Up to this time, however, there had been no questioning of the divine
rights claimed by the hierarchy. Luther was still a Papist, and
thought to grow his plants of evangelic faith under the shadow of the
Upas of ecclesiasticism. He had not yet been brought to see how his
Augustinian theology concerning sin and grace ran afoul of the entire
round of the mediæval system and methods of holiness. It was only the
famous Leipsic Disputation between him and Dr. John Eck that showed
him the remoter and deeper relations of his position touching
indulgences.
This otherwise fruitless debate had the effect of making the nature
and bearings of the controversy clear to both sides. Eck now
distinctly saw that Luther must be forcibly put down or the whole
papal system must fall; and Luther was made to realize that he must
surrender his doctrine of salvation through simple faith in Christ or
break with the pope and the hierarchical system.
Accepting the pontifical doctrines as true, Eck claimed the victory,
because he had driven Luther to expressions at variance with those
doctrines. On the other hand, Luther had shown that the pontifical
claims were without foundation in primitive Christianity or the Holy
Scriptures; that the Papacy was not of divine authority or of the
essence of the Church; that the Church existed before and beyond the
papal hierarchy, as well as under it; that the only Head of the
universal Christian Church is Christ himself; that wherever there is
true faith in God's Word, there the Church is, whatever the form of
external organization; that the popes could err and had erred, and
councils likewise; and that neither separately nor together could they
rightfully decree or ordain contrary to the Scriptures, the only
infallible Rule.
To all this Eck could make no answer except that it was Hussism over
again, which the Council of Constance had condemned, and that, from
the standpoint of the hierarchy, Luther was a heretic and ought to be
dealt with accordingly.