Under these new conditions and circumstances, Luther's work became

limited, as was natural, to a narrower field, and bore no longer the

same character of boldness and independence which had marked it in

his original contest with Rome. But it required, on this account,

all the more perseverance and patience, faithfulness and

circumspection in minor matters, and an adequate regard to what was

actually required and practicable, while clinging firmly to the

lofty aims and objects with which the work of the Reformation had

commenced.

To the portrait of Luther as the Reformer we have to add henceforth

that of the married man and head of the household, whose single

desire is to fulfil, as a man and a Christian, the duties belonging

to this state of life, and to enjoy with a quiet conscience the

blessings of God. In his letters to intimate friends we find happy

home news alternating with the most profound and serious reflections

on the conduct and duties of the Evangelical Church, and on abstruse

questions of theology. His language as a Reformer deals now no

longer, as in his Address to the German Nobility, in particular,

with the problems and interests of political and social life; it is

mainly to religious and spiritual matters, and to the kindred

questions affecting the active work and constitution of the Church,

that his mission is now directed. But his personal relations with

his countrymen became all the more close and intimate in consequence

of this change of life; and that which by many of his friends was

regretted as a lowering of his reputation and influence, becomes a

valuable and essential feature in the historical portrait now

presented to our eyes.

In single dramatic incidents and changes, so to speak, Luther's life

henceforth, as was only natural, is no longer so rich as during the

earlier years of development and struggle. We shall no longer meet

with crises of such a kind as mark a momentous epoch.

CHAPTER II.

CONTINUED LABOURS AND PERSONAL LIFE TO 1529.

Among the particular labours which occupied Luther during the

further course of the year 1525, apart from his persevering industry

as a professor and preacher, we have already had occasion to mention

one, namely, his reply to Erasmus. We find him towards the end of

September entirely engrossed in this work. Not a single proposition

in Erasmus' book, so he wrote to Spalatin, would he admit.

The reckless severity with which he assailed that distinguished

opponent appears all the more remarkable when contrasted with the

conciliatory tone whereby he was then hoping to appease the wrath of

his two bitterest enemies in high places, King Henry VIII. of

England and Duke George of Saxony.

On September 1, 1525, he addressed a humble letter to Henry. King

Christian II. of Denmark, who, after forfeiting his throne by his

arbitrary and despotic rule, had taken refuge with the Elector

Frederick, showed an inclination to favour the new doctrine, and

even came in person to Wittenberg. By him Luther was induced to

believe--for what reason it does not appear--that Henry VIII. had

entirely changed his Church principles; and to hope that, if only he

could make amends for the personal offence he had given him, Henry

might be won over still further for the Evangelical cause. Luther

refers to this hope as follows: 'My Most Gracious Sire the King gave

me good cause to hope for the King of England ... and ceased not to

urge me by speech and letter, giving me so many good words, and

telling me that I ought to write humbly, and that it would be useful

to do so, and so forth, until I am fairly intoxicated with the

idea.' He then cast himself in his letter at the feet of his

Majesty, and besought him to pardon him for the offence he had given

by his earlier pamphlet, 'because from good witnesses he had learned

that the Royal treatise which he had attacked, was not indeed the

work of the King himself, but a concoction of the miserable Cardinal

of York' (Edward Lee). He promised to make a public retractation, in

another pamphlet, for the sake of the King's honour. At the same

time, he wished that the grace of God might assist his Majesty, and

enable him to turn wholly to the gospel, and shut his ears against

the siren voices of its enemies.

With regard to Duke George of Saxony, all that Luther had as yet

heard about him was that he was incessantly bringing fresh

complaints about him to the Elector, that he rigorously excluded the

new teaching from his own territory, and, what was more, that, he

was anxious to go on from the conquest of the peasants to the

suppression of Lutheranism, which had been the cause, he declared,

of all the mischief. Now, however, Luther learned from certain Saxon

nobles, that the Duke himself was not so unfavourably disposed to

the cause, and was willing to treat with mildness and toleration

those who preached or confessed the gospel; that it was with Luther

personally that he was so offended and irritated. Luther wrote to

him on December 22 of this year. 'I have been advised,' he says,

'once more to entreat your Grace in this letter, with all humility

and friendship, for it almost seems to me as if God, our Lord, would

soon take some of us from hence, and the fear is that Duke George

and Luther may also have to go.' He then entreats, with all

submission, his pardon for whatever wrong he had done the Duke by

writing or in speech; but of his doctrine he could, for conscience'

sake, retract nothing. Luther, however, did not humble himself to

George as he had done to King Henry, and his letter bears his

characteristic sharpness of tone. He assured the Duke, however,

that, with all his former severity of language towards him, he was a

better friend to him than all his sycophants and parasites, and that

the Duke had no need to pray to God against him.

Luther undoubtedly wrote the two letters, as he himself says of the

one to Henry, with a simple and honest heart. They show, indeed, how

much genuine good-nature, and at the same time how strange an

ignorance of the world and of men, was combined in him together with

a passionate zeal for combat. George answered him at once with

ferocity, and, as Luther says, with the coarseness of a peasant. The

prince, otherwise not ignoble, was so embittered by hatred against

the heretic as to reproach him with the vulgarest motives of

avarice, ambition, and the lust of the flesh. Never had Luther, even

with his worst enemies, stooped to such personal slander. Concerning

the answer which came afterwards from King Henry, as well as the

reply of Erasmus, we shall speak further on.

Meanwhile, Luther and his friends were directing their attention to

the newly published doctrine of the Last Supper. At first Luther

left others to contest it: Bugenhagen addressed a public letter

against it to his friend Hess at Breslau; Brenz at Schwäbish Hall,

together with other Swabian preachers, published tracts against

Oecolampadius. Luther himself, after February 1525, referred

repeatedly to Zwingli's theory in sermons to the congregation at

Wittenberg which were printed at the time. But beyond this he

confined himself to sending warnings by letter, on November 5, 1525,

and January 4, 1526, to Strasburg and Reutlingen, whence he had been

appealed to on the subject, against the false doctrines which had

been put forward concerning the Sacrament, and particularly against

the fanatics. We shall follow later on the further course of the

controversy.

All these polemics, however, were only an adjunct to his positive

labours and activity. His chief task now was to carry out the work

he had begun in his own Church. For this he could rely with

certainty on the inward sympathy of the new Elector, and he hastened

to turn it actively to account as soon as possible, for the

furtherance of his Church objects. During his communications with

the late Elector Frederick, Spalatin had always acted as

intermediary; but to John he addressed himself direct, and, whenever

occasion offered, by word of mouth, and this at times with much

urgency. Spalatin was now the pastor of a parish, as had been his

wish some time before. He was the successor at Altenburg of Link,

who had removed to Nüremberg, and he enjoyed the especial confidence

of John.

In his official capacity Luther was, and always remained, before all

things, a member of the university. He cherished at all times a

lively appreciation of its importance to the cause of evangelical

truth, the Church, and the common welfare of society. He began by

pleading on its behalf to the new Elector, to remedy the defects and

grievances which had crept in during the latter years of the old and

ailing Elector Frederick. The requisite salary, in particular, was

wanting for several of the professorships, and the customary

lectures on many branches of study had been dropped. Luther, as he

himself afterwards told the Elector in a tone of apology, had

'worried him sorely to put the university in order,' so much so that

'his urgency wellnigh surprised the Elector, as though he had not

much faith in his promises.' In September the necessary reforms at

Wittenberg were provided for by a commission specially appointed by

the prince. The interest the latter took in theology made him double

Melancthon's salary, in order to attach him the more closely to the

theological lectures, which originally were not part of his duty.

Luther next devoted all his energies towards the requirements of the

new Church system.

At Wittenberg, and from thence in other places, regulations for the

performance of public worship had already been established, with the

object of giving full and free expression to evangelical truth. The

congregation had the Word of God read aloud to them, and joined in

the singing of German hymns. The portions of the Liturgy, however,

which were sung partly by the priests and partly by the choir, were

still conducted in Latin. Luther now introduced a complete service

in German, changing here and there the old form. To assist him in

the musical alterations required, the Elector sent him two musicians

from Torgau. With one of these in particular, John Walter, Luther

worked with diligence, and continued afterwards on terms of friendly

intercourse. He himself composed a few pieces for the work.

Of these, as of the earlier regulations at Wittenberg, Luther

published a formal account. It appeared at the beginning of the next

year (1526), under the title of 'The German Mass and Order of Divine

Worship at Wittenberg.' But he guarded himself in this publication,

from the outset, against the new Service being construed into a law

of necessary obligation, or made a means of disquieting the

conscience. In this matter, as in others, he wished above all things

that regard should be paid to the weak and simple brethren--to those

who had still to be trained and built up into Christians. Nay, he

had meant it for a people among whom, as he said, many were not

Christians at all, but the majority stood and stared, for the mere

sake of seeing something new, just as though a Christian Service

were being performed among Turks and heathens. The first question

with these was how to attract them publicly to a confession of

belief and Christianity. He thought also, at this time, of another

and, as he termed it, a true kind of Evangelical Service, for which,

however, the people were not yet prepared. His idea in this was that

all individuals who were Christians in earnest, and were willing to

confess the gospel, should enrol themselves by name, and meet

together for prayer, for reading the Word of God, for administering

the Sacraments, and exercising works of Christian piety. For an

assembly of this kind, and for their worship of God, he contemplated

no elaborate form of Liturgy, but, on the contrary, simply a 'short

and proper' means of 'directing all in common to the Word and prayer

and charity,' and in addition thereto, a regular exercise of

congregational discipline and a Christian care of the poor, after

the example of the Apostles. But for the present, he said, he must

resign this idea of a congregation simply from the want of proper

persons to compose it. He would wait 'until Christians were found

sufficiently earnest about the Word to offer themselves for the

purpose, and adhere to it;' otherwise it might serve only to

generate a 'spirit of faction,' if he attempted to carry it through

by himself; for the Germans, he said, were a wild people, and very

difficult to deal with, unless extreme necessity compelled them. The

Elector, however, readily assented to this project, and purposed to

propose it as a model for other churches in his dominions.

