Luther's sermons against the abuse of Christian liberty were

followed by a small tract entitled 'On the necessity of avoiding

human doctrine.' He did not mean it, as he said, for those 'bold,

intemperate heads;' but he wished to preach Christian liberty to the

poor, humble consciences, enslaved by monkish vows and ordinances,

that they might be instructed how, by God's help and without danger,

to escape and to use their liberty discreetly. Against the existing

Romish episcopacy he declared war to the knife in a treatise

'Against the Order, falsely called Spiritual, of Pope and Bishops.'

He who had been robbed of his title of priest and doctor by the

displeasure of Pope and Emperor, and from whom, by Papal bulls, the

'mark of the beast' (Rev. xiii. 16) was washed off, confronts the

'popish bishops' now, as 'by God's grace, preacher at Wittenberg.'

Luther's further writings against the Romish Churchdom and dogma do

not possess the same interest for us as his earlier ones, inasmuch

as they no longer show the progress and development of his own views

on the Church. In the violent language he now employs he vents his

chief anger in complaining that he, and the truth he represented,

'had been condemned unheard--an unexampled proceeding--unrefuted,

and in headlong and criminal haste.'

With reference to the attack he had made on the 'episcopal

masqueraders' in the tract above mentioned, Luther remarked in a

letter to Spalatin on July 26 that he had purposely been so sharp in

it, because he saw how vainly he had humbled himself, yielded,

prayed and complained. And he added that he would just as little

flatter, the King of England.

King Henry VIII., who later on, for other reasons, broke so entirely

with the Church of Rome and began reforms after his own fashion, had

at that time gained for himself from the Pope the title of 'Defender

of the Faith,' on account of a learned scholastic treatise against

Luther's 'Babylonish Captivity.' This treatise had made such a stir,

that Luther thought it expedient to answer it in one of his own. The

latter, originally written in Latin, gives a carefully considered

explanation of the points of doctrine at issue, and proceeds to

prove the propositions he had previously advanced. He points out

fundamental, and, indeed, irreconcilable variance between his

principles and those of the King, by showing how he, Luther, fought

for freedom and established it, while the King, on the contrary,

took up the cudgels for captivity, without even attempting to

justify it by argument, but simply kept talking of what it consists

of, and how people must be content to remain in it. In fact, the

whole book was a mere reiteration of the dogmas of ecclesiastical

authorities, of the Councils, and of tradition, always taking it for

granted that these dare not be disputed. 'I do not need,' says

Luther,' the King to teach me this.' But the personal tone adopted

by Luther against Henry went beyond anything that his expressions to

Spalatin might have led one to expect, and was even more marked in a

German edition of his treatise, which he published after the royal

one had been translated into German. The King had, moreover, set the

example of abuse, as coarse and defiant as that of his opponent.

Luther did not shrink from an incidental remark at the expense of

other princes. 'King Henry,' he says, 'must help to prove the truth

of the proverb, that there are no greater fools than kings and

princes.'

But the most important among the works which Luther was now led to

undertake by his opposition to the Romish Church and her teaching,

and by her hostile proceedings against himself, was a treatise on

the secular power, which he began in December, as soon as he had

finished the translation of the five Books of Moses. It appeared

under the title of 'On the Secular Power, and how far obedience is

due to it.'

How far obedience is due to it? This was the question provoked by

the commands and threats of punishment with which Catholic princes

were now endeavouring to aid the spiritual power in suppressing the

gospel, the writings on reform, and especially the new translation

of the Bible. The question was, how far a Christian was bound to

obey.

Nor had Luther to step forward less decisively as the champion of

the rights, the Divine authority, and the dignity of the civil

power, against the pretensions of the Catholic Church. Words of

Jesus such as these lay before him: 'But I say unto you, that ye

resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,

turn to him the other also.' How could these words be reconciled

with the fact that the secular arm resisted wrong with force, and

raised the sword against the evil-doer? The Church of the middle

ages and the School theology maintained that these words were not

general moral commands for all Christians, but merely advice for

those among them who wished to attain a higher degree of perfection.

Hereby the whole civil government with its authorities was assigned

a lower grade of ordinary morality, whilst higher morality or true

perfection was to be represented in the priestly office and

monasticism. On the other hand, friends of Luther, ere now, while

taking note that Christ had spoken these words direct to all his

disciples, and therefore to all Christians, had been troubled to

know how to establish, with regard to Christians, the rights and

duties of temporal power.

With respect to this second point in particular Luther now gives his

explanation. Those words of Christ were unquestionably commands for

all Christians. They demand of every Christian that he should never

on his own account grasp the sword and employ force; and if only the

world were full of good Christians there would be no need of the,

sword of secular authority. But it is necessary to wield it against

evil for the general welfare, to punish sin and to preserve the

peace; and therefore the true Christian, in order thereby to serve

his neighbour, must willingly submit to the rule of this sword, and,

if God assigns him an office, must wield this sword himself. This

command of Scripture is confirmed by other passages, as for instance

by the words of the Apostle: 'Let every soul be subject unto the

higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be

are ordained of God. For he is the minister of God to thee for good

... for he beareth not the sword in vain.' (Romans xiii.). Luther

thus ranks the vocation of civil government together with the other

vocations of moral life in the world. They are all, he said,

instituted by God, and all of them, no less than the so-called

priestly office, are intended and able to serve God and one's

neighbour. These were ideas which laid the foundation for a new

Christian estimate of political, civic, and temporal life in

general. Thus, later on, the Augsburg Confession rejected the

doctrine that to attain evangelical perfection, a man must renounce

his worldly calling, as also the theory of the Anabaptists, who

would allow no Christian to hold civil office or to wield the sword.

But Luther, while thus determining the province of secular

authority, took care to impose limits on its jurisdiction, and to

guard against those limits being invaded. The true spiritual

government, as instituted by Christ, was intended to make men good,

by working upon the soul by the Word, in the power of the Spirit.

The temporal government, whose duty it was to secure external peace

and order, and to protect men against evil-doers, extends only to

what is external upon earth,'--over person and property. 'For God

cannot and will not allow anyone but Himself alone to rule the

soul.'--'No one can or shall force another to believe.'--'True is

the proverb: "Thoughts are free of taxes."' We must 'obey God rather

than man,' as St. Peter says: these words impose a limit on temporal

power. Luther is aware of the objection, that the temporal power

does not force a man to believe, but only outwardly guards against

heretics, to prevent them from leading the people astray with false

doctrines. But he answers: 'Such an office belongs to bishops, and

not to princes. God's Word must here contend for mastery. Heresy is

something spiritual, that cannot be hewn with steel nor burned with

fire.' And among these invasions of the province and office of the

Word, Luther includes the edict to confiscate books. Herein must

subjects obey God rather than such tyrannical princes. They are to

leave the exercise of outward power, even in this matter, to the

civil authorities, they must never venture to oppose them by force;

they must suffer it, if men invade their houses, and take away their

books or property. But if they attempt to rob them of their Bible,

they must not surrender a page or a letter.

These are the most powerful and comprehensive utterances which we

possess from the mouth of the Reformer, about the demarcation of

these provinces of authority, the independent operation of the Word

and the Spirit, and liberty of conscience. It is doubtful, indeed,

how far they are consonant with those measures which he afterwards

found admissible and advisable for the protection of evangelical

communities and evangelical truth against those who attempted to

lead them astray.

Amidst such active labours the year of Luther's return to Wittenberg

passed away.

CHAPTER IV.

LUTHER AND HIS ANTI-CATHOLIC WORK OF REFORMATION, UP TO 1525

Luther, as we have seen, was able to prosecute his labours at

Wittenberg, undisturbed by the act of the Diet. In other parts of

Germany as well, the imperial power left wide scope for the spread

of his teaching. At the next approaching Diet at Nüremberg no

majority could be looked for again, to give effect to the

consequences demanded by the Edict of Worms. Any such expectation

was the more futile, from the results, already experienced, of

Luther's reappearance in public.

The new Pope, Hadrian VI., whilst adhering strictly to the doctrines

of mediæval Scholasticism and of Church authority, nevertheless, by

his honest avowal of ecclesiastical abuses, and the firmness and

earnestness of his personal character, led men to expect a new era

of energetic reform for the Romish Church, at least in regard to the

discipline of the clergy and monks, and to a conscientious restraint

of Church ordinances, so that even men like Erasmus might rest

content. And yet, he was the very one who sought now to stamp out

with all severity the Lutheran heresy and its innovations. With this

object he broke out into low abuse and slander against Luther

personally, as a drunkard and a debauchee. Libels of this kind were

perpetually repeated by the Romanists, and no doubt Hadrian believed

them, though Luther did not trouble himself much about such personal

attacks, but in his letters to Spalatin, simply called the Pope an

ass. Hadrian also, like so many Romish Churchmen after him, was

extremely zealous to impress upon princes that he who despises the

sacred decrees and the heads of the Church, would cease to respect a

temporal throne.

But the Diet which assembled at Nüremberg in the winter of 1522-23,

replied to the demands of the Pope by renewing the old grievances of

the German nation, and insisting on a free Christian Council, to be

held in Germany.

Nor did even an unfortunate military enterprise, undertaken at this

time against the Archbishop of Treves by Sickingen, who, while

fighting for his own power and the interests of the German nobles,

announced his wish also to break road for the Gospel, produce those

disastrous results for the evangelical cause in Germany which its

enemies had anticipated and hoped for. Sickingen, indeed, after

being defeated by the superior forces of the allied princes, died of

the wounds he received, but it was as clear as noonday that

Frederick the Wise and his evangelical theologians had had nothing

to do with his act of violence. Luther, on hearing of Sickingen's

enterprise, remarked that it would be 'a very bad business,' and

added, on learning the issue, 'God is a just, but a marvellous

judge.'

The next meeting of the Diet, from whom, after Hadrian's early

death, his successor, Clement VII.--another modern Pope of Leo's way

of thinking--demanded anew the execution of the Edict of Worms,

resulted in the imperial decree of April 18, 1524. By this, the

states of the Empire agreed to execute that edict 'as far as

possible,' but stipulated that the Lutheran and the other new

doctrines should first be 'examined with the utmost diligence,' and,

together with the grievances presented by the princes against the

Pope and the hierarchy, should be made the subject of a

representation to the Council now demanded. But the inconsistency

that lurked in this decree caught Luther's eye and aroused his

suspicion. It was scandalous, he declared in a paper upon it, that

the Emperor and the princes should issue 'contradictory orders.'

They were going to deal with him according to the Edict of Worms,

and proclaim him a condemned man, and persecute him, and at the same

moment wait to decide what was good or bad in his doctrines. But the

decree was, in fact, a subterfuge, by which they resigned the idea

of executing that edict. The Lord's Supper could be celebrated at

Nüremberg in the new way before the eyes of the whole Diet. Well

might Frederick the Wise hope that men would still, at least in

Germany, come gradually to agree in peace about the truth contained

in Luther's preaching.

