From the Electoral court Luther learned that his treatise was 'not altogether displeasing.' And just at this time he had to thank his prince for a present of game.



There is no doubt that Luther received also from that quarter the advice to approach the Emperor, who had just arrived in Germany, and whom he had wished to address in his treatise, with a direct personal request for protection, to prevent his being condemned unheard. He addressed to him a well-considered letter, couched in dignified language. He issued at the same time a short public 'offer,' appealing therein to the fact, that he had so long begged in vain for a proper refutation. These two writings were first examined and corrected by Spalatin, and so appeared only at the end of August, not, as is generally supposed, in the January of this year. Luther never received an answer to his letter to the Emperor, and therefore never heard how it was received.

The dangers which threatened Luther, and through him also the honour and prosperity of his Order, affected further his companions and friends who belonged to it. And of this Miltitz took advantage to renew his attempts at mediation. He induced the brethren, at a convention of Augustinian friars held at Eisleben, to persuade Luther once more to write to the Pope, and solemnly assure him that he had never wished to attack him personally. A deputation of these monks, with Staupitz and Link at their head, came to Luther at Wittenberg on the 4th or 5th of September, and received his promise to comply with their wishes. At this convention, Staupitz, who felt his strength no longer equal to the difficult questions and controversies of the time, had resigned his office as Vicar of the Order, and Link had succeeded him. Luther saw him now at Wittenberg for the last time. He retired in quiet seclusion to Salzburg, where the Archbishop was his personal friend.

But Luther's spirit would not let him desist for a moment from prosecuting his contest with Rome. He had yet 'a little song' to sing about her. He was in fact at work in August, while rumours were already afloat that Eck was on his way with the bull, upon a new tract, and had even begun to have it printed. It was to treat of the 'Babylonian Captivity of the Church,' taking as its subject the Christian sacraments. Luther knew that in this he cut deeper into the theological and religious principles of the Church, which had come under discussion in his quarrel with Rome, than in all his demands for reform, put forward in his address to the nobility. For while, in common with the Church herself, he saw in the Sacraments, instituted by Christ, the most sacred acts of worship, and the channels through which salvation itself, forgiveness, grace, and strength are imparted from above, in those principles he saw them limited by man's caprice in their original scope and meaning, robbed of their true significance, and made the instruments of Papal and priestly domination, while other pretended sacraments were joined to them, never instituted by Christ. On this account he complained of the tyranny to which these sacraments, and with them the Church, were subject, of the captivity in which they lay. Against him were arrayed not only the hierarchy, but the whole forces of Scholastic learning. He knew that what he now propounded would sound preposterous to these opponents; he would make, he said, his feeble revilers feel their blood run cold. But he met them in the armour of profound erudition, and with learned arguments lucidly and concisely expressed in Latin. At the same time his language, where he explains the real essence of the sacraments, shows a clearness and religious fervour which no layman could fail to understand.

The subject of the deepest importance to Luther in this treatise was the sacrament of the altar. He dwells on the mutilated form, without the cup, in which the Lord's Supper was given to the laity; on the doctrine invented about the change of the bread, instead of keeping to the simple word of Scripture; and, lastly, on the substitution of a sacrifice, supposed to be offered to God by the priest, for the institution ordained by Christ for the nourishment of the faithful. The withholding of the cup he calls an act of ungodliness and tyranny, beyond the power of either Pope or Council to prescribe. Against the sacrifice of the mass he had published just before a sermon in German. He was well aware that his principles involved, as indeed he intended, a revolution of the whole service, and an attack on an ordinance, upon which a number of other abuses, of great importance to the hierarchy, depended. But he ventured it, because God's word obliged him to do it. So now he proceeds to describe, in contrast to this mass, the one of true Christian institution, and resting wholly, as he conceived it, on the words of Christ, when instituting the Last Supper, 'Take, and eat,' etc. Christ would here say, 'See, thou poor sinner, out of pure love I promise to thee, before thou canst either earn or promise anything, forgiveness of all thy sins, and eternal life, and to assure thee of this I give here my Body and shed my Blood; do thou, by my death, rest assured of this promise, and take as a sign my Body and my Blood.'

For the worthy celebration of this mass, nothing is required but faith, which shall trust securely in this promise; with this faith will come the sweetest stirrings of the heart, which will unfold itself in love, and yearn for the good Saviour, and in Him will become a new creature.

As regards baptism Luther lamented that it was no longer allowed to possess the true significance and value it ought to have for a man's whole life. Whereas in truth the person baptized received a promise of mercy from God, to which time after time, even from the sins of his future life, he might and was bound to turn, it was taught, that in sinning after baptism, the Christian was like a shipwrecked man, who, instead of the ship, could only reach a plank; this being the sacrament of penance, with its accompanying outward formalities. Whereas further, in true baptism he had vowed to dedicate his whole life and conduct to God, other vows of human invention were now demanded of him. Whereas he then became a full partaker of Christian liberty, he was now burdened with ordinances of the Church, devised by man.

Concerning this sacrament of penance, with confession, absolution, and its other adjuncts, Luther rates at its full value the word of forgiveness spoken to the individual, and values also the free confession made to his Christian brother by the Christian seeking comfort. But confession, he said, had been perverted into an institution of compulsion and torture. Instead of leading the tempted brother to trust in God's mercy, he was ordered to perform acts of penance, whereby nominally to give satisfaction to God, but in reality to minister to the ambition and insatiable avarice of the Roman see.

From all these abuses and perversions Luther seeks to liberate the sacraments, and restore them in their purity to Christians. Nevertheless, he takes care to insist on the fact that it is not the mere external ceremony, the act of the priest in administering, and the visible partaking of the receiver, that make the latter a sharer in the promised grace and blessedness. This, he says, depends upon a hearty faith in the Divine promise. He who believes enjoys the benefit of the sacrament, even though its outward administration be denied him.

The mediaeval Church ordained four other sacraments, namely, confirmation, marriage, consecration of priests, and extreme unction. But Luther refuses to acknowledge any of these as a sacrament. Marriage, he says, in its sacramental aspect, was not an institution of the New Testament, nor was it connected with any especial promise of grace. It was but a holy moral ordinance of daily life, existing since the beginning of the world and among those who were not Christians as well as those who were. At the same time he takes the opportunity to protest against those human regulations with which even this ordinance had been invaded by the Romish Church, especially against the arbitrary obstacles to marriage she had created. Even these were made a source of revenue to her, by the granting of dispensations. For the other three sacraments there was no especial promise. In the Epistle of St. James (v. 14), where it speaks of anointing the sick with oil, the allusion is not to extreme unction to the dying, but to the exercise of that wonderful Apostolic gift of healing the sick through the power of faith and prayer. With regard to the consecration of priests, Luther repeats the principles laid down in his address to the nobility. Ordination consists simply of this, that out of a community, all of whom are priests, one is chosen for the particular work of administering God's word. If, as in consecration, the hand is laid upon him, this is a human custom and not instituted by the Lord Himself. But in truth, says Luther, the outrageous tyranny of the clergy, with their priestly bodily anointing, their tonsure, and their dress, would arrogate a higher position than other Christians anointed with the Spirit; these are counted almost as unworthy as dogs to belong to the Church. And most seriously he warns a man not to strive for that outward anointing, unless he is earnestly intent on the true service of the gospel, and has disclaimed all pretension to become, by consecration, better than lay Christians.

In conclusion Luther declares: he hears that Papal excommunication is prepared for him, to force him to recant. In that case this little treatise shall form part of his recantation. After that he will soon publish the rest, the like of which has never been seen or heard by the Romish see.

In the beginning of October, probably on the 6th of that month, the book was issued. Luther had heard some ten days before that Eck had actually arrived with the bull. He had already caused it to be posted publicly at Meissen on September 21. Early in October he sent a copy of it also to the university of Wittenberg.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION, AND LUTHER'S REPLY.

At Rome, the bull, now newly arrived in Germany, had been published as early as June 16. It had been considered, when at length, under the pressure of the influences described above, the subject was taken up in earnest, very carefully in the Papal consistory. The jurists there were of opinion that Luther should be cited once more, but their views did not prevail. As for the negotiations, conducted through Miltitz, for an examination of Luther before the Archbishop of Treves, no heed was now paid to the affair.

The bull begins with the words, 'Arise, O Lord, and avenge Thy cause.' It proceeds to invoke St. Peter, St. Paul, the whole body of the saints, and the Church. A wild boar had broken into the vineyard of the Lord, a wild beast was there seeking to devour &c. Of the heresy against which it was directed, the Pope, as he states, had additional reason to complain, since the Germans, among whom it had broken out, had always been regarded by him with such tender affection: he gives them to understand that they owed the Empire to the Romish Church. Forty-one propositions from Luther's writings are then rejected and condemned, as heretical or at least scandalous and corrupting, and his works collectively are sentenced to be burnt. As to Luther himself, the Pope calls God to witness that he has neglected no means of fatherly love to bring him into the right way. Even now he is ready to follow towards him the example of Divine mercy which wills not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live; and so once more he calls upon him to repent, in which case he will receive him graciously like the prodigal son. Sixty days are given him to recant. But if he and his adherents will not repent, they are to be regarded as obstinate heretics and withered branches of the vine of Christ, and must be punished according to law. No doubt the punishment of burning was meant; the bull in fact expressly condemns the proposition of Luther which denounces the burning of heretics.