At this point, however, a wider field of action opened out, the

details of which could not be comprehended at a single glance, and

which seemed to require a higher care, and the guidance and support

of higher powers and authorities. In many places, nothing as yet, or

at all events nothing of a stable and well-ordered kind, had been

done towards a reconstruction of the Church and the satisfaction of

spiritual requirements in an evangelical sense. There was no

collective Church, and no ecclesiastical office existing by whose

influence and authority reforms might have been made, and a new

organisation established. This was a grievous state of need where,

perhaps, the existing clergy and the majority or the flower of their

congregations were already unanimous and decided in their confession

of evangelical doctrine. And in a number of congregations, indeed,

among the great mass of the country people, there prevailed to a

peculiar degree, that want of understanding, of ripe thought, and of

inward sympathy, which Luther noticed even among many of his

Wittenbergers. The bishops, in their visitations in Saxony under the

Elector Frederick, had been unable to check any longer the progress

of the new teaching, and did not venture on any further

interference. And yet this teaching, as Luther knew better than

anyone, had not yet succeeded, in spite of all its popularity, in

penetrating the souls of men. To a large extent, the masses seemed

to be still stolid and indifferent. Even among the clergy, many were

so unstable, so obscure, and so incompetent, that they failed to

make any progress with their congregations. There were even some

among them who were ready, according to circumstances, to adopt

either the old or the new Church usages. In some places the new

practices were opposed as innovations, especially by various nobles,

and by the priests, who were dependent on the nobles: if such

opposition was to be broken, it could only be done by the authority

and power of the local sovereign. Lastly, and apart from all this,

the new Church system was threatened with imminent disturbance and

dissolution from the insufficiency or misuse of the funds required

for its support. The customary revenues were falling off; payments

were no longer made for private masses; and many of the nobles,

including even those who remained attached to the old system, began

to secularise the property of the Church. 'Unless measures are

taken,' said Luther, 'to secure a suitable disposition and proper

maintenance for ministers and preachers, there will shortly be

neither parsonages nor schools worth speaking of, and Divine Worship

and the Word of God will come utterly to an end.'

The first question was to establish the principles on which a new

organisation of the Church should be based.

The earlier opinions expressed by Luther, especially in his Address

to the German Nobility, might have led one to expect that the new

Church system conformably to his ideas would have to be built up, to

use a modern expression, from below, that is to say, on the basis of

the universal priesthood of all baptized Christians, who should now

therefore, after hearing and receiving the Word of the Gospel, have

proceeded to organise and embody themselves into a new community.

Luther had also, in that treatise, as we have seen, allotted certain

duties to the civil authorities in regard even to ecclesiastical

matters; and it was now from profound and painful conviction that he

confessed that the great bulk of the people were as yet not genuine

Christians, but needed public means of attraction to draw them to

Christianity. Later on we met with his idea of a 'German Mass,'

involving a voluntary union and assembly of genuine Christians, as

explained by him three years before in a sermon. There were elements

here at least, one might have thought, sufficient to constitute an

independent system of congregations. Shortly afterwards, in October

1526, a Hessian synod, convoked by the Landgrave Philip at Homberg,

actually adopted the draft of a constitution, which provided that

those Christians who acknowledged the Word of God should voluntarily

enrol themselves as members of a Christian Evangelical Brotherhood

or congregation, who should elect in assembly their pastors and

bishops, and that the latter, together with other deputies, should

constitute a general synod for the national Church. But Luther, true

to his conviction, previously expressed, that there were not the men

fitted for such an institution, stated now his opinion to Philip,

that he had not the boldness to carry out such a heap of

regulations, and that people were not as fit for them as those who

sat and made the regulations imagined. Moreover he could not

tolerate the idea that the mass of those who remained outside this

community, and who were looked upon, according to the Homberg

scheme, as heathens, should be left to their fate, without preachers

of the Word, and above all, without either baptism or the Christian

education of their children. Added to this, he adhered strenuously

to his belief, which we have noticed long before, that certain

duties with reference to religion and the Church were incumbent on

the civil authorities, the princes and magistrates, in common with

all the rest of Christendom. It was their duty, he declared in those

earlier writings of his, to prohibit, by force if necessary, the

proceedings of those priests who were hostile to the gospel. He now

applied the idea and definition of external, idolatrous practices to

the Papal system of public worship and the sacrifice of the mass. To

suppress these practices, he said, was the duty of those authorities

who watched over the external relations of life: such was his demand

against the Catholics at Altenburg. On the other hand, this province

of external life and external regulations embraced also the material

means required for the external maintenance of the Church. And it

was only a step further for those authorities to forbid any public

exposition of doctrines which they found to be at variance with the

Word of God, and to appoint also preachers of that Word; nay, to

undertake, in short, the establishment and preservation of the

constitution of the Church, so far as the same was external, and

necessary, and incapable of being established by any other power.

The Elector John himself had already, on August 16, 1525, announced

at his palace of Weimar to the assembled clergy of the district,

'that the gospel should be preached, pure and simple, without any

additions by man.'

Under such circumstances, and starting with such views, Luther now

urged the Elector to take in hand a comprehensive regulation of the

Church. As soon as he had discharged his duties at the university

and completed his new Church Service in German, he turned his

efforts to a general 'Reform of parishes.' This, as he said in a

letter at the end of September, was now the stumbling-block before

him. On October 31, 1525, the anniversary of his ninety-five theses,

he represented to the Elector that, now that the reorganisation of

the university and the regulation of public worship had been

completed, there still remained two points which demanded the

attention and care of his Highness, as the supreme temporal

authority in his country. One of these was the miserable condition

of the parishes in general; the other was the proposal that the

Elector, as Luther had already advised him at Wittenberg, should

institute an inspection also of the civil administration of his

councillors and officials, about which there were everywhere

complaints both in the towns and country districts. With regard to

the first point, he went on to explain, on receiving a gracious

reply from the Elector, that the people who wished to have an

evangelical preacher should themselves be made to contribute the

additional income required; and he proposed that the country should

be divided into four or five districts, each of which should be

visited by two commissioners appointed by the prince. He then

proceeded to consider the external maintenance of the parochial

clergy, and the means necessary for that purpose. He suggested

further that ministers advanced in years, or unfit to preach, but

otherwise of pious life and conduct, should be instructed to read

aloud, in person or by deputy, the Gospel, together with the

Postills or short homilies. With regard to those parishes where the

appointment of an evangelical preacher was a matter of indifference

or of actual repugnance, he expressed at present no opinion; but in

his later proposals he assumed the establishment of evangelical

preachers throughout the country. He expresses his conviction that

the Elector will give his services to God in these reforms of the

Church, as a faithful instrument in His hands, 'because,' as he

says, 'your Highness is entreated and demanded to do so by us, and

by the pressing need itself, and, therefore, assuredly by God.'

Readily as the Elector John listened to Luther's words and

exhortations, he found it difficult, nevertheless, to initiate at

once so vast an undertaking as was imposed upon him. Luther was well

aware, as he himself told John, that matters of importance might

easily be delayed at court, 'through the overwhelming press of

business;' and that princely households had much to do, and it was

necessary to importune them perseveringly. He knew his prince--that

with the best will possible, he was not energetic enough with those

about him; and among the latter he suspected that many were

indifferent and selfish with regard to matters of religion and the

Church. The task, however, that now lay before him, was even more

difficult and involved than Luther himself had imagined when first

shaping and propounding his idea.

A whole year went by before the project was taken up

comprehensively. Only in the district of Borna, in January 1526, was

an inspection of parishes effected by Spalatin and a civil official

of the prince; and another one was held during Lent in the

Thuringian district of Tenneberg, in which Luther's friend Myconius

of Gotha, afterwards one of the most prominent Reformers in

Thuringia, took an active part. Meantime, however, the clergy in

general received directions from the Elector to perform public

worship in the manner prescribed by Luther's 'German Mass.'

In the course of the summer the development of the general affairs

of the Empire enabled the desired co-operation of the civil

authorities in the work of Reformation to be established on a basis

of law. And yet, just now, the situation, as regards the Evangelical

cause, had become more critical than at any previous time since the

Diet of Worms. For the Emperor Charles had terminated, by a

brilliant victory, the war with France, which had compelled him to

let his Edict remain dormant; and the peace concluded with the

captured King Francis, in January 1526, at Madrid, was designated by

the two monarchs as being intended to enable them to take up their

Christian arms in common for the expulsion of the infidels and the

extirpation the Lutheran and other heresies. The Emperor issued an

admonition to certain princes of Germany, bidding them take measures

accordingly, and a number of them held a conference together on the

subject. Against the danger thus threatening, the Evangelical party

formed the League of Torgau. But no sooner was King Francis at

liberty and back in France, than he broke the peace so solemnly

contracted. Pope Clement, to whom this peace had offered such a

splendid prospect of purifying and uniting Christendom, set more

store by his political interests and temporal possessions in Italy,

which formed a subject of such jealous rivalry and contention

between himself, the Emperor, and the King. Terrified at the

overwhelming power of the Emperor, the Holy Father made use of his

Divine credentials to absolve the French king from his oath, and

himself concluded a warlike alliance with him against Charles, which

went by the name of the 'Holy League.' Myconius remarked of this

compact that 'whatever Popes do must be called most holy, for so

holy are they that even God, the Gospel, and all the world, must lie

at their feet.' Meanwhile, the Turks from the East were advancing on

Germany. Thus it came to pass that a Diet at Spires, which seemed

originally to have been summoned for the final execution of the

Edict of Worms, led to the Imperial Recess of August 27, 1526,

wherein it was declared that until the General, or at least National

Council of the Church, which was prayed for, should be convoked,

each State should, in all matters appertaining to the Edict of

Worms, 'so live, rule, and bear itself as it thought it could answer

it to God and the Emperor.'

Luther now turned again, on November 22, 1526, to John, 'not having

laid for a long while any supplication before his Electoral

Highness.' The peasants, he said, were so unruly, and so ungrateful

for the Word of God, that he had almost a mind to let them go on

living like pigs, without a preacher, only their poor young

children, at any rate, must be cared for. He laid down in this

letter some important principles concerning the duty of the civil

power and the State. The prince, he declared, was the supreme

guardian of the young, and of all who required his protection. All

towns and villages that could afford the means, should be compelled

to keep schools and preachers, just as they were compelled to pay

taxes for bridges, roads, and other local requirements. In support

of this demand, he appealed to the direct command of God, and to the

universal state of destitution prevailing. If that duty were

neglected, the country would be full of vagrant savages. With regard

to the convents and other religious foundations, he stated that, as

soon as the Papal yoke had been removed from the land, they would

pass over to the prince as the supreme head; and it would then

become his duty, however onerous, to regulate such matters, since no

one else would have the power to do so. He particularly warned the

Elector not to allow the nobles to appropriate the property of the

convents, 'as is talked of already, and as some of them are actually

doing.' They were founded, he said, for the service of God: whatever

was superfluous might be applied by the Elector to the exigencies of

the state or the relief of the poor. To his friends Luther

complained with grief and bitterness of some courtiers of the

Elector, who after having always shut their ears to religion and the

gospel, were now chuckling over the rich spoils in prospect, and

laughing at evangelical liberty.

The work now commenced in real earnest. The Elector had the

necessary regulations prepared at Wittenberg, at a conference

between his chancellor Brück, Luther, and others. In February 1527

visitors were appointed, and among them was Melancthon. They began

their labours at once in the district to which Wittenberg belonged,

but of their proceedings here nothing further is known. In July the

first visitation on a large scale took place in Thuringia.