The absent Emperor, indeed, remained insensible to all such

influences. In the Netherlands strict penal laws were in force. In a

letter addressed to the German Empire he condemned the decree of

Nüremberg, and, like Hadrian, compared Luther to Mahomet. Further, a

minority of the German princes, including, in particular, Ferdinand

of Austria, and the Dukes William and Louis of Bavaria, entered into

a league at Ratisbon to execute the Edict of Worms, while agreeing

to certain reforms in the Church, according to a Papal scheme

proposed by his nuncio Campeggio. They too began to persecute and

punish the heretics.

Thus, then, the seed sown by Luther began to germinate throughout

the whole of Germany. The number of Lutheran preachers increased,

and requests were made in many places for their services. Even

Cochlaeus had to confess that, however bad were their ultimate

objects, they showed a remarkable unselfishness and industry in

their calling, and that they avoided even the appearance of pushing

themselves forward in an irregular and arbitrary manner, waiting

rather for their appointment in due course by the nobles or the

various congregations. Among the treatises and other writings on

ecclesiastical and religious questions which inundated Germany at

that time, at least ten were written on the Lutheran, one on the

Romish side. The complaint was that there were not more numerous and

better qualified printers for the work.

Among the nobles who espoused the cause of Luther, the support of

Albert of Mansfeld, one of the Counts of Luther's native place, was

particularly grateful. It was mainly by the nobles that the movement

was represented in Austria.

But the gospel gained most ground in German towns, especially among

the burgher class in the free cities of the Empire. Preachers were

invited hither, where none already existed, and the mass was publicly

abolished. This took place during 1523 and 1524 at Magdeburg,

Frankfort-on-the-Main, Schwäbish Hall, Nüremberg, Ulm, Strasburg,

Breslau, and Bremen. On Saxon territory also, Lutheran congregations

were formed in various towns, such as Zwickau, Altenburg, and Eisenach.

In many cases Luther's personal friends took part in the movement, and

thus cemented more closely their friendship with the Reformer. He had

already some trusted fellow-labourers at Nüremberg. At Magdeburg his

friend Amsdorf was pastor. Hess, the first evangelical pastor of

Breslau, had formed some years earlier a warm friendship with him and

Melancthon. Link, his old friend, and the successor of Staupitz as

Vicar-General of the Augustines, held office as a preacher at Altenburg,

whence he was recalled, for the same purpose, in 1525, to Nüremberg,

his former place of residence. Wherever Luther heard of evangelical

communities who seemed to need especial help for their strengthening or

consolation under trouble, he addressed to them letters, which were

afterwards circulated in print. These were sent, for instance, to

Esslingen, Augsburg, Worms; also to his 'beloved friends in Christ'

at Wittenberg, who had been harassed by the Romanists, and whose

cause he pleaded to the Archbishop Albert. With particular joy he

sent greetings to the 'chosen and dear friends in God' in the

distant towns of Riga, Reval, and Dorpat; and he sent them also an

exposition of the 127th Psalm.

The Word, rejected and condemned as it had been by bishops and

priests in Germany, met with singular success beyond the eastern

boundary of the Empire, among the Order of Teutonic Knights in

Prussia. The Grand Master of the Order, Albert of Brandenburg,

brother of the Elector of Brandenburg, and cousin of Albert, the

Archbishop and Cardinal, had kept up communication with Luther, both

orally and by letter, and had been advised by him and Melancthon to

make himself familiar with the gospel and the principles of the

Evangelical Church. And, above all, there were here two bishops who

espoused the new teaching, and who were anxious to tend the flocks

committed to their charge as true evangelical bishops or overseers,

in the sense insisted on by Luther, and particularly to minister to

the Word by preaching and by the care of souls. These were George of

Polenz, Bishop of Samland since 1523, and Erhard of Queiss, Bishop

of Pomerania since 1524. The members of the Order, almost without

exception, were on their side: they resolved to establish a temporal

princedom in Prussia and to renounce their vows of 'false chastity

and spirituality.' The King of Poland, under whose suzerainty the

country had long been, solemnly invested the hitherto Grand Master

on April 10, 1525, as hereditary Duke of Prussia. Thus Prussia

became the first territory that collectively embraced the

Reformation, whilst as yet, even in the Electorate of Saxony, no

general measures had been taken in its support. It became, in short,

the first Protestant country. Luther wrote to the new Duke: 'I am

greatly rejoiced that Almighty God has so graciously and wondrously

helped your princely Grace to attain such an eminent position, and

further my wish is that the same merciful God may continue His

blessing to your Grace through life, for the benefit and godly

welfare of the whole country.' And to the Archbishop Albert he held

the new Duke up as a shining example, in saying of him, 'How

graciously has God sent such a change, as, ten years ago, could not

have been hoped for or believed in, even had ten Isaiahs and Pauls

announced it. But because he gave room and honour to the gospel, the

gospel in return has given him far more room and honour--more than

he could have dared to wish for.'

The gospel now received its first testimony in blood. With joyful

confidence Luther beheld what God had done, but could not refrain

from lamenting, with sorrowful humility, that he himself had not

been found worthy of martyrdom. In the Imperial hereditary lands,

where for some years missionaries, chiefly members of Luther's own

Augustine Order, had been actively labouring in the strength of the

convictions derived from Wittenberg, two young Augustine monks,

Henry Voes and John Esch, were publicly burnt, on July 1, 1523, as

heretics. Luther thereupon addressed a letter to 'the beloved

Christians in Holland, Brabant, and Flanders,' praising God for His

wondrous light, that He had caused again to dawn. He spoke out even

stronger in some verses in which he celebrated the young martyrs;

they were published no doubt originally as a broadsheet:

A new song will we raise to Him

Who ruleth, God our Lord;

And we will sing what God hath done,

In honour of His Word.

At Brussels in the Netherlands,

It was through two young lads,

He hath made known His Wonders, &c.

They conclude as follows:--

So let us thank our God to see

His Word returned at last.

The Summer now is at the door,

The Winter is forepast,

The tender flowerets bloom anew,

And He, who hath begun,

Will give His work a happy end.

He was, later on, deeply grieved by the death of his brother-Augustine

and friend Henry Moller of Zütphen, who, after having been forced to

fly from the Netherlands, had begun a blessed work at Bremen, and was

now murdered in the most brutal manner on December 11, 1524, by a mob

instigated by monks, near Meldorf, whither he had gone in response to

an invitation from some of his companions in the faith. Luther informed

his Christian brethren in a circular of the end of this 'blessed

brother' and 'Evangelist.' He mentions, with him, the two martyrs of

Brussels, as well as other disciples of the new doctrine; one Caspar

Tauber, who was executed at Vienna, a bookseller named Georg, who was

burnt at Pesth, and one who had been recently burnt at Prague. 'These

and such as these,' he adds, 'are they whose blood will drown the

popedom, together with its god, the devil.'

With regard to his work of reformation, which had now spread so

widely and found so many coadjutors, Luther at present thought as

little about the outward constitution of a new Church as he had

thought about any outward organisation of the war itself, or an

external alliance of his adherents, or of a cleverly devised

propaganda. Just as here the simple Word was to achieve the victory,

so his whole efforts were devoted solely to restoring to the

congregations the possession and enjoyment of that Word in all its

purity, that they might gather round it, and be thereby further

edified, sustained, and guided.

Wherever this privilege was denied to Christians, Luther claimed for

them the right, by virtue of their universal priesthood, to ordain a

priest for themselves, and to reject the ensnaring deceits of mere

human doctrine. He declared himself to this effect, in a treatise

written in 1523, and intended in the first instance for the

Bohemians--that is to say, for the so-called Utraquists who were

then the leading party in Bohemia. These sectaries, whose only

ground of estrangement from Rome was the question of administering

the cup to the laity, and who had never thought of separating

themselves from the so-called Apostolical succession of the

episcopate in the Catholic Church, Luther then hoped, albeit in

vain, to win over to a genuine evangelical belief and practice of

religion. In this treatise he went a step beyond the election of

pastors by their congregations, by maintaining that a whole

district, composed of such evangelical communities, might appoint

their own overseer, who should exercise control over them, until the

final establishment of a supreme bishopric, of an evangelical

character, for the entire national Church. But of any such

ecclesiastical edifice for Germany, wholly absorbed as he was in her

immediate needs, he had not yet said a word. Congregations of such a

kind, and suitable for such a purpose, could only be created by

preaching the Word; nor had Luther yet abandoned the hope that the

existing German episcopate, as already had been the case in Prussia,

would accept an evangelical reconstruction on a much larger scale.

With regard to individual congregations, moreover, it was the

opinion of Luther and his friends that, where the local magistrates

and patrons of the Church were inclined to the gospel, the

appointment of pastors might be made by them in a regular way. A

separation of civil communities, each represented by their own

magistrate, from the ecclesiastical or religious units, was an idea

wholly foreign to that time.

That the word of God should be preached to the various congregations

in a pure and earnest manner, that those congregations themselves

should be entrusted with the work, should make it their own, and, in

reliance thereon, should lift up their hearts to God with prayer,

supplication, and thanksgiving,--this was the fixed object which

Luther held in view in all the regulations which he made at

Wittenberg, and wished to institute in other places. In this spirit

he advanced cautiously and by degrees in the changes introduced in

public worship,--changes which, as he admits, he had commenced with

fear and hesitation. 'That the Word itself,' he says, 'should

advance mightily among Christians, is shown by the whole of

Scripture, and Christ Himself says (Luke x.) that "one thing is

needful," namely, that Mary should sit at the feet of Christ, and

hear His Word daily. His Word endures for ever, and all else must

melt away before it, however much Martha may have to do.' He points

out as one of the great abuses of the old system of worship, that

the people had to keep silence about the Word, while all the time

they had to accept unchristian fables and falsehoods in what was

read, and sung, and preached in the churches, and to perform public

worship as a work which should entitle them to the grace of God. He

now set vigorously about separating the mere furniture of worship.

As to the Word itself, on the contrary, he was anxious to have it

preached to the congregation, wherever possible, every Sunday

morning and evening, and on week-days, at least to the students and

others, who desired to hear it: this was actually done at

Wittenberg. Innovations, not apparently required by his principles,

he shunned himself, and warned others to do so likewise. Nor was he

less diligent to guard against the danger of having the new forms of

worship, now practised at Wittenberg, made into a law for all

evangelical brethren without distinction. He gave an account and

estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend Hausmann, the

priest at Zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for

Christ's sake,' that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these

matters, he should make it known. No one, he declared, durst condemn

or despise different forms practised by others. Outward customs and

ceremonies were, indeed, indispensable, but they served as little to

commend us to God, as meat or drink (1 Cor. viii. 8) served to make

us well pleasing before Him.

In order to enable the congregations themselves to take an active

part in the service, he now longed for genuine Church hymns, that is

to say, songs composed in the noble popular language, verse, and

melody. He invited friends to paraphrase the Psalms for this

purpose; he had not sufficient confidence in himself for the work.

And yet he was the first to attempt it. With fresh impulse and with

the exuberance of true poetical genius, his verses on the Brussels

martyrs had flowed forth spontaneously from his inmost soul. They

were the first, so far as we know, that Luther had ever written,

though he was now forty years of age. With the same poetic impulse

he composed, probably shortly after, a hymn in praise of the

'highest blessing' that God had shown towards us in the sacrifice of

His beloved Son.

