THE HISTORY OF
PROTESTANTISM
VOLUME 1: BOOKS 4-7
by
James Aitken Wylie
1
CONTENTS
Book Four - Christendom at the Opening of the Sixteenth Century
4
1. Protestantism and Medievalism
2. The Empire
3. The Papacy, or, Christendom Under the Tiara
Footnotes - Book Four
5
7
13
18
Book Five - History of Protestantism in Germany to the Leipsic Disputation
21
1. Luther’s Birth, Childhood and School-Days
2. Luther’s College Life
3. Luther’s Life in the Convent
4. Luther the Monk Becomes Luther the Reformer
5. Luther as Priest, Professor and Preacher
6. Luther’s Journey to Rome
7. Luther in Rome
8. Tetzel Preaches Indulgences
9. The “Theses”
10. Luther Attacked by Tetzel, Prierio and Eck
11. Luther’s Journey to Augsburg
12. Luther’s Appearance Before Cardinal Cajetan
13. Luther’s Return to Wittemberg and Labours There
14. Miltitz - Carlstadt - Dr. Eck
15. The Leipsic Disputation
Footnotes - Book Five
22
28
31
35
39
42
47
51
57
63
69
74
80
86
93
101
Book Six - From the Leipsic Disputation to the Diet at Worms, 1521
112
1. Protestantism and Imperialism; or, The Monk and the Monarch
2. Pope Leo’s Bull
3. Interviews and Negotiations
4. Luther Summoned to the Diet at Worms
5. Luther’s Journey and Arrival at Worms
6. Luther Before the Diet at Worms
7. Luther Put Under the Ban of the Empire
Footnotes - Book Six
113
122
131
139
143
148
157
162
Book Seven - Protestantism in England From Wycliffe to Henry VIII
168
1. The First Protestant Martyrs in England
2. The Theology of the Early English Protestants
3. Growth of English Protestantism
4. Efforts for the Redistribution of Ecclesiastical Property
5. Trial and Condemnation of Sir John Oldcastle
6. Lollardism Denounced as Treason
7. Martyrdom of Lord Cobham
8. Lollardism Under Henry V and Henry VI
9. Rome’s Attempt to Regain Dominance in England
169
174
181
186
190
198
201
205
213
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10. Resistance to Papal Encroachments
11. Influence of Wars of the Fifteenth Century on the Progress of Protestantism
Footnotes - Book Seven
3
217
222
229
BOOK FOUR
CHRISTENDOM AT THE OPENING
OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
4
CHAPTER 1
PROTESTANTISM AND MEDIEVALISM
We are now arrived at the sixteenth century. For a thousand years the Great Ruler had
been laying, in the midst of wars and great ethnical revolutions, the foundations of a
new and more glorious edifice than any that former ages had seen. Ancient society
was too enfeebled by slavery, and too corrupted by polytheism, to be able to bear the
weight of the structure about to be erected. The experiment had been tried of rearing
the new social edifice upon the old foundations, but the attempt had turned out a
failure. By the fourth century, the Gospel, so warmly embraced at first by the Greek
and Roman nations, had begun to decline - had, in fact, become greatly corrupted. It
was seen that these ancient races were unable to advance to the full manhood of
Christianity and civilization. They were continually turning back to old models and
established precedents. They lacked the capacity of adapting themselves to new forms
of life, and surrendering themselves to the guidance of great principles. What was to
be done? Must the building which God purposed to erect be abandoned, because a
foundation sufficiently strong and sound could not be found for it? Should
Christianity remain the half-finished structure, or rather the defaced ruin, which the
fourth and fifth centuries beheld it?
An answer was given to this question when the gates of the North were opened, and
new and hardy races, issuing from the obscure regions of Germany, spread themselves
over Southern and Western Europe. An invisible Power marched before these tribes,
and placed each - the Huns, the Vandals, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Lombards in that quarter of Christendom which best suited the part each was destined to play in
that great drama of which the stamping out of the laws, the religion, and the
government of the old world was the first act. The same Power which guided their
march from the remote lands of their birth, and chose for them their several
habitations, continued to watch over the development of their manners, the formation
of their language, and the growth of their literature and their art, of their laws and
their government; and thus, in the slow course of the centuries, were laid firm and
broad the foundations of a new order of things. These tribes had no past to look back
upon. They had no storied traditions and observances which they trembled to break
through. There was no spell upon them like that which operated so mischievously
upon the Greek and Latin races. They were free to enter the new path. Daring,
adventurous, and liberty-loving, we can trace their steady advance, step by step,
through the convulsions of the tenth century, the intellectual awakening of the twelfth,
and the literary revival of the fifteenth, onward to the great spiritual movement of the
sixteenth.
It is at this great moral epoch that we are now arrived. It will aid us if we pause in our
narrative, and glance for a moment at the constitution of Europe, and note specially
the spirit of its policy, the play of its ambitions, and the crisis to which matters were
fast tending at the opening of the sixteenth century. This will enable us to understand
what we may term the timing of the Reformation. We have just seen that this great
movement was not possible before the century we speak of, for till then there was no
stable basis for it in the condition of the Teutonic nations. The rapid survey that is to
follow will show us further that this renewal of society could not, without the most
disastrous consequences to the world, have been longer delayed. Had the advent of
Protestantism been postponed for a century or two beyond its actual date, not only
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would all the preparations of the previous ages have miscarried, but the world would
have been overtaken, and society, it may be, dissolved a second time, by a tremendous
evil, which had been growing for some time, and had now come to a head. Without
the Protestantism of the sixteenth century, not only would the intellectual awakening
of the twelfth and the literary revival of the fifteenth century have been in vain, but
the mental torpor, and it may be the religion also, of the Turk, would at this day have
been reigning in Europe. Christendom, at the epoch of which we speak, had only two
things in its choice - to accept the Gospel, and fight its way through scaffolds and
stakes to the liberty which the Gospel brings with it, or to crouch down beneath the
shadow of a universal Spanish monarchy, to be succeeded in no long time by the yet
gloomier night of Moslem despotism.
It would require more space than is here at our disposal to pass in review the several
kingdoms of Europe, and note the transformation which all of them underwent as the
era of Protestantism approached. Nor is this necessary. The characteristic of the
Christendom of that age lay in two things - first in the constitution and power of the
Empire, and secondly in the organization and supremacy of the Papacy. For certain
ends, and within certain limits, each separate State of Europe was independent; it
could pursue its own way, make war with whom it had a mind, or conclude a peace
when it chose; but beyond these limits each State was simply the member of a
corporate body, which was under the sway of a double directorate. First came the
Empire, which in the days of Charlemagne, and again in the days of Charles V.,
assumed the presidency of well-nigh the whole of Europe. Above the Empire was the
Papacy. Wielding a subtler influence and armed with higher sanctions, it was the
master of the Empire in even a greater degree than the Empire was the master of
Europe.
It is instructive to mark that, at the moment when the Protestant principle was about to
appear, Medievalism stood up in a power and grandeur unknown to it for ages. The
former was at its weakest, the latter had attained its full strength when the battle
between them was joined. To see how great the odds, what an array of force
Medievalism had at its service, and to be able to guess what would have been the
future of Christendom and the world, had not Protestantism come at this crisis to
withstand, nay, to vanquish the frightful combination of power that menaced the
liberties of mankind, and to feel how marvellous in every point of view was the
victory which, on the side of the weaker power, crowned this great contest, we must
turn first to the Empire.
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CHAPTER 2
THE EMPIRE
The one great Empire of ancient Rome was, in the days of Valentinian (A.D. 364),
divided into two, the Eastern and the Western. The Turk eventually made himself heir
to the Eastern Empire, taking forcible possession of it by his great guns, and savage
but warlike hordes. The Western Empire has dragged out a shadowy existence to our
own day. There was, it is true, a parenthesis in its life; it succumbed to the Gothic
invasion, and for awhile remained in abeyance; but the Pope raised up the fallen
fabric. The genius and martial spirit of the Caesars, which had created this Empire at
the first, the Pope could not revive, but the name and forms of the defunct government
he could and did resuscitate. He grouped the kingdoms of Western Europe into a body
or federation, and selecting one of their kings he set him over the confederated States,
with the title of Emperor. This Empire was a fictitious or nominal one; it was the
image or likeness of the past reflecting itself on the face of modern Europe.
The Empire dazzled the age which witnessed its sudden erection. The constructive
genius and the marvellous legislative and administrative powers of Charlemagne, its
first head, succeeded in giving it a show of power; but it was impossible by a mere
fiat to plant those elements of cohesion, and those sentiments of homage to law and
order, which alone could guarantee its efficiency and permanency. It supposed an
advance of society, and a knowledge on the part of mankind of their rights and duties,
which was far from being the fact. “The Empire of the Germans,” says the historian
Muller, “was constituted in a most extraordinary manner: it was a federal republic; but
its members were so diverse with regard to form, character, and power, that it was
extremely difficult to introduce universal laws, or to unite the whole nation in
measures of mutual interest.”[1] “The Golden Bull,” says Villers, “that strange
monument of the fourteenth century, fixed, it is true, a few relations of the head with
the members; but nothing could be more indistinct than the public law of all those
States, independent though at the same time united … Had not the Turks, at that time
the violent enemies of all Christendom, come during the first years of the reign of
Frederick to plant the crescent in Europe, and menaced incessantly the Empire with
invasion, it is not easy to see how the feeble tie which bound that body together could
have remained unbroken. The terror inspired by Mahomet II. and his ferocious
soldiers, was the first common interest which led the princes of Germany to unite
themselves to one another, and around the imperial throne.”[2]
The author last quoted makes mention of the Golden Bull. Let us bestow a glance on
this ancient and curious document; it will bring before us the image of the time. Its
author was Charles IV., Emperor and King of Bohemia. Pope Gregory, about the year
997, it is believed, instituted seven electors. Of these, three were Churchmen and
three lay princes, and one of kingly rank was added, to make up the mystic number of
seven, as some have thought, but more probably to prevent equality of votes. The
three Churchmen were the Archbishop of Treves, Chancellor for France; the
Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor for Germany; the Archbishop of Cologne,
Chancellor for Italy. The four laymen were the King of Bohemia, the Duke of
Saxony, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and the Marquis of Brandenburg.
The Archbishop of Mainz, by letters patent, was to fix the day of election, which was
to take place not later than three months from the death of the former emperor. Should
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the archbishop fail to summon the electors, they were to meet notwithstanding within
the appointed time, and elect one to the imperial dignity. The electors were to afford
to each other free passage and a safe-conduct through their territories when on their
way to the discharge of their electoral duties. If an elector could not come in person
he might send a deputy. The election was to take place in Frankfort-on-the-Maine. No
elector was to be permitted to enter the city attended by more than two hundred
horsemen, whereof fifty only were to be armed. The citizens of Frankfort were made
responsible for the safety of the electors, under the penalty of loss of goods and
privileges. The morning after their arrival, the electors, attired in their official habits,
proceeded on horseback from the council-hall to the cathedral church of St.
Bartholomew, where mass was sung. Then the Archbishop of Mainz administered an
oath at the altar to each elector, that he would, without bribe or reward, choose a
temporal head for Christendom. Thereafter they met in secret conclave. Their decision
must be come to within thirty days, but if deferred beyond that period, they were to be
fed on bread and water, and prevented leaving the city till they had completed the
election. A majority of votes constituted a valid election, and the decision was to be
announced from a stage erected for the purpose in front of the choir of the cathedral.
The person chosen to the imperial dignity took an oath to maintain the profession of
the Catholic faith, to protect the Church in all her rights, to be obedient to the Pope, to
administer justice, and to conserve all the customs and privileges of the electors and
States of the Empire. The imperial insignia were then given him, consisting of a
golden crown, a sceptre, a globe called the imperial apple, the sword of Charlemagne,
a copy of the Gospels said to have been found in his grave, and a rich mantle which
was presented to one of the emperors by an Arabian prince.[3] The ceremonies
enjoined by the Golden Bull to be observed at the coronation feast are curious; the
following minute and graphic account of them is given by an old traveller: - “In
solemn court the emperor shall sit on his throne, and the Duke of Saxony, laying a
heap of oats as high as his horse’s saddle before the court-gate, shall, with a silver
measure of twelve marks’ price, deliver oats to the chief equerry of the stable, and
then, sticking his staff in the oats, shall depart, and the vice-marshal shall distribute
the rest of the oats. The three archbishops shall say grace at the emperor’s table, and
he of them who is chancellor of the place shall lay reverently the seals before the
emperor, which the emperor shall restore to him; and the staff of the chancellor shall
be worth twelve marks silver. The Marquis of Brandenburg, sitting upon his horse,
with a silver basin of twelve marks’ weight, and a towel, shall alight from his horse
and give water to the emperor. The Count Palatine, sitting upon his horse, with four
dishes of silver with meat, each dish worth three marks, shall alight and set the dishes
on the table. The King of Bohemia, sitting upon his horse, with a silver cup worth
twelve marks, filled with water and wine, shall alight and give it the emperor to drink.
The gentleman of Falkenstein, under-chamberlain, the gentleman of Nortemberg,
master of the kitchen, and the gentleman of Limburch, vice-buffer, or in their absence
the ordinary officers of the court, shall have the said horses, basin, dishes, cup, staff,
and measure, and shall after wait at the emperor’s table. The emperor’s table shall be
six feet higher than any other table, where he shall sit alone, and the table of the
empress shall be by his side three feet lower. The electors’ tables shall be three feet
lower than that of the empress, and all of equal height, and three of them shall be on
the emperor’s right hand, three on his left hand, and one before his face, and each
shall sit alone at his table. When one elector has done his office he shall go and stand
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at his own table, and so in order the rest, till all have performed their offices, and then
all seven shall sit down at one time.”
“The emperor shall be chosen at Frankfort, crowned at Augsburg, and shall hold his
first court at Nuremberg, except there be some lawful impediment. The electors are
presumed to be Germans, and their sons at the age of seven years shall be taught the
grammar, and the Italian and Slavonian tongues, so as at fourteen years of age they
may be skilful therein and be worthy assessors to the emperor.”[4]
The electors are, by birth, the privy councillors of the emperor; they ought, in the
phraseology of Charles IV., “to enlighten the Holy Empire, as seven shining lights, in
the unity of the sevenfold spirit;” and, according to the same monarch, are “the most
honourable members of the imperial body.”[5] The rights which the emperor could
exercise on his own authority, those he could exert with the consent of the electors,
and those which belonged to him only with the concurrence of all the princes and
States of the Empire have been variously described. Generally, it may be said that the
emperor could not enact new laws, nor impose taxes, nor levy bodies of men, nor
make wars, nor erect fortifications, nor form treaties of peace and alliances, except
with the concurrent voice of the electors, princes, and States. He had no special
revenue to support the imperial dignity, and no power to enforce the imperial
commands. The princes were careful not to make the emperor too powerful, lest he
should abridge the independent sovereignty which each exercised within his own
dominions, and the free cities were equally jealous lest the imperial power should
encroach upon their charters and privileges. The authority of the emperor was almost
entirely nominal. We speak of the times preceding the peace of Westphalia; by that
settlement the constitution of the Empire was more accurately defined.
Its first days were its most vigorous. It began to decline when no longer upheld by the
power and guided by the genius of Charlemagne. The once brilliant line of Pepin had
now ceased to produce warriors and legislators. By a sudden break-down it had
degenerated into a race of simpletons and imbeciles. By-and-by the Empire passed
from the Frank kings to the Saxon monarchs. Under the latter it recovered a little
strength; but soon Gregory VII. came with his grand project of making the tiara
supreme not only over all crowns, but above the imperial diadem itself. Gregory
succeeded in the end of the day, for the issue of the long and bloody war which he
commenced was that the Empire had to bow to the mitre, and the emperor to take an
oath of vassalage to the Pontiff. The Empire had only two elements of cohesion Roman Catholicism within, and the terror of the Turk without. Its constituent princes
were rivals rather than members of one confederacy. Animosities and dissensions
were continually springing up amongst them. They invaded each other’s territories,
regardless of the displeasure of the emperor. By these wars trade was impeded,
knowledge repressed, and outrage and rapine flourished to a degree that threatened
society itself with destruction. The authors of these calamities at last felt the necessity
of devising some other way of adjusting their quarrels than by the sword. The
Imperial Council, the Aulic Diet, the Diet of the Empire, were the successive methods
had recourse to for obviating these frequent and cruel resorts to force, which were
giving to the provinces of the Empire the appearance of a devastated and uninhabited
region. In A.D. 1519, by the death of Maximilian, the imperial crown became vacant.
Two illustrious and powerful princes came forward to contest the brilliant prize Francis I. of France, and Charles of Austria, the grandson of Maximilian, and King of
9
Spain. Henry VIII. of England, the third great monarch of the age, also entered the
lists, but finding at an early stage of the contest that his chance of success was small,
he withdrew. Francis I. was a gallant prince, a chivalrous soldier, a friend of the new
learning, and so frank and affable in his manners that he won the affection of all who
approached him. But the Germans were averse to accept as the head of their Empire
the king of a nation whose genius, language, and manners were so widely different
from their own. Their choice fell on Charles, who, though he lacked the brilliant
personal qualities of his rival, drew his lineage from their own race, had his cradle in
one of their own towns, Ghent, and was the heir of twenty-eight kingdoms.