Just at this time, however, Luther was overtaken by severe bodily

suffering and also by troubles at home, while the visitation and the

academical life at Wittenberg had to experience an interruption.

Luther's first year of married life had been one of happiness.

Symptoms of a physical disorder, the stone, had appeared, however,

even then, and in after years became extremely painful and

dangerous.

On June 7, 1526, as he announced to his friend Rühel, his 'dear Kate

brought him, by the great mercy of God, a little Hans Luther,'--her

firstborn. With joy and thankfulness, as he says in another letter,

they now reaped the fruit and blessings of married life, whereof the

Pope and his creatures were not worthy.

Amidst all his various labours in theology and for the Church, and

in preparing for the visitation, he took his share in the cares of

his household, laid out the garden attached to his quarters at the

convent, had a well made, and ordered seeds from Nüremberg through

his friend Link, and radishes from Erfurt. He wrote at the same time

to Link for tools for turning, which he wished to practise with his

servant Wolf or Wolfgang Sieberger, as the 'Wittenberg barbarians'

were too much behind in the art; and he was anxious, in case the

world should no longer care to maintain him as a minister of the

Word, to learn how to gain a livelihood by his handiwork.

Early in January 1527 he was seized with a sudden rush of blood to

the heart. It nearly proved fatal at the moment, but fortunately

soon passed away. An attack of illness, accompanied by deep

oppression and anxiety of mind, and the effects of which long

remained, followed on July 6. On the morning of that day, being

seized with anguish of the soul, he sent for his faithful friend and

confessor Bugenhagen, listened to his words of comfort from the

Bible, and with persevering prayer commended himself and his beloved

ones to God. At Bugenhagen's advice, he then went to a breakfast, to

which the Elector's hereditary marshal, Hans Löser, had invited him.

He ate little at the meal, but was as cheerful as possible to his

companions. After it was over, he sought to refresh himself with

conversation with Jonas in his garden, and invited him and his wife

to spend the evening at his home. On their arrival, however, he

complained of a rushing and singing noise, like the waves of the

sea, in his left ear, and which afterwards shot through his head

with intolerable pain, like a tremendous gust of wind. He wished to

go to bed, but fainted away by the door of his bedroom, after

calling aloud for water. Cold water having been poured upon him, he

revived. He began to pray aloud, and talked earnestly of spiritual

things, although a short swoon came over him in the interval. The

physician Augustin Schurf, who was called in, ordered his body, now

quite cold, to be warmed. Bugenhagen too was sent for again. Luther

thanked the Lord for having vouchsafed to him the knowledge of His

holy Name; God's will be done, whether He would let him die, which

would be a gain to himself, or allow him to live on still longer in

the flesh, and work. He called his friends to witness that up to his

end he was certain of having taught the truth according to the

command of God. He assured his wife, with words of comfort, that in

spite of all the gossip of the blind world she was his wife, and he

exhorted her to rest solely on God's Word. He then asked, 'Where is

my darling little Hans?' The child smiled at his father, who

commended him with his mother to the God who is the Father of the

fatherless and judges the cause of the widow. He pointed to some

silver cups which had been given him, and which he wished to leave

his wife. 'You know,' he added, 'we have nothing else.' After a

profuse perspiration he grew better, and the next day he was able to

get up to meals. He said afterwards that he thought he was dying, in

the hands of his wife and his friends, but that the spiritual

paroxysm which had preceded had been something far more difficult

for him to bear.

Luther, after recovering from this attack, still complained of

weakness in the head, and his inward oppression and spiritual

anguish was renewed and became intensified. On August 2 he told

Melancthon, who was then busy with his visitation in Thuringia, that

he had been tossed about for more than a week in the agonies of

death and hell, and that his limbs still trembled in consequence.

Whilst he was still in this state of suffering, news came that the

plague was approaching Wittenberg, nay, had actually broken out in

the town. It is well known how this fearful scourge had repeatedly

raged in Germany, and how ruinous it had been, from the panic which

preceded and accompanied it. The university, from fear of the

epidemic, was now removed to Jena.

Luther resolved, however, together with Bugenhagen, whom he was

assisting as preacher, to remain loyally with the congregation, who

now more than ever required his spiritual aid; although his Elector

wrote in person to him saying, 'We should for many reasons, as well

as for your own good, be loth to see you separated from the

university.... Do us then the favour.' He wrote to a friend, 'We are

not alone here; but Christ, and your prayers, and the prayers of all

the saints, together with the holy angels, are with us.'

The plague had really broken out, though not with that violence

which the universal panic would have led one to suppose. Luther soon

counted eighteen corpses, which were buried near his house at the

Elster Gate. The epidemic advanced from the Fishers' suburb into the

centre of the town: here the first victim carried off by it, died

almost in Luther's arms--the wife of the burgomaster Tilo Denes. To

his friends elsewhere Luther sent comforting reports, and repressed

all exaggerated accounts. His friend Hess at Breslau asked him 'if

it was befitting a Christian man to fly when death threatened him.'

Luther answered him in a public letter, setting forth the whole duty

of Christians in this respect. Of the students, a few at any rate

remained at Wittenberg. For these he now began a new course of

lectures.

Luther's spiritual sufferings continued to afflict him for several

months, and until the close of the year. Though he had known them,

he said, from his youth, he could never have expected that they

would prove so severe. He found them very similar to those attacks

and struggles which he had had to endure in early life. The invasion

of the plague, and the parting from all his intimate friends except

Bugenhagen, must have contributed to increase them.

He was just now deeply shocked and agitated by the news of the death of

a faithful companion in the faith, the Bavarian minister Leonard Käser

or Kaiser, who was publicly burnt on August 16, 1527, in the town of

Scherding. Luther broke out, as he had done after Henry of Zütphen's

martyrdom, into a lamentation of his own unworthiness compared with

such heroes. He published an account of Leonard and his end, which had

been sent him by Michael Stiefel, adding a preface and conclusion of

his own. About the same time he composed a consolatory tract for the

Evangelical congregation at Halle-on-the-Saale, whose minister Winkler

had been murdered in the previous April.

In the autumn a new controversial treatise was published against him

by Erasmus, which he rightly described as a product of snakes; and

he now stood in the midst of the contest between Zwingli and

Oecolampadius. He exclaimed once in a letter to Jonas, 'O that

Erasmus and the Sacramentarians (Zwingli and his friends) could only

for a quarter of an hour know the misery of my heart. I am certain

that they would then honestly be converted. Now my enemies live, and

are mighty, and heap sorrow on sorrow upon me, whom God has already

crushed to the earth.'

The pestilence soon reached his friends. The wife of the physician

Schurf, who was then living in the same house with him, was attacked

by it, and only recovered slowly towards the beginning of November.

At the parsonage the wife of the chaplain or deacon George Rörer

succumbed to it on November 2, whereupon Luther took Bugenhagen and

his family from the panic-stricken house into his own dwelling. But

soon after dangerous symptoms showed themselves with a friend,

Margaret Mocha, who was then staying with Luther's family, and she

was actually ill unto death. His own wife was then near her

confinement. Luther was the more concerned about her, as Rörer's

wife, when in the same condition, had sickened and died. But Frau

Luther remained, as he says, firm in the faith, and retained her

health. Finally, towards the end of October his little son Hans fell

ill, and for twelve whole days would not eat. When the anniversary

of the ninety-five theses came round again, Luther wrote to Amsdorf

telling him of these troubles and anxieties, and concluded with the

words: 'So now there are struggles without and terror within.... It

is a comfort which we must set against the malice of Satan, that we

have the Word of God, whereby to save the souls of the faithful,

even though the devil devour their bodies.... Pray for us, that we

may endure bravely the hand of the Lord, and overcome the power and

craft of the devil, whether it be through death or life. Amen.

Wittenberg: All Saints' Day, the tenth anniversary of the death-blow

to indulgences, in thankful remembrance whereof we are now drinking

a toast.'

[Illustration: Fig. 36.--LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in

1528, at Berlin.)]

A short time afterwards Luther was able to send Jonas somewhat

better news about the sickness at home, though he was still sighing

with deep inward oppression; 'I suffer,' he said, 'the wrath of God,

because I have sinned in His sight. Pope, Emperor, princes, bishops,

and all the world hate me, and, as if that were not enough, my

brethren too (he means the Sacramentarians) must needs afflict me.

My sins, death, Satan with all his angels--all rage unceasingly;

and what could comfort me if Christ were to forsake me, for Whose

sake they hate me? But He will never forsake the poor sinner.' Then

follow the words above quoted about Erasmus and the Sacramentarians.

[Illustration: Fig. 37.--LUTHER'S WIFE. (From a Portrait by Cranach

in 1528, at Berlin.)]

Towards the middle of December the plague gradually abated. Luther

writes from home on the tenth of that month: 'My little boy is well

and happy again. Schurf's wife has recovered, Margaret has escaped

death in a marvellous manner. We have offered up five pigs, which

have died, on behalf of the sick.' And on his return home this day

to dinner from his lecture, his wife was safely delivered of a

little daughter, who received the name of Elizabeth.

To his own inward sufferings Luther rose superior by the

strengthening power of the conviction that even in these his Lord

and Saviour was with him, and that God had sent them for his own

good and that of others; that is to say, for his own discipline and

humbling. He applied to himself the words of St. Paul, 'As dying,

and behold we live;' nay, he wished not to be freed of his burden,

should his God and Saviour be glorified thereby.

Luther's famous hymn, _Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott_,

appeared for the first time, as has been recently proved, in a

little hymn-book, about the beginning of the following year. We can

see in it indeed a proof how anxious was that time for Luther. It

corresponds with his words, already quoted, on the anniversary of

the Reformation.

With the cessation of the pestilence and the return of his friends,

the new year seems to have brought him also a salutary change in his

physical condition; for his sufferings, which were caused by impeded

circulation, became sensibly diminished.

Since the outbreak, and during the continuance of the plague, the

work of Church visitation had been suspended. Melancthon, however,

who had followed the university to Jena, was commissioned meanwhile

to prepare provisionally some regulations and instructions for

further action in this matter, and in August Luther received the

articles which he had drafted for his examination and approval.

These articles or instructions comprised the fundamental principles

of Evangelical doctrine, as they were henceforth to be accepted by

the congregations. They were drawn up with especial regard to the

'rough common man,' who too often seemed deficient in the first

rudiments of Christian faith and life, and with regard also to many

of those confessing the new teaching, who, as Melancthon perceived,

were not unfairly accused of allowing the word of saving faith to be

made a 'cloak of maliciousness,' and who filled their sermons rather

with attacks against the Pope than with words of edifying purport.

