FROM THE LEIPSIC DISPUTATION TO THE DIET AT WORMS, 1521.

CHAPTER - PROTESTANTISM AND IMPERIALISM; OR, THE MONK AND THE MONARCH.

Dangers of Luther — Doubtful Aid — Death of Maximilian — Candidates for the Empire — Character of Charles of Spain — His Dominions — The Empire Offered to Frederick of Saxony — Declined — Charles of Spain Chosen — Wittemberg — Luther’s Labors — His Appeal to the People of Germany — His Picture of Germany under the Papacy — Reforms Called for — Impression produced by his Appeal.

PICTURE: Charles V., Emperor of Germany PICTURE: The Conclave Electing the Emperor of Germany AMONG the actors that now begin to crowd the stage there are two who tower conspicuously above the others, and fix the gaze of all eyes, wellnigh exclusively, upon themselves. With the one we are already familiar, for he has been some time before us, the other is only on the point of appearing. They come from the opposite poles of society to mingle in this great drama. The one actor first saw the light in a miner’s cottage, the cradle of the other was placed in the palace of an ancient race of kings. The one wears a frock of serge, the other is clad in an imperial mantle. The careers of these two men are not more different in their beginning than they are fated to be in their ending. Emerging from a cell the one is to mount a throne, where he is to sit and govern men, not by the force of the sword, but by the power of the Word. The other, thrown into collision with a power he can neither see nor comprehend, is doomed to descend through one humiliation after another, till at last from a throne, the greatest then in the world, he comes to end his days in a cloister. But all this is yet behind a veil.

Meanwhile the bulkier, but in reality weaker power, seems vastly to overtop the stronger. The Reformation is utterly dwarfed in presence of a colossal Imperialism. If Protestantism has come forth from the Ruler of the world, and if it has been sent on the benign errand of opening the eyes and loosing the fetters of long-enslaved nations, one would have thought that its way would be prepared, and its task made easy, by some signal weakening of its antagonist. On the contrary, it is at this moment that Imperialism develops into sevenfold strength. It is clear the great Ruler seeks no easy victory. He permits dangers to multiply, difficulties to thicken, and the hand of the adversary to be made strong. But by how much the fight is terrible, and the victory all but hopeless, by so much are the proofs resplendent that the power which, without earthly weapon, can scatter the forces of Imperialism, and raise up a world which a combined spiritual and secular despotism has trodden into the dust, is Divine. It is the clash and struggle of these two powers that we are now to contemplate. But first let us glance at the situation of Luther.

Luther’s friends were falling away, or growing timid. Even Staupitz was hesitating, now that the goal to which the movement tended was more distinctly visible. In the coldness or the absence of these friends, other allies hastened to proffer him their somewhat doubtful aid. Drawn to his side rather by hatred of Papal tyranny than by appreciation of Gospel liberty and purity, their alliance somewhat embarrassed the Reformer. It was the Teutonic quite as much as the Reformed element—a noble product when the two are blended—that now stirred the German barons, and made their hands grasp their sword-hilts when told that Luther’s life was in danger; that men with pistoIs under their cloak were dogging him; that Serra Longa was writing to the Elector Frederick, “Let not Luther find an asylum in the States of your highness; let him be rejected of all and stoned in the face of heaven;” that Miltitz, the Papal legate, who had not forgiven his discomfiture, was plotting to snare him by inviting him to another interview at Treves; and that Eck had gone to Rome to find a balm for his wounded pride, by getting forged in the Vatican the bolt that was to crush the man whom his scholastic subtlety had not been able to vanquish at Leipsic.

There seemed cause for the apprehensions that now began to haunt his friends. “If God do not help us,” exclaimed Melanchthon, as he listened to the ominous sounds of tempest, and lifted his eye to a sky every hour growing blacker, “If God do not help us, we shall all perish.” Even Luther himself was made at times to know, by the momentary depression and alarm into which he was permitted to sink, that if he was calm, and strong, and courageous, it was God that made him so. One of the most powerful knights of Franconia, Sylvester of Schaumburg, sent his son all the way to Wittemberg with a letter to Luther, saying, “If the electors, princes, magistrates fail you, come to me. God willing, I shall soon have collected more than a hundred gentlemen, and with their help I shall be able to protect you from every danger.” Francis of Sickingen, one of those knights who united the love of letters to that of arms, whom Melanchthon styled “a peerless ornament of German knighthood,” offered Luther the asylum of his castle. “My services, my goods, and my body, all that I possess are at your disposal,” wrote he.

Ulrich of Hutten, who was renowned for his verses not less than for his deeds of valor, also offered himself as a champion of the Reformer. His mode of warfare, however, differed from Luther’s. Ulrich was for falling on Rome with the sword, Luther sought to subdue her by the weapon of the Truth. “It is with swords and with bows,” wrote Ulrich, “with javelins and bombs that we must crush the fury of the devil.” “I will not have recourse to arms and bloodshed in defense of the Gospel,” said Luther, shrinking back from the proposal. “It was by the Word that the Church was founded, and by the Word also it shall be re-established.” And, lastly, the prince of scholars in that age, Erasmus, stood forward in defense of the monk of Wittemberg. He did not hesitate to affirm that the outcry which had been raised against Luther, and the disturbance which his doctrines had created, were owing solely to those whose interests, being bound up with the darkness, dreaded the new day that was rising on the world 2 —a truth palpable and trite to us, but not so to the men of the early part of the sixteenth century.

When the danger was at its height, the Emperor Maximilian died (January 12th, 1519). 3 This prince was conspicuous only for his good nature and easy policy, but under him the Empire had enjoyed a long and profound peace. An obsequious subject of Rome, the Reformed movement was every day becoming more the object of his dislike, and had he lived he would have insisted on the elector’s banishing Luther, which would have thrown him into the hands of his mortal enemies. By the death of Maximilian at this crisis, the storm that seemed ready to burst passed over for the time. Till a new emperor should be elected, Frederick of Saxony, according to an established rule, became regent. This sudden shifting of the scenes placed the Reformer and the Reformation under the protection of the man who for the time presided over the Empire.

Negotiations and intrigues were now set on foot for the election of a new emperor. These became a rampart around the Reformed movement. The Pope, who wished to carry a particular candidate, found it necessary, in order to gain his object, to conciliate the Elector Frederick, whose position as regent, and whose character for wisdom, gave him a potential voice in the electoral college. This led to a clearing of the sky in the quarter of Rome.