Rejoice ye now, dear Christians all,

And let us leap for joy,

And dare with trustful, loving hearts,

Our praises to employ,

And sing what God hath shown to man,

His sweet and wondrous deed,

And tell how dearly He hath won. etc.

The full tone of a powerful, fresh, often uncouth, but very tender

popular ballad no other writer of the time displayed like Luther.

And whilst seeking to compose or re-arrange hymns for congregational

use in church, he now busied himself with the Psalter, paraphrasing

its contents in an evangelical spirit and in German metre.

Thus now, early in 1524, there appeared at Wittenberg the first

German hymn-book, consisting at first, of only eight hymns, about

half of them, such as that beginning _Nun freut euch_, being

original compositions of Luther, and three others adapted from the

Psalms. In the course of the same year he brought out a further

collection of twenty hymns, written by himself for the evangelical

congregation there: among these is the one on the Brussels martyrs.

It was, in fact, the year in which German hymnody was born. Luther

soon found the coadjutors he had wished for.

These twenty-four hymns by Luther were followed in after years by

only twelve more from his own pen, among the latter being his grand

hymn, _Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott_, written probably in

1527. Of these later compositions, comparatively few expressed

entirely his own ideas; most of them had reference to subjects

already in the possession and use of the Christian world, and of

German Christians in particular; that is to say, some referred to

the Psalms and other portions of the Bible, others to parts of the

Catechism, others again to short German ballads, sung by the people,

and even to old Latin hymns. In all of them he was governed by a

strict regard to what was both purely evangelical, and also suitable

for the common worship of God. And yet they differ widely, one from

another, in the poetical form and manner in which he now gives

utterance to the longings of the heart for God, now seeks to clothe

in verse suited for congregational singing words of belief and

doctrine, now keeps closely to his immediate subject, now vents his

emotions freely in Christian sentiments and poetical form, as for

example in _Ein' feste Burg_, the most sublime and powerful

production of them all.

The new hymns went forth in town and country, in churches and homes,

throughout the land. Often, far more than any sermons could have

done, they brought home to ears and hearts the Word of evangelical

truth. They became weapons of war, as well as means of edification

and comfort.

In his preface to a small collection of songs, which Luther had

published in the same year, he remarks: 'I am not of opinion that

the gospel should be employed to strike down and destroy all the

arts, as certain high ecclesiastics would have it. I would rather

that all the arts, and especially music, should be employed in the

service of Him who has created them and given them to man.' What he

says here about music and poetry, he applied equally to all

departments of knowledge. He saw art and learning now menaced by

wrong-minded enthusiasts. For this reason he was particularly

anxious that they should be cultivated in the schools.

With great zeal he directed his counsels to the general duty of

caring for the good education and instruction of the young, as

indeed he had done some time before in his address to the German

Nobility. These, above all, he said, must be rescued from the

clutches of Satan. He had again in his mind schools for girls. Thus

in 1523 he recommended the conversion of the cloisters of the

Mendicant Orders into schools 'for boys and girls.' The same advice

was offered by Eberlin, already mentioned, who was then living at

Wittenberg, and who made the suggestion to the magistrates of Ulm.

But Luther's chief advice was directed to the requirements of the

Church and the State, or 'temporal government,' which assuredly were

then in need of educated and well-cultured servants. For the

training here required, the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, were

indispensable, and for the ministers of the Church, Greek and Hebrew

in particular, as the languages in which the Word of God was

originally conveyed to man. 'Languages,' he says, 'are the sheaths

which enclose the sword of the Spirit, the shrine in which this

treasure is carried, the vessel which contains this drink.' He

insisted further on the study of history, and especially of that of

Germany. It was a matter of regret to him that so little had been

done towards writing the history of Germany, whilst the Greeks, the

Romans, and the Hebrews had compiled theirs with such industry. 'O!

how many histories and sayings,' he remarked, 'we ought to have in

our possession, of all that has been done and said in different

parts of Germany, and of which we know nothing. That is why, in

other countries, people know nothing about us Germans, and all the

world calls us German beasts, who can do nothing but fight, and

guzzle, and drink.' Such were his opinions, as given in 1524, in a

public letter 'To the Councillors of all the States of Germany; an

appeal to institute and maintain Christian schools.'

The enthusiasm which had recently inspired young men of talent and

ambition to study and imitate the ancient classics, and had banded

together the leading teachers of Humanism, very quickly died away.

The universities everywhere were less frequented. Enemies of Luther

ascribed this to the influence of his doctrines, though matters were

little better where his doctrines were repudiated. It is not,

indeed, surprising that the Humanist movement, with its regard for

formal culture and aesthetic enjoyment, and its aristocracy of

intellect, should retire perforce before the supreme struggle,

involving the highest issues and interests of life, which was now

being waged by the German people and the Church. A further cause of

this decline of academical studies was to be found, no doubt, in the

vigorous, and somewhat giddy bound taken by trade and commerce in

those days of increased communication and extensive geographical

discovery, and in the striving after material gain and enjoyment,

which seemed to find satisfaction in other ways more easily and

rapidly than by learned industry and the pursuit of culture. It was

from these quarters that came the complaints against the great

merchants' houses, the usury, the rise in prices, the luxury and

extravagance of the age,--complaints which were re-echoed alike by

the friends and foes of the Reformation. The Reformers themselves

fully recognised the thanks they owed to those Humanistic studies,

and their permanent value for Church and State. In the new church

regulations introduced in the towns and districts which accepted the

evangelical teaching, the school system then played a prominent

part. Nüremberg, some years after, was among the most active to

establish a good high school. Luther himself went in April 1525 with

Melancthon to his native place Eisleben, to assist in promoting a

school, founded there by Count Albert of Mansfeld: his friend

Agricola was the head master.

Thus we see that the work of planting and building occupied Luther

at this time more than the contest with his old opponents. Well

might he, as he says in his hymn, rejoice to see the spring-tide and

the flowers, and hope for a rich summer.

On the other hand, not only did the adherents of the old system knit

their ranks together more closely, and, like the confederates of

Ratisbon in 1524, profess their desire to do something at least to

satisfy the general complaint of the corruption of the Church; but

men even, who from their undeniably deep and earnest striving for

religion, seemed originally called to take part in the work and war,

now separated themselves from Luther and his associates, not venturing

to break free from the bonds of old ecclesiastical tradition. Still

more was this the case with men of Humanistic culture, whose temporary

alliance with Luther had been dictated more by the interest they felt

in the arts and letters threatened by the old monastic spirit, and by

the open scandal caused by the outrageous abuses of the clergy and

monachism, than by any sympathy with his religious principles and

ideas. And to those who wavered in so momentous a decision, and shrank

back from it and the contests it involved, there was plenty in what

they observed among Luther's adherents, to give them occasion for

still further reflection. It was not to be denied that, sharply as

Luther had reproved the conduct of the Wittenberg innovators, the

new preaching gave rise among excited multitudes, in many places, to

disturbance, disorder, and acts of violence against obstinate monks

and priests; and all this was held up as a proof of what the

consequences must be of a general dissolution of religious ties.

The desertion of their convents by monks and nuns, ostensibly on the

ground of their newly-proclaimed liberty, but in reality, for the

most part, as was alleged against them by the Catholics, for the

sake of carnal freedom, was denounced with no small severity by

Luther himself; but, in so doing, he recalled to mind the fact,

that equally low interests had led them into the convents, and

that the cloisters also, after their fashion, indulged in the

'worship of the belly.' Luther was just as indignant that the

great majority of those who refused to be robbed any longer of

their money and goods at the demand and by the deceits of the

Papal Church, now withheld them both from serving the objects of

Christian love and benevolence, which they were all the more called

on to promote. The enemies of the new doctrine began already to charge

against it that the faith, which was supposed to make men so blessed,

bore so little good fruit. Lastly, there were many honest-minded men,

and many, also, who looked about for an excuse for abstaining from the

battle, whom Luther's personal participation in the din and clamour of

the fray served to scandalise, if not to alienate from his cause. Thus

among those who had formerly been united by a common endeavour to

improve the condition of the Church and repel the tyranny of Rome, a

crisis had now begun.

Of all who drew back from Luther's work of reformation, none had

been more intimately attached to him than his spiritual father,

Staupitz. And this intimacy he retained as Abbot of Salzburg. In his

view, nothing of all the external matters to which the Reformation

was directed, seemed so important as to warrant the endangerment of

religious concord and unity in the Church. Luther expressed to him

the sorrow he felt at his estrangement, while renewing, at the same

time, his assurance of unalterable affection and gratitude. Staupitz

himself felt unhappy in his attitude and position. But even as

abbot, and in the proximity of the Archbishop of Salzburg, a man of

very different views and temperament to himself, he remained true to

his doctrine of Faith, as being the only means of salvation and the

root of all goodness. And the very last year of his life, in a

letter to Luther, recommending to him a young theologian who was

about to further his education at Wittenberg, he assured him of his

unchanging love, 'passing the love of women' (2 Sam. i. 26), and

gratefully acknowledged how his beloved Martin had first led him

away 'to the living pastures from the husks for the pigs.' Luther

gave a friendly welcome to the young man recommended to his care,

and assisted him in gaining the desired degree of Master of

Philosophy. This is the last that we hear of the intercourse between

these two friends. On December 28, 1524, Staupitz died from a fit of

apoplexy.

The earlier acquaintance between the Reformer and the great

Humanist, Erasmus, had now developed into an irreconcilable enmity.

The latter had long been unable to refrain from venting, in private

and public utterances, his dissatisfaction and bitterness at the

storm aroused by Luther, which was distracting the Church and

disturbing quiet study. Patrons of his in high places--above all,

King Henry VIII. of England--urged him to take up the cause of the

Church against Luther in a pamphlet; and, difficult as he felt it to

take a prominent part in such a contest, he was the less able to

decline their overtures, since other Churchmen were reproaching him

with having furthered by his earlier writings the pernicious

movement. He chose a subject which would enable him, at any rate,

while attacking Luther, to represent his own personal convictions,

and to reckon on the concurrence not only of Romish zealots but also

of a number of his Humanist friends, and even many men of deeply

moral and religious disposition. Luther, it will be remembered, had

told him plainly from the first that he knew too little of the grace

of God, which alone could give salvation to sinners, and strength

and ability to the good. Erasmus now retorted by his diatribe 'On

Free Will,' by virtue whereof, he said, man was able and was bound

to procure his own blessing and final happiness.

Luther, on perusing this treatise, in September 1524, was struck

with the feebleness of its contents. So far, indeed, from defining

the operation of the human will, Erasmus floated vaguely about in

loose and incoherent propositions, evidently not from want of

extreme care and circumspection, but from the fact that, in this

province of antiquarian research, he failed in the necessary

acuteness and depth of observation and thought. He declared himself

ready to yield obedience to all decisions of the Church, but without

expressing any opinion as to the real infallibility of an

ecclesiastical tribunal. Throughout his whole treatise, however,

there were personal thrusts at his enemy.