All this was called then at Rome, and has been called even latterly by the Papal party, 'the tone rather of fatherly sorrow than of penal severity.' The means by which the bull had been brought about, made it fitting that Eck himself should be commissioned with its circulation throughout Germany, and especially with its publication in Saxony. More than this, he received the unheard of permission to denounce any of the adherents of Luther at his pleasure, when he published the bull.

Accordingly, Eck had the bull publicly posted up in September at Meissen, Merseburg, and Brandenburg. He was charged, moreover, by a Papal brief, in the event of Luther's refusing to submit, to call upon the temporal power to punish the heretic. But at Leipzig, where the magistrate, by order of Duke George, had to present him with a goblet full of money, he was so hustled in the streets by his indignant opponents, that he was forced to take refuge in the Convent of St. Paul, and hastened to pursue his journey by night, whilst the city officials rode about the neighbourhood with the bull. A number of Wittenberg students, adds Miltitz, made their appearance also at Leipzig, who 'behaved in a good-for-nothing way towards him.'

At Wittenberg, where the publication of the bull rested with the university, the latter notified its arrival to the Elector, and objected for various reasons to publish it, alleging, in particular, that Eck, its sender, was not furnished with proper authority from the Pope. Luther for the first time felt himself, as he wrote to Spalatin, really free, being at length convinced that the Popedom was Antichrist and the seat of Satan. He was not at all discouraged by a letter sent at this time by Erasmus from Holland to Wittenberg, saying that no hopes could be placed in the Emperor Charles, as he was in the hands of the Mendicant Friars. As for the bull, so extraordinary were its contents, that he wished to consider it a forgery.

Still the promise which Luther had given to his Augustinian brethren, only a few weeks before, under pressure from Miltitz, remained as yet unfulfilled. Nor did Miltitz himself wish the threads of the web then spun to slip from his fingers. Even at this hour, with the consent and at the wish of the Elector, an interview had been arranged between Miltitz and Luther at the Castle of Lichtenberg (now Lichtenburg, in the district of Torgau), where the monks of St. Antony were then housed. Just as Miltitz, as we have seen, had thought to be able to avert the bull by getting Luther to write a letter to the Pope, so now he promised the Elector still to conciliate the Pope by that means. Only the letter was to be dated back to the time, before the publication of the bull, when Luther first gave his consent to write it. Its substance was to be as then agreed upon; Luther, as Miltitz expressed it, was to 'eulogise the Pope personally in a manner agreeable to him,' and at the same time submit to him an historical statement of what he had done. Luther consented to publish a letter in these terms, in Latin and German, under date of September 6, and immediately gave effect to his promise.

It is hardly conceivable how Miltitz could still have nurtured such a hope. Neither his wish to ingratiate himself with the Elector Frederick, and to checkmate the plans of Eck whom he detested, nor his personal vanity and flippancy of character, are sufficient to account for it. He must have learnt from his own previous personal intercourse with the Pope, and his experiences of the Papal court, that Leo did not take up Church questions and controversies so gravely and so seriously as not to remain fully open all the time to influences and considerations of other kinds, and that around him were parties and influential personages, arrayed in mutual hostility and rivalry. He must have been strangely ignorant of the state of things at Rome. But as to Luther and his cause there was no longer any hesitation in that quarter.

In what sense Luther himself was willing to comply with the demand of Miltitz, the contents of his letter suffice to show. He makes it clear that nothing was further from his intention than to appease the angry Pontiff by any dexterous artifices or concealments. The assurance required from him, that he had no wish to attack the Pope personally, he construes in its literal terms, apart altogether from the official character and acts of Leo. And in fact against his personal character and conduct he had never said a word. But he takes this opportunity, at the same time, of speaking to him plainly, as a Christian is bound to do to his fellow-Christian; of repeating to him, face to face, the severest charges yet made by him against the Romish chair; of excusing Leo's own conduct in this chair simply and solely on the ground that he regarded him as a victim of the monstrous corruption which surrounded him, and of warning him once more against it as a brother. He tells him to his face that he himself, the Holy Father, must acknowledge that the Papal see was more wicked and shameful than any Sodom, Gomorrah, or Babylon; that God's wrath had fallen upon it without ceasing; that Rome, which had once been the gate of heaven, was now an open jaw of hell. Most earnestly he warns Leo against his flatterers,—the 'ear-ticklers' who would make him a God. He assures him that he wishes him all that is good, and therefore he wishes that he should not be devoured by these jaws of hell, but on the contrary, should be freed from this godless idolatry of parasites, and be placed in a position where he would be able to live on some smaller ecclesiastical preferment, or on his own patrimony. As for the historical retrospect which Miltitz wanted, and which Luther briefly appends to this letter, all that the latter says in vindication of himself is, that it was not his own fault, but that of his enemies, who had driven him further and further onward, that 'no small part of the unchristian doings at Rome had been dragged to light.'



Luther sent with this letter, as a present to the Pope, a pamphlet entitled 'On the Liberty of a Christian Man.' This is no controversial treatise intended for the great struggle of churchmen and theologians, but a tract to minister to 'simple men.' For their benefit he wished to describe compendiously the 'sum of a Christian life'; to deal thoroughly with the question, 'What was a Christian? and how he was to use the liberty which Christ had won and given to him.' He premises as an axiom that a Christian is a free lord over all things, and subject to nobody. He considers, first of all, the new, inner, spiritual man, and asks what makes him a good and free Christian. Nothing external, he says, can make him either good or free. It does not profit the soul if the body puts on sacred vestments, or fasts, or prays with the lips. To make the soul live, and be good and free, there is nothing else in heaven or on earth but the Holy Scriptures, in other words, God's Word of comfort by His dear Son Jesus Christ, through Whom our sins are forgiven us. In this Word the soul has perfect joy, happiness, peace, light, and all good things in abundance. And to obtain this, nothing more is required of the soul than what is told us in the Scriptures, namely, to give itself to Jesus with firm faith and to trust joyfully in Him. At first, no doubt, God's command must terrify a man, seeing that it must be fulfilled, or man condemned; but when once he has been brought thereby to recognise his own worthlessness, then comes God's promise and the gospel, and says, Have faith in Christ, in Whom I promise thee all grace; believe in Him, and thou hast Him. A right faith so blends the soul with God's word, that the virtues of the latter become her own, as the iron becomes glowing hot from its union with the fire. And the soul becomes joined to Christ as a bride to the bridegroom; her wedding-ring is faith. All that Christ, the rich and noble bridegroom possesses, He makes His bride's; all that she has, He takes unto Himself. He takes upon Himself her sins, so that they are swallowed up in Him and in His unconquerable righteousness. Thus the Christian is exalted above all things, and becomes a lord; for nothing can injure his salvation; everything must be subject to him and help towards his salvation; it is a spiritual kingdom. And thus all Christians are priests; they can all approach God through Christ, and pray for others. 'Who can comprehend the honour and dignity of a Christian? Through his kingship he has power over all things, through his priesthood he has power over God, for God does what he desires and prays for.'

But the Christian, as Luther states in his second axiom, is not only this new inner man. He has another will in his flesh, which would make him captive to sin. Accordingly, he dare not be idle, but must work hard to drive out evil lusts and mortify his body. He lives, moreover, among other men on earth, and must labour together with them. And as Christ, though Himself full of the Kingdom of God, for our sake stripped Himself of His power and ministered as a servant, so should we Christians, to whom God through Christ has given the Kingdom of all goodness and blessedness, and therewith all that is sufficient to satisfy us, do freely and cheerfully for our heavenly Father whatever pleases Him, and do unto our neighbours as Christ has done for us. In particular, we must not despise the weakness and weak faith of our neighbour, nor vex him with the use of our liberty, but rather minister with all we have to his improvement. Thus the Christian, who is a free lord and master, becomes a useful servant of all and subject to all. But he does these works, not that he may become thereby good and blessed in the sight of God; he is already blessed through his faith, and what he does now he does freely and gratuitously. Luther thus sums up in conclusion: 'A Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbour; in Christ through faith, in his neighbour through love. Through faith he rises above himself in God, from God he descends again below himself through love; and yet remains always in God and in godlike love.'

This tract was a remarkable pendant to Luther's remarkable letter to the Pope. His Holiness, so he wrote to him in his dedication, might taste from its contents what kind of occupation the author would rather, and might with more profit, be engaged in, if only the godless Papal flatterers did not hinder him. And in fact the Pope could plainly see from it how Luther lived and laboured, with his inmost being, in these profound but simple ideas of Christian truth, and how he was inwardly compelled and delighted to represent them in their noble simplicity. The whole tone and tenor of this dedication, so tranquil, fervent, and tender, shows further what profound peace reigned in the soul of this vehement champion of the faith, and what happiness the excommunicated heretic found in his God. Next to Luther's Address to the German Nobility and his Babylonian Captivity, this tract is one of the most important contributions of his pen to the cause of the Reformation. It is clear from its pages that when Luther wrote his letter, at the request of Miltitz, to the Pope, he had no thought of making peace with the Papacy, or of even a moment's truce in the campaign.