There were two candidates in the field—Charles I. of Spain, and Francis I. of France. Henry VIII. of England, finding the prize which he eagerly coveted beyond his reach, had retired from the contest. The claims of the two rivals were very equally balanced. Francis was gallant, chivalrous, and energetic, but he did not sustain his enterprises by a perseverance equal to the ardor with which he had commenced them. Of intellectual tastes, and a lover of the new learning, wise men and scholars, warriors and statesmen, mingled in his court, and discoursed together at his table. He was only twenty-six, yet he had already reaped glory on the field of war. “This prince,” says Muller, “was the most accomplished knight of that era in which a Bayard was the ornament of chivalry, and one of the most enlightened and amiable men of the polished age of the Medici.” 4 Neither Francis nor his courtiers were forgetful that Charlemagne had worn the diadem, and its restoration to the Kings of France would dispel the idea that was becoming common, that the imperial crown, though nominally elective, was really hereditary, and had now been permanently vested in the house of Austria.

Charles was seven years younger than his rival, and his disposition and talents gave high promise. Although only nineteen he had been trained in affairs, for which he had discovered both inclination and aptitude. The Spanish and German blood mingled in his veins, and his genius combined the qualities of both races. He possessed the perseverance of the Germans, the subtlety of the Italians, and the taciturnity of the Spaniards. His birthplace was Ghent. Whatever prestige riches,extent of dominion, and military strength could give the Empire, Charles would bring to it. His hereditary kingdom, inherited through Ferdinand and Isabella, was Spain. Than Spain there was no more flourishing or powerful monarchy at that day in Christendom. To this magnificent domain, the seat of so many opulent towns, around which was spread an assemblage of corn-bearing plains, wooded sierras, and vegas, on which the fruits of Asia mingled in rich luxuriance with those of Europe, were added the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, Flanders and the rich domains of Burgundy; and now the death of his grand-father, the Emperor Maximilian, had put him in possession of the States of Austria. Nor was this all; the discovery of Columbus had placed a new continent under his sway; and how large its limit, or how ample the wealth that might flow from it, Charles could not, at that hour, so much as conjecture. So wide were the realms over which this young prince reigned.

Scarcely had the sun set on their western frontier when the morning had dawned on their eastern.

It would complete his glory, and render him without a peer on earth, should he add the imperial diadem to the many crowns he already possessed. He scattered gold profusely among the electors and princes of Germany to gain the coveted prize. 5 His rival Francis was liberal, but he lacked the gold-mines of Mexico and Peru which Charles had at his command. The candidates, in fact, were too powerful. Their greatness had well-nigh defeated both of them; for the Germans began to fear that to elect either of the two would be to give themselves a master. The weight of so many sceptres as those which Charles held in his hand might stifle the liberties of Germany.

The electors, on consideration, were of the mind that it would be wiser to elect one of themselves to wear the imperial crown. Their choice was given, in the first instance, neither to Francis nor to Charles; it fell unanimously on Frederick of Saxony. 6 Even the Pope was with them in this matter. Leo X. feared the overgrown power of Charles of Spain. If the master of so many kingdoms should be elected to the vacant dignity, the Empire might overshadow the mitre. Nor was the Pope more favorably inclined towards the King of France: he dreaded his ambition; for who could tell that the conqueror of Carignano would not carry his arms farther into Italy? On these grounds, Leo sent his earnest advice to the electors to choose Frederick of Saxony. The result was that Frederick was chosen. We behold the imperial crown offered to Luther’s friend!

Will he or ought he to put on the mantle of Empire? The princes and people of Germany would have hailed with joy his assumption of the dignity. It did seem as if Providence were putting this strong scepter into his hand, that therewith he might protect the Reformer. Frederick had, oftener than once, been painfully sensible of his lack of power. He may now be the first man in Germany, president of all its councils, generalissimo of all its armies; and may stave off from the Reformation’s path, wars, scaffolds, violences of all sorts, and permit it to develop its spiritual energies, and regenerate society in peace. Ought he to have become emperor? Most historians have lauded his declinature as magnanimous. We take the liberty most respectfully to differ from them.

We think that Frederick, looking at the whole case, ought to have accepted the imperial crown; that the offer of it came to him at a moment and in a way that, made the point of duty clear, and that his refusal was an act of weakness.

Frederick, in trying to shun the snare of ambition, fell into that of timidity.

He looked at the difficulties and dangers of the mighty task, at the distractions springing up within the Empire, and the hostile armies of the Moslem on its frontier. Better, he thought, that the imperial scepter should be placed in a stronger hand; better that Charles of Austria should grasp it.

He forgot that, in the words of Luther, Christendom was threatened by a worse foe than the Turk; and so Frederick passed on the imperial diadem to one who was to become a bitter foe of the Reformation.

But, though we cannot justify Frederick in shirking the toils and perils of the task to which he was now called, we recognize in his decision the overriding of a Higher than human wisdom. If Protestantism had grown up and flourished under the protection of the Empire, would not men have said that its triumph was owing to the fact that it had one so wise as Frederick to counsel it, and one so powerful to fight for it? Was it a blessing to primitive Christianity to be taken by Constantine under the protection of the arms of the first Empire? True, oceans of blood would have been spared, had Frederick girded on the imperial sword and become the firm friend and protector of the movement. But the Reformation without martyrs, without scaffolds, without blood! We should hardly have known it. It would be the Reformation without glory and without power.

Not its annals only, but the annals of the race would have been immensely poorer had they lacked the sublime spectacles of faith and heroism which were exhibited by the martyrs of the sixteenth century. Not an age in the future which the glory of these sufferers will not illuminate!

Frederick of Saxony had declined what the two most powerful sovereigns in Europe were so eager to obtain. On the 28th of June, 1519, the electoral conclave, in their scarlet robes, met in the Church of St. Bartholomew, in Frankfort-on-the-Main, and[proceeded to the election of the new emperor.

The votes were unanimous in favor of Charles of Spain. 7 It was more than a year (October, 1520) till Charles arrived in Germany to be crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle; and meanwhile the regency was continued in the hands of Frederick, and the shield was still extended over the little company of workers at Wittemberg, who were busily engaged in laying the foundations of an empire that would long outlast that of the man on whose head the diadem of the Caesars was about to be placed.