Luther, as he said, only wished to answer this diatribe out of

regard to the position enjoyed by its author, and, from his sheer

aversion to the book, for a long while postponed his reply. We shall

see moreover, very shortly, what other pressing duties and events

engrossed his attention for some time after. It was not until a year

had elapsed, that his reply appeared, entitled 'On the Bondage of

the Will.' Herein he pushes the propositions to which Erasmus took

exception to their logical conclusion. Free Will, as it is called,

has always been subject to the supremacy of a higher Power; with

unredeemed sinners to the power of the devil; with the redeemed, to

the saving, sanctifying, and sheltering Hand of God. For the latter,

salvation is assured by His Almighty and grace-conferring Will. The

fact that in other sinners no such conversion to God and to a

redeeming faith in His Word is effected, can only be ascribed to the

inscrutable Will of God Himself, nor durst man dispute thereon with

his Maker. Luther in this went further than did afterwards the

Evangelical Church that bears his name. And even he, later on,

abstained himself and warned others to abstain from discussing such

Divine mysteries and questions connected with them. But as for

Erasmus, he never ceased to regard him as one who, from his

superficial worldliness, was blind to the highest truth of

salvation.

In respect to the battle against Catholic Churchdom and dogma, the

controversy between Luther and Erasmus presents no new issue or

further development. But in company with their old master, other

Humanists also, the leading champions of the general culture of the

age, dissociated themselves from Luther, and returned, as his

enemies, to their allegiance to the traditional system of the

Church. Next to Erasmus, the most important of these men was

Pirkheimer of Nüremberg, to whom we have already referred.

CHAPTER V.

THE REFORMER AGAINST THE FANATICS AND PEASANTS UP TO 1525.

In his new as in his old contests, Luther's experiences remained

such as he described them to Hartmuth of Kronberg, on his return to

Wittenberg. 'All my enemies, near as they have reached me, have not

hit me as hard as I have now been hit by our own people.'

At first, indeed, Carlstadt kept silent, and continued quietly, till

Easter 1523, his lectures at the university. But inwardly he was

inclined to a mysticism resembling that of the Zwickau fanatics, and

imbibed, like theirs, from mediæval writings; and he too, soon

turned, with these views, to new and practical projects of reform.

He now began to unfold in writing his ideas of a true union of the

soul with God. He too explained how the souls of all creatures

should empty themselves, so to speak, and prepare themselves in

absolute passiveness, in 'inaction and lassitude,' for a glorified

state. His profession of learning, and his academical and clerical

dignities he resigned, as ministering to vanity. He bought a small

property near Wittenberg, and repaired thither to live as a layman

and peasant. He wore a peasant's coat, and mixed with the other

peasants as 'Neighbour Andrew.' Luther saw him there, standing with

bare feet amid heaps of manure, and loading it on a cart.

He found a place for the exercise of his new work in the church at

Orlamünde on the Saale, above Jena. This parish, like several

others, had been incorporated with the university at Wittenberg, and

its revenues formed part of its endowment, being specially attached

to the archdeaconry of the Convent Church, which was united with

Carlstadt's professorship. The living there, with most of its

emoluments, had passed accordingly to Carlstadt, but the office of

pastor could only be performed by vicars, as they were called,

regularly nominated, and appointed by the Elector. Carlstadt now

took advantage of a vacancy in the office, to go on his own

authority as pastor to Orlamünde, without wishing to resign his

appointment and its pay at Wittenberg. By his preaching and personal

influence he soon won over the local congregation to his side, and

ended by gaining as great an influence here as he had done at

Wittenberg. Here also the images were abolished and destroyed,

crucifixes and other representations of Christ no less than images

of the saints. Carlstadt now openly declared that no respect was to

be paid to any local authority, nor any regard to other

congregations; they were to execute freely the commands of God, and

whatever was contrary to God, they were to cast down and hew to

pieces. And in interpreting and applying these commands of God he

went to more extravagant lengths than ever. Must not the letter of

the Old Testament be the law for other things as well as images?

Acting on this idea, he demanded that Sunday should be observed with

rest in all the Mosaic rigour of the term; this rest he identified

with that 'inaction,' which formed his idea of true union with God.

He proceeded then to advocate polygamy, as permitted to the Jews in

the Old Testament: he actually advised an inhabitant of Orlamünde to

take a second wife, in addition to the one then living. He began, at

the same time, to dispute the real presence of the Body and Blood of

Christ in the Sacrament--a doctrine which Luther steadfastly

insisted on in his contest with the Catholic doctrine of

Transubstantiation. By an extraordinary perversion, as is evident at

a glance, of the meaning of Christ's words of institution, he

maintained that when our Saviour said 'This is My Body,'--alluding,

of course, to the bread which He was then distributing, He was not

referring to the bread at all, but only to His own body, as He stood

there.

The inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Kahla were seized with

the same spirit. These mystical ideas and phrases assumed strange

forms of expression among the common people, who jumbled together in

wild confusion the supernatural and the material. Carlstadt kept up

also a secret correspondence with Münzer.

The question of the authority of the Old Testament soon took a wider

range. It seemed to be one of the authority of Scripture in general,

which was contended for against the Papists. If the authority of

God's Word in the Old Testament applied to the whole domain of civil

life, should it not equally apply, as against particular regulations

established by civil society? On these principles, for example, all

taking of interest, as well as usury, was declared to be forbidden,

just as it had been forbidden to God's people of old. A restoration

of the Mosaic year of Jubilee was even talked of, when after fifty

years all land which had passed into other hands should revert to

its original owners. With eagerness the people took up these new

ideas of social reform, so specious and so full of promises. The

evangelical and earnest preacher, Strauss at Eisenach, worked

zealously with word and pen in this direction. Even a court-preacher

of Duke John, Wolfgang Stein at Weimar, espoused the movement.

Meanwhile Münzer came again to Central Germany. He had succeeded, at

Easter 1523, in obtaining the office of pastor at Allstedt, a small

town in a lateral valley of the Unstrut. In him, more than in any

other, the spirit of the Zwickau prophets fermented with full force,

and was preparing for a violent outburst. Alone, in the room of a

church tower, he held secret intercourse with his God, and boasted

of his answers and revelations. He affected the appearance and

demeanour of a man whose soul was absorbed in tranquillity, devoid

of all finite ideas or aspirations, and open and free to receive

God's Spirit and inner Word. More violently than even the champions

of Catholic asceticism, he reproached Luther for leading a

comfortable, carnal life. But his whole energies were directed to

establishing a Kingdom of the Saints,--an external one, with

external power and splendour. His preaching dwelt incessantly on the

duty of destroying and killing the ungodly, and especially all

tyrants. He wished to see a practical application given to the words

of the Mosaic dispensation, commanding God's people to destroy the

heathen nations from out of the promised land, to overthrow their

altars, and burn their graven images with fire. Community of

property was to be a particular institution of the Kingdom of God,

the property being distributed to each man according to his need:

whatever prince or lord refused to do this, was to be hanged or

beheaded. Meanwhile, Münzer sought by means of secret emissaries in

all directions to enlist the saints into a secret confederacy. His

chief associate was the former monk, Pfeifer at Mühlhausen, not far

from Allstedt. The Orlamündians, however, whom also he endeavoured

to seduce to his policy of violence, would have nothing to say to

such overtures.

The Elector Frederick even now came only tardily to the resolve, to

interpose, in these ecclesiastical matters and disputes, his

authority as sovereign, nor did Luther himself desire his

intervention so long as the struggle was one of minds about the

truth. Duke John had been strongly influenced by the ideas of his

court-preacher. The princes still hoped to be able to restore peace

between Luther and his colleague, Carlstadt, who, with all his misty

projects, was still of importance as a theologian.

Carlstadt consented, indeed, at Easter in 1524, to resume quietly

his duties at Wittenberg university. But he soon returned to

Orlamünde, to re-assert his position there as head and reformer of

the Church.

With regard to the question of Mosaic and civil law, Luther was now

invited by John Frederick, the son of Duke John, to express his

opinion. It is easy to conceive how this question might present,

even to upright and calm-judging adherents of the evangelical

preaching, considerations of difficulty and much inward doubt. It

had cropped up as a novelty, and, as it seemed, in necessary

connection with this preaching: moreover, on its answer depended a

revolution of all ordinances of State and society, in accordance

with the command of God.

Luther's views on this subject, however, were perfectly clear, and

he expressed himself accordingly. In his opinion, the answer had

been given by the keynote of evangelical teaching. It lay in the

distinction between spiritual and temporal government, the essential

features of which he had already explained in 1523 in his treatise

'On the Secular Power.' The life of the soul in God, its

reconciliation and redemption, its relations and duty to God and

fellow-man in faith and love--these are the subjects dealt with in

the gospel message of salvation, or the biblical revelation in its

completeness. God has left to the practical understanding and needs

of man, and to the historical development of peoples and states

under His overruling providence, the arrangement of forms of law for

social life, without the necessity of any special revelation for

that purpose. It is the duty of the secular power to administer the

existing laws, and to make new ones in a proper and legal manner,

according as they may think fit. That God prescribed to the people

of Israel external, civil ordinances by the mouth of Moses, was part

of His scheme of education. Christians are not bound by these

ordinances,--no more, indeed, than is their inner life and right

conduct made conditional on outward rules and forms. Moral commands

alone belong to that part of the Mosaic law whereof the sanction is

eternal; and to the fulfilment of these commands, written, as St.

Paul says, from the beginning on the hearts of men, the Spirit of

God now urges His redeemed people. No doubt the law of Moses, in

regard to civil life, might contain much that would be useful for

other peoples also in that respect. But it would, in that case, be

the business of the powers that be to examine and borrow from it,

just as Germany borrowed her civil law from the Romans.

Such, briefly stated, are the views which Luther enunciated with

clearness and consistency, in his writings and sermons. He guards

the civil power as jealously now against an irregular assertion of

religious principles and biblical authority, as he had formerly done

against the aggressions of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, while at the

same time he defends the religious life of Christians against the

dangers and afflictions which that hierarchy threatened. Thus he

answered the prince, on June 18, 1524, to this effect: Temporal laws

are something external, like eating and drinking, house and

clothing. At present the laws of the Empire have to be maintained,

and faith and love can coexist with them very well. If ever the

zealots of the Mosaic law become Emperors, and govern the world as

their own, they may choose, if they please, the law of Moses; but

Christians at all times are bound to support the law which the civil

authority imposes.

In Münzer Luther looked for a near outbreak of the Evil Spirit. He

alluded to him in his letter of June 18, as the 'Satan of Allstedt,'

adding that he thought he was not yet quite fledged. He soon heard

more about him, namely, that 'his Spirit was going to strike out

with the fist.' On this subject he wrote the next month to the

Elector Frederick and Duke John, and published his letter. Against

Münzer's mere words--his preaching and his personal revilements--he

was not now concerned to defend himself. 'Let them boldly preach,'

he says, 'what they can.... Let the Spirits rend and tear each

other. A few, perhaps, may be seduced; but that happens in every

war. Wherever there is a battle and fighting, some one must fall and

be wounded.' He repeats here, what he had said before, that

Antichrist should be destroyed 'without hands,' and that Christ

contended with the Spirit of His Word. But if they really meant to

strike out with the fist, then Luther would have the prince say to

them, 'Keep your fists quiet, for that is our office, or else leave

the country.'

