Phila delphia > The History of Protestantism by J. A. Wylie Web WStS  powered by Google™

THE history of the Reformation in Germany once more claims our consideration. The great movement of the human soul from bondage, which so grandly characterised the sixteenth century, we have already traced in its triumphant march from the cell of the Augustine monk to the foot of the throne of Charles V., from the door of the Schlosskirk at Wittenberg to the gorgeous hall of Worms, crowded with the powers and principalities of Western Europe.

The moment is one of intensest interest, for it has landed us, we feel, on the threshold of a new development of the grand drama. On both sides a position has been taken up from which there is no retreat; and a collision, in which one or other of the parties must perish, now appears inevitable. The new forces of light and liberty, speaking through the mouth of their chosen champion, have said, "Here we stand, we cannot go back." The old forces of superstition and despotism, interpreting themselves through their representatives, the Pope and the emperor, have said with equal emphasis, "You shall not advance."

The hour is come, and the decisive battle which is to determine whether liberty or bondage awaits the world cannot be postponed. The lists have been set, the combatants have taken their places, the signal has been given; another moment and we shall hear the sound of the terrible blows, as they echo and re-echo over the field on which the champions close in deadly strife. But instead of the shock of battle, suddenly a deep stillness descends upon the scene, and the combatants on both sides stand motionless. He who looketh on the sun and it shineth not has issued His command to suspend the conflict. As of old "the cloud" has removed and come between the two hosts, so that they come not near the one to the other.

But why this pause? If the battle had been joined that moment, the victory, according to every reckoning of human probabilities, would have remained with the old powers. The adherents of the new were not yet ready to go forth to war. They were as yet immensely inferior in numbers. Their main unfitness, however, did not lie there, but in this, that they lacked their weapons. The arms of the other were always ready. They leaned upon the sword, which they had already unsheathed. The weapon of the other was knowledge–the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. That sword had to be prepared for them: the Bible had to be translated; and when finally equipped with this armor, then would the soldiers of the Reformation go forth to battle, prepared to withstand all the hardships of the campaign, and finally to come victorious out of the "great fight of afflictions" which they were to be called, though not just yet, to wage.

If, then, the great voice which had spoken in Germany, and to which kings, electoral princes, dukes, prelates, cities and universities, had listened, and the mighty echoes of which had come back from far-distant lands, was now silent, it was that a Greater voice might be heard. Men must be prepared for that voice. All meaner sounds must be hushed. Man had spoken, but in this silence God Himself was to speak to men, directly from His own Word.

Let us first cast a glance around on the political world. It was the age of great monarchs. Master of Spain, and of many other realms in both the Eastern and the Western world, and now also possessor of the imperial diadem, was the taciturn, ambitious, plodding, and politic Charles V. Francis I., the most polished, chivalrous, and war-like knight of his time, governed France. The self-willed, strong-minded, and cold-hearted Henry VIII. was swaying the scepter in England, and dealing alternate blows, as humor and policy moved him, to Rome and to the Reformation. The wise Frederick was exercising kingly power in Saxony, and by his virtues earning a lasting fame for himself, and laying the foundation of lasting power for his house. The elegant, self-indulgent, and sceptical Leo X. was master of the ceremonies at Rome. Asia owned the scepter of Soliman the Magnificent. Often were his hordes seen hovering, like a cloud charged with lightning, on the frontier of Christendom. When a crisis arose in the affairs of the Refomnation, and the kings obedient to the Roman See had united their swords to strike, and with blow so decisive that they should not need to strike a second time, the Turk, obeying One Whom he knew not, would straightway present himself on the eastern limits of Europe, and in so menacing an attitude, that the swords unsheathed against the poor Protestants had to be turned in another quarter. The Turk was the lightning-rod that drew off the tempest. Thus did Christ cover His little flock with the shield of the Moslem.

The material resources at the command of these potentates were immense. They were the lords of the nations and the leaders of the armies of Christendom. It was in the midst of these ambitions and policies, that it seemed good to the Great Disposer that the tender plant of Protestantism should grow up. One wonders that in such a position it was able to exist a single day. The Truth took root and flourished, so to speak, in the midst of a hurricane. How was this? Where had it defense? The very passions that warred like great tempests around it, became its defense. Its foes were made to check and counter-check each other. Their furious blows fell not upon the truths at which they were aimed, and which they were meant to extirpate; they fell upon themselves. Army was dashed against army; monarch fell before monarch; one terrible tempest from this quarter met another terrible tempest from the opposite quarter, and thus the intrigues and assaults of kings and statesmen became a bulwark around the principle which it was the object of these mighty ones to undermine and destroy. Now it is the arm of her great persecutor, Charles V., that is raised to defend the Church, and now it is beneath the shadow of Soliman the Turk that she finds asylum. How visible the hand of God! How marvellous His providence!

Luther never wore sword in his life, except when he figured as Knight George in the Wartburg, and yet he never lacked sword to defend him when he was in danger. He was dismissed from the Diet at Worms with two powerful weapons unsheathed above his head – the excommunication of the Pope and the ban of the emperor. One is enough surely; with both swords bared against him, how is it possible that he can escape destruction? Yet amid the hosts of his enemies, when they are pressing round him on every side, and are ready to swallow him up, he suddenly becomes invisible; he passes through the midst of them, and enters unseen the doors of his hiding-place.

This was Luther's second imprisonment. It was a not less essential part of his training for his great work than was his first. In his cell at Erfurt he had discovered the foundation on which, as a sinner, he must rest. In his prison of the Wartburg he is shown the one foundation on which the Church must be reared–the Bible. Other lessons was Luther here taught. The work appointed him demanded a nature strong, impetuous, and fearless; and such was the temperament with which he had been endowed. His besetting sin was to under-estimate difficulties, and to rush on, and seize the end before it was matured. How different from the prudent, patient, and circumspect Zwingli! The Reformer of Zurich never moved a step till he had prepared his way by instructing the people, and carrying their understandings and sympathies with him in the changes he proposed for their adoption. The Reformer of Wittenberg, on the other hand, in his eagerness to advance, would not only defy the strong, he at times trampled upon the weak, from lack of sympathy and considerateness for their infirmities. He assumed that others would see the point as clearly as he himself saw it. The astonishing success that had attended him so far – the Pope defied, the emperor vanquished, and nations rallying to him–was developing these strong characteristics to the neglect of those gentler, but more efficacious qualities, without which enduring success in a work like that in which he was engaged is unattainable. The servant of the Lord must not strive. His speech must distil as the dew. It was light that the world needed. This enforced pause was more profitable to the Reformer, and more profitable to the movement, than the busiest and most successful year of labor which even the great powers of Luther could have achieved.

He was now led to examine his own heart, and distinguish between what had been the working of passion, and what the working of the Spirit of God. Above all he was led to the Bible. His theological knowledge was thus extended and ripened. His nature was sanctified and enrichched, and if his impetuosity was abated, his real strength was in the same proportion increased. The study of the Word of God revealed to him likewise, what he was apt in his conflicts to overlook, that there was an edifice to be built up as well as one to be pulled down, and that this was the nobler work of the two.

The sword of the emperor was not the only peril from which the Wartburg shielded Luther. His triumph at Worms had placed him on a pinnacle where he stood in the sight of all Christendom. He was in danger of becoming giddy and falling into an abyss, and dragging down with him the cause he represented. Therefore was he suddenly withdrawn into a deep silence, where the plaudits with which the word was ringing could not reach him; where he was alone with God; and where he could not but feel his insignificance in the presence of the Eternal Majesty.

While Luther retires from view in the Wartburg, let us consider what is passing in the world. All its movements revolve around the one great central movement, which is Protestantism. The moment Luther entered within the gates of the Wartburg the political sky became overcast, and dark clouds rolled up in every quarter. First Soliman, "whom thirteen battles had rendered the terror of Germany,[1] made a sudden eruption into Europe. He gained many towns and castles, and took Belgrad, the bulwark of Hungary, situated at the confluence of the Danube and the Save. The States of the Empire, stricken with fear, hastily assembled at Nuremberg to concert measures for the defense of Christendom, and for the arresting of the victorious march of its terrible invader.[2] This was work enough for the princes. The execution of the emperor's edict against Luther, with which they had been charged, must lie over till they had found means of compelling Soliman and his hordes to return to their own land. Their swords were about to be unsheathed above Luther's head, when lo, some hundred thousand Turkish scimitars are unsheathed above theirs!

While this danger threatened in the East, another suddenly appeared in the South. News came from Spain that seditions had broken out in that country in the emperor's absence; and Charles V., leaving Luther for the time in peace, was compelled to hurry home by sea in order to compose the dissensions that distracted his hereditary dominions. He left Germany not a little disgusted at finding its princes so little obsequious to his will, and so much disposed to fetter him in the exercise of his imperial prerogative.