The year that elapsed between the election and the coronation of Charles was one of busy and prosperous labor at Wittemberg. A great light shone in the midst of the little band there gathered together, namely, the Word of God. The voice from the Seven Hills fell upon their ear unheeded; all doctrines and practices were tried by the Bible alone. Every day Luther took a step forward. New proofs of the falsehood and corruption of the Roman system continually crowded in upon him. It was now that the treatise of Laurentius Valla fell in his way, which satisfied him that the donation of Constantine to the Pope was a fiction. This strengthened the conclusion at which he had already arrived touching the Roman primacy, even that foundation it had none save the ambition of Popes and the credulity of the people. It was now that he read the writings of John Muss, and, to his surprise, he found in them the doctrine of Paul—that which it had cost himself such agonies to learn—respecting the free justification of sinners. “We have all,” he exclaimed, half in wonder, half in joy, “Paul, Augustine, and myself, been Hussites without knowing it! 8 and he added, with deep seriousness, “God will surely visit it upon the world that the truth was preached to it a century ago, and burned?” It was now that he proclaimed the great truth that the Sacrament will profit no man without faith, and that it is folly to believe that it will operate spiritual effects of itself and altogether independently of the disposition of the recipient. The Romanists stormed at him because he taught that the Sacrament ought to be administered in both kinds, not able to perceive the deeper principle of Luther, which razed the opus operatum with all attendant thereon. They were defending the outworks: the Reformer, with a giant’s strength, was levelling the citadel. It was amazing what activity and rigour of mind Luther at this period displayed. Month after month, rather week by week, he launched treatise on treatise. These productions of his pen, “like sparks from under the hammer, each brighter than that which prceceded it,” added fresh force to the conflagration that was blazing on all sides. His enemies attacked him: they but drew upon themselves heavier blows. It was, too, during this year of marvellously varied labor, that he published his Commentary upon the Galatians, “his own epistle” as he termed it. In that treatise he gave a clearer and fuller exposition than he had yet done of what with him was the great cardinal truth, even justification through faith alone. But he showed that such a justification neither makes void the law, inasmuch as it proceeds on the ground of a righteousness that fulfils the law, nor leads to licentiousness, inasmuch as the faith that takes hold of righteousness for justification, operates in the heart to its renewal, and a renewed heart is the fountain of every holy virtue and of every good work.

It was now, too, that Luther published his famous appeal to the emperor, the princes, and the people of Germany, on the Reformation of Christianity 9 This was the most graphic, courageous, eloquent, and spiritstirring production which had yet issued from his pen. It may be truly said of it that its words were battles. The sensation it produced was immense.

It was the trumpet that summoned the German nation to the great conflict. “The time for silence,” said Luther, “is past, and the time to speak is come.” And verily he did speak.

In this manifesto Luther first of ail draws a most; masterly picture of the Roman tyranny. Rome had achieved a three-fold conquest. She had triumphed over all ranks and classes of men; she had triumphed over all the rights and interests of human society; she had enslaved kings; she had enslaved Councils; she had enslaved the people. She had effected a serfdom complete and universal. By her dogma of Pontifical supremacy she had enslaved kings, princes, and magistrates. She had exalted the spiritual above the temporal in order that all rulers, and all tribunals and causes, might be subject to her own sole absolute and irresponsible will, and that, unchallenged and unpunished by the civil power, she might pursue her career of usurpation and oppression.

Has she not, Luther asked, placed the throne of her Pope above the throne of kings, so that no one dare call him to account? The Pontiff enlists armies, makes war on kings, and spills their subjects’ blood; nay, he challenges for the persons of his priests immunity from civil control, thus fatally deranging the order of the world, and reducing authority into prostration and contempt.

By her dogma of spiritual supremacy Rome had vanquished Councils. The Bishop of Rome claimed to be chief and ruler over all bishops. In him was centered the whole authority of the Church, so that let him promulgate the most manifestly erroneous dogma, or commit the most flagrant wickedness, no Council had the power to reprove or depose him. Councils were nothing, the Pope was all. The Spiritual supremacy made him the Church: the Temporal, the World.

By her assumed sole and infallible right of interpreting Holy Scripture, Rome had enslaved the people. She had put out their eyes; she had bound them in chains of darkness, that she might make them bow down to any god she was pleased to set up, and compel them to follow whither she was pleased to lead—into temporal bondage, into eternal perdition.

Behold the victory which Rome has achieved! She stands with her foot upon kings, upon bishops, upon peoples! All has she trodden into the dust.

These, to use Luther’s metaphor, were the three walls behind which Rome had entrenched herself. 10 Is she threatened with the temporal power? She is above it. Is it proposed to cite her before a Council? She only has the right to convoke one. Is she attacked from the Bible? She only has the power of interpreting it. Rome has made herself supreme over the throne, over the Church, over the Word of God itself! Such was the gulf in which Germany and Christendom were sunk. The Reformer called on all ranks in his nation to combine for their emancipation from a vassalage so disgraceful and so ruinous.

To rouse his countrymen, and all in Christendom in whose breasts there yet remained any love of truth or any wish for liberty, he brought the picture yet closer to the Germans, not trusting to any general portraiture, however striking. Entering into details, he pointed out the ghastly havoc the Papal oppression had inflicted upon their common country.

Rome, he said, had ruined Italy; for the decay of that fine land, completed in our day, was already far advanced in Luther’s. And now, the vampire Papacy having sucked the blood of its own country, a locust swarm from the Vatican had alighted on Germany. The Fatherland, the Reformer told the Germans, was being gnawed to the very bones. Annats, palliums, commendams, administrations, indulgences, reversions, incorporations, reserves—such were a few, and but a few, of the contrivances by which the priests managed to convey the wealth of Germany to Rome. Was it a wonder that princes, cathedrals, and people were poor? The wonder was, with such a cormorant swarm preying upon them, that anything was left.

All went into the Roman sack which had no bottom. Here was robbery surpassing that of thieves and highwaymen, who expiated their offences on the gibbet. Here were the tyranny and destruction of the gates of hell, seeing it was the destruction of soul and body, the ruin of both Church and State. Talk of the devastation of the Turk, and of raising armies to resist him! there is no Turk in all the world like the Roman Turk.