There was danger as well as safety in the vast power of the man whom the Germans
had elected to wear a crown which had in it so much grandeur and so little solid
authority. The conqueror of the East, Selim II., was perpetually hovering upon their
frontier. They needed a strong arm to repel the invader, and thought they had found it
in that of the master of so many kingdoms; but the hand that shielded them from
Moslem tyranny might, who could tell, crush their own liberties. It behooved them to
take precautions against this possible catastrophe. They framed a Capitulation or
claim of rights, enumerating and guaranteeing the privileges and immunities of the
Germanic Body; and the ambassadors of Charles signed it in the name of their master,
and he himself confirmed it by oath at his coronation. In this instrument the princes of
Germany unconsciously provided for the defence of higher rights than their own
royalties and immunities. They had erected an asylum to which Protestantism might
retreat, when the day should come that the emperor would raise his mailed hand to
crush it.
Charles V. was more powerful than any emperor had been for many an age preceding.
To the imperial dignity, a shadow in the case of many of his predecessors, was added
in his the substantial power of Spain. A singular concurrence of events had made
Spain a mightier kingdom by far than any that had existed in Europe since the days of
the Caesars. Of this magnificent monarchy the whole resources were in the hands of
the man who was at once the wearer of the imperial dignity and the enemy of the
Reformation. This makes it imperative that we should bestow a glance on the extent
and greatness of the Spanish kingdom, when estimating the overwhelming force now
arrayed against Protestantism.
As the Reformation drew nigh, Spain suddenly changed its form, and from being a
congeries of diminutive kingdoms, it became one powerful empire. The various
principalities, which up till this time dotted the surface of the Peninsula, were now
merged into the two kingdoms of Arragon and Castile. There remained but one other
step to make Spain one monarchy, and that step was taken in A.D. 1469, by the
marriage of Ferdinand of Arragon and Isabella of Castile. In a few years thereafter
these two royal personages ascended the thrones of Arragon and Castile, and thus all
the crowns of Spain were united on their head. One monarch now swayed his sceptre
over the Iberian Peninsula, from San Sebastian to the Rock of Gibraltar, from the
Pyrenees to the straits that wash the feet of the mountains of Mauritania. The whole
resources of the country now found their way into one exchequer; all its tribes were
gathered round one standard; and its whole power was wielded by one hand.
Spain, already great, was about to become still greater. Columbus was just fitting out
the little craft in which he was to explore the Atlantic, and add, by his skill and
adventurous courage, to the crown of Spain the most brilliant appendage which
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subject ever gave to monarch. Since the days of old Rome there had arisen no such
stupendous political structure as that which was about to show itself to the world in
the Spanish Monarchy. Spain itself was but a unit in the assemblage of kingdoms that
made up this vast empire. The European dependencies of Spain were numerous. The
fertile plains and vine-clad hills of Sicily and Naples were hers. The vast garden of
Lombardy, which the Po waters and the Alps enclose, with its queenly cities, its
plantations of olive and mulberry, its corn and oil and silk, were hers. The Low
Countries were hers, with their canals, their fertile meadows stocked with herds, their
cathedrals and museums, and their stately towns, the seats of learning and the hives of
industry. As if Europe were too narrow to contain so colossal a power, Spain stretched
her sceptre across the great western sea, and ample provinces in the New World called
her mistress. Mexico and Peru were hers, and the products of their virgin soils and the
wealth of their golden mines were borne across the deep to replenish her bazaars and
silver shops. It was not the Occident only that poured its treasures at her feet; Spain
laid her hand on the Orient, and the fragrant spices and precious gems of India
ministered to her pleasure. The sun never set on the dominions of Spain. The
numerous countries that owned her sway sent each whatever was most precious and
most prized among its products, to stock her markets and enrich her exchequer. To
Spain flowed the gums of Arabia, the drugs of Molucca, the diamonds of Borneo, the
wheat of Lombardy, the wine of Naples, the rich fabrics worked on the looms of
Bruges and Ghent, the arms and cutlery forged in the factories and wrought up in the
workshops of Liege and Namur.
This great empire was served by numerous armies and powerful fleets. Her soldiers,
drawn from every nation, and excellently disciplined, were brave, hardy, familiar with
danger, and inured to every climate from the tropics to the arctic regions. They were
led by commanders of consummate ability, and the flag under which they marched
had conquered on a hundred battle-fields. When the master of all these provinces,
armies and fleets, added the imperial diadem, as Charles V. did, to all his other
dignities, his glory was perfected. We may adapt to the Spanish monarch the bold
image under which the prophet presented the greatness of the Assyrian power. “The”
Spaniard “was a cedar in” Europe “with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud,
and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him
great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and
sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted
above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches
became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.” (Ezekiel 31:35)[6]
The monarch of Spain, though master of so much, was laying schemes for extending
the limits of his already overgrown dominions, and making himself absolute and
universal lord. Since the noon of the Roman power, the liberties of the world had at
no time been in so great peril as now. The shadow of a universal despotism was
persistently projecting itself farther and yet farther upon the kingdoms and peoples of
Western Europe. There was no principle known to the men of that age that seemed
capable of doing battle with this colossus, and staying its advance. This despotism,
into whose hands as it seemed the nations of Christendom had been delivered,
claimed a Divine right, and, as such, was upheld by the spiritual forces of priestcraft,
and the material aids of fleets and legions. Liberty was retreating before it. Literature
and art had become its allies, and were weaving chains for the men whom they had
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promised to emancipate. As Liberty looked around, she could see no arm on which to
lean, no champion to do battle for her. Unless Protestantism had arrived at that crisis,
a universal despotism would have covered Europe, and Liberty banished from the
earth must have returned to her native skies. “Dr. Martin Luther, a monk from the
county of Mansfeld … by his heroism alone, imparted to the half of Europe a new
soul; created an opposition which became the safeguard of freedom.”[7]
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CHAPTER 3
THE PAPACY, OR, CHRISTENDOM UNDER THE TIARA
We now ascend to the summit of the European edifice as constituted at the beginning
of the sixteenth century. There was a higher monarch in the world than the emperor,
and a more powerful kingdom in Christendom than the Empire. That monarch was the
Pope - that Empire, the Papacy.
Any view of Christendom that fails to take note of the relations of the Papacy to its
several kingdoms, overlooks the prominent characteristic of Europe as it existed when
the great struggle for religion and liberty was begun. The relation of the Papacy to the
other kingdoms of Christendom was, in a word, that of dominancy. It was their chief,
their ruler. It taught them to see in the Seven Hills, and the power seated thereon, the
bond of their union, the fountain of their legislation, and the throne of their
government. It thus knit all the kingdoms of Europe into one great confederacy or
monarchy. They lived and breathed in the Papacy. Their fleets and armies, their
constitutions and laws, existed more for it than for themselves. They were employed
to advance the policy and uphold the power of the sovereigns who sat in the Papal
chair.
In the one Pontifical government there were rolled up in reality two governments, one
within the other. The smaller of these covered the area of the Papal States; while the
larger, spurning these narrow limits, embraced the whole of Christendom, making of
its thrones and nations but one monarchy, one theocratic kingdom, over which was
stretched the sceptre of an absolute jurisdiction.
In order to see how this came to pass, we must briefly enumerate the various
expedients by which the Papacy contrived to exercise jurisdiction outside its own
special territory, and by which it became the temporal not less than the spiritual head
of Christendom - the real ruler of the kingdoms of medieval Europe. How a
monarchy, professedly spiritual, should exercise temporal dominion, and especially
how it should make its temporal dominion co-extensive with Christendom, is not
apparent at first sight. Nevertheless, history attests the fact that it did so make it. One
main expedient by which the Papacy wielded temporal power and compassed political
ends in other kingdoms was the office of “legate-a-latere.” The term signifies an
ambassador from the Pope’s side. The legate-a- latere was, in fact, the alter ego of the
Pope, whose person he represented, and with whose power he was clothed. He was
sent into all countries, not to mediate but to govern; his functions being analogous to
those of the deputies or rulers whom the pagan masters of the world were wont to
send from Rome to govern the subject provinces of the Empire.
In the prosecution of his mission the legate-a-latere made it his first business in the
particular country into which he entered to set up his court, and to try causes and
pronounce judgment in the Pope’s name. Neither the authority of the sovereign nor
the law of the land was acknowledged in the court of the legate; all causes were
determined by the canon law of Rome. A vast multitude of cases, and these by no
means spiritual, did the legate contrive to bring under his jurisdiction. He claimed to
decide all questions of divorce. These decisions involved, of course, civil issues, such
as the succession to landed estates, the ownership of other forms of wealth, and in
some instances the right to the throne. All questions touching the lands and estates of
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the convents, monasteries, and abbeys were determined by the legate. This gave him
the direct control of one-half the landed property of most of the kingdoms of Europe.
He could impose taxes, and did levy a penny upon every house in France and
England. He had power, moreover, to impose extraordinary levies for special objects
of the Church upon both clergy and laity. He made himself the arbiter of peace and
war.[1] He meddled in all the affairs of princes, conducted perpetual intrigues,
fomented endless quarrels, and sustained himself umpire in all controversies. If any
one felt himself aggrieved by the judgment of the legate, he could have no redress
from the courts of the country, nor even from the sovereign. He must go in person to
Rome. Thus did the Pope, through his legate-a-latere, manage to make himself the
grand justiciary of the kingdom.[2]
The vast jurisdiction of the legate-a-latere was supported and enforced by the
“interdict.” The interdict was to the legate instead of an army. The blow it dealt was
more rapid, and the subjugation it effected on those on whom it fell was more
complete, than any that could have been achieved by any number of armed men.
When a monarch proved obdurate, the legate unsheathed this sword against him. The
clergy throughout the length and breadth of his kingdom instantly desisted from the
celebration of the ordinances of religion. All the subjects were made partners with the
sovereign in this ghostly but dreadful infliction. In an age when there was no salvation
but through the priesthood, and no grace but through the channel of the Sacraments,
the terrors of interdict were irresistible. All the signs of malediction everywhere
visible throughout the land on which this terrible chastisement had been laid, struck
the imagination with all the greater force that they were viewed as the symbols of a
doom which did not terminate on earth, but which extended into the other world. The
interdict in those ages never failed to gain its end, for the people, punished for the
fault, real or supposed, of their sovereign, broke out into murmurs, sometimes into
rebellion, and the unhappy prince found in the long run that he must either face
insurrection or make his peace with the Church. It was thus the shadow of power only
which was left the king; the substance of sovereignty filched from him was carried to
Rome and vested in the chair of the Pope.[3]
Another contrivance by which the Papacy, while it left to princes the name of king,
took from them the actual government of their kingdoms, was the Concordat. These
agreements or treaties between the Pope and the kings of Christendom varied in their
minor details, but the leading provisions were alike in all of them, their key-note
being the supremacy of Rome, and the subordination of the State with which that
haughty power had deigned to enter into compact. The Concordat bound the
government with which it was made to enact no law, profess no religion, open no
school, and permit no branch of knowledge to be taught within its dominions, until the
Pope had first given his consent. Moreover, it bound it to keep open the gates of the
realm for the admission of such legates, bishops, and nuncios as the Pope might be
pleased to send thither for the purpose of administering his spiritual authority, and to
receive such bulls and briefs as he might be pleased to promulgate, which were to
have the force of law in the counter whose rights and privileges these missives very
possibly invaded, or altogether set aside. The advantages secured by the contracting
parties on the other side were usually of the most meagre kind, and were respected
only so long as it was not for the interests of the Church of Rome to violate them. In
short, the Concordat gave the Pope the first place in the government of the kingdom,
14
leaving to the sovereign and the Estates of the Realm only the second. It bound down
the prince in vassalage, and the people in serfdom political and religious.[4]
Another formidable instrumentality for compassing the same ends was the hierarchy.
The struggle commenced by Hildebrand, regarding investitures, ended in giving to the
Pope the power of appointing bishops throughout all the Empire. This placed in the
hands of the Pontiff the better half of the secular government of its kingdoms. The
hierarchy formed a body powerful by their union, their intelligence, and the reverence
which waited on their sacred office. Each member of that body had taken a feudal
oath of obedience to the Pope.[5] The bishop was no mere priest, he was a ruler as
well, being possessed of jurisdiction - that is, the power of law - the law he
administered being the canon law of Rome. The “chapter” was but another term for
the court by which the bishop exercised that jurisdiction, and as it was a recognized
doctrine that the jurisdiction of the bishop was temporal as well as spiritual, the
hierarchy formed in fact a magistracy, and a magistracy planted in the country by a
foreign power, under an oath of obedience to the power that had appointed it - a
magistracy independent of the sovereign, and wielding a combined temporal and
spiritual jurisdiction over every person in the realm, and governing him alike in his
religious acts, in his political duties, and in his temporal possessions.
Let us take the little kingdom of Sardinia as an illustration. On the 8th of January,
1855, a bill was introduced into the Parliament of Turin for the suppression of
convents and the more equal distribution of Church lands. The habitable portion of
Sardinia is mostly comprised in the rich valley of the Po, and its population amounts
only to about four and a half millions. Yet it appeared from the bill that in this small
territory there were seven archbishops, thirty-four bishops, forty-one chapters, with
eight hundred and sixty canons attached to the bishoprics; seventy-three simple
chapters, with four hundred and seventy canons; eleven hundred livings for the
canons; and lastly, four thousand two hundred and forty-seven parishes, with some
thousands of parish priests. The domains of the Church represented a capital of four
hundred millions of francs, yielding a yearly revenue of seventeen millions and
upwards. Nor was even this the whole of the ecclesiastical burden borne by the little
State. To the secular clergy we have to add eight thousand five hundred and sixtythree persons who wore cowls and veils. These were distributed into six hundred and
four religious houses, whose annual cost was two millions and a half of francs.
There were thus from twelve to twenty thousand persons in Piedmont, all under oath,
or under vows equivalent to an oath, to obey only the orders that came from Rome.
These held one-fourth of the lands of the kingdom; they were exempt from the
jurisdiction of the laws. They claimed the right of dictating to all the subjects of the
realm how to act in every matter in which duty was involved - that is, in every matter
absolutely - and they had the power of compelling obedience by penalties of a
peculiarly forcible kind. It is obvious at a glance that the actual government of the
kingdom was in the hands of these men - that is, of their master at Rome.
Let us glance briefly at the other principalities of the peninsula - the Levitical State, as
Italy was wont to be called. We leave out of view the secular clergy with their
gorgeous cathedrals, so rich in silver and gold, as well as in statuary and paintings;
nor do we include their ample Church lands, and their numerous dues drawn from the
people. We confine ourselves to the ranks of the cloister. In 1863 a “Project of Law”
was tabled in the Italian Chamber of Deputies for their suppression.[6] From this
15
“Project” it appeared that there were in Italy eighty-four orders of monks, distributed
in two thousand three hundred and eighty-two religious houses. Each of these eightyfour orders had numerous affiliated branches radiating over the country. All held
property, save the four Mendicant orders. The value of the conventual property was
estimated at forty million lire, and the number of persons made a grand total of sixtythree thousand two hundred and thirty-nine. This does not include the conventual
establishments of the Papal States, nor the religious houses of Piedmont, which had
been suppressed previous to 1863. If we take these into account, we can not estimate
the monastic corps of Italy at less than a hundred thousand.[7]
Besides those we have enumerated there were a host of instrumentalities all directed
to the same end, the enforcement even of the government of Rome, mainly in things
temporal, in the dominions of other sovereigns. Chief among these was the
Confessional. The Confessional was called “the place of penitence;” it was, in reality,
a seat of jurisdiction. It was a tribunal the highest of all tribunals, because to the
Papist the tribunal of God. Its terrors as far transcended those of the human judgmentseat, as the sword of eternal anathema transcends the gallows of temporal
governments. It afforded, moreover, unrivalled facilities for sowing sedition and
organizing rebellion. Here the priest sat unseen, digging, hour by hour and day after
day, the mine beneath the prince he had marked out for ruin, while the latter never
once suspected that his overthrow was being prepared till he was hurled from his seat.
There was, moreover, the device of dispensations and indulgences. Never did
merchant by the most daring venture, nor statesman by the most ingenious scheme of
finance, succeed in amassing such store of wealth as Rome did simply by selling
pardon. She sent the vendors of her wares into all countries, and as all felt that they
needed forgiveness, all flocked to her market; and thus, “as one gathereth eggs,” to
employ the language of the prophet, so did Rome gather the riches of all the earth.
She took care, moreover, that these riches should not “take to themselves wings and
flee away.” She invented mortmain. Not a penny of her accumulated hoards, not an
acre of her wide domains, did her “dead hand” ever let go. Her property was beyond
the reach of the law; this crowned the evil. The estates of the nobles could be dealt
with by the civil tribunals, if so overgrown as to be dangerous to the public good. But
it was the fate of the ecclesiastical property ever to grow - and with it, of course, the
pride and arrogance of its owners - and however noxious the uses to which it was
turned, however much it tended to impoverish the resources of the State, and
undermine the industry of the nation, no remedy could be applied to the mischief.
Century after century the evil continued and waxed stronger, till at length the
Reformation came and dissolved the spell by which Rome had succeeded in making
her enormous possessions inviolable to the arm of the law; covering them, as she did,
with the sanctions of Heaven.
