CHAPTER IX.

THE DIET OF WORMS.

If we consider the powerful influences then at work to further the

ecclesiastical movement in Germany, it seems reasonable to suppose

that they would succeed in accomplishing its ends through the power

of the Word alone, without any such bloodshed and political

convulsions as were feared; and that Germany, therefore, though

vexed with spiritual tempests--the 'tumult and uproar' whose

outburst Luther already discerned--must inevitably rid herself of

the forms and fetters of Romish Churchdom, by the sheer force of her

new religious convictions. And, indeed, even in the short interval

since Luther had commenced, and only with slow steps had advanced

further in the contest, a success had been attained which no one at

the beginning could have ventured to expect, or even hope for.

Frederick the Wise, the Nestor among the great German Princes of the

Empire, had plainly freed himself inwardly from those fetters, and

though, as yet, he did not feel himself called upon to express his

sentiments by decisive action, his conduct, nevertheless, could not

fail to make an impression on those about him. The nobility and

burgher class, among whom the new doctrines had made most progress,

were, politically speaking, powerfully represented at the Diets. The

most important of the spiritual lords, the Archbishop of Magdeburg

and Mayence, who had most cause to resent Luther's onslaught on

indulgences, had hitherto adopted a cautious and expectant attitude,

which left him free to join at some future time a national revolt

against his Romish sovereign. The Diets, indeed, had hitherto

submitted to their old ecclesiastical grievances without any fear of

the wrath or scolding of the Pope. But, as soon as the conviction

prevailed among the Estates, that the pretensions of the Roman see

had no eternal, Divine foundation, they could take in hand at once,

on their own account, the reformation of the Church. As for the

episcopacy, in particular, Luther had never desired, as his Address

to the Nobility sufficiently showed, to interfere with or disturb it

in any way, provided only the bishops would feed their flocks

according to God's Word. An independent German episcopate would then

have been well able to undertake the reforms necessary in the system

of worship. Luther himself, as we shall see, wished and continued to

wish that those reforms should be as few and simple as possible.

In the various German states which afterwards became Protestant, the

work of reform was in fact accomplished, without any serious

agitation, by the Princes themselves, in concert with their Estates;

and in the free towns by the magistrates and representatives of the

burghers, notwithstanding the fact that its opponents were supported

by the majority of the Empire and by the Emperor himself, who was a

staunch adherent of the Romish system. How much easier, in

comparison, must the work of Evangelical reformation have been, had

it been resolved on by the power of the Empire itself, in accord

with the overwhelming voice of the whole nation.

Reference was made, and in significant terms, to the savage and

cruel war of the Hussites. But no one could deny to Luther's

teaching, a clearness, a religious depth, and a freedom from

fanaticism, peculiar to itself, and utterly wanting in the preaching

of the followers of Huss. Again, the wild Hussite wars, which were

still fresh in the sorrowful memory of the Germans, had in the first

instance been provoked by the use of force, on the part of the

Church, against the Bohemians. When Germany revolted, Rome found no

such means of force at her command.

It might fairly be questioned, if the thought were worth pursuing,

whether Luther at that time had sufficient ground for looking for

the triumph of his cause, not indeed to the power of the Word and

the influences then active in his favour, but to the Day of the

Lord, which he believed was near.

It is true that in such great crises of history as this, the final

issue never depends alone on the character and conduct of particular

personages, however eminent they may be. In this antichristian

system of the Papacy, Luther saw Satanic powers at work, which

blinded the human heart, and might indeed succeed, by dint of

suffering and oppression, in overcoming for the moment the Word of

God, but which could never finally extirpate or extinguish it. And

we Protestants must confess that not only did a great mass of the

German people remain bound by the spell of tradition, but that even

to honest and independent-minded adherents of the old system, the

interests of religion and morality might in reality have seemed to

be seriously endangered by the new teaching and by the breach with

the past. But never did the most momentous issue in the fortunes of

the German nation and Church rest so entirely with one man as they

did now with the German Emperor. Everything depended on this,

whether he, as head of the Empire, should take the great work in

hand, or should fling his authority and might into the opposite

scale.

Charles had been welcomed in Germany as one whose youthful heart

seemed likely to respond to the newly-awakened life and aspirations;

as the son of an old German princely family, who by his election as

Emperor had won a triumph over the foreign king Francis, supported

though the latter was by the Pope. Rumour now alleged that he was in

the hands of the Mendicant Friars: the Franciscan Glapio was his

confessor and influential adviser, the very man who had instigated

the burning of Luther's works.

[Illustration: Fig. 24.--CHARLES V. (From an engraving by B. Beham,

in 1531.)]

He was, however, by no means so dependent on those about him as

might have been supposed. His counsellors, in the general interests

of his government, pursued an independent line of policy, and

Charles himself, even in these his youthful days, knew to assert his

independence as a monarch and display his cleverness as a statesman.

But a German he was not, in spite of his grandfather Maximilian; he

had not even an ordinary knowledge of the German language. First and

foremost, he was King of Spain and Naples; in his Spanish kingdom he

retained, even after his accession to the imperial dignity, the

chief basis of his power. His religious training and education had

familiarised him only with the strict orthodoxy of the Church and

his duties in respect to her traditional ordinances. To these his

conscience also constrained him to adhere. He never showed any

inclination to investigate the opposite opinions of his German

subjects, at least with any independent or critical exercise of

judgment. A strict regard to his rights and duties as a sovereign

was his sole guide, next to his religious principles, in dictating

his conduct towards the Church. In Spain some reforms were being

then introduced, based essentially on the doctrines and hierarchical

constitution of the mediaeval Church. Stricter discipline, in

particular, was observed with regard to the clergy and monks, who

were admonished to attend more faithfully to their duties of

promoting the moral and religious welfare of the people; and the

result was seen in a revival of popular interest in the forms and

ordinances of religion. Furthermore, the crown enjoyed certain

rights independently of the Roman Curia: an absolute monarchy was

here ingeniously united with Papal absolutism. Such a union,

however, sufficed in itself to make any severance of the German

Church from the Papacy impossible under Charles V. The unity of his

dominions was bound up with the unity of the Catholic Church, to

which his subjects, alike in Spain and Germany, belonged. Added to

this, he had to consider his foreign policy. Provoked as he had been

by Leo X., who had leagued with France to prevent his election,

still, with menaces of war from France, he saw the prudence of

cultivating friendship, and contracting, if possible, an alliance

with the Pope. The pressure desirable for this purpose could now be

supplied by means of the very danger with which the Papacy was

threatened by the great German heresy, and against which Rome so

sorely needed the aid of a temporal power. At the same time, Charles

was far too astute to allow his regard for the Pope, and his desire

for the unity of the Church, to entangle his policy in measures for

which his own power was inadequate, or by which his authority might

be shaken, and possibly destroyed. Strengthened as was his

monarchical power in Spain, in Germany he found it hemmed in and

fettered by the Estates of the Empire and the whole contexture of

political relations.

Such were the main points of view which determined for Charles V.

his conduct towards Luther and his cause. Luther thus was at least a

passive sharer in the game of high policy, ecclesiastical and

temporal, now being played, and had to pursue his own course

accordingly.

The imperial court was quickly enough acquainted with the state of

feeling in Germany. The Emperor showed himself prudent at this

juncture, and accessible to opinions differing from his own, however

small cause his proclamations gave to the friends of Luther to hope

for any positive act of favour on his part.

Whilst Charles was on his way up the Rhine, to hold, at the

beginning of the New Year, a Diet at Worms, the Elector Frederick

approached him with the request that Luther should at least be heard

before the Emperor took any proceedings against him. The Emperor

informed him in reply that he might bring Luther for this purpose to

Worms, promising that the monk should not be molested. The Elector,

however, felt doubts on this point: possibly he thought of the

danger to which Huss had been exposed at Constance. But Luther, to

whom he announced through Spalatin the Emperor's offer, replied

immediately, 'If I am summoned, I will, so far as I am concerned,

come; even if I have to be carried there ill; for no man can doubt

that, if the Emperor calls me, I am called by the Lord.' Violence,

he said, would no doubt be offered him; but God still lived, who had

delivered the three youths from the fiery furnace at Babylon, and if

it was not His will that he should be saved, his head was of little

value. There was one thing only to beseech of God, that the Emperor

might not commence his reign by shedding innocent blood to shield

ungodliness: he would far rather perish by the hands of the

Romanists alone. Some time before, Luther had thought of a place to

fly to, in case it were impossible to stay at Wittenberg; Bohemia

was always open to him. But now he roundly declared, 'I will not

fly, still less can I recant.'

Meanwhile the Emperor began to reflect whether Luther, who lay

already under the ban and interdict, ought to be admitted to the

place of the Diet. As to what proceedings should be taken against

him, if he came, long, wavering, and anxious negotiations now took

place between the Emperor, the Estates, and the legate Aleander, at

Worms, where the Estates assembled in January, and the Diet was

opened on the 28th.

A Papal brief demanded the Emperor to enforce the bull, by which

Luther was now definitely condemned, by an imperial edict. In vain,

he wrote, had God girded him with the sword of supreme earthly

power, if he did not use it against heretics, who were even worse

than infidels. His advisers, however, were agreed in the conviction

that he could not move in this matter without the consent of his

Estates. Aleander sought to gain them over in an elaborate harangue.

He, according to whose principles the appeal to a Council was a

crime, cleverly diverted from himself the comparison and retort

which his present arguments suggested, and insisted all the more on

his complaint, that Luther always despised the authority of Councils

and would take no correction from anyone. Glapio, then the Emperor's

confessor and diplomatist, addressed himself, with expressions of

wonderful friendship, to Frederick's chancellor, Brück. Even he

found much that was good in Luther's writings, but the contents of

his book, the 'Babylonian Captivity,' were detestable. All that need

be done was that Luther should disclaim or retract that offensive

work, so that what was good in his writings might bear fruit for the

Church, and Luther, together with the Emperor, might co-operate in

the work of true reform. He might be invited to meet some learned,

impartial men at a suitable place, and submit himself to their

judgment. This, at all events, would be a happy means of preventing

his having to appear before the Emperor and the Estates of the

Empire, and if he persisted in refusing to recant, of deciding then

and there his fate. We must leave it an open question, how far

Glapio still seriously thought it possible, by dint of threats and

entreaties, to utilise Luther for effecting a reform in the Spanish

sense, and as an instrument against any Pope who should prove

hostile to the Emperor. But the Elector Frederick would undertake no

responsibility in this dark design: he refused flatly to grant to

Glapio the private audience he desired.

The Emperor acceded so far to the urgency of the Pope as to cause a

draft mandate to be laid before the Estates, proposing that Luther

should be arrested, and his protectors punished for high treason.

The Frankfort deputy wrote home: 'The monk makes plenty of work.