The bull of excommunication he met in the manner intimated to Spalatin from the first. He launched a short tract against it, 'On the new Bull and Falsehoods of Eck,' treating it as Eck's forgery. This he followed up with another tract in German and Latin, 'Against the Bull of Antichrist.' He was resolved to unmask the blindness and wickedness of the Roman evil-doers. He saw partly his own real doctrines perverted, partly the Christian and Scriptural truth that his doctrines contained, stigmatised as heresy and condemned. He declared that if the Pope did not retract and condemn this bull, no one would doubt that he was the enemy of God and the disturber of Christianity.

He then solemnly renewed, on November 17, the appeal to a Council, which he had made two years before. But how was his attitude changed since then! He, the accused and condemned heretic, now himself proclaims condemnation and ruin to his enemy, the antichristian power that seeks to domineer the world. Nor is it only from a future Council, and one constituted as the previous great assemblies of the Church, that he expects and demands protection for himself and the Christian truth; again and again he calls upon the Christian laity to assist him. Thus in his appeal now published, he invites the Emperor Charles, the Electors and Princes of the Empire, the counts, barons, and nobles, the town councils, and all Christian authorities throughout Germany, to support him and his appeal, that so the true Christian belief and the freedom of a Council might be saved. Similarly, in the Latin edition of his tract against the bull, he calls upon the Emperor Charles, on Christian kings and princes and all who believe in Christ, together with all Christian bishops and learned doctors, to resist the iniquities of the Popedom. In his German version he defends himself against the charge of stirring up the laity against the Pope and priesthood; but he asks if, indeed, the laity will be reconciled, or the Pope excused, by the command to burn the truth. The Pope himself, he says, and his bishops, priests, and monks are wrestling to their own downfall, through this iniquitous bull, and want to bring upon themselves the hatred of the laity. 'What wonder were it, should princes, nobles, and laymen beat them on the head, and hunt them out of the country?'

Hutten now followed with a stormy demand for a general rising of Germany against the tyranny of Rome, whose hirelings and emissaries were to be chased away by main force. When two papal legates, Aleander and Caraccioli, appeared on the Rhine to execute the bull and work upon the Emperor in person, he was anxious to strike a blow at them on his own account, little good as, on calm reflection, it was evident could have come of it. Luther, on hearing of it, could not refrain remarking in a letter to Spalatin, 'If only he had caught them!'

Luther however persisted in repeating to himself and his friends the warning of the Psalmist, 'Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in them.' Nay, when Spalatin, who had gone with the Elector to the Emperor, told him how little was to be hoped for from the latter, he expressed to him his joy at finding that he too had learned the same lesson. God, he said, would never have entrusted simple fishermen with the Gospel, if it had needed worldly potentates to propagate it. It was to the Last Day that he looked with full confidence for the overthrow of Antichrist. And, indeed, his idea that Antichrist had long reigned at Rome was connected in his mind with the belief that the Last Day was close at hand. Of this, as he wrote to Spalatin, he was convinced, and for many strong reasons.

And in fact the Emperor Charles, before leaving the Netherlands, on his journey to Aix-la-Chapelle to be crowned, had already been induced by Aleander to take his first step against Luther. He had consented to the execution of the sentence in the bull, condemning Luther's works to be burnt, and had issued orders to that effect throughout the Netherlands. They were burnt in public at Louvain, Cologne, and Mayence. At Cologne this was done while he was staying there. It was in this town that the two legates approached the Elector Frederick with the demand to have the same done in his territory, and to execute due punishment on the heretic himself, or at least to keep him close prisoner, or deliver him over to the Pope. Frederick however refused, saying that Luther must first be heard by impartial judges. Erasmus also, who was then staying at Cologne, expressed himself to the same effect, in an opinion obtained from him by Frederick through Spalatin. At an interview with the Elector he said to him, 'Luther has committed two great faults; he has touched the Pope on his crown and the monks on their bellies.' The Archbishop of Mayence, Cardinal Albert, received directions from the Pope to take more decisive and energetic steps against Hutten as well. The burning of Luther's books at Mayence was effected without hindrance, though Hutten was able to inform Luther that, according to the account received from a friend, Aleander narrowly escaped stoning, and the multitude were all the more inflamed in favour of Luther. The legates in triumph proceeded to carry out their mission elsewhere.

Luther, however, lost no time in following up their execution of the bull with his reply. On December 10 he posted a public announcement that the next morning, at nine o'clock, the antichristian decretals, that is, the Papal law-books, would be burnt, and he invited all the Wittenberg students to attend. He chose for this purpose a spot in front of the Elster Gate, to the east of the town, near the Augustinian convent. A multitude poured forth to the scene. With Luther appeared a number of other doctors and masters, and among them Melancthon and Carlstadt. After one of the masters of arts had built up a pile, Luther laid the decretals upon it, and the former applied the fire. Luther then threw the Papal bull into the flames, with the words 'Because thou hast vexed the Holy One of the Lord, [Footnote: It is obvious that he refers to Christ, who is spoken of in Scripture as the Holy One of God (St. Mark i. 24, Acts ii. 27), not, as ignorance and malice have suggested, to himself.] let the everlasting fire consume thee.' Whilst Luther with the other teachers returned to the town, some hundreds of students remained upon the scene, and sang a Te Deum, and a Dirge for the decretals. After the ten o'clock meal, some of the young students, grotesquely attired, drove through the town in a large carriage, with a banner emblazoned with a bull four yards in length, amidst the blowing of brass trumpets and other absurdities. They collected from all quarters a mass of Scholastic and Papal writings, and especially those of Eck, and hastened with them and the bull, to the pile, which their companions had meanwhile kept alight. Another Te Deum was then sung, with a requiem, and the hymn 'O du armer Judas.'

Luther at his lecture the next day told his hearers with great earnestness and emotion what he had done. The Papal chair he said, would yet have to be burnt. Unless with all their hearts they abjured the Kingdom of the Pope, they could not obtain salvation.

He next announced and justified his act in a short treatise entitled 'Why the Books of the Pope and his disciples were burnt by Dr. Martin Luther.' 'I, Martin Luther,' he says, 'doctor of Holy Scripture, an Augustinian of Wittenberg, make known hereby to everyone, that by my wish, advice, and act, on Monday after St. Nicholas' day, in the year 1520, the books of the Pope of Rome, and of some of his disciples, were burnt. If anyone wonders, as I fully expect they will, and asks for what reason and by whose command I did it, let this be his answer.' Luther considers it his bounden duty, as a baptized Christian, a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, and a daily preacher, to root out, on account of his office, all unchristian doctrines. The example of others, on whom the same duty devolved, but who shrank from doing as he did, would not deter him. 'I should not,' he says, 'be excused in my own sight; of that my conscience is assured, and my spirit, by God's grace, has been roused to the necessary courage.' He then proceeds to cite from the law-books thirty erroneous doctrines, in glorification of the Papacy, which deserved to be burnt. The sum total of this Canon law was as follows: 'The Pope is a God on earth, above all things, heavenly and earthly, spiritual and temporal, and everything is his, since no one durst say, What doest thou?' This, says Luther, is the abomination of desolation (St: Matth. xxiv. 15), or in other words Antichrist (2 Thess. ii. 4).

Simultaneously with this, he set out in a longer and exhaustive work the 'ground and reason' of all his own articles which had been condemned by the bull. He takes his stand upon God's word in Scripture against the dogmas of the earthly God;—upon the revelation by God Himself, which, to everyone who studies it deeply and with devotion, will lighten his understanding, and make clear its substance and meaning. What though, as he is reminded, he is only a solitary, humble man, he is sure of this, that God's Word is with him.

To Staupitz, who felt faint-hearted and desponding about the bull, Luther wrote, saying that, when burning it, he trembled at first and prayed; but now he felt more rejoiced than at any other act in all his life. He now released himself finally from the restraints of those monastic rules, with which, as we have remarked before, he had always tormented himself, besides performing the higher duties of his calling. He was freed now, as he wrote to his friend Lange, by the authority of the bull, from the commands of his Order and of the Pope, being now an excommunicated man. Of this he was glad; he retained merely the garb and lodging of a monk: he had more than enough of real duties to perform with his daily lectures and sermons, with his constant writings, educational, edifying, and polemical, and with his letters, discourses, and the assistance he was able to give his brethren.

By this bold act, Luther consummated his final rupture with the Papal system, which for centuries had dominated the Christian world, and had identified itself with Christianity. The news of it must also have made the fire which his words had kindled throughout Germany, blaze out in all its violence. He saw now, as he wrote to Staupitz, a storm raging, such as only the Last Day could allay; so fiercely were passions aroused on both sides.

Germany was then, in fact, in a state of excitement and tension more critical than at any other period of her history. Side by side with Luther stood Hutten, in the forefront of the battle with Rome. The bull he published with sarcastic comments: the burning of Luther's works of devotion he denounced in Latin and German verses. Eberlin von Gunzburg, who shortly after began to wield his pen as a popular writer on reform, called these two men 'two chosen messengers of God.' A German Litany, which appeared early in 1521, implored God's grace and help for Martin Luther, the unshaken pillar of the Christian faith, and for the brave German knight Ulrich Hutten, his Pylades.