Thus did Rome by these expedients, and others which it were tedious here to
enumerate, extend her government over all the countries of Christendom, alike in
temporals as in spirituals. “The Pope’s jurisdiction,” said a Franciscan, “is universal,
embracing the whole world, its temporalities as well as its spiritualities.”[8] Rome did
not set up the chair of Peter bodily in these various countries, nor did she transfer to
them the machinery of the Papal government as it existed in her own capital. It was
not in the least necessary that she should do so. She gained her end quite as
effectually by legates-a-latere, by Concordats, by bishops, by bulls, by indulgences,
and by a power that stood behind all the others and lent them its sanction and force -
16
namely, the Infallibility - a fiction, no doubt, but to the Romanist a reality - a moral
omnipotence, which he no more dared disobey than he dared disobey God, for to him
it was God. The Infallibility enabled the Pope to gather the whole Romanist
community dispersed over the world into one army, which, obedient to its leader,
could be put in motion from its centre to its wide circumference, as if it were one
man, forming an array of political, spiritual, and material force, which had not its like
on earth.
Nor, when he entered the dominions of another sovereign, did the Pontiff. put down
the throne, and rule himself in person. Neither was this in the least necessary. He left
the throne standing, together with the whole machinery of the government tribunals,
institutions, the army - all as aforetime, but he deprived them of all force, and
converted them into the instrumentalities and channels of Papal rule. They were made
outlying portions of the Pontifical monarchy. Thus did Rome knit into one great
federation the diverse nationalities and kingdoms of Western Europe. One and the
same character - namely, the theocratic - did she communicate to all of them. She
made all obedient to one will, and subservient to one grand scheme of policy. The
ancient Rome had exhibited a marvellous genius for welding the nations into one, and
teaching them obedience to her behests; but her proudest triumphs in this field were
eclipsed by the yet greater success of Papal Rome. The latter found a more powerful
principle of cohesion wherewith to cement the nations than any known to the former,
and she had, moreover, the art to imbue them with a spirit of profounder submission
than was ever yielded to her pagan predecessor; and, as a consequence, while the
Empire of the Caesars preserved its unity unbroken, and its strength unimpaired, for
only a brief space, that of the Popes has continued to flourish in power and great glory
for well-nigh a thousand years.
Such was the constitution of Christendom as fully developed at the end of the
fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century. The verdict of Adam Smith,
pronounced on Rome, viewed as the head and mistress of this vast confederation,
expresses only the sober truth: “The Church of Rome,” said he, “is the most
formidable combination that ever was formed against the authority and security of
civil government, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind.” It
is no mere scheme of ecclesiastical government that is before us, having for its aim
only to guide the consciences of men in those matters that appertain to God, and the
salvation of their souls. It is a so-called Superhuman Jurisdiction, a Divine
Vicegerency, set up to govern men in their understandings and consciences, in their
goods, their liberties, and their lives. Against such a power mere earthly force would
have naught availed. Reason and argument would have fought against it in vain.
Philosophy and literature, raillery and scepticism, would have shot their bolts to no
purpose. A Divine assailant only could overthrow it: that assailant was
PROTESTANTISM.
17
FOOTNOTES - BOOK FOUR
CHAPTER 1
None.
CHAPTER 2
[1] Muller, Univ. Hist., vol. 2, p. 427; Lond., 1818.
[2] Villers, Essay on the Reformation, pp. 193 - 195.
[3] The insignia were kept in one of the churches of Nuremberg; Misson, who
travelled 200 years ago, describes them. The diadem or crown of Charlemagne is of
gold and weighs fourteen pounds. It is covered nearly all over with precious stones,
and is surmounted by a cross. The sceptre and globe are of gold. “They say,” remarks
Misson, “that the sword was brought by an angel from heaven. The robe called
Dalmatick of Charlemagne is of a violet colour, embroidered with pearls, and strewed
with eagles of gold, and a great number of jewels. There are likewise the cope, the
stole; the gloves, the breeches, the stockings, and the buskins.” (Maximilian Misson,
New Voyage to Italy, etc., vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 117; Lond., 1739.)
[4] An Itinerary written by Fynes Moryson, Gent., first in the Latin tongue, and then
translated by him into English; containing his ten years travel through the twelve
dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Sweitzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland,
Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Fol.; Lond., 1617. Pt. 3, p. 191.
[5] Muller, vol. 2, p. 432.
[6] Ezekiel 31:3-5.
[7] Muller, Univ. Hist., vol. 3, sec. 1, p. 2; Lond., 1818. “If the tide of events had
followed in the sixteenth century, and in those which succeeded, the course in which
it had hitherto flowed, nothing could have saved Europe from approaching servitude,
and the yoke of an universal monarchy.” (Villers, Essay on the Spirit and Influence of
the Reformation of Luther, sec. 4, p. 125; Lond., 1805.)
CHAPTER 3
[1] Sir James Melville informs us that the bloody war which broke out between
France and Spain in the reign of Henry II. was preceded by the Papal legate absolving
the King of France from all the oaths and treaties by which he had ratified the peace
between the two kingdoms but a little before. “As legate,” said Caraffa, “from God’s
Vicar [Paul IV.] he would give him full absolution, he having power to bind and
loose.” (Memoirs of Sir James Melvil, p. 38; Edin., 1735.)
[2] Details regarding the functions of the legate-a-latere, and the acts in which his
powers were shown, will be found in Dupin, Biblioth., tom. 8, p. 56; also tom. 9, pp.
220, 223; and tom. 10, p. 126. Fleury, Eccl. Hist., tom. 18, p. 225. Maimbourg, Hist.
du Pontific de S. Gregory le Grand; also in Words of Peace and Justice, etc., on the
subject of “Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See,” by the Right Rev. Nicholas
18
Wiseman, D.D., Bishop of Melipotamus, Pro. V.A.L.D.; Lond., Charles Dolman,
1848.
[3] The interdict began to be employed in the ninth century; the practice of missioning
legates-a-latere dates from the tenth; both expedients were invented and brought into
use a little before the breaking out of that great war between the Papacy and the
Empire, which was to decide the question which was the stronger. The interdict and
the legate materially contributed to the success which attended the Church in that
conflict, and which made the mitre triumphant over the Empire.
[4] Let us, by way of illustration, look at the Concordat framed so recently as 1855
with Southern Germany, then under the House of Austria. Besides the privileges
specified above, that Concordat gave the bishops the sole government of the priests;
they could punish them according to canon law, and the priest had no appeal from the
penal jurisdiction of the Church. If any one dared to appeal to the civil tribunals, he
was instantly smitten with excommunication. Equally in the power of the bishops
were all schools and teachers, nor could one give religious instruction in even the
university without the episcopal sanction. The bishops moreover had the independent
administration of all the lands and property of the Church and of the religious houses.
They were guaranteed in free communication with Rome, in the independent exercise
of their own discipline irrespective of the civil law, which amounted to the
enforcement of canon law on all the subjects of the realm, in all cases in which the
bishops saw fit to apply it. And they were, in fine, reinstated in their ancient penal
jurisdiction. On the principle Ex uno disce omnes, we are forced to the conclusion that
the bondage of medieval Christendom was complete, and that that bondage 1028
was to a far greater degree spiritual than temporal. It had its origin in the Roman
Church; it was on the conscience and intellect that it pressed, and it gave its sanction
to the temporal fetters in which the men of those ages were held.
[5] We quote one or two of the clauses of the oath: - “I will be faithful and obedient to
our lord the Pope and to his successors. … In preserving and defending the Roman
Papacy and the regalia of St. Peter, I will be their assistant against all men. …
Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our same lord, I will [pro posse pro persequar et
impugnabo] persecute and attack to the utmost of my power.” (Decretum Greg. IX.,
lib. 2, tit. 24.)
[6] Progetto di Legge relativo alla Soppressione di Corporazione Religiose e
Disposizione sull’ asse Eccesiastico - Camera dei Deputati, Sess. 1863, No. 159.
Relazione della Commissione composta dei Deputati, etc., sul Progetto di Legge
presentato dal Ministro di Grazia e Giustizia e dei Culti - Sess. 1863, No. 159, A.
Resoconto dell Aministrazione della casa Ecclesiastica; presentato dall Presidente dal
Consiglio dei Ministri, Ministro dell Finanze - Sess. 1863, No. 215, A. Progetto di
Legge. Soppressione delle decime Eccles. - Sess. 1863, No. 158.
[7] Progetto di Legge relativo alla Soppressione di Corporazione Religiose e
Disposizione sull’ asse Ecclesiastico - Camera dei Deputati, Sess. 1863, No. 159.
Relazione della Commissione composta dei Deputati, etc., sul Progetto di Legge
presentato dal Ministro di Grazia e Giustizia e dei Culti - Sess. 1863, No. 159, A.
These and the above-quoted documents were printed, but not published, and we owe
the use of them to the politeness of Sig. Malau, formerly member of the Italian
Parliament.
19
[8] “Jurisdictionem habet universalem in toto mundo papa, nedum in spiritualibus sed
temporalibus.” (Alvarus Pelagius, De Planctu Eccles., lib. 1, cap. 13.)
20
BOOK FIVE
HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM IN GERMANY
TO THE LEIPSIC DISPUTATION, 1519
21
CHAPTER 1
LUTHER’S BIRTH, CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-DAYS
From the fall of the Western Empire to the eleventh century, there intervened a period
of unexampled torpor and darkness. The human mind seemed to have sunk into
senility. Society seemed to have lost the vital principle of progress. Men looked back
to former ages with a feeling of despair. They recalled the varied and brilliant
achievements of the early time, and sighed to think that the world’s better days were
past, that old age had come upon the race, and that the end of all things was at hand.
Indeed a belief was generally entertained that the year One thousand would usher in
the Day of Judgment. It was a mistake. The world’s best days were yet to come,
though these - its true golden age - it could reach not otherwise than through terrible
political and moral tempests.
The hurricane of the crusades it was that first broke the ice of the world’s long winter.
The frozen bands of Orion being loosed, the sweet influences of the Pleiades began to
act on society. Commerce and art, poetry and philosophy appeared, and like early
flowers announced the coming of spring. That philosophy, it is true, was not of much
intrinsic value, but, like the sports of childhood which develop the limbs and
strengthen the faculties of the future man, the speculations of the Middle Ages,
wherewith the young mind of Europe exercised itself, payed the way for the
achievements of its manhood.
By-and-by came the printing-press, truly a Divine gift; and scarcely had the art of
printing been perfected when Constantinople fell, the tomb of ancient literature was
burst open, and the treasures of the ancient world were scattered over the West. From
these seeds were to spring not the old thoughts, but new ones of greater power and
beauty. Next came the mariner’s compass, and with the mariner’s compass came a
new world, or, what is the same thing, the discovery by man of the large and goodly
dimensions of the world he occupies. Hitherto he had been confined to a portion of it
only; and on this little spot he had planted and built, he had turned its soil with the
plough, but oftener reddened it with the sword, unconscious the while that ampler and
wealthier realms around him were lying unpeopled and uncultivated. But now
magnificent continents and goodly islands rose out of the primeval night. It seemed a
second Creation. On all sides the world was expanding around man, and this sudden
revelation of the vastness of that kingdom of which he was lord, awoke in his bosom
new desires, and speedily dispelled those gloomy apprehensions by which he had
begun to be oppressed. He thought that Time’s career was finished, and that the world
was descending into its sepulchre; to his amazement and joy he saw that the world’s
youth was come only now, and that man was as yet but at the beginning of his
destiny. He panted to enter on the new career opening before him.
Compared with his condition in the eleventh century, when man was groping in the
thick night, and the rising breath of the crusades was just beginning to stir the lethargy
of ages, it must have seemed to him as if he had already seen the full opening of the
day. But the true light had not yet risen, if we except a feeble dawn, in the skies of
England and Bohemia, where gathering clouds threatened to extinguish it. Philosophy
and poetry, even when to these are added ancient learning and modern discoveries,
could not make it day. If something better had not succeeded, the awakening of the
sixteenth century would have been but as a watch in the night. The world, after those
22
merely terrestrial forces had spent themselves, would have fallen back into its tomb. It
was necessary that God’s own breath should vivify it, if it was to continue to live. The
logic of the schools, the perfume of letters, the galvanic forces of art could not make
of the corpse a living man. As with man at first, so with society, God must breathe
into it in order that it might become a living soul. The Bible, so long buried, was
resuscitated, was translated into the various tongues of Europe, and thus the breath of
God was again moving over society. The light of heaven, after its long and disastrous
eclipse, broke anew upon the world.
Three great princes occupied the three leading thrones of Europe. To these we may
add the potentate of the Vatican, in some points the least, but in others the greatest of
the four. The conflicting interests and passions of these four men preserved a sort of
balance, and restrained the tempests of war from ravaging Christendom. The long and
bloody conflicts which had devastated Germany were ended as the fifteenth century
drew to its close.
The sword rested meanwhile in Europe. As in the Roman world the wars of centuries
were concluded, and the doors of the temple of Janus were shut, when a great birth
was to take place, and a new era to open, so was it once again at the beginning of the
sixteenth century. Protestantism was about to step upon the stage, and to proclaim the
good news of the recovery of the long-lost Gospel; and on all sides, from the
Carpathians to the Atlantic, there was comparative quiet, that the nations might be
able to listen to the blessed tidings. It was now that Luther was born.
First of the father. His name was John - John Luther. His family was an old one,[1]
and had dwelt in these parts a long while. The patrimonial inheritance was gone, and
without estate or title, rich only in the superior qualities of his mind, John Luther
earned his daily bread by his daily labour. There is more of dignity in honest labour
than in titled idleness.
This man married a daughter of one of the villagers of Neustadt, Margaret Lindemann
by name. At the period of their marriage they lived near Eisenach, a romantic town at
the foot of the Wartburg, with the glades of the Thuringian forest around it. Soon after
their marriage they left Eisenach, and went to live at Eisleben, a town near by,
belonging to the Counts of Mansfeld.[2]
They were a worthy pair, and, though in humble condition, greatly respected. John
Luther, the father of the Reformer, was a fearer of God, very upright in his dealings
and very diligent in his business. He was marked by his good sense, his manly
bearing, and the firmness with which he held by his opinions. What was rare in that
age, he was a lover of books. Books then were scarce, and consequently dear, and
John Luther had not much money to spend on their purchase, nor much time to read
those he was able to buy. Still the miner - for he was a miner by trade - managed to
get a few, which he read at meal-times, or in the calm German evenings, after his
return from his work.
Margaret Lindemann, the mother of Luther, was a woman of superior mind and
character.[3] She was a peasant by birth, as we have said, but she was truly pious, and
piety lends a grace to humble station which is often wanting in lofty rank. The fear of
God gives a refinement to the sentiments, and a delicacy and grace to the manners,
more fascinating by far than any conventional ease or airs which a coronet can
23
bestow. The purity of the soul shining through the face lends it beauty, even as the
lamp transmits its radiance through the alabaster vase and enhances its symmetry.
Margaret Lindemann was looked up to by all her neighbours, who regarded her as a
pattern to be followed for her good sense, her household economy, and her virtue. To
this worthy couple, both much given to prayer, there was born a son, on the 10th of
November, 1483. [4] He was their first-born, and as the 10th of November is St.
Martin’s Eve, they called their son Martin. Thus was ushered into the world the future
Reformer.
When a prince is born, bells are rung, cannons are discharged, and a nation’s
congratulations are carried to the foot of the throne. What rejoicings and splendours
around the cradle where lies the heir of some great empire! When God sends his
heroes into the world there are no such ceremonies. They step quietly upon the stage
where they are to act their great parts. Like that kingdom of which they are the heralds
and champions, their coming is not with observation. Let us visit the cottage of John
Luther, of Eisleben, on the evening of November 10th, 1483; there slumbers the
miner’s first-born. The miner and his wife are proud of their babe, no doubt; but the
child is just like other German children; there is no indication about it of the
wondrous future that awaits the child that has come into existence in this lowly
household. When he grows up he will toil doubtless with his father as a miner. Had
the Pope (Sextus V. was then reigning) looked in upon the child, and marked how
lowly was the cot in which he lay, and how entirely absent were all signs of worldly
power and wealth, he would have asked with disdain, “Can any harm to the Popedom
come of this child? Can any danger to the chair of Peter, that seat more august than
the throne of kings, lurk in this poor dwelling?” Or if the emperor had chanced to pass
that way, and had learned that there was born a son to John Luther, the miner, “Well,
what of that?” he would have asked; “there is one child more in Germany, that is all.
He may one day be a soldier in my ranks, who knows, and help to fight my battles.”
How greatly would these potentates, looking only at things seen, and believing only in
material forces, have miscalculated! The miner’s child was to become mightier than
Pope, mightier than emperor. One Luther was stronger than all the cardinals of Rome,
than all the legions of the Empire. His voice was to shake the Popedom, and his strong
hands were to pull down its pillars that a new edifice might be erected in its room.
Again it might be said, as at the birth of a yet greater Child, “He hath scattered the
proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
and exalted them of low degree.”
