must all concur to salvation ; 
 tnd they only differ, whether Faith, as a word, 
 
228 Appendix. 
 
 of the miserable." [F. 171.) All from 
 the treatise De Servo Arbitrio.] 
 II.) Practical Theology. 4 — " We." 
 
 does or does not involve Hope and Charity. 
 This misprision would have been avoided had 
 Luther and Calvin only said — Fiducia sola jus- 
 tificat — Assurance alone justifies ; for on their 
 doctrine Assurance was convertible with true 
 Faith, and true Faith implied the other Chris- 
 tian graces. But this primary and peculiar 
 doctrine of the Reformation is now harmoni- 
 ously condemned by Catholics and Protestants 
 in unison. 
 
 * In a moral relation, perhaps, more than in 
 any other, the history of Luther and the Refor- 
 mation has been written, only as a coDventional 
 romance ; and I know not, whether Catholics 
 or Protestants have wandered the widest from 
 the line of truth. Of the following general 
 (acts I hold superfluous proof. 
 
 1°, After the religious revolution in Protestant 
 Germany, there began and long prevailed a 
 fearful dissolution of morals. The burthen of 
 Luther's lamentation is : " Under the Papacy, 
 ire were bad. but under the Gospel, we art 
 •even — yea more than seven times worse ;" — a 
 
App end ix. 229 
 
 (Martin Luther Philippus, MvLmcthon 
 
 contrast vhich he usually signalises by the pa 
 rable of the " one unclean spirit returning and 
 taking with him seven other spirits, each more 
 wicked than himself." 
 
 2o, Of this moral corruption there were two 
 principal foci, — Wittemberg and Hesse. — Short- 
 ly before his death, Luther abandoning, calls 
 Wittemberg " a Sodom;" and not long after it, 
 Wittemberg is formally branded by Simon Mu- 
 saeus, the Professor of Theology and Superin- 
 tendent of Jena, another Protestant, another 
 German, another Saxon University, as " fcetida 
 cloaca Diaboli." — Touching Hesse, the celebrat- 
 ed Walther writing to Bullinger, before the 
 middle of the century, says of its centre of 
 learning and religious education : — "In Mar- 
 burg the rule of morals is such, as Bacchus 
 would prescribe to his Maenads, and Venus to 
 her Cupids ;" while from Marburg and the chief 
 ivhair of Theology in that Uuiversity, (what is 
 laknown to his biographers,) the immorality 
 of the natives had previously determined, as hf 
 writes, the pious Lambert of Avignon to fly 
 Ms flight being, however, arrested by his sud 
 ten death. 
 
 ao 
 
230 A p p endix. 
 
 Martin Bucer^ Dionysius Melander^ 
 
 8°, The cause of this demoralization is not to 
 be sought for in the religious revolution itself; 
 for in Switzerland and other countries the relig- 
 ious revolution resulted in an increased sobri- 
 ety and continence. In Protestant Germany, 
 and particularly in Saxony, we need look no 
 farther than to the moral doctrine of the 
 divines ; 
 
 " Hoc fonte derivata clades 
 In patriam populumque fluxit :" 
 
 but in Hesse, beside that influence, we must 
 take into account the pattern of manners set to 
 his subjects by the prince ; 
 
 " Regis ad exemplum totus componltur orblfl." 
 
 4°, As to Polygamy in particular, which not 
 only Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer, the three 
 leaders of the German Reformation, speculat- 
 ively adopted, — but to which above a dozen 
 distinguished divines among the Reformers 
 itood formally committed; there were two 
 orincipal causes which disinclined the theolo- 
 gians to a practical application of the theory. — 
 The first of these, which operated more espe- 
 cially on Luther and Melancthon, was the op. 
 position it was sure of encountering from th« 
 
Appendtx. 231 
 
 John Zening, Antonius Cw , vmu8 i 
 
 Princes of both branches of the house of Sax- 
 ony. — The second, that the doctrine itself was 
 taken np and carried out to every extreme by 
 odious sects and odious divines ; in a word, it 
 had become fly-blown. The Sacramentarian 
 Carlstadt's public adoption of it, tended princi- 
 pally to disgust Luther, and in a less degree 
 Melancthon ; for Carlstadt's doctrines were, in 
 the mass, an abomination to these two reform- 
 ers : but the polygamist excesses of the hated 
 Anabaptists, in the last season of their reign in 
 Munster, revolted all rational minds 5 and, as I 
 said, (what Mr. Hare strangely misunderstands,) 
 homoeopathically broke the force of the epi- 
 demic throughout Germany and Europe. 
 