Some would gladly crucify him, and I fear he will hardly escape

them; only they must take care that he does not rise again on the

third day.' After seven days' excited debate in the Diet, in which

the Elector took a prominent and lively part, an answer to the

imperial mandate was at length agreed upon, offering for

consideration 'whether, inasmuch as Luther's preaching, doctrines,

and writings had awakened among the common people all kinds of

thoughts, fancies, and desires, any good result or advantage would

accrue from issuing the mandate alone in all its stringency, without

first having cited Luther before them and heard him.' At the same

time, his examination was to be so far restricted, that no

discussion with him should be allowed, but simply the question put

to him, 'whether or not he intended to insist upon the writings he

had published against our holy Christian faith.' If he retracted

them, he should be heard further on other points and matters, and

dealt with in all equity upon them. If, on the contrary, he

persisted in all or any of the articles at variance with the faith,

then all the Estates of the Empire should, without further

disputation, adhere to and help to maintain the faith handed down by

their fathers, and the imperial edict should then go abroad

throughout the land.

The Emperor, accordingly, on March 6, issued a citation to Luther,

summoning him to Worms, to give 'information concerning his

doctrines and books.' An imperial herald was sent to conduct him. In

the event of his disobeying the citation, or refusing to retract,

the Estates declared their consent to treat him as an open heretic.

Luther, therefore, had to renounce at once all hope of having the

truth touching his articles of faith tested fairly at Worms by the

standard of God's word in Scripture. Spalatin indicated to him the

points on which, according to Glapio's statement, he would in any

case be expected to make a public recantation.

It remained still doubtful, however, how far those articles would be

extended, and how far the 'other points' might be stretched, or

possibly be made the subject of further and profitable discussion,

if he submitted in respect to the former. Glapio had made no

reference to the question of the patristic belief in the

infallibility of the Pope, or his absolute power over the Church

collectively and her Councils: even the Papal nuncio himself had not

ventured to touch on these subjects. There was room enough for the

more liberal and independent principles entertained on these points

by the members of the earlier reforming Councils, if only Luther had

not disputed their authority with that of Councils altogether. The

ecclesiastical abuses, against which the Diet had already

remonstrated to the Pope, were just now at Worms the subject of

general and bitter complaint. The imposts levied by Rome on

ecclesiastical benefices and fiefs, mere outward symbols of

supremacy it is true, but highly important to the Pope, swallowed up

enormous sums; while the Empire hardly knew how to scrape together a

miserable subsidy for the newly organised government and the

expenses of justice, and men talked openly of retaining these Papal

tributes, notwithstanding all protests from Rome, for these

purposes. Even faithful adherents of the old Church system, like

Duke George of Saxony, demanded a comprehensive reformation of the

clergy, whose scandals were so destructive of religion, and, as the

best means to effect this reformation, a General Council of the

Church. Aleander had to report to Rome, that all parties were

unanimous in this desire, so hateful to the Pope himself, and that

the Germans wished to have the Council in their own country.

Luther formed his resolve at once on the two points required of him.

He determined to obey the summons to the Diet, and, if there

unconvicted of error, to refuse the recantation demanded.

The Emperor's citation was delivered to him on March 26 by the

imperial herald, Kaspar Sturm, who was to accompany him to Worms.

Within twenty-one days after its receipt, Luther was to appear

before the Emperor; he was due therefore at Worms on April 16, at

the latest.

Up till now he had continued uninterruptedly his arduous and

multifarious labours, and, to use his own expression, like Nehemiah

he carried on at once the work of peace and of war; he built with

one hand, and wielded the sword with the other. His controversy with

Catharinus he brought quickly to a conclusion. During March he

finished the first part of his Exposition of the Gospel as read in

church, which he had undertaken, as a peaceful and edifying work, at

the request of the Elector, to whom he wrote a dedication; and he

was now at work on a fervent and tender practical explanation of the

_Magnificat_, which he had intended for his devoted friend,

Prince John Frederick, the son of Duke John and nephew of the

Elector Frederick. He addressed a short letter to him on March 31,

enclosing the first printed sheets of this treatise; and the next

day sent him the epilogue, addressed to his friend Link, to his

reply to Catharinus, dedicated also to Link. 'I know,' he says here,

'and am certain, that our Lord Jesus Christ still lives and rules.

Upon this knowledge and assurance I rely, and therefore I will not

fear ten thousand Popes; for He Who is with us is greater than he

who is in the world.'

On the following day, April 2, the Tuesday after Easter, he set out

on his way to Worms. His friend Amsdorf and the Pomeranian nobleman

Peter Swaven, who was then studying at Wittenberg, accompanied him.

He took with him also, according to the rules of the Order, a

brother of the Order, John Pezensteiner. The Wittenberg magistracy

provided carriages and horses.

The way led past Leipzig, through Thuringia from Naumburg to

Eisenach, then southward past Berka, Hersfeld, Grünberg, Friedberg,

Frankfort, and Oppenheim. The herald rode on before in his coat of

arms, and announced the man whose word had everywhere so mightily

stirred the minds of people, and for whose future behaviour and fate

friend and foe were alike anxious. Everywhere people collected to

catch a glimpse of him.

On April 6 he was very solemnly received at Erfurt. The large

majority of the university there were by this time full of

enthusiasm for his cause. His friend Crotus, on his return from

Italy, had been chosen Rector. The ban of excommunication had not

been published by the university, and had been thrown into the water

by the students. Justus Jonas was foremost in zeal; and even

Erasmus, his honoured friend, had no longer been able to restrain

him. Lange and others were active in preaching among the people.

Jonas hastened to Weimar to meet Luther on his approach. Forty

members of the university, with the Rector at their head, went on

horseback, accompanied by a number of others on foot, to welcome him

at the boundary of the town. Luther had also a small retinue with

him. Crotus expressed to him the infinite pleasure it was to see

him, the great champion of the faith; whereupon Luther answered,

that he did not deserve such praise, but he thanked them for their

love. The poet Eoban also stammered out, as he said of himself, a

few words; he afterwards described the progress in a set of Latin

songs.

The following day, a Sunday, Luther spent at Erfurt. He preached

there, in the church of the Augustine convent, a sermon which has

been preserved. Beginning with the words, of the Gospel of the day,

'Peace be unto you,' he spoke of the peace which we find through

Christ the Redeemer, by faith in whom and in his work of salvation

we are justified, without any works or merit of our own; of the

freedom with which Christians may act in faith and love; and of the

duty of every man, who possessed this peace of God, so to order his

work and conduct, that it shall be useful not only to himself but to

his neighbour. This he said in protest against the justification by

works taught by most preachers, against the system of Papal

commands, and against the wisdom of heathen teachers, of an

Aristotle or a Plato. Of his present personal position and the

difficult path he had now to tread, he took no thought, but only of

the general obligation he was under, whatever other men might teach;

'I will speak the truth and must speak it; for that reason I am

here, and take no money for it.' During the sermon a crash was

suddenly heard in the overweighted balconies of the crowded church,

the doors of which were blocked with multitudes eager to hear him.

The crowd were about to rush out in a panic, when Luther exclaimed,

'I know thy wiles, thou Satan,' and quieted the congregation with

the assurance that no danger threatened, it was only the devil who

was carrying on his wicked sport.

Luther also preached in the Augustine convents at Gotha and

Eisenach. At Gotha the people thought it significant that after the

sermon the devil tore off some stones from the gable of the church.

In the inns Luther liked to refresh himself with music, and often

took up the lute.

At Eisenach, however, he was seized with an attack of illness, and

had to be bled. From Frankfort he writes to Spalatin, who was then

at Worms, that he felt since then a degree of suffering and weakness

unknown to him before.

On the way he found a new imperial edict posted up, which ordered

all his books to be seized, as having been condemned by the Pope and

being contrary to the Christian faith. Charles V. by this edict had

given satisfaction again to the legates, who were annoyed at Luther

being summoned to Worms. Many doubted whether Luther, after this

condemnation of his cause by the Emperor, would venture to present

himself in person at Worms. He himself was alarmed, but travelled

on.

Meanwhile at Worms disquietude and suspense prevailed on both sides.

Hutten from the Castle of Ebernburg sent threatening and angry

letters to the Papal legates, who became really anxious lest a blow

might be struck from that quarter. Aleander complained that

Sickingen now was king in Germany, since he could command a

following whenever and as large as he pleased. But in truth he was

in no case ready for an attack at that moment. He still reckoned on

being able, with his Church sympathies, to remain the Emperor's

friend, and was just now on the point of taking a post of military

command in his service. Some anxious friends of Luther's were afraid

that, according to Papal law, the safe-conduct would not be observed

in the case of a condemned heretic. Spalatin himself sent from Worms

a second warning to Luther after he had left Frankfort, intimating

that he would suffer the fate of Huss.

Meanwhile Glapio, on the other side, no doubt with the knowledge and

consent of his imperial master, made one more attempt in a very

unexpected manner to influence Luther, or at least to prevent him

from going to Worms. He went with the imperial chamberlain, Paul von

Armsdorf, to Sickingen and Hutten at the Castle of Ebernburg, spoke

of Luther as he had formerly done to Brück, in an unconstrained and

friendly manner, and offered to hold a peaceable interview with

Luther in Sickingen's presence. Armsdorf at the same time earnestly

dissuaded Hutten from his attacks and threats against the legates,

and made him the offer of an imperial pension if he would desist.

Had Luther agreed to this proposal and gone to the Ebernburg, he

could not have reached Worms in time; the safe-conduct promised him

would have been no longer valid, and the Emperor would have been

free to act against him. Nevertheless Sickingen entered into the

proposal. The danger threatening Luther at Worms must have appeared

still greater to him, and Luther could then have enjoyed the

protection of his castle, which he had offered him before. Martin

Butzer, the theologian from Schlettstadt, happened then to be with

Sickingen; he had already met Luther at Heidelberg in 1518, had then

learned to know him, and had embraced his opinions. He was now

commissioned to convey this invitation to him at Oppenheim, which

lay on Luther's road.

But Luther continued on his way. He told Butzer that Glapio would be

able to speak with him at Worms. To Spalatin he replied, though Huss

were burnt, yet the truth was not burnt; he would go to Worms,

though there were as many devils there as there were tiles on the

roofs of the houses.

On April 16, at ten o'clock in the morning, Luther entered Worms. He

sat in an open carriage with his three companions from Wittenberg,

clothed in his monk's habit. He was accompanied by a large number of

men on horseback, some of whom, like Jonas, had joined him earlier

in his journey, others, like some gentlemen belonging to the

Elector's court, had ridden out from Worms to receive him. The

imperial herald rode on before. The watchman blew a horn from the

tower of the cathedral on seeing the procession approach the gate.

Thousands streamed hither to see Luther. The gentlemen of the court

escorted him into the house of the Knights of St. John, where he

lodged with two counsellors of the Elector. As he stepped from his

carriage he said, 'God will be with me.' Aleander, writing to Rome,

said that he looked around with the eyes of a demon.

Crowds of distinguished men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who were

anxious to know him personally, flocked daily to see him.