When Martin was six months old his parents removed to Mansfeld. At that time the
portion of this world’s goods which his father possessed was small indeed; but the
mines of Mansfeld were lucrative, John Luther was industrious, and by-and-by his
business began to thrive, and his table was better spread. He was now the owner of
two furnaces; he became in time a member of the Town Council,[5] and was able to
gratify his taste for knowledge by entertaining at times the more learned among the
clergy of his neighbourhood, and the conversation that passed had doubtless its
influence upon the mind of a boy of so quick parts as the young Martin. The child
grew, and might now be seen playing with the other children of Mansfeld on the
banks of the Wipper. His home was happier than it had been, his health was good, his
spirits buoyant, and his clear joyous voice rang out above those of his playmates. But
there was a cross in his lot even then. It was a stern age. John Luther, with all his
excellence, was a somewhat austere man. As a father he was a strict disciplinarian; no
24
fault of the son went unpunished, and not un-frequently was the chastisement in
excess of the fault. This severity was not wise. A nature less elastic than Luther’s
would have sunk under it into sullenness, or it may be hardened into wickedness. But
what the father on earth did for his own pleasure, or from a mistaken sense of duty,
the Father in heaven overruled for the lasting good of the future Reformer. It is good
for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, for it is in youth, sometimes even in
childhood, that the great turning-points of life occur. Luther’s nature was one of
strong impulses; these forces were all needed in his future work; but, had they not
been disciplined and brought under control, they might have made him rash,
impetuous, and headlong; therefore he was betimes taught to submit to the curb. His
nature, moreover, rich in the finest sensibilities, might, but for this discipline, have
become self-indulgent. Turning away from the harder tasks of life, Luther might have
laid himself out only to enjoy the good within his reach, had not the hardships and
severities of his youth attempered his character, and imported into it that element of
hardness which was necessary for the greater trials before him.
Besides the examples of piety which he daily beheld, Luther received a little
rudimental instruction under the domestic roof. But by-and-by he was sent to school
at Mansfeld. He was yet a “little one,” to use Melancthon’s phrase; so young, indeed,
that his father sometimes carried him to school on his shoulders.[6] The thought that
his son would one day be a scholar, cheered John Luther in his labours; and the hope
was strengthened by the retentive memory, the sound understanding, and the power of
application which the young Luther already displayed.
At the age of fourteen years (1497) Martin was sent to the Franciscan school at
Magdeburg.[7] At school the hardships and privations amid which his childhood had
been passed not only attended him but increased. His master often flogged him; for it
was a maxim of those days that nothing could be learned without a free use of the rod;
and we can imagine that the buoyant or boisterous nature of the boy often led him into
transgressions of the rules of school etiquette. He mentions having one day been
flogged fifteen times. What added to his hardships was the custom then universal in
the German towns, and continued till a recent date, if even now wholly abandoned, of
the scholars begging their bread, in addition to the task of conning their lessons. They
went, in small companies, singing from door to door, and receiving whatever alms the
good burghers were pleased to give them. At times it would happen that they received
more blows, or at least more rebuffs, than alms.
The instruction was gratis, but the young scholar had not bread to eat, and though the
means of his father were ampler than before, all were needed for the support of his
family, now numerous; and after a year Luther was withdrawn from Magdeburg and
sent to a school in Eisenach, where having relatives, he would have less difficulty, it
was thought, in supporting himself. These hopes were not realised, because perhaps
his relations were poor. The young scholar had still to earn his meals by singing in the
streets. One day Luther was perambulating Eisenach, stopping before its likeliest
dwellings, and striving with a brief hymn to woo the inmates to kindness. He was sore
pressed with hunger, but no door opened, and no hand was extended to him. He was
greatly downcast; he stood musing within himself what should become of him. Alas!
he could not endure these hardships much longer; he must abandon his studies; he
must return home, and work with his father in the mines. It was at that moment that
Providence opened for him a home.
25
As he stood absorbed in these melancholy thoughts, a door near him was opened, and
a voice bade him come in. He turned to see who it was that spoke to him. It was
Ursula, the wife of Conrad Cotta, a man of consideration among the burghers of
Eisenach.[8] Ursula Cotta had marked the young scholar before. He was accustomed
to sing in the church choir on Sundays. She had been struck with the sweetness of his
voice. She had heard the harsh words with which he had been driven away from other
doors. Taking pity, she took him in, and made him sit down at her board; and not only
did she appease his hunger for the time, but her husband, won by the open face and
sweet disposition of the boy, made him come and live with them.
Luther had now a home; he could eat without begging or singing for his bread. He had
found a father and mother in this worthy pair. His heart opened; his young genius
grew livelier and lovelier every day. Penury, like the chill of winter, had threatened to
blight his powers in the bud; but this kindness, like the sun, with genial warmth,
awakened them into new vigour. He gave himself to study with fresh ardour; tasks
difficult before became easy now. If his voice was less frequently heard in the streets,
it cheered the dwelling of his adopted parents. Madame Cotta was fond of music, and
in what way could the young scholar so well repay her kindness as by cultivating his
talent for singing, and exercising it for the delight of this “good Shunammite?” Luther
passed, after this, nearly two years at Eisenach, equally happy at school in the study of
Latin, rhetoric, and verse-making, and at home where his hours of leisure were filled
up with song, in which he not unfrequently accompanied himself on the lute. He
never, all his after-life, forgot either Eisenach or the good Madame Cotta. He was
accustomed to speak of the former as “his own beautiful town,” and with reference to
the latter he would say, “There is nothing kinder than a good woman’s heart.” The
incident helped also to strengthen his trust in God. When greater perils threatened in
his future career, when man stood aloof, and he could descry no deliverance near, he
remembered his agony in the streets of Eisenach, and how visibly God had come to
his help.
We can not but mark the wisdom of God in the training of the future Reformer. By
nature he was loving and trustful, with a heart ever yearning for human sympathy, and
a mind ever planning largely for the happiness of others. But this was not enough.
These qualities must be attempered by others which should enable him to confront
opposition, endure reproach, despise ease, and brave peril. The first without the last
would have issued in mere benevolent schemings, and Luther would have died
sighing over the stupidity or malignity of those who had thwarted his philanthropic
projects. He would have abandoned his plans on the first appearance of opposition,
and said, “Well, if the world won’t be reformed, I shall let it alone.” Luther, on the
other hand, reckoned on meeting this opposition; he was trained to endure and bear
with it, and in his early life we see the hardening and the expanding process going on
by turns. And so is it with all whom God selects for rendering great services to the
Church or to the world. He sends them to a hard school, and he keeps them in it till
their education is complete. Let us mark the eagle and the bird of song, how dissimilar
their rearing. The one is to spend its life in the groves, flitting from bough to bough,
and enlivening the woods with its melody. Look what a warm nest it lies in; the thick
branches cover it, and its dam sits brooding over it. How differently is the eaglet
nursed! On yonder ledge, amid the naked crags, open to the lashing rain, and the
pelting hail, and the stormy gust, are spread on the bare rock a few twigs. These are
26
the nest of that bird which is to spend its after-life in soaring among the clouds,
battling with the winds, and gazing upon the sun.
Luther was to spend his life in conflict with emperors and Popes, and the powers of
temporal and spiritual despotism; therefore his cradle was placed in a miner’s cot, and
his childhood and youth were passed amid hardship and peril. It was thus he came to
know that man lives not to enjoy, but to achieve; and that to achieve anything great,
he must sacrifice self, turn away from man, and lean only on God.
27
CHAPTER 2
LUTHER’S COLLEGE LIFE
In 1501 Luther entered the University of Erfurt. He had now attained the age of
eighteen years.[1] This seat of learning had been founded about a century before; it
owed its rise to the patronage of the princely houses of Brunswick and Saxony, and it
had already become one of the more famous schools of Central Europe. Erfurt is an
ancient town. Journeying from Eisenach eastward, along the Thuringian plain, it
makes an imposing show as its steeples, cathedral towers, and ramparts rise before the
eye of the traveller. Thirsting for knowledge, the young scholar came hither to drink
his fill. His father wished him to study law, not doubting that with his great talents he
would speedily achieve eminence, and fill some post of emolument and dignity in the
civic administration of his country. In this hope John Luther toiled harder than ever,
that he might support his son more liberally than heretofore.
At Erfurt new studies engaged the attention of Luther. The scholastic philosophy was
still in great repute. Aristotle, and the humbler but still mighty names of Aquinas,
Duns, Occam, and others, were the great sovereigns of the schools.[2] So had the
verdict of the ages pronounced, although the time was now near when that verdict
would be reversed, and the darkness of oblivion would quench those lights placed, as
was supposed, eternally in the firmament for the guidance of mankind. The young
man threw himself with avidity upon this branch of study. It was an attempt to gather
grapes of thorns and figs of thistles; yet Luther profited by the effort, for the
Aristotelian philosophy had some redeeming virtues. It was radically hostile to the
true method of acquiring knowledge, afterwards laid open by Bacon; yet it tried the
strength of the faculties, and the discipline to which it subjected them was beneficial
in proportion as it was stringent. Not only did it minister to the ripening of the logical
understanding, it gave an agility of mind, a keenness of discrimination, a dialectic
skill, and a nicety of fence which were of the greatest value in the discussion of subtle
questions. In these studies Luther forged the weapon which he was to wield with such
terrible effect in the combats of his after-life. Two years of his university course were
now run. From the thorny yet profitable paths of the scholastics, he would turn aside
at times to regale himself in the greener and richer fields opened to him in the orations
of Cicero and the lays of Virgil. What he most studied to master was not the words
but the thinking of the ancients; it was their wisdom which he wished to garner up.[3]
His progress was great; he became par excellence the scholar of Erfurt.[4]
It was now that an event occurred that changed the whole future life of the young
student. Fond of books, like his father, he went day by day to the library of the
university and spent some hours amid its treasures. He was now twenty years of age,
and he revelled in the riches around him. One day, as he took down the books from
their shelves, and opened them one after another, he came to a volume unlike all the
others. Taking it from its place, he opened it, and to his surprise found that it was a
Bible - the Vulgate, or Latin translation of the Holy Scriptures, by Jerome.[5]
The Bible he had never seen till now. His joy was great. There are certain portions
which the Church prescribes to be read in public on Sundays and saints’ days, and
Luther imagined that these were the whole Bible. His surprise was great when, on
opening the volume, he found in it whole books and epistles of which he had never
before heard. He began to read with the feelings of one to whom the heavens have
28
been opened. The part of the book which he read was the story of Samuel, dedicated
to the Lord from his childhood by his mother, growing up in the Temple, and
becoming the witness of the wickedness of Eli’s sons, the priests of the Lord, who
made the people to transgress, and to abhor the offering of the Lord. In all this Luther
could fancy that he saw no very indistinct image of his own times.
Day after day Luther returned to the library, took down the old book, devoured some
Gospel of the New or story of the Old Testament, rejoicing as one that finds great
store of spoil, gazing upon its page as Columbus may be supposed to have gazed on
the plains and mountains of the New World, when the mists of ocean opened and
unveiled it to him. Meanwhile, a change was passing upon Luther by the reading of
that book. Other books had developed and strengthened his faculties, this book was
awakening new powers within him. The old Luther was passing away, another Luther
was coming in his place. From that moment began those struggles in his soul which
were destined never to cease till they issued not merely in a new man, but a new age a new Europe. Out of the Bible at Oxford came the first dawn of the Reformation: out
of this old Bible at Erfurt came its second morning.
It was the year 1503. Luther now took his first academic degree. But his Bachelorship
in Arts had nearly cost him his life. So close had been his application to study that he
was seized with a dangerous illness, and for some time lay at the point of death.
Among others who came to see him was an old priest, who seems to have had a
presentiment of Luther’s future distinction. “My bachelor,” said he, “take heart, you
shall not die of this sickness; God will make you one who will comfort many others;
on those whom he loves he lays the holy cross, and they who bear it patiently learn
wisdom.” Luther heard, in the words of the aged priest, God calling him back from
the grave. He recovered, as had been foretold, and from that hour he carried within
him an impression that for some special purpose had his life been prolonged.[6]
After an interval of two years he became Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy. The
laureation of the first scholar at Erfurt University, then the most renowned in
Germany, was no unimportant event, and it was celebrated by a torch-light
procession. Luther saw that he already held no mean place in the public estimation,
and might aspire to the highest honours of the State. As the readiest road to these, he
devoted himself, in conformity with his father’s wishes, to the bar, and began to give
public lectures on the physics and ethics of Aristotle.[7] The old book seems in
danger of being forgotten, and the Reformer of Christendom of being lost in the
wealthy lawyer or the learned judge.
But God visited and tried him. Two incidents that now befell him brought back those
feelings and convictions of sin which were beginning to be effaced amid the
excitements of his laureation and the fascinations of Aristotle. Again he stood as it
were on the brink of the eternal world. One morning he was told that his friend
Alexius had been overtaken by a sudden and violent death.[8] The intelligence
stunned Luther. His companion had fallen as it were by his side. Conscience, first
quickened by the old Bible, again awoke.
Soon after this, he paid a visit to his parents at Mansfeld. He was returning to Erfurt,
and was now near the city gate, when suddenly black clouds gathered overhead, and it
began to thunder and lighten in an awful manner. A bolt fell at his feet. Some
accounts say that he was thrown down. The Great Judge, he thought, had descended
29
in this cloud, and he lay momentarily expecting death. In his terror he vowed that
should God spare him he would devote his life to His service. The lightning ceased,
the thunders rolled past, and Luther, rising from the ground and pursuing his journey
with solemn steps, soon entered the gates of Erfurt.[9]
The vow must be fulfilled. To serve God was to wear a monk’s hood - so did the age
understand it, and so too did Luther. To one so fitted to enjoy the delights of
friendship, so able to win the honours of life - nay, with these honours all but already
grasped - a terrible wrench it must be to tear himself from the world and enter a
monastery - a living grave. But his vow was irrevocable. The greater the sacrifice, the
more the merit. He must pacify his conscience; and as yet he knew not of the more
excellent way. Once more he will see his friends, and then - He prepares a frugal
supper; he calls together his acquaintances; he regales them with music; he converses
with apparent gaiety. And now the feast is at an end, and the party has broken up.
Luther walks straight to the Augustinian Convent, on the 17th of August, 1505. He
knocks at the gate; the door is opened, and he enters.
To Luther, groaning under sin, and seeking deliverance by the works of the law, that
monastery - so quiet, so holy, so near to heaven, as he thought - seemed a very
Paradise. Soon as he had crossed its threshold the world would be shut out; sin, too,
would be shut out; and that sore trouble of soul which he was enduring would be at an
end. At this closed door the “Avenger” would be stayed. So thought Luther as he
crossed its threshold. There is a city of refuge to which the sinner may flee when
death and hell are on his track, but it is not that into which Luther had now entered.
30
CHAPTER 3
LUTHER’S LIFE IN THE CONVENT
When his friends and townsmen learned on the morrow that Luther had taken the
cowl, they were struck with stupefaction. That one with such an affluence of all the
finer intellectual and social qualities, and to whom his townsmen had already assigned
the highest post that genius can fill, should become a monk, seemed a national loss.
His friends, and many members of the university, assembled at the gates of the
monastery, and waited there two whole days, in the hope of seeing Luther, and
persuading him to retrace the foolish step which a fit of caprice or a moment’s
enthusiasm had led him to take. The gate remained closed; Luther came not forth,
though the wishes and entreaties of his friends were not unknown to him. What to him
were all the rewards of genius, all the high posts which the world could offer? The
one thing with him was how he might save his soul. Till a month had elapsed Luther
saw no one.
When the tidings reached Mansfeld, the surprise, disappointment, and rage of
Luther’s father were great. He had toiled night and day to be able to educate his son;
he had seen him win one academic honour after another; already in imagination he
saw him discharging the highest duties and wearing the highest dignities of the State.
In a moment all these hopes had been swept away; all had ended in a monk’s hood
and cowl. John Luther declared that nothing of his should his son ever inherit, and
according to some accounts he set out to Erfurt, and obtaining an interview with his
son at the convent gate, asked him sharply, “How can a son do right in disobeying the
counsel of his parents?”
On an after-occasion, when telling his father of the impression made upon his mind
by the thunderstorm, and that it was as if a voice from heaven had called him to be a
monk, “Take care,” was John Luther’s reply, “lest you have been imposed upon by an
illusion of the devil.”[1]
On entering the convent Luther changed his name to Augustine. But in the convent
life he did not find that rest and peace to enjoy which he had fled thither. He was still
seeking life, not from Christ, but from monastic holiness, and had he found rest in the
convent he would have missed the eternal rest. It was not long till he was made to feel
that he had carried his great burden with him into the monastery, that the
apprehensions of wrath which haunted him in the world had followed him hither; that,
in fact, the convent bars had shut him in with them; for here his conscience began to
thunder more loudly than ever, and his inward torments grew every day more
insupportable. Whither shall Luther now flee? He knows no holier place on earth than
the cell, and if not here, where shall he find a shadow from this great heat, a rock of
shelter from this terrible blast? God was preparing him for being the Reformer of
Christendom, and the first lesson it was needful to teach him was what a heavy burden
is unpardoned guilt, and what a terrible tormentor is an awakened conscience, and
how impossible it is to find relief from these by works of self-righteousness. From
this same burden Luther was to be the instrument of delivering Christendom, and he
himself, first of all, must be made to feel how awful is its weight.