Hutten also wrote now in German for the German people, both in prose and verse. During his stay with Sickingen in the winter at his Castle of Ebernburg, he read to him Luther's works, which roused in this powerful warrior an active sympathy with the doctrines of the Reformation, and stirred up projects in his mind, of what his own strong arm could accomplish for the good cause.

Pamphlets, both anonymous and pseudonymous, were circulated in increasing numbers among the people. They took the form chiefly of dialogues, in which laymen, in a simple Christian spirit, and with their natural understanding, complain of the needs of Christendom, ask questions and are enlightened. The outward evils of the Papal system are put clearly before the people:—the scandals among the priesthood and in the convents, the iniquities of the Romish courtiers and creatures of the Pope, who pandered with menial subservience to the magnates at Rome, in order to fatten on German benefices, and reap their harvest of taxes and extortions of every kind. The simple Word of God, with its sublime evangelical truths, must be freed from the sophistries woven round it by man, and be made accessible to all without distinction. Luther is represented as its foremost champion, and a true man of the people, whose testimony penetrated to the heart. His portrait, as painted by Cranach, was circulated together with his small tracts. In later editions the Holy Ghost appears in the form of a dove hovering above his head; his enemies spread the calumny, that Luther intended this emblem to represent himself.

Satirical pictures also were used as weapons on both sides in this contest. Cranach pourtrayed the meek and suffering Saviour on one side, and on the other the arrogant Roman Antichrist, in the twenty-six woodcuts of his 'Passion of Christ and Antichrist:' Luther added short texts to these pictures.

Luther's enemies now began, on their side, to write in German and for the people. The most talented among them, as regards vigorous, popular German and coarse satire, was the Franciscan Thomas Murner; but his theology seemed to Luther so weak, that he only favoured him once with a brief allusion. He entered now into a longer literary duel with the Dresden theologian Emser, who had challenged him after the disputation at Leipzig, and who now published a work 'Against the Unchristian Address of Martin Luther to the German Nobility.' Luther replied with a tract 'To the Goat at Leipzig,' Emser with another 'To the Bull at Wittenberg,' Luther with another 'On the Answer of the Goat at Leipzig,' and Emser with a third, 'On the furious Answer of the Bull at Wittenberg.' Luther, whose reply to Emser's original work had been directed to the first sheets that appeared, met the work, when published in its complete form, with his 'Answer to the over-Christian, over-priestly, over-artful Book of the Goat Emser.' Emser followed up with a 'Quadruplica,' to which Luther rejoined with another treatise entitled 'A Refutation by Doctor Luther of Emser's error, extorted by the most learned priest of God, H. Emser.' When later, during Luther's residence at the Wartburg, Emser published a reply, Luther let him have the last word. Nothing new was contributed to the great struggle by this interchange of polemics. The most effective point made by Emser and the other defenders of the old Church system, was the old charge that Luther, one man, presumed to oppose the whole of Christendom as hitherto constituted, and by the overthrow of all foundations and authorities of the Church, to bring unbelief, distraction, and disturbance upon Church and State. Thus Emser says once in German doggrel, that Luther imagined that

What Church and Fathers teach was nought; None lived but Luther;—so he thought.

In threatening Luther with the consequences of his heresy, he never failed to hold up Huss as a bugbear.

In Germany, as Emser complains, there was already 'such quarrelling, noise, and uproar, that not a district, town, village, or house was free from partisans, and one man was against another.' Aleander wrote to Rome saying that everywhere exasperation and excitement prevailed, and the Papal bull was laughed at. Among the adherents of the old Church system one heard rumours of strange and terrible import. A letter written shortly after the burning of the bull, gave out that Luther reckoned on thirty-five thousand Bohemians, and as many Saxons and other North Germans, who were ready, like the Goths and Vandals of old, to march on Italy and Rome. But it was evident, even at this stage, that from rancorous words to energetic and self-sacrificing action was a long step to take. Even in central Germany the bull was executed without any disturbance breaking out; and that in the bishoprics of Meissen and Merseburg, which were adjacent to Wittenberg. Pirkheimer and Spengler at Nuremberg, whose names Eck had included in the bull, now bowed to the authority of the Pope, represented though it was by their personal enemy.

Hutten, who saw his hopes in the Emperor's brother deceived, and believed his own liberty and even his life was menaced by the Papal bull, burned with impatient ardour to strike a blow. He was anxious also to see whether a resort to force, after his own meaning of the term, would meet with any support from the Elector Frederick. He ventured even, when speaking of Sickingen's lofty mission, to refer to the precedent of Ziska, the powerful champion of the Hussites, who had once been the terror and abomination of the Germans. He, a member of the proud Equestrian order, was willing now to join hands with the towns and the burghers to do battle with Rome for the liberty of Germany. But, passionate as were his words, it was by no means clear what particular end under present circumstances he sought to achieve by means of arms. Sickingen, who had grasped the situation in a practical spirit, advised him to moderate his impatience, and sought, for his own part, to keep on good terms with the Emperor, in whom Hutten accordingly renewed his hopes. Each, in short, had overrated the influence which Sickingen really possessed with the Emperor.

In this posture of affairs, Luther reverted, with increased conviction, to his original opinion, that the future must be left with God alone, without trusting to the help of man. Hutten himself had written to him, during the Diet of Worms, as follows: 'I will fight manfully with you for Christ; but our counsels differ in this respect, that mine are human, while you, more perfect than I am, trust solely in those of God.' And when Hutten seemed really bent on taking the sword, Luther declared to him and to others, with all decision of purpose: 'I would not have man fight with force and bloodshed for the Gospel. By the Word has the world been subdued, by the Word has the Church been preserved, by the Word will she be restored. As Antichrist has begun without a blow, so without a blow will Antichrist be crushed by the Word.' Even against the Romish hirelings among the German clergy, he would have no acts of violence committed, such as were committed in Bohemia. He had not laboured with the German nobility to have such men restrained by the sword, but by advice and command. He was only afraid that their own rage would not allow of peaceful means to check them, but would bring misery and disaster upon their heads.

His expectation—not indeed ungrounded—of the approaching end of the world, to which, as we have seen, he alluded in a letter to Spalatin on January 16, 1521, Luther now announced more fully in a book, written in answer to an attack by the Romish theologian Ambrosius Catharinus. He based his opinion on the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, on which Christian men and Christian communities, sore pressed in the battle with the powers of darkness, had been wont ere then to rely, in the sure hope of the approaching victory of God. Luther referred in particular to the vision of Daniel (chap. viii.), where he states that after the four great Kingdoms of the World, the last of which Luther takes to be the Roman Empire, a bold and crafty ruler should rise up, and 'by his policy should cause craft to prosper in his hand, and should stand up against the Prince of princes, but should be broken without hand.' He saw this vision fulfilled in the Popedom; which must, therefore, be destroyed 'without hand,' or outward force. St. Paul, in his view, said the same in the passage in which (2 Thess. ii.) he foreshadowed long before the Roman Antichrist. That 'man of sin' who set himself up as God in the temple of God, 'the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.' So, said Luther, the Pope and his kingdom would not be destroyed by the laity, but would be reserved for a heavier punishment until the coming of Christ. He must fall, as he had raised himself, not 'with the hand,' but with the spirit of Satan. The Spirit must kill the spirit; the truth must reveal deceit.

Luther, as we shall see, had all his life held firmly to this belief that the end was near. As his glowing zeal pictured the loftiest images and contrasts to his mind, so also this assurance of victory was already before his eyes. In his hope of the near completion of the earthly history of Christianity and mankind, he became the instrument of carving out a new grand chapter in its career.

The announcement of the retractation required from Luther by the bull, was to have been sent to Rome within 120 days. Luther had given his answer. The Pope declared that the time of grace had expired; and on the 3rd of January Leo X. finally pronounced the ban against Luther and his followers, and an interdict on the places where they were harboured.



CHAPTER IX.

THE DIET OF WORMS.

If we consider the powerful influences then at work to further the ecclesiastical movement in Germany, it seems reasonable to suppose that they would succeed in accomplishing its ends through the power of the Word alone, without any such bloodshed and political convulsions as were feared; and that Germany, therefore, though vexed with spiritual tempests—the 'tumult and uproar' whose outburst Luther already discerned—must inevitably rid herself of the forms and fetters of Romish Churchdom, by the sheer force of her new religious convictions. And, indeed, even in the short interval since Luther had commenced, and only with slow steps had advanced further in the contest, a success had been attained which no one at the beginning could have ventured to expect, or even hope for. Frederick the Wise, the Nestor among the great German Princes of the Empire, had plainly freed himself inwardly from those fetters, and though, as yet, he did not feel himself called upon to express his sentiments by decisive action, his conduct, nevertheless, could not fail to make an impression on those about him. The nobility and burgher class, among whom the new doctrines had made most progress, were, politically speaking, powerfully represented at the Diets. The most important of the spiritual lords, the Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence, who had most cause to resent Luther's onslaught on indulgences, had hitherto adopted a cautious and expectant attitude, which left him free to join at some future time a national revolt against his Romish sovereign. The Diets, indeed, had hitherto submitted to their old ecclesiastical grievances without any fear of the wrath or scolding of the Pope. But, as soon as the conviction prevailed among the Estates, that the pretensions of the Roman see had no eternal, Divine foundation, they could take in hand at once, on their own account, the reformation of the Church. As for the episcopacy, in particular, Luther had never desired, as his Address to the Nobility sufficiently showed, to interfere with or disturb it in any way, provided only the bishops would feed their flocks according to God's Word. An independent German episcopate would then have been well able to undertake the reforms necessary in the system of worship. Luther himself, as we shall see, wished and continued to wish that those reforms should be as few and simple as possible.

