Luther died on the day of Concordia, February 18, 1546. With him peace
and concord departed from the Lutheran Church. His death was everywhere
the signal for action against true Lutheranism on the part of both its
avowed enemies and false brethren. As long as that hero of faith and
prayer was still living, the weight of his personal influence and
authority proved to be a veritable bulwark of peace and doctrinal purity
against the enemies within as well as without the Church. Though enemies
seeking to devour had been lurking long ago, the powerful and commanding
personality of Luther had checked all forces making for war from without
and for dissension from within. The Emperor could not be induced to
attack the Lutherans. He knew that they would stand united and strong as
long as the Hero of the Reformation was in their midst. Nor were the
false brethren able to muster up sufficient courage to come out into the
open and publish their errors while the voice of the lion was heard.
But no sooner had Luther departed than strife began its distracting
work. War, political as well as theological, followed in the wake of his
death. From the grave of the fallen hero a double specter began to loom
up. Pope and Emperor now joined hands to crush Protestantism by brute
force as they had planned long ago. The result was the Smalcald War. The
secret enemies which Lutheranism harbored within its own bosom began
boldly to raise their heads. Revealing their true colors and coming out
in the open with their pernicious errors, they caused numerous
controversies which spread over all Germany (Saxony, the cradle of the
Reformation, becoming the chief battlefield), and threatened to undo
completely the blessed work of Luther, to disrupt and disintegrate the
Church, or to pervert it into a unionistic or Reformed sect. Especially
these discreditable internal dissensions were a cause of deep
humiliation and of anxious concern to all loyal Lutherans. To the
Romanists and Reformed, however, who united in predicting the impending
collapse of Lutheranism, they were a source of malicious and triumphant
scoffing and jeering. A prominent theologian reported that by 1566
matters had come to such a pass in Germany that the old Lutheran
doctrine was publicly proclaimed only in relatively few places. In the
Palatinate public thanks were rendered to God in the churches that also
Electoral Saxony was now about to join them. The Jesuits insisted that,
having abandoned the doctrine of the real presence in the Lord's Supper,
the Lutherans were no longer genuine Lutherans and hence no more
entitled to the privileges guaranteed by the Peace of Augsburg (1555).
That the final result of this turmoil, political as well as theological,
proved a blessing to the Lutheran Church must be regarded and ever
gratefully remembered as a special grace and a remarkable favor of
Almighty God.