But let us see what sort of life it is that Luther leads in the monastery of the
Augustines: a very different life indeed from that which he had led in the university!
31
The monks, ignorant, lazy, and fond only of good cheer, were incapable of
appreciating the character or sympathizing with the tastes of their new brother. That
one of the most distinguished doctors of the university should enrol himself in their
fraternity was indeed an honour; but did not his fame throw themselves into the
shade? Besides, what good would his studies do their monastery? They would
replenish neither its wine-cellar nor its larder. His brethren found a spiteful pleasure in
putting upon him the meanest offices of the establishment. Luther unrepiningly
complied. The brilliant scholar of the university had to perform the duties of porter,
“to open and shut the gates, to wind up the clock, to sweep the church, and to clean
out the cells.”[2] Nor was that the worst; when these tasks were finished, instead of
being permitted to retire to his studies, “Come, come!” would the monks say, “saccum
per hackum - get ready your wallet: away through the town, and get us something to
eat.” The book had to be thrown aside for the bag. “It is not by studying,” would the
friars say, “but by begging bread, corn, eggs, fish, meat and money, that a monk
renders himself useful to the cloister.” Luther could not but feel the harshness and
humiliation of this: the pain must have been exquisite in proportion as his intellect
was cultivated, and his tastes refined. But having become a monk, he resolved to go
through with it, for how otherwise could he acquire the humility and sanctity he had
assumed the habit to learn, and by which he was to earn peace now, and life hereafter?
No, he must not draw back, or shirk either the labour or the shame of holy monkhood.
Accordingly, traversing the streets, wallet on back the same through which he had
strode so often as an honoured doctor - or knocking at the door of some former
acquaintance or friend, and begging an alms, might now be seen the monk Augustine.
In this kind of drudgery was the day passed. At night, when the other monks were
drowned in sleep, or in the good things which brother Martin had assisted in begging
for them, and when he too, worn out with his many tasks, ought to have laid himself
down to rest, instead of seeking his couch he trimmed his lamp, and opening the
patristic and scholastic divines, he continued reading them till far into the night. St.
Augustine was his especial favourite. In the writings of the Bishop of Hippo there is
more of God’s free grace, in contrast with the deep corruption of man, to himself
incurable, than in any other of the Fathers; and Luther was beginning to feel that the
doctrines of Augustine had their echo in his own experience. Among the scholastic
theologians, Gerson and Occam, whom we have already mentioned as opponents of
the Pope’s temporal power, were the writers to whom he most frequently turned.[3]
But though he set great store on Augustine, there was another book which he prized
yet more. This was God’s own Word, a copy of which he lighted on in the monastery.
Oh! how welcome to Luther, in this dry and parched land, this well of water, whereat
he that drinketh, as said the great Teacher, “shall never thirst.” This Bible he could not
take with him to his cell and there read and study it, for it was chained in the chapel of
the convent; but he could and did go to it, and sometimes he spent whole days in
meditation upon a single verse or word. It was now that he betook him to the study of
the original tongues, that being able to read the Scriptures in the languages in which
they were at first written, he might see deeper into their meaning. Reuchlin’s Hebrew
Lexicon had recently appeared, and with this and other helps he made rapid progress
in the knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek.[4] In the ardour of this pursuit he would
forget for weeks together to repeat the daily prayers. His conscience would smite him
for transgressing the rules of his order, and he would neither eat nor sleep till the
32
omitted services had been performed, and all arrears discharged. It once happened that
for seven weeks he scarcely closed his eyes.[5]
The communicative and jovial student was now changed into the taciturn solitary. The
person as well as the manners of Luther had undergone a transformation. What with
the drudgery of the day, the studies of the night, the meagre meals he allowed himself
- “a little bread and a small herring were often his only food”[6] - the fasts and
macerations he practiced, he was more like a corpse than a living man. The fire within
was still consuming him. He fell sometimes on the floor of his cell in sheer weakness.
“One morning, the door of his cell not being opened as usual, the brethren became
alarmed. They knocked: there was no reply. The door was burst in, and poor Fra
Martin was found stretched on the ground in a state of ecstasy, scarcely breathing,
well-nigh dead. A monk took his flute, and gently playing upon it one of the airs that
Luther loved, brought him gradually back to himself.”[7] The likelihood at that
moment was that instead of living to do battle with the Pope, and pull down the pillars
of his kingdom, a quiet grave, somewhere in the precincts of the monastery, would ere
long be the only memorial remaining to testify that such a one as Martin Luther had
ever existed.
It was indeed a bitter cup that Luther was now drinking, but it could by no means pass
from him. He must drink yet deeper, he must drain it to its dregs. Those works which
he did in such bondage of spirit were the price with which he thought to buy pardon.
The poor monk came again and again with this goodly sum to the door of heaven,
only to find it closed. Was it not enough? “I shall make it more,” thought Luther. He
goes back, resumes his sweat of soul, and in a little returns with a richer price in his
hand. He is again rejected. Alas, the poor monk! What shall he do? He can think but
of longer fasts, of severer penances, of more numerous prayers. He returns a third
time. Surely he will now be admitted? Alas, no! the sum is yet too small; the door is
still shut; justice demands a still larger price. He returns again and again, and always
with a bigger sum in his hand; but the door is not opened. God is teaching him that
heaven is not to be bought by any sum, however great: that eternal life is the free gift
of God. “I was indeed a pious monk,” wrote he to Duke George of Saxony, at a future
period of his life, “and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express.
If ever monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been
entitled to it. Of this all the friars who have known me can testify. If I had continued
much longer I should have carried my mortifications even to death, by means of my
watchings, prayers, readings, and other labours.”[8]
But the hour was not yet come when Luther was to enjoy peace. Christ and the
redemption He had wrought were not yet revealed to him, and till these had been
made known Luther was to find no rest. His anguish continued, nay, increased, and
his aspect was now enough to have moved to pity his bitterest enemy. Like a shadow
he glided from cell to cell of his monastery; his eyes sunk, his bones protruding, his
figure bowed down to the earth; on his brow the shadows of those fierce tempests that
were raging in his soul; his tears watering the stony floor, and his bitter cries and deep
groans echoing through the long galleries of the convent, a mystery and a terror to the
other monks. He tried to disburden his soul to his confessor, an aged monk. He had
had no experience of such a case before; it was beyond his skill; the wound was too
deep for him to heal. “‘Save me in thy righteousness’ - what does that mean?” asked
Luther. “I can see how God can condemn me in his righteousness, but how can he
33
save me in his righteousness?” But that question his father confessor could not
answer.[9]
It was well that Luther neither despaired nor abandoned the pursuit as hopeless. He
persevered in reading Augustine, and yet more in studying the chained Bible; and it
can not be but that some rays must have broken in through his darkness. Why was it
that he could not obtain peace? This question he could not but put to himself - “What
rule of my order have I neglected - or if in aught I have come short, have not penance
and tears wiped out the fault? And yet my conscience tells me that my sin is not
pardoned. Why is this? Are these rules after all only the empirical devices of man? Is
there no holiness in those works which I am toiling to perform, and those
mortifications to which I am submitting? Is it a change of garment only or a change of
heart that I need?” Into this train the monk’s thoughts could scarce avoid falling. And
meanwhile he persevered in the use of those means which have the promise connected
with them - “Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” “If thou
criest after wisdom, if thou liftest up thy voice for understanding, then shalt thou find
the fear of the Lord, and understand the knowledge of thy God.” It is not Luther alone
whose cries we hear. Christendom is groaning in Luther, and travailing in pain to be
delivered. The cry of those many captives, in all the lands of Christendom, lying in
fetters, goes up in the cry of this captive, and has entered into the ears of the Great
Ruler: already a deliverer is on the road. As Luther, hour by hour, is sinking in the
abyss, nearer, hour by hour, are heard the approaching footsteps of the man who is to
aid him in breaking the bars of his own and the world’s prison.
34
CHAPTER 4
LUTHER THE MONK BECOMES
LUTHER THE REFORMER
As in the darkest night a star will at times look forth, all the lovelier that it shines out
amidst the clouds of tempest, so there appeared at intervals, during the long and dark
night of Christendom, a few men of eminent piety in the Church of Rome. Taught of
the Spirit, they trusted not in the Church, but in Christ alone, for salvation; and amid
the darkness that surrounded them they saw the light, and followed it. One of these
men was John Staupitz.
Staupitz was Vicar-General of the Augustines of Germany. He knew the way of
salvation, having learned it from the study of Augustine and the Bible. He saw and
acknowledged the errors and vices of the age, and deplored the devastation they were
inflicting on the Church. The purity of his own life condemned the corruptions around
him, but he lacked the courage to be the Reformer of Christendom. Nevertheless, God
honoured him by making him signally serviceable to the man who was destined to be
that Reformer.[1]
It chanced to the Vicar-General to be at this time on a tour of visitation among the
convents of the Augustinians in Germany, and the path he had traced for himself led
him to that very monastery within whose walls the sore struggle we have described
was going on. Staupitz came to Erfurt. His eye, trained to read the faces on which it
fell, lighted on the young monk. The first glance awoke his interest in him. He marked
the brow on which he thought he could see the shadow of some great sorrow, the eye
that spoke of the anguish within, the frame worn to almost a skeleton by the
wrestlings of the spirit; the whole man so meek, so chastened, so bowed down; and
yet about him withal an air of resolution not yet altogether vanquished, and of
strength not yet wholly dried up. Staupitz himself had tasted the cup of which Luther
was now drinking. He had been in trouble of soul, although, to use the language of the
Bible, he had but “run with the footmen,” while Luther was contending “with horses.”
His own experience enabled him to guess at the inner history of the monk who now
stood before him.
The Vicar-General called the monk to him, spoke words of kindness - accents now
become strange to Luther, for the inmates of his monastery could account for his
conflicts only by believing him possessed of the Evil One - and by degrees he won his
confidence. Luther felt that there was a mysterious influence in the words of Staupitz,
which penetrated his soul, and was already exerting a soothing and mitigating effect
upon his trouble. In the Vicar-General the monk met the first man who really
understood his case.
They conversed together in the secrecy of the monastic cell. Luther laid open his
whole soul; he concealed nothing from the Vicar-General. He told him all his
temptations, all his horrible thoughts - his vows a thousand times repeated and as
often broken; how he shrank from the sight of his own vileness, and how he trembled
when he thought of the holiness of God. It was not the sweet promise of mercy, but
the fiery threatening of the law, on which he dwelt. “Who may abide the day of His
coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?”
35
The wise Staupitz saw how it was. The monk was standing in the presence of the
Great Judge without a days-man. He was dwelling with Devouring Fire; he was
transacting with God just as he would have done if no cross had ever been set up on
Calvary, and no “place for repentance.” “Why do you torture yourself with these
thoughts? Look at the wounds of Christ,” said Staupitz, anxious to turn away the
monk’s eye from his own wounds - his stripes, macerations, fastings - by which he
hoped to move God to pity. “Look at the blood Christ shed for you,” continued his
skilful counsellor; “it is there the grace of God will appear to you.” “I can not and
dare not come to God,” replied Luther, in effect, “till I am a better man; I have not yet
repented sufficiently.” “A better man!” would the Vicar-General say in effect; “Christ
came to save not good men, but sinners. Love God, and you will have repented; there
is no real repentance that does not begin in the love of God; and there is no love to
God that does not take its rise in all apprehension of that mercy which offers to
sinners freedom from sin through the blood of Christ.” “Faith in the mercies of God!
This is the star that goeth before the face of Repentance, the pillar of fire that guideth
her in the night of her sorrows, and giveth her light,”[2] and showeth her the way to
the throne of God.
These were wise words, and “the words of the wise are as nails, and as goads fastened
in a sure place by the master of assemblies.” So was it with the words of the VicarGeneral; a light from heaven accompanied them, and shone into the understanding of
Luther. He felt that a healing balm had touched his wound, that a refreshing oil had
been poured upon his bruised spirit. Before leaving him, the Vicar-General made him
the present of a Bible, which Luther received with unbounded joy; and most sacredly
did he obey the parting injunction of Staupitz: “Let the study of the Scriptures be your
favourite occupation.”[3]
But the change in Luther was not yet complete. It is hard to enter into life - to cast out
of the heart that distrust and fear of God with which sin has filled it, and take in the
grand yet true idea of God’s infinite love, and absolutely free and boundless mercy.
Luther’s faith was as yet but as a grain of mustard-seed. After Staupitz had taken
leave of him he again turned his eye from the Saviour to himself; the clouds of
despondency and fear that instant gathered; and his old conflicts, though not with the
same violence, were renewed. He fell ill, and in his sore sickness he lay at the gates of
death. It pleased God on this bed, and by a very humble instrument, to complete the
change which the Vicar-General had commenced. An aged brother-monk who, as
Luther afterwards said, was doubtless a true Christian though he wore “the cowl of
damnation,” came to his bedside, and began to recite with much simplicity and
earnestness the Apostle’s Creed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Luther
repeated after him in feeble accents, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” “Nay,” said
the monk, “you are to believe not merely in the forgiveness of David’s sins, and of
Peter’s sins; you must believe in the forgiveness of your own sins.”[4] The decisive
words had been spoken. A ray of light had penetrated the darkness that encompassed
Luther. He saw it all: the whole Gospel in a single phrase, the forgiveness of sins - not
the payment, but the forgiveness.
In that hour the principle of Popery in Luther’s soul fell. He no longer looked to
himself and to the Church for salvation. He saw that God had freely forgiven him in
His Son Jesus Christ. His prison doors stood open. He was in a new world. God had
loosed his sackcloth and girded him with gladness. The healing of his spirit brought
36
health to his body; and in a little while he rose from that bed of sickness, which had so
nearly been to him the bed of death. The gates of destruction were, in God’s
marvellous mercy, changed into the gates of Paradise.
The battle which Luther fought in this cell was in reality a more sublime one than that
which he afterwards had to fight before the Diet of the Empire at Worms. Here there
is no crowd looking on, no dramatic lights fall upon the scene, the conflict passes in
the obscurity of a cell; but all the elements of the morally sublime are present. At
Worms, Luther stood before the powers and principalities of earth, who could but kill
the body, and had no more that they could do. Here he meets the powers and
principalities of darkness, and engages in a struggle, the issue of which is to him
eternal life or eternal death. And he triumphs! This cell was the cradle of a new life to
Luther, and a new life to Christendom. But before it could be the cradle of a new life
it had first to become a grave. Luther had here to struggle not only to tears and groans:
he had to struggle unto death. “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened
except it die.” So did the Spirit of God inspire Paul to announce what is a universal
law. In every case death must precede a new life. The new life of the Church at the
beginning of the Christian era came from a grave, the sepulchre of Christ. Before we
ourselves can put on immortality we must die and be buried. In this cell at Erfurt died
Martin Luther the monk, and in this cell was born Martin Luther the Christian, and the
birth of Luther the Christian was the birth of the Reformation in Germany.[5]
Let us pause here, and notice how the Reformation rehearsed itself first of all in the
cell at Erfurt, and in the soul of Luther, before coming forth to display its power on
the public stage of Germany and of Christendom. The finger of God touched the
human conscience, and the mightiest of all forces awoke. The Reformation’s birthplace was not the cabinet of kings, nor the closet of philosophers and scholars: it had
its beginnings in the depths of the spiritual world - in the inextinguishable needs and
longings of the human soul, quickened, after a long sleep, by divinely ordained
instrumentalities.
For ages the soul of man had “groaned, being burdened.” That burden was the
consciousness of sin. The method taken to be rid of that burden was not the
forgiveness, but the payment of sin. A Church arose which, although retaining “the
forgiveness of sins” as an article in her creed, had discarded it from her practice; or
rather, she had substituted her own “forgiveness of sins” for God’s.
The Gospel came to men in the beginning preaching a free pardon. To offer
forgiveness on any other terms would have been to close heaven while professing to
open it. But the Church of Rome turned the eyes of men from the salvation of the
Gospel, to a salvation of which she assumed to be the exclusive and privileged owner.
That on which the Gospel had put no price, knowing that to put upon it the smallest
price was wholly to withhold it, the Church put a very great price. Salvation was
made a marketable commodity; it was put up for sale, and whoever wished to possess
it had to pay the price which the Church had put upon it. Some paid the price in good
works, some paid it in austerities and penances, and some in money. Each paid in the
coin that most suited his taste, or convenience, or ability; but all had to pay.
Christendom, in process of time, was covered with a vast apparatus for carrying on
this spiritual traffic. An order of men was established, through whose hands
exclusively this ghostly merchandise passed. Over and above the great central
emporium of this traffic, which was opened on the Seven Hills, hundreds and
37
thousands of inferior marts were established all over Christendom. Cloisters and
convents arose for those who chose to pay in penances; temples and churches were
built for those who chose to pay in prayers and masses; and privileged shrines and
confessional-boxes for those who preferred paying in money. One half of
Christendom revelled in sin because they were wealthy, and the other half groaned
under self-inflicted mortifications because they were poor. When at length the
principle of a salvation purchased from the Church had come to its full height, it fell.
