and the frauds on which it was based; monastic corruptions;
penance, and indulgences for sin, and the sale of them, more
shameful still; the secular character of the clergy; the pomp,
wealth, and arrogance of bishops; auricular confession; celibacy
of the clergy, their idle and dissolute lives, their ignorance
and superstition; the worship of the images of saints, and
masses for the dead; the gorgeous ritualism of the mass; the
substitution of legends for the Scriptures, which were not
translated, or read by the people; pilgrimages, processions,
idle pomps, and the multiplication of holy days; above all, the
grinding spiritual despotism exercised by priests, with their
inquisitions and excommunications, all centring in the terrible
usurpation of the popes, keeping the human mind in bondage, and
suppressing all intellectual independence,--these evils prevailed
everywhere. I say nothing here of the massacres, the poisonings, the
assassinations, the evil doings of various kinds of which history
accuses many of the pontiff's who sat on papal thrones. Such evils
did not stare the German and English in the face, as they did the
Italians in the fifteenth century. In Germany the vices were
mediaeval and monkish, not the unblushing infidelity and levities
of the Renaissance, which made a radical reformation in Italy
impossible. In Germany and England there was left among the people
the power of conscience, a rough earnestness of character, the
sense of moral accountability, and a fear of divine judgment.
Luther was just the man for his work. Sprung from the people,
poor, popular, fervent; educated amid privations, religious by
nature, yet with exuberant animal spirits; dogmatic, boisterous,
intrepid, with a great insight into realities; practical, untiring,
learned, generally cheerful and hopeful; emancipated from the
terrors of the Middle Ages through great struggles; progressive in
his spirit, lofty in his character, earnest in his piety, believing
in the future and in God,--such was the great leader of this
emancipating movement. He was not so learned as Erasmus, nor so
logical as Calvin, nor so scholarly as Melancthon, nor so broad as
Cranmer. He was not a polished man; he was often offensively rude
and brusque, and lavish of epithets. Nor was he what we call a
modest and humble man, he was intellectually proud, disdainful, and
sometimes, when irritated, abusive. None of his pictures represent
him as a refined-looking man, scarcely intellectual, but coarse and
sensual rather, as Socrates seemed to the Athenians. But with
these defects and drawbacks he had just such traits and gifts as
fitted him to lead a great popular movement,--bold, audacious, with
deep convictions and rapid intellectual processes; prompt, decided,
kind-hearted, generous, brave; in sympathy with the people,
eloquent, Herculean in energies, with an amazing power of work;
electrical in his smile and in his words, and always ready for
contingencies. Had he been more polished, more of a gentleman,
more fastidious, more scrupulous, more ascetic, more modest, he
would have shrunk from his tasks; he would have lost the elasticity
of his mind, he would have been discouraged. Even Saint Augustine,
a broader and more catholic man than Luther, could not have done
his work. He was a sort of converted Mirabeau. He loved the
storms of battle; he impersonated revolutionary ideas. But he was
a man of thought, as well as of action.
Luther's origin was of the humblest. Born in Eisleben, Nov. 10,
1483, the son of a poor peasant, his childhood was spent in penury.
He was religious from a boy. He was religious when he sang hymns
for a living, from house to house, before the people of Mansfield
while at school there, and also at the schools of Magdeburg and
Eisenach, where he still earned his bread by his voice. His
devotional character and his music gained for him a friend who
helped him through his studies, till at the age of eighteen he
entered the University at Erfurt, where he distinguished himself in
the classics and the Mediaeval philosophy. And here his religious
meditations led him to enter the Augustinian monastery: he entered
that strict retreat, as others did, to lead a religious life. The
great question of all time pressed upon his mind with peculiar
force, "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" And it
shows that religious life in Germany still burned in many a heart,
in spite of the corruptions of the Church, that a young man like
Luther should seek the shades of monastic seclusion, for meditation
and study. He was a monk, like other monks; but it seems he had
religious doubts and fears more than ordinary monks. At first he
conformed to the customary ways of men seeking salvation. He
walked in the beaten road, like Saint Dominic and Saint Francis; he
accepted the great ideas of the Middle Ages, which he was
afterwards to repudiate,--he was not beyond them, or greater than
they were, at first; he fasted like monks, and tormented his body
with austerities, as they did from the time of Benedict, he sang in
the choir from early morn, and practised the usual severities. But
his doubts and fears remained. He did not, like other monks, find
peace and consolation; he did not become seraphic, like Saint
Francis, or Bonaventura, or Loyola. Perhaps his nature repelled
asceticism; perhaps his inquiring and original mind wanted
something better and surer to rest upon than the dreams and visions
of a traditionary piety. Had he been satisfied with the ordinary
mode of propitiating the Deity, he would never have emerged from
his retreat.