On the evening of the following day he had to appear before the

Diet, which was assembled in the Bishop's palace, the residence of

the Emperor, not far from where Luther was lodging. He was conducted

thither by side streets, it being impossible to get through the

crowds assembled in the main thoroughfare to see him. On his way

into the hall where the Diet was assembled, tradition tells us how

the famous warrior, George von Frundsberg, clapped him on the

shoulder, and said: 'My poor monk! my poor monk! thou art on thy way

to make such a stand as I and many of my knights have never done in

our toughest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause,

then forward in the name of God, and be of good courage--God will

not forsake thee.' The Elector had given Luther as his advocate the

lawyer Jerome Schurf, his Wittenberg colleague and friend.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.-LUTHER. (From an engraving by Cranach, in

1521.)]

When at length, after waiting two hours, Luther was admitted to the

Diet, Eck, [Footnote: This Eck must not be confused with the other

John Eck, the theologian.] the official of the Archbishop of Treves,

put to him simply, in the name of the Emperor, two questions,

whether he acknowledged the books (pointing to them on a bench

beside him) to be his own, and next, whether he would retract their

contents or persist in them. Schurf here exclaimed, 'Let the titles

of the books be named.' Eck then read them out. Among them there

were some merely edifying writings, such as 'A Commentary on the

Lord's Prayer,' which had never been made the subject of complaint.

Luther was not prepared for this proceeding, and possibly the first

sight of the august assembly made him nervous. He answered in a low

voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since

the question as to their contents concerned the highest of all

things, the Word of God and the salvation of souls, he must beware

of giving a rash answer, and must therefore humbly entreat further

time for consideration.

After a short deliberation the Emperor instructed Eck to reply that

he would, out of his clemency, grant him a respite till the next

day.

So Luther had again, on April 18, a Thursday, to appear before the

Diet. Again he had to wait two hours, till six o'clock. He stood

there in the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and

cheerfully with the ambassador of the Diet, Peutinger, his patron at

Augsburg.

After he was called in, Eck began by reproaching him for having

wanted time for consideration. He then put the second question to

him in a form more befitting and more conformable with the wishes of

the members of the Diet: 'Wilt thou defend _all_ the books

acknowledged by thee to be thine, or recant some part?' Luther now

answered with firmness and modesty, in a well-considered speech. He

divided his works into three classes. In some of them he had set

forth simple evangelical truths, professed alike by friend and foe.

Those he could on no account retract. In others he had attacked

corrupt laws and doctrines of the Papacy, which no one could deny

had miserably vexed and martyred the consciences of Christians, and

had tyrannically devoured the property of the German nation; if he

were to retract these books, he would make himself a cloak for

wickedness and tyranny. In the third class of his books he had

written against individuals, who endeavoured to shield that tyranny,

and to subvert godly doctrine. Against these he freely confessed

that he had been more violent than was befitting. Yet even these

writings it was impossible for him to retract, without lending a

hand to tyranny and godlessness. But in defence of his books he

could only say in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'If I have

spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou

me?' If anyone could do so, let him produce his evidence and confute

him from the sacred writings, the Old Testament and the Gospel, and

he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. And now, as

in the course of his speech he had sounded a new challenge to the

Papacy, so he concluded by an earnest warning to Emperor and Empire,

lest by endeavouring to promote peace by a condemnation of the

Divine Word, they might; rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils,

and thus give an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of

the noble young Emperor. He said not these things as if the great

personages who heard him stood in any need of his admonitions, but

because it was a duty that he owed to his native Germany, and he

could not neglect to discharge it.

Luther, like Eck, spoke in Latin, and then, by desire, repeated his

speech with equal firmness in German. Schurf, who was standing by

his side, declared afterwards with pride, 'how Martin had made this

answer with such bravery and modest candour, with eyes upraised to

Heaven, that he and everyone was astonished.'

The princes held a short consultation after this harangue. Then Eck,

commissioned by the Emperor, sharply reproved him for having spoken

impertinently and not really answered the question put to him. He

rejected his demand that evidence from Scripture might be brought

against him, by declaring that his heresies had already been

condemned by the Church, and in particular by the Council of

Constance, and such judgments must suffice if anything were to be

held settled in Christianity. He promised him, however, if he would

retract the offensive articles, that his other writings should be

fairly dealt with, and finally demanded a plain answer 'without

horns' to the question, whether he intended to adhere to all he had

written, or would retract any part of it.

To this Luther replied he would give an answer 'with neither horns

nor teeth.' Unless he were refuted by proofs from Scripture, or by

evident reason, his conscience bound him to adhere to the Word of

God which he had quoted in his defence. Popes and Councils, as was

clear, had often erred and contradicted themselves. He could, not,

therefore, and he would not, retract anything, for it was neither

safe nor honest to act against one's conscience.

Eck exchanged only a few more words with him in reply to his

assertion that Councils had erred. 'You cannot prove that, 'said

Eck. 'I will pledge myself to do it,' was Luther's answer. Pressed

and threatened by his enemy, he concluded with the famous words:

'Here I stand, I can do, no otherwise. God help me. Amen.'

The Emperor reluctantly broke up the Diet, at about eight o'clock in

the evening. Darkness had meanwhile come on; the hall was lighted

with torches, and the audience were in a state of general excitement

and agitation. Luther was led out; whereupon an uproar arose among

the Germans, who thought that he had been taken prisoner. As he

stood among the heated crowd, Duke Erich of Brunswick sent him a

silver tankard of Eimbeck beer, after having first drank of it

himself.

On reaching his lodging, 'Luther,' to use the words of a Nüremberger

present there, 'stretched out his hands, and with a joyful

countenance exclaimed, "I am through! I am through!"' Spalatin says:

'He entered the lodging so courageous, comforted and joyful in the

Lord, that he said before others and myself, "if he had a thousand

heads, he would rather have them all cut off than make one

recantation.' He relates also how the Elector Frederick, before his

supper, sent for him from Luther's dwelling, took him into his room

and expressed to him his astonishment, and delight at Luther's

speech. 'How excellently did, Father Martin speak both in Latin and

German before the Emperor and the Orders. He was bold enough, if not

too much so.' The Emperor, on the contrary, had been so little

impressed by Luther's personality, and had understood so little of

it, that he fancied the writings ascribed to him must have been

written by some one else. Many of his Spaniards had pursued Luther,

as he left the Diet, with hisses and shouts of scorn.

Luther, by refusing thus point-blank to retract, effectually

destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been

entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church

who still wished for reform. Nor was any union possible with those

who, while looking to a truly representative Council as the best

safeguard against the tyranny of a Pope, were anxious also to obtain

at such a Council a secure and final settlement of all questions of

Christian faith and morals. It was these very Councils about which

Eck purposely called on Luther for a declaration; and Luther's words

on this point might well have been considered by the Elector as 'too

bold.' Aleander, who had used such efforts to prevent Luther's being

heard, was now well satisfied with the result. But Luther remained

faithful to himself. True it was that he had often formerly spoken

of yielding in mere externals, and of the duty of living in love and

harmony, and respecting the weaknesses of others; and his conduct

during the elaboration of his own Church system will show us how

well he knew to accommodate himself to the time, and, where

perfection was impossible, to be content with what was imperfect.

But the question here was not about externals, or whether a given

proceeding were judicious or not for the attainment of an object

admittedly good. It was a question of confessing or denying the

truth--the highest and holiest truths, as he expressed it, relating

to God and the salvation of man. In this matter his conscience was

bound.

And the trial thus offered for his endurance was not yet over. On

the morning of the 19th, the Emperor sent word to the Estates, that

he would now send Luther back hi safety to Wittenberg, but treat him

as a heretic. The majority insisted on attempting further

negotiations with him through a Committee specially appointed. These

were conducted accordingly by the Elector of Treves, to whom

Frederick the Wise and Miltitz had once been anxious to submit

Luther's affair. The friendliness, and the visible interest in his

cause, with which Luther now was urged, was more calculated to move

him than Eck's behaviour at the Diet. He himself bore witness

afterwards how the Archbishop had shown himself more than gracious

to him, and would willingly have arranged matters peaceably. Instead

of being urged simply to retract all his propositions condemned by

the Pope, or his writings directed against the Papacy, he was

referred in particular to those articles in which he rejected the

decisions of the Council of Constance. He was desired to submit in

confidence to a verdict of the Emperor and the Empire, when his

books should be submitted to judges beyond suspicion. After that he

should at least accept the decision of a future Council, unfettered

by any acknowledgment of the previous sentence of the Pope. So

freely and independently of the Pope did this Committee of the

German Diet, including several bishops and Duke George of Saxony,

proceed in negotiating with a Papal heretic. But everything was

shipwrecked on Luther's firm reservation that the decision must not

be contrary to the Word of God; and on that question his conscience

would not allow him to renounce the right of judging for himself.

After two days' negotiations, he thus, on April 25, according to

Spalatin, declared himself to the Archbishop: 'Most gracious Lord, I

cannot yield; it must happen with me as God wills;' and continued:

'I beg of your Grace that you will obtain for me the gracious

permission of His Imperial Majesty that I may go home again, for I

have now been here for ten days and nothing yet has been effected.'

Three hours later the Emperor sent word to Luther that he might

return to the place he came from, and should be given a safe-conduct

for twenty-one days, but would not be allowed to preach on the way.

Free residence, however, and protection at Wittenberg, in case

Luther were condemned by the Empire, was more than even Frederick

the Wise would be able to assure him. But he had already laid his

plan for the emergency. Spalatin refers to it in these words: 'Now

was my most gracious, Lord somewhat disheartened; he was certainly

fond of Dr. Martin, and was also most unwilling to act against the

Word of God, or to bring upon himself the displeasure of the

Emperor. Accordingly, he devised means how to get Dr. Martin out of

the way for a time, until matters might be quietly settled, and

caused Luther also to be informed, the evening before he left Worms,

of his scheme for getting him out of the way. At this Dr. Martin,

out of deference to his Elector, was submissively content, though,

certainly, then and at all times he would much rather have gone

courageously to the attack.'

The very next morning, Friday the 26th, Luther departed. The imperial

herald went behind him, so as not to attract notice. They took the

usual road to Eisenach. At Friedberg Luther dismissed the herald,

giving him a letter to the Emperor and the Estates, in which he

defended his conduct at Worms, and his refusal to trust in the

decision of men, by saying that when God's Word and things eternal

were at stake, one's trust and dependence should be placed, not on

one man or many men, but on God alone. At Hersfeld, where Abbot Crato,

in spite of the ban, received him with all marks of honour, and again

at Eisenach, he preached, notwithstanding the Emperor's prohibition,

not daring to let the Word of God be bound. From Eisenach, whilst

Swaven, Schurf, and several other of his companions went straight

on, he struck southward, together with Amsdorf and Brother Pezensteiner,

in order to go and see his relations at Möhra. Here, after spending

the night at the house of his uncle Heinz, he preached the next

morning, Saturday, May 4. Then, accompanied by some of his relations,

he took the road through Schweina, past the Castle of Altenstein, and

then across the back of the Thuringian Forest to Waltershausen and Gotha.

Towards evening, when near Altenstein, he bade leave of his relations.