In the various German states which afterwards became Protestant, the work of reform was in fact accomplished, without any serious agitation, by the Princes themselves, in concert with their Estates; and in the free towns by the magistrates and representatives of the burghers, notwithstanding the fact that its opponents were supported by the majority of the Empire and by the Emperor himself, who was a staunch adherent of the Romish system. How much easier, in comparison, must the work of Evangelical reformation have been, had it been resolved on by the power of the Empire itself, in accord with the overwhelming voice of the whole nation.

Reference was made, and in significant terms, to the savage and cruel war of the Hussites. But no one could deny to Luther's teaching, a clearness, a religious depth, and a freedom from fanaticism, peculiar to itself, and utterly wanting in the preaching of the followers of Huss. Again, the wild Hussite wars, which were still fresh in the sorrowful memory of the Germans, had in the first instance been provoked by the use of force, on the part of the Church, against the Bohemians. When Germany revolted, Rome found no such means of force at her command.

It might fairly be questioned, if the thought were worth pursuing, whether Luther at that time had sufficient ground for looking for the triumph of his cause, not indeed to the power of the Word and the influences then active in his favour, but to the Day of the Lord, which he believed was near.

It is true that in such great crises of history as this, the final issue never depends alone on the character and conduct of particular personages, however eminent they may be. In this antichristian system of the Papacy, Luther saw Satanic powers at work, which blinded the human heart, and might indeed succeed, by dint of suffering and oppression, in overcoming for the moment the Word of God, but which could never finally extirpate or extinguish it. And we Protestants must confess that not only did a great mass of the German people remain bound by the spell of tradition, but that even to honest and independent-minded adherents of the old system, the interests of religion and morality might in reality have seemed to be seriously endangered by the new teaching and by the breach with the past. But never did the most momentous issue in the fortunes of the German nation and Church rest so entirely with one man as they did now with the German Emperor. Everything depended on this, whether he, as head of the Empire, should take the great work in hand, or should fling his authority and might into the opposite scale.

Charles had been welcomed in Germany as one whose youthful heart seemed likely to respond to the newly-awakened life and aspirations; as the son of an old German princely family, who by his election as Emperor had won a triumph over the foreign king Francis, supported though the latter was by the Pope. Rumour now alleged that he was in the hands of the Mendicant Friars: the Franciscan Glapio was his confessor and influential adviser, the very man who had instigated the burning of Luther's works.



He was, however, by no means so dependent on those about him as might have been supposed. His counsellors, in the general interests of his government, pursued an independent line of policy, and Charles himself, even in these his youthful days, knew to assert his independence as a monarch and display his cleverness as a statesman.

But a German he was not, in spite of his grandfather Maximilian; he had not even an ordinary knowledge of the German language. First and foremost, he was King of Spain and Naples; in his Spanish kingdom he retained, even after his accession to the imperial dignity, the chief basis of his power. His religious training and education had familiarised him only with the strict orthodoxy of the Church and his duties in respect to her traditional ordinances. To these his conscience also constrained him to adhere. He never showed any inclination to investigate the opposite opinions of his German subjects, at least with any independent or critical exercise of judgment. A strict regard to his rights and duties as a sovereign was his sole guide, next to his religious principles, in dictating his conduct towards the Church. In Spain some reforms were being then introduced, based essentially on the doctrines and hierarchical constitution of the mediaeval Church. Stricter discipline, in particular, was observed with regard to the clergy and monks, who were admonished to attend more faithfully to their duties of promoting the moral and religious welfare of the people; and the result was seen in a revival of popular interest in the forms and ordinances of religion. Furthermore, the crown enjoyed certain rights independently of the Roman Curia: an absolute monarchy was here ingeniously united with Papal absolutism. Such a union, however, sufficed in itself to make any severance of the German Church from the Papacy impossible under Charles V. The unity of his dominions was bound up with the unity of the Catholic Church, to which his subjects, alike in Spain and Germany, belonged. Added to this, he had to consider his foreign policy. Provoked as he had been by Leo X., who had leagued with France to prevent his election, still, with menaces of war from France, he saw the prudence of cultivating friendship, and contracting, if possible, an alliance with the Pope. The pressure desirable for this purpose could now be supplied by means of the very danger with which the Papacy was threatened by the great German heresy, and against which Rome so sorely needed the aid of a temporal power. At the same time, Charles was far too astute to allow his regard for the Pope, and his desire for the unity of the Church, to entangle his policy in measures for which his own power was inadequate, or by which his authority might be shaken, and possibly destroyed. Strengthened as was his monarchical power in Spain, in Germany he found it hemmed in and fettered by the Estates of the Empire and the whole contexture of political relations.

Such were the main points of view which determined for Charles V. his conduct towards Luther and his cause. Luther thus was at least a passive sharer in the game of high policy, ecclesiastical and temporal, now being played, and had to pursue his own course accordingly.

The imperial court was quickly enough acquainted with the state of feeling in Germany. The Emperor showed himself prudent at this juncture, and accessible to opinions differing from his own, however small cause his proclamations gave to the friends of Luther to hope for any positive act of favour on his part.

Whilst Charles was on his way up the Rhine, to hold, at the beginning of the New Year, a Diet at Worms, the Elector Frederick approached him with the request that Luther should at least be heard before the Emperor took any proceedings against him. The Emperor informed him in reply that he might bring Luther for this purpose to Worms, promising that the monk should not be molested. The Elector, however, felt doubts on this point: possibly he thought of the danger to which Huss had been exposed at Constance. But Luther, to whom he announced through Spalatin the Emperor's offer, replied immediately, 'If I am summoned, I will, so far as I am concerned, come; even if I have to be carried there ill; for no man can doubt that, if the Emperor calls me, I am called by the Lord.' Violence, he said, would no doubt be offered him; but God still lived, who had delivered the three youths from the fiery furnace at Babylon, and if it was not His will that he should be saved, his head was of little value. There was one thing only to beseech of God, that the Emperor might not commence his reign by shedding innocent blood to shield ungodliness: he would far rather perish by the hands of the Romanists alone. Some time before, Luther had thought of a place to fly to, in case it were impossible to stay at Wittenberg; Bohemia was always open to him. But now he roundly declared, 'I will not fly, still less can I recant.'

Meanwhile the Emperor began to reflect whether Luther, who lay already under the ban and interdict, ought to be admitted to the place of the Diet. As to what proceedings should be taken against him, if he came, long, wavering, and anxious negotiations now took place between the Emperor, the Estates, and the legate Aleander, at Worms, where the Estates assembled in January, and the Diet was opened on the 28th.

A Papal brief demanded the Emperor to enforce the bull, by which Luther was now definitely condemned, by an imperial edict. In vain, he wrote, had God girded him with the sword of supreme earthly power, if he did not use it against heretics, who were even worse than infidels. His advisers, however, were agreed in the conviction that he could not move in this matter without the consent of his Estates. Aleander sought to gain them over in an elaborate harangue. He, according to whose principles the appeal to a Council was a crime, cleverly diverted from himself the comparison and retort which his present arguments suggested, and insisted all the more on his complaint, that Luther always despised the authority of Councils and would take no correction from anyone. Glapio, then the Emperor's confessor and diplomatist, addressed himself, with expressions of wonderful friendship, to Frederick's chancellor, Bruck. Even he found much that was good in Luther's writings, but the contents of his book, the 'Babylonian Captivity,' were detestable. All that need be done was that Luther should disclaim or retract that offensive work, so that what was good in his writings might bear fruit for the Church, and Luther, together with the Emperor, might co-operate in the work of true reform. He might be invited to meet some learned, impartial men at a suitable place, and submit himself to their judgment. This, at all events, would be a happy means of preventing his having to appear before the Emperor and the Estates of the Empire, and if he persisted in refusing to recant, of deciding then and there his fate. We must leave it an open question, how far Glapio still seriously thought it possible, by dint of threats and entreaties, to utilise Luther for effecting a reform in the Spanish sense, and as an instrument against any Pope who should prove hostile to the Emperor. But the Elector Frederick would undertake no responsibility in this dark design: he refused flatly to grant to Glapio the private audience he desired.