 Specially : the Landgrave's bigamy has been 
 mistaken in its more essential circumstances, 
 from a want of the requisite information, both 
 by Protestant and Catholic writers; and by 
 none almost more than by the recent editor of 
 the Corpus Reformatorum, Dr. Bretschneider. 
 Touching this transaction, I shall now state in 
 general a few of the more necessary facts ; of 
 which, however startling, I have irrecusable 
 proof, —proof which, before long, I may rally 
 
232 Appendix, 
 
 Adam Kraft, ofFulda, Justus Wmther, 
 
 detail, as indeed I ought ere this perhaps to 
 have done. 
 
 The sanction of Luther and Melanctbon to 
 the Landgrave's second marriage was com- 
 pelled. Prudentially, and for special reasons 
 which I shall not now enumerate, they were 
 strongly averse from this proceeding, on the 
 part of that Prince ; but on principle, they, un- 
 fortunately could not oppose it. They had 
 both promulgated opinions in favor of polygamy, 
 to the extent of vindicating to the spiritual 
 minister a right of private dispensation, and to 
 the temporal magistrate the right of establishing 
 the practice, if he chose, by public law. Thej 
 had even tendered (what is unknown, though 
 the consultation has been published for centu- 
 ries, to all English historians,) — tendered their 
 counsel to Henry VIII., advising him, in his 
 own case, to a plurality of wives. Without, 
 however, showing at present how the screw 
 was actually applied, I may notice generally 
 that their acquiescence was extorted, through 
 Martin Bucer, a reformer and man of geniui 
 »nly inferior to themselves ; whilst the proceed- 
 ing of the Landgrave was zealously encouraged, 
 
Appe7idix. 233 
 
 Balthasar Raidajf — " we cannot advise 
 
 and the scruples of the second Landgravint 
 effectually overcome, by the two conrt preach- 
 ers, the two courtly chaplains, Dionysius Me- 
 lander and John Lening ; Melander and Lening 
 being also the Pastors of the two parishes where 
 lay the princely residences of Cassel and Mel- 
 8ingen, therefore were they, in all respects, the 
 appropriate spiritual advisers of their territorial 
 lord. Thus these three divines, apart from the 
 Prince, were the prime movers in this scandal- 
 ous affair ; and in contrast to them, Luther and 
 Melancthon certainly show in favorable relief. 
 
 Bucer (Butzer, Putzer, Felinus,) — " Cat by 
 name, and Oat by nature," the lesser Martin 
 
 5 The list of the divines who concurred in 
 the landgrave's bigamy is here given more fully 
 and accurately (though without the synonymes) 
 than in any other relative publication, — and ot 
 luch I am now acquainted, I believe, with all. 
 The consilium was drawn up by Luther and 
 Melancthon at "Wittemberg, 19th December, 
 1539. It was then signed by Bucer ; and after- 
 rards in Hesse, by the other six divines, wh« 
 ▼ere all subjects of the Landgrave. 
 
 20* 
 
234 Appendix. 
 
 that the license of marrying more wivei 
 
 had previously merited from Luther the charac- 
 ter of " lying varlet ;" and he consistently dis- 
 plays himself in the seqnel of this business as 
 guilty of Mendacity in every possible degree. 
 To those, however, acquainted with the real 
 htstcry of the Reformation, Bucer is known, 
 with much ability and many amiable qualities, 
 as, in fact, the &me damnee* of that revolution. 
 But he was not, at least, a simultaneous polyga- 
 mist, as asserted by some Catholic historians. 
 