About half an hour farther on, at a spot where the road enters the

wooded heights, and ascending between hills along a brook, leads to an

old chapel, which even then was in ruins, and has now quite disappeared,

armed horsemen attacked the carriage, ordered it to stop with threats

and curses, pulled Luther out of it, and then hurried him away at full

speed. Pezensteiner had run away as soon as he saw them approach.

Amsdorf and the coachman were allowed to pass on; the former was in the

secret, and pretended to be terrified, to avoid any suspicion on the

part of his companion. The Wartburg lay to the north, about eight miles

distant, and had been the starting-point of the horsemen, as it now was

their goal; but precaution made them ride first in an eastern direction

with Luther. The coachman afterwards related how Luther in the haste of

the flight dropped a grey hat he had worn. And now Luther 'was given a

horse to ride. The night was dark, and about eleven o'clock they arrived

at the stately castle, situated above Eisenach. Here he was to be kept

as a knight-prisoner. The secret was kept as strictly as possible

towards friend and foe. For many weeks afterwards even Frederick's

brother John had no idea of it, on the contrary, he wrote to Frederick

that Luther, he had heard, was residing at one of Sickingen's castles.

Among his friends and followers the terrible news had spread,

immediately upon his capture, that he had been made away with by his

enemies.

At Worms, however, while the Pope was concluding an alliance with

Charles against France, the Papal legate Aleander, by commission of

the Emperor, prepared the edict against Luther on the 8th of May. It

was not, however, until the 25th, after Frederick, the Elector of

the Palatinate, and a great part of the other members of the Diet

had already left, that it was deemed advisable to have it

communicated to the rest of the Estates; nevertheless it was

antedated the 8th, and issued 'by the unanimous advice of the

Electors and Estates.' It pronounced upon Luther, applying the

customary strong expressions of Papal bulls, the ban and re-ban; no

one was to receive him any longer, or feed him &c., but wherever he

was found, he was to be seized and handed over to the Emperor.

PART IV.

_FROM THE DIET OF WORMS TO THE PEASANTS' WAR AND LUTHER'S

MARRIAGE_.

CHAPTER I.

LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG, TO HIS VISIT TO WITTENBERG IN 1521.

Luther, after being brought to the fortress, had to live there as a

knight-prisoner. He was called Squire George, he grew a stately

beard, and doffed his monk's cowl for the dress of a knight, with a

sword at his side. The governor of the castle, Herr von Berlepsch,

entertained him with all honour, and he was liberally supplied with

food and drink. He was free to go about as he pleased in the

apartments of the castle, and was permitted, in the company of a

trusty servant, to take rides and walks out of doors. Thus, as he

writes to a friend, he sat up aloft, in the region of the birds, as

a curious prisoner, _nolens volens_, whether he willed or no;

willing, because God would have it so, not willing, because he would

far rather have stood up for the Word of God in public, but of such

an honour God had not yet found him worthy.

[Illustration: Fig 26--LUTHER as "Squire George." (From a woodcut by

Cranach.)]

Care was also taken at once that he should be able to correspond at

least by letter with his friends, and especially with those at

Wittenberg. These letters were sent by messengers of the Elector

through the hands of Spalatin. When Luther afterwards heard that a

rumour had got abroad as to his place of residence, he sent a letter

to Spalatin, in which he said: 'A report, so I hear, is spread that

Luther is staying at the Wartburg near Eisenach; the people suppose

this to be the case, because I was taken prisoner in the wood below;

but while they believe that, I sit here safely hidden. If the books

that I publish betray me, then I shall change my abode; it is very

strange that nobody thinks of Bohemia.' This letter, so Luther

thought, Spalatin might let fall into the hands of some of his

spying opponents, so as to lead them astray in their conjecture.

Spalatin made no use of this naive attempt at trickery. He could

hardly have done much in the matter, and would probably have

directed those who saw through the meaning of the letter straight to

the Wartburg. He succeeded, however, remarkably well in keeping the

spot a secret, even after it was generally guessed and known that

Luther was to be found somewhere in Saxony. As late as 1528,

Luther's friend Agricola remarks that he had hitherto remained

concealed, whilst some even sought to hear of him by questioning of

the devil; and more than twenty years later Luther's opponent

Cochlaeus declares that he was hidden at Alstedt in Thuringia.

There was no imperial power at that time which might have deemed it

necessary or expedient to track out the man who had been condemned

by the Edict of Worms. The Emperor had left Germany again, and was

engaged in a war with France.

In his quiet solitude Luther threw himself again without delay into

the work of his calling, so far as he could here perform it. This

was the study of Scripture and the active exercise of his own pen in

the service of God's Word. He had now more time than before to

investigate the meaning of the Bible in its original languages. 'I

sit here,' he writes to Spalatin ten days after his arrival, 'the

whole day at leisure, and read the Greek and Hebrew Bible.'

His sojourn at the castle began in the festival time between Easter

and Whitsuntide. He wrote at once an exposition of the sixty-eighth

Psalm, with particular reference to the events of Ascension and

Whitsuntide.

For the liberation of the laity from the Papal yoke, he set at once

further to work by composing a treatise 'On Confession, whether the

Pope has power to order it.' He commends confession, when a man

humbles himself and, receives forgiveness of God through the lips of

a Christian brother, but he denounces any compulsion in the matter,

and warns men against priests who pervert it into a means of

increasing their own power. He now expressed his public thanks to

Sickingen, and dedicated the book to him--'To the just and firm

Francis von Sickingen, my especial lord and patron.' In this

dedication he repeats the fears he had long expressed of the

judgment that the clergy would bring upon themselves by their hatred

of improvement and their obstinacy. 'I have,' he says, 'often

offered peace, I have offered them an answer, I have disputed, but

all has been of no avail: I have met with no justice, but only with

vain malice and violence, nothing more. I have been simply called on

to retract, and threatened with every evil if I refused.' Then

speaking of the critical moment at which he was obliged to withdraw,

'I can do no more,' he says, 'I am now out of the game. They have

now time to change that which cannot, and should not, and will not

be tolerated from them any longer. If they refuse to make the

change, another will make it for them, without their thanks, one who

will not teach like Luther with letters and words, but with deeds.

Thank God, the fear and awe of those rogues at Borne is now less

than it was.' And again, speaking of Roman insolence: 'They push on

blindly ahead--there is no listening or reasoning. Well, I have

seen; more water-bubbles than even theirs, and once such an

outrageous smoke that it managed to blot out the sun, but the smoke

never lasted, and the sun still shines. I shall continue to keep the

truth bright and expose it, and am as far from fearing my ungracious

masters as they are ready to despise me.'

Luther now finished his exposition of the _Magnificat_, which,

with loving devotion to the subject, he had intended for Prince John

Frederick. He resumed also his work on the Sunday Gospels and

Epistles. The first part of it he had already published in Latin.

But he gave it now a new, and for the Christian people of Germany, a

most important character, by writing in German his comments on these

passages of Scripture, including those already dealt with in Latin,

which formed the text of the sermon for the day. Thus arose his

first collection of sermons, the 'Church-Postills.' By November he

had already sent the first part to the press, though the work

progressed but slowly. In a simple exposition of the words of the

Bible, without any artificial and rhetorical additions or ornament,

but with a constant and cheerful regard to practical life, with an

unceasing attention to the primary questions of salvation, and in

pithy, clear, and thoroughly popular language, he began to lay

before his readers the sum total of Christian truth, and impress it

on their hearts. The work served as much for the instruction and

support of other preachers of the gospel now newly proclaimed, as

for the direct teaching and edifying of the members of their flocks.

It advanced, however, only by degrees, and Luther after many years

was obliged to have it finished by friends, who collected together

printed or written copies of his various sermons.

For the special comfort and advice of his Wittenberg congregation

Luther wrote an exposition of the thirty-seventh Psalm. Nor with

less energy and force did he wield his pen during June, in a

vigorous and learned polemical reply in Latin to the Louvain

theologian, Latomus.

And yet Luther all this while continued to lament that he had to sit

there so idly in his Patmos: he would rather be burnt in the service

of God's Word than stagnate there alone. The bodily rest which took

the place of his former unwearied activity in the pulpit and the

lecturer's chair, together with the sumptuous fare now substituted

for the simple diet of the convent, were no doubt the cause of the

physical suffering which for a long time had grievously distressed

him and put his patience to the test, and which must have weighed

upon his spirits. In his distress he once thought of going to Erfurt

to consult physicians. Some strong remedies, however, which Spalatin

got for him, gave him temporary relief.

He took exercise in the beautiful woods around the castle, and

there, as he related afterwards, he used to look for strawberries.

In August he had news to give Spalatin of a hunt, at which he had

been present two days. He wished to look on at 'this bitter-sweet

pleasure of heroes.' 'We have,' he says, 'hunted two hares and a few

poor little partridges; truly a worthy occupation for idle people!'

But among the nets and hounds he managed, as he says, to pursue

theology. He saw in it all a picture of the devil, who by cunning

and godless doctrines ensnares poor innocent creatures. Graver

thoughts still were suggested to his mind by the fate of a little

hare, which he had helped to save, and had rolled up in the long

sleeve of his cloak, but which, on his putting it down afterwards

and going away, the dogs caught and killed. 'Thus,' he says, 'do the

Pope and Satan rage together, to destroy, despite my efforts, souls

already saved.'

At that time too he fancied he heard and saw all kinds of devil's

noises and sights, which long afterwards he frequently described to

his friends, but which he took at the time with great calmness.

Such, for instance, were a strange continual rumbling in a chest in

which he kept hazel nuts, nightly noises of falling on the stairs,

and the unaccountable appearance of a black dog in his bed.

Of the well-known ink-stain at the Wartburg we hear nothing either

from those or after-times; and a similar spot was shown in the last

century at the Castle of Coburg, where Luther stayed in 1530.

In the outer world, meanwhile, the great movement that emanated from

Luther continued to advance and grow, in spite of his disappearance.

It was apparent how powerless was his enforced absence to suppress

it. Soon too it was to be seen how much on the other hand it

depended on him that the movement should not bring real danger and

destruction.

At Wittenberg his friends continued labouring faithfully and

undisturbed. Much as Melancthon troubled himself about Luther and

longed for his return, Luther relied with confidence upon him and

his efforts, as rendering his own presence unnecessary. With joyful

congratulations to his friend he acknowledged his receipt at the

Wartburg of the sheets of his work--the _Loci Communes_--wherein

Melancthon, whilst intending at first only to proclaim the

fundamental principles and doctrines of the Bible, and especially of

the Epistle to the Romans, actually laid the foundation for the

dogma of the Evangelical Church.