Matters were still more embroiled by the war that next broke out between Charles and Francis I. The opening scenes of the conflict lay in the Pyrenees, but the campaign soon passed into Italy, and the Pope joining his arms with those of the emperor, the Freneh lost the Duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Milan, which they had held for six years, and the misfortune was crowned by their being driven out of Lombardy. And now came sorrow to the Pope! Great was the joy of Leo X. at the expulsion of the French. His arms had triumphed, and Parma and Piacenza had been restored to the ecclesiastical State.[3] He received the tidings of this good fortune at his country seat of Malliana. Coming as they did on the back of the emperor's edict proscribing Luther, they threw him into an ecstacy of delight. The clouds that had lowered upon his house appeared to be dispersing. "He paced backwards and forwards, between the window and a blazing hearth, till deep into the night–it was the month of November."[4]

He watched the public rejoicings in honor of the victory. He hurried off to Rome, and reached it before the fetes there in course of celebration had ended. Scarce had he crossed the threshold of his palace when he was seized with illness. He felt that the hand of death was upon him. Turning to his attendants he said, "Pray for me, that I may yet make you all happy." The malady ran its course so rapidly that he died without the Sacrament. The hour of victory was suddenly changed into the hour of death, and the feux-de-joie were succeeded by funeral bells and mornming plumes. Leo had reigned with magnificence–he died deeply in debt, and was buried amid manifest contempt. The Romans, says Ranke, never forgave him "for dying without the Sacraments. They pursued his corpse to its grove with insult and reproach. 'Thou hast crept in like a fox,' they exclaimed, 'like a lion hast thou ruled us, and like a dog hast thou died.'"[5]

The nephew of the deceased Pope, Cardinal Giulio de Medici, aspired to succeed his uncle. But a more powerful house than that of Medici now claimed to dispose of the tiara. The monarchs of Spain were more potent factors in European affairs than the rich merchant of Florence. The conclave had lasted long, and Giulio de Medici, despairing of his own election, made a virtue of necessity, and proposed that the Cardinal of Tortosa, who had been Charles's tutor, should be elevated to the Pontificate. The person named was unknown to the cardinals. He was a native of Utrecht.[6] He was entirely without ambition, aged, austere.

Eschewing all show, he occupied himself wholly with his religious duties, and a faint smile was the nearest approach he ever made to mirth. Such was the man whom the cardinals, moved by some sudden and mysterious impulse, or it may be responsive to the touch of the imperial hand, united in raising to the Papal chair. He was in all points the opposite of the magnificent Leo.[7]

Adrian VI. – for under this title did he reign–was of humble birth, but his talents were good and his conduct was exemplary. He began his public life as professor at Louvain. He next became tutor to the Emperor Charles, by whose influence, joined to his own merits, he was made Cardinal of Tortosa. He was in Spain, on the emperor's business, when the news of his election reached him. The cardinals, who by this time were alarmed at their own deed, hoped the modest man would decline the dazzling post. They were disappointed. Adrian, setting out for Rome with his old housekeeper, took possession of the magnificent apartments which Leo had so suddenly vacated. He gazed with indifference, if not displeasure, upon the ancient masterpieces, the magnificent pictures, and glowing statuary, with which the exquisite taste and boundless prodigality of Leo had enriched the Vatican. The "Laocoon" was already there; but Adrian turned away from that wonderful group, which some have pronounced the chef-d'oeuvre of the chisel, with the cold remark, "They are the idols of the heathen." Of all the curious things in the vast museum of the Papal Palace, Adrian VI. was esteemed the most curious by the Romans. They knew not what to make of the new master the cardinals had given them. His coming (August, 1522) was like the descent of a cloud upon Rome; it was like an eclipse at noonday. There came a sudden collapse in the gaeties and spectacles of the Eternal City. For songs and masquerades, there were prayers and beads. "He will be the ruin of us," said the Romans of their new Pope.[8]

The humble, pious, sincere Adrian aspired to restore, not to overthrow the Papacy. His predecessor had thought to extinguish Luther's movement by the sword; the Hollander judged that he had found a better way. He proposed to suppress one Reformation by originating another. He began with a startling confession: "It is certain that the Pope may err in matters of faith in defending heresy by his opinions or decretals."[9] This admission, meant to be the starting-point of a moderate reform, is perhaps even more inconvenient at this day than when first made. The world long afterwards received the "Encyclical and Syllabus" of Pius IX., and the "Infallibility Decree" of July 18, 1870, which teach the exactly opposite doctrine, that the Pope cannot err in matters of faith and morals. If Adrian spoke true, it followsthat the Pope may err; if he spoke false, it equally follows that the Pope may err; and what then are we to make of the decree of the Vatican Council of 1870, which, looking backwards as well as forwards, declares that error is impossible on the part of the Pope?

Adrian wished to reform the Court of Rome as well as the system of the Papacy.[10] He set about purging the city of certain notorious classes, expelling the vices and filling it with the virtues. Alas! he soon found that he would leave few in Rome save himself. His reforms of the system fared just as badly, as the sequel will show us. If he touched an abuse, all who were interested in its maintenance–and they were legion–rose in arms to defend it. If he sought to loosen but one stone, the whole edifice began to totter. Whether these reforms would save Germany was extremely problematical: one thing was certain, they would lose Italy. Adrian, sighing over the impossibilities that surrounded him on every side, had to confess that this middle path was impracticable, and that his only choice lay between Luther's Reform on the one hand, and Charles V.'s policy on the other. He cast himself into the arms of Charles.

Our attention must again be directed to the Wartburg. While the Turk is thundering on the eastern border of Christendom, and Charles and Francis are fighting with one another in Italy, and Adrian is attempting impossible reforms at Rome, Luther is steadily working in his solitude. Seated on the ramparts of his castle, looking back on the storm from which he had just escaped, and feasting his eyes on the quiet forest glades and well-cultivated valleys spread out beneath him, his first days were passed in a delicious calm. By-and-by he grew ill in body and troubled in mind, the result most probably of the sudden transition from intense excitement to profound inaction. He bitterly accused himself of idleness. Let us see what it was that Luther denominated idleness. "I have published," he writes on the 1st of November, "a little volume against that of Catharinus on Antichrist, a treatise in German on confession, a commentary in German on the 67th Psalm, and a consolation to the Church of Wittenberg. Moreover, I have in the press a commentary in German on the Epistles and Gospels for the year; I have just sent off a public reprimand to the Bishop of Mainz on the idol of Indulgences he has raised up again at Halle;[11] and I have finished a commentary on the Gospel story of the Ten Lepers. All these writings are in German."[12] This was the indolence in which he lived. From the region of the air, from the region of the birds, from the mountain, from the Isle of Patmos, from which he dated his letters, the Reformer saw all that was passing in the world beneath him. He scattered from his mountain-top, far and wide over the Fatherland, epistles, commentaries, and treatises, counsels and rebukes. It is a proof how alive he had become to the necessities of the times, that almost all his books in the Wartburg were written in German.

But a greater work than all these did Luther by-and-by set himself to do in his seclusion. There was one Book–the Book of books–specially needed at that particular stage of the movement, and that Book Luther wished his countrymen to possess in their mother tongue. He set about translating the New Testament from the original Greek into German; and despite his other vast labors, he prosecuted with almost superhuman energy this task, and finished it before he left the Wartburg. Attempts had been made in 1477, in 1490, and in 1518 to translate the Holy Bible from the Vulgate; but the rendering was so obscure, the printing so wretched, and the price so high, that few cared to procure these versions.[13] Amid the harassments of Wittenberg, Luther could not have executed this work; here he was able to do it. He had intended translating also the Old Testament from the original Hebrew, but the task was beyond his strength; he waited till he should be able to command learned assistance; and thankful he was that the same day that opened to him the gates of the Wartburg, found his translation of the New Testament completed.

But the work required revision, and after Luther's return to Wittenberg he went through it all, verse by verse, with Melanchthon. By September 21, 1522, the whole of the New Testament in German was in print, and could be purchased at the moderate sum of a florin and a half. The more arduous task, of translating the Old Testament, was now entered upon. No source of information was neglected in order to produce as perfect a rendering as possible, but some years passed away before an entire edition of the Sacred Volume in German was forthcoming. Luther's labors in connection with the Scriptures did not end here. To correct and improve his version was his continual care and study till his life's end. For this he organised a synod or Sanhedrim of learned men, consisting of John Bugenhagen, Justus Jonas, Melanchthon, Cruciger, Aurogallus, and George Rover, with any scholar who might chance to visit Wittenberg.[14] This body met once every week before supper in the Augustine convent, and exchanged suggestions and decided on the emendations to be adopted. When the true meaning of the original had been elicited, the task of clothing it in German devolved on Luther alone.