But Christendom did not deliver itself on the principle of payment. It was not by
remaining the bondsman of the Church, and toiling in its service of penances and
works of merit, that it wrought out its emancipation. It found that this road would
never lead to liberty. Its burden, age after age, was growing but the heavier. Its case
had become hopeless, when the sound of the old Gospel, like the silver trumpets of
the Day of Jubilee, broke upon its ear: it listened: it cast off the yoke of ceremonies: it
turned from man’s pardon to God’s; from the Church to Christ; from the penance of
the cell to the sacrifice of the Cross. Its emancipation was accomplished.
38
CHAPTER 5
LUTHER AS PRIEST, PROFESSOR AND PREACHER
Luther had been two years in the monastery, when on Sunday, 2nd May, 1507, he was
ordained to the priesthood. The act was performed by Jerome, Bishop of
Brandenburg. John Luther, his father, was present, attended by twenty horsemen,
Martin’s old comrades, and bringing to his son a present of twenty guilders. The
earliest letter extant of Luther is one of invitation to John Braun, Vicar of Eisenach. It
gives a fine picture of the feelings with which Luther entered upon his new office.
“Since the glorious God,” said he, “holy in all his works, has deigned to exalt me,
who am a wretched man and every way an unworthy sinner, so eminently, and to call
me to his sublime ministry by his sole and most liberal mercy, may I be grateful for
the magnificence of such Divine goodness (as far at least as dust and ashes may) and
duly discharge the office committed to me.”[1]
In the Protestant Churches, the office into which ordination admits one is that of
ministry; in the Church of Rome, in which Luther received ordination, it is that of
priesthood. The Bishop of Brandenburg, when he ordained Luther, placed the chalice
in his hand, accompanying the action with the words, “Receive thou the power of
sacrificing for the quick and the dead.”[2] It is one of the fundamental tenets of
Protestantism that to offer sacrifice is the prerogative of Christ alone, and that, since
the coming of this “one Priest,” and the offering of His “one sacrifice,” sacrificing
priesthood is for ever abolished. Luther did not see this then; but the recollection of
the words addressed to him by the bishop appalled him in after years. “If the earth did
not open and swallow us both up,” said he, “it was owing to the great patience and
long-suffering of the Lord.”
Luther passed another year in his cell, and left it in haste at last, as Joseph his prison,
being summoned to fill a wider sphere. The University of Wittemberg was founded in
1502 by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. He wished, as he said in its charter, to
make it the light of his kingdom. He little dreamed what a fulfilment awaited his wish.
The elector was looking round him for fit men for its chairs. Staupitz, whose sagacity
and honourable character gave him great weight with Frederick, recommended the
Augustinian monk at Erfurt. The electoral invitation was immediately dispatched to
Luther, and accepted by him. And now we behold him, disciplined by God, rich in the
experience of himself, and illumined with the knowledge of the Gospel, bidding the
monastery a final adieu, though not as yet the cowl, and going forth to teach in the
newly-founded University of Wittemberg.[3]
The department assigned to Luther was “dialectics and physics” - in other words, the
scholastic philosophy. There was a day - it had not long gone by - when Luther
revelled in this philosophy, and deemed it the perfection of all wisdom. He had since
tasted the “old wine” of the apostles, and had lost all relish for the “new wine” of the
schoolmen. Much he longed to unseal the fountains of the Water of Life to his
students. Nevertheless, he set about doing the work prescribed to him, and his labours
in this ungenial field were of great use, in the way of completing his own preparation
for combating and overthrowing the Aristotelian philosophy - one of the idols of the
age.
39
Soon “philosophy” was exchanged for “theology,” as the department of the new
professor. It was now that Luther was in his right place. He opened the New
Testament; he selected for exposition the Epistle to the Romans [4] - that book which
shines like a glorious constellation in the firmament of the Bible, gathering as it does
into one group all the great themes of revelation.
Passing from the cell to the class-room with the open Bible in his hand, the professor
spoke as no teacher had spoken for ages in Christendom.[5] It was no rhetorician,
showing what a master of his art he was; it was no dialectician, proud to display the
dexterity of his logic, or the cunning of his sophistry; it was no philosopher,
expounding with an air of superior wisdom the latest invention of the schools; Luther
spoke like one who had come from another sphere. And he had indeed been carried
upwards, or, to speak with greater accuracy, he had, more truly than the great poet of
the Inferno, gone down into Hades, and at the cost of tears, and groans, and agonies of
soul he had learned what he was now communicating so freely to others. Herein lay
the secret of Luther’s power. The youths crowded round him; their numbers increased
day by day; professors and rectors sat at his feet; the fame of the university went forth
to other lands, and students flocked from foreign countries to hear the wisdom of the
Wittemberg professor. The living waters shut up so long were again let loose, and
were flowing among the habitations of men, and promised to convert the dry and
parched wilderness which Christendom had become into the garden of the Lord.
“This monk,” said Dr. Mallerstadt, the rector of the university, himself a man of great
learning and fame, “will reform the whole Church. He builds on the prophets and
apostles, which neither Scotist nor Thomist can overthrow.”[6]
Staupitz watched the career of the young professor with peculiar and lively
satisfaction. He was even now planning a yet wider usefulness for him. Why, thought
Staupitz, should Luther confine his light within the walls of the university? Around
him in Wittemberg, and in all the towns of Germany, are multitudes who are as sheep
without a shepherd, seeking to satisfy their hunger with the husks on which the monks
feed them; why not minister to these men also the Bread of Life? The Vicar-General
proposed to Luther that he should preach in public. He shrank back from so august an
office - so weighty a responsibility. “In less than six months,” said Luther, “I shall be
in my grave.” But Staupitz knew the monk better than he knew himself; he continued
to urge his proposal, and at last Luther consented. We have followed him from the
cell to the professor’s chair, now we are to follow him from the chair to the pulpit.
Luther opened his public ministry in no proud cathedral, but in one of the humblest
sanctuaries in all Germany. In the centre of the public square stood an old wooden
church, thirty feet long and twenty broad. Far from magnificent in even its best days,
it was now sorely decayed. Tottering to its fall, it needed to be propped up on all
sides. In this chapel was a pulpit of boards raised three feet over the level of the floor.
This was the place assigned to the young preacher. In this shed, and from this rude
pulpit, was the Gospel proclaimed to the common people for the first time after the
silence of centuries.
“This building,” says Myconius, “may well be compared to the stable in which Christ
was born. It was in this wretched enclosure that God willed, so to speak, that his wellbeloved Son should be born a second time. Among those thousands of cathedrals and
40
parish churches with which the world is filled, there was not one at that time which
God chose for the glorious preaching of eternal life.”[7]
If his learning and subtlety fitted Luther to shine in the university, not less did his
powers of popular eloquence enable him to command the attention of his countrymen.
Before his day the pulpit had sunk ineffably low. At that time not a secular priest in
all Italy ever entered a pulpit.[8] Preaching was wholly abandoned to the Mendicant
friars. These persons knew neither human nor Divine knowledge. To retain their
hearers they were under the necessity of amusing them. This was not difficult, for the
audience was as little critical as the preacher was fastidious. Gibes - the coarser, the
more effective; legends and tales - the more wonderful and incredible, the more
attentively listened to; the lives and miracles of the saints were the staple of the
sermons of the age. Dante has immortalized these productions, and the truth of his
descriptions is attested by the representations of such scenes which have come clown
to us in the sculpture-work of the cathedrals.[9] But the preacher who now appeared
in the humble pulpit of the wooden chapel of Wittemberg spoke with authority, and
not as the friars. His animated face, his kindling eye, his thrilling tones - above all, the
majesty of the truths which he announced - captivated the hearts and awed the
consciences of his hearers. He proclaimed pardon and heaven, not as indirect gifts
through priests, but as direct from God. Men wondered at these tidings - so new, so
strange, and yet so refreshing and welcome. It was evident, to use the language of
Melancthon, that “his words had their birth-place not on his lips, but in his soul.”[10]
His fame as a preacher grew. From the surrounding cities came crowds to hear him.
The timbers of the old edifice creaked under the multitude of listeners. It was far too
small to accommodate the numbers that flocked to it.
The Town Council of Wittemberg now elected him to be their preacher, and gave him
the use of the parish church. On one occasion the Elector Frederick was among his
hearers, and expressed his admiration of the simplicity and force of his language, and
the copiousness and weight of his matter. In presence of this larger audience his
eloquence burst forth in new power. Still wider shone the light, and more numerous
every day were the eyes that turned towards the spot where it was rising. The
Reformation was now fairly launched on its path. God had bidden it go onwards, and
man would be unable to stop it. Popes and emperors and mighty armies would throw
themselves upon it; scaffolds and stakes would be raised to oppose it: over all would
it march in triumph, and at last ascend the throne of the world. Emerging from this
lowly shed in the square of Wittemberg, as emerges the sun from the mists of earth, it
would rise ever higher and shine ever brighter, till at length Truth, like a glorious
noon, would shed its beams from pole to pole.
41
CHAPTER 6
LUTHER’S JOURNEY TO ROME
It was necessary that Luther should pause a little while in the midst of his labours. He
had been working for some time under high pressure, and neither mind nor body
would long have endured the strain. It is in seasons of rest and reflection that the soul
realises its growth and makes a new start. Besides, Luther needed one lesson more in
order to his full training as the future Reformer, and that lesson he could receive only
in a foreign land. In his cell at Erfurt he had been shown the sinfulness of his own
heart, and his helplessness as a lost sinner. This must be the foundation of his training.
At Rome he must be shown the vileness of that Church which he still regarded as the
Church of Christ and the abode of holiness.
As often happens, a very trivial matter led to what resulted in the highest
consequences both to Luther himself and to Christendom. A quarrel broke out
between seven monasteries of the Augustines and their Vicar-General. It was agreed
to submit the matter to the Pope, and the sagacity and eloquence of Luther
recommended him as the fittest person to undertake the task. This was in the year
1510, or, according to others, 1512. [1] We now behold the young monk setting out
for the metropolis of Christendom. We may well believe that his pulse beat quicker as
every step brought him nearer the Eternal City, illustrious as the abode of the Caesars;
still more illustrious as the abode of the Popes. To Luther, Rome was a type of the
Holy of Holies. There stood the throne of God’s Vicar. There resided the Oracle of
Infallibility. There dwelt the consecrated priests and ministers of the Lord. Thither
went up, year by year, armies of devout pilgrims, and tribes of holy anchorites and
monks, to pay their vows in her temples, and prostrate themselves at the footstool of
the apostles. Luther’s heart swelled with no common emotion when he thought that
his feet would stand within the gates of this thrice-holy city.
Alas, what a terrible disenchantment awaited the monk at the end of his journey; or
rather, what a happy emancipation from an enfeebling and noxious illusion! For so
long as this spell was upon him, Luther must remain the captive of that power which
had imprisoned truth and enchained the nations. An arm with a fetter upon it was not
the arm to strike such blows as would emancipate Christendom. He must see Rome,
not as his dreams had painted her, but as her own corruptions had made her. And he
must go thither to see her with his own eyes, for he would not have believed her
deformity although another had told him; and the more profound the idolatrous
reverence with which he approaches her, the more resolute his purpose, when he shall
have re-crossed her threshold, to leave of that tyrannical and impious power not one
stone upon another.
Luther crossed the Alps and descended on the fertile plains of Lombardy. Those
magnificent highways which now conduct the traveller with so much ease and
pleasure through the snows and rocks that form the northern wall of Italy did not then
exist, and Luther would scale this rampart by narrow, rugged, and dangerous tracks.
The sublimity that met his eye and regaled him on his journey had, doubtless, an
elevating and expanding effect upon his mind, and mingled something of Italian
ideality with his Teutonic robustness. To him, as to others, what a charm in the rapid
transition from the homeliness of the German plains, and the ruggedness of the Alps,
to the brilliant sky, the voluptuous air, and the earth teeming with flowers and fruits,
42
which met his gaze when he had accomplished his descent! Weary with his journey,
he entered a monastery situated on the banks of the Po, to refresh himself a few days.
The splendour of the establishment struck him with wonder. Its yearly revenue,
amounting to the enormous sum of thirty-six thousand ducats,[2] was all expended in
feeding, clothing, and lodging the monks. The apartments were sumptuous in the
extreme. They were lined with marble, adorned with paintings, and filled with rich
furniture. Equally luxurious and delicate was the clothing of the monks.
Silks and velvet mostly formed their attire; and every day they sat down at a table
loaded with exquisite and skilfully cooked dishes. The monk who, in his native
Germany, had inhabited a bare cell, and whose day’s provision was at times only a
herring and a small piece of bread, was astonished, but said nothing.
Friday came, and on Friday the Church has forbidden the faithful to taste flesh. The
table of the monks groaned under the same abundance as before. As on other days, so
on this there were dishes of meat. Luther could no longer refrain. “On this day,” said
Luther, “such things may not be eaten. The Pope has forbidden them.” The monks
opened their eyes in astonishment on the rude German. Verily, thought they, his
boldness is great. It did not spoil their appetite, but they began to be apprehensive that
the German might report their manner of life at head-quarters, and they consulted
together how this danger might be obviated. The porter, a humane man, dropped a
hint to Luther of the risk he would incur should he make a longer stay. Profiting by
the friendly counsel to depart hence while health served him, he took leave, with as
little delay as possible, of the monastery and all in it.
Again setting forth, and travelling on foot, he came to Bologna, “the throne of the
Roman law.” In this city Luther fell ill, and his sickness was so sore that it threatened
to be unto death. To sickness was added the melancholy natural to one who is to find
his grave in a foreign land. The Judgment Seat was in view, and alarm filled his soul
at the prospect of appearing before God. In short, the old anguish and terror, though in
moderated force, returned. As he waited for death he thought he heard a voice crying
to him and saying, “The just shall live by faith.”[3] It seemed as if the voice spoke to
him from heaven, so vivid was the impression it made. This was the second time this
passage of Scripture had been borne into his mind, as if one had spoken it to him. In
his chair at Wittemberg, while lecturing from the Epistle to the Romans, he had come
to these same words, “The just shall live by faith.” They laid hold upon him so that he
was forced to pause and ponder over them. What do they mean? What can they mean
but that the just have a new life, and that this new life springs from faith? But faith on
whom, and on what? On whom but on Christ, and on what but the righteousness of
Christ wrought out in the poor sinner’s behalf? If that be so, pardon and eternal life
are not of works but of faith: they are the free gift of God to the sinner for Christ’s
sake.
So had Luther reasoned when these words first arrested him, and so did he again
reason in his sick-chamber at Bologna. They were a needful admonition, approaching
as he now was a city where endless rites and ceremonies had been invented to enable
men to live by works. His sickness and anguish threw him back upon the first
elements of life, and the one only source of holiness. He was taught that this holiness
is restricted to no soil, to no system, to no rite; it springs up in the heart where faith
dwells. Its source was not at Rome, but in the Bible; its bestower was not the Pope,
but the Holy Spirit.
43
“The just shall live by faith.” As he stood at the gates of death a light seemed, at these
words, to spring up around him. He arose from his bed healed in body as in soul. He
resumed his journey. He traversed the Apennines, experiencing doubtless, after his
sickness, the restorative power of their healthful breezes, and the fragrance of their
dells gay with the blossoms of early summer. The chain crossed, he descended into
that delicious valley where Florence, watered by the Arno, and embosomed by olive
and cypress groves, reposes under a sky where light lends beauty to every object on
which it falls. Here Luther made his next resting-place.[4]
The “Etrurian Athens,” as Florence has been named, was then in its first glory. Its
many sumptuous edifices were of recent erection, and their pristine freshness and
beauty were still upon them. Already Brunelleschi had hung his dome - the largest in
the world - in mid-air; already Giotto had raised his Campanile, making it, by its great
height, its elegant form, and the richness of its variously-coloured marbles, the
characteristic feature of the city. Already the Baptistry had been built, with its bronze
doors which Michael Angelo declared to be “worthy of being the gates of Paradise.”
Besides these, other monuments and works of art adorned the city where the future
Reformer was now making a brief sojourn. To these creations of genius Luther could
not be indifferent, familiar as he had hitherto been with only the comparatively
homely architecture of a Northern land. In Germany and England wood was then not
unfrequently employed in the construction of dwellings, whereas the Italians built
with marble.
Other things were linked with the Etrurian capital, which Luther was scholar enough
to appreciate. Florence was the cradle of the Renaissance. The house of Medici had
risen to eminence in the previous century.
Cosmo, the founder of the family, had amassed immense riches in commerce.