The instant remedies which he urged were the same with those which his great predecessor, Wicliffe, a full hundred and fifty years before, had recommended to the English people, and happily had prevailed upon the Parliament to so far adopt. The Gospel alone, which he was laboring to restore, could go to the root of these evils, but they were of a kind to be corrected in part by the temporal power. Every prince and State, he said, should forbid their subjects giving annats to Rome. Kings and nobles ought to resist the Pontiff as the greatest foe of their own prerogatives, and the worst enemy of the independence and prosperity of their kingdoms.

Instead of enforcing the bulls of the Pope, they ought to throw his ban, seal, and briefs into the Rhine or the Elbe. Archbishops and bishops should be forbidden, by imperial decree, to receive their dignities from Rome. All causes should be tried within the kingdom, and all persons made amenable to the country’s tribunals. Festivals should cease, as but affording occasions for idleness and all kinds of vicious indulgences, and the Sabbath should be the only day on which men ought to abstain from working. No more cloisters ought to be built for mendicant friars, whose begging expeditions had never turned to good, and never would; the law of clerical celibacy should be repealed, and liberty given to priests to marry like other men; and, in fine, the Pope, leaving kings and princes to govern their own realms, should confine himself to prayer and the preaching of the Word. “Hearest thou, O Pope, not all holy, but all sinful? Who gave thee power to lift thyself above God and break His laws? The wicked Satan lies through thy throat.—O my Lord Christ, hasten Thy last day, and destroy the devil’s nest at Rome. There sits ‘ the man of sin,’ of whom Paul speaks, ‘the son of perdition.’” Luther well understood what a great orator 11 since has termed “the expulsive power of a new emotion.” Truth he ever employed as the only effectual instrumentality for expelling error. Accordingly, underneath Rome’s system of human merit and salvation by works, he placed the doctrine of man’s inability and God’s free grace. This it was that shook into ruin the Papal fabric of human merit. By the same method of attack did Luther demolish the Roman kingdom of bondage. He penetrated the fiction on which itwas reared. Rome takes a man, shaves his head, anoints him with oil, gives him the Sacrament of orders, and so infuses into him a mysterious virtue. The whole class of men so dealt with form a sacerdotal order, distinct from and higher than laymen, and are the divinely appointed rulers of the world.

This falsehood, with the grievous and ancient tyranny of which it was the corner-stone, Luther overthrew by proclaiming the antagonistic truth. All really Christian men, said he, are priests. Had not the Apostle Peter, addressing all believers, said, “Ye are a royal priesthood”? It is not the shearing of the head, or the wearing of a peculiar garment, that makes a man a priest. It is faith that makes men priests, faith that unites them to Christ, and that gives them the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whereby they become filled with all holy grace and heavenly power. This inward anointing—this oil, better than any that ever came from the horn of bishop or Pope—gives them not the name only, bnt the nature, the purity, the power of priests; and this anointing have all they received who are believers on Christ.

Thus did Luther not only dislodge the falsehood, he filled its place with a glorious truth, lest, if left vacant, the, error should creep back. The fictitious priesthood of Rome—a priesthood which lay in oils and vestments, and into which men were introduced by scissors and the arts of necromancy—departed, and the true priesthood came in its room. Men opened their eyes upon their glorious enfranchisement. They were no longer the vassals of a sacerdotal oligarchy, the bondsmen of shavelings; they saw themselves to be the members of an illustrious brotherhood, whose Divine Head was in heaven.

Never was there a grander oration. Patriots and orators have, on many great and memorable occasions, addressed their fellow-men, if haply they might rouse them to overthrow the tyrants who held them in bondage. They have plied them with every argument, and appealed to every motive. They have, dwelt by turns on the bitterness of servitude and the sweetness of liberty.

But never did patriot; or orator address his fellow-men on a geater occasion than this—rarely, if ever, on one so great. Never did orator or patriot combat so powerful an antagonist, or denounce so foul a slavery, or smite hypocrisy and falsehood with blows so terrible. And if orator never displayed more eloquence, orator never showed greater courage. This appeal was made in the face of a thousand perils. On these Luther did not bestow a single thought. He saw only his countrymen, and all the nations of Christendom, sunk in a most humiliating and ruinous thraldom, and with fearless intrepidity and Herculean force he hurled bolt on bolt, quick, rapid, and fiery, against that tyranny which was devouring the earth. The man, the cause, the moment, the audience, all were sublime.

And never was appeal more successful. Like a peal of thunder it rang from side to side of Germany. It sounded the knell of Roman domination in that land. The movement was no longer confined to Wittemberg; it was henceforward truly national. It was no longer conducted exclusively by theologians. Princes, nobles, burghers joined in it. It was seen to be no battle of creed merely; it was a struggle for liberty, religious and civil; for rights, spiritual and temporal; for the generation then living, for all the generations that were to live in the future; a struggle, in fine, for the manhood of the human race.

Luther’s thoughts turned naturally to the new emperor. What part will this young potentate play in the movement? Presuming that it would be the just and magnanimous one that became so great a prince, Luther carried his appeal to the foot of the throne of Charles V. “The cause,” he said, “was worthy to come before the throne of heaven, much more before an earthly potentate.” Luther knew that his cause would triumph, whichever side Charles might espouse. But though neither Charles nor all the great ones of earth could stop it, or rob it of its triumph, they might delay it; they might cause the Reformation’s path to be amid scaffolds and bloody fields, over armies vanquished and thrones cast down. Luther would much rather that its progress should be peaceful and its arrival at the goal speedy. Therefore he came before the throne of Charles as a suppliant; trembling, not for his cause, but for those who he foresaw would but destroy themselves by opposing it. What audience did the monk receive? Tho emperor never deigned the doctor of Wittemberg a reply.

CHAPTER - POPE LEO’S BULL.

Eck at Rome — His Activity against Luther — Procures his Condemnation — The Bull — Authorship of the Bull — Its Terms — Its Two Bearers — The Bull crosses the Alps — Luther’s “Babylonish Captivity “ — The Sacrament — His Extraordinary Letter to Pope Leo — Bull arrives in Wittemberg — Luther enters a Notarial Protest against it — He Burns it — Astonishment and Rage of Rome — Luther’s Address to the Students.