To a scholar the monastery had great attractions, even in that age.
It was still invested with poetic associations and consecrated
usages; it was indorsed by the venerable Fathers of the Church; it
was favorable to study, and free from the noisy turmoil of the
world. But with all these advantages Luther was miserable. He
felt the agonies of an unforgiven soul in quest of peace with God;
he could not get rid of them, they pursued him into the immensity
of an intolerable night. He was in despair. What could
austerities do for HIM? He hungered and thirsted after the truth,
like Saint Augustine in Milan. He had no taste for philosophy, but
he wanted the repose that philosophers pretended to teach. He was
then too narrow to read Plato or Boethius. He was a self-tormented
monk without relief; he suffered all that Saint Paul suffered at
Tarsus. In some respects this monastic pietism resembled the
pharisaism of Saul, in the schools of Tarsus,--a technical, rigid,
and painful adherence to rules, fastings, stated prayers, and petty
ritualisms, which, originally framed as aids to grace, by
repetition lose their power; based on the enormous error that man
may win heaven by external practices, in which, however, he can
never perfect himself, though he were to live, like Simeon
Stylites, on the top of a pillar for twenty years without once
descending; an eternal unrest, because perfection cannot be
attained; the most terrible slavery to which a man can be
conscientiously doomed, verging into hypocrisy and fanaticism.
It was then that a kind and enlightened friend visited him, and
recommended him to read the Bible. The Bible never has been a
sealed book to monks; it was ever highly prized; no convent was
without it: but it was read with the spectacles of the Middle Ages.
Repentance meant penance. In Saint Paul's Epistles Luther
discovers the true ground of justification,--not works, but faith;
for Paul had passed through similar experiences. Works are good,
but faith is the gift of God. Works are imperfect with the best of
men, even the highest form of works, to a Mediaeval eye,--self-
expiation and penance; but faith is infinite, radiating from divine
love; faith is a boundless joy,--salvation by the grace of God, his
everlasting and precious boon to people who cannot climb to heaven
on their hands and knees, the highest gift which God ever bestowed
on men,--eternal life.
Luther is thus emancipated from the ideas of the Middle Ages and of
the old Syriac monks and of the Jewish Pharisees. In his
deliverance he has new hopes and aspirations; he becomes cheerful,
and devotes himself to his studies. Nothing can make a man more
cheerful and joyful than the cordial reception of a gift which is
infinite, a blessing which is too priceless to be bought. The
pharisee, the monk, the ritualist, is gloomy, ascetic, severe,
intolerant; for he is not quite sure of his salvation. A man who
accepts heaven as a gift is full of divine enthusiasm, like Saint
Augustine. Luther now comprehends Augustine, the great doctor of
the Church, embraces his philosophy and sees how much it has been
misunderstood. The rare attainments and interesting character of
Luther are at last recognized; he is made a professor of divinity
in the new university, which the Elector of Saxony has endowed, at
Wittenberg. He becomes a favorite with the students; he enters
into the life of the people. He preaches with wonderful power, for
he is popular, earnest, original, fresh, electrical. He is a monk
still, but the monk is merged in the learned doctor and eloquent
preacher. He does not yet even dream of attacking monastic
institutions, or the Pope; he is a good Catholic in his obedience
to authorities; but he hates the Middle Ages, and all their
ghostly, funereal, burdensome, and technical religious customs. He
is human, almost convivial,--fond of music, of poetry, of society,
of friends, and of the good cheer of the social circle. The people
love Luther, for he has a broad humanity. They never did love
monks, only feared their maledictions.