In August Luther came himself to Weimar, in obedience to a wish

expressed by the two princes. With the court-preacher he had come to

a friendly understanding. Münzer had just left Allstedt, an official

report of his dangerous proceedings having been forwarded from there

to Weimar, whither he was summoned for an examination and inquiry.

On August 14 Luther wrote from this town to the magistrate of

Mühlhausen, where Münzer, as he heard, had taken refuge and had

already mustered a party. He warned the people of Mühlhausen to wait

at least before receiving Münzer, until they had heard 'what sort of

children he and his followers were.' They would not remain long in

the dark about him. He was a tree, as he had shown at Zwickau and

Allstedt, which bore no fruit but murder and rebellion.

From Weimar Luther travelled on to Orlamünde. On August 21 he

arrived at Jena, where a preacher named Reinhard was staying with

Carlstadt. Luther here preached against the 'Spirit of Allstedt,'

which destroyed images, despised the sacrament, and incited to

rebellion. Carlstadt, who was present and heard the sermon, waited

on him afterwards at his lodging, to defend himself against these

charges. Luther insisted, notwithstanding, that Carlstadt was 'an

associate of the new prophets.' He challenged him finally to abandon

his intrigues and confute him openly in writing, and the heated

interview ended by Carlstadt promising to do so, and by Luther

giving him a florin as a pledge and token of the bargain.

From Jena Luther went through Kahla, where also he preached, to

Orlamünde. The people here had been anxious for a personal

discussion with him, but in writing to him for that purpose, had

addressed him in words as follows: 'You despise all those who, by

God's command, destroy dumb idols, against which you trump up feeble

evidence out of your own head, and not grounded on Scripture. Your

venturing thus publicly to slander us, members of Christ, shows that

you are no member of the real Christ.' The discussion he held with

them led to no success, and he gave up any further attempt to

convince them; for, as he said, they burned like a fire, as if they

longed to devour him. On his departure they pursued him with savage

shouts of execration.

Carlstadt, a few weeks later, was deprived of his professorship, and

had to leave the country. Luther put in a word for the people of

Orlamünde as 'good simple folk,' who had been seduced by a stronger

will. But against Carlstadt's whole conduct and teaching he launched

an elaborate attack in a pamphlet, published in two parts, at the

close of 1524 and the beginning of the following year. It was

entitled 'Against the Celestial Prophets, concerning Images and the

Sacrament, &c.,' with the motto 'Their folly shall be manifest unto

all men' (2 Timothy iii. 9). For in Carlstadt he sought to expose

and combat the same spirit that dwelt in the Zwickau prophets and in

Münzer, and that threatened to produce still worse results. If

Carlstadt, like Moses, was right in teaching people to break down

images, and in calling in for this purpose the aid of the disorderly

rabble, instead of the proper authorities, then the mob had the

power and right to execute in like manner all the commands of God.

And the consequence and sequel of this would be, what was soon shown

by Münzer. 'It will come to this length,' says Luther, 'that they

will have to put all ungodly people to death; for so Moses (Deut.

vii.), when he told the people to break down the images, commanded

them also to kill without mercy all those who had made them in the

land of Canaan.'

The great storm, announced and prepared by the 'Spirit of Allstedt,'

broke loose even sooner than could have been expected.

Münzer had really appeared at Mühlhausen. The town-council, however,

were still able to insist on his leaving the place, together with

his friend Pfeifer. He then wandered about for several weeks in the

south-west of Germany, exciting disturbance wherever he went. But on

September 13 he returned with Pfeifer to Mühlhausen, where he

preached in his wonted manner, propounded to the people in the

streets his doctrines and revelations, and attracted the mob to his

side, while respectable citizens and members of the magistracy left

the town from fear of the mischief that was threatening. Towards the

end of February he was offered a regular post as pastor, and soon

after all the old magistrates were turned out and others more

favourable to him elected in their place. The multitude raged

against images and convents. The peasants from the neighbourhood

flocked in, anxious for the general equality which was promised

them. Luther wrote to a friend, 'Münzer is King and Emperor at

Mühlhausen.'

Meanwhile, in Southern Germany peasant insurrections had broken out

in various places since the summer of this year. In itself, there

was nothing novel in this. Repeatedly during the latter part of the

previous century, the poor peasantry had risen and erected their

banner, the 'Shoe of the League' (_Bundschuh_), so called from

the rustic shoes which the insurgents wore. Their grievances were

the intolerable and ever-growing burdens, laid upon them by the lay

and clerical magnates, the taxes of all kinds squeezed from them by

every ingenious device, and the feudal service which they were

forced to perform. The nobles had, in fact, towards the close of the

middle ages, usurped a much larger exercise of their ancient

privileges against them, by means partly of a dexterous manipulation

of the old Roman law, and partly of the ignorance of that law which

prevailed among their vassals. On the other side, complaints were

heard at that time of the insolence shown by the wealthier peasants;

of the luxury, in which they tried to rival their masters; and of

the arrogance and defiant demeanour of the peasantry in general. The

oppression endured by any particular class of the civil community

does not usually lead to violent disturbances and outbreaks, unless

and until that class is awakened to a higher sense of its own

importance and has acquired an increase of power. The peasants

found, moreover, discontented spirits like themselves among the

lower orders in the towns, who were avowed enemies of the upper

classes, and who complained bitterly of the hardships and

oppressions suffered by small people at the hands of the great

merchants and commercial companies,--in a word, from the power of

capital. Furthermore, when once the peasants rose in rebellion

against their masters, the latter also, including the nobility,

showed an inclination here and there to favour a general revolution,

if only to remedy the defects of their own position. And, in truth,

throughout the German Empire at that time there was a general

movement pressing for a readjustment of the relations of the various

classes to each other and to the Imperial power. Ideas of a total

reconstruction of society and the State had penetrated the mass of

the people, to an extent never known before.

Thus the way was paved, and incentives already supplied for a

powerful popular movement, apart altogether from the question of

Church Reform. And indeed this question Luther was anxious, as we

have seen, to restrict to the domain of spiritual, as distinguished

from secular, that is to say, political and civil action. It was

impossible, however, but that the accusations of lying, tyranny, and

hostility to evangelical truth, now freely levelled against the

dominant priesthood and the secular lords who were persecuting the

gospel, should serve to intensify to the utmost the prevailing

bitterness against external oppression. With the same firmness and

decision with which Luther condemned all disorderly and violent

proceedings in support of the gospel, he had also long been warning

its persecutors of the inevitable storm which they would bring upon

themselves. Other evangelical preachers, however, as for instance,

Eberlin and Strauss, mingled with their popular preaching all sorts

of suggestions of social reform. At last men went about among the

people, with open or disguised activity, whose principles were

directly opposed to those of Luther, but who proclaimed themselves,

nevertheless, enthusiasts for the gospel which he had brought again

to light, or which, as they pretended, they had been the first to

reveal, together with true evangelical liberty. They appealed to

God's Word in support of the claims and grievances of the oppressed

classes; they grasped their weapons by virtue of the Divine law.

Hence the peculiar ardour and energy that marked the insurrection,

although the enthusiasm, thus kindled, was united with the utmost

barbarity and licentiousness. Never has Germany been threatened with

a revolution so vast and violent, or so immeasurable in its possible

results. On no single man's word did so much depend as on that of

Luther, the genuine man of the people.

The movement began late in the summer of 1524 in the Black Forest

and Hegau. After the beginning of the next year it continued rapidly

to spread, and the different groups of insurgents who were fighting

here and there, combined in a common plan of action. Like a flood

the movement forced its way eastwards into Austria, westwards into

Alsatia, northwards into Franconia, and even as far as Thuringia. At

Rothenburg on the Tauber, Carlstadt had prepared the way for it by

inciting the people to destroy the images. The demands in which the

peasants were unanimous, were now drawn up in twelve articles. These

still preserved a very moderate aspect. They claimed above all the

right of each parish to choose its own minister. Tithes were only to

be abolished in part. The peasants were determined to be regarded no

longer as the 'property of others,' for Christ had redeemed all

alike with his blood. They demanded for everyone the right to hunt

and fish, because God had given to all men alike power over the

animal creation. They based their demands upon the Word of God;

trusting to His promises they would venture the battle. 'If we are

wrong,' they said, 'let Luther set us right by the Scriptures.' God,

who had freed the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh, would

now shortly deliver His people. In these articles, and in other

proclamations of the peasantry, there were none of the wild

imaginations of Münzer and his prophets, nor their ideas of a

kingdom and schemes of murder. They burned down, it is true, both

convents and cities, and had done so from the outset. Still in some

places a more peaceable understanding was arrived at with the upper

classes, although neither party placed any real confidence in the

other.

When now the articles arrived at Wittenberg, and Luther heard how

the insurgents appealed to him, he prepared early in April to make a

public declaration, in which he arraigned their proceedings, but at

the same time exhorted the princes to moderation. He was just then

called away by Count Albert of Mansfeld to Eisleben, to assist, as

we have seen, in the establishment of a new school in that town. He

set off thither on Easter Sunday, April 16, after preaching in the

morning. There he wrote his 'Exhortation to peace: On the Twelve

Articles of the Peasantry in Swabia.

In this manifesto he sharply rebukes those princes and nobles,

bishops and priests, who cease not to rage against the gospel, and

in their temporal government 'tax and fleece their subjects, for the

advancement of their own pomp and pride, until the common people can

endure it no longer.' If God for their punishment allowed the devil

to stir up tumult against them, He and his gospel were not to blame;

but he counselled them to try by gentle means to soften, if

possible, God's wrath against them. As for the peasants, he had

never from the first concealed from them his suspicions, that many

of them only pretended to appeal to Scripture, and offered for mere

appearance' sake to be further instructed therein. But he wished to

speak to them affectionately, like a friend and a brother, and he

admitted also that godless lords often laid intolerable burdens upon

the people. But however much in their articles might be just and

reasonable, the gospel, he said, had nothing to do with their

demands, and by their conduct they showed that they had forgotten

the law of Christ. For by the Divine law it was forbidden to extort

anything from the authorities by force: the badness of the latter

was no excuse for violence and rebellion. Respecting the substance

of their demands, their first article, claiming to elect their own

pastor, if the civil authority refused to provide one, was right

enough and Christian; but in that case they must maintain him at

their own expense, and on no account protect him by force against

the civil power. As for the remaining articles, they had nothing

whatever to do with the gospel. He tells the peasants plainly, that

if they persist in their rebellion, they are worse enemies to the

gospel than the Pope and Emperor, for they act against the gospel in

the gospel's own name. He is bound to speak thus to them, although

some among them, poisoned by fanatics, hate him and call him a

hypocrite, and the devil, who was not able to kill him through the

Pope, would now like to destroy and devour him. He is content if

only he can save some at least of the good-hearted among them from

the danger of God's indignation. In conclusion, he gives to both

sides, the nobles and the peasants, his 'faithful counsel and

advice, that a few counts and lords should be chosen from the

nobility, and a few councillors from the towns, and that matters

should be adjusted and composed in an amicable manner--that so the

affair, if it cannot be arranged in a Christian spirit, may at least

be settled according to human laws and agreements.'