PICTURE: View of Treves PICTURE: View of Coburg, where Luther resided during the Diet of Augsburg WE have almost lost sight of Dr. Eck. We saw him, after his disputation with Luther at Leipsic, set off for Rome. What was the object of his journey? He crossed the Alps to solicit the Pope’s help against the man whom he boasted having vanquished. He was preceded by Cardinal Cajetan, another “conqueror” after the fashion of Eck, and who too was so little satisfied with the victory which he so loudly vaunted that, like Eck, he had gone to Rome to seek help and find revenge.

In the metropolis of the Papacy these men encountered greater difficulties than they had reckoned on. The Roman Curia was apathetic. Its members had not yet realised the danger in its full extent. They scouted the idea that Wittemberg would conquer Rome, and that an insignificant monk could shake the Pontiff’s throne. History exhibited no example of any such astounding phenomenon. Great tempests had arisen in former ages. Rebel kings, proud heresiarchs, and barbarous or heretical nations had dashed themselves against the Papal chair, but their violence had no more availed to overturn it than ocean’s foam to overthrow the rock.

The affair, however, was not without its risks, to which all were not blind.

It was easy for the Church to launch her ban, but the civil power must execute it. What if it should refuse? Besides there were, even in Rome itself, a few moderate men who, having a near view of thedisorders of the Papal court, were not in their secret heart ill-pleased to hear Luther speak as he did. In the midst of so many adulators, might not one honest censor be tolerated? There were also men of diplomacy who said, Surely, amid the innumerable dignities and honors in the gift of the Church, something may be found to satisfy this clamorous monk. Send him a pall: give him a red hat. The members of the Curia were divided. The jurists were for citing Luther again before pronouncing sentence upon him: the theologians would brook no longer delay, 1 and pleaded for instant anathema.

The indefatigable Eck left no stone unturned to procure the condemnation of his opponent. He labored to gain over every one he came in contact with. His eloquence raised to a white heat the zeal of the monks. He spent hours of deliberation in the Vatican. He melted even the coldness of Leo.

He dwelt on the character of Luther—so obstinate and so incorrigible that all attempts at conciliation were but a waste of time. He dwelt on the urgency of the matter; while they sat in debate in the Vatican, the movement was growing by days, by moments, in Germany. To second Eck’s arguments, Cajetan, so ill as to be unable to walk, was borne every day in a litter into the council-chamber. 2 The doctor of Ingolstadt found another, and, it is said, even a more potent ally. This was no other than the banker Fugger of Augsburg. He was treasurer of the indulgences, and would have made a good thing of it if Luther had not spoilt his speculation. This awoke in him a most vehement desire to crush a heresy so hurtful to the Church’s interest—and his own.

Meanwhile rumors reached Luther of what was preparing for him in the halls of the Vatican. These rumors caused him no alarm; his heart was fixed; he saw a Greater than Leo. A very different scene from Rome did Wittemberg at that moment present. In the former city all was anxiety and turmoil, in the latter all was peaceful and fruitful labor. Visitors from all countries were daily arriving to see and converse with the Reformer. The halls of the university were crowded with youth the hope of the Reformation. The fame of Melanchthon was extending; he had just given his hand to Catherine Krapp, and so formed the first link between the Reformation and domestic life, infusing thereby a new sweetness into both.

It was at this hour, too, that a young Swiss priest was not ashamed to own his adherence to that Gospel which Luther preached. He waited upon the interim Papal nuncio in Helvetia, entreating him to use his influence at head-quarters to prevent the excommunication of the doctor of Wittemberg. The name of this priest was Ulrich Zwingli. This was the first break of day visible on the Swiss mountains.

Meanwhile Eck had triumphed at Rome. On the 15th of June, 1520, the Sacred College brought their lengthened deliberations to a close by agreeing to fulminate the bull of excommunication against Luther. The elegancies or barbarisms of its style are to be shared amongst its joint concoctors, Cardinals Pucci, Ancona, and Cajetan. “Now,” thought the Vulcans of the Vatican, when they had forged this bolt, “now we have finished the business. There is an end of Luther and the Wittemberg heresy.” To know how haughty at this moment was Rome’s spirit, we must turn to the bull itself. “Arise, O’ Lord!”—so ran this famous document—“arise and be Judge in Thy own cause. Remember the insults daily offered to Thee by infatuated men. Arise, O Peter! remember thy holy Roman Church, the mother of all Churches, and mistress of the faith. Arise, O Paul! for here is a new Porphyry, who is attacking thy doctrines, and the holy Popes our predecessors’! Arise, in fine, assembly of all the saints, holy Church of God, and intercede with the Almighty!” The bull then goes on to condenm as scandalous, heretical, and damnable, forty-one propositions extracted from the writings of Luther. The obnoxious propositions are simple statements of Gospel truth. One of the doctrines singled out for special anathema was that which took from Rome the right of persecution, by declaring that “to burn heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Ghost.” 5 After the maledictory clauses of the bull, the document went on to extol the marvellous forbearance of the Holy See, as shown in its many efforts to reclaim its erring son. To heresy Luther had added contumacy. He ‘had had the hardihood to appeal to the General Council in the face of the decretals of Plus II. and Julius II.; and he had filled up the measure of his sins by slandering the immaculate Papacy. The Papacy, nevertheless, yearned over its lost son, and “imitating the omnipotent God, who desireth not the death of a sinner,” earnestly exhorted the prodigal to return to the bosom of his mother, to bring back with him all he had led astray, and make proof of the sincerity of his penitence by reading his recantation, and committing all his books to the flames, within the space of sixty days. Failing to obey this summons, Luther and his adherents were pronounced incorrigible and accursed heretics, whom all princes and magistrates were enjoined to apprehend and send to Rome, or banish from the country in which they happened to be found. The towns where they continued to reside were laid under interdict, and every one who opposed the publication and execution of the bull was excommunicated in “the name of the Almighty God, and of the holy apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul.” These were haughty words; and at what a moment were they spoken! The finger of a man’s hand was even then about to appear, and to write on the wall that Rome had fulfilled her glory, had reached her zenith, and would henceforward hasten to her setting. But she knew not this. She saw only the track of light she had left behind her in her onward path athwart the ages. A thick veil hid the future with all its humiliations and defeats from her eyes.