About this time the Pope was in great need of money: this was Leo
X. He not only squandered his vast revenues in pleasures and
pomps, like any secular monarch; he not only collected pictures and
statues,--but he wanted to complete St. Peter's Church. It was
the crowning glory of papal magnificence. Where was he to get
money except from the contributions of Christendom? But kings and
princes and bishops and abbots were getting tired of this
everlasting drain of money to Rome, in the shape of annats and
taxes; so Leo revived an old custom of the Dark Ages,--he would
sell "plenary indulgences"; and he sent his agents to market them
in every country.
The agent in Saxony was a very popular preacher, a shrewd Dominican
prior by the name of Tetzel. Luther abhorred him, not so much
because he was vulgar and noisy, but because his infamous business
derogated from the majesty of God and religion. In wrathful
indignation he preached against Tetzel and his practices,--the
abominable traffic of indulgences. Only God can forgive sins. It
seemed to him to be an insult to the human understanding that any
man, even a pope, should grant an absolution for crime. These
indulgences also provided the release of deceased friends from
purgatory. And it was useless to preach against them so long as
the principles on which they were based were not assailed.
Everybody believed in penance; everybody believed that this, in
some form, would insure salvation. It consisted in a temporal
penalty or punishment inflicted on the sinner after confession
to the priest, as a condition of his receiving absolution
or an authoritative pardon of his sin by the Church as God's
representative. And the indulgence was originally an official
remission of this penalty, to be gained by offerings of money to
the Church for its sacred uses. However ingenious this theory, the
practice inevitably ran into corruption. The people who bought,
the agents who sold, the popes who dispensed, these indulgences
wrested them from their original intention.
Fortunately, in those times in Germany everybody felt he had a soul
to save. Neither the popes nor the Church ever lost that idea.
The clergy ruled by its force,--by stimulating fears of divine
wrath, whereby the wretched sinner would be physically tormented
forever, unless he escaped by a propitiation of the Deity,--the
common form of which was penance, deeds of supererogation,
donations to the Church, self-expiation, works of fear and
penitence, which commended themselves to the piety of the age; and
this piety Luther now believed to be unenlightened, not the kind
enjoined by Christ or Paul.
So, to instruct his students and the people as to the true ground
of justification, which he had worked out from the study of the
Bible and Saint Augustine amid the agonies of a tormented
conscience, Luther prepared his theses,--those celebrated ninety-
five propositions, which he affixed to the gates of the church of
Wittenberg, and which excited a great sensation throughout Northern
Germany, reaching even the eyes of the Pope himself, who did not
comprehend their tendency, but was struck with their power. "This
Doctor Luther," said he, "is a man of fine genius." The students
of the university, and the people generally, were kindled as if by
Pentecostal fires. The new invention of printing scattered those
theses everywhere, far and near; they reached the humble hamlet as
well as the palaces of bishops and princes. They excited immediate
and immense enthusiasm: there was freshness in them, originality,
and great ideas. We cannot wonder at the enthusiasm which those
religious ideas excited nearly four hundred years ago when we
reflect that they were not cant words then, not worn-out
platitudes, not dead dogmas, but full of life and exciting
interest,--even as were the watchwords of Rousseau--"Liberty,
Fraternity, Equality"--to Frenchmen, on the outbreak of their
political revolution. And as those watchwords--abstractly true--
roused the dormant energies of the French to a terrible conflict
against feudalism and royalty, so those theses of Luther kindled
Germany into a living flame. And why? Because they presented more
cheerful and comforting grounds of justification than had been
preached for one thousand years,--faith rather than penance; for
works hinged on penance. The underlying principle of those
propositions was GRACE,--divine grace to save the world,--the
principle of Paul and Saint Augustine; therefore not new, but
forgotten; a mighty comfort to miserable people, mocked and cheated
and robbed by a venal and a gluttonous clergy. Even Taine
admits that this doctrine of grace is the foundation stone of
Protestantism as it spread over Europe in the sixteenth century.