Melancthon said on this point, 'those who fancy they have conquered

the Pope, have not really conquered the Pope.' And whilst teaching

that those who were troubled about their sins had only to have faith

in their forgiveness for the merits of Christ, to be justified in

the sight of God and to find comfort and peace, nevertheless, he

would have the people earnestly and specially reminded that this

faith could not exist without true repentance and the fear of God;

that such comfort could only be felt where such fear was present,

and that to achieve this end God's law, with its demands and threats

of punishment, would effectually operate upon the soul.

Luther himself had taught very explicitly, and in accordance with

his own experience of life, that the faith which saves through God's

joyful message of grace could only arise in a heart already bowed

and humbled by the law of God, and, having arisen, was bound to

employ itself actively in fruits of repentance; although, in stating

this doctrine, he had not perhaps so equally adjusted the

conditions, as Melancthon had here done. An outcry, however, now

arose from among the Romanists, that Melancthon no longer ventured

to uphold the Lutheran doctrine; of course it suited their interests

to fling a stone in this manner at Luther and his teaching. But what

was far more important, an attack was raised against Melancthon from

the circle of his immediate friends. Agricola of Eisleben, for

instance, would not hear of a repentance growing out of such

impressions produced by the Law and the fear of punishment. The

conversion of the sinner, he declared, must proceed solely and

entirely from the comforting knowledge of God's love and grace, as

revealed in His message to man: thence, further, and thence alone,

came the proper fear of God, a fear, not of His punishment, but of

Himself. This distinction he had failed to find in Melancthon's

Instructions. It was the first time that a dogmatic dispute

threatened to break out among those who had hitherto stood really

united on the common ground of Lutheran doctrine.

Luther, on the contrary, approved Melancthon's draft, and found

little to alter in it. What his opponents said did not disturb him;

he quieted the doubts of the Elector on that score. Whoever

undertook anything in God's cause, he said, must leave the devil his

tongue to babble and tell lies against it. He was particularly

pleased that Melancthon had 'set forth all in such a simple manner

for the common people.' Fine distinctions and niceties of doctrine

were out of place in such a work. Even Agricola, who wished to be

more Lutheran than Luther himself, was silenced.

Melancthon's work, after having been subjected by the Elector to

full scrutiny and criticism in several quarters, was published by

his command in March 1528, with a preface written by Luther, as

'Instructions of the Visitors to the parish priests in the

Electorate of Saxony.' In this preface Luther pointed out how

important and necessary for the Church was such a supervision and

visitation. He explained, as the reason why the Elector undertook

this office and sent out visitors, that since the bishops and

archbishops had proved faithless to their duty, no one else had been

found whose special business it was, or who had any orders to attend

to such matters. Accordingly, the local sovereign, as the temporal

authority ordained by God, had been requested to render this service

to the gospel, out of Christian charity, since, in his capacity as

civil ruler, he was under no obligation to do so. In like manner,

Luther afterwards described the Evangelical sovereigns as

'Makeshift-bishops' (_Nothbischöfe_). At the same time the

instructions for visitation introduced now in the smaller districts

the office of superintendent as one of permanent supervision.

In the course of the summer preparations were made for a visitation

on a large scale, embracing the whole country. The original

intention had been to deal, by means of one commission, with the

various districts in rotation. Such a course would have necessarily

entailed, as was admitted, much delay and other inconveniences. A

more comprehensive method was accordingly adopted, of letting

different commissions work simultaneously in the different

districts. Each of these commissions consisted of a theologian and a

few laymen, jurists, and councillors of state, or other officials.

Luther was appointed head of the commission for the Electoral

district. The work was commenced earlier in some districts than in

others. Luther's commission was the first to begin, on October 22,

and apparently in the diocese of Wittenberg.

Luther had already, since May 12, voluntarily undertaken a new and

onerous labour. Bugenhagen had left Wittenberg that day for the town

of Brunswick, where, at the desire of the local magistracy, he

carried out the work of reform in the Church, until his departure in

October for the same purpose to Hamburg, where he remained until the

following June. Luther undertook his pastoral duties in his absence,

and preached regularly three or four times in the week.

Nevertheless, he took his share also in the work of visitation; the

district assigned to him did not take him very far away from

Wittenberg. He remained there, actively engaged in this work, during

the following months, and with some few intervals, up to the spring.

From the end of January 1529 he again suffered for some weeks from

giddiness and a rushing noise in his head; he knew not whether it

was exhaustion or the buffeting of Satan, and entreated his friends

for their prayers on his behalf, that he might continue steadfast in

the faith.

The shortcomings and requirements brought to light by the visitation

corresponded to what Luther had expected. In his own district the

state of things was comparatively favourable; happily, a third of

the parishes had the Elector for their patron, and in the towns the

magistrates had, to some extent at least, fulfilled their duties

satisfactorily. The clergy, for the most part, were good enough for

the slender demands with which, under existing circumstances, their

parishioners had to be content. But things were worse in many other

parts of the country. A gross example of the rude ignorance then

prevailing, not only among the country people, but even among the

clergy, was found in a village near Torgau, where the old priest was

hardly able to repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, but was in

high reputation far and near as an exorcist, and did a brisk

business in that line. Priests had frequently to be ejected for

gross immorality, drunkenness, irregular marriages, and such like

offences; many of them had to be forbidden to keep beer-houses, and

otherwise to practise worldly callings. On the other hand, we hear

of scarcely any priests so addicted to the Romish system as to put

difficulties in the way of the visitors. Poverty and destitution, so

Luther reports, were found everywhere. The worst feature was the

primitive ignorance of the common people, not only in the country

but partly also in the towns. We are told of one place where the

peasants did not know a single prayer; and of another, where they

refused to learn the Lord's Prayer, because it was too long. Village

schools were universally rare. The visitors had to be satisfied if

the children were taught the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten

Commandments by the clerk. A knowledge of these at least was

required for admission to the Communion.

Luther in the course of his visitations mixed freely with the

people, in the practical, energetic, and hearty manner so peculiar

to himself.

For the clergy, who needed a model for their preaching, and for the

congregations to whom their pastors, owing to their own incompetence,

had to preach the sermons of others, nothing more suitable for this

purpose could be offered than Luther's Church-Postills. Its use,

where necessary, was recommended. It had shortly before been

completed; that is to say, after Luther in 1525 had finished the

portion for the winter half-year, his friend Roth, of Zwickau,

brought out in 1527 a complete edition of sermons for the Sundays

of the summer half-year, and all the feast-days and holidays,

compiled from printed copies and manuscripts of detached sermons.

The most urgent task, however, that Luther now felt himself bound to

perform, was the compilation of a Catechism suitable for the people,

and, above all, for the young. Four years before, he had endeavoured

to encourage friends to write one. His 'German Mass' of 1526 said:

'The first thing wanted for German public worship is a rough,

simple, good Catechism;' and further on in that treatise he declared

that he knew of no better way of imparting such Christian

instruction, than by means of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and

the Lord's Prayer, for they summed up, briefly and simply, almost

all that was necessary for a Christian to know.

He now took in hand at once, early in 1529, and amidst all the

business of the visitations, a larger work, which was intended to

instruct the clergy how to understand and explain those three main

articles of the faith, and also the doctrines of Baptism and the

Lord's Supper. This work is his so-called 'Greater Catechism,'

originally entitled simply the 'German Catechism.'

Shortly afterwards followed the 'Little Catechism,'--called also the

'Enchiridion'--which contains in an abbreviated form, adapted to

children and simple understandings, the contents of his larger work,

set out here in the form of question and answer. 'I have been

induced and compelled,' says Luther in his introduction, 'to

compress this Catechism, or Christian teaching, into this modest and

simple form, by the wretched and lamentable state of spiritual

destitution which I have recently in my visitations found to prevail

among the people. God help me! how much misery have I seen! The

common folk, especially the villagers, know absolutely nothing of

Christian doctrine, and alas, many of the parish priests are almost

too ignorant or incapable to teach them!' He entreats therefore his

brother clergymen to take pity on the people, to assist in bringing

home the Catechism to them, and more particularly to the young; and

to this end, if no better way commended itself, to take these forms

before them, and explain them word by word.

For the use of the pastors, he added to this Catechism a short tract

on Marriage, and in the second edition, which followed immediately

after, he subjoined a reprint of his treatise on Baptism, which he

had published three years before.

The Catechism met the requirements of simple minds and of a

Christian's ordinary daily life, by providing also forms of prayer

for rising, going to bed, and eating, and lastly a manual for

households, with Scriptural texts for all classes. This ends with

the words--

Let each his lesson learn to spell,

And then his house will prosper well.

To the clergy, in particular, Luther addressed himself, that they

might imbue the people in this manner with Christian truth. But he

wished also, as he said, to instruct every head of a household how

to 'set forth that truth simply and clearly to his servants,' and

teach them to pray, and to thank God for His blessings.

The contents of the Catechism were carefully confined to the

highest, simplest, and thoroughly practical truths of Christian

teaching, without any trace or feature of polemics. In its

composition, as for instance, in his exposition of the Lord's

Prayer, and in his small prayers above mentioned, he availed himself

of old materials. How excellently this Catechism, with its

originality and clearness, its depth and simplicity, responded to

the wants not only of his own time, but of after generations, has

been proved by its having remained in use for centuries, and amid so

many different ranks of life and such various degrees of culture.

Except his translation of the Bible, this little book of Luther is

the most important and practically useful legacy which he has

bequeathed to his people.

The visitations were over when the two Catechisms appeared, although

they had not yet been held in all the parishes. Events of another

kind and dangers threatening elsewhere now demanded the first

attention of the Elector and the Reformers.

CHAPTER III.

ERASMUS AND HENRY VIII.--CONTROVERSY WITH ZWINGLI AND HIS FOLLOWERS,

UP TO 1528.

Luther's controversy with Erasmus, the most important of the

champions of Catholic Churchdom, had terminated, it will be

remembered, so far as Luther was concerned, with his treatise 'On

the Bondage of the Will.' To the new tract which Erasmus published

against him, in two parts, in 1526 and 1527, and which, though

insignificant in substance, was violent and insulting enough in

tone, Luther made no reply. Erasmus, nevertheless, to the pleasure

of himself and his patrons in high places, continued his virulent

attacks on the Reformation, which was bringing ruin, he declared, on

the noble arts and letters, and carrying anarchy into the Church,

while he himself, in his own mediating manner, and in the sense and

with the help of the temporal rulers, was doing his best to promote

certain reforms in the Church, within the pale of the ancient

system, and on its proper hierarchical basis. On what principles,

however, that basis was established, and the Divine rights of the

hierarchy reposed, he wisely abstained, now as he had done before,

from explaining. In Luther's eyes he was merely a refined Epicurean,

who had inward doubts about religion and Christianity, and treated

both with disdain.