The most competent judges have pronounced the highest eulogisms on Luther's version. It was executed in a style of exquisite purity, vigor, and beauty. It fixed the standard of the language. In this translation the German tongue reached its perfection as it were by a bound. But this was the least of the benefits Luther's New Testament in German conferred upon his nation. Like another Moses, Luther was taken up into this Mount, that he might receive the Law, and give it to his people. Luther's captivity was the liberation of Germany. Its nations were sitting in darkness when this new day broke upon them from this mountain-top. For what would the Reformation have been without the Bible?–a meteor which would have shone for one moment, and the next gone out in darkness.[15]

"From the innumerable testimonies to the beauty of Luther's translation of the Bible," says Seckendorf, "I select but one, that of Prince George of Anhalt, given in a public assembly of this nation. 'What words,' said the prince, 'can adequately set forth the immense blessing we enjoy in the whole Bible translated by Dr. Martin Luther from the original tongues? So pure, beautiful, and clear is it, by the special grace and assistance of the Holy Spirit, both in its words and its sense, that it is as if David and the other holy prophets had lived in our own country, and spoken in the German tongue. Were Jerome and Augustine alive at this day, they would hail with joy this translation, and acknowledge that no other tongue could boast so faithful and perspicuous a version of the Word of God.We acknowledge the kindness of God in giving us the Greek version of the Septuagint, and also the Latin Bible of Jerome. But how many defects and obscurities are there in the Vulgate! Augustine, too, being ignorant of the Hebrew, has fallen into not a few mistakes. But from the version of Martin Luther many learned doctors have acknowledged that they had understood better the true sense of the Bible than from all the commentaries which others have written upon it.'"[16]

These manifold labors, prosecuted without intermission in the solitude of the Castle of the Wartburg, brought on a complete derangement of the bodily functions, and that derangement in turn engendered mental hallucinations. Weakened in body, feverishly excited in mind, Luther was oppressed by fears and gloomy terrors. These his dramatic idiosyncrasy shaped into Satanic forms. Dreadful noises in his chamber at night would awake him from sleep. Howlings as of a dog would be heard at his door, and on one occasion as he sat translating the New Testament, an apparition of the Evil One, in the form of a lion, seemed to be walking round and round him, and preparing to spring upon him. A disordered system had called up the terrible phantasm; yet to Luther it was no phantasm, but a reality. Seizing the weapon that came first to his hand, which happened to be his inkstand,[17] Luther hurled it at the unwelcome intruder with such force, that he put the fiend to flight, and broke the plaster of the wall. We must at least admire his courage.

CHAPTER 2 Back to Top

THE ABOLITION OF THE MASS.

Friar Zwilling – Preaches against the Mass – Attacks the Monastic Orders – Bodenstein of Carlstadt – Dispenses the Supper – Fall of the Mass at Wittenberg – Other Changes – The Zwickau Prophets – Nicholas Stork – Thomas Munzer – InfantBaptism Denounced – The New Gospel – Disorders at Wittenberg – Rumors wafted to the Wartburg – Uneasiness of Luther – He Leaves the Wartburg – Appears at Wittenberg – His Sermon – A Week of Preaching – A Great Crisis – It is Safely Passed.

THE master-spirit was withdrawn, but the work did not stop. Events of great importance took place at Wittenberg during Luther's ten months' sojourn in the Wartburg. The Reformation was making rapid advances. The new doctrine was finding outward expression in a new and simpler worship.[1]

Gabriel Zwilling, an Augustine friar, put his humble hand to the work which the great monk had begun. He began to preach against the mass in the convent church the same in which Luther's voice had often been heard. The doctrine he proclaimed was substantially the same with that which Zurich was teaching in Switzerland, that the Supper is not a sacrifice, but a memorial. He condemned private masses, the adoration of the elements, and required that the Sacrament should be administered in both kinds. The friar gained converts both within and outside the monastery. The monks were in a state of great excitement. Wittenberg was disturbed. The court of the elector was troubled, and Frederick appointed a deputation consisting of Justus Jonas, Philip Melanchthon, and Nicholas Amsdorf, to visit the Augustine convent and restore peace. The issue was the conversion of the members of the deputation to the opinions of Friar Gabriel.[2] It was no longer obscure monks only who were calling for the abolition of the mass; the same cry was raised by the University, the great school of Saxony. Many who had listened calmly to Luther so long as his teaching remained simply a doctrine, stood aghast when they saw the practical shape it was about to take. They saw that it would change the world of a thousand years past, that it would sweep away all the ancient usages, and establish an order of things which neither they nor their fathers had known. They feared as they entered into this new world.

The friar, emboldened by the success that attended his first efforts, attacked next the monastic order itself. He denounced the "vow" as without warrant in the Bible, and the "cloak" as covering only idleness and lewdness. "No one," said he, "can be saved under a cowl." Thirteen friars left the convent, and soon the prior was the only person within its walls.

Laying aside their habit, the emancipated monks betook them, some to handicrafts, and others to study, in the hope of serving the cause of Protestantism. The ferment at Wittenberg was renewed. At this time it was that Luther's treatise on "Monastic Vows" appeared. He expressed himself in it with some doubtfulness, but the practical conclusion was that all might be at liberty to quit the convent, but that no one should be obliged to do so.

At this point, Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, commonly called Carlstadt, Archdeacon of Wittenberg, came forward to take a prominent part in these discussions. Carlstadt was bold, zealous, honest, but not without a touch of vanity. So long as Luther was present on the scene, his colossal figure dwarfed that of the archdeacon; but the greater light being withdrawn for the time, the lesser luminary aspired to mount into its place. The "little sallow tawny man" who excelled neither in breadth of judgment, nor in clearness of ideas, nor in force of eloquence, might be seen daily haranguing the people, on theological subjects, in an inflated and mysterious language, which, being not easily comprehensible, was thought by many to envelope a rare wisdom. His efforts in the main were in the right direction. He objected to clerical and monastic celibacy, he openly declared against private masses, against the celebration of the Sacrament in one kind, and against the adoration of the Host.

Carlstadt took an early opportunity of carrying his views into practice. On Christmas Day, 1521, he dispensed the Sacrament in public in all the simplicity of its Divine institution. He wore neither cope nor chasuble. With the dresses he discarded also the genuflections, the crossings, kissings, and other attitudinisings of Rome; and inviting all who professed to hunger and thirst for the grace of God, to come and partake, he gave the bread and the wine to the communicants, saying, "This is the body and blood of our Lord." He repeated the act on New Year's Day, 1522, and continued ever afterwards to dispense the Supper with the same simplicity.[3] Popular opinion was on his side, and in January, the Town Council, in concurrence with the University, issued their order, that henceforward the Supper should be dispensed in accordance with the primitive model. The mass had fallen.

With the mass fell many things which grew out of it, or leaned upon it. No little glory and power departed from the priesthood. The Church festivals were no longer celebrated. In the place of incense and banners, of music and processions, came the simple and sublime worship of the heart.

Clerical celibacy was exchanged for virtuous wedlock. Confessions were carried to that Throne from which alone comes pardon. Purgatory was first doubted, then denied, and with its removal much of the bitterness was taken out of death. The saints and the Virgin were discarded, and lo! as when a veil is withdrawn, men found themselves in the presence of the Divine Majesty. The images stood neglected on their pedestals, or were torn down, ground to powder, or cast into the fire. The latter piece of reform was not accomplished without violent tumults.

The echoes of these tumults reverberated in the Wartburg. Luther began to fear that the work of Reformation was being converted into a work of demolition. His maxim was that these practical reforms, however justifiable in themselves, should not outrun the public intelligence; that, to the extent to which they did so, the reform was not real, but fictitious: that the error in the heart must first be dethroned, and then the idol in the sanctuary would be cast out. On this principle he continued to wear the frock of his order, to say mass, to observe his vow as a celibate, and to do other things the principle of which he had renounced, though the time, he judged, had not arrived for dropping the form. Moderation was a leading characteristic of all the Reformers. Zwingli, as we have already seen, followed the same rule in Switzerland. His naive reply to one who complained of the images in the churches, showed considerable wisdom.

"As for myself," said Zwingli, "they don't hurt me, for I am short-sighted."

In like manner Luther held that external objects did not hurt faith, provided the heart did not hang upon them. Immensely different, however, is the return to these things after having been emancipated from them.[4]

At this juncture there appeared at Wittenberg a new set of reformers, who seemed bent on restoring human traditions, and the tyranny of man from a point opposite to that of the Pope. These men are known as the "Zwickau Prophets," from the little town of Zwickau, in which they took their rise.