Just at this time new forces had stepped in to further the work and the

battle. Shortly before Luther's departure to Worms, John Bugenhagen of

Pomerania had appeared at Wittenberg,--a man only two years younger

than Luther, well trained in theology and humanistic learning, and

already won over to Luther's doctrines by his writings, and more

especially by his work on the Babylonish Captivity. He had made friends

with Luther and Melancthon, and soon began to teach with them at the

university. John Agricola from Eisleben had already taken part in the

biblical lectures at the university, which was then the chief place for

the exposition of evangelical doctrine. This man, born in 1494, had

lived at Wittenberg since 1516. He had from the first been an adherent

of Luther, and had won his confidence, as also that of Melancthon. He

was now their fellow-lecturer at the university, and since the spring

of 1521 had been appointed by the town as catechist at the parish

church, charged with the duty of teaching children religion. Wittenberg

had also gained the services of the learned Justus Jonas, so conspicuous

for his high culture, and a staunch and open friend of Luther. Shortly

after his journey with Luther from Erfurt to the Diet of Worms, he

obtained, by grant of the Elector, the office of provost to the church

of All Saints at Wittenberg, and became a member also of the theological

faculty at the university. The excommunication under which Melancthon

had fallen with Luther did not deter the mass of students from their

cause. The academical youth who had assembled here from the whole of

Germany, and from Switzerland, Poland, and other countries, were

renowned for the exemplary unity in which, unlike their brethren in

most of the universities in those days, they lived together and

devoted themselves to the purest and most elevating studies.

Everywhere students might be seen with Bibles in their hands; the

young nobles and sons of burghers applied themselves diligently to

self-discipline; and the drinking-bouts practised elsewhere, and so

destructive to the muses, were unknown among them.

Luther, by his behaviour at Worms in particular, had fastened upon

himself the eyes of all Germany. The proceedings before the Diet,

made known, as they would be nowadays, by the newspapers, were then

published abroad by means of fugitive pamphlets of a longer or

shorter kind. Luther's speech in particular was circulated from

notes made partly by himself, partly by others. Day after day, and

especially during the sittings of the Diet, a number of other short

tracts and fly-sheets set forth, mainly in the form of a dialogue, a

popular discussion and explanation of his cause. His fate at Worms

was immediately proclaimed in a book called 'The Passion of Dr.

Martin Luther,' the title of which sufficiently indicated the

analogy suggested. Then came the stirring and disquieting news of

his sudden kidnapping by the powers of darkness; rumours which only

served to stimulate him further in his concealment to speak out and

march forwards with undaunted courage and assurance.

As writers who now began to labour for the cause in a similar spirit

to Luther's and in a similarly popular style and manner, we must not

omit to name the following. First and foremost was Eberlin of

Günzburg, formerly a Franciscan at Tübingen; next, the Augustine

monk Michael Stifel of Esslingen, who came himself to Wittenberg and

joined there the circle of friends; and lastly, the Franciscan Henry

von Kettenbach at Ulm. The authors of some other influential works,

such as the dialogue 'Neu Karsthans' (Karsthans being a name for

peasants), are not known with certainty. In these men and their

writings, ideas and thoughts already made their appearance, going

beyond the intentions of Luther, and into a territory which, from

his standpoint of religion, he would rather have seen more exactly

defined, and taking up weapons which he had rejected. Thus

'Karsthans' contains the advice to break off, after the example of

the Hussites in Bohemia, from most of the Churches, as being tainted

with avarice and superstition; and a rising against the clergy is

contemplated, in which the nobles and peasants should combine.

Eberlin, with his extraordinary energy, not content with the most

comprehensive and far-reaching schemes of ecclesiastical reform,

plunged into questions affecting the wants of municipal, social, and

political life, which Luther, in his Address to the German Nobility,

had only briefly alluded to, and had carefully distinguished from

his own particular work in hand. To the dealings of the great

merchants he showed himself more hostile even than Luther; and put

forward such proposals as the establishment by the civil authorities

of a cheaper tariff of prices for provisions, the appointment to

magisterial offices by election, for which peasants also should be

qualified, and free rights of hunting and fishing.

The Edict of Worms, intended to proscribe and suppress throughout

Germany the heretic and his writings, was published in the different

states and towns by the princes and magistrates; but the power, and

partly also the will, was wanting to enforce its execution. At

Erfurt, shortly after Luther's passage through the town upon his way

to Worms, the interference of the clergy against a member of a

religious institution which had taken part in the ovation accorded

to the Reformer, gave the first occasion to violent and repeated

tumults. Students and townspeople attacked upwards of sixty houses

of the priests, and demolished them. Luther told his friends at

once, that he saw in this the work of Satan, who sought by this

means to bring contempt and legitimate reproach upon the gospel.

Elsewhere, and above all at Wittenberg, his followers busied

themselves in his absence with putting into practice what he had

defended with his words. Calmly and with mature deliberation and

courage, Luther took part in their labours from the solitude of his

watch-tower. He had a very lively and, as he himself confesses,

often painful consciousness of his own responsibility, as the one

who had put the first match to the great fire, and whose first

duties lay with his Wittenberg brethren, as their teacher and

pastor.

Shortly after his arrival at the Wartburg, he received the news that

Bartholomew Bernhardi of Feldkirchen, provost in the little town of

Kemberg near Wittenberg, had publicly, and with the consent of his

congregation, taken a wife. He was not the first priest who had

ventured to break the unchristian prohibition of marriage by the

Romish Church. But he was the most distinguished of such offenders

hitherto, besides being a particular disciple of Luther and a man of

unimpeachable integrity. Luther wrote about it to Melancthon,

saying: 'I admire the newly married man, who in these stormy times

has no fears, and has lost no time about it. May God guide him.'

At Wittenberg it was now demanded, not without violence, that

monasticism should be abolished, and that the mass and the Lord's

Supper should be changed in conformity with the institution of

Christ. It seemed as if here, in the place of Luther, who had gone

before with the simple testimony of the Word and doctrine, two other

men were now to step in as practical and energetic Reformers. One of

them was Luther's old colleague, Carlstadt, who had returned in July

from a short visit to Copenhagen, whither the King of Denmark had

invited him to promote the new evangelical theology at the

university, but had soon again dismissed him, and who now assumed

the lead at Wittenberg with a passionate and ambitious, but

undeterminate zeal. The other was the Augustine monk, Gabriel

Zwilling, who had introduced himself to notice as a fiery preacher

in the convent church, and in spite of his unattractive appearance

and weak voice had drawn together a large congregation from the town

and university, and fascinated them with his eloquence. A young

Silesian wrote home from the university of Wittenberg about him,

saying: 'God has raised up for us another prophet; many call him a

second Luther. Melancthon is never absent when he preaches.'

For the clergy Carlstadt sought, by a perverse interpretation of

Scripture, to make the married state into a law. Only married men

were to be appointed to offices in the Church. For monks and nuns he

claimed the liberty of renouncing their cloistered and celibate

life, if they found its moral requirements insupportable; but the

biblical evidence that he adduced in support of this doctrine was

unhappily chosen; and he still declared the renunciation of vows to

be a sin, though justified by the avoidance thereby of a still

greater sin, that of unchastity in monastic life. Luther had

required that at the Lord's Supper the cup, in accordance with the

original institution of Christ, should be given to the laity.

Carlstadt and Zwilling, however, wished to make it a sin for a

person to partake of the Communion without the cup being given to

the communicants. Other changes also were now demanded in the mode

of administering the elements, conformably with the Holy Supper held

by Jesus Himself with His twelve disciples. Zwilling would have

twelve communicants at a time partake of the bread and wine. It was

further insisted that, like as at ordinary meals, the elements

should be given into the hand of each individual to partake of, and

not put into his mouth by the priest. The sacrifice of the mass

Zwilling would abolish altogether, but Carlstadt thought it

necessary, in dealing with so important a feature of the old form of

worship, to proceed with caution.

Upon these questions and proceedings Luther expressed his opinion

early in August to Melancthon, who was keenly excited about them,

but on many points was unsettled in his mind. The project of

restoring at Wittenberg the celebration of the Lord's Supper, as

originally instituted, with the cup, met with Luther's full

approval; for the tyranny which the Christian congregations had

hitherto endured in this respect had been acknowledged there, and

there was a general wish to resist it. He declared further, with

regard to private masses, that he was resolved never to say any more

while he lived. But compulsion he would not dream of: if any who

still suffered from this tyranny partook of the Communion without

the cup, no man durst account it to him as a sin. As for the

troubles of the monks and nuns, under their self-imposed vows, his

sympathy for them was no less acute than that of his friends at

Wittenberg, but the arguments by which they sought to help them to

liberty he did not consider sound. He gave now this subject a more

searching and deeper consideration, and shortly addressed a series

of theses on celibacy to the bishops and deacons of the church at

Wittenberg. He attacked vows in general, and assailed them at the

very root. Inasmuch, moreover, as the vows of chastity, he said, and

of other monastic observances were commonly made to God with the

intent and purpose of working out one's own salvation by one's own

works and righteousness, these were not vows in accordance with the

will of God, but denials of the faith. And even though a man should

have made a vow in a spirit of piety, he placed himself at all

events, by his own will and act, under a restraint and yoke at

variance with the gospel and the liberty which faith in Christ

bestows. Luther went still farther, and declared that the chastity

enjoined upon the monk was only possible if he possessed the special

gift of continence spoken of by St. Paul. How dare a man make a vow

to God, which God must first endue him with the power to keep? A

man, therefore, in vowing chastity, makes a vow which it is not

really possible for him to keep, whilst true chastity is made

possible for him by God in the married life which he condemns. These

vows, accordingly, are radically vicious and displeasing to God, and

cease to be binding on a Christian who has been made free in faith,

and has recognised the true will of God.

Personally concerned as Luther was, as an Augustine monk himself, in

these questions which he discussed, he treated the liberty, which

inwardly he knew himself to possess, as quietly and coolly as

possible. On receiving the news from Wittenberg, he wrote to

Spalatin, 'Good Heaven! our Wittenbergers will allow even the monks

to have wives, but they shall not force me to take one.' And he asks

Melancthon jokingly, if he was going to revenge himself upon him for

having helped him to get a wife; he would know well enough how to

guard against that.

At Wittenberg there was great excitement, particularly on account of

the mass. In the Augustinian convent there, the majority of the

monks held with Zwilling; they wished to celebrate the sacrament of

the Lord's Supper in strict accordance with the institution of

Christ. Their prior, Conrad Held, took the opposite side, and

adhered to the ancient usage. Justus Jonas, the provost, expressed

his views with equal ardour in the convent church attached to the

university, and met with violent opposition from other members of

the foundation. A committee, composed of deputies from the

university and chapter of canons, from whom the Elector in October

demanded a formal opinion on the subject, expressed by their

majority the same view, and requested the Elector himself to abolish

the abuse of the mass. But Frederick utterly rejected the idea of

decreeing on his own authority innovations which would constitute a

deviation from the great Christian Catholic Church, more especially

as opinions were not agreed on them even at Wittenberg. He would do

no more than give free scope and protection to the new testimony of

biblical truth, until it should be properly sifted by the Church. In

the church of the Augustinian convent, the mass and the Lord's

Supper were now both suspended.