 Dionysius Melander (Schwartze) did not belie 
 either his name or his surname. Though an 
 eloquent preacher, and "the Reformer of Frank- 
 fort," yet was he as worthy a minister of Bac- 
 chus, as an unworthy minister of Christ ; pro- 
 fessing as he did, " that he lived and wished to 
 live only for the taste of wine." Neither shall 
 we marvel how a Protestant Bishop, Superin- 
 tendent, Inspector, like Melander, could bestow 
 the spiritual benediction on his master's bigamy; 
 when aware of the still higher marvel, that 
 Melander the Inspector, Superintendent, Pro- 
 testant Metropolitan of Hesse, was (the moral 
 negro!) at and before the time, himself a fni- 
 tAMiST, that is, to avoid all possible ambiguity 
 
Appendix. 235 
 
 than one be publicly introduced, and, 
 
 khe husband of three wives at once. The Prince 
 thus followed at a distance, not only the pre- 
 cept, but the example of the Pastor. 
 
 John, or, as the reverend divine was very 
 irreverently called, Leno Lenning, seems, with 
 both learning and ability, to have been a Pan- 
 darus and Caliban in one ; so that the epithets 
 of " monster," &c, applied to him by Luther 
 and Melancthon, suited indifferently his defor- 
 mities moral and physical. The Pastor of Mel- 
 singen was, as Melancthon informs us, like his 
 Prince, a syphilitic saint, (nor touching either 
 Prince or Pastor, do I found on any testimony, 
 hitherto adduced, on any testimony, euphemis- 
 tic or ambiguous) ; and this worthy undertook 
 the congenial task of converting Margaret von 
 der Sahl to the new faith of Polygamy. The 
 precious book, indeed, which, for the purpose 
 he composed and sanctimoniously addressed to 
 that "virtuous Lady and beloved sister in 
 Christ," is still extant. If an adulterer, Lenning 
 does not appear, like his fellow-laborer Melan- 
 der, to have been, in practice at least, a simul- 
 taneous polygamist; but when left a veteran 
 
Appendix, 
 
 as it were ratified by law." (Such leg 
 tslation, in fact, no dependent Prince 
 — no feudatory of the Empire was war- 
 ranted to authorize.) " If anything 
 were allowed to get into print on this 
 head, your Highness," (Philip, Land- 
 grave of Hesse, champion of the Refor- 
 mation, who, having lost, as he pleads, 
 conceit of his wife, being touched with 
 scruples of conscience at his adultery, 
 but which he [thrice] admits that " he 
 does not wish to abstain from" and 
 " knowing," as he tells themselves, " of 
 Luther and Melancthon having exhort' 
 ed the King of England not to divorce 
 
 sian monster " incontinently married a nursery 
 girl, Barbara Biedenkap, as I recollect by name, 
 from tbe household of his pervert, "the left 
 Landgravine," and keeper of her eighth child. 
 
 With such precept and such example, w« 
 ghall not be surprised, that the Hessian morali 
 tecame soon notoriously the most corrupt in 
 Germany, I ought, perhaps, to say, in Christen 
 iom. 
 
Appendix. 237 
 
 his first queen, but to marry a second 
 over and above," — had applied to the 
 leading doctors of the Kefortnation for 
 their spiritual sanction to take anothei 
 wife,) — " your Highness easily compre 
 hends that it would be understood and 
 received as a precept, whence much 
 scandal and many difficulties would 
 
 arise Your Highness should bo 
 
 pleased to consider the excessive scan- 
 dal; that the enemies of the Gospel 
 would exclaim, that we, like the Ana- 
 baptists, have adopted the practice of 
 polygamy, that the Evangelicals, as the 
 Turks, allow themselves the indulgence 
 of a plurality of wives. . . . But in cer- 
 tain cases there is room for Dispenses 
 Hon. If any one (for example) detain- 
 ed captive in a foreign country, should 
 there take unto himself a second wife 
 for the good of his body and health . . . 
 in these cases, we know not by what 
 •eason a man could be condemned, who 
 