The founder of the new sect was Nicholas Stork, a weaver. Luther had restored the authority of the Bible; this was the corner-stone of his Reformation. Stork sought to displace this cornerstone. "The Bible," said he, "is of no use." And what did he put in the room of it? A new revelation which he pretended had been made to himself. The angel Gabriel, he affirmed, had appeared to him in a vision, and said to him, "Thou shalt sit on my throne." A sweet and easy way, truly, of receiving Divine communications! as Luther could not help observing, when he remembered his own agonies and terrors before coming to the knowledge of the truth.[5]

Stork was joined by Mark Thomas, another weaver of Zwickau; by Mark Stubner, formerly a student at Wittenberg; and by Thomas Munzer, who was the preacher of the "new Gospel." That Gospel comprehended whatever Stork was pleased to say had been revealed to him by the angel Gabriel. He especially denounced infant baptism as an invention of the devil, and called on all disciples to be re-baptised, hence their name "Anabaptists." The spread of their tenets was followed by tumults in Zwickau.[6] The magistrates interfered: the new prophets were banished: Munzer went to Prague; Stork, Thomas, and Stubner took the road to Wittenberg.

Stork unfolded gradually the whole of that revelation which he had received from the angel, but which he had deemed it imprudent to divulge all at once. The "new Gospel," when fully put before men, was found to involve the overthrow of all established authority and order in Church and State; men were to be guided by an inward light, of which the new prophets were the medium. They foretold that in a few years the present order of things would be brought to an end, and the reign of the saints would begin.[7] Stork was to be the monarch of the new kingdom. Attacking Protestantism from apparently opposite poles, there was nevertheless a point in which the Romanists and the Zwickau fanatics met–namely, the rejection of Divine revelation, and the subjection of the conscience to human reason–the reason of Adrian VI., the son of the Utrecht mechanic, on the one side, and the reason of Nicholas Stork, the Zwickau weaver, on the other.

These men found disciples in Wittenberg. The enthusiasm of Carlstadt was heated still more; many of the youth of the University forsook their studies, deeming them useless in presence of an internal illumination which promised to teach them all they needed to know without the toil of learning. The Elector was dismayed at this new outbreak: Melanchthon was staggered, and felt himself powerless to stem the torrent. The enemies of the Reformation were exultant, believing that they were about to witness its speedy disorganization and ruin. Tidings reached the Wartburg of what was going on at Wittenberg. Dismay and grief seized Luther to see his work on the point of being wrecked. He was distracted between his wish to finish his translation of the New Testament, and his desire to return to Wittenberg, and combat on the spot the new-sprung fanaticism.

All felt that he alone was equal to the crisis, and many voices were raised for his return. Every line he translated was an additional ray of light, to fall in due time upon the darkness of his countrymen. How could he tear hinmelf from such a task? And yet every hour that elapsed, and found him still in the Wartburg, made the confusion and mischief at Wittenberg worse. At last, to his great joy, he finished his German version of the New Testament, and on the morning of the 3rd March, 1522, he passed out at the portal of his castle. He might be entering a world that would call for his blood; the ban of the Empire was suspended over him; the horizonwas black with storms; nevertheless he must go and drive away the wolves that had entered his fold. He traveled in his knight's incognito–a red mantle, trunk-hose, doublet, feather, and sword–not without adventures by the way. On Friday, the 7th of March, he entered Wittenberg.

The town, the University, the council, were electrified by the news of his arrival. "Luther is come," said the citizens, as with radiant faces they exchanged salutations with one another in the streets. A tremendous load had been lifted off the minds of all. The vessel of the Reformation was drifting upon the rocks; some waited in terror, others in expectation for the crash, when suddenly the pilot appeared and grasped the helm.

At Worms was the crisis of the Reformer: at Wittenberg was the crisis of the Reformation. Is it demolition, confusion, and ruin only which Protestantism can produce? Is it only wild and unruly passions which it knows to let loose? Or can it build up? Is it able to govern minds, to unite hearts, to extinguish destructive principles, and plant in their stead reorganising and renovating influences? This was to be the next test of the Reformation. The disorganization reigning at Wittenberg was a greater danger than the sword of Charles V. The crisis was a serious one. On the Sunday morning after his arrival, Luther entered the parish church, and presented himself with calm dignity and quiet self-composure in the old pulpit. Only ten short months had elapsed since he last stood there; but what events had been crowded into that short period! The Diet at Worms: the Wartburg: the funeral of a Pope: the eruption of the Turk: the war between France and Spain; and, last and worst of all, this outbreak at Wittenberg, which threatened ruin to that cause which was the one hope of a world menaced by so many dangers.

Intense excitement, yet deep stillness, reigned in the audience. No element of solemnity was absent. The moment was very critical. The Reformation seemed to hang trembling in the balance. The man was the same, yet chastened, and enriched. Since last he stood before them, he had become invested with a greater interest, for his appearance at Worms had shed a halo not only around himself, but on Germany also: the invisibility in which he had since dwelt, where, though they saw him not, they could hear his voice, had also tended to increase the interest. And now, issuing from his concealment, he stood in person before them, like one of the old prophets who were wont to appear suddenly at critical moments of their nation.

Never had Luther appeared grander, and never was he more truly great. He put a noble restraint upon himself. He who had been as an "iron wall" to the emperor, was tender as a mother to his erring flock. He began by stating, in simple and unpretending style, what he said were the two cardinal doctrines of revelation–the ruin of man, and the redemption in Christ. "He who believes on the Savior," he remarked, "is freed from sin."

Thus he returned with them to his first starting-point, salvation by free grace in opposition to salvation by human merit, and in doing so he reminded them of what it was that had emancipated them from the bondage of penances, absolutions, and so many rites enslaving to the conscience, and had brought them into liberty and peace. Coming next to the consideration of the abuse of that liberty into which they were at that moment in some danger of falling, he said faith was not enough, it became them also to have charity. Faith would enable each freely to advance in knowledge, according to the gift of the Spirit and his own capacity; charity would knit them together, and harmonize their individual progress with their corporate unity. He willingly acknowledged the advance they had made in his absence; nay, some of them there were who excelled himself in the knowledge of Divine things; but it was the duty of the strong to bear with the weak. Were there those among them who desired the abolition of the mass, the removal of images, and the instant and entire abrogation of all the old rites? He was with them in principle. He would rejoice if this day there was not one mass in all Christendom, nor an image in any of its churches; and he hoped this state of things would speedily be realised. But there were many who were not able to receive this, who were still edified by these things, and who would be injured by their removal. They must proceed according to order, and have regard to weak brethren. "My friend," said the preacher, addressing himself to the more advanced, "have you been long enough at the breast? It is well. But permit your brother to drink as long as yourself."

He strongly insisted that the "Word" which he had preached to them, and which he was about to give them in its written form in their mother tongue, must be their great leader. By the Word, and not the sword, was the Reformation to be propagated. "Were I to employ force," he said, "what should I gain? Grimace, formality, apings, human ordinances, and hypocrisy,... but sincerity of heart, faith, charity, not at all. Where these three are wanting, all is wanting, and I would not give a pear-stalk for such a result."[8]

With the apostle he failed not to remind his hearers that the weapons of their warfare were not carnal, but spiritual. The Word must be freely preached; and this Word must be left to work in the heart; and when the heart was won, then the man was won, but not till then. The Word of God had created heaven and earth, and all things, and that Word must be the operating power, and "not we poor sinners." His own history he held to be an example of the power of the Word. He declared God's Word, preached and wrote against indulgences and Popery, but never used force; but this Word, while he was sleeping, or drinking his tankard of Wittenberg ale with Philip and Amsdorf, worked with so mighty a power, that the Papacy had been weakened and broken to such a degree as no prince or emperor had ever been able to break it. Yet he had done nothing: the Word had done all.

This series of discourses was continued all the week through. All the institutions and ordinances of the Church of Rome, the preacher passed in review, and applied the same principle to them all. After the consideration of the question of the mass, he went on to discuss the subject of images, of monasticism, of the confessional, of forbidden meats, showing that these things were already abrogated in principle, and all that was needed to abolish them in practice, without tumult, and without offense to any one, was just the diffusion of the doctrine which he preached. Every day the great church was crowded, and many flocked from the surrounding towns and villages to these discourses.

The triumph of the Reformer was complete. He had routed the Zwickau fanatics without even naming them. His wisdom, his moderation, his tenderness of heart, and superiority of intellect carried the day, and the new prophets appeared in comparison small indeed. Their "revelations" were exploded, and the Word of God was restored to its supremacy. It was a great battle–greater in some respects than that which Luther had fought at Worms. The whole of Christendom was interested in the result.

At Worms the vessel of Protestantism was in danger of being dashed upon the Scylla of Papal tyranny: at Wittenberg it was in jeopardy of being engulfed in the Charybdis of fanaticism. Luther had guided it past the rocks in the former instance: in the present he preserved it from being swallowed up in the whirlpool.

CHAPTER 3 Back to Top

POPE ADRIAN AND HIS SCHEME OF REFORM.