Passionately fond of letters and arts, he freely expended his wealth in the munificent
patronage of scholars and artists. Lovers of letters from every land were welcomed by
him and by his son Lorenzo in his superb villa on the sides of Fiesole, and were
entertained with princely hospitality. Scholars from the East, learned men from
England and the north of Europe, here met the philosophers and poets of Italy; and as
they walked on the terraces, or gathered in groups in the alcoves of the gardens - the
city, the Arno, and the olive and cypress-clad vale beneath them - they would prolong
their discourse on the new learning and the renovated age which literature was
bringing with it, till the shadows fell, and dusk concealed the domes of Florence at
their feet, and brought out the stars in the calm azure overhead. Thus the city of the
Medici became the centre of that intellectual and literary revival which was then
radiating over Europe, and which heralded a day of more blessed light than any that
philosophy and letters have ever shed. Alas, that to Italy, where this light first broke,
the morning should so soon have been turned into the shadow of death! But Florence
had very recently been the scene of events which could not be unknown to Luther,
and which must have touched a deeper chord in his bosom than any its noble edifices
and literary glory could possibly awaken. Just fourteen years (1498) before Luther
visited this city, Savonarola had been burned on the Piazza della Gran’ Ducca, for
denouncing the corruptions of the Church, upholding the supreme authority of
Scripture, and teaching that men are to be saved, not by good works, but by the
expiatory sufferings of Christ.[5] These were the very truths Luther had learned in his
cell; their light had broken upon him from the page of the Bible; the Spirit, with the
44
iron pen of anguish, had written them on his heart; he had preached them to listening
crowds in his wooden chapel at Wittemberg; and on this spot, already marked by a
statue of Neptune, had a brother-monk been burned alive for doing the very same
thing in Italy which he had done in Saxony. The martyrdom of Savonarola he could
not but regard as at once of good and of evil augury. It cheered him, doubtless, to
think that in this far-distant land another, by the study of the same book, had come to
the same conclusion at which he himself had arrived respecting the way of life, and
had been enabled to witness for the truth unto blood. This showed him that the Spirit
of God was acting in this land also, that the light was breaking out at various points,
and that the day he waited for was not far distant.[6]
But the stake of Savonarola might be differently interpreted; it might be construed
into a prognostic of many other stakes to be planted hereafter. The death of the
Florentine confessor showed that the ancient hatred of the darkness to the light was as
bitter as ever, and that the darkness would not abdicate ,without a terrible struggle. It
was no peaceful scene on which Truth was about to step, and it was not amid the
plaudits of the multitude that her progress was to be accomplished. On the contrary,
tempest and battle would hang upon her path; every step of advance would be won
over frightful opposition; she must suffer and bleed before she could reign. These
were among the lessons which Luther learned on the spot to which doubtless he often
came to muse and pray.[7]
How many disciples had Savonarola left behind him in the city in which he had
poured out his blood? This, doubtless, was another point of anxious inquiry to Luther;
but the answer was not encouraging. The zeal of the Florentines had cooled. It was
hard to enter into life as Savonarola had entered into it - the gate was too narrow and
the road too thorny. They praised him, but they could not imitate him. Florence was
not to be the cradle of an evangelical Renaissance. Its climate was voluptuous and its
Church was accommodating: so its citizens, who, when the voice of their great
preacher stirred them, seemed to be not far from the kingdom of heaven, drew back
when brought face to face with the stake, and crouched down beneath the twofold
burden of sensuality and superstition.
So far Luther had failed to discover that sanctity which before beginning his journey
he had pictured to himself, as springing spontaneously as it were out of this holy soil.
The farther he penetrated into this land of Italy, the more was he shocked at the
irreverence and impiety which characterized all ranks, especially the “religious.” The
relaxation of morals was universal. Pride, avarice, luxury, abominable vices, and
frightful crimes defiled the land; and, to crown all, “sacred things” were the subjects
of contempt and mockery. It seemed as if the genial climate which nourished the
fruits of the earth into a luxuriance unknown to his Northern home, nourished with a
like luxuriance the appetites of the body and passions of the soul. He sighed for the
comparative temperance, frugality, simplicity, and piety of his fatherland.
But he was now near Rome, and Rome, said he to himself, will make amends for all.
In that holy city Christianity will be seen in the spotless beauty of her apostolic youth.
In that city there are no monks bravely apparelled in silks and velvets; there are no
conventual cells with a luxurious array of couches and damasks, and curious furniture
inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl, while their walls are aglow with marbles,
paintings, and gilding. There are no priests who tarry by the wine-cup, or sit on fastdays at boards smoking with dishes of meat and venison. The sound of the viol, the
45
lute, and the harp is never heard in the monasteries of Rome: there ascend only the
accents of devotion: matins greet the day, and even-song speeds its departure. Into
that holy city there entereth nothing that defileth. Eager to mingle in the devout
society of the place to which he was hastening, and there forget the sights which had
pained him on the way thither, he quitted Florence, and set out on the last stage of his
journey.
We see him on his way. He is descending the southern slopes of the mountains on
which Viterbo is seated. At every short distance he strains his eyes, if haply he may
descry on the bosom of the plain that spreads itself out at his feet, some signs of her
who once was “Queen of the Nations.” On his right, laving the shore of Latium, is the
blue Mediterranean; on his left is the triple-topped Soracte and the “purple Apennine”
- white towns hanging on its crest, and olive-woods and forests of pine clothing its
sides - running on in a magnificent wall of craggy peaks, till it fades from the eye in
the southern horizon. Luther is now traversing the storied Campagna di Roma.
The man who crosses this plain at the present day finds it herbless, silent, and
desolate. The multitude of men which it once nourished have perished from its
bosom. The numerous and populous towns, that in its better days crowned every
conical height that dots its surface, are now buried in its soil: its olive-woods and
orange-groves have been swept away, and thistles, wiry grass, and reeds have come in
their room. Its roads, once crowded with armies, ambassadors, and proconsuls, are
now deserted and all but untrodden. Broken columns protruding through the soil,
stacks of brick-work with the marble peeled off, substructions of temples and tombs,
now become the lair of the fox or the lurking-place of the brigand, and similar
memorials are almost all that remain to testify to the flourishing cultivation, and the
many magnificent structures, that once adorned this great plain.
But in the days of Luther the Campagna di Roma had not become the blighted,
treeless, devastated expanse it is now. Doubtless many memorials of decay met his
eye as he passed along. War had left some frightful scars upon the plain: the indolence
and ignorance of its inhabitants had operated with even worse effect: but still in the
sixteenth century it had not become so deserted of man, and so forsaken of its cities,
as it is at this day.[8] The land still continued to enjoy what has now all but ceased
upon it, seed-time and harvest. Besides, it was the beginning of summer when Luther
visited it, and seen under the light of an Italian sun, and with the young verdure
clothing its surface, the scene would be by no means an unpleasant one. But one
object mainly engrossed his thoughts: he was drawing nigh to the metropolis of
Christendom. The heights of Monte Mario, adjoining the Vatican - for the cupola of
St. Peter’s was not yet built - would be the first to catch his eye; the long ragged line
formed by the buildings and towers of the city would next come into view. Luther had
had his first sight of her whom no one ever yet saw for the first time without emotion,
though it might not be so fervent, nor of the same character exactly, as that which
thrilled Luther at this moment. Falling on his knees, he exclaimed, “Holy Rome, I
salute thee!”[9]
46
CHAPTER 7
LUTHER IN ROME
After many a weary league, Luther’s feet stand at last within the gates of Rome. What
now are his feelings? Is it a Paradise or a Pandemonium in which he is arrived?
The enchantment continued for some little while. Luther tried hard to realise the
dreams which had lightened his toilsome journey. Here he was breathing holier air, so
he strove to persuade himself; here he was mingling with a righteous people; while
the Nazarites of the Lord were every moment passing by in their long robes, and the
chimes pealed forth all day long, and, not silent even by night, told of the prayers and
praises that were continually ascending in the temples of the metropolis of
Christendom.
The first things that struck Luther were the physical decay and ruin of the place.
Noble palaces and glorious monuments rose on every side of him, but, strangely
enough, mingled with these were heaps of rubbish and piles of ruins. These were the
remains of the once imperial glory of the city - the spoils of war, the creations of
genius, the labours of art which had beautified it in its palmy days. They showed him
what Rome had been under her pagan consuls and emperors, and they enabled him to
judge how much she owed to her Popes.[1]
Luther gazed with veneration on these defaced and mutilated remains, associated as
they were in his mind with the immortal names of the great men whose deeds had
thrilled him, and whose writings had instructed him in his native land. Here, too,
thought Luther, the martyrs had died; on the floor of this stupendous ruin, the
Coliseum, had they contended with the lions; on this spot, where now stands the
sumptuous temple of St. Peter, and where the Vicar of Christ has erected his throne,
were they used “as torches to illumine the darkness of the night.” Over this city, too,
Paul’s feet had walked, and to this city had that letter been sent, and here had it first
been opened and read, in which occur the words that had been the means of imparting
to him a new life - “The just shall live by faith.”
The first weeks which Luther passed in Rome were occupied in visiting the holy
places,[2] and saying mass at the altars of the more holy of its churches. For, although
Luther was converted in heart, and rested on the one Mediator, his knowledge was
imperfect, and the darkness of his mind still remained in part. The law of life in the
soul may not be able all at once to develop into an outward course of liberty, and the
ideas may be reformed while the old acts and habits of legal belief may for a time
survive. It was not easy for Luther or for Christendom to find its way out of a night of
twelve centuries. Even to this hour that night remains brooding over a full half of
Europe.
If it was the physical deformities of Rome - the scars which war or barbarism had
inflicted - that formed the first stumbling-blocks to Luther, it was not long till he
began to see that these outward blemishes were as nothing to the hideous moral and
spiritual corruptions that existed beneath the surface. The luxury, lewdness, and
impiety that shocked him in the first Italian towns he had entered, and which had
attended him in every step of his journey since crossing the Alps, were all repeated in
Rome on a scale of seven-fold magnitude. His practice of saying mass at all the more
47
favoured churches brought him into daily contact with the priests; he saw them behind
the scenes; he heard their talk, and he could not conceal from himself - though the
discovery unspeakably shocked and pained him - that these men were simply playing
a part, and that in private they held in contempt and treated with mockery the very
rites which in public they celebrated with so great a show of devotion. If he was
shocked at their profane levity, they on their part were no less astonished at his
solemn credulity, and jeered him as a dull German, who had not genius enough to be a
sceptic, nor cunning enough to be a hypocrite - a fossilized specimen, in short, of a
fanaticism common enough in the twelfth century, but which it amazed them to find
still existing in the sixteenth.
One day Luther was saying mass in one of the churches of Rome with his accustomed
solemnity. While he had been saying one mass, the priests at the neighbouring altars
had sung seven. “Make haste, and send Our Lady back her Son:” such was the
horrible scoff with which they reproved his delay, as they accounted it.[3] To them
“Lady and Son” were worth only the money they brought. But these were the
common priests. Surely, thought he, faith and piety still linger among the dignitaries
of the Church! How mistaken was even this belief, Luther was soon to discover. One
day he chanced to find himself at table with some prelates. Taking the German to be a
man of the same easy faith with themselves, they lifted the veil a little too freely.
They openly expressed their disbelief in the mysteries of their Church, and
shamelessly boasted of their cleverness in deceiving and befooling the people. Instead
of the words, “Hoc est meum corpus,” etc. - the words at the utterance of which the
bread is changed, as the Church of Rome teaches, into the flesh and blood of Christ these prelates, as they themselves told him, were accustomed to say, “Panis es, et
panis manebis,” etc. - Bread thou art, and bread thou wilt remain - and then, said they,
we elevate the Host, and the people bow down and worship.
Luther was literally horrified: it was as if an abyss had suddenly yawned beneath him.
But the horror was salutary; it opened his eyes. Plainly he must renounce belief in
Christianity or in Rome. His struggles at Erfurt had but too surely deepened his faith
in the first to permit him to cast it off: it was the last, therefore, that must be let go;
but as yet it was not Rome in her doctrines and rites, but Rome in her clergy, from
which Luther turned away.
Instead of a city of prayers and alms, of contrite hearts and holy lives, Rome was full
of mocking hypocrisy, defiant scepticism, jeering impiety, and shameless revelry.
Borgia had lately closed his infamous Pontificate, and the warlike Julius II. was now
reigning. A powerful police patrolled the city every night. They were empowered to
deal summary justice on offenders, and those whom they caught were hanged at the
next post or thrown into the Tiber. But all the vigilance of the patrol could not secure
the peace and safety of the streets. Robberies and murders were of nightly occurrence.
“If there be a hell,” said Luther, “Rome is built over it.”[4]
And yet it was at Rome, in the midst of all this darkness, that the light shone fully into
the mind of the Reformer, and that the great leading idea, that on which his own life
was based, and on which he based the whole of that Reformation which God
honoured him to accomplish - the doctrine of justification by faith alone - rose upon
him in its full-orbed splendour. We naturally ask, How did this come about? What
was there in this city of Popish observances to reveal the reformed faith? Luther was
desirous of improving every hour of his stay in Rome, where religious acts done on its
48
holy soil, and at its privileged altars and shrines, had a tenfold degree of merit;
accordingly he busied himself in multiplying these, that he might nourish his piety,
and return a holier man than he came; for as yet he saw but dimly the sole agency of
faith in the justification of the sinner.
One day he went, under the influence of these feelings, to the Church of the Lateran.
There is the Scala Sancta, or Holy Stairs, which tradition says Christ descended on
retiring from the hall of judgment, where Pilate had passed sentence upon him. These
stairs are of marble, and the work of conveying them from Jerusalem to Rome was
reported to have been undertaken and executed by the angels, who have so often
rendered similar services to the Church - Our Lady’s House at Loretto for example.
The stairs so transported were enshrined in the Palace of the Lateran, and every one
who climbs them on his knees merits an indulgence of fifteen years for each ascent.
Luther, who doubted neither the legend touching the stairs, nor the merit attached by
the bulls of the Popes to the act of climbing them, went thither one day to engage in
this holy act. He was climbing the steps in the appointed way, on his knees namely,
earning at every step a year’s indulgence, when he was startled by a sudden voice,
which seemed as if it spoke from heaven, and said, “The just shall live by faith.”
Luther started to his feet in amazement. This was the third time these same words had
been conveyed into his mind with such emphasis, that it was as if a voice of thunder
had uttered them. It seemed louder than before, and he grasped more fully the great
truth which it announced. What folly, thought he, to seek an indulgence from the
Church, which can last me but a few years, when God sends me in his Word an
indulgence that will last me for ever![5] How idle to toil at these performances, when
God is willing to acquit me of all my sins not as so much wages for so much service,
but freely, in the way of believing upon his Son! “The just shall live by faith.”[6]
From this time the doctrine of justification by faith alone - in other words, salvation
by free grace - stood out before Luther as the one great comprehensive doctrine of
revelation. He held that it was by departing from this doctrine that the Church had
fallen into bondage, and had come to groan under penances and works of selfrighteousness. In no other way, he believed, could the Church find her way back to
truth and liberty than by returning to this doctrine. This was the road to true
reformation. This great article of Christianity was in a sense its fundamental article,
and henceforward Luther began to proclaim it as eminently the Gospel - the whole
Gospel in a single phrase. With relics, with privileged altars, with Pilate’s Stairs, he
would have no more to do; this one sentence, “The just shall live by faith,” had more
efficacy in it a thousand times over than all the holy treasures that Rome contained. It
was the key that unlocked the closed gates of Paradise; it was the star that went before
his face, and led him to the throne of a Saviour, there to find a free salvation. It
needed but to re-kindle that old light in the skies of the Church, and a day, clear as
that of apostolic times, would again shine upon her. This was what Luther now
proposed doing.
The words in which Luther recorded this purpose are very characteristic. “I, Doctor
Martin Luther,” writes he, “unworthy herald of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,
confess this article, that faith alone without works justifies before God; and I declare
that it shall stand and remain for ever, in despite of the Emperor of the Romans, the
Emperor of the Turks, the Emperor of the Tartars, the Emperor of the Persians; in
spite of the Pope and all the cardinals, with the bishops, priests, monks, and nuns; in
49
spite of kings, princes, and nobles; and in spite of all the world, and of the devils
themselves; and that if they endeavour to fight against this truth they will draw the
fires of hell upon their own heads. This is the true and holy Gospel, and the
declaration of me, Doctor Martin Luther, according to the teaching of the Holy Ghost.
We hold fast to it in the name of God. Amen.” This was what Luther learned at Rome.
Verily, he believed, it was worth his long and toilsome journey thither to learn this
one truth. Out of it were to come the life that would revive Christendom, the light that
would illuminate it, and the holiness that would purify and adorn it. In that one
doctrine lay folded the whole Reformation. “I would not have missed my journey to
Rome,” said Luther afterwards, “for a hundred thousand florins.”
When he turned his back on Rome, he turned his face toward the Bible. The Bible
henceforward was to be to Luther the true city of God.
50
CHAPTER 8
TETZEL PREACHES INDULGENCES
Luther’s stay in Rome did not extend over two weeks, but in that short time he had
learned lessons not to be forgotten all his life long. The grace he had looked to find at
Rome he had indeed found there, but in the Word of God, not in the throne of the
Pope. The latter was a fountain that had ceased to send forth the Water of Life; so,
turning from this empty cistern, he went back to Wittemberg and the study of the
Scriptures.
The year of his return was 1512. It was yet five years to the breaking out of the
Reformation in Germany. These years were spent by Luther in the arduous labours of
preacher, professor, and confessor at Wittemberg. A few months after his return he
received the degree of Doctor in Divinity,[1] and this was not without its influence
upon the mind of the Reformer. On that occasion Luther took an oath upon the Bible
to study, propagate, and defend the faith contained in the Holy Scriptures. He looked
upon himself henceforward as the sworn knight of the reformed faith. Taking farewell
of philosophy, from which in truth he was glad to escape, he turned to the Bible as his
life-work. A more assiduous student of it than ever, his acquaintance with it daily
grew, his insight into its meaning continually deepened, and thus a beginning was
made in Wittemberg and the neighbouring parts of Germany, by the evangelical light
which he diffused in his sermons, of that great work for which God had destined
him.[2] He had as yet no thought of separating himself from the Roman Church, in
which, as he believed, there resided some sort of infallibility. These were the last links
of his bondage, and Rome herself was at that moment unwittingly concocting
measures to break them, and set free the arm that was to deal the blow from which she
should never wholly rise.