Men set to work now in earnest to give effect to the new principles

applied to monachism. Thirteen Augustine monks, about a third of the

then inmates of the convent at Wittenberg, quitted that convent

early in November, and cast away their cowls. Some of them took up

at once a civil trade or handicraft. This step increased the growing

feeling of hostility to the monks among the students and inhabitants

of the town. All kinds of enormities ensued: monks were mocked at in

the streets; the convents were threatened; and even the service of

the mass was disturbed by rioters who forced their way into the

parish church.

Meanwhile Luther went on, in the quietness of his seclusion, to

teach the Christian truth about vows and masses, to explain and

establish his newly-acquired knowledge and convictions, and to

prepare by that means the way of ultimate reform. He composed a

tract, in Latin and German, 'On the Abuse of Masses,' and another,

in Latin, 'On Monastic Vows.' The latter he dedicated to his father,

taking note of his protest against his entering the convent, and

telling him with joy that he was now a free man, a monk, and yet no

longer a monk. As for his brethren's desertion of the convent,

however, he disapproved the manner of it. They could, and should,

have parted in peace and amity, not as they did, in a tumult. These

two works he completed in November, and sent them to Spalatin, to

have them printed at Wittenberg.

In this manner Luther occupied himself from the summer to the

winter, continuing all the while his biblical studies and the

composition of his Church-Postills. But he was also preparing to

deal a heavy blow at the Cardinal Albert. This prelate had abstained

as yet, with great caution, from taking any stringent measures to

prevent the spread of Lutheran preaching in his diocese. But he was

in want of money. To supply this want, he published a work, giving

news of a precious relic, which he had placed for view at Halle, his

town, and inviting pilgrimages to see it. A multitude of other rich

and wondrous relics had been collected there; not only heaps of

bones and entire corpses of saints, with a portion of the body of

the patriarch Isaac, but also pieces of the manna, as it had fallen

from heaven in the desert, little bits of the burning bush of Moses,

jars from the wedding at Cana, and some of the wine into which Jesus

there had changed the water, thorns from the Saviour's crown, one of

the stones with which Stephen was stoned, and a multitude of other,

in all nearly 9,000, relics. Whoever should attend with devotion at

the exhibition of these sacred treasures in the Collegiate Church at

Halle, and should give a pious alms to the institution, was to

receive a 'surpassing' indulgence. The first exhibition of this kind

took place about the beginning of September. Albert also had not

scrupled to cause one of the priests who wished to marry to be

imprisoned, though it was notorious how he himself made up for his

celibacy by his loose living.

Luther now, as he wrote to Spalatin on October 7, 1521, could not

restrain himself any longer from breaking out, in private and in

public, against his 'Idol of indulgences' and his scandalous

whoredoms. He took no thought of the fact that his own pious

Elector, only a few years before, had arranged a similar, though

less showy exhibition of relics at the convent church at Wittenberg,

and was thus indirectly assailed by reproaches now no longer

deserved. By the end of the month Luther had a pamphlet ready for

publication. But an attack of such a kind on a magnate like Albert,

the great prince of the Empire, Elector of Mayence, and brother of

the Elector of Brandenburg, was not to Frederick's taste, and he

informed Luther, through Spalatin that he forbade it. He would not

sanction anything, he said, which might disturb the public peace.

Luther told Spalatin, in his reply, that he had never read a more

disagreeable letter than Frederick's. 'I will not put up with it,'

he indignantly broke out; 'I will rather lose you and the prince

himself, and every living being. If I have stood up against the

Pope, why should I yield to his creature?' He wished only to show

his pamphlet first to Melancthon, and submit a few alterations in it

to the judgment of his friend. For this purpose he sent it to

Spalatin, requesting him to forward it. Then, on December 1, he

wrote a letter to Albert himself. Its tone and contents indicate

pretty plainly what the pamphlet itself contained. In clear vigorous

German, and without any circumlocution, he submits to the Cardinal

his 'humble request,' to abstain from corrupting the poor people,

and not to show himself a wolf in bishop's clothing. He must surely

know by this time that indulgences were sheer knavery and trickery.

He was not to imagine that Luther was dead: Luther would trust

cheerfully in God, and carry on a game with the Cardinal of Mayence,

of which not many people were yet aware. As for the priests who had

wished to marry, he warned the Archbishop that a cry would be raised

from the gospel about it; and the bishops would learn that they had

better first pluck out the beam from their own eyes, and drive their

own mistresses away. Luther concluded by giving him fourteen days

for a 'proper' answer; otherwise, when that time expired, he would

immediately publish his pamphlet on 'The Idol at Halle.' All this

while, the news from Wittenberg kept Luther in a state of constant

anxiety. The distance and the difficulty of correspondence had

become quite insupportable. A few days after his letter of December

1, he suddenly re-appeared there among his friends. In secret, and

accompanied only by a servant, he had gone thither on horseback in

his knight's dress. He stayed there for three days with Amsdorf.

Only his most intimate friends were allowed to know of his arrival.

His meeting with them again gave him, as he wrote to Spalatin, the

keenest pleasure and enjoyment. But it was a bitter sorrow to hear

that Spalatin would not look at, or listen to, his pamphlet against

Albert, nor his tracts on masses and monastic vows, but had kept

them back. What his friends now told him of their efforts and

labours he approved of, and he wished them strength from above to

persevere. But he had heard already, when on his way, of fresh

outrages committed by some of the townspeople and students against

the priests and monks, and henceforth he deemed it his nearest duty

to warn them publicly against such acts of violence and disorder.

CHAPTER II.

LUTHER'S FURTHER SOJOURN AT THE WARTBURG, AND HIS RETURN TO

WITTENBERG, 1522.

In secret, as he had first gone there, Luther returned to the

Wartburg, and now set to work with his 'True Admonition for all

Christians to abstain from turbulence and rebellion.' He had before

his eyes the danger of an insurrection, involving the lives of all

the priests and monks who opposed reform, and one in which the

common people, in revenge for their many grievances, might fall to

laying about them with clubs and flails, as the 'Karsthans'

threatened. To the princes, magistrates, and nobles, he had already

addressed a demand to put a stop to the corruption of the Church and

the tyranny of the Pope. Of the civil authorities and the nobility,

he says now that 'they ought to do this, in duty to their ordinary

position and power, every prince and lord on his own territory; for

what is brought about by the exercise of ordinary power is not to be

accounted turbulence.' At the same time, to the masses and to

individuals he plainly prohibits a rising by force. Turbulence was

the usurpation of justice, and revenge, which God would not suffer,

for He said, 'Revenge is Mine.' All turbulence, he said, was wrong,

however good might be the cause, and only made bad worse. As for the

magistrates, he would not have them kill the priests, as once Moses

and Elias had done to the worshippers of idols; they were simply to

forbid them from acting contrary to the gospel. Words would do more

than was enough with them, so there was no need of hewing and

stabbing. We have seen how emphatically Luther expressed himself to

the same effect before he went to Worms. The Apostle's words that

the Lord should consume the Antichrist with the Spirit of His Mouth,

were to be fulfilled, according to Luther, in the words of gospel

preaching. It was his own previous experience that had taught him to

rely with such lofty confidence on the simple Word; he had done more

injury with it alone to the Pope, and the priests and monks, than

all the emperors and princes had ever done with all their power. He

still looked forward steadfastly to the approach of the Last Day,

when Christ by His coming should utterly destroy the Pope, whose

iniquity the Word had exposed. As he had done formerly in his

treatise on Christian liberty, and had now good reason to do with

the Wittenbergers, he exhorts men to a loving and merciful regard to

their weaker brethren, whose consciences were still ensnared by the

old ordinances respecting fasting and masses. They ought not to be

taken unawares, but instructed kindly and, if unable to agree at

once, dealt with patiently. 'The wolves,' he says, 'cannot be

treated too severely, nor the tender sheep too gently.'

Luther's works on the mass and monastic vows were now actually in

print. Cardinal Albert, however, gave the answer demanded by Luther,

in a short letter of December 21. He assured him that the subject of

his complaint had been removed; that as to himself, he did not deny

that he was a miserable sinner, the very filth of the earth, as bad

as anyone. Christian chastisement he could well endure; he looked to

God for grace and strength, to live according to His will. So

abjectly did this magnate quail before the Word, with which Luther

threatened to expose his doings. He must no doubt have been ashamed

of his traffic in indulgences before all his Humanist friends, and

especially Erasmus; and must have expected that the other scandals

with which Luther charged him would be laid bare without mercy or

regard. At the same time we see in all this, how perfectly free from

reproach in this matter of morality must Luther have been, not only

in his own conscience, but also in the eyes of Albert. Luther, on

receiving this letter, doubted indeed the sincerity of its

professions, and even abstained from acknowledging it. But he now

finally abandoned, nevertheless, the publication of the pamphlet,

intended to expose him, which had hitherto been hindered by the

Elector.

But the most important task that Luther now undertook, and in which

he persevered with steadfast devotion during his further stay at the

Wartburg, was one of a peaceful character, the most beautiful fruit

of his seclusion, the noblest gift that he has bequeathed to his

countrymen. This was his translation of the Bible--first of the New

Testament. 'Our brethren demand it of me,' he wrote to Lange shortly

after his return from Wittenberg. And in these words the wish was

evidently expressed, or else laid to heart anew. The Bible, it is

true, had been translated into German before Luther's time, but in a

clumsy idiom that sounded foreign to the people, and not, like

Luther's version, from the original text, but from the Latin

translation used in the churches. Luther declared that no one could

speak German of this outlandish kind, 'but,' he said, 'one has to

ask the mother in her home, the children in the street, the common

man in the market-place, and look at their mouths to see how they

speak, and thence interpret it to oneself, and so make them

understand. I have often laboured to do this, but have not always

succeeded or hit the meaning.' None the less strictly and faithfully

did he seek to adhere to the spirit of the text, and, where

necessary, even to the letter. Such an interpretation, he said,

required a 'truly devout, faithful, diligent, fearful, Christian,

learned, experienced, and practised heart.' Penetrated himself with

the substance and spirit of the Scriptures, he understood how to

combine in his language, as if by intuition, a dignified tone and a

national character. So hard did he work, that he finished the New

Testament at the Wartburg in a few months; he then wished to revise

it with the help of Melancthon.

Meanwhile, affairs at Wittenberg were assuming so serious an aspect

as to make Luther's apprehensions increase from day to day. The

question of monastic vows indeed was settled peaceably, and in a

manner such as Luther would have desired, by some resolutions (so

far as resolutions could settle it), passed by the Augustinian

brethren at a chapter held at Wittenberg by Link, the Vicar of the

Order. It was there resolved that free permission should be given to

leave the convent, but that those who preferred to adhere to the

monastic life should remain there in voluntary but strict

subordination to their superiors and to the established rules; some

of them should be employed in preaching the Word of God, others

should contribute by manual labour to the support of the

institution. Outside, however, among the people of Wittenberg,

Carlstadt, who had shortly before restrained even his own partisans

in regard to the question of the mass, and who was neither a regular

preacher in the town nor in the possession of any other office, now

pressed forward, by his sermons and writings, impetuously in the

van, and made hasty strides towards the furtherance of his misty

projects of reform. Anticipating a prohibition from the Elector, he

celebrated the Lord's Supper at Christmas in the new manner. Even

the usual vestments were discarded as idolatrous: Zwilling performed

the service in a student's gown. The people were enjoined to eat

meat and eggs on fast days; and confession was no longer held before

the Communion. Carlstadt went further, and denounced the pictures

and images in the churches; it was not enough to desist from

worshipping them, nor durst it be hinted that they served as books

for the instruction of laymen. God had plainly forbidden them; their

proper place was in the fire and not in God's house. Whilst the

town-council, at his instance, resolved to have the images removed

from the parish church, some of the populace stormed in, tore them

down, hewed them to pieces, and burned them.