Calm Returns – Labors of Luther – Translation of Old Testament – Melanchthon's Common-places – First Protestant System – Preachers – Books Multiplied – Rapid Diffusion of the Truth – Diet at Nuremberg – Pope Adrian Afraid of the Turk – Still more of Lutheranism – His Exhortation to the Diet – His Reforms put before the Diet – They are Rejected – The Hundred Grievances – Edict of Diet permitting the Gospel to be Preached – Persecution – First Three Martyrs of Lutheran Reformation – Joy of Luther – Death of Pope Adrian.

THE storm was quickly succeeded by a calm. All things resumed their wonted course at Wittenberg. The fanatics had shaken the dust from their feet and departed, predicting woe against a place which had forsaken the "revelations" of Nicholas Stork to follow the guidance of the Word of God.

The youth resumed their studies, the citizens returned to their occupations; Luther went in and out of his convent, busied with writing, preaching, and lecturing, besides that which came upon him daily, "the care of all the churches." One main business that oecupied him, besides the revision of his German New Testament, and the passing of it through the press, was the translation, now undertaken, of the Old Testament. This was a greater work, and some years passed away before it was finished.

When at last, by dint of Herculean labor, it was given to the world, it was found that the idiomatic simplicity and purity of the translation permitted the beauty and splendor of Divine truth to shine through, and its power to be felt. Luther had now the satisfaction of thinking that he had raised an effectual barrier against such fanaticism as that of Zwickau, and had kindled a light which no power on earth would Be able to put out, and which would continue to wax brighter and shine ever wider till it had dispelled the darkness of Christendom.

In 1521 came another work, the Common-places of Melanchthon, which, next after the German translation Of the Bible, contributed powerfully to the establishment of Protestantism. Scattered through a hundred pamphlets and writings were the doctrines of the Reformation–in other words, the recovered truths of Scripture. Melanchthon set about the task of gathering them together, and presenting them in the form of a system. It was the first attempt of the kind. His genius admirably fitted him for this work. He was more of the theologian than Luther, and the grace of his style lent a charm to his theology, and enabled him to find readers among the literary and philosophical classes. The only systems of divinity the world had seen, since the close of the primitive age, were those which the schoolmen had given to it. These had in them neither light nor life; they were dry and hapless, a wilderness of subtle distinctions and doubtful speculations. The system of Melanchthon, drawn from the Bible, exhibiting with rare clearness and beauty the relationships of truth, contrasted strikingly with the dark labyrinth of scholasticism. The Reformation theology was not a chaos of dogmas, as some had begun to suppose it, but a majestic unity.

In proportion as Protestantism strengthened itself at its center, which was Wittenberg, it was diffused more and more widely throughout Germany, and beyond its limits. The movement was breaking out on all sides, to the terror of Rome, and the discomfiture of her subservient princes. The Augustine convents sent numerous recruits to carry on the war. These had been planted, like Papal barracks, all over Germany, but now Rome's artilllery was turned against herself. This was specially the case in Nuremberg, Osnabruck, Ratisbon, Strasburg, Antwerp, and in Hesse and Wurtemberg. The light shone into the convents of the other orders also, and their inmates, laying down their cowls and frocks at the gates of their monasteries, joined their Brethren and became preachers of the truth. Great was the wrath of Rome when she saw her soldiers turning their arms against her. A multitude of priests became obedient to the faith, and preached it to their flocks. In other cases flocks forsook their priests, finding that they continued to inculcate the old superstitions and perform the old ceremonies. A powerful influence was acting on the minds of men, which carried them onward in the path of the Reformed faith, despite threats and dangers and bitter persecutions. Whole cities renounced the Roman faith and confessed the Gospel. The German Bible and the writings of Luther were read at all hearths and by all classes, while preachers perambulated Germany proclaiming the new doctrines to immense crowds, in the market-place, in burial-grounds, on mountains, and in meadows. At Goslar a Wittenberg student preached in a meadow planted with lime-trees, which procured for his hearers the designation of the "Lime-tree Brethren."

The world's winter seemed passing rapidly away. Everywhere the ice was breaking up; the skies were filling with light; and its radiance was refreshing to the eyes and to the souls of men! The German nation, emerging from torpor and ignorance, stood up, quickened with a new life, and endowed with a marvellous power. A wondrous and sudden enlightenment had overspread it. It was astonishing to see how the tastes of the people were refined, their perceptions deepened, and their judgments strengthened. Artisans, soldiers–nay, even women–with the Bible in their hand, would put to flight a whole phalanx of priests and doctors who strove to do battle for Rome, but who knew only to wield the old weapons. The printing-press, like a battering-ram of tremendous force, thundered night and day against the walls of the old fortress. "The impulse which the Reformation gave to popular literature in Germany," says D'Aubigne, "was immense. Whilst in the year 1513 only thirty-five publications had appeared, and thirty-seven in 1517, the number of books increased with astonishing rapidity after the appearance of Luther's 'Theses.' In 1518, we find seventy-one different works; in 1519, one hundred and eleven; in 1520, two hundred and eight; in 1521, two hundred and eleven; in 1522, three hundred and forty-seven; and in 1523, four hundred and ninety-eight. These publications were nearly all on the Protestant side, and were published at Wittenberg. In the last-named year (1523) only twenty Roman Catholic publications appeared."[1] It was Protestantism that called the literature of Germany into existence.

An army of book-hawkers was extemporised. These men seconded the efforts of publishers in the spread of Luther's writings, which, clear and terse, glowing with the fire of enthusiasm, and rich with the gold of truth, brought with them an invigoration of the intellect as well as a renewal of the heart. They were translated into French, English, Italian, and Spanish, and circulated in all these countries. Occupying a middle point between the first and second cradles of the Reformation, the Wittenberg movement covered the space between, touching the Hussites of Bohemia on the one side, and the Lollards of England on the other.

We must now turn our eyes on those political events which were marching alongside of the Protestant movement. The Diet of Regency which the emperor had appointed to administer affairs during his absence in Spain was now sitting at Nuremberg. The main business which had brought it together was the inroads of the Turk. The progress of Soliman's arms was fitted to strike the European nations with terror. Rhodes had been captured; Belgrad had fallen; and the victorious leader threatened to make good his devastating march into the very heart of Hungary. Louis, the king of that country, sent his ambassador to the Diet to entreat help against the Asiatic conqueror. At the Diet appeared, too, Chieregato, the nuncio of the Pope.

Adrian VI., when he cast his eyes on the Tartar hordes on the eastern frontier, was not without fears for Rome and Italy; but he was still more alarmed when he turned to Germany, and contmplated: the appalling spread of Lutheranism.[2] Accordingly, he instructed his ambassador to demand two things–first, that the Diet should concert measures for stopping the progress of the Sultan of Constantinople; but, whatever they might do in this affair, he emphatically demanded that they should cut short the career of the monk of Wittenberg.

In the brief which, on the 25th of November, 1522, Adrian addressed to the "Estates of the sacred Roman Empire, assembled at Nuremberg," he urged his latter and more important request, "to cut down this pestilential plant that was spreading its boughs so widely... to remove this gangrened member from the body," by reminding them that "the omnipotent God had caused the earth to open and swallow up alive the two schismatics, Dathan and Abiram; that Peter, the prince of apostles, had struck Ananias and Sapphira with sudden death for lying against God... that their own ancestors had put John Huss and Jerome of Prague to death, who now seemed risen from the dead in Martin Luther."[3]

But the Papal nuncio, on entering Germany, found that this document, dictated in the hot air of Italy, did not suit the cooler latitude of Bavaria. As Chieregato passed along the highway on his mule, and raised his two fingers, after the usual manner, to bless the wayfarer, the populace would mimic his action by raising theirs, to show how little they cared either for himself or his benediction. This was very mortifying, but still greater mortifications awaited him. When he arrived at Nuremberg, he found, to his dismay, the pulpits occupied by Protestant preachers, and the cathedrals crowded with most attentive audiences. When he complained of this, and demanded the suppression of the sermons, the Diet replied that Nuremberg was a free city, and that the magistrates mostly were Lutheran.

He next intimated his intention of apprehending the preachers by his own authority, in the Pontiff's name; but the Archbishop of Mainz, and others, in consternation at the idea of a popular tumult, warned the nuncio against a project so fraught with danger, and told him that if he attempted such a thing, they would quit the city without a moment's delay, and leave him to deal with the indignant burghers as best he could.

Baffled in these attempts, and not a little mortified that his own office and his master's power should meet with so little reverence in Germany, the nuncio began, but in less arrogant tone, to unfold to the Diet the other instructions of the Pope; and more especially to put before its members the promised reforms which Adrian had projected when elevated to the Popedom. The Popes have often pursued a similar line of conduct when they really meant nothing; but Adrian was sincere. To convince the Diet that he was so, he made a very ample confession of the need of a reform.