The Pope advanced with excommunications in one hand and fiatteries in the other. Immediately on the back of this terrible fulmination came a letter to the Elector Frederick from Leo X. The Pope in this communication dilated on the errors of that “son of iniquity,” Martin Luther; he was sure that Frederick cherished an abhorrence of these errors, and he proceeded to pass a glowing eulogium on the piety and orthodoxy of the elector, who he knew would not permit the blackness of heresy to sully the brightness of his own and his ancestors’ fame 7 There was a day when these compliments would have been grateful to Frederick, but he had since drunk at the well of Wittemberg, and lost his relish for the Roman cistern. The object of the letter was transparent, and the effect it produced was just the opposite of that which the Pope intended. From that day Frederick of Saxony resolved with himself that he would protect the Reformer.

Every step that Rome took in the matter was marked by infatuation. She had launched her bull, and must needs see to its being published in all the countries of Christendom. In order to this the bull was put into the hands of two nuncios, than whom it would hardly have been possible to find two men better fitted to render an odious mission yet more odious. These were Eck and Aleander.

Eck, the conqueror at Leipsic, who had left amid the laughter of the Germans, now re-crosses the Alps. He bears in his hand the bull that is to complete the ruin of his antagonist. “It is Eck’s bull,” said the Germans, “not the Pope’s.” It is the treacherous dagger of a mortal enemy, not the axe of a Roman lictor 8 Onward, however, came the nuncio, proud of the bull, which he had so large a share in fabricating—the very Atlas, in his own eyes, who bore up the sinking Roman world. As he passed through the German towns, he posted up the important document, amid the coldness of the bishops, the contempt of the burghers, and the hootings of the youth of the universities. His progress was more like that of a fugitive than a conqueror. He had to hide at times from the popular fury in the nearest convent, and he closed his career by going into permanent seclusion at Coburg.

The other functionary was Aleander. To him was committed the task of bearing a copy of the bull to the Archbishop of Mainz, and of publishing it in the Rhenish towns. Aleander had been secretary to Pope Alexander VI., the infamous Borgia; and no worthier bearer could have been found of such a missive, and no happier choice could have been made of a colleague to Eck. “A worthy pair of ambassadors,” said some; “both are admirably suited for this work, and perfectly matched in effrontery, impudence, and debauchery.” The bull is slowly travelling towards Luther, and a glance at two publications which at this time (6th of October, 1520) issued from his pen, enables us to judge how far he is likely to meet it with a retractation. The Pope had exhorted him to burn all his writing: here are two additional ones which will have to be added to the heap before he applies the torch. The first is The Babylonish Captivity of the Chuch. “I denied,” said Luther, owning his obligations to his adversaries, “that the Papacy was of Divine origin, but I granted that it was of human right. Now, after reading all the subtleties on which these gentry have set up their idol, I know that the Papacy is none other than the kingdom of Babylon, and the violence of Nimrod the mighty hunter 10 I therefore beseech all my friends and all the booksellers to burn the books that I have written on this subject, and to substitute this; one proposition in their place: The Papacy is a general chase led by the Roman bishop to catch and destroy souls.” These are not the words of a man who is about to present himself in the garb of a penitent at the threshold of the Roman See.

Luther next passed in review the Sacramental theory of the Church of Rome. The priest and the Sacrament — these are the twin pillars of the Papal edifice, the two saviours of the world. Luther, in his Babylonish Captivity, laid his hands upon both pillars, and bore them to the ground.

Grace and salvation, he affirmed, are neither in the power of the priest nor in the efficacy of the Sacrament, but in the faith of the recipient. Faith lays hold on that which the Sacrament represents, signifies, and seals—even the promise of God; and the soul resting on that promise has grace and salvation. The Sacrament, on the side of God, represents the offered blessing; on the side of man, it is a help to faith which lays hold of that blessing. “Without faith in God’s promise,” said Luther, “the Sacrament is dead; it is a casket without a jewel, a scabbard without a sword.” Thus did he explode the opus operatum, that great mystic charm which Rome had substituted for faith, and the blessed Spirit who works in the soul by means of it. At the very moment when Rome was advancing to crush him with the bolt she had just forged, did Luther pluck from her hand that weapon of imaginary omnipotence which had enabled her to vanquish men.

Nay, more: turning to Leo himself, Luther did not hesitate to address him at this crisis in words of honest warning, and of singular courage. We refer, of course, to his well-known letter to the Pope. Some of the passages of that letter read like a piece of sarcasm, or a bitter satire; and yet it was written in no vein of this sort. The spirit it breathes is that of intense moral earnestness, which permitted the writer to think but of one thing, even the saving of those about to sink in a great destruction. Not thus did Luther write when he wished to pierce an opponent with the shafts of his wit, or to overwhelm him with the bolts of his indignation. The words he addressed to Leo were not those of insolence or of hatred, though some have taken them for such, but of affection too deep to remain silent, and too honest and fearless to flatter. Luther could distinguish between Leo and the ministers of his government.

We need give only a few extracts from this extraordinary letter: — “To the most Holy Father in God, Leo X., Pope at Rome, be all health in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. “From amid the fearful war which I have been waging for three years with disorderly men, I cannot help looking to you, O Leo, most Holy Father in God. And though the folly of your impious flatterers has compelled me to appeal from your judgment to a future Council, my heart is not turned away from your holiness; and I have not ceased to pray God earnestly, and with profound sighs, to grant prosperity to yourself and your Pontificate. “It is true I have attacked some anti-Christian doctrines, and have inflicted a deep wound on my adversaries because of their impiety.

Of this I repent not, as I have here Christ for an example. Of what use is salt if it have lost its savor, or the edge of a sword if it will not cut? Cursed be he who doeth the work of the Lord negligently.