Thus spoke Luther, with all his accustomed frankness, fervency,

power, and bluntness, equally indifferent to the favour of the

people or of their rulers. But what fruit, indeed, could be looked

for from his words, uttered evidently with violent inward emotion,

when popular passion was so excited? Was it not rather to be feared

that the peasants would greedily fasten on the first portion of his

pamphlet, which was directed against the nobles, and then shut their

ears all the more closely against the second, which concerned their

own misconduct? The pamphlet could hardly have been written, and

much less published, before new rumours and forebodings crowded upon

Luther, such as made him think its contents and language no longer

applicable to the emergency, but that now it was his duty to sound

aloud the call to battle against the enemies of peace and order. 'In

my former tract,' he said, 'I did not venture to condemn the

peasants, because they offered themselves to reason and better

instruction. But before I could look about me, forth they rush, and

fight and plunder and rage like mad dogs.... The worst is at

Mühlhausen, where the arch-devil himself presides.'

In South Germany, on that very Easter Sunday when Luther set out for

Eisleben, the scene of horror was enacted at Weinsberg, where the

peasants, amid the sound of pipes and merriment, drove the unhappy

Count of Helfenstein upon their spears, before the eyes of his wife

and child. Luther's ignorance of this and similar atrocities, at the

time when he was writing his pamphlet at Eisleben, is easily

intelligible from the slow means of communication then existing.

Soon the news came, however, of bands of rioters in Thuringia, busy

with the work of pillage, incendiarism, and massacre, and of a

rising of the peasantry in the immediate neighbourhood. Towards the

end of April they achieved a crowning triumph by their victorious

entry into Erfurt, where the preacher, Eberlin of Günzburg, with

true loyalty and courage, but all in vain, had striven, with words

of exhortation and warning, to pacify the armed multitude encamped

outside the town, and their sympathisers and associates inside.

On April 26 Münzer advanced to Mühlhausen, the 'arch-devil, 'as

Luther called him, but as he described himself, the 'champion of the

Lord.' He came with four hundred followers, and was joined by large

masses of the peasants. His 'only fear,' as he said in his summons

to the miners of Mansfeld, 'was that the foolish men would fall into

the snare of a delusive peace.' He promised them a better result.

'Wherever there are only three among you who trust in God and seek

nothing but His honour and glory, you need not fear a hundred

thousand.... Forward now!' he cried; 'to work! to work! It is time

that the villains were chased away like dogs.... To work! relent not

if Esau gives you fair words. Give no heed to the wailings of the

ungodly; they will beg, weep, and entreat you for pity, like

children. Show them no mercy, as God commanded Moses (Deut. vii.)

and has declared the same to us.... To work! while the fire is hot;

let not the blood cool upon your swords.... To work! while it is

day. God is with you; follow Him!' Of Luther he spoke in terms of

peculiar hatred and contempt. In a letter which he addressed to

'Brother Albert of Mansfeld,' with the object of converting the

Count, he alluded to him in expressions of the coarsest possible

abuse.

In Thuringia, in the Harz, and elsewhere, numbers of convents, and

even castles, were reduced to ashes. The princes were everywhere

unprepared with the necessary troops, while the insurgents in

Thuringia and Saxony counted more than 30,000 men. The former,

therefore, endeavoured to strengthen themselves by coalition. Duke

John, at Weimar, prepared himself for the worst: his brother, the

Elector Frederick, was lying seriously ill at his Castle at Lochau

(now Annaburg) in the district of Torgau.

At this crisis Luther, having left Eisleben, appeared in person

among the excited population. He preached at Stolberg, Nordhausen,

and Wallhausen. In his subsequent writings he could bear witness of

himself, how he had been himself among the peasants, and how, more

than once, he had imperilled life and limb. On May 3 we find him at

Weimar; and a few days afterwards in the county of Mansfeld. Here he

wrote to his friend, the councillor Rühel of Mansfeld, advising him

not to persuade Count Albert to be 'lenient in this affair'--that

is, against the insurgents; for the civil power must assert its

rights and duties, however God might rule the issue. 'Be firm,' he

entreats Rühel, 'that his Grace may go boldly on his way. Leave the

matter to God, and fulfil His commands to wield the sword as long as

strength endures. Our consciences are clear, even if we are doomed

to be defeated.... It is but a short time, and the righteous Judge

will come.'

Luther now hastened back to his Elector, having received a summons

from him at Lochau. But before he could arrive there, Frederick had

peacefully breathed his last, on May 5. Faithfully and discreetly,

and in the honest conviction that truth would prevail, he had

accorded Luther his favour and protection, whilst purposely

abstaining to employ his power as ruler for infringing or invading

the old-established ordinances of the Church. He allowed full

liberty of action to the bishops, and carefully avoided any personal

intercourse with Luther. But in the face of death, he confessed the

truth of the gospel, as preached by Luther, by partaking of the

communion in both kinds, and refusing the sacrament of extreme

unction.

When his corpse was brought in state to Wittenberg, and buried in

the Convent Church, Luther, who had to preach twice on the occasion,

spoke of the universal grief and lamentation that 'our head is

fallen, a peaceful man and ruler, a calm head.' And he pointed out

as the 'most grievous sorrow of all,' how this loss had happened

just in those difficult and wondrous times when, unless God

interposed His arm, destruction threatened the whole of Germany. He

exhorted his hearers to confess to God their own ingratitude for His

mercy in having given them such a noble vessel of His grace. But of

those who set themselves against authorities, he declared, in the

words of the Apostle (Rom. xiii. 2), that 'they shall receive to

themselves damnation.' 'This text,' he said, 'will do more than all

the guns and spears.'

Quite in the same spirit that dictated his letter sent to Rühel only

a few days before at Mansfeld, Luther now sent forth a public

summons 'Against the murderous and plundering bands of peasants.' He

began it with the words already quoted, 'Before I could look about

me, forth they rush ... and rage like mad dogs.'

Thus he wrote when he saw the danger was at its highest. He even

suggested the possibility 'that the peasants might get the upper

hand (which God forbid!);' and that 'God perhaps willed that, in

preparation for the Last Day, the devil should be allowed to destroy

all order and authority, and the world turned into a howling

wilderness.' But he called upon the Christian authorities, with all

the more urgency and vehemence, to use the sword against the

devilish villains, as God had given them command. They should leave

the issue to God, acknowledge to Him that they had well deserved His

judgments, and thus with a good conscience and confidence 'fight as

long as they could move a muscle.' Whosoever should fall on their

side would be a true martyr in God's eyes, if he had fought with

such a conscience. Then, thinking of the many better people who had

been forced by the bloodthirsty peasants and murderous prophets to

join the devilish confederacy, he broke out by exclaiming, 'Dear

lords, help them, save them, take pity upon these poor men; but as

to the rest, stab, crush, strangle whom you can.'

These words of Luther were speedily fulfilled by the events. The

Saxon princes, the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the Duke of Brunswick,

and the Counts of Mansfeld combined together before the mass of the

peasants in Thuringia and Saxony had collected into a large army. On

May 15 the forces of Münzer, numbering about 8,000 men, were

defeated in the battle of Frankenhausen. Münzer himself was taken

prisoner, and, crushed in mind and spirit, was executed like a

criminal. A few days before, the main army of the Swabian peasants

had been routed, and during the following weeks, one stronghold of

the rebellion after another was reduced, and the horrors perpetrated

by the peasants were repaid with fearful vengeance on their heads.

The Landgrave Philip, and John, the new Elector of Saxony,

distinguished themselves by their clemency in dismissing unpunished

to their homes, after the victory, a number of the insurgent

peasants.

But Luther's violent denunciations now gave offence even to some of

his friends. His Catholic opponents, and those even who saw no harm

in burning heretics wholesale for no other reason than their faith,

reproached him then, and do so even now, with horrible cruelty for

this language. Luther replied to the 'complaints and questions about

his pamphlet,' with a public 'Epistle on the harsh pamphlet against

the peasants.' His excitement and irritation was increased by what

he heard talked about his conduct. He maintained what he had said.

But he also reminded his readers, that he had never, as his

calumniators accused him, spoken of acting against the conquered and

humbled, but solely of smiting those actually engaged in rebellion.

He declared further, at the close of his new and forcible remarks on

the use of the sword, that Christian authorities, at any rate were

bound, if victorious, to 'show mercy not only to the innocent, but

also to the guilty.' As for the 'furious raging and senseless

tyrants, who even after the battle cannot satiate themselves with

blood, and throughout their life never trouble themselves about

Christ'--with these he will have nothing whatever to do. Similarly,

in a small tract on Münzer, containing characteristic extracts from

the writings of this 'bloodthirsty prophet,' as a warning to the

people, Luther entreated the lords and civil authorities 'to be

merciful to the prisoners and those who surrendered, ... so that the

tables should not be turned upon the victors.' If we have now to

lament, as we must, that after the rebellion was put down, nothing

was done to remedy the real evils that caused it; nay, that those

very evils were rather increased as a punishment for the vanquished,

this reproach at least applies just as much to the Catholic lords,

both spiritual and temporal, as to the Evangelical authorities or

Luther.

In addition also to his alleged harshness and severity to the

insurgents, Luther was accused, both then and since, by his

ecclesiastical opponents, of having given rise to the rebellion by

his preaching and writings. When the danger and anxiety were over,

Emser had the effrontery to say of him in some popular doggrel, 'Now

that he has lit the fire, he washes his hands like Pilate, and turns

his cloak to the wind;' and again, 'He himself cannot deny that he

exhorted you to rebellion, and called all of you dear children of

God, who gave up to it your lives and property, and washed your

hands in blood. Thus did he write in public, and thereto has he

striven.'

[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Münzer (his execution in the background.)

From an old woodcut.]

In answer to this charge, Luther referred to his treatise 'On the

Secular Power,' and to other of his writings. 'I know well,' he was

able to say with truth, 'that no teacher before me has written so

strongly about secular authority; my very enemies ought to thank me

for this. Who ever made a stronger stand against the peasants, with

writing and preaching, than myself?' Among the Estates of the

Empire, not even the most violent enemies of evangelical doctrine

could venture now to turn their victorious weapons against their

associates in arms who espoused that doctrine, with whom they had

achieved the common conquest, and from whose midst had sounded the

most vigorous call to battle and to victory. Luther, on the

contrary, was not afraid at this moment to exhort the Archbishop,

Cardinal Albert, of whose friendly disposition to himself, his

friend Rühel had recently informed him, to follow the example of his

cousin, the Grand Master in Prussia, by converting his bishopric

into a temporal princedom, and entering the state of matrimony, and

to name, as the chief motive for so doing, the 'hateful and horrible

rebellion,' wherewith God's wrath had visited the sins of the

priesthood.