"We know," so ran the instructions put into the hands of his nuncio on setting out for the Diet, "that for a considerable time many abominable things have found a place beside the Holy Chair – abuses in spiritual things–exorbitant straining at prerogatives–evil everywhere. From the head the malady has proceeded to the limbs; from the Pope it has extended to the prelates; we are all gone astray, there is none that hath done rightly, no, not one."[4]

At the hearing of these words the champions of the Papacy hung their heads; its opponents held up theirs. "We need hesitate no longer," said the Lutheran princes of the Diet; "it is is not Luther only, but the Pope, that denounces the corruptions of the Church: reform is the order of the day, not merely at Wittenberg, but at Rome also."

There was all the while an essential difference between these two men, and their reforms: Adrian would have lopped off a few of the more rotten of the branches; Luther was for uprooting the evil tree, and planting a good one in its stead. This was a reform little to the taste of Adrian, and so, before beginning his own reform, he demanded that Luther's should be put down. It was needful, Adrian doubtless thought, to apply the pruning-knife to the vine of the Church, but still more needful was it to apply the axe to the tree of Lutheranism. For those who would push reform with too great haste, and to too great a length, he had nothing but the stake, and accordingly he called on the Diet to execute the imperial edict of death upon Luther, whose heresy he described as having the same infernal origin, as disgraced by the same abominable acts, and tending to the same tremendous issue, as that of Mahomet.[5] As regarded the reform which he himself meditated, he took care to say that he would guard against the two evils mentioned above; he would neither be too extreme nor too precipitate; "he must proceed gently, and by degrees," step by step– which Luther, who translated the brief of Adrian into German, with marginal notes, interpreted to mean, a few centuries between each step?[6]

The Pope had communicated to the Diet, somewhat vaguely, his projected measure of reformation, and the Diet felt the more justified in favoring Adrian with their own ideas of what that measure ought to be. First of all they told Adrian that to think of executing the Edict of Worms against Luther would be madness. To put the Reformer to death for denouncing the abuses Adrian himself had acknowledged, would not be more unjust than it would be dangerous. It would be sure to provoke all insurrection that would deluge Germany with blood. Luther must be refuted from Scripture, for his writings were in the hands and his opinions were in the hearts of many of the population. They knew of but one way of settling the controversy–a General Council, namely; and they demanded that such a Council should be summoned, to meet in some neutral German town, within the year, and that the laity as well as the clergy should have a seat and voice in it. To this not very palatable request the princes appended another still more unpalatable–the "Hundred Grievances," as it was termed, and which was a terrible catalogue of the exactions, frauds, oppressions, and wrongs that Germany had endured at the hands of the Popes, and which it had long silently groaned under, but the redress of which the Diet now demanded, with certification that if within a reasonable time a remedy was not forthcoming, the princes would take the matter into their own hands.[7]

The Papal nuncio had seen and heard sufficient to convince him that he had stayed long enough at Nuremberg. He hastily quitted the city, leaving it to some other to be the bearer of this ungracious message to the Pontiff. Till the Diet should arrange its affairs with the Pontiff, it resolved that the Gospel should continue to be preached. What a triumph for Protestantism! But a year before, at Worms, the German princes had concurred with Charles V. in the edict of death passed on Luther. Now, not only do they refuse to execute that edict, but they decree that the pure Gospel shall be preached.[8] This indicates rapid progress. Luther hailed it as a triumph, and the echoes of his shout came back from the Swiss hills in the joy it awakened among the Reformers ofHelvetia.

In due course the recess, or decree, of the Diet of Nuremberg reached the Seven-hilled City, and was handed in at the Vatican. The meek Adrian was beside himself with rage. Luther was not to be burned! a General Council was demanded! a hundred grievances, all duly catalogued, must be redressed! and there was, moreover, a quiet hint that if the Pope did not look to this matter in time, others would attend to it. Adrian sat down, and poured out a torrent of invectives and threatenings, than which nothing more fierce and bitter had ever emanated from the Vatican.[9] Frederick of Saxony, against whom this fulmination was thundered, put his hand upon his sword's hilt when he read it. "No," said Luther, the only one of the three who was able to command his temper, "we must have no war. No one shall fight for the Gospel." Peace was preserved.

The rage of the Papal party was embittered by the checks it was meeting with. War had been averted, but persecution broke out. At every step the Reformation gathered new glory. The courage of the Reformer and the learning of the scholar had already illustrated it, but now it was to be glorified by the devotion of the martyr. It was not in Wittenberg that the first stake was planted. Charles V. would have dragged Luther to the pile, nay, he would have burned the entire Wittenberg school in one fire, had he had the power; but he could act in Germany only so far as the princes went with him. It was otherwise in his hereditary dominions of the Low Countries; there he could do as he pleased; and there it was that the storm, after muttering awhile, at last burst out. At Antwerp the Gospel had found entrance into the Augustine convent, and the inmates not only embraced the truth, but in some instances began to preach it with power. This drew upon the convent the eyes of the inquisitors who had been sent into Flanders. The friars were apprehended, imprisoned, and condemned to death. One recanted; others managed to escape; but three–Henry Voes, John Esch, and Lambert Thorn–braved the fire. They were carried in chains to Brussels, and burned in the great square of that city on the 1st of July, 1523. [10] They behaved nobly at the stake. While the multitude around them were weeping, they sang songs of joy. Though about to undergo a terrible death, no sorrow darkened their faces; their looks, on the contrary, bespoke the gladness and triumph of their spirits. Even the inquisitors were deeply moved, and waited long before applying the torch, in the hope of prevailing with the youths to retract and save their lives. Their entrearies could extort no answer but this–"We will die for the name of Jesus Christ." At length the pile was kindled, and even amid the flames the psalm ascended from their lips, and joy continued to light up their countenances. So died the first martyrs of the Reformation–illustrious heralds of those hundreds of thousands who were to follow them by the same dreadful road–not dreadful to those who walk by faith–to the everlasting mansion of the sky.[11]

Three confessors of the Gospel had the stake consumed; in their place it had created hundreds. "Wherever the smoke of their burning blew," sale! Erasmus, "it bore with it the seeds of heretics." Luther heard of their death with thanksgiving. A cause which had produced martyrs bore the seal of Divine authentication, and was sure of victory.

Adrian of Rome, too, lived to hear of the death of these youths. The persecutions had begun, but Adrian's reforms had not yet commenced. The world had seen the last of these reforms in the lurid light that streamed from the stake in the great square of Brussels. Adrian died on the 14th of September of the same year, and the estimation in which the Romans held him may be gathered from the fact that, during the night which succeeded the day on which he breathed his last, they adorned the house of his physician with garlands, and wrote over its portals this inscription – "To the savior of his country."

CHAPTER 4 Back to Top

POPE CLEMENT AND THE NUREMBERG DIET.

The New Pope – Policy of Clement – Second Diet at Nuremberg – Campeggio – His instructions to the Diet – The "Hundred Grievances" – Rome's Policy of Dissimulation – Surprise of the Princes – They are Asked to Execute the Edict of Worms – Device of the Princes – A General Council – Vain Hopes – The Harbor – Still at Sea – Protestant Preaching in Nuremberg – Proposal to hold a Diet at Spires – Disgust of the Legate – Alarm of the Vatican – Both Sides Prepare for the Spires Diet.

ADRIAN was dead. His scheme for the reform of the Papacy, with all the hopes and fears it had excited, descended with him to the grave. Cardinal Guilio de Medici, an unsuccessful candidate at the last election, had better fortune this time, and now mounted the Pontifical throne. The new Pope, who took the title of Clement VII., made haste to reverse the policy of his predecessor. Pallavicino was of opinion that the greatest evils and dangers of the Papacy had arisen from the choice of a "saint" to fill the Papal chair.

Clement VII. took care to let the world know that its present occupant was a "man of affairs"–no austere man, with neither singing nor dancing in his palace; no senile dreamer of reforms; but one who knew both to please the Romans and to manage foreign courts. "But it is in the storm that the pilot proves his skill," says Ranke.[1] Perilous times had come. The great winds had begun to blow, and the nations were laboring, as the ocean heaves before a tempest. Two powerful kings were fighting in Italy; the Turk was brandishing his scimitar on the Austrian frontier; but the quarter of the sky that gave Clement VII. the greatest concern was Wittenberg.

There a storm was brewing which would try his seamanship to the utmost. Leo X. had trifled with this affair. Adrian VI. had imagined that he had only to utter the magic word "reform," and the billows would subside and the winds sink to rest. Clement would prove himself an abler pilot; he would act as a statesman, as a Pope.

Early in the spring of 1524, the city of Nuremberg was honored a second time with the presence of the Imperial Diet within its walls. The Pope's first care was to send a right man as legate to this assembly. He selected Cardinal Campeggio, a man of known ability, of great experience, and of weight of character – the fittest, in short, his court could furnish. His journey to the Italian frontier was like a triumphal march. But when he entered upon German soil all these tokens of public enthusiasm forsook him, and when he arrived at the gates of Nuremberg he looked in vain for the usual procession of magistrates and clergy, marshalled under cross and banner, to bid him welcome. Alas! how the times had changed! The proud ambassador of Clement passed quietly through the streets, and entered his hotel, as if he had been an ordinary traveller.[2]

The instructions Campeggio had received from his master directed him to soothe the Elector Frederick, who was still smarting from Adrian's furious letter; and to withhold no promise and neglect no art which might prevail with the Diet, and make it subservient. This done, he was to strike at Luther. If they only had the monk at the stake, all would be well.