The Emperor acceded so far to the urgency of the Pope as to cause a draft mandate to be laid before the Estates, proposing that Luther should be arrested, and his protectors punished for high treason. The Frankfort deputy wrote home: 'The monk makes plenty of work. Some would gladly crucify him, and I fear he will hardly escape them; only they must take care that he does not rise again on the third day.' After seven days' excited debate in the Diet, in which the Elector took a prominent and lively part, an answer to the imperial mandate was at length agreed upon, offering for consideration 'whether, inasmuch as Luther's preaching, doctrines, and writings had awakened among the common people all kinds of thoughts, fancies, and desires, any good result or advantage would accrue from issuing the mandate alone in all its stringency, without first having cited Luther before them and heard him.' At the same time, his examination was to be so far restricted, that no discussion with him should be allowed, but simply the question put to him, 'whether or not he intended to insist upon the writings he had published against our holy Christian faith.' If he retracted them, he should be heard further on other points and matters, and dealt with in all equity upon them. If, on the contrary, he persisted in all or any of the articles at variance with the faith, then all the Estates of the Empire should, without further disputation, adhere to and help to maintain the faith handed down by their fathers, and the imperial edict should then go abroad throughout the land.

The Emperor, accordingly, on March 6, issued a citation to Luther, summoning him to Worms, to give 'information concerning his doctrines and books.' An imperial herald was sent to conduct him. In the event of his disobeying the citation, or refusing to retract, the Estates declared their consent to treat him as an open heretic.

Luther, therefore, had to renounce at once all hope of having the truth touching his articles of faith tested fairly at Worms by the standard of God's word in Scripture. Spalatin indicated to him the points on which, according to Glapio's statement, he would in any case be expected to make a public recantation.

It remained still doubtful, however, how far those articles would be extended, and how far the 'other points' might be stretched, or possibly be made the subject of further and profitable discussion, if he submitted in respect to the former. Glapio had made no reference to the question of the patristic belief in the infallibility of the Pope, or his absolute power over the Church collectively and her Councils: even the Papal nuncio himself had not ventured to touch on these subjects. There was room enough for the more liberal and independent principles entertained on these points by the members of the earlier reforming Councils, if only Luther had not disputed their authority with that of Councils altogether. The ecclesiastical abuses, against which the Diet had already remonstrated to the Pope, were just now at Worms the subject of general and bitter complaint. The imposts levied by Rome on ecclesiastical benefices and fiefs, mere outward symbols of supremacy it is true, but highly important to the Pope, swallowed up enormous sums; while the Empire hardly knew how to scrape together a miserable subsidy for the newly organised government and the expenses of justice, and men talked openly of retaining these Papal tributes, notwithstanding all protests from Rome, for these purposes. Even faithful adherents of the old Church system, like Duke George of Saxony, demanded a comprehensive reformation of the clergy, whose scandals were so destructive of religion, and, as the best means to effect this reformation, a General Council of the Church. Aleander had to report to Rome, that all parties were unanimous in this desire, so hateful to the Pope himself, and that the Germans wished to have the Council in their own country.

Luther formed his resolve at once on the two points required of him. He determined to obey the summons to the Diet, and, if there unconvicted of error, to refuse the recantation demanded.

The Emperor's citation was delivered to him on March 26 by the imperial herald, Kaspar Sturm, who was to accompany him to Worms. Within twenty-one days after its receipt, Luther was to appear before the Emperor; he was due therefore at Worms on April 16, at the latest.

Up till now he had continued uninterruptedly his arduous and multifarious labours, and, to use his own expression, like Nehemiah he carried on at once the work of peace and of war; he built with one hand, and wielded the sword with the other. His controversy with Catharinus he brought quickly to a conclusion. During March he finished the first part of his Exposition of the Gospel as read in church, which he had undertaken, as a peaceful and edifying work, at the request of the Elector, to whom he wrote a dedication; and he was now at work on a fervent and tender practical explanation of the Magnificat, which he had intended for his devoted friend, Prince John Frederick, the son of Duke John and nephew of the Elector Frederick. He addressed a short letter to him on March 31, enclosing the first printed sheets of this treatise; and the next day sent him the epilogue, addressed to his friend Link, to his reply to Catharinus, dedicated also to Link. 'I know,' he says here, 'and am certain, that our Lord Jesus Christ still lives and rules. Upon this knowledge and assurance I rely, and therefore I will not fear ten thousand Popes; for He Who is with us is greater than he who is in the world.'

On the following day, April 2, the Tuesday after Easter, he set out on his way to Worms. His friend Amsdorf and the Pomeranian nobleman Peter Swaven, who was then studying at Wittenberg, accompanied him. He took with him also, according to the rules of the Order, a brother of the Order, John Pezensteiner. The Wittenberg magistracy provided carriages and horses.

The way led past Leipzig, through Thuringia from Naumburg to Eisenach, then southward past Berka, Hersfeld, Grunberg, Friedberg, Frankfort, and Oppenheim. The herald rode on before in his coat of arms, and announced the man whose word had everywhere so mightily stirred the minds of people, and for whose future behaviour and fate friend and foe were alike anxious. Everywhere people collected to catch a glimpse of him.

On April 6 he was very solemnly received at Erfurt. The large majority of the university there were by this time full of enthusiasm for his cause. His friend Crotus, on his return from Italy, had been chosen Rector. The ban of excommunication had not been published by the university, and had been thrown into the water by the students. Justus Jonas was foremost in zeal; and even Erasmus, his honoured friend, had no longer been able to restrain him. Lange and others were active in preaching among the people.

Jonas hastened to Weimar to meet Luther on his approach. Forty members of the university, with the Rector at their head, went on horseback, accompanied by a number of others on foot, to welcome him at the boundary of the town. Luther had also a small retinue with him. Crotus expressed to him the infinite pleasure it was to see him, the great champion of the faith; whereupon Luther answered, that he did not deserve such praise, but he thanked them for their love. The poet Eoban also stammered out, as he said of himself, a few words; he afterwards described the progress in a set of Latin songs.

The following day, a Sunday, Luther spent at Erfurt. He preached there, in the church of the Augustine convent, a sermon which has been preserved. Beginning with the words, of the Gospel of the day, 'Peace be unto you,' he spoke of the peace which we find through Christ the Redeemer, by faith in whom and in his work of salvation we are justified, without any works or merit of our own; of the freedom with which Christians may act in faith and love; and of the duty of every man, who possessed this peace of God, so to order his work and conduct, that it shall be useful not only to himself but to his neighbour. This he said in protest against the justification by works taught by most preachers, against the system of Papal commands, and against the wisdom of heathen teachers, of an Aristotle or a Plato. Of his present personal position and the difficult path he had now to tread, he took no thought, but only of the general obligation he was under, whatever other men might teach; 'I will speak the truth and must speak it; for that reason I am here, and take no money for it.' During the sermon a crash was suddenly heard in the overweighted balconies of the crowded church, the doors of which were blocked with multitudes eager to hear him. The crowd were about to rush out in a panic, when Luther exclaimed, 'I know thy wiles, thou Satan,' and quieted the congregation with the assurance that no danger threatened, it was only the devil who was carrying on his wicked sport.

Luther also preached in the Augustine convents at Gotha and Eisenach. At Gotha the people thought it significant that after the sermon the devil tore off some stones from the gable of the church.

In the inns Luther liked to refresh himself with music, and often took up the lute.

At Eisenach, however, he was seized with an attack of illness, and had to be bled. From Frankfort he writes to Spalatin, who was then at Worms, that he felt since then a degree of suffering and weakness unknown to him before.

On the way he found a new imperial edict posted up, which ordered all his books to be seized, as having been condemned by the Pope and being contrary to the Christian faith. Charles V. by this edict had given satisfaction again to the legates, who were annoyed at Luther being summoned to Worms. Many doubted whether Luther, after this condemnation of his cause by the Emperor, would venture to present himself in person at Worms. He himself was alarmed, but travelled on.

Meanwhile at Worms disquietude and suspense prevailed on both sides. Hutten from the Castle of Ebernburg sent threatening and angry letters to the Papal legates, who became really anxious lest a blow might be struck from that quarter. Aleander complained that Sickingen now was king in Germany, since he could command a following whenever and as large as he pleased. But in truth he was in no case ready for an attack at that moment. He still reckoned on being able, with his Church sympathies, to remain the Emperor's friend, and was just now on the point of taking a post of military command in his service. Some anxious friends of Luther's were afraid that, according to Papal law, the safe-conduct would not be observed in the case of a condemned heretic. Spalatin himself sent from Worms a second warning to Luther after he had left Frankfort, intimating that he would suffer the fate of Huss.

Meanwhile Glapio, on the other side, no doubt with the knowledge and consent of his imperial master, made one more attempt in a very unexpected manner to influence Luther, or at least to prevent him from going to Worms. He went with the imperial chamberlain, Paul von Armsdorf, to Sickingen and Hutten at the Castle of Ebernburg, spoke of Luther as he had formerly done to Bruck, in an unconstrained and friendly manner, and offered to hold a peaceable interview with Luther in Sickingen's presence. Armsdorf at the same time earnestly dissuaded Hutten from his attacks and threats against the legates, and made him the offer of an imperial pension if he would desist. Had Luther agreed to this proposal and gone to the Ebernburg, he could not have reached Worms in time; the safe-conduct promised him would have been no longer valid, and the Emperor would have been free to act against him. Nevertheless Sickingen entered into the proposal. The danger threatening Luther at Worms must have appeared still greater to him, and Luther could then have enjoyed the protection of his castle, which he had offered him before. Martin Butzer, the theologian from Schlettstadt, happened then to be with Sickingen; he had already met Luther at Heidelberg in 1518, had then learned to know him, and had embraced his opinions. He was now commissioned to convey this invitation to him at Oppenheim, which lay on Luther's road.