Luther himself, even with regard to rites and ordinances which he

rejected altogether, always counselled moderation and patience

towards the weak. He could not believe that the great body of his

Wittenberg congregation were already ripe for such changes, or that

many conscientious but weaker brethren among them were not in need

of tender consideration. People might say that it was only a

question of time; well, he did not wish to delay genuine reform for

ever, merely to humour the minority. But it was precisely that those

members should have proper time allowed them, and every means taken

for their instruction and edification, that was to Luther a matter

of conscience. External matters, of which the other Reformers made

so much, such as eating on fast days, the taking with one's own

hands the bread and wine at the Communion, and so forth, he regarded

as trifles, the performance or non-performance of which in no way

affected the true liberty of the faithful, while grievous wrong was

done to the souls of the weaker brethren, if they were compelled to

do anything therein against their consciences. 'By acting thus,' he

says, 'you have made many consciences miserable; if they had to give

an account on their death-beds, or when troubled with temptation,

they would not for the life of them know why or how they had

offended.' Nay, he accuses a man of corrupting souls, who 'plunges'

them carelessly into practices that offend their consciences. 'You

wish,' he says, 'to serve God, and you don't know that you are the

forerunners of the devil. He has begun by attempting to dishonour

the Word; he has set you to work at that bit of folly, so that

meanwhile you may forget faith and love.' Thus Luther wrote in a

work intended for the Wittenbergers. Even the innovations with

regard to pictures and images he numbers among the 'trivial matters

which are not worth the sacrifice of faith and love.' Those which

represented truly Christian subjects he would preserve at all times,

and he valued them highly.

These Wittenberg Reformers, however, with all their desire to assert

the higher spiritual character of evangelical Christianity, still

remained devotees, in their peculiar 'spirit,' to the externals of

worship and, in regard to images, to the letter of the Old Testament

law. And yet their conception of the Christian spirit and of

Christian revelation produced results of another and still stranger

kind. Not only did they repudiate all titles and dignities conferred

by the university, on the plea that, in the words of Christ, no man

durst call himself Rabbi or master, but Carlstadt and Zwilling now

openly expressed their contempt of all human theology and biblical

learning. God, they said, has hid these things from the wise and

prudent, and has revealed them unto babes; the Spirit from above

must enlighten a man. Carlstadt went to simple burghers in their

houses, to have passages in the Bible explained to him. He and

Zwilling won over to their side the master of the boys' school in

the town, and the school was broken up. A new municipal

constitution, supported by the magistracy, made strange inroads on

the rights of the citizens and the domain of social life; a common

chest, containing the revenues of the Church, was utilised for

advancing money without interest to needy handicraftsmen, and making

loans to other townsmen at a low rate of interest. Meantime the

spiritual wants of the community were neglected, and in the

hospitals and prisons entirely overlooked.

Such was the direction here taken by the reform for which Luther's

preaching had prepared the way. And just at this time, at Christmas,

three fanatics came to Wittenberg from Zwickau, with the object of

taking part in the movement and furthering the work of God. These were

Nicholas Storch, a weaver, Mark Stübner, a former student at Wittenberg,

and another weaver, who were now zealously joined by the theologian

Martin Cellarius. They boasted of a direct revelation from God, of

prophetic visions, dreams, and familiar conversations with the Deity.

Compared with these pretensions, Scripture was a thing of small

importance in their eyes. They rejected infant baptism, as incapable

of imparting the Spirit. For communion and intercourse with God they

looked not to faith, which, as Luther taught, accepts submissively

what the Word of God reveals to the conscience and the heart, but to

a mystic process of self-abstraction from everything external, sensual,

and finite, until the soul becomes immovably centred in the one Divine

Being. This spirit, seemingly so elevated and pure, broke out

nevertheless into fanaticism of the wildest kind, by proclaiming and

demanding a general revolution, in which all the priests were to be

killed, all godless men destroyed, and the kingdom of God established.

These fanatical displays had begun at Zwickau, no doubt under

Bohemian influence, and were characterised by the ravings common to

the middle ages. Thomas Münzer, from Stolberg in the Harz country,

who was a preacher at one of the churches, took the lead; and he was

certainly the most important and most dangerous personage among

them. He accounted the civil authorities, with their rights, no more

as Christians than he did the clergy and the hierarchy; and began

already to prate of universal equality and communism. This novel and

exciting doctrine soon won adherents, and propagated the 'spirit of

revelation.' Already disturbances were brewing. But the magistrates

took vigorous and timely measures. Storch, Stübner, and Cellarius

fled to Wittenberg, while Münzer roamed about elsewhere in Germany.

Carlstadt went on with his innovations without allying himself

outwardly with these refugees. But the connection of his aims with

theirs could not be mistaken, and as time went on, became more and

more apparent. Melancthon, with all his refinement and purity of

soul, had not sufficient energy and independence to bridle the

passions and forces that had been aroused by Carlstadt. The Zwickau

prophets, with their visions and revelations, haunted him; he seemed

incapable of forming any settled or sober judgment on this strange

and sudden phenomenon.

Luther, on the contrary, received the news with calmness and

composure. He marvelled at the anxiety of his friend, who in

intellect and learning was his superior. He found no difficulty in

testing these enthusiasts by the standard of the New Testament.

There was nothing, he said, in their words and acts, so far as he

had heard anything of them, which the devil might not do or mimic.

As for their so-called ecstasies of devotion, there was nothing in

all that, even though they boasted of being rapt into the third

heaven. The Majesty of God was not wont to hold such familiar

converse with men in old time. The creature must first perish before

his Creator, as before a consuming fire: when God speaks, he must

feel the meaning of the words of Isaiah, 'As a lion, so will he

break all my bones.' And yet Luther would not have them imprisoned

or dealt with by violence; they could be disposed of without

bloodshed and the sword, and be laughed out of their folly.

But his cares for his Wittenberg congregation and the trouble which

Carlstadt's doings there were giving him, left him no peace. He

could not justify those acts before God and the world: they lay upon

his own shoulders, and above all, they brought discredit on the

gospel. In January he went back to Wittenberg. He was entreated to

do so by the magistrates. In vain did the Elector attempt to detain

him, and so prevent his risking an appearance in public. Moreover,

the Council of Regency at Nüremberg, which represented the Emperor

in his absence, had just demanded of Frederick a strict suppression

of the innovations at Wittenberg.

Luther quitted the Wartburg, without leave, on March 1. About his

journey thence we only know that he passed through Jena and the town

of Borna, lying south of Leipzig. A young Swiss, John Kessler from

St. Gallen, who was then on his way with a companion to the

university at Wittenberg, has left us an interesting account of

their meeting with Luther at the inn of the 'Black Bear,' just

outside Jena. They found there a solitary horseman sitting at the

table, 'dressed after the fashion of the country in a red

_schlepli_ (or slouched hat), plain hose and doublet--he had

thrown aside his tabard--with a sword at his side, his right hand

resting on the pommel, and the other grasping the hilt.' Before him

lay a little book. He invited them in a friendly manner, bashful as

they were, to take a seat by him, and spoke to them about the

Wittenberg studies, about Melancthon and other men of learning, and

as to what people thought of Luther in Switzerland. Discoursing

thus, he made them feel so much at ease, that Kessler's companion

took up the little book lying before him, and opened it: it was a

Hebrew Psalter. At supper, where they were joined by two merchants,

he paid for Kessler and his friend, and fascinated them all by his

'agreeable and godly discourse.' Afterwards he drank with his young

friends 'one more friendly glass for a blessing,' gave them his hand

at parting, and charged them to greet the jurist Schurf at

Wittenberg, who was a fellow-countryman of theirs by birth, with the

words 'He who is coming, salutes you.' The host had recognised

Luther, and told his guests who he was. Early next morning the

merchants found him in the stable: he mounted his horse, and rode

forward on his way.

At Borna, where he lodged with an official of the Elector, he wrote

in haste a long answer to the warning instructions of his prince,

conveyed to him by the governor of Eisenach on the eve of his

departure. He did not seek to excuse himself, or to beg forgiveness,

but to quiet his 'most gracious Highness,' and confirm him in the

faith. He had never spoken with greater certainty about what he had

to do, nor with a calmer and more joyful, bold, and proud assurance,

in view of what lay before him, than now, when he had to encounter,

on two contrary sides, opposition and danger. In his resolve and his

hopes he threw himself entirely on his God. 'I go to Wittenberg,' he

writes to Frederick, 'under a far higher protection than yours. Nay,

I hold that I can offer your Highness more protection than your

Highness can offer me.... God alone must be the worker here, without

any human care or help; therefore, he who has the most faith will be

able to give the most protection.' To the question what the Elector

should do in his cause, he answered, 'nothing at all.' The Elector

must allow the Imperial authorities to exercise their powers in his

territory without let or hindrance, even if they chose to seize him

or put him to death. The Elector would surely not be called on to be

his executioner. Should he leave the door open and give safe-conduct

to those who sought to capture him, he would have done his duty

quite enough.

Luther rode on undaunted, even through the territory of Duke George,

who was now violently exasperated with him and the people of

Wittenberg; and on the evening of March 6 he reached his destination

and his friends, safe in body and happy in his mind.

On the morning of the following Saturday, Kessler and his companion,

on visiting Schurf, found Luther sitting at his house with

Melancthon, Jonas, and Amsdorf, and telling them about his doings.

Kessler thus describes his appearance. 'When I saw Martin in 1522,

he was somewhat stout, but upright, bending backwards rather than

stooping; with a face upturned to heaven; with deep, dark eyes and

eyebrows, twinkling and sparkling like stars, so that one could

hardly look steadily at them.'

CHAPTER III.

LUTHER'S RE-APPEARANCE AND FRESH LABOURS AT WITTENBEBG, 1522.

It was on a Thursday that Luther arrived again at Wittenberg. The

very next Sunday he re-appeared in his old pulpit among his town

congregation. In clear, simple, earnest, and Scriptural language he

endeavoured to explain to them their errors, and to lead them again

into the right way. For eight successive days he preached in this

manner. The truths and principles he propounded were the same that

he uttered from the Wartburg, and, indeed, ever since his career of

reformation began. Above all things he exhorted them to charity, and

to deal with their faithful fellow-Christians as God had dealt with

them in His love, whereof through faith they were partakers. 'In

this, dear friends,' he said, 'you are almost entirely wanting, and

not a trace of charity can I see in you, but perceive rather that

you have not been thankful to God. I see, indeed, that you can

discourse well enough on the doctrines of faith and love which have

been preached to you, and no wonder: cannot even a donkey sing his

lesson? and should you not then speak and teach the doctrine or the

little Word? But the kingdom of God does not consist in talk or

words, but in deeds, in works and practice.' He taught them to

distinguish between what was obligatory and what was free, between

what was to be observed or what was not. Charity must be practised,

he said, even in essentials, since no man must compel his brother by

force, but must let the Word operate on the hearts of the weak and

erring, and pray for them. Whatever is free must be left free, so as

not to cause vexation to the weak; but against unchristian tyrants a

stand must be made for freedom.