In those places where Protestantism is dead,--where rationalism or
Pelagian speculations have taken its place,--this fact may be
denied; but the history of Northern Europe blazes with it,--a fact
which no historian of any honesty can deny.
Very likely those who are not in sympathy with this great idea of
Luther, Augustine, and Paul may ignore the fact,--even as Caleb
Cushing once declared to me, that the Reformation sprang from the
desire of Luther to marry Catherine Bora; and that learned and
ingenious sophist overwhelmed me with his citations from infidel
and ribald Catholic writers like Audin. Greater men than he deny
that grace underlies the whole original movement of the reformers,
and they talk of the Reformation as a mere revolt from Rome, as a
war against papal corruption, as a protest against monkery and the
dark ages, brought about by the spirit of a new age, the onward
march of humanity, the necessary progress of society. I admit the
secondary causes of the Reformation, which are very important,--the
awakened spirit of inquiry in the sixteenth century, the revival of
poetry and literature and art, the breaking up of feudalism,
fortunate discoveries, the introduction of Greek literature, the
Renaissance, the disgusts of Christendom, the voice of martyrs
calling aloud from their funeral pyres; yea, the friendly hand of
princes and scholars deploring the evils of a corrupted Church.
But how much had Savonarola, or Erasmus, or John Huss, or the
Lollards aroused the enthusiasm of Europe, great and noble as were
their angry and indignant protests? The genius of the Reformation
in its early stages was a RELIGIOUS movement, not a political or a
moral one, although it became both political and moral. Its
strength and fervor were in the new ideas of salvation,--the same
that, gave power to the early preachers of Christianity,--not
denunciations of imperialism and slavery, and ten thousand evils
which disgraced the empire, but the proclamation of the ideas of
Paul as to the grounds of hope when the soul should leave the body;
the salvation of the Lord, declared to a world in bondage. Luther
kindled the same religious life among the masses that the apostles
did; the same that Wyclif did, and by the same means,--the
declaration of salvation by belief in the incarnate Son of God,
shedding his blood in infinite love. Why, see how this idea spread
through Germany, Switzerland, and France, and took possession of
the minds of the English and Scotch yeomanry, with all their stern
and earnest ruggedness. See how it was elaborately expanded by
Calvin, how it gave birth to a new and strong theology, how it
entered into the very life of the people, especially among the
Puritans,--into the souls of even Cromwell's soldiers. What made
"The Pilgrim's Progress" the most popular book ever published in
England? Because it reflected the theology of the age, the
religion of the people, all based on Luther's theses,--the revival
of those old doctrines which converted the Roman provinces from
Paganism. I do not care if these statements are denied by
Catholics, or rationalists, or progressive savants. What is it to
me that the old views have become unfashionable, or are derided, or
are dead, in the absorbing materialism of this Epicurean yet
brilliant age? I know this, that I am true to history when I
declare that the glorious Reformation in which we all profess to
rejoice, and which is the greatest movement, and the best, of our
modern time,--susceptible of indefinite application, interlinked
with the literature and the progress of England and America,--took
its first great spiritual start from the ideas of Luther as to
justification. This was the voice of heaven's messenger
proclaiming aloud, so that the heavens re-echoed to the glorious
and triumphant annunciation, and the earth heard and rejoiced with
exceeding joy, "Behold, I send tidings of salvation: it is grace,
divine grace, which shall undermine the throne of popes and pagans,
and reconcile a fallen world to God!"
Yes, it was a Christian philosopher, a theologian,--a doctor of
divinity, working out in his cell and study, through terrible
internal storm and anguish, and against the whole teaching of monks
and bishops and popes and universities, from the time of
Charlemagne, the same truth which Augustine learned in his
wonderful experiences,--who started the Reformation in the right
direction; who became the greatest benefactor of these modern
times, because he based his work on everlasting and positive ideas,
which had life in them, and hope, and the sanction of divine
authority; thus virtually invoking the aid of God Almighty to bring
about and restore the true glory of his Church on earth,--a glory
forever to be identified with the death of his Son. I see no law
of progress here, no natural and necessary development of nations;
I see only the light and power of individual genius, brushing away
the cobwebs and sophistries and frauds of the Middle Ages, and
bringing out to the gaze of Europe the vital truth which, with
supernatural aid, made in old times the day of Pentecost. And I
think I hear the emancipated people of Saxony exclaim, from the
Elector downwards, "If these ideas of Doctor Luther are true, and
we feel them to be, then all our penances have been worse than
wasted,--we have been Pagans. Away with our miserable efforts to
scale the heavens! Let us accept what we cannot buy; let us make
our palaces and our cottages alike vocal with the praises of Him
whom we now accept as our Deliverer, our King, and our Eternal
Lord."