Thus did Luther, in these stormy times, whatever might be thought of

the violence of his utterances, take up his position clearly and

resolutely from the first, and maintain it to the end;--sure of his

cause, and safe against the new attack which he saw now the devil

was making; unyielding and defiant towards his old Papal enemies and

their new calumniations. And in this frame of mind he took just now

a step, calculated to sharpen all the tongues of slander, but one in

which he saw the fulfilment of his calling. Freed from unchristian

monastic vows, he entered into the holy state of matrimony ordained

by God. We first hear him speaking decidedly on this subject in a

letter to Rühel of May 4. After referring to the devil as the

instigator of the insurgent peasants, and of the murderous deeds

which made him anxious to prepare himself for death, he continues

with the following remarkable words: 'And if I can, in spite of him,

I will take my Kate in marriage before I die. I hope they will not

take from me my courage and my joy.'

CHAPTER VI.

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE.

Our readers will recall to mind those words of Luther at the

Wartburg, on hearing that his teaching was making the clergy marry

and monks renounce the obligation of their vows. No wife, he

declared, should be forced upon him. He remained in his convent;

looked on quietly, as one friend and fellow-labourer after the other

took advantage of their liberty; wished them happiness in the

enjoyment of it, and advised others to do the same; but never

changed his views about himself.

His enemies reproached him with living a worldly life, with drinking

beer in company with his friends, with playing the lute, and so on.

Nor was it merely his Catholic opponents who sought in such charges

material for vile slander, but also jealous ranters like Münzer gave

vent to their hatred in this manner. All the more remarkable it is

that no slanderous reports of immoral conduct were ever launched at

this time, even by his bitterest enemies, against the man who was

denouncing so openly and sternly offences of that description among

the superior, no less than the inferior, clergy. Calumnies of this

kind were reserved for the occasion of his marriage.

In truth, his life was one of the most arduous labour, anxiety, and

excitement; and as regards his bodily needs, he was satisfied with

the plainest and most sparing diet and the simplest enjoyments. The

Augustinian convent, whence he received his support, being gradually

denuded of its inmates by their abandonment of monastic life, its

revenues accordingly were stopped. Luther informed Spalatin in 1524

of the poverty to which they were reduced; not indeed, as Spalatin

well knew, that he concerned himself much about it, or wished to

make it a subject of complaint; if he had no meat or wine, he could

live well enough on bread and water. Melancthon describes how once,

before his marriage, Luther's bed had not been made for a whole

year, and was mildewed with perspiration. 'I was tired out,' says

Luther, 'and worked myself nearly to death, so that I fell into the

bed and knew nothing about it.'

When, moreover, he exchanged, as we have seen, in the autumn of

1524, the monastic cowl for the garb of a professor; and when he and

the prior Brisger were the only ones of all the former monks left in

the convent, he remained quietly where he was, and never entertained

the idea of marriage. A noble lady, Argula von Staufen, wife of the

Ritter von Grumbach, formerly in the Bavarian army, who had written

publicly for the cause of the gospel, and thereby incurred, with her

husband, the displeasure of the Duke of Bavaria, and who was now in

active correspondence with the Wittenbergers and Spalatin, expressed

to the latter her surprise that Luther did not marry. Luther

thereupon wrote to Spalatin on November 30, 1524, saying, 'I am not

surprised that folks gossip thus about me, as they gossip about many

other things. But please thank the lady in my name, and tell her

that I am in the hands of the Lord, as a creature whose heart He can

change and re-change, destroy or revive, at any hour or moment; but

as my heart has hitherto been, and is now, it will never come to

pass that I shall take a wife. Not that I am insensible to my I

flesh or sex, ... but because my mind is averse to wedlock, because

I daily expect the death and the well-merited punishment of a

heretic.'

Shortly afterwards Luther wrote to his friend Link: 'Suddenly, and

while I was occupied with far other thoughts, the Lord has plunged

me into marriage.' It was in the spring of 1525 that he had formed

this resolve, which speedily ripened to its fulfilment.

In a letter of March 12, 1525, he complained to his friend Amsdorf,

who had gone to Magdeburg, of depression of spirits and temptation,

and besought him to pay him a friendly visit to cheer him. It was,

as we see from the contents of the letter, a temptation, which

caused Luther to feel that, in the words of Scripture, it was 'not

good for man to be alone,' but that he ought to have a help-meet to

be with him. As to the choice of such a help-meet he may have

already talked with Amsdorf, and very possibly they may have spoken

of a lady of Magdeburg of the family of Alemann, who were

conspicuous there for their devotion to the evangelical cause.

But Luther's own choice turned on Catharine von Bora, a former nun.

Sprung from an ancient, though poor family of noble blood, she had

been brought up from childhood in the convent of Nimtzch near

Grimma. We find her there as early as 1509; she was born on January

29, 1499, and was consecrated as a nun at the age of sixteen. When

the evangelical doctrine became known at Nimtzch, Catharine

endeavoured with other nuns to break the bonds, which she had taken

upon herself without any real free-will or knowledge of her own. In

vain she entreated her relatives to release her. At length one

Leonhard Koppe, a burgher and councillor of Torgau, took her part.

Assisted by him and two of his friends, nine nuns escaped secretly

from the convent on Easter Eve, April 5, 1523. Luther justified

their escape in a public letter addressed to Koppe, and collected

funds for their support, until they could be further provided for.

They fled first to Wittenberg, and here Catharine stayed at the

house of the town clerk and future burgomaster, Philip Reichenbach.

She was now in her twenty-sixth year, when Luther turned his thoughts

towards her. He told afterwards his friends and Catharine herself,

with perfect frankness, that he had not been in love with her before,

for he had his suspicions, and they were not unfounded, that she was

proud. He had even thought, shortly before, of arranging a marriage

between her and a minister named Glatz, who later on, however, proved

himself unworthy of his office. Catharine, on the other hand, is said

to have gone to Amsdorf, as the trusted friend of Luther, and to have

told him frankly that she did not wish to marry Glatz, but was ready

to form an honourable alliance with himself or with Luther. If

Cranach's portrait of her is to be trusted, she was not remarkable

for beauty or any outward attraction. But she was a healthy, strong,

frank and true German woman. Luther might reasonably expect to have

in her a loyal, fresh-hearted, and staunch help-meet for his life,

whose own cares or requirements would cause him little anxiety,

while she would be just such a companion as, with his physical

ailments and mental troubles, he required. In the event of her

haughty disposition asserting itself unduly, he was the very man

to correct it with quiet firmness and affection.

What further considerations induced him to marry, appear from his

letters, in which he urged his friends to do likewise. Thus he wrote

on March 27 to Wolfgang Reissenbusch, preceptor of the convent at

Lichtenberg, saying that man was created by God for marriage. God

had so made man that he could not well do without it; whoever was

ashamed of marrying, must also be ashamed of his manhood, or must

pretend to be wiser than God. The devil had slandered the married

state by letting people who lived in immorality be held in high

honour. Luther, in thus frankly stating the natural disposition of

man to married life, spoke from his own experience. 'To remain

righteous unmarried,' he said once later on, 'is not the least of

trials, as those know well who have made the attempt.' In referring

as he did to the devil, he probably had in his mind the scandal

which threatened him if he should decide on marrying. He then goes

on to say to Reissenbusch that if he honoured the Word and work of

God, the scandal would be only a matter of a moment, to be followed

by years of honour. To Spalatin he writes on April 10: 'I find so

many reasons for urging others to marry, that I shall soon be

brought to it myself, notwithstanding that enemies never cease to

condemn the married state, and our little wiseacres ridicule it

every day.' The 'wiseacres' he was thinking of were professors and

theologians of his circle at Wittenberg. Not only was he resolved,

however, to obey the will of his Creator, despite all condemnation

and ridicule, but he deemed it his duty to testify to the rightness

of the step by his example as well as by his words. His enemies, in

fact, were taunting him that he did not venture to practise himself

what he preached to others. A few days after, immediately before his

departure for Eisleben, he wrote again to Spalatin, recommending his

friend, who had been so utterly averse to matrimony, to take care

that he was not anticipated in the step.

Amidst all the terrors of the Peasants' War, which had now broken

out in all its violence, and in earnest contemplation of a near end

possibly threatening himself, he had formed the fixed resolve, as

his letter of May 4 to Rühel shows, to 'take his Kate to wife, in

spite of the devil.' This is the first letter in which he mentions

her name to a friend. And to this resolve he steadily adhered during

the troublous weeks that followed, when he was called on to pay the

last honours to his Elector, to rouse men to the sanguinary contest

with the peasants, and to hear contumely and reproach heaped upon

his stirring words. Besides writing to the Cardinal Albert himself,

recommending him to marry, he sent a letter also on June 3 to his

friend Rühel, who held office as one of his advisers, saying, 'If my

marrying might serve in any way to strengthen his Grace to do the

same, I should be very willing to set his Grace the example; for I

have a mind, before leaving this world, to enter the married state,

to which I believe God has called me.' He had thoughts of this kind,

he added, even if it should end only in a betrothal, and not an

actual marriage.

He speedily gave effect to his final resolve, in order to cut short

all the loose and idle gossip which threatened him as soon as his

intentions were known with regard to Catharine von Bora. He took

none of his friends into his confidence, but acted, as he afterwards

advised others to act. 'It is not good,' he said, 'to talk much

about such matters. A man must ask God for counsel, and pray, and

then act accordingly.'

As to how he finally came to terms with Catharine we have no account

to show. But on the evening of June 13, on the Tuesday after the

feast of the Trinity, he invited to his house his friends

Bugenhagen, the parish priest of the town, Jonas, the professor and

provost of the church of All Saints, Lucas Cranach with his wife,

and the juristic professor Apel, formerly a dean of the Cathedral at

Bamberg, who himself had married a nun, and in their presence was

married to Catharine. The marriage was solemnised in the customary

way. The pair were asked, by the priest present, Bugenhagen,

according to the custom prevailing in Germany, and which Luther

afterwards followed in his tract on Marriage, whether they would

take one another for husband and wife; their right hands were then

joined together, and thus, in the name of the Trinity, they were

'joined together in matrimony.' The ceremony was therewith

concluded, and Catharine remained thenceforth with Luther as his

wife. Some days after Luther gave a little breakfast to his friends;

and the magistracy, of whom Cranach was a member, sent him their

congratulations, together with a present of wine. A fortnight later,

on June 27, Luther celebrated his wedding in grander style, by a

nuptial feast, in order to gather his distant friends around him. He

wrote to them saying that they were to 'seal and ratify' his

marriage, and 'help to pronounce the benediction.' Above all he

rejoiced to be able to see his 'dear father and mother' at the

feast. Among the motives for his marrying he especially mentioned

that he had felt himself bound to fulfil an old duty, in accordance

with his father's wishes.

Great as was the surprise which Luther occasioned by his speedy

marriage, it was no greater than the talk and sensation that

immediately ensued.