But Luther continued on his way. He told Butzer that Glapio would be able to speak with him at Worms. To Spalatin he replied, though Huss were burnt, yet the truth was not burnt; he would go to Worms, though there were as many devils there as there were tiles on the roofs of the houses.

On April 16, at ten o'clock in the morning, Luther entered Worms. He sat in an open carriage with his three companions from Wittenberg, clothed in his monk's habit. He was accompanied by a large number of men on horseback, some of whom, like Jonas, had joined him earlier in his journey, others, like some gentlemen belonging to the Elector's court, had ridden out from Worms to receive him. The imperial herald rode on before. The watchman blew a horn from the tower of the cathedral on seeing the procession approach the gate. Thousands streamed hither to see Luther. The gentlemen of the court escorted him into the house of the Knights of St. John, where he lodged with two counsellors of the Elector. As he stepped from his carriage he said, 'God will be with me.' Aleander, writing to Rome, said that he looked around with the eyes of a demon.

Crowds of distinguished men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who were anxious to know him personally, flocked daily to see him.

On the evening of the following day he had to appear before the Diet, which was assembled in the Bishop's palace, the residence of the Emperor, not far from where Luther was lodging. He was conducted thither by side streets, it being impossible to get through the crowds assembled in the main thoroughfare to see him. On his way into the hall where the Diet was assembled, tradition tells us how the famous warrior, George von Frundsberg, clapped him on the shoulder, and said: 'My poor monk! my poor monk! thou art on thy way to make such a stand as I and many of my knights have never done in our toughest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then forward in the name of God, and be of good courage—God will not forsake thee.' The Elector had given Luther as his advocate the lawyer Jerome Schurf, his Wittenberg colleague and friend.



When at length, after waiting two hours, Luther was admitted to the Diet, Eck, [Footnote: This Eck must not be confused with the other John Eck, the theologian.] the official of the Archbishop of Treves, put to him simply, in the name of the Emperor, two questions, whether he acknowledged the books (pointing to them on a bench beside him) to be his own, and next, whether he would retract their contents or persist in them. Schurf here exclaimed, 'Let the titles of the books be named.' Eck then read them out. Among them there were some merely edifying writings, such as 'A Commentary on the Lord's Prayer,' which had never been made the subject of complaint.

Luther was not prepared for this proceeding, and possibly the first sight of the august assembly made him nervous. He answered in a low voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since the question as to their contents concerned the highest of all things, the Word of God and the salvation of souls, he must beware of giving a rash answer, and must therefore humbly entreat further time for consideration.

After a short deliberation the Emperor instructed Eck to reply that he would, out of his clemency, grant him a respite till the next day.

So Luther had again, on April 18, a Thursday, to appear before the Diet. Again he had to wait two hours, till six o'clock. He stood there in the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and cheerfully with the ambassador of the Diet, Peutinger, his patron at Augsburg.

After he was called in, Eck began by reproaching him for having wanted time for consideration. He then put the second question to him in a form more befitting and more conformable with the wishes of the members of the Diet: 'Wilt thou defend all the books acknowledged by thee to be thine, or recant some part?' Luther now answered with firmness and modesty, in a well-considered speech. He divided his works into three classes. In some of them he had set forth simple evangelical truths, professed alike by friend and foe. Those he could on no account retract. In others he had attacked corrupt laws and doctrines of the Papacy, which no one could deny had miserably vexed and martyred the consciences of Christians, and had tyrannically devoured the property of the German nation; if he were to retract these books, he would make himself a cloak for wickedness and tyranny. In the third class of his books he had written against individuals, who endeavoured to shield that tyranny, and to subvert godly doctrine. Against these he freely confessed that he had been more violent than was befitting. Yet even these writings it was impossible for him to retract, without lending a hand to tyranny and godlessness. But in defence of his books he could only say in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?' If anyone could do so, let him produce his evidence and confute him from the sacred writings, the Old Testament and the Gospel, and he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. And now, as in the course of his speech he had sounded a new challenge to the Papacy, so he concluded by an earnest warning to Emperor and Empire, lest by endeavouring to promote peace by a condemnation of the Divine Word, they might; rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils, and thus give an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of the noble young Emperor. He said not these things as if the great personages who heard him stood in any need of his admonitions, but because it was a duty that he owed to his native Germany, and he could not neglect to discharge it.

Luther, like Eck, spoke in Latin, and then, by desire, repeated his speech with equal firmness in German. Schurf, who was standing by his side, declared afterwards with pride, 'how Martin had made this answer with such bravery and modest candour, with eyes upraised to Heaven, that he and everyone was astonished.'

The princes held a short consultation after this harangue. Then Eck, commissioned by the Emperor, sharply reproved him for having spoken impertinently and not really answered the question put to him. He rejected his demand that evidence from Scripture might be brought against him, by declaring that his heresies had already been condemned by the Church, and in particular by the Council of Constance, and such judgments must suffice if anything were to be held settled in Christianity. He promised him, however, if he would retract the offensive articles, that his other writings should be fairly dealt with, and finally demanded a plain answer 'without horns' to the question, whether he intended to adhere to all he had written, or would retract any part of it.

To this Luther replied he would give an answer 'with neither horns nor teeth.' Unless he were refuted by proofs from Scripture, or by evident reason, his conscience bound him to adhere to the Word of God which he had quoted in his defence. Popes and Councils, as was clear, had often erred and contradicted themselves. He could, not, therefore, and he would not, retract anything, for it was neither safe nor honest to act against one's conscience.

Eck exchanged only a few more words with him in reply to his assertion that Councils had erred. 'You cannot prove that, 'said Eck. 'I will pledge myself to do it,' was Luther's answer. Pressed and threatened by his enemy, he concluded with the famous words: 'Here I stand, I can do, no otherwise. God help me. Amen.'

The Emperor reluctantly broke up the Diet, at about eight o'clock in the evening. Darkness had meanwhile come on; the hall was lighted with torches, and the audience were in a state of general excitement and agitation. Luther was led out; whereupon an uproar arose among the Germans, who thought that he had been taken prisoner. As he stood among the heated crowd, Duke Erich of Brunswick sent him a silver tankard of Eimbeck beer, after having first drank of it himself.

On reaching his lodging, 'Luther,' to use the words of a Nuremberger present there, 'stretched out his hands, and with a joyful countenance exclaimed, "I am through! I am through!"' Spalatin says: 'He entered the lodging so courageous, comforted and joyful in the Lord, that he said before others and myself, "if he had a thousand heads, he would rather have them all cut off than make one recantation.' He relates also how the Elector Frederick, before his supper, sent for him from Luther's dwelling, took him into his room and expressed to him his astonishment, and delight at Luther's speech. 'How excellently did, Father Martin speak both in Latin and German before the Emperor and the Orders. He was bold enough, if not too much so.' The Emperor, on the contrary, had been so little impressed by Luther's personality, and had understood so little of it, that he fancied the writings ascribed to him must have been written by some one else. Many of his Spaniards had pursued Luther, as he left the Diet, with hisses and shouts of scorn.

Luther, by refusing thus point-blank to retract, effectually destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church who still wished for reform. Nor was any union possible with those who, while looking to a truly representative Council as the best safeguard against the tyranny of a Pope, were anxious also to obtain at such a Council a secure and final settlement of all questions of Christian faith and morals. It was these very Councils about which Eck purposely called on Luther for a declaration; and Luther's words on this point might well have been considered by the Elector as 'too bold.' Aleander, who had used such efforts to prevent Luther's being heard, was now well satisfied with the result. But Luther remained faithful to himself. True it was that he had often formerly spoken of yielding in mere externals, and of the duty of living in love and harmony, and respecting the weaknesses of others; and his conduct during the elaboration of his own Church system will show us how well he knew to accommodate himself to the time, and, where perfection was impossible, to be content with what was imperfect. But the question here was not about externals, or whether a given proceeding were judicious or not for the attainment of an object admittedly good. It was a question of confessing or denying the truth—the highest and holiest truths, as he expressed it, relating to God and the salvation of man. In this matter his conscience was bound.