Thus was born the first great idea of the Reformation, out of
Luther's brain, out of his agonized soul, and sent forth to
conquer, and produce changes most marvellous to behold.
It is not my object to discuss the truth or error of this
fundamental doctrine. There are many who deny it, even among
Protestants. I am not a controversialist, or a theologian:
I am simply an historian. I wish to show what is historically
true and clear; and I defy all the scholars and critics of the
world to prove that this doctrine is not the basal pillar of
the Reformation of Luther. I wish to make emphatic the statement
that JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH was, as an historical fact, the great
primal idea of Luther; not new, but new to him and to his age.
I have now to show how this idea led to others; how they became
connected together; how they produced not only a spiritual
movement, but political, moral, and intellectual forces, until all
Europe was in a blaze.
Thus far the agitation under Luther had been chiefly theological.
It was not a movement against popes or institutions, it was not
even the vehement denunciation against sin in high places, which
inflamed the anger of the Pope against Savonarola. To some it
doubtless seemed like the old controversy between Augustine and
Pelagius, like the contentions between Dominican and Franciscan
monks. But it was too important to escape the attention of even
Leo X., although at first he gave it no thought. It was a
dangerous agitation; it had become popular; there was no telling
where it would end, or what it might not assail. It was deemed
necessary to stop the mouth of this bold and intellectual Saxon
theologian.
So the voluptuous, infidel, elegant Pope--accomplished in manners
and pagan arts and literature--sent one of the most learned men of
the Church which called him Father, to argue with Doctor Luther,
confute him, conquer him,--deeming this an easy task. But the
doctor could not be silenced. His convictions were grounded on the
rock; not on Peter, but on the rock from which Peter derived his
name. All the papal legates and cardinals in the world could
neither convince nor frighten him. He courted argument; he
challenged the whole Church to refute him.
Then the schools took up the controversy. All that was imposing in
names, in authority, in traditions, in associations, was arrayed
against him. They came down upon him with the whole array of
scholastic learning. The great Goliath of controversy in that day
was Doctor Eck, who challenged the Saxon monk to a public
disputation at Leipsic. All Germany was interested. The question
at issue stirred the nation to its very depths.
The disputants met in the great hall of the palace of the Elector.
Never before was seen in Germany such an array of doctors and
theologians and dignitaries. It rivalled in importance and dignity
the Council of Nice, when the great Constantine presided, to settle
the Trinitarian controversy. The combatants were as great as
Athanasius and Arius,--as vehement, as earnest, though not so
fierce. Doctor Eck was superior to Luther in reputation, in
dialectical skill, in scholastic learning. He was the pride of the
universities. Luther, however, had deeper convictions, more
genius, greater eloquence, and at that time he was modest.
The champion of the schools, of sophistries and authorities, of
dead-letter literature, of quibbles, refinements, and words, soon
overwhelmed the Saxon monk with his citations, decrees of councils,
opinions of eminent ecclesiastics, the literature of the Church,
its mighty authority. He was on the eve of triumph. Had the
question been settled, as Doctor Eck supposed, by authorities, as
lawyers and pedants would settle the question, Luther would have
been beaten. But his genius came to his aid, and the consciousness
of truth.
He swept away the premises of the argument. He denied the supreme
authority of popes and councils and universities. He appealed to
the Scriptures, as the only ultimate ground of authority. He did
not deny authority, but appealed to it in its highest form. This
was unexpected ground. The Church was not prepared openly to deny
the authority of Saint Paul or Saint Peter; and Luther, if he did
not gain his case, was far from being beaten, and--what was of
vital importance to his success--he had the Elector and the people
with him.