Appendix, 
 
 marries an additional wife, with th« 
 advice of his Pastor, not for the purpose 
 of introducing a new law, but of satis- 
 fying his own necessity. ... In fine, ii 
 your Highness be fully and finally re- 
 solved to marry yet another wife ; we 
 judge, that this ought to be done se- 
 creUy, as has been said above, in speak- 
 ing of the Dispensation, so that it be 
 known only to your Highness, to the 
 Lady, and to a few faithful persons 
 obliged to silence, under the seal of con- 
 fession ; hence no attacks or scandal oi 
 any moment would ensue. For there 
 is nothing unusual in princes keeping 
 concubines; and although the lower 
 orders may not perceive the excuses of 
 the thing, the more intelligent know 
 Uow to make allowance" 6 
 
 • The nuptials were performed in presence 
 of these witnesses, — Melancthon, Bucer, Melon* 
 der [who officiated, Raida, who acted as Nota* 
 ry t ] with others; and privately, in order, as th« 
 
Appendix, 
 
 DX) Biblical Criticism. — (i.) "The 
 
 marriage-contract bears, " to avoid scandal, see- 
 ing that, in modern times, it has been unusual 
 to have two wives at once, although in this case 
 it he Christian and lawful." — The Landgrave 
 marvelously contrived to live in harmony with 
 both his wives, and had a large family by each. 
 The date of the transaction is the end of 1539. 
 The relative documents were published in 1679, 
 by the Elector Palatine, Charles Lewis, and are 
 said to have converted, among others, a de- 
 scendant of Philip Prince Ernest of Hesse, to 
 the Catholic Church. It has, in fact, been 
 stated by (now recovered) historians, that the 
 doctrine of Luther touching marriage, and the 
 practice of the Landgrave, were the obstacles 
 which prevented the Emperor Ferdinand I. 
 from declaring for the Reformation ; and some 
 distinguished converts have openly ascribed 
 their desertion of Protestantism to the same 
 cause. A corresponding opinion of Dr. Henke, 
 ate Primarius Professor of Theology in Helm- 
 rtadt, would have figured, had he known it. 
 with admirable effect, in Mr. Pearson's cata- 
 logue of modern Teutonic heresies. " Monog- 
 amy, " (says that celebrated divine,) " and the 
 
240 Appendix 
 
 books of the Kings are more worthy of 
 
 prohibition of extra matrimonial connections, 
 are to be viewed as the remnants of monachism 
 and of an uninquiring faith." However detest- 
 able this doctrine, the bold avowal of the ra- 
 tionalist is honorable, when contrasted with 
 the skulking compromise of all protessed prin- 
 ciple, by men calling themselves — " The Evan- 
 gelicals." — Renouncing the Pope, they arrogate 
 the power of the keys to an extent never pre- 
 tended to by any successor of St. Peter ; and 
 proclaiming themselves to the world for the 
 Apostles of a purified faith, they can secretly, 
 trembling only at discovery, authorize, in name 
 of the Gospel, a dispensation of the moral law. 
 Compared with Luther [?] or Cranmer, how 
 respectable is the character of Knox. 
 
 Before 1843, I had become aware, that this 
 last statement was incorrect ; and in a supple- 
 mental note to a pamphlet published by me in 
 that year, I made the following retractation : — 
 44 1 do not found my statement of the general 
 opinion of Luther and Melancthon in favor oi 
 polygamy, on their special allowance of a second 
 wife to Philip the Magnanimous, or on any ex- 
 pressions contained in their Consilium on that 
 
Appendix. 241 
 
 credit than the Books of the Chronicles." 
 