Thus, with the sheer power and fervour of his eloquence, Luther

prevailed with his congregation, and soon had the conduct of the

Church movement again in his hands. Zwilling allowed himself to be

reproved. Carlstadt shrank back silently, though sullenly; Luther

earnestly begged him not to publish anything hostile and thus compel

him to a battle. In his sermons he refrained from all personal

references. Of the recent innovations, only one was retained, the

omission from the mass of the words relating to the sacrifice of the

Body of Christ by the priests. Luther considered them downright

objectionable and unchristian; and important as they were in

themselves, they were scarcely noticed by the weak and simple, being

uttered in Latin, and in a low voice. The sacrament was again

administered to the majority in one kind; and only those who

expressly desired it could receive it with the lay-cup at an altar

set aside for the purpose. The latter form of celebration, however,

soon became the general custom, to the exclusion of the former. As

regards the vestments to be worn during service, the taking the

elements into one's own hand, and such-like matters, Luther

maintained that they were too trifling to make a fuss about, or to

be allowed to be a stumbling-block to the weak adherents of the old

system. Luther himself returned to live at the convent, resumed his

cowl, and observed again the customary ordinance of fasting. It was

only after two years, when his frock was quite worn out, and he had

a new suit made of some good cloth which the Elector had given him,

that he laid aside altogether his monk's dress.

The prophets of Zwickau were away from Wittenberg at the moment when

Luther returned there. A few weeks after Stübner and Cellarius

appeared before Luther. Their real character and spirit were now

fully shown him by the arrogance and violence with which they

demanded belief in their superior authority, and by their outburst

of rage when he ventured to contradict them. He writes thus to

Spalatin: 'I have caught them even in open lying; when they tried to

evade me with miserable smooth words, I at last bade them prove

their teaching by miracles, of which they boasted against the

Scriptures. This they refused, but threatened that I should have to

believe them some day. Thereupon I told them that their God could

work no miracle against the will of my God. Thus we separated.' They

then left the town for ever, without having gained any ground there.

Thus Luther, who was accused by his enemies of subverting all

ordinances of the Church, began his practical labours of reform by

checking, through the firmness and clearness of his principles, the

violence of others, and concentrating all his thoughts on the

spiritual welfare of his congregation. The preacher of free and

saving faith was the foremost to insist, in the practical conduct of

the Church, upon the active exercise of brotherly love in the

service of true freedom. The great man of the people opposed

himself, regardless of popular favour or dislike, to the current

which had now become national. Under the influence of his preaching

the Elector could now quietly allow matters in Wittenberg and the

neighbourhood to shape their further course in quiet. Nevertheless,

he permitted the neighbouring bishops to work against the new

doctrines by visitations in his country; he only denied them the

assistance of magisterial compulsion and temporal penalties. The

truth should make its own way.

Luther, immediately on his return to Wittenberg, was impatient to

explain in full to German Christendom his position, without the

restraints imposed on his words during his residence at the

Wartburg. This he did in a letter to the knight Hartmuth von

Kronberg, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, which he intended for

publication. The latter, son-in-law to Sickingen, a man of upright,

honourable, Christian character, had published a couple of little

tracts in Luther's spirit. Luther, by his letter wished to 'visit

him in spirit and make known to him his joy.' He took the

opportunity, at the same time, of speaking his mind plainly, both

about the contest he had to wage at Wittenberg, and the hostility to

the gospel displayed by Romanists in Germany. But harder yet for the

faith than the snares of such enemies, appeared to him 'the cunning

game' devised by Satan at Wittenberg, to bring reproach upon the

gospel. 'Not all my enemies,' he said, 'have hit me as I now am hit

by our people, and I must confess that the smoke makes my eyes smart

and almost tickles my heart. "Hereby," thought the Evil One, "I will

take the heart out of Luther and weary the tough spirit; this attack

he will neither understand nor conquer!"' Fearlessly also, and in a

manner which would have been impossible to him at the Wartburg, he

spoke out against the grievous 'sin at Worms, when the truth of God

was so childishly despised, so publicly, defiantly, wilfully

condemned;' it was a sin of the whole German nation, because the

heads had done this, and no one at the godless Diet had opposed

them. He reproached himself with having, in order to please good

friends there, and not to appear too obstinate, smothered his

feelings and not spoken out his belief with more vigour and decision

before the tyrants, however much the unbelieving heathens might have

abused him for answering haughtily. Of one of his 'miserable

enemies' he says: 'The chief one is the water-bladder N., who defies

Heaven with his high stomach, and has renounced the gospel. He would

like to devour Christ, as the wolf does a gnat.' This was an

unmistakable allusion to Duke George, who, in his bigoted devotion

to the Church, was especially excited by the dangerous influences

which threatened his country from the neighbouring Wittenberg, and

who shortly before had made violent complaints on that account to

the Elector Frederick. Indeed, in a copy of this letter, he was

mentioned by name. Duke George afterwards demanded satisfaction, but

the matter was prolonged without any result. Luther informs Hartmuth

of his return to Wittenberg, but adds that he does not know how long

he will remain there. He announces to him the portion of his

Postills which had just been published, and states that he had made

up his mind to translate the Bible into German. This, he said, was

necessary for him, for it would show him his mistake in fancying he

was a learned man.

Luther now threw himself into his work in all its branches. He

resumed his academical lectures as well as the regular preaching in

the town church, and he also preached on week days on the different

books of the Bible. These sermons he continued when, in the

following year, after the death of the old pastor Heins, for whom he

had hitherto acted as deputy, his friend Bugenhagen was appointed to

the living. He and Bugenhagen remained from now until the latter

died, united by personal friendship and common theological views,

and laboured faithfully together in the service of their parochial

congregation. Bugenhagen, as town pastor, appears as one of the most

prominent figures in the history of Wittenberg at this time. Luther

assisted him and his congregation with unselfish affection and

friendship, and in turn made confidential use of his services as

pastor and father-confessor.

[Illustration: Fig. 27.--Bugenuagen. From a picture by Cranach in

his album, (at Berlin,) 1543.]

During the busy times of Lent and Easter, 1522, Luther had again

undertaken duty among the Wittenberg congregation, and immediately

after Easter he visited Borna, Altenburg, Zwickau, and Eilenburg,

where the people were longing to hear his preaching, and where he

exerted himself to have an evangelical preacher appointed. His eyes

indeed were chiefly fixed on Zwickau, where he was resolved to

counteract finally by his words the consequences of the recent

infatuation. According to a report, made by a state official, 25,000

people assembled to hear Luther, who preached from a balcony of the

town-hall to the multitude gathered below. At Borna he preached

immediately before a visitation held there by the Bishop of

Merseburg, and again on the day after it. During the following

autumn he also preached several times at Weimar, whither he had been

invited by John, the brother of the Elector Frederick; and likewise

before the congregation at Erfurt, to whom during the summer he had

addressed an instructive exhortation in writing on the subject of

the innovations.

Even at Wittenberg his literary labours, as we have seen from his

letter to Kronberg, were still mainly devoted to the Bible. In

concert with Melancthon, and with the assistance of other friends,

he set about a revision of his translation of the New Testament. He

sent the first sheets when printed to Spalatin, on May 10, as a

'foretaste of our new Bible.' With the aid of three presses the

printing progressed so rapidly, that already in September the work

was ready for publication. September 21, dedicated to St. Matthew,

is distinguished as the birthday of the German New Testament. In

December already a second edition was called for, though the price

of the book, a florin and a half, was a high one at that time.

The work was greedily and thankfully pounced upon by many thousands

in all parts of Germany, who had learnt from Luther to distinguish

the 'pure Word of God' from the dogmas of the Church, and to honour

it accordingly. Nor could any means more powerful than this be found

of spreading the doctrine thus founded on the Word of God, and

making it the real property of hearers and readers. All the greater

was the danger recognised herein by those who adhered to

ecclesiastical authority and traditions. Of great significance for

both sides are the words of one of the most violent of Luther's

contemporary opponents, the theologian Cochlaeus: 'Luther's New

Testament was multiplied by the printers in a most wonderful degree,

so that even shoemakers and women, and every and any lay person

acquainted with the German type, read it greedily as the fountain of

all truth, and by repeatedly, reading it, impressed it on their

memory. By this means they acquired in a few months so much

knowledge, that they ventured to dispute, not only with Catholic

laymen, but even with masters and doctors of theology, about faith

and the gospel. Luther himself, indeed, had long before taught that

even Christian women, and everyone who had been baptized, were in

truth priests, as much as pope, bishop, and priests. The crowd of

Lutherans gave themselves far more trouble in learning the

translation of the Bible than did the Catholics, where the laity

left such matters chiefly to the priests and monks.' The Catholic

authorities immediately issued orders forbidding the book, and

directing it to be delivered up and confiscated. They hastened also

to accuse the translation of a number of pretended errors and

falsifications, which were mostly corrections of passages

mistranslated in the established Latin version from the words of the

original Greek text. Cochlaeus brought one particular charge against

Luther's translation, that he had ventured to alter the beginning of

the Lord's Prayer in contradiction to the Universal, including the

German Church, and likewise to the original text, by substituting

'Unser Vater in dem Himmel' for 'Vater unser, der du bist im

Himmel.' ('Our Father in Heaven,' for 'Our Father which art in

Heaven'). When, some years later, Emser published a rival

translation of the New Testament, it was found to be in great part a

transcript of Luther's, with only a few corrections according to the

old Latin.

Whilst the New Testament was still in the press, Luther set

zealously to work on the Old. Here he encountered more difficulties,

on account of the language; but he had long been studying Hebrew

with devotion and zeal, and moreover he could now get the assistance

of his new colleague, Aurogallus, who was especially famous for

teaching Hebrew. Before Christmas the five Books of Moses were ready

for press; these were to be published by themselves. In 1524 they

were followed by two other parts, containing the biblical books

(according to the present German order) up to the Song of Solomon.

His translation of the prophets, interrupted by other work, was

delayed for several years.

Nor was Luther's sharp pen long idle against Rome, as indeed might

have been anticipated from his letter to Kronberg. He found his

chief occasion for attack in a series of new edicts and other

measures of the German bishops against the innovations--the

abolition of clerical celibacy, the transgression of the laws of

fasting, and so on. For this purpose ecclesiastical visitations were

undertaken by the Bishops of Meissen and Merseburg, such as have

already been alluded to when Luther went to Zwickau.