Among even his adherents and friends--especially the 'wiseacres' of

whom he had spoken--there was much astonishment and shaking of

heads. It was considered that the great man had lowered himself, and

gossip was busy in asking what reasons could have induced him to

take the step. Melancthon, his devoted friend, lost for the moment,

as is shown by his letter of June 16 to the philologist Camerarius,

his accustomed self-possession. He admitted that married life was a

holy state, and one well-pleasing to God, and that its results might

be beneficial to Luther's nature and character; but he was of

opinion that Luther's lowering himself to this condition was a

lamentable act of weakness, and injurious to his reputation--and

that, too, at a time when Germany was more than ever in need of all

his spirit and his energy. Luther had not invited him to be present

on the 13th, from a suspicion that Melancthon would scarcely approve

of what he was doing. A few days afterwards, however, he warmly

besought Link, their common friend, to be sure and attend their

nuptial feast on the 27th. That Luther, in this respect also, had

acted as a man of strong character and determination, would soon be

evident to them all.

His enemies seized the occasion of his marriage to spread vulgar

falsehoods about him, which soon were further exaggerated, and have

been raked up shamelessly again, even in our own time, or at least

repeated in veiled and scandalous inuendoes.

[Illustration: Fig. 29.--LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in

1525.) At Wittenberg.]

As for Luther himself, he at first felt strange in the new mode of

life which he had entered at the age of forty-one, so suddenly, and

in the midst of his arduous labours, and the stirring public events

and struggles of the time. At the same time he could not but be

aware of the unfavourable reception which his step would encounter,

even with his friends at Wittenberg. Melancthon found him, during

the early days of his married life, in a restless and uncertain

mood. But he remained firm in his conviction that God had called him

to the married state. The same day that Melancthon wrote so

anxiously to Camerarius about his marriage, Luther himself wrote to

Spalatin, saying, 'I have made myself so vile and contemptible

forsooth, that all the angels, I hope, will laugh, and all the

devils weep.' In his letter of invitation to his friends for June

27, friendly humour is mingled with words of deep earnestness; nay,

even with thoughts of death, and a longing for release from this

infatuated world. Later on Luther preached, on the ground of his own

experiences, about the blessings, the joys, and the purifying

burdens of the state ordained and sanctified by God, and never

without an expression of gratitude to God for having brought him to

enter into it. Seventeen years after his marriage he bore testimony

to Catharine in his will, that she had been to him a 'pious,

faithful, and devoted wife, always loving, worthy, and beautiful.'

[Illustration: Fig. 30.--CATHARINE VON BORA, LUTHER'S WIFE. (From a

Portrait by Cranach about 1525.) At Berlin.]

Of the wedding feast of June 27 we have no further details. It was,

so far as concerns the repast, a very simple one, as compared with

the elaborate nuptial entertainments then in fashion. The university

presented Luther with a beautifully chased goblet of silver, bearing

round its base the words: 'The honourable University of the

Electoral town of Wittenberg presents this wedding gift to Doctor

Martin Luther and his wife Kethe von Bora. [Footnote: The goblet is

now in the possession of the University of Greifswald.]

[Illustration: Fig. 3l.--LUTHER'S RING FROM CATHARINE.]

Apartments in the convent, which Brisger also quitted shortly after to

become a minister, were appointed by the Elector as the dwelling-place

of Luther. Here, therefore, Catharine had to manage her household.

[Illustration: Fig. 82.--LUTHER'S DOUBLE RING.]

Protestant posterity has been anxious to retain a memorial of this

marriage in the wedding rings of the newly-married couple. These,

however, were probably not used at the marriage itself, since Luther

wished to have it solemnised so quickly and without the knowledge of

others. But a ring has been preserved, which Luther, to judge from

the inscription (D. Martino Luthero Catharina v. Boren 13 Jun.

1525), received at any rate from his Kate as a supplementary

reminiscence of the day. In recent times--about 1817--it has been

multiplied by several copies. It bears the figure of the crucified

Saviour and the instruments of His death; in perfect keeping with

the spirit of the Reformer, whose marriage, like the other acts of

his life, was concluded in the name of Christ crucified. There

exists also, in the Ducal Museum at Brunswick, a double ring,

consisting of two interfastened in the middle, of which one bears a

diamond with his initials M. L. D., and the other a ruby with the

initials of his wife, C. v. B. The inner surface of the first ring

is engraved with the words: 'WAS. GOT. ZUSAMEN. FIEGT,' (Those whom

God hath joined together), and the second, 'SOL. KEIN. MENSCH.

SCHEIDEN,' (Shall no man put asunder). This double ring was probably

given by some friend to Luther, or, as others suppose, to his wife.

PART V.

_LUTHER AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH, TO THE FIRST

RELIGIOUS PEACE_. 1525-1532.

CHAPTER I.

SURVEY.

The year 1525 marks in the life of Luther and the history of the

Reformation an epoch and a departure of general importance.

Luther's preaching had originally forced its way among the German

people and its various classes, with an energy and strength never

counted on by its opponents. It seemed impossible to calculate how

far the ferment would extend, and what would be its ultimate

results. It was the idea of the Elector Frederick the Wise, now

dead, that by simply letting the word of the gospel unfold itself

quietly and work its way without hindrance, the truth could not fail

eventually to penetrate all Christendom, or at least the Christian

world of Germany, and thus accomplish a peaceful victory. This hope

had guided him during his lifetime in his relations with Luther, and

no one appreciated and responded to it more loyally than Luther

himself. But now, as we have seen, those German princes who adhered

to the old Church system had begun to form a close alliance, and

were meditating means of remedying, albeit in their own fashion,

certain evils in the Church. Erasmus, still the representative of a

powerful modern movement of the intellect, had at length broken

finally with Luther, and renewed his former allegiance to the Romish

Church. From the German nobility, whose sympathy and co-operation

Luther had once so boldly and hopefully invoked in his contest with

the Papacy, it was vain, since the fatal enterprise of Sickingen,

which Luther himself had been forced to condemn, to expect any

material assistance in furtherance of the Evangelical cause. True,

there was the extensive rising of another class, the peasantry, who

likewise appealed to the gospel. But genuine disciples of the gospel

could not fail to see in this movement, with terror, how a perverse

conception of the sacred text led to errors and crimes which even

Luther wished to see suppressed in blood. And the Catholic nobles

took advantage of this rising to persecute with the greater rigour

all evangelical preaching, and to extend, without further inquiry,

their denunciation of the insurgents to those of evangelical

sympathies who held entirely aloof from the insurrection. Luther, in

his dealings with the nobles and peasants, failed to preserve that

boldness and confidence of mind and language which he had previously

displayed towards his fellow-countrymen. That his cause, indeed, was

the cause of God, he remained unshakenly convinced; but in a sadder

spirit than he had ever shown before, he left God's will to

determine what amount of visible success that cause should attain to

in the present evil world, or how far the decision should depend

upon His last great Judgment.

[Illustration: Fig. 33.--The Saxon Electors, FREDERICK THE WISE,

JOHN, and JOHN FREDERICK. (From a Picture by Cranach.) At

Nüremberg.]

[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Facsimile of FREDERICK's signature.]

Even before the Peasants' War broke out, the proceedings of the

fanatics had begun to hamper and disturb his labours in the field of

reformation, and had prepared for him much pain and tribulation. He

had to grow distrustful of so many whom he had regarded as brothers,

and of their manner of proclaiming the Word of God, Whom they

pretended to serve. He already heard of men among them, who not only

rejected infant baptism, and openly attacked his own, no less than

the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrament, but who impugned the

universal belief of Christendom in the Triune God and the Divinity

of the Saviour. Early in 1525 news reached him of such a man at

Nüremberg, John Denk, the Rector of the school there, who was

expelled on that account by the magistrates. Luther's own doctrine

of the presence of Christ's Body in the Lord's Supper, which he had

previously to defend against Carlstadt, his former colleague and

fellow-combatant, now found a far more formidable opponent in the

Zurich Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli. The latter, in a letter of November

16, 1524, to Alber, a preacher at Reutlingen, had already disputed

the Real Presence, by interpreting the words 'This _is_ my

body' to mean 'This _signifies_ my body.' In March 1525 he made

known this interpretation to the world by publishing his letter,

together with a pamphlet 'On the True and False Religion.' He was

joined at Basle by Oecolampadius, whom Luther had welcomed formerly

as a fellow-labourer, and who published his own interpretation of

the words of Christ. Butzer and Capito, the evangelical preachers at

Strasburg, inclined to the same view, which threatened to spread

rapidly over the South of Germany. The opposition now encountered by

Luther was far more dangerous for his teaching than the theories and

agitations of a Carlstadt, since whatever judgment may be formed

about its merits, it proceeded at any rate from men of far more

thoughtful minds, more solid theological acquirements, and more

honest reverence for the Word of God. Herewith then began that

division of opinion among the ranks of the Evangelical Reformers,

which served more than anything else to retard the fresh and

vigorous progress of the Reformation, and infected even Luther's

spirit with the bitterness of the controversy it entailed.

At the same time, however, Luther had now won firm ground for the

Evangelical cause upon a fixed and extensive territory. Within these

limits it was possible to construct a new Church system, upon stable

foundations and with a new constitution. John, the new Elector of

Saxony, did not enjoy, it is true, the same high consideration

throughout the Empire as his brother Frederick, Luther's great

protector, and he was also his inferior as a statesman. But with

Luther himself both he and his son John Frederick had already

maintained a friendly personal intercourse, such as his predecessor

had carefully avoided. Nor did his disposition lead him, like

Frederick, to pay any such regard to the possible preservation of

Church unity in the German Empire and Western Christendom; on the

contrary, he soon showed his readiness to undertake independently,

as sovereign of his country, the establishment of a new Evangelical

Church. Prussia had just preceded him in a reform embracing the

whole country, under the former Grand Master of the Teutonic

Knights, their present Duke. The Elector now found a further ally

for the work in the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the most active and

politically the most important of all. As a young man of only twenty

years of age, in the beginning of 1525, he had rendered valuable

service by his energy, resolution, and warlike ability, in the

defeat of Sickingen, and again when opposed to the seditious

peasants. Already before the Peasants' War commenced, he had

acquired, mainly through Melancthon, whom he had met when

travelling, a knowledge and love of the evangelical doctrines. His

father-in-law, Duke George of Saxony, had vainly endeavoured, after

their common victory over the insurgents, to alienate him from the

cause of the hateful Luther, who he said was the author of so much

mischief. But the menaces hurled against that cause by the Catholic

States of the Empire served only to attach him more closely and

loyally to John and John Frederick, and thence resulted in the

following spring the League of Torgau, which was joined also by the

princes of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Anhalt, and Mecklenburg, and the town

of Magdeburg. The co-operation of the territorial princes made it

possible to procure for the Reformation and its Church system a firm

position in the German Empire against the Emperor and the hostile

Catholic States. And, at the same time, it offered means for

establishing on the ground newly occupied by the Reformation itself,

firm and generally recognised regulations of Church polity, and

defending them from being disturbed by the proceedings of fanatics.

[Illustration: Fig. 35.--PHILIP OF HESSE. (From a woodcut of

Brosamer.)]