Luther's letter to Henry VIII., which we have noticed in an earlier

chapter, took a long time before it reached the King, and before the

latter could send an answer to it. The writing of that answer must

have given his royal adversary much satisfaction; it turned out a

good deal coarser than even the one from Duke George; Luther's

marriage in particular afforded Henry an occasion for insulting

language. Emser published it in German early in 1527, adding some

vituperations and falsehoods of his own. Luther's only object in

replying was to dissipate any impression that he had ever declared

to Henry his readiness to recant. His reply consisted of a few but

powerfully written pages. He pointed out that in his letter he had

expressly excepted his doctrines from any offer of retractation;

upon these doctrines he took his stand, let kings and the devil do

their worst. Beyond these he had nothing which so encouraged his

heart, and gave him such strength and joy. To the personal insults

and imputations of sensuality and so forth, which Henry VIII., this

man of unbridled passions, had poured upon him, he replied that he

was well aware that, in regard to his personal life, he was a poor

sinner, and that he was glad his enemies were all saints and angels.

He added, however, that though he knew himself to be a sinner before

God and his dear Christian brethren, he wished at the same time to

be virtuous before the world, and that virtuous he was--so much so

that his enemies were not worthy to unloose the latchet of his

shoes. With regard to his letter to Henry he acknowledged that in

this, as in his letter to Duke George, and others, he had been

tempted to make a foolish trial of humility. 'I am a fool, and

remain a fool, for putting faith so lightly in others.'

Luther reverts in this reply to enemies of a different sort, who

make his heart still heavier. These are to him his 'tender

children,' his 'little brothers,' his 'golden little friends, the

spirits of faction and the fanatics,' who would not have known

anything worth knowing either of Christ or of the gospel, if Luther

had not previously written about it. He alluded, in particular, to

the new 'Sacramentarians,' and to Zwingli their leader.

Although this is the first time that Zwingli makes his appearance in

the history of Luther, and was never treated by him otherwise than

as a new offshoot of fanaticism, it is important, in order to

understand and appreciate him aright, to bear in mind the fact that,

himself only a few months younger than Luther, he had been working

since 1519 among the community at Zurich as an independent and

progressive Evangelical Reformer, and had extended his active

influence over Switzerland, however little noticed he had been at

Wittenberg.

His career hitherto had been made easier for him than was the case

with Luther. The Grand Council of the city of Zurich not only

afforded him their protection, but in 1520 decreed full liberty to

preach the Gospels and Epistles of the Apostles in the sense he

ascribed to them, and in 1523 formally declared their acceptance of

his doctrines, and abolished all idolatrous practices. No Recess of

a Diet was here to disturb or threaten him. The Pope, for political

reasons, behaved with unwonted caution and discretion: he delayed in

this case for several years the ban of excommunication which he had

pronounced so readily against Luther. Even Hadrian, the man of firm

character, to whom Luther was an object of abhorrence, had only

gracious and insinuating words for the Zurich Reformer. The Zurich

authorities, at the same time, acting in concert with Zwingli,

adopted severe measures against any intrusion of fanatics and

Anabaptists, nor did the entire population of the small republic

contain any great number of persons so thoroughly neglected, and so

difficult of influence by preachers, as was the case with the

country people in Germany. Well might Zwingli press forward with a

lighter heart than Luther's in his work.

[Illustration: Fig. 38.--ZWINGLI. (From an old engraving.)]

Personally, moreover, he had never passed through such severe inward

struggles as Luther, nor had ever wrestled with such spiritual

anguish and distress. The thought of reconciliation with God, and

the comforting of conscience by the assurance of His forgiving

mercy, were not with Zwingli, as with Luther, the centre and focus

of his aspirations and religious interests. He knew not that fervour

and intenseness which made Luther grasp at every means for bringing

home God's grace to congregations of believers, or to each individual

Christian according to his spiritual need. His view, from the very

first, extended rather to the totality of religious truth, as revealed

by God in Scripture, but sadly disfigured in the creeds of the Church

by man's additions and misinterpretations; and he aimed, far more than

Luther, at a reconstruction of moral, and especially of communal life,

in conformity with what the Word of God appeared to demand. It was

easier for him, therefore, to break with the past: critical scruples

against tradition did not weigh so heavily on his conscience. His

critical faculties, no doubt, were sharpened by the humanistic culture

he had acquired. Compared with Luther's peculiar meditative mood, and

his half-choleric, half-melancholic temperament, Zwingli evinced, in

all his conduct and demeanour, a more clear and sober intelligence,

and a far calmer and more easy disposition. His practical policy and

conduct was allied with a tendency to judicial severity, in contrast

to the free spirit which animated Luther. So rigorous and narrow-minded

was his zeal against the toleration of images, that the Wittenberg

theologians could not help detecting in him a spirit akin to that

of Carlstadt and the other fanatics. In renouncing the Catholic

doctrine of transubstantiation and the idea of a sacrifice, Zwingli

had rejected altogether the supposition of a Real Presence of Christ's

Body at the Sacrament; nay, as he declared later on, he had never truly

believed in it. He quoted the words of Christ, 'The flesh profiteth

nothing' (St. John vi. 63). He would understand by the Sacrament

simply a spiritual feeding of the faithful, who, by the Word of God

and His Spirit, are enabled to enjoy in faith the salvation

purchased by the death of Christ. He saw no particular necessity for

offering this salvation to them by an administration of Christ's

Body, which had been given for them, through the visible medium of

the bread; nor did he see how by so doing their faith could be

strengthened. In Luther's view the practical significance of the

Real Presence lay in this, that in this special manner the

Christian, who felt his need of salvation, was assured, and became a

partaker, of forgiveness and communion with his Saviour. With

Zwingli, such a visible communication of the Divine gift of

salvation was opposed to his conception of God and the Divine

Nature; just as this conception was opposed to that kind of union of

the Divine and human nature in Christ Himself, by virtue of which,

according to Luther, Christ was able and willing to be actually

present everywhere in the Sacrament with His human, transfigured

body. Inasmuch, said Zwingli, as this spiritual feeding took place

in faith everywhere, and not only at the Sacrament, it was no

essential part of the Sacrament; the real essence whereof consisted

in this, that the faithful here confessed by that act their common

belief in the commemoration of Christ's death, and, as members of

His Body, pledged themselves to such belief: he called the Sacrament

the symbol of a pledge. Luther himself, as we have seen, had taught

from the first that the Sacrament or Communion should represent the

union of Christians with the spiritual Body, or their communion of

the spirit, of faith, and of love. But with him this communion was a

secondary condition; it was the feeding on the Body of Christ

Himself which was to promote such communion with one another and,

above all, with Christ. Zwingli explained the word 'is' of our Lord,

in His institution of the Sacrament, to mean 'signifies.'

Oecolampadius preferred the explanation that the bread was not the

Body in the proper sense of the word, but a symbol of the Body. In

point of fact, this was a distinction without a difference.

Such, briefly stated, was the doctrinal controversy in which the two

Reformers, the German and the Swiss, now engaged, and which had

first brought them into contact.

About the same time Luther made the acquaintance of another opponent

of his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, the Silesian Kaspar

Schwenkfeld. He also, like his friend Valentin Krautwald, denied the

Real Presence; but sought to interpret the words of institution in

yet another manner, connecting with his theory of their meaning

deeper mystical ideas of the means of salvation in general, which at

least in some quarters and to a small extent, have still survived.

In all of them, however--in Carlstadt, Zwingli, Schwenkfeld, and the

rest--Luther, as he wrote to his friends at Reutlingen, perceived

only one and the same puffed up, carnal mind, twisting about and

struggling, to avoid having to remain subject to the Word of God.

His first public declaration against Zwingli's new doctrine was in

1526, in his preface to the Syngramma or treatise of the fourteen

Swabian ministers, written, as his opening words express it,

'against the new fanatics, who put forth novel dreams about the

Sacrament, and confuse the world.'

Blow upon blow followed in the battle thus commenced. While

Oecolampadius was busy composing a reply to the treatise and its

preface, by which he in particular had been assailed, Luther

proceeded to follow up the attack. The same year he published a

'Sermon on the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, against

the Fanatics;' and in the following spring a larger work with the

title 'A Proof that Christ's Words of Institution, "This is My

Body," &c., still stand, against the Fanatics.' He concludes the

latter with the wish, 'God grant that they may be converted to the

truth; if not, that they may twist cords of vanity wherewith to

catch themselves, and fall into my hands.' Just then, however,

Zwingli had written against him, and to him, and the missive arrived

at the moment when he had issued the last-named work. Zwingli wrote

in Latin, entitling his tract, 'A Friendly Exposition of the matter

concerning the Sacrament,' and sent it with a letter to Luther.

These were followed almost immediately by a reply, in German, to

Luther's Sermon, under the title of 'A Friendly Criticism of the

Sermon of the Excellent Martin Luther against the Fanatics.' Zwingli

had scarcely had Luther's last written work in his hands when he

replied to it in a new treatise: 'A proof that Christ's words, "This

is My Body which is given for you," will for all ages retain the

ancient and only meaning, and that Martin Luther in his last book

has neither taught nor proved his own and the Pope's meaning;' the

title thus indicating that Luther's and the Pope's meaning were one

and the same. Oecolampadius at the same time published 'A fair

Reply' to Luther's work. These were the writings of the

Sacramentarians which reached Luther during the troublous time of

the plague at Wittenberg, and filled him with the pain of which we

heard him then complain.

Zwingli's doctrine, from the time of its first announcement, had

seemed to Luther nothing but a visionary--nay, 'devilish' perversion

of the truth and the Word of God. The progress of the controversy,

so far from healing the difference between them, tended only to

sharpen and intensify it. From the first hour the two Reformers met

in opposition, the gulf was already fixed which henceforth divided

Evangelical Protestantism into two separate Confessions and Church

communities.

This is not the place to pass judgment on the matter in controversy,

or to trace minutely the leading points of dogma involved in the

dispute. Regarding it, however, by the light of history, it must be

acknowledged and avowed that this was no mere passionate quarrel

about words alone or propositions of dogmatic and metaphysical

interest, but devoid of any religious importance. Even in the

attempts to establish points of detail, reference was constantly

made, on both sides, to deep questions and views of Christian

religion.