 occasion. On the contrary, that Consilium, 
 and the circumstances under which it was given, 
 may be, indeed always Tiave been, adduced to 
 show, that in the case of the Landgrave they 
 made a sacrifice of eternal principle to tempo- 
 rary expedience. The reverse of this I am able 
 to prove, in a chronological series of testimonies 
 by them to the religious legality of polygamy, 
 as a general institution, consecutively down- 
 wards from their earliest commentaries on the 
 Scriptures, [not as Mr. Hare perverts it (p. 840) 
 " their commentaries on the earliest books of 
 Scripture,"] and other purely abstract treatises. 
 So far, therefore, was there from being any dis- 
 graceful compromise of principle in the sanction 
 accorded by them to the bigamy of the Land- 
 grave of Hesse, they only, in that case, carried 
 their speculative doctrine (held, by the way, 
 also by Milton,) into practice; although the 
 prudence they had by that time acquired, ren- 
 dered them, on worldly grounds, averse from 
 their sanction being made publicly known. I 
 am the more anxious to correct this general 
 Inistake touching the motives of these illustrioui 
 taen, because I was myself, on a former oeca- 
 21 
 
242 Appendix 
 
 [Colloqtria, c. lix. § 6.] — (ii.) "The book 
 Df Esther, I toss into the Elbe." 7 [lb.]— 
 
 sion, led to join in the injustice." — (Be not 
 Schismatics, &c, p. 59, 8d. ed.) 
 
 1 Soon after the publication of this article, I 
 became aware, that Esther was here a mistake 
 for Esdras; and this by the verse quoted. The 
 error stands in all Aurifaber's editions of the 
 Table Talk ; his text is taken by Walch, and 
 from Walch I translated. It is corrected, how- 
 ever, in the recensions by Stangwald and Sel- 
 neocer, and, of course, in the new edition of the 
 
 Oolloquia by Bindseil As to my error ; I 
 
 may say in excuse, if excuse be needed, that at 
 the time of writing the article, not only was I 
 compelled to make the extracts without any 
 leisure for deliberation; but I recollected, 
 though the book was not at hand, that Luther, 
 in his work on the Bondage of the Will, had 
 declared that Esther ought to be extruded from 
 the canon, — a judgment familiar to every tyro 
 even in biblical criticism. His concluding wordi 
 are : — M dignior omnibus, me judice, qui extra 
 Comonem Iwiheret/wr" (Jena Latin, iii. 182.) 
 Esther, I thus knew, was repudiated by Luther, 
 and among nis formulas of dismissal the preced 
 
Apjpendix. 243 
 
 [ u And when the Doctor was correcting 
 the second book of the Maccabees, he 
 said: — ] I am so an enemy to the book 
 of Esther, that I would it did not exist ; 
 for it Judaises too much, and hath in 
 it a great deal of heathenish naughti- 
 ness. [Then said Magister Foerster," 
 (the great Hebrew Professor:) — "The 
 Jews rate the book of Esther at more 
 than any of the prophets ; the prophets 
 Daniel and Isaiah they absolutely con- 
 temn. Whereupon Dr. Martinus : — It 
 is horrible that they, the Jews, should 
 despise the noblest predictions of these 
 two holy prophets; the one of whom 
 teaches and preaches Christ in all rich- 
 ness and purity, whilst the other por- 
 trays and describes, in the most certain 
 manner, monarchies and empires along 
 with the kingdom of Christ." — (iii.) 
 " Job spake not, therefore, as it stands 
 
 ing recommended itself as at once the moM 
 eharacteristic and the shortest. 
 
244 Appendix. 
 
 writteD in his book, but hath had such 
 cogitations. ... It is a sheer argumen* 
 turn fabulae. ... It is probable that Sol- 
 omon made and wrote this book." [lb.] 
 — (iv.) " So also have the Proverbs 
 of Solomon been collected by others, 
 [caught up from the king's mouth, 
 when he spake them at table or else- 
 where: and those are well marked, 
 wherein the royal majesty and wisdom 
 shine conspicuous." 8 (lb.)] — (v.) "This 
 book (Ecclesiastes) ought to have been 
 more full ; there is too much of broken 
 matter in it ; it has neither boots nor 
 spurs, but rides only in socks, as I myself 
 
 8 This is illustrated by what Luther says in 
 the Standing Preface on the Preacher of Solo- 
 mon, which dates from 1524. "This bool^ 
 also, of the Proverbs of Solomon, has been pieced 
 together by others ; and among his, have been 
 Inserted the doctrine and sayings of sundry 
 wise men. — Item, the Song of Solomon appears, 
 m like manner, as a pieced book, taken bj 
 others out of Solomon's mouth." 
 