The able and astute envoy of Clement acted his part well. He touched modestly on his devotion to Germany, which had induced him to accept this painful mission when all others had declined it. He described the tender solicitude and sleepless care of his master, the Pope, whom he likened now to a pilot, sitting aloft, and watching anxiously, while all on board slept; and now to a shepherd, driving away the wolf, and leading his flock into good pastures. He could not refrain from expressing "his wonder that so many great and honorable princes should suffer the religion, rites, and ceremonies wherein they were born and bred, and in which their fathers and progenitors had died, to be abolished and trampled upon." He begged them to think where all this would end, namely, in a universal uprising of peoples against their rulers, and the destruction of Germany. As for the Turk, it was unnecessary for him to say much. The mischief he threatened Christendom with was plain to all men.[3]

The princes heard him with respect, and thanked him for his good will and his friendly counsels; but to come to the matter in hand, the German nation, said they, sent a list of grievances in writing to Rome; they would like to know ff the Pope had returned any answer, and what it was. Campeggio, though he assumed an air of surprise, had expected this interrogatory to be put to him, and was not unprepared for the part he was to act. "As to their demands," he said, "there had been only three copies of them brought privately to Rome, whereof one had fallen into his hands; but the Pope and college of cardinals could not believe that they had been framed by the princes; they thought that some private persons had published them in hatred to the court of Rome; and thus he had no instructions as to that particular." [4]

The surprise the legate's answer gave the Diet, and the indignation it kindled among its members, may be imagined.

The Emperor Charles, whom the war with Francis kept in Spain, had sent his ambassador, John Hunnaart, to the Diet to complain that the decree of Worms, which had been enacted with their unanimous consent, was not observed, and to demand that it be put in execution – in other words, that Luther be put to death, and that the Gospel be proscribed in all the States of the Empire.[5] Campeggio had made the same request in his master's name.

"Impossible!" cried many of the deputies; "to attempt such a thing would be to plunge Germany into war and bloodshed."

Campeggio and Hunnaart insisted, nevertheless, that the princes should put in force the edict against Luther and his doctrines, to which they had been consenting parties. What was the Diet to do?

It could not repeal the edict, and it dared not enforce it, The princes hit upon a clever device for silencing the Pope who was pushing them on, and appeasing the people who were holding them back. They passed a decree saying that the Edict of Worms should be vigorously enforced, as far as possible.[6] (Edipus himself could hardly have said what this meant. Practically it was the repeal of the edict; for the majority of the States had declared that to enforce it was not possible.

Campeggio and Hunnaart, the Spanish envoy from Charles, V., had gained what was a seeming victory, but a real defeat. Other defeats awaited them.

Having dexterously muzzled the emperor's ban, the next demand of the Nuremberg Diet was for a General Council. There was a traditional belief in the omnipotency of this expedient to correct all abuses and end all controversies. When the sky began to lower, and a storm appeared about to sweep over Christendom, men turned their eyes to a Council, as to a harbor of refuge: once within it, the laboring vessel would be at rest – tossed no longer upon the billows. The experiment had been tried again and again, and always with the same result, and that result failure – signal failure. In the recent past were the two Councils of Constance and Basle.

These had ended, like all that preceded them, in disappointment. Much had been looked for from them, but nothing had been realised. They appeared in the retrospect like goodly twin trees, laden with leaves and blossoms, but they brought no fruit to perfection. With regard to Constance, if it had humiliated three Popes, it had exalted a fourth, and he the haughtiest of them all; and as for Reformation, had not the Council devoted its whole time and power to devising measures for the extinction of that reforming spirit which alone could have remedied the evils complained of? There was one man there worth a hundred Councils: how had they dealt with him? They had dragged him to the stake, and all the while he was burning, cursed him as a heretic! And what was the consequence? Why, that the stream of corruption, dammed up for a moment, had broken out afresh, and was now flowing with torrent deeper, broader, and more irresistible than ever. But the majority of the princes convened at Nuremberg were unable to think of other remedy, and so, once again, the old demand was urged–a General Council, to be held on German soil.

However, the princes will concert measures in order that this time the Council shall not be abortive; now at last, it will give the world a Pope who shall be a true father to Christendom, together with a pious, faithful, and learned hierarchy, and holy and laborious priests–in short, the "golden age," so long waited for. The princes will summon a Diet–a national and lay Diet–to meet at Spires, in November of this year. And, further, they will take steps to evoke the real sentiments of Germany on the religious question, and permit the wishes of its several cities and States to be expressed in the Diet; and, in this way, a Reformation will be accomplished such as Germany wishes. The princes believed that they were ending their long and dangerous navigation, and were at last in sight of the harbor.

So had they often thought before, but they had awakened to find that they were still at sea, with the tempest lowering overhead, and the white reefs gleaming pale through the waters below. They were destine to repeat this experience once more. The very idea of such a Diet as was projected was an insult to the Papacy. For a secular assembly to meet and discuss religious questions, and settle ecclesiastical reforms, was to do a great deal more than paving the way for a General Council; it was to assume its powers and exercise its functions; it was to be that Council itself–nay, it was to go further still, it was to seat itself in the chair of the Pontiff, to whom alone belonged the decision in all matters of faith. It was to pluck the scepter from the hands of the man who held himself divinely invested with the government of the Church.

The Papal legate and the envoy of Charles V. offered a stout resistance to the proposed resolution of the princes. They represented to them what an affront that resolve would be to the Papal chair, what an attack upon the prerogatives of the Pontiff. The princes, however, were not to be turned from their purpose. They decreed that a Diet should assemble at Spires, in November, and that meanwhile the States and free towns of Germany should express their mind as regarded the abuses to be corrected and the reforms to be instituted, so that, when the Council met, the Diet might be able to speak in the name of the Fatherland, and demand such Reformation of the Church as the nation wished.

Meanwhile the Protestant preachers redoubled their zeal; morning and night they proclaimed the Gospel in the churches. The two great cathedrals of Nuremberg were filled to overflowing with an attentive audience. The Lord's Supper was dispensed according to the apostolic mode, and 4,000 persons, including the emperor's sister, the Queen of Denmark, and others of rank, joined in the celebration of the ordinance. The mass was forsaken; the images were turned out of doors; the Scriptures were explained according to the early Fathers; and scarce could the Papal legate go or return from the imperial hall, where the Diet held its meetings, without being jostled in the street by the crowds hurrying to the Protestant sermon. The tolling of the bells for worship, the psalm pealed forth by thousands of voices, and wafted across the valley of the Pegnitz to the imperial chateau on the opposite height, sorely tried the equanimity of the servants of the Pope and the emperor. Campeggio saw Nuremberg plunging every day deeper into heresy; he saw the authority of his master set at nought, and the excommunicated doctrines every hour enlisting new adherents, who feared neither the ecclesiastical anathema nor the imperial ban. He saw all this with indignation and disgust, and yet he was entirely without power to prevent it.

Germany seemed nearer than it had been at any previous moment to a national Reformation. It promised to reach the goal by a single bound. A few months, and the Alps will do more than divide between two countries; they will divide between two Churches. No longer will the bulls and palls of the Pope cross their snows, and no longer will the gold of Germany flow back to swell the wealth and maintain the pride of the city whence they come. The Germans will find for themselves a Church and a creed, without asking humbly the permission of the Italians. They will choose their own pastors, and exercise their own government; and leave the Shepherd of the Tiber to care for his flock on the south of the mountains, without stretching his crosier to the north of them. This was the import of what the Diet had agreed to do.

We do not wonder that Campeggio and Hunnaart viewed the resolution of the princes with dismay. In truth, the envoy of the emperor had about as much cause to be alarmed as the nuncio of the Pope. Charles's authority in Germany was tottering as well as Clement's; for if the States should break away from the Roman faith, the emperor's sway would be weakened–in fact, all but annihilated; the imperial dignity would be shorn of its splendor; and those great schemes, in the execution of which the emperor had counted confidently on the aid of the Germans, would have to be abandoned as impracticable.

But it was in the Vatican that the resolution of the princes excited the greatest terror and rage. Clement comprehended at a glance the full extent of the disaster that threatened his throne. All Germany was becoming Lutheran; the half of his kingdom was about to be torn from him. Not a stone must be left unturned, not an art known in the Vatican must be neglected, if by any means the meeting of the Diet at Spires may be prevented.