Not only did Zwingli and Oecolampadius, in their anti-literal and

figurative interpretation of the words of institution, endeavour to

support it by Scriptural analogies, more or less appropriate, but

in the practical objections they raised, which Luther treated as

over-curious subtleties of human reason, they were actuated in reality

by motives of a religious character. In their view, a pure and

reverential conception of God was inconsistent with the idea of such

an offertory of Divine gifts, consisting of material elements and

for mere bodily nourishment. Not indeed that Luther, in accepting

the words in their literal sense, had become a slave to the letter,

in contradiction to the free and lofty spirit in which he had

elsewhere accepted the contents of Holy Scripture. The question with

him here was about a word of unique importance--a word used by

Christ on the threshold, so to speak, of His death for our

redemption; and we have already remarked what value he attached to

the actual bodily presence indicated by that word, as assuring and

imparting salvation to those who partook at His table in faith. No

analogies to the contrary, derived from other figurative

expressions, would content him, though of course he never denied

that such expressions could and did occur throughout the Bible. The

text, 'The flesh profiteth nothing,' on which Zwingli primarily

relied, Luther understood as referring not to the flesh of Christ,

but to the carnal mind of man; though he was careful to declare that

it was not the fleshly presence, as such, of our Saviour which gave

the Sacrament its value and importance; nor must the feeding of the

communicants be a mere bodily feeding, but that the word and promise

of Christ were there present, and that faith alone in that word and

promise could make the feeding bring salvation. God's glory was

therein exalted to the highest, that from His pitying love he made

Himself equal with the lowest.

In the doctrine concerning the person of the Redeemer, a point to

which the controversy further led, the Church had hitherto affirmed

simply a union of the Divine and human natures, each retaining the

attributes and qualities peculiar to itself. Luther wished to see in

the Man Jesus, the Divine nature, which stooped to share humanity,

conceived and realised with deeper and more active fervour. As the

Son of God He died for us, and as the Son of Man He was exalted,

with His body, to sit at the right hand of God, which is not limited

to any place, and is at once nowhere and everywhere. It is true,

Luther does not proceed to explain how this body is still a human

body, or indeed a body at all. Zwingli, in keeping the two natures

distinct, wished to preserve the sublimity of his God and the

genuine humanity of the Redeemer; but in so doing, he ended by

making the two natures run parallel, so to speak, in a mere stiff,

dogmatic formulary, and by an artificial interpretation and analysis

of the words of Scripture touching the One Jesus, the Son of God and

man.

The manner, however, in which this controversy was conducted on both

sides betrays an utter failure on the part of either combatant to

apprehend and do justice to the religious and Christian motives,

which, with all their antagonism, never ceased to animate the

opposite party. Luther's attitude towards Zwingli we have already

noticed. We have seen how his zeal, in particular, prompted him too

often to see in the conduct of individual opponents simply and

solely the dominating influence of that spirit, from which certain

pernicious tendencies, according to his own convictions, proceeded

and had to be combated. Thus it was in this instance. It was all

visionary nonsense, nay, sheer devilry, and be attacked it in language

of proportionate violence. From Zwingli a different attitude was to

be expected, from the amicable titles of his treatises and the

personal correspondence with Luther which he himself invited. He

adopted here for the most part, as in other matters, a calm and

courteous tone, and exercised a power of self-restraint to which

Luther was a stranger. But with a lofty mien, though in the same

tone, he rejected Luther's propositions, as the fruit of ludicrous

obstinacy and narrowness of mind, nay, as a retrograde step into

Popery. His letter, moreover, embittered the contest by importing

into it extraneous matter of reproach, such as, in particular,

Luther's conduct in the Peasants' War. Luther had reason to say of him,

'He rages against me, and threatens me with the utmost moderation and

modesty.' Zwingli's later replies evince a straightforwardness we miss

in the earlier ones, but they are marred by much rudeness and coarseness

of language, and display throughout a lofty self-consciousness and a

triumphant assurance of victory.

Luther, after reading the last-mentioned treatises of Zwingli and

Oecolampadius, resolved to publish one answer more, the last; for

Satan, he said, must not be suffered to hinder him further in the

prosecution of other and more important matters. At this time he was

particularly anxious to complete his translation of the Bible, being

now hard at work with the books of the Prophets. His answer to

Zwingli grew ultimately into the most exhaustive of all his

contributions to the dispute. It appeared in March 1528 under the

title of 'Confession concerning the Lord's Supper.' He went over

once more all the most important questions and arguments which had

formed the subject of contention, expounded his ideas more fully on

the Person and Presence of Christ, and explained calmly and

impressively the passages of Scripture relating thereto. He

concluded with a short summary of his own confession of Christian

faith, that men might know, both then and after his death, how

carefully and diligently he had thought over everything, and that

future teachers of error might not pretend that Luther would have

taught many things otherwise at another time and after further

reflection.

Zwingli and Oecolampadius hastened at once to prepare new pamphlets

in reply, and to publish them with a dedication to the Elector John

and the Landgrave Philip. But Luther adhered to his resolve. He let

them have the last word, as he had done with Erasmus. They had not

contributed anything new to the dispute.

While Luther was writing his last treatise against the

Sacramentarians, he found himself obliged to issue a fresh protest

against the Anabaptists. This was a tract entitled 'On Anabaptism;

to two pastors.' But while denouncing these sectaries, he protested

strongly against the manner in which the civil authorities were

dealing with them, by the infliction of punishment and even death on

account of their principles, even when no seditious conduct could be

alleged against them. Everyone, he said, should be allowed to

believe what he liked. Similarly he wrote to Nüremberg shortly

after, where as we have already mentioned, the new errors were

spreading, saying that he could in no wise admit the right to

execute false prophets or teachers; it was quite enough to expel

them. Luther in this distinguished himself above most of the men of

the Reformation. At Zurich, while Zwingli was accusing Luther of

cruelty, Anabaptists were being drowned in public.

The foreground is now occupied again by the struggle with

Catholicism--in other words, by the contest with the German princes

who were hostile to the Reformation, and with the Emperor himself

and the majority of the Diet.

CHAPTER IV.

CHURCH DIVISIONS IN GERMANY--WAR WITH THE TURKS--THE CONFERENCE AT

MARBURG, 1529.

In the war against the Pope and France an imperial army in 1527 had

stormed and plundered Borne. God, as Luther said, had so ordained,

that the Emperor, who persecuted Luther for the Pope, had to destroy

the Pope for Luther. But Charles V. was not then in a position to

break with the Head of the Church. In the treaty concluded with the

Pope in November, mention was again made of extirpating the Lutheran

heresy. And whilst in Italy the war with France was still going on,

the Emperor in the spring of 1528 sent an ambassador to the German

Courts, to rouse fresh zeal for the Church in this matter.

But before the threatened danger actually reached the Evangelical

party, it was preceded by disquieting rumours and false alarms.

In March 1528 a new Diet was to assemble at Ratisbon. Luther heard

in February of strange designs being meditated there by the Papists.

His wish was that Charles's brother Ferdinand might be detained in

Hungary, where he was occupied in fighting the Turks and their

_protégé,_ Prince John Zapolya of Transylvania, and that the

Diet should be prevented from meeting. Luther's adversaries, on the

other hand, feared an unfavourable decision from the Estates, and

the Emperor at length peremptorily forbade their meeting.

Just about this time, John Pack, a steward of the chancery who had

been dismissed by Duke George of Saxony, came to the Landgrave

Philip and informed him of a league concluded with King Ferdinand by

the Dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, the Electors of Mayence and

Brandenburg, and several Bishops, to attack the Evangelical princes.

The Electorate of Saxony, where John was just then engaged in

completing the re-organisation of the Church, was to be partitioned

among them, and Hesse was to be allotted to Duke George. John and

Philip quickly formed an offensive and defensive alliance, and

called out their troops. The whole scheme, as was shortly proved

beyond dispute, was an invention, and the pretended treaty a

forgery, of Pack, who had been paid a large sum for his revelations.

Luther himself had no doubt of the genuineness of the document, and

persisted even afterwards in his belief. But while the Landgrave,

with his habitual vehemence, was impatient to strike quickly, before

their enemies were prepared, both Luther and the other Wittenberg

theologians did their utmost to restrain their sovereign from any

act of violence. Luther earnestly bade him remember the words:

'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth' (St. Matt.

v. 5),--'As much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men' (Rom.

xii. 18),--'Those that take the sword, shall perish with the sword'

(St. Matt. xxvi. 52). He warned them that 'one durst not paint the

devil over one's door, nor ask him to stand godfather.' He feared a

civil war among the princes, which would be worse than a rising of

the peasants, and utterly ruinous to Germany. Philip accordingly

stayed his hand, until the reply of his supposed enemies, from whom

he demanded an explanation, puzzled him as to the meaning of Pack's

overtures.

A private letter sent by Luther to Link, in which he spoke of George

as a fool, and said he mistrusted his promises, led afterwards, on

George's learning its contents, to a new and bitter quarrel between

the two. The Duke made a violent attack on Luther in a pamphlet,

which appeared early in 1521, to which the latter replied with equal

violence, denouncing the abuse of 'secret (_i.e._ private) and

stolen letters.' George retorted in the same strain, and persuaded

his cousin John, to whom he addressed a formal complaint, to

prohibit Luther from printing anything more against him without

Electoral permission;--a step which effectually silenced his

opponent.

On November 30, 1528, the Emperor summoned a Diet to meet at Spires

on February 21 of the following year, in order that decisive and

energetic measures should be taken--as recommended once more by the

Pope--to secure the unity and sole supremacy of the Catholic Church.

The chief subjects named for deliberation were, the armament against

the Turks, and the innovations in matters of religion.

As regards the war against the Turks, Luther, who had previously let

fall some occasional remarks about certain wholesome effects it

would have in checking the designs of the Papacy, let his voice be

heard, notwithstanding, in summoning the whole nation to do battle

against the fearful and horrible enemy, whom they had hitherto

suffered so shamefully to oppress them. Since the latter part of the

summer of 1528 he had been engaged upon a pamphlet 'On the War

against the Turks,' the publication of which was accidentally

delayed till March, when he was busy with his Catechism.

In this pamphlet he spoke to his fellow-Germans, with the noblest

fire and in the fulness of his strength, as a Christian, a citizen,

and a patriot, and with a clearness and decision derived from

convictions and principles of his own. He had no wish to preach a

new crusade; for the sword had nothing to do with religion, but only

with bodily and temporal things. But he exhorted and encouraged the

authority, whom God had entrusted with temporal power, to take up

the sword against the all-devouring enemy, with sure trust in God

and certain confidence in his mission. By the 'authority' he meant

the Emperor, in whom he recognised the head of Germany. He it was

who must fight against the Turks; under his banner they must march,

and upon that banner should be seen the command of God, which said

'Protect the righteous, but punish the wicked.' 'But,' asked Luther,

'how many are there who can read those words on the Emperor's

banner, or who seriously believe in them?' He complained that

neither Emperor nor princes properly believed that they were Emperor

and princes, and therefore thought little about the protection they

owed to their subjects. Further on he rebuked the princes for

letting matters go on as if they had no concern in them, instead of

advising and assisting the Emperor with all the means in their

power. He knew well the pride of some of the princes, who would like

to see the Emperor a nonentity and themselves the heroes and

masters. Rebellion, he said, was punished in the case of the

peasants; but if rebellion were punished also among princes and

nobles, he fancied there would be very few of them left. He feared

that the Turk would bring some such punishment upon them, and he

prayed God to avert it. Finally, he bade them remember not to buckle

on their armour too loosely, and underrate their enemies, as Germans

were too prone to do. He warned them not to tempt God by inadequate

preparation, and sacrifice the poor Germans at the shambles, nor as

soon as the victory was won to 'sit down again and carouse until the

hour of need returned.'