Appendix. 245 
 
 when in the cloister. . . . Solomon hath 
 not therefore written this book, which 
 hath been made in the days of the Mac- 
 cabees by the Son of Sirach. It is like 
 a Talmud compiled from many books 
 perhaps in Egypt, from the Library 
 of King Ptolemy Energetes." 9 [lb.] — 
 (vi.) " Isaiah hath borrowed his whole 
 art and knowledge from David ont of 
 the Psalter." 10 [lb. c. Ix. § 10.]— (vii) 
 
 9 I now doubt not that Luther used the word 
 Ecclesiasticus, which the reporter heard as Ec- 
 clesiastes, appending afterwards the translation 
 of The Preacher ; for the quotation is from the 
 Table-Talk. I think no one will dispute this 
 who compares, inter alia, Luther's "Preface 
 to the Book of Jesus Sirach," to be found, as 
 all the others, in Walch's edition of his works, 
 (xiv. 91.) The mistake has also, I see, escaped 
 Dr. Bindseil, in his conclusion of Fcerstemann's 
 (ate elaborate, though by no means adequate, 
 edition of the Oolloquia. 
 
 io Luther also (lb. § 23) says:— "Moses and 
 David are the two highest prophets. "What 
 Isaiah hath, that he takes out of David, and 
 21* 
 
246 Appendix 
 
 " The history of Jonah is so monstrous, 
 that it is absolutely incredible." 11 [lb.] 
 
 the other propliets do in like manner." This I 
 presume to think inconsistent with a true doc- 
 trine of revelation. Inspiration borrowing ! — 
 Inspiration imitating I I did not however sup- 
 pose that, reprehensible as might be the ex- 
 pression, Luther denied the prophetic gift of 
 Isaiah. 
 
 11 1 quoted these words of Luther to show in 
 how irreverent a manner he thought himself 
 privileged to speak of the Holy Scriptures. . . . 
 Melancthon had fallen ill at Weimar from con- 
 trition and fear for the part he had been led to 
 take in the Landgrave's polygamy; his life was 
 even in danger. Luther came ; and Melancthon 
 is one of the three persons whom the Eeformer 
 afterwards boasts of having raised miraculously 
 from the dead. . . " Allda (saget Lutherus) muss- 
 te mir unser Herr Gott herhalten. Denn ich 
 warf ihm den sack fuer die Thuere, und rieb 
 Ihm die Ohren mit alien promissionibus exaudi- 
 endarum precum, die ich in der heilige Schrift 
 to. erzaehlen wusste, dass er mich musste erhce- 
 ren, wo ich anders seinen verheissungen trauen 
 •ollte." (May I indeed venture to translate 
 
Appendix. 247 
 
 -(viii.) " That the Epistle to the He- 
 brews is not by Saint Paul ; nor indeed 
 by any apostle, is shown by chap. ii. 3. 
 ... It is by an excellently learned man, 
 
 this?) "'Then and there,' said Luther, 'I 
 made our Lord God to smart for it. For I 
 threw him down the sack before the door, and 
 rubbed his ears with all his promises of hearing 
 prayer which I knew how to recapitulate from 
 Holy Writ, so that he could not but hearken to 
 me, should I ever again place any reliance on 
 his promises. "'.... Luther believed, that no- 
 thing could oe refused to his earnest supplica- 
 tion; and accordingly he declares, that it re- 
 quired only that he should sincerely ask for the 
 destruction of the world, to precipitate the ad- 
 vent of the last day. This doctrine was carried 
 to every its most absurd extreme by the other 
 reformers; and even the trigamist prelate of 
 Cassel, the wine-bibbing Melander, exhorted 
 Ms clergy to pray for a plentiful hop-harvest, 
 that, (as his son or grandson records,) though 
 himself abominating beer, there might thus be 
 a less demand for wine, and he, accordingly 
 allowed to indulge more cheaply in the juiot 
 of the grape. 
 