And the trial thus offered for his endurance was not yet over. On the morning of the 19th, the Emperor sent word to the Estates, that he would now send Luther back hi safety to Wittenberg, but treat him as a heretic. The majority insisted on attempting further negotiations with him through a Committee specially appointed. These were conducted accordingly by the Elector of Treves, to whom Frederick the Wise and Miltitz had once been anxious to submit Luther's affair. The friendliness, and the visible interest in his cause, with which Luther now was urged, was more calculated to move him than Eck's behaviour at the Diet. He himself bore witness afterwards how the Archbishop had shown himself more than gracious to him, and would willingly have arranged matters peaceably. Instead of being urged simply to retract all his propositions condemned by the Pope, or his writings directed against the Papacy, he was referred in particular to those articles in which he rejected the decisions of the Council of Constance. He was desired to submit in confidence to a verdict of the Emperor and the Empire, when his books should be submitted to judges beyond suspicion. After that he should at least accept the decision of a future Council, unfettered by any acknowledgment of the previous sentence of the Pope. So freely and independently of the Pope did this Committee of the German Diet, including several bishops and Duke George of Saxony, proceed in negotiating with a Papal heretic. But everything was shipwrecked on Luther's firm reservation that the decision must not be contrary to the Word of God; and on that question his conscience would not allow him to renounce the right of judging for himself. After two days' negotiations, he thus, on April 25, according to Spalatin, declared himself to the Archbishop: 'Most gracious Lord, I cannot yield; it must happen with me as God wills;' and continued: 'I beg of your Grace that you will obtain for me the gracious permission of His Imperial Majesty that I may go home again, for I have now been here for ten days and nothing yet has been effected.' Three hours later the Emperor sent word to Luther that he might return to the place he came from, and should be given a safe-conduct for twenty-one days, but would not be allowed to preach on the way.

Free residence, however, and protection at Wittenberg, in case Luther were condemned by the Empire, was more than even Frederick the Wise would be able to assure him. But he had already laid his plan for the emergency. Spalatin refers to it in these words: 'Now was my most gracious, Lord somewhat disheartened; he was certainly fond of Dr. Martin, and was also most unwilling to act against the Word of God, or to bring upon himself the displeasure of the Emperor. Accordingly, he devised means how to get Dr. Martin out of the way for a time, until matters might be quietly settled, and caused Luther also to be informed, the evening before he left Worms, of his scheme for getting him out of the way. At this Dr. Martin, out of deference to his Elector, was submissively content, though, certainly, then and at all times he would much rather have gone courageously to the attack.'

The very next morning, Friday the 26th, Luther departed. The imperial herald went behind him, so as not to attract notice. They took the usual road to Eisenach. At Friedberg Luther dismissed the herald, giving him a letter to the Emperor and the Estates, in which he defended his conduct at Worms, and his refusal to trust in the decision of men, by saying that when God's Word and things eternal were at stake, one's trust and dependence should be placed, not on one man or many men, but on God alone. At Hersfeld, where Abbot Crato, in spite of the ban, received him with all marks of honour, and again at Eisenach, he preached, notwithstanding the Emperor's prohibition, not daring to let the Word of God be bound. From Eisenach, whilst Swaven, Schurf, and several other of his companions went straight on, he struck southward, together with Amsdorf and Brother Pezensteiner, in order to go and see his relations at Mohra. Here, after spending the night at the house of his uncle Heinz, he preached the next morning, Saturday, May 4. Then, accompanied by some of his relations, he took the road through Schweina, past the Castle of Altenstein, and then across the back of the Thuringian Forest to Waltershausen and Gotha. Towards evening, when near Altenstein, he bade leave of his relations. About half an hour farther on, at a spot where the road enters the wooded heights, and ascending between hills along a brook, leads to an old chapel, which even then was in ruins, and has now quite disappeared, armed horsemen attacked the carriage, ordered it to stop with threats and curses, pulled Luther out of it, and then hurried him away at full speed. Pezensteiner had run away as soon as he saw them approach. Amsdorf and the coachman were allowed to pass on; the former was in the secret, and pretended to be terrified, to avoid any suspicion on the part of his companion. The Wartburg lay to the north, about eight miles distant, and had been the starting-point of the horsemen, as it now was their goal; but precaution made them ride first in an eastern direction with Luther. The coachman afterwards related how Luther in the haste of the flight dropped a grey hat he had worn. And now Luther 'was given a horse to ride. The night was dark, and about eleven o'clock they arrived at the stately castle, situated above Eisenach. Here he was to be kept as a knight-prisoner. The secret was kept as strictly as possible towards friend and foe. For many weeks afterwards even Frederick's brother John had no idea of it, on the contrary, he wrote to Frederick that Luther, he had heard, was residing at one of Sickingen's castles. Among his friends and followers the terrible news had spread, immediately upon his capture, that he had been made away with by his enemies.

At Worms, however, while the Pope was concluding an alliance with Charles against France, the Papal legate Aleander, by commission of the Emperor, prepared the edict against Luther on the 8th of May. It was not, however, until the 25th, after Frederick, the Elector of the Palatinate, and a great part of the other members of the Diet had already left, that it was deemed advisable to have it communicated to the rest of the Estates; nevertheless it was antedated the 8th, and issued 'by the unanimous advice of the Electors and Estates.' It pronounced upon Luther, applying the customary strong expressions of Papal bulls, the ban and re-ban; no one was to receive him any longer, or feed him &c., but wherever he was found, he was to be seized and handed over to the Emperor.



PART IV.

FROM THE DIET OF WORMS TO THE PEASANTS' WAR AND LUTHER'S MARRIAGE.



CHAPTER I.

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

Luther, after being brought to the fortress, had to live there as a knight-prisoner. He was called Squire George, he grew a stately beard, and doffed his monk's cowl for the dress of a knight, with a sword at his side. The governor of the castle, Herr von Berlepsch, entertained him with all honour, and he was liberally supplied with food and drink. He was free to go about as he pleased in the apartments of the castle, and was permitted, in the company of a trusty servant, to take rides and walks out of doors. Thus, as he writes to a friend, he sat up aloft, in the region of the birds, as a curious prisoner, nolens volens, whether he willed or no; willing, because God would have it so, not willing, because he would far rather have stood up for the Word of God in public, but of such an honour God had not yet found him worthy.



Care was also taken at once that he should be able to correspond at least by letter with his friends, and especially with those at Wittenberg. These letters were sent by messengers of the Elector through the hands of Spalatin. When Luther afterwards heard that a rumour had got abroad as to his place of residence, he sent a letter to Spalatin, in which he said: 'A report, so I hear, is spread that Luther is staying at the Wartburg near Eisenach; the people suppose this to be the case, because I was taken prisoner in the wood below; but while they believe that, I sit here safely hidden. If the books that I publish betray me, then I shall change my abode; it is very strange that nobody thinks of Bohemia.' This letter, so Luther thought, Spalatin might let fall into the hands of some of his spying opponents, so as to lead them astray in their conjecture. Spalatin made no use of this naive attempt at trickery. He could hardly have done much in the matter, and would probably have directed those who saw through the meaning of the letter straight to the Wartburg. He succeeded, however, remarkably well in keeping the spot a secret, even after it was generally guessed and known that Luther was to be found somewhere in Saxony. As late as 1528, Luther's friend Agricola remarks that he had hitherto remained concealed, whilst some even sought to hear of him by questioning of the devil; and more than twenty years later Luther's opponent Cochlaeus declares that he was hidden at Alstedt in Thuringia.

There was no imperial power at that time which might have deemed it necessary or expedient to track out the man who had been condemned by the Edict of Worms. The Emperor had left Germany again, and was engaged in a war with France.

In his quiet solitude Luther threw himself again without delay into the work of his calling, so far as he could here perform it. This was the study of Scripture and the active exercise of his own pen in the service of God's Word. He had now more time than before to investigate the meaning of the Bible in its original languages. 'I sit here,' he writes to Spalatin ten days after his arrival, 'the whole day at leisure, and read the Greek and Hebrew Bible.'

His sojourn at the castle began in the festival time between Easter and Whitsuntide. He wrote at once an exposition of the sixty-eighth Psalm, with particular reference to the events of Ascension and Whitsuntide.

For the liberation of the laity from the Papal yoke, he set at once further to work by composing a treatise 'On Confession, whether the Pope has power to order it.' He commends confession, when a man humbles himself and, receives forgiveness of God through the lips of a Christian brother, but he denounces any compulsion in the matter, and warns men against priests who pervert it into a means of increasing their own power. He now expressed his public thanks to Sickingen, and dedicated the book to him—'To the just and firm Francis von Sickingen, my especial lord and patron.' In this dedication he repeats the fears he had long expressed of the judgment that the clergy would bring upon themselves by their hatred of improvement and their obstinacy. 'I have,' he says, 'often offered peace, I have offered them an answer, I have disputed, but all has been of no avail: I have met with no justice, but only with vain malice and violence, nothing more. I have been simply called on to retract, and threatened with every evil if I refused.' Then speaking of the critical moment at which he was obliged to withdraw, 'I can do no more,' he says, 'I am now out of the game. They have now time to change that which cannot, and should not, and will not be tolerated from them any longer. If they refuse to make the change, another will make it for them, without their thanks, one who will not teach like Luther with letters and words, but with deeds. Thank God, the fear and awe of those rogues at Borne is now less than it was.' And again, speaking of Roman insolence: 'They push on blindly ahead—there is no listening or reasoning. Well, I have seen; more water-bubbles than even theirs, and once such an outrageous smoke that it managed to blot out the sun, but the smoke never lasted, and the sun still shines. I shall continue to keep the truth bright and expose it, and am as far from fearing my ungracious masters as they are ready to despise me.'