Most excellent Leo, far from having conceived any bad thoughts with regard to you, my wish is that you may enjoy the most precious blessings throughout eternity. One thing only I have done; I have maintained the word of truth. I am ready to yield to all in everything; but as to this word I will not, I cannot abandon it. He who thinks differently on this subject is in error. “It is true that I have attacked the court of Rome; but neither yourself nor any man living can deny that there is greater corruption in it than was in Sodom and Gomorrah, and that the impiety that prevails makes cure hopeless. Yes, I have been horrified in seeing how, under your name, the poor followers of Christ were deceived… “You know it. Rome has for many years been inundating the world with whatever could destroy both soul and body. The Church of Rome, formerly the first in holiness, has become a den of robbers, a place of prostitution, a kingdom of death and hell; so that Antichrist himself, were he to appear, would be unable to increase the amount of wickedness. All this is as clear as day. “And yet, O Leo, you yourself are like a lamb in the midst of wolves—a Daniel in the lions’ den. But, single-handed, what can you oppose to these monsters? There may be three or four cardinals who to knowledge add virtue. But what are these against so many? You should perish by poison even before you could try any remedy. It is all over with the court of Rome. The wrath of God has overtaken and will consume it. It hates counsel—it fears reform—it will not moderate the fury of its ungodliness; and hence it may be justly said of it as of its mother: We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed—forsake her. “Rome is not worthy of you, and those who resemble you.” This, however, was no great compliment to Leo, for the Reformer immediately adds, “the only chief whom she deserves to have is Satan himself, and hence it is that in this Babylon he is more king than you are. Would to God that, laying aside this glory which your enemies so much extol, you would exchange it for a modest pastoral office, or live on your paternal inheritance. Rome’s glory is of a kind fit only for Iscariots. “Is it not true that under the vast expanse of heaven there is nothing more corrupt, more hateful than the Roman court? In vice and corruption it infinitely exceeds the Turks. Once the gate of heaven, it has become the mouth of hell—a wide mouth which the wrath of God keeps open, so that on seeing so many unhappy beings thrown headlong into it, I was obliged to lift my voice as in a tempest, in order that, at least, some might be saved from the terrible abyss.”

Luther next enters into some detail touching his communications with De Vio, Eck, and Miltitz, the agents who had come from the Roman court to make him cease his opposition to the Papal corruptions. And then he closes— “I cannot retract my doctrine. I cannot permit rules of interpretation to be imposed upon the Holy Scriptures. The Word of God—the source whence all freedom springs—must be left free.

Perhaps I am too bold in giving advice to so high a majesty, whose duty it is to instruct all men, but I see the dangers which surround you at Rome; I see you driven hither and thither; tossed, as it were, upon the billows of a raging sea. Charity urges me, and I cannot resist sending forth a warning cry.”

That he might not appear before the Pope empty-handed, he accompanied his letter with a little book on the “Liberty of the Christian.” The two poles of that liberty he describes as faith and love; faith which makes the Christian free, and love which makes him the servant of all. Having presented this little treatise to one who “needed only spiritual gifts,” he adds, “I commend myself to your Holiness. May the Lord keep you for ever and ever! Amen.”

So spoke Luther to Leo—the monk of Wittemberg to the Pontiff of Christendom. Never were spoken words of greater truth, and never were words of truth spoken in circumstances in which they were more needed, or at greater peril to the speaker. If we laud historians who have painted in truthful colors, at a safe distance, the character of tyrants, and branded their vices with honest indignation, we know not on what principle we can refuse to Luther our admiration and praise. Providence so ordered it that before the final rejection of a Church which had once been renowned throughout the earth for its faith, Truth, once more and for the last time, should lift up her voice at Rome.

The bull of excommunication arrived at Wittemberg in October, 1520. It had ere this been published far and wide, and almost the last man to see it was the man against whom it was fulminated. But here at last it is. Luther and Leo: Wittemberg and Rome now stand face to face—Rome has excommunicated Wittemberg, and Wittemberg will excommunicate Rome.

Neither can retreat, and the war must be to the death.

The bull could not be published in Wittemberg, for the university possessed in this matter powers superior to those of the Bishop of Brandenburg. It did, indeed, receive publication at Wittemberg, and that of a very emphatic kind, as we shall afterwards see, but not such publication as Eck wished and anticipated. The arrival of the terrible missive caused no fear in the heart of Luther. On the contrary, it inspired him with fresh courage. The movement was expanding into greater breadth. He saw clearly the hand of God guiding it to its goal.

Meanwhile the Reformer took those formal measures that were necessary to indicate his position in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the Church which had condemned him, and in the eyes of posterity. He renewed his appeal with all solemnity from Leo X. to a future Council. 11 On Saturday, the 17th of November, at ten o’clock in the morning, in the Augustine convent where he resided, in the presence of a notary public and five witnesses, among whom was Caspar Cruciger, he entered a solemn protest against the bull. The notary took down his words as he uttered them. His appeal was grounded on the four following points:—First, because he stood condemned without having been heard, and without any reason or proof assigned of his being in error.

Second, because he was required to deny that Christian faith was essential to the efficacious reception of the Sacrament.

Third, because the Pope exalts his own opinions above the Word of God; and Fourth, because, as a proud contemner of the Holy Church of God, and of a legitimate Council, the Pope had refused to convoke a Council of the Church, declaring that a Council is nothing of itself.

This was not Luther’s affair only, but that of all Christendom, and accordingly he accompanied his protest against the bull by a solemn appeal to the “emperor, the electors, princes, barons, nobles, senators, and the entire Christian magistracy of Germany,” calling upon them, for the sake of Catholic truth, the Church of Christ, and the liberty and right of a lawful Council, to stand by him and his appeal, to resist the impious tyranny of the Pope, and not to execute the bull till he had been legally summoned and heard before impartial judges, and convicted from Scripture. Should they act dutifully in this matter, “Christ, our Lord,” he said, “would reward them with His everlasting grace. But if there be any who scorn my prayer, and continue to obey that impious man, the Pope, rather than God,” he disclaimed all responsibility for the consequences, and left them to the supreme judgment of Almighty God.

In the track of the two nuncios blazed numerous piles—not of men, as yet, but of books, the writings of Luther. In Louvain, in Cologne, and many other towns in the hereditary estates of the emperor, a bonfire had been made of his works. To these many piles of Eck and Aleander, Luther replied by kindling one pile. He had written his bill of divorcement, now he will give a sign that he has separated irrevocably from Rome.

A placard on the walls of the University of Wittemberg announced that it was Luther’s intention to burn the Pope’s bull, and that this would take place at nine o’clock in the morning of December 10th, at the eastern gate of the town. On the day and hour appointed, Luther was seen to issue from the gate of the university, followed by a train of doctors and students to the number of 600, and a crowd of citizens who enthusiastically sympathised. The procession held on its way through the streets of Wittemberg, till, making its exit at the gate, it bore out of the city—for all unclean things were burned without the camp—the bull of the Pontiff.

Arriving at the spot where this new and strange immolation was to take place, the members of procession found a scaffold already erected, and a pile of logs laid in order upon it. One of the more distinguished Masters of Arts took the torch and applied it to the pile. Soon the flames blazed up.