248 Appendix. 
 
 a disciple of the Apostles. ... It should 
 be no stumbling-block, if there be found 
 in it a mixture of wood, straw, hay." 
 [Standing Preface in Luther's Yer 
 sion.] — (ix.) "The Epistle of James, 
 I account the writing of no apostle.'* 
 [Standing Preface.] " /St. James' s Epis- 
 tie is truly an Epistle of straw [in con- 
 trast to them," (" the right and noblest 
 books of the New Testament") " for it 
 hath in it no evangelical character." 18 
 
 12 In various of his works, and from an early 
 to the latest period, Luther denied the canon- 
 icity of St. James's Epistle. To adduce only a 
 few of hs testimonies: — In 1519, in the sev- 
 enth Thesis against Eck, he declares it " wholly 
 inferior to the apostolic majesty ;" and in the 
 following year, in the Chapter on Sacraments, 
 of his Babylonish Captivity, " unworthy of an 
 apostolic spirit." In 1522, in a conclusion, after- 
 wards omitted, of the Standing Preface, he ex 
 eludes it "from the list of canonical hooks;" an 
 exclusion, however, contained in the Standing 
 Preface itself, in addition to the testimony quo. 
 
Appendix. 249 
 
 (Fragmentary Preface to the ISTew Tes- 
 tament, 1524.)]-— (x.) " The Epistle of 
 Jude is an abstract or copy of St. Pe- 
 ter's second .... and allegeth sayings 
 and stories which have no place in 
 Scripture." [Standing Preface, &c.]— - 
 (xi.) In the Revelation of John much 
 is wanting to let me deem it either 
 prophetic or apostolical. ... I can dis- 
 cover no trace that it is established by 
 the Holy Spirit." [Preface of 1522.] 18 
 
 Tlavpa [lev, dA/la fiaXa Tuyeutg. 
 
 ted from it in the text. We find in the Church 
 Postills, which were frequently republished, 
 Luther asserting : — •' This Epistl« was written 
 by no Apostle ; no where indeed is it fully con- 
 formable to the true apostolic character «nd man- 
 ner, and to pure doctrine." (Walch, xii. 76fO — 
 Finally, it is rejected, as in doctrine contradic- 
 tory Df St. Paul, in the Table-Talk. (0. lxix. § *.) 
 18 I have not deemed it necessary to quote 
 anything in confirmation or supplement of tha 
 •xtracts from Luther, relative to the biblical 
 oooks, except when Mr. Fare has hazarded his 
 strictures. On more than hajfoi my example* 
 
250 Appendix. 
 
 of Luther's temerarius criticism, he has been 
 silent. He has ventured no remark in regard 
 to the books of — (i.) Kings and Chronicles, (iii.) 
 Job, (v.) Ecclesiastes, (viii.) Epistle to the He- 
 brews, (x.) Epistle of Jude, (xi.) Apocalypse. 
 The half of these likewise, be it remarked, are 
 attacked by Luther, regularly and in writings 
 formally expounding his last and most matured 
 opinions. So that even if Mr. Hare had been 
 as successful, as he is unfortunate, in his coun- 
 ter-criticism, — were, in fact, all the extracts 
 expunged, in regard to which he has thought 
 it possible to make a single objection ; never- 
 theless my conclusion would still stand un- 
 touched, — that Luther, though personally no 
 rationalist, affords a warrant to the most auda- 
 cious of rationalistic assaults. For, as observed, 
 he could not vindicate this license of judgment 
 as a right peculiar to himself— as a right not 
 common to all. Accordingly, the ultra-ration- 
 alist Wegscheider dedicates his Institutiones 
 fheologiffl to the memory of Luther; and in 
 what terms ? " Piis Manibus Martini Lutheri ; 
 
 .... qui Rationi human© suum jus vin- 
 
 dicavit, quamque viam, in sacris ad Ohristi 
 prroceptas instaurandis, ipse prsaiverat, ea ul 
 pergerent posteros admonuit." 
 
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