At Spires, however, the whole zeal of the imperial commissaries and

of the Catholic Estates was directed, not against the common enemy

of Germany and Christendom, but to the internal affairs of the

Church. They succeeded in passing a resolution or article, declaring

that those States which had held to the Edict of Worms should

continue to impose its execution on their subjects; the other States

should abstain at least from further innovations. The celebration of

the mass was not to be obstructed, nor was anyone to be prevented

from hearing it. The subjects of one State were never to be

protected by another State against their own. By these means, not

only was the Reformation prevented from spreading farther, but it

was cut off at a blow in those places where it had already been in

full swing. By the decision respecting the mass, room was given for

attempts to reinstate it on Evangelical territory; by the other

decision respecting the subjects of different States, power was

given to the bishops of the German Empire to coerce, if they chose,

the local clergy, as their subordinates. Further steps in the

exercise of this power could easily be anticipated.

This resolution of the majority was answered on April 19 by the

Evangelical party with a formal protest, from which they received

the name their descendants still bear--Protestants. They insisted

that the Imperial Recess unanimously agreed on at the first Diet of

Spires in 1526 could only be altered by the unanimous consent of the

States; and they declared 'that, even apart from that, in matters

relating to the honour of God and the salvation of our souls, every

man must stand alone before God and give account for himself.' In

these matters, therefore, "they could not submit to the resolution

of the majority."

The majority, however, as well as Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother

and representative, refused to admit their right of opposition. The

minority must prepare to submit to coercion and the exercise of

force. Against this the Elector and Landgrave concluded, on April

22, a 'secret agreement' with the cities of Nüremberg, Strasburg,

and Ulm. The Landgrave was eager that this alliance should be

strengthened by the admission of Zurich and the other Evangelical

towns in Switzerland. And a similar proposal was made to him by

Zwingli, who, in connection with his ecclesiastical labours, was

carrying on a bold and high policy, in striving to effect an

alliance with the republic of Venice and the King of France against

the Emperor, He certainly far overrated the importance of his town

in the great affairs of the world, and placed a strangely naive

confidence in the French monarch.

Luther, on the contrary, set his face as resolutely now as in the

affair of Pack, against any appeal to the sword in support of the

gospel. He would have his friends rely on God and not on the wit of

man; and, with regard to the last Diet, he was quite content that

God had not allowed their enemies to rage even more. He was willing

even to trust to the Emperor for relief; the Evangelical party, he

said, should represent to his Majesty how their sole concern was for

the gospel and for the removal of abuses which no one could deny to

exist; how, at the same time, they had resisted the iconoclasts and

other riotous fanatics, nay, how the suppression of the Anabaptists

and the peasants was pre-eminently due to them, and how they had

been the first to bring to light and vindicate the rights and

majesty of authority. A representation of this kind, he hoped, must

surely have an influence on the Emperor. He flatly rejected any

alliance with those,--namely, the Swiss,--who 'strive thus against

God and the Sacrament;' such an alliance would disgrace the gospel

and draw down their sins upon their heads. This opinion, in which

the other Wittenberg theologians, and especially Melancthon,

concurred, determined that of the Elector.

The Landgrave did his utmost to remove this obstacle to an alliance

with the Swiss. He urged a personal conference between the rival

theologians on the question of the Sacrament. Luther and Melancthon

were strongly opposed to such a step, inasmuch as the course of the

controversy hitherto had not revealed a single point which offered

any hope of reconciliation or mutual approach. Luther reminded him

how, ten years before, the Leipzig disputation served only to make

bad worse. Intrigues, moreover, were apprehended from the other

side, lest the Lutherans should be held up to odium as the enemies

of unity and obstacles to an alliance, and the Landgrave be

alienated from them. Melancthon, indeed, had brought with him from

Spires, where he had been staying with Philip, a suspicion that the

latter inclined to the Zwinglians, and was right in his conjecture

at least so far, that their doctrine did not appear to him nearly so

questionable as to the Wittenbergers. But the simple fear of

consequences made Luther unwilling and unable to refuse the

Landgrave's urgent invitation, backed as it was with the concurrence

of the Elector. He wrote to him on June 23, declaring his readiness

to 'render him this useless service with all diligence,' and only

entreated him to consider once more whether it would do more good

than harm. The conference was to take place at the Castle of Marburg

on Michaelmas day (1529).

Luther's sentiments in the interval are expressed in a letter which

he wrote on August 2 to a distant friend, the pastor Brismann at

Eiga. 'Philip (Melancthon) and myself,' he says, 'after many

refusals and much vain resistance, have been at length compelled to

give our consent, because of the Landgrave's importunity; but I know

not yet whether our going will come to anything. We have no hopes of

any good result, but suspect artifice on all sides, that our enemies

may be able to boast of having gained the victory.... I am pretty

well in body, but inwardly weak, suffering like Peter from want of

faith; but the prayers of my brethren support me.... That youth of

Hesse is restless, and boiling over with projects.... Thus

everywhere we are threatened with more danger from our own people

than from our enemies. Satan rests not, in his bloodthirstiness,

from the work of murder and bloodshed.'

In the same letter Luther tells of the panic caused by a new

pestilence--the Sweating Sickness--which had appeared in Germany and

at Wittenberg itself. It was a plague, known already many years

before, which used to attack its victims with fever, sweat, thirst,

intense pain and exhaustion, and snatch them off with fearful

rapidity. Luther knew well the danger of it when once it actually

appeared. But he watched without terror the supposed symptoms of its

appearance at Wittenberg, and remarked that the sickness there was

mainly caused by fright. On the 27th he told another friend how the

night before he had awoke bathed in sweat, and tormented with

anxious thoughts, so much so, that had he given way to them he might

very likely have fallen ill like so many others. He named also

several of his acquaintances, whom he had driven out of bed, when

they lay there fancying themselves ill, and who were now laughing at

their own fancies.

The Emperor, meanwhile, concluded a final treaty with the Pope on

June 29, and on August 5 made peace with King Francis. By this

treaty of Barcelona he pledged himself to provide a suitable

antidote to the poisonous infection of the new opinions. By the

peace of Cambray he renewed the promise, given in the treaty of

Madrid, of a mutual cooperation of the two monarchs for the

extirpation of heresy.

At Marburg the meeting now actually took place between the

theological champions of that great religious movement which strove

to set up the gospel against the domination of Rome, and was

therefore condemned by Rome as heretical. It was now to be decided

whether the anti-Romanists could not become united among themselves;

whether the two hostile parties in this movement could not, at least

in face of the common danger, join to make a powerful united Church.

Zwingli's political conduct, and the cheerful and submissive

readiness with which he had complied with the Landgrave's proposal,

afforded ground for expecting that, while steadfastly adhering to

his own doctrine, he would embrace such an alliance, notwithstanding

their doctrinal differences. Everything now really depended upon

Luther.

Zwingli and Oecolampadius met the Strasburg theologians, Butzer and

Hedio, and Jacob Sturm, the leading citizen of that town, on

September 29, at Marburg. The next day they were joined by Luther

and Melancthon, together with Jonas and Cruciger from Wittenberg and

Myeonius from Gotha; and afterwards came the preachers Osiander from

Nüremberg, Brenz from Schwäbish Hall, and Stephen Agricola from

Augsburg. The Landgrave entertained them in a friendly and sumptuous

manner at his castle.

On October 1, the day after his arrival, Luther was summoned by the

Landgrave to a private conference with Oecolampadius, towards whom

he had always felt more confidence, and whom he had greeted in a

friendly manner when they met. Melancthon, being of a calmer

temperament, was left to confer with Zwingli. As regards the main

subject of the controversy, the question of the Sacrament, no

practical result was arrived at between the parties. But on certain

other points, in which Zwingli had been suspected by the

Wittenbergers, and in which he partly differed from them--for

instance, concerning the Church doctrine of the Trinity in Unity,

and the Godhead of Christ, and the doctrine of original sin--he

offered explanations to Melancthon, the result of which was that

the two came to an agreement.

The general debate began on Sunday, October 2, at six o'clock in the

morning. The theologians assembled for that purpose in an apartment

in the east wing of the castle, before the Landgrave himself, and a

number of nobles and guests of the court, including the exiled Duke

Ulrich of Würtemberg. Out of deference to the audience, the language

used was to be German. Zwingli had wished, instead, that anyone who

desired it might be admitted to hear, but that the discussion should

be held in Latin, which he could speak with greater fluency. The

four theologians last mentioned, who were to conduct the debate, sat

together at a table. Luther, however, assumed the lead of his side;

Melancthon only put in a few remarks here and there. The Landgrave's

chancellor, Feige, opened the proceedings with a formal address.

Luther at the outset requested that his opponents should first

express their opinions upon other points of doctrine which seemed to

him doubtful; but he waived this request on Oecolampadius's replying

that he was not aware that such doubts involved any contradiction to

Luther's doctrine, and on Zwingli's appealing to his agreement

recently effected with Melancthon. All he himself had to do, said

Luther, was to declare publicly, that with regard to those doubts he

disagreed entirely with certain expressions contained in their

earlier writings. The chief question was then taken in hand.

The arguments and counter-arguments, set forth by the combatants at

various times in their writings, were now succinctly but

exhaustively recapitulated. But they were neither strengthened

further nor enlarged. The disputants were constrained to listen

during this debate to the oral utterances of their opponents with

more deference than they had done for the most part in their

literary controversy, with its hasty and passionate expressions on

each side.

Luther from the outset took his stand, as he had done before, on the

simple words of institution, 'This is my Body.' He had chalked them

down before him on the table. His opponents, he maintained, ought to

give to God the honour due to Him, by believing His 'pure and

unadorned Word.'

Zwingli and Oecolampadius, on the contrary, relied mainly, as

heretofore, on the words of Christ in the sixth chapter of St. John,

where He evidently alluded to a spiritual feeding, and declared that

'the flesh profiteth nothing.' Honour must be given to God, he said,

by accepting from Him this clear interpretation of His Word. Luther

agreed with them, as previously, that Jesus there spoke only of the

spiritual partaking by the faithful, but maintained that in the

Sacrament He had, in his words of institution, superadded the offer

of His Body for the strengthening of faith and that these words were

not useless or unmeaning, but of potent efficacy through the Word of

God. 'I would eat even crab-apples,' said Luther, without asking

why, if the Lord put them before me, and said "Take and eat."' He

fired up when Zwingli answered that the passage in St. John 'broke

Luther's neck,' the expression not being as familiar to him as to

the Swiss: the Landgrave himself had to step in as a mediator and

quiet them.