At this moment, the Reformer, wearing the frock of his order, stepped out from the crowd and approached the fire, holding in his hand the several volumes which constitute the Canon Law, the Compend of Gratian, the Clementines, the Extravagants of Julius II., and other and later coinages of the Papal mint. He placed these awful volumes one after the other on the blazing pile.

It fared with them as if they had been common things. Their mysterious virtue did not profit in the fire. The flames, fastening on them with their fierce tongues, speedily turned these monuments of the toil, the genius, and the infallibility of the Popes to ashes. This hecatomb of Papal edicts was not yet complete. The bull of Leo X. still remained. Luther held it up in his hand. “Since thou hast vexed the Holy One of the Lord,” said he, “may everlasting fire vex and consume thee.” 12 With these words he flung it into the burning mass. Eck had pictured to himself the terrible bull, as he bore it in triumph across the Alps, exploding in ruin above the head of the monk.

A more peaceful exit awaited it. For a few moments it blazed and crackled in the flames, and then it calmly mingled its dust with the ashes of its predecessors, that winter morning, on the smouldering pile outside the walls of Wittemberg. The blow had been struck. The procession reformed. Doctors, masters, students, and townsmen, again gathering round the Reformer, walked back, amid demonstrations of triumph, to the city.

Had Luther begun his movement with this act, he would but have wrecked it. Men would have seen only fury and rage, where now they saw courage and faith. The Reformer began by posting up his “Theses”—by letting in the light upon the dark pIaces of Rome. Now, however, the minds of men were to a large extent prepared. The burning of the bull was, therefore, the right act at the right time. It was felt to be the act, not of a solitary monk, but of the German people—the explosion of a nation’s indignation. The tidings of it traveled fast and far; and when the report reached Rome, the powers of the Vatican trembled upon their seats. It sounded like the Voice that is said to have echoed through the heathen world at our Savior’s birth, and which awoke lamentations and wailings amid the shrines and groves of paganism: “Great Pan is dead!”

Luther knew that one blow would not win the battle; that the war was only commenced, and must be followed up by ceaseless, and if possible still mightier blows. Accordingly next day, as he was lecturing on the Psalms, he reverted to the episode of the bull, and broke out into a strain of impassioned eloquence and invective. The burning of the Papal statutes, said he, addressing the crowd of students that thronged the lecture-room, is but the sigal, the thing signified was what they were to aim at, even the conflagration of the Papacy. His brow gathered and his voice grew more solemn as he continued: “Unless with all your hearts you abandon the Papacy, you cannot save your souls. The reign of the Pope is so opposed to the law of Christ and the life of the Christian, that it will be safer to roam the desert and never see the face of man, than abide under the rule of Antichrist. I warn every man to look to his soul’s welfare, lest by submitting to the Pope he deny Christ. The time is come when Christians must choose between death here and death hereafter. For my own part, I choose death here. I cannot lay such a burden upon my soul as to hold my peace in this matter: I must look to the great reckoning. I abominate the Babylonian pest. As long as I live I will proclaim the truth. If the wholesale destruction of souls throughout Christendom cannot be prevented, at least I shall labor to the utmost of my power to rescue my own countrymen from the bottomless pit of perdition.” The burning of the Pope’s bull marks the closing of one stage and the opening of another in the great movement. It defines the fullness of Luther’s doctrinal views; and it was this matured and perfected judgment respecting the two systems and the two Churches, that enabled him to act with such decision—a decision which astounded Rome, and which brought numerous friends around himself. Rome never doubted that her bolt would crush the monk. She had stood in doubt as to whether she ought to launch it, but she never doubted that, once launched, it would accomplish the suppression of the Wittemberg revolt. For centuries no opponent had been able to stand before her. In no instance had her anathemas failed to execute the vengeance they were meant to inflict. Kings and nations, principalities and powers, when struck by excommunication, straightway collapsed and perished as if a vial of fire had been emptied upon them. And who was this Wittemberg heretic, that he should defy a power before which the whole world crouched in terror? Rome had only to speak, to stretch out her arm, to let fall her bolt, and this adversary would be swept from her path; nor name nor memorial would remain to him on earth. Rome would make Wittemberg and its movement a reproach, a hissing, and a desolation. She did speak, she did stretch out her arm, she did launch her bolt. And what was the result? To Rome a terrible and appalling one. The monk, rising up in his strength, grasped the bolt hurled against him from the Seven Hills, and flung it back at her from whom it came.

CHAPTER - INTERVIEWS AND NEGOTIATIONS,

A Spring-time — The New Creation — Three Circles — The Inner Reformed Doctrine-The MiddleMorality and Liberty — The Outer — The Arts and Sciences — Charles V. Crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle — Papal Envoy Aleander Labors to have the Bull executed against Luther — His Efforts with Frederick and Charles — Prospect of a War with France — The Emperor courts the Pope — Luther to be the Bribe — The Pope Won — The Court goes to Worms — A Tournament Interrupted — The Emperor’s Draft — Edict for Luther’s Execution.

PICTURE: Desiderius Erasmus PICTURE: Luther Burning the Popes Bull PICTURE: View of Cologne PICTURE: The Cathedral of Worms FROM the posting of the “Theses” on the doors of the Schloss Kirk of Wittemberg, on October 31st, 1517, to the burning of the Pope’s bull on December 10th, 1520, at the eastern gate of the same town, are just three years and six weeks. In these three short years a great change has taken place in the opinions of men, and indeed in those of Luther himself. A blessed spring-time seems to have visited the world. How sweet the light!

How gracious the drops that begin to fall out of heaven upon the weary earth! What a gladness fills the souls of men, and what a deep joy breaks out on every side, making itself audible in the rising songs of the nations, which, gathering around the standard of a recovered Gospel, now “come,” in fulfilment of an ancient oracle, “unto Zion with singing! ” The movement we are contemplating has many circles or spheres. We trace it into the social life of man; there we see it bringing with it purity and virtue. We trace it into the world of intellect and letters; there it is the parent of rigour and grace—a literature whose bloom is fairer, and whose fruit is sweeter than the ancient one, immediately springs up. We trace it into the politics of nations; there it is the nurse of order, and the guardian of liberty. Under its aegis there grow up mighty thrones, and powerful and prosperous nations. Neither is the monarch a tyrant, nor are the subjects