To Spires all eyes are now turned, where the fate of the Popedom is to be decided. On both sides there is the bustle of anxious preparation. The princes invite the cities and States to speak boldly out, and declare their grievances, and say what reforms they wish to have enacted. In the opposite camp there is, if possible, still greater activity and preparation.

The Pope is sounding an alarm, and exhorting his friends, in prospect of this emergency, to unite their counsels and their arms. While both sides are busy preparing for the eventful day, we shall pause, and turn our attention to the city where the Diet just breaking up had held its sitting.

CHAPTER 5 Back to Top

NUREMBERG. (THIS CHAPTER IS FOUNDED ON NOTES MADE ON THE SPOT BY THE AUTHOR IN 1871.)

Three Hundred Years Since – Site of Nuremberg – Depot of Commerce in Middle Ages – Its Population – Its Patricians and Plebeians – Their Artistic Skill – Nuremberg a Free Town – Its Burgraves – Its Oligarchy – Its Subject Towns – Fame of its Arts – Albert Durer – Hans Sachs – Its Architecture and Marvels – Enchantment of the Place – Rath-Haus – State Dungeons – Implements of Torture.

NUREMBERG three hundred years ago was one of the more famous of the cities of Europe. It invites our study as a specimen of those few fortunate communities which, preserving a feeble intelligence in times of almost universal ignorance and barbarism, and enjoying a measure of independence in an age when freedom was all but unknown, were able, as the result of the exceptional position they occupied, to render services of no mean value to the civilization and religion of the world.

The distinction and opulence which Nuremberg enjoyed, in the fifteenth century and onward to the time of the Reformation, it owed to a variety of causes. Its salubrious air; the sweep of its vast plains, on all sides touching the horizon, with a single chain of purple hills to redeem the landscape from monotony; and the facilities for hunting and other exercises which it afforded, made it a pleasant residence, and often drew thither the emperor and his court. With the court came, of course, other visitors. The presence of the emperor in Nuremberg helped to assemble men of genius and culture within its walls, and invested it, moreover, with no little political importance.

Nuremberg owed more to another cause, namely, its singularly central position. Being set down on one of the world's greatest highways, it formed the center of a network of commercial routes, which ramified over a large part of the globe, and embraced the two hemispheres.

Situated on the great Franconian plain–a plain which was the Mesopotamia of the West, seeing that, like the Oriental Mesopotamia, it lay between two great rivers, the Danube and the Rhine–Nuremberg became one of the great emporiums of the commerce carried on between Asia and Europe. In those ages, when roads were far from common, and railways did not exist at all, rivers were the main channels of communication between nation and nation, and the principal means by which they effected an interchange of their commodities. The products of Asia and the Levant entered the mouths of the Danube by the Black Sea, and, ascending that stream into Germany, they were carried across the plain to Nuremberg. From Nuremberg this merchandise was sent on its way to the Rhine, and, by the numerous outlets of that river, diffused among the nations of the northwest of Europe. The commerce of the Adriatic reached Nuremberg by another route which crossed the Tyrol.

Thus many converging lines found here their common meeting-place, and from hence radiated over the West. Founded in the beginning of the tenth century, the seat of the first Diet of the Empire, the meeting-place moreover of numerous nationalities, the depot of a vast and enriching commerce, and inhabited by a singularly quick and inventive population, Nuremberg rose steadily in size and importance. The fifteenth century saw it a hive of industry, a cradle of art, and a school of letters.

In the times we speak of, Nuremberg had a population of 70,000. This, in our day, would not suffice to place a city in the first rank; but it was different then, when towns of only 30,000 were accounted populous. Frankfort-on-the-Main could not boast of more than half the population of Nuremberg. But though large for its day, the number of its population contributed but little to the city's eminence. Its renown rested on higher grounds–on the enterprise, the genius, and the wealth of its inhabitants.

Its citizens were divided into two classes, the patrician and the plebeian. The line that separated the two orders was immovable. No amount of wealth or of worth could lift up the plebeian into the patrician rank. In the same social grade in which the cradle of the citizen had been placed must the evening of life find him. The patricians held their patents of nobility from the emperor, a circumstance of which they were not a little proud, as attesting the descent of their families from very ancient times. They inhabited fine mansions, and expended the revenues of their estates in a princely splendor and a lavish hospitality, delighting greatly in fetes and tournaments, but not unmindful the while of the claims to patronage which the arts around them possessed, and the splendors of which invested their city with so great a halo.

The plebeians were mostly craftsmen, but craftstmen of exceeding skill. No artificers in all Europe could compete with them. Since the great sculptors of Greece, there had arisen no race of artists which could wield the chisel like the men of Nuremberg. Not so bold perhaps as their Greek predecessors, their invention was as prolific and their touch as exquisite. They excelled in all manner of cunning workmanship in marble and bronze, in metal and ivory, in stone and wood. Their city of Nuremberg they filled with their creations, which strangers from afar came to gaze upon and admire. The fame of its artists was spread throughout Europe, and scarce was there a town of any note in any kingdom in which the "Nuremberg hand" was not to be seen unmistakably certified in some embodiment of quaintness, or of beauty, or of utility.[1]

A more precious possession still than either its exquisite genius or its unrivalled art did Nuremberg boast: liberty, namely–liberty, lacking which genius droops, and the right hand forgets its cunning. Nuremberg was one of the free cities of Germany. In those days there were not fewer than ninety-three such towns in the Empire. They were green oases in the all but boundless desert of oppression and misery which the Europe of those days presented. They owed their rise in part to war, but mainly to commerce. When the emperors on occasion found themselves hard pushed, in the long war which they waged with the Popes, when their soldiers were becoming few and their exchequer empty, they applied to the towns to furnish them with the means of renewing the contest. They offered them charters of freedom on condition of their raising so many men-at-arms, or paying over a certain sum to enable them to continue their campaigns. The bargain was a welcome one on both sides. Many of these towns had to buy their enfranchisement with a great sum, but a little liberty is worth a great deal of gold. Thus it was on the red fields of the period that their freedom put forth its earliest blossoms; and it was amid the din of arms that the arts of peace grew up.

But commerce did more than war to call into existence such towns as Nuremberg. With the prosecution of foreign trade came wealth, and with wealth came independence and intelligence. Men began to have a glimpse of higher powers than those of brute force, and of wider rights than any included within the narrow circle of feudalism. They bought with their money, or they wrested by their power, charters of freedom from their sovereigns, or their feudal barons. They constituted themselves into independent and self-governed bodies. They were, in fact, republics on a small scale, in the heart of great monarchies. Within the walls of their cities slavery was abolished, laws were administered, and rights were enjoyed.

Such towns began to multiply as it drew towards the era of the Reformation, not in Germany only, but in France, in Italy, and in the Low Countries, and they were among the first to welcome the approach of that great moral and social renovation.

Nuremberg, which held so conspicuous a place in this galaxy of free towns, was first of all governed by a Burgrave, or Stadtholder. It is a curious fact that the royal house of Prussia make their first appearance in history as the Burgraves of Nuremberg. That office they held till about the year 1414, when Frederick IV. sold his right, together with his castle, to the Nurembergers, and with the sum thus obtained purchased the Marquisate of Brandenburg. This was the second stage in the advance of that house to the pinnacle of political greatness to which it long afterwards attained.

When the reign of the burgrave came to an end, a republic, or rather oligarchy, next succeeded as the form of government in Nuremberg. First of all was a Council of Three Hundred, which had the power of imposing taxes and contributions, and of deciding on the weighty question of peace and war. The Council of Three Hundred annually elected a smaller body, consisting of only thirty members, by whom the ordinary government of the city was administered. The Great Council was composed of patricians, with a sprinkling of the more opulent of the merchants and artificers. The Council of Thirty was composed of patricians only.

Further, Nuremberg had a considerable territory around it, of which it was the capital, and which was amply studded with towns. Outside its walls was a circuit of some hundred miles, in which were seven cities, and 480 boroughs and villages, of all of which Nuremberg was mistress. When we take into account the fertility of the land, and the extensiveness of the trade that enriched the region, and in which all these towns shared, we see in Nuremberg and its dependencies a principality far from contemptible in either men or resources. "The kingdom of Bohemia," says Gibbon, "was less opulent than the adjacent city of Nuremberg."[2] Lying in the center of Southern Germany, the surrounding States in defending themselves were defending Nuremberg, and thus it could give its undivided attention to the cultivation of those arts in which it so greatly excelled, when its less happily situated neighbors were wasting their treasure and pouring out their blood on the battle-field.

The "Golden Bull," in distributing the imperial honors among the more famous of the German cities, did not overlook this one. If it assigned to Frankfort the distinction of being the place of the emperor's "election," and if it yielded to Augsburg the honor of seeing him crowned, it required that the emperor should hold his first court in Nuremberg. The castle of the mediaeval emperors is still to be seen. It crowns the height which rises on the northern bank of the Pegnitz, immediately within the city-gate, on the right, as on