In the afternoon Luther's opponents proceeded to argue 'that Christ

could not be present with His Body at the Sacrament, because His

Body was in heaven, and the body, as such, was confined within

circumscribed limits, and could only be present in one place at a

time. Luther then asked, with reference to the objection that Christ

was in heaven and at the right hand of God, why Zwingli insisted on

taking those words in such a nakedly literal sense. He declined to

enter upon explanations as to the locality of the Body, though he

could well have disputed for a long time on that subject: for the

omnipotence of God, he said, by virtue whereof that Body was present

everywhere at the Sacrament, stood above all mathematics. Of greater

weight to him must have been the argument of Zwingli, which at any

rate had a Christian and biblical aspect, that Christ with His flesh

became like his human brethren, while they again at the last day are

to be fashioned like unto his glorified Body, though incapable,

nevertheless, of being in different places at the same time. Luther

rejected this argument, however, on the ground of the distinction he

was careful to draw between the actual attributes which Christ

possessed in common with all Christians, and those which He did not

so possess at all, or possessed in a manner peculiar to Himself, and

exalting him far above mankind. For example, Christ had no wife, as

men have.

The next day, Sunday, Luther preached the early morning sermon. He

connected his remarks with the Gospel for the day, and dwelt with

freshness and power, but without any reference to the controversy

then pending, on forgiveness of sin and justification by faith.

The disputation, however, was resumed later on in the morning. The

subject of discussion was still the presence of Christ's Body in the

Sacrament. Luther persisted in refusing to regard that Body as one

involving the idea of limits: the Body here was not local or

circumscribed by bounds. The Swiss, on the other hand, did not deny

the possibility of a miracle, whereby God might permit a body to be

in more than one place at the same time; but then they demanded

proof that such a miracle was really; effected with the Body of

Christ. Luther again appealed to the words before him: 'This is My

Body.' He said: 'I cannot slur over the words of our Lord. I cannot

but acknowledge that the Body of Christ is there.' Here Zwingli

quickly interrupted him with the remark that Luther himself

restricted Christ's Body to a place, for the adverb 'there' was an

adverb of place. Luther, however, refused to have his off-hand

expression so interpreted, and again deprecated the mathematical

argument. The same day, the second of the debate, Zwingli and

Oecolampadius sought to fortify their theory by evidence adduced

from Christian antiquity. On some points at least they were able to

appeal to Augustine. But Luther put a different construction on the

passages they quoted, and refused altogether to accept him as an

authority against Scripture. That evening the disputation was

concluded by each party protesting that their doctrine remained

unrefuted by Scripture, and leaving their opponents to the judgment

of God, by whom they might still be converted. Zwingli broke into

tears.

Philip in vain endeavoured to bring the contending parties to a

closer understanding. Just then the news came that the fearful

pestilence, the Sweating Sickness, had broken out in the town. All

further proceedings were stopped at once, and everyone hurried away

with his guests. The Landgrave only hastily arranged that in regard

to the points of Christian belief in which it was doubtful how far

the Swiss agreed with the Evangelical faith, a series of

propositions should be drawn up by Luther, and signed by the

theologians on both sides. This was done on the Monday. They are the

fifteen 'Articles of Marburg.' They expressed unity in all other

doctrines, and in the Sacrament also, in so far as they declared

that the Sacrament of the Altar is a Sacrament of the true Body and

Blood of Christ, and that the 'spiritual eating' of that Body is the

primary condition required. The only point left in dispute was

'whether the true Body and Blood of Christ are present bodily in the

bread and wine.'

[Illustration: Fig. 89. FACSIMILE OF THE SUPERSCRIPTION AND

SIGNATURES TO THE MARBURG ARTICLES.]

If we compare the manner in which this disputation at Marburg was

conducted with the previous character of the contest, in which the

one party had denounced their opponents as diabolical fanatics, and

the other as reactionary Papists and worshippers of 'a god made of

bread,' it will be evident that some results of importance at least

had been attained by the discussion itself and the mode in which it

had been held. The tone here, from first to last, was more

courteous, nay, even friendly in comparison. And the moderation now

used by these frank, outspoken men, so passionately excited hitherto,

could not have resulted solely from self-imposed restraint. Luther,

when he wished to speak very emphatically, addressed his opponents

as 'my dearest sirs.' Brenz, who was an eye-witness, tells us one

might have thought Luther and Zwingli were brothers. And, in fact,

on all the main doctrines but that one they agreed. Finer distinctions

of theory, which might have furnished food for argument, were mutually

waived. But the essential divergence between them on the one great

point of the Sacrament, and the spirit manifested in regard to it,

made it impossible for Luther to hold out to Zwingli the right hand

of fellowship, which the latter and his party so earnestly desired.

Luther held to his opinion: 'Yours is a different spirit from ours.'

His companions unanimously agreed with him that though they might

entertain sentiments of friendship and Christian love towards them,

they dared not acknowledge them as brethren in Christ. In the 'Articles'

the only mention made of this matter was that although they had not yet

agreed on that point, still 'each party should treat the other with

Christian charity, so far as each one's conscience would permit.'

On Tuesday afternoon Luther left Marburg, and set out on his journey

homeward. At the wish of the Elector he travelled by way of Schleiz,

where John was then consulting with the Margrave George of

Brandenburg about the Protestant alliance. They desired of Luther a

short and comprehensive confession of evangelical faith, as members

of which they wished to enrol themselves. Luther immediately

compiled one accordingly, upon the basis of the Marburg Articles,

making some additions and strengthening some expressions in

accordance with his own views. About October 18 he returned to

Wittenberg.

This confession was submitted without delay to a meeting of

Protestants at Schwabach. The result was, that Ulm and Strasburg

declined to subscribe a compact from which the Swiss were excluded.

Within the league itself, the question was now seriously considered,

how far the Protestant States might go, in the event of the Emperor

really seeking to coerce them to submission--whether, in a word,

they could venture to oppose force to force. Luther's opinion,

however, on this point remained unshaken. Whatever civil law and

counsellors might say, it was conclusive for them as Christians, in

his opinion, that civil authority was ordained by God, and that the

Emperor, as the lord paramount of Germany, was the supreme civil

authority in the nation. His first consideration was the imperial

dignity, as he conceived it, and the relative position and duties of

the princes of the Empire. As subjects of the Emperor, he regarded

these princes in the same light as he regarded their own territorial

subjects, the burgomasters of the towns and the various other

magnates and nobles, to whom they themselves had never conceded any

right to oppose, either by protest or force, their own regulations,

as territorial sovereigns, in matters affecting the Church. Not,

indeed, that he required a simply passive obedience, however badly

the authorities and the Emperor might behave; on the contrary, he

admitted the possibility of having to depose the Emperor. 'Sin

itself,' he said, 'does not destroy authority and obedience; but the

punishment of sin destroys them, as, for instance, if the Empire and

the Electors were unanimously to dethrone the Emperor, and make him

cease to be one. But so long as he remains unpunished and Emperor,

no one should refuse him obedience.' Nothing, therefore, in his

opinion, short of a common act of the Estates could provide a remedy

against an unjust, tyrannical, and law-breaking Emperor, while at

present it was apparent that Charles and the majority of the Diet

were agreed. Hence he refused to recognise the right of individual

States to an appeal to force, for his theory of the German Empire

involved the idea of a firm and united community or State, and not

in any way that of a league or federation, the independent members

of which might take up arms against a breach of their articles of

agreement. This theory was shared by his Elector and the

Nürembergers. Just as these Protestants for conscience sake had

refused obedience to the resolution of the Diet at Spires, so they

felt themselves bound by conscience to submit to the consequences of

that refusal. Luther's opinion, therefore, as to the proper attitude

for the Protestant States was the same as he had expressed to the

Elector Frederick on his return from the Wartburg. It was their

duty, he said, if God should permit matters to go so far, to allow

the Emperor to enter their territory and act against their subjects,

without, however, giving their assent or assisting him. But he

added: 'It is sheer want of faith not to trust to God to protect us,

without any wit or power of man.... "In quietness and confidence

shall be your strength."'

Meanwhile Luther was anxious to respond still further to the call of

duty against the Turks. Their multitudinous hosts had advanced as

far as Vienna, and had severely harassed that city, which, though

defended with heroic valour, was but badly fortified. A general

assault was made in force while Luther was on his homeward journey.

The news stirred him to his inmost soul. He ascribed to it, and to

their god, the devil, the violent temptations and anguish of soul

from which he was then suffering again. Immediately after his

return, he undertook to write a 'War sermon against the Turks.' On

October 26 he received the tidings that they were compelled to

retreat. This was a 'heavensent miracle' to him. But though his

former exhortations and warnings had seemed to many exaggerated, he

was right in perceiving that the danger was only averted. He

published his sermon, a new edition of which had to be issued with

the new year.

He saw in the Turks the fulfilment of the prophecy of Ezekiel and

the Revelation of St. John about Gog and Magog, and therewith a

judgment of God for the punishment of corrupt Christendom. But just

as in his first pamphlet he had called on the authorities, in virtue

of their appointment by God, to protect their own people against the

enemy, so he now wished further to make all German Christians strong

in conscience and full of courage, to take the field under their

banner, according to God's command. He set before them the example

of the 'beloved St. Maurice and his companions,' and of many other

saints, who had served in arms their Emperor as knights or citizens.

He would, if danger came in earnest, 'fain have, whoever could,

defend themselves,--young and old, husband and wife, man-servant and

maid-servant,' just as, according to ancient Roman writers, the

German wives and maidens fought together with the men. He looked on

no house as so mean that it might not do something to repel the foe.

Was it not better to be slain at home, in obedience to God, than to

be taken prisoners and dragged away like cattle to be sold? At the

same time he exhorted and encouraged those whom this misfortune

befell, that, as Jeremiah admonished the Jews in Babylon, they

should be patient in prison, and cling firmly to the faith, and

neither through their misery nor through the hypocritical worship of

the Turks, allow themselves to be seduced into becoming renegades.

Such is what he preached to the people, while he had to complain in

his letters to friends that 'the Emperor Charles threatens us even

still more dreadfully than does the Turk; so that on both sides we

have an Emperor as our enemy, an Eastern and a Western one.' And in

those days also he expressed his opinion that those who confessed

the gospel should keep their hands 'unsoiled by blood and crime' as

regards their Emperor, and, even though his behaviour might be a

'very threat of the devil,' should keep steadfastly to their God,

with prayer, supplication, and hope,--to that God Whose manifest

help had hitherto been so abundantly vouchsafed to them.

CHAPTER V.

THE DIET OF AUGSBURG AND LUTHER AT COBURG, 1530.