We must again turn our eyes upon Rome. The warlike Julius II., who held the tiara at
the time of Luther’s visit, was now dead, and Leo X. occupied the Vatican. Leo was
of the family of the Medici, and he brought to the Papal chair all the tastes and
passions which distinguished the Medicean chiefs of the Florentine republic. He was
refined in manners, but sensual and voluptuous in heart, he patronized the fine arts,
affected a taste for letters, and delighted in pomps and shows. His court was perhaps
the most brilliant in Europe.[3] No elegance, no amusement, no pleasure was
forbidden admission into it. The fact that it was an ecclesiastical court was permitted
to be no restraint upon its ample freedom. It was the chosen home of art, of painting,
of music, of revels, and of masquerades.
The Pontiff was not in the least burdened with religious beliefs and convictions. To
have such was the fashion of neither his house nor his age. His office as Pontiff, it is
true, connected him with “a gigantic fable” which had come down from early times;
but to have exploded that fable would have been to dissolve the chair in which he sat,
and the throne that brought him so much magnificence and power. Leo was, therefore,
content to vent his scepticism in the well-known sneer, “What a profitable affair this
fable of Christ has been to us!” To this had it come! Christianity was now worked
solely as a source of profit to the Popes.[4]
Leo, combining, as we have said, the love of art with that of pleasure, conceived the
idea of beautifying Rome. His family had adorned Florence with the noblest edifices.
51
Its glory was spoken of in all countries, and men came from afar to gaze upon its
monuments. Leo would do for the Eternal City what his ancestors had done for the
capital of Etruria. War, and the slovenliness or penury of the Popes had permitted the
Church of St. Peter to fall into disrepair. He would clear away the ruinous fabric, and
replace it with a pile more glorious than any that Christendom contained. But to
execute such a project millions would be needed. Where were they to come from?
The shows or entertainments with which Leo had gratified the vanity of his courtiers,
and amused the indolence of the Romans, had emptied his exchequer. But the
magnificent conception must not be permitted to fall through from want of money. If
the earthly treasury of the Pope was empty, his spiritual treasury was full; and there
was wealth enough there to rear a temple that would eclipse all existing structures,
and be worthy of being the metropolitan church of Christendom. In short, it was
resolved to open a special sale of indulgences in all the countries of Europe.[5] This
traffic would enrich all parties. From the Seven Hills would flow a river of spiritual
blessing. To Rome would flow back a river of gold.
Arrangements were made for opening this great. market (1517). The license to sell in
the different countries of Europe was disposed of to the highest bidder, and the price
was paid beforehand to the Pontiff. The indulgences in Germany were farmed out to
Albert, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg.[6] The archbishop was in Germany
what Leo X. was in Rome. He loved to see himself surrounded with a brilliant court;
he denied himself no pleasure; was profuse in entertainments; never went abroad
without a long retinue of servants; and, as a consequence, was greatly in want of
money. Besides, he owed to the Pope for his pall - some said, 26,000, others, 30,000
florins.[7] There could be no harm in diverting a little of the wealth that was about to
flow to Rome, into channels that might profit himself. The bargain was struck, and the
archbishop sought out a suitable person to perambulate Germany, and preach up the
indulgences. He found a man every way suited to his purpose. This was a Dominican
monk, named John Diezel, or Tetzel, the son of a goldsmith of Leipsic. He had filled
the odious office of inquisitor, and having added thereto a huckstering trade in
indulgences, he had acquired a large experience in that sort of business. He had been
convicted of a shameful crime at Innspruck, and sentenced to be put into a sack and
drowned; but powerful intercession being made for him, he was reprieved, and lived
to help unconsciously in the overthrow of the system that had nourished him.[8]
Tetzel lacked no quality necessary for success in his scandalous occupation. He had
the voice of a town-crier, and the eloquence of a mountebank. This latter quality
enabled him to paint in the most glowing colours the marvellous virtues of the wares
which he offered for sale. The resources of his invention, the power of his effrontery,
and the efficacy of his indulgences were all alike limitless.[9]
This man made a progress through Germany. The line of the procession as it moved
from place to place might be traced at a distance by the great red cross, which was
carried by Tetzel himself, and on which were suspended the arms of the Pope. In front
of the procession, on a velvet cushion, was borne the Pontiff’s bull of grace; in the
rear came the mules laden with bales of pardoils, to be given, not to those who had
penitence in the heart, but to those who had money in the hand.
When the procession approached a town it was announced to the inhabitants that “The
Grace of God and of the Holy Father was at their gates.” The welcome accorded was
commonly such as the extraordinary honour was fitted to draw forth. The gates were
52
opened, and the tall red cross, with all the spiritual riches of which it was the sign,
passed in, followed by a long and imposing array of the ecclesiastical and civic
authorities, the religious orders, the various trades, and the whole population of the
place, which had come out to welcome the great pardon-monger. The procession
advanced amid the beating of drums, the waving of flags, the blaze of tapers, and the
pealing of bells.[10]
When he entered a city, Tetzel and his company went straight to the cathedral. The
crowd pressed in and filled the church. The cross was set up in front of the high altar,
a strong iron box was put down beside it, in which the money received for pardons
was deposited, and Tetzel, in the garb of the Dominicans, mounting the pulpit began
to set forth with stentorian voice the incomparable merit of his wares. He bade the
people think what it was that had come to them. Never before in their times, nor in the
times of their fathers, had there been a day of privilege like this. Never before had the
gates of Paradise been opened so widely. “Press in now: come and buy while the
market lasts,” shouted the Dominican; “should that cross be taken down the market
will close, heaven will depart, and then you will begin to knock, and to bewail your
folly in neglecting to avail yourselves of blessings which shall then have gone beyond
your reach.” So in effect did Tetzel harangue the crowd. But his own words have a
plainness and rigor which no paraphrase can convey. Let us cull a few specimens
from his orations.
“Indulgences are the most precious and the most noble of God’s gifts,” said Tetzel.
Then pointing to the red cross, which stood full in view of the multitude, he would
exclaim, “This cross has as much efficacy as the very cross of Christ.”[11] “Come,
and I will give you letters all properly sealed, by which even the sins which you
intend to commit may be pardoned.”[12] “I would not change my privileges for those
of St. Peter in heaven, for I have saved more souls by my indulgences than the apostle
did by his sermons.”[13] The Dominican knew how to extol his own office as well as
the pardons he was so desirous to bestow on those who had money to buy. “But more
than this,” said Tetzel, for he had not as yet disclosed the whole wonderful virtues of
his merchandise, “indulgences avail not only for the living but for the dead.” So had
Boniface VIII. enacted two centuries before; and Tetzel goes on to the particular
application of the dogma. “Priest, noble, merchant, wife, youth, maiden, do you not
hear your parents and your other friends who are dead, and who cry from the bottom
of the abyss: ‘We are suffering horrible torments! A trifling alms would deliver us;
you can give it, and you will not’?”[14]
These words, shouted in a voice of thunder by the monk, made the hearers shudder.
“At the very instant,” continues Tetzel, “that the money rattles at the bottom of the
chest, the soul escapes from purgatory, and flies liberated to heaven.[15] Now you can
ransom so many souls, stiff-necked and thoughtless man; with twelve groats you can
deliver your father from purgatory, and you are ungrateful enough not to save him! I
shall be justified in the Day of Judgment; but you - you will be punished so much the
more severely for having neglected so great salvation. I declare to you, though you
have but a single coat, you ought to strip it off and sell it, in order to obtain this grace
… The Lord our God no longer reigns, he has resigned all power to the Pope.”
No argument was spared by the monk which could prevail with the people to receive
his pardons; in other words, to fill his iron box. From the fires of purgatory - dreadful
53
realities to men of that age, for even Luther as yet believed in such a place - Tetzel
would pass to the ruinous condition of St. Peter’s, and draw an affecting picture of the
exposure to the rain and hail of the bodies of the two apostles, Peter and Paul, and the
other martyrs buried within its precincts.[16] Pausing, he would launch a sudden
anathema at all who despised the grace which the Pope and himself were offering to
men; and then, changing to a more meek and pious strain, he would wind up with a
quotation from Scripture, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: for I
tell you that many prophets have desired to see those things that ye see, and have not
seen them, and to hear those things that ye hear, and have not heard them.”[17] And
having made an end, the monk would rush down the pulpit stairs and throw a piece of
money into the box, which, as if the rattle of the coin were infectious, was sure to be
followed by a torrent of pieces.
All round the church were erected confessional stalls. The shrift was a short one, as if
intended only to afford another opportunity to the penancer of impressing anew upon
the penitent the importance of the indulgences. From confession the person passed to
the counter behind which stood Tetzel. He sharply scrutinized all who approached
him, that he might guess at their rank in life, and apportion accordingly the sum to be
exacted. From kings and princes twenty-five ducats were demanded for an ordinary
indulgence; from abbots and barons, ten; from those who had an income of five
hundred florins, six; and from those who had only two hundred, one.[18] For
particular sins there was a special schedule of prices. Polygamy cost six ducats;
church robbery and perjury, nine; murder, eight; and witchcraft, two. Samson, who
carried on the same trade in Switzerland as Tetzel in Germany, charged for parricide
or fratricide one ducat. The same hand that gave the pardon could not receive the
money. The penitent himself must drop it into the box. There were three keys for the
box. Tetzel kept one, another was in the possession of the cashier of the house of
Fugger in Augsburg, the agent of the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz, who farmed
the indulgences; the third was in the keeping of the civil authority. From time to time
the box was opened in presence of a notary-public, and its contents counted and
registered.
The form in which the pardon was given was that of a letter of absolution. These
letters ran in the following terms: “May our Lord Jesus Christ have pity on thee, N. N., and absolve thee by the
merits of his most holy passion. And I, by virtue of the apostolic power
which has been confided to me, do absolve thee from all ecclesiastical
censures, judgments, and penalties which thou mayest have merited, and
from all excesses, sins, and crimes which thou mayest have committed,
however great or enormous they may be, and for whatsoever cause, even
though they had been reserved to our most Holy Father the Pope and the
Apostolic See. I efface all attainders of unfitness and all marks of infamy
thou mayest have drawn on thee on this occasion; I remit the punishment
thou shouldest have had to endure in purgatory; I make thee anew a
participator in the Sacraments of the Church; I incorporate thee afresh in the
communion of the saints; and I reinstate thee in the innocence and purity in
which thou wast at the hour of thy baptism; so that, at the hour of thy death,
the gate through which is the entrance to the place of torments and
punishments shall be closed against thee, and that which leads to the Paradise
54
of joy shall be open. And shouldest thou be spared long, this grace shall
remain immutable to the time of thy last end. In the name of the Father, of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
“Brother John Tetzel, Commissioner, has signed it with his own hand.”[19]
Day by day great crowds repaired to this market, where for a little earthly gold men
might buy all the blessings of heaven. Tetzel and his indulgences became the one
topic of talk in Germany. The matter was discussed in all circles, from the palace and
the university to the market-place and the wayside inn. The more sensible portion of
the nation were shocked at the affair. That a little money should atone for the guilt
and efface the stain of the most enormous crimes, was contrary to the natural justice
of mankind. That the vilest characters should be placed on a level with the virtuous
and the orderly, seemed a blow at the foundation of morals - an unhinging of society.
The Papal key, instead of unlocking the fountains of grace and holiness, had opened
the flood-gates of impiety and vice, and men trembled at the deluge of licentiousness
which seemed ready to rush in and overflow the land. Those who had some
knowledge of the Word of God viewed the matter in even a worse light. They knew
that the pardon of sin was the sole prerogative of God: that he had delegated that
power to no mortal, and that those who gathered round the red cross of Tetzel and
bought his pardons were cheated of their money and their souls at the same time.
Christianity, instead of a source of purity, appeared to be a fountain of pollution; and,
from being the guardian and nurse of virtue, seemed to have become the patron and
promoter of all ungodliness.
The thoughts of others took another direction. They looked at the “power of the keys”
under the new light shed upon it by the indulgences, and began to doubt the
legitimacy of that which was now being so flagrantly abused. What, asked they, are
we to think of the Pope as a man of humanity and mercy? One day a miner of
Schneeberg met a seller of indulgences. “Is it true,” he asked, “that we can, by
throwing a penny into the chest, ransom a soul from purgatory?” “It is so,” replied the
indulgence-vendor. “Ah, then,” resumed the miner, “what a merciless man the Pope
must be, since for want of a wretched penny he leaves a poor soul crying in the flames
so long!” Luther embodied in his Theses on Indulgences what was a very general
sentiment, when he asked, “Why does not the Pope deliver at once all the souls from
purgatory by a holy charity and on account of their great wretchedness, since he
delivers so many from love of perishable money and of the Cathedral of St.
Peter?”[20] It was all very well to have a fine building at Rome, thought the people of
Germany, but to open the gates of that doleful prison in which so many miserable
beings live in flames, and for once make purgatory tenantless, would be a nobler
monument of the grace and munificence of the Pope, than the most sumptuous temple
that he can by any possibility rear in the Eternal City.
Meanwhile Friar John Tetzel and Pope Leo X. went on labouring with all their might,
though wholly unwittingly and unintentionally, to pave the way for Luther. If
anything could have deepened the impression produced by the scandals of Tetzel’s
trade, it was the scandals of his life. He was expending, day by day, and all day long,
much breath in the Church’s service, extolling the merit of her indulgences, and when
night came he much needed refreshment: and he took it to his heart’s content. “The
collectors led a disorderly life,” says Sarpi; “they squandered in taverns, gambling-
55
houses, and places of ill-fame all that the people had saved from their
necessities.”[21]
As regards Leo X., when the stream of gold from the countries beyond the Alps began
to flow, his joy was great. He had not, like the Emperor Charles, a “Mexico” beyond
the Atlantic, but he had a “Mexico” in the credulity of Christendom, and he saw
neither limit nor end to the wealth it might yield him. Never again would he have
cause to bewail an empty treasury. Men would never cease to sin, and so long as they
continued to sin they would need pardon; and where could they go for pardon if not to
the Church - in other words, to himself? He only, of all men on the earth, held the key.
He might say with an ancient monarch, “Mine hand hath found as a nest the riches of
the nations, and as one gathereth eggs so have I gathered all the earth.” Thus Leo went
on from day to day, building St. Peter’s, but pulling down the Papacy.
56
CHAPTER 9
THE “THESES”
The great red cross, the stentorian voice of Tetzel, and the frequent chink of money in
his iron chest, had compelled the nations of Germany to think. Rome had come too
near these nations. While she remained at a distance, separated from them by the
Alps, the Teutonic peoples had bowed down in worship before her; but when she
presented herself as a hawker of spiritual wares for earthly pelf, when she stood
before them in the person of the monk who had so narrowly escaped being tied up in a
sack and flung into the river Inn, for his own sins, before he took to pardoning the sins
of others, the spell was broken. But as yet the German nations only thought; they had
not given utterance to their thoughts. A few murmurs might be heard, but no powerful
voice had yet spoken.
Meanwhile, Tetzel, travelling from town to town, eating of the best at the hostelries,
and paying his bills in drafts on Paradise; pressing carriers and others into his service
for the transport of his merchandise, and recompensing them for the labour of
themselves and their mules by letters of indulgence, approached within four miles of
Luther. He little suspected how dangerous the ground on which he was now treading!
The Elector Frederick, shocked at this man’s trade, and yet more at the scandals of his
life, had forbidden him to enter Saxony; but he came as near to it as he durst; and now
at Juterbock, a small town on the Saxon frontier, Tetzel set up his red cross, and
opened his market. Wittemberg was only an hour and a half’s walk distant, and
thousands flocked from it to Juterbock, to do business with the pardon-monger. When
Luther first heard of Tetzel, which was only a little while before, he said, “By the help
of God, I will make a hole in his drum:” he might have added, “and in that of his
master, Leo X.” Tetzel was now almost within ear-shot of the Reformer.
Luther, who acted as confessor as well as preacher, soon discovered the moral havoc
which Tetzel’s pardons were working. For we must bear in mind that Luther still
believed in the Church, and in obedience to her commands exacted confession and
penance on the part of his flock, though only as preparatives, and not as the price, of
that free salvation which he taught, comes through the merit of Christ, and is
appropriated by faith alone. One day, as he sat in the confessional, some citizens of
Wittemberg came before him, and confessed having committed thefts, adulteries, and
other heinous sins. “You must abandon your evil courses,” said Luther, “otherwise I
can not absolve you.” To his surprise and grief, they replied that they had no thought
of leaving off their sins; that this was not in the least necessary, inasmuch as these
sins were already pardoned, and they themselves secured against the punishment of
them. The deluded people would thereupon pull out the indulgence papers of Tetzel,
and show them in testimony of their innocence. Luther could only tell them that these
papers were worthless, that they must repent, and be forgiven of God, otherwise they
should perish everlastingly.[1]
Denied absolution, and sore at losing both their money and their hope of heaven, these
persons hastened back to Tetzel, and informed him that a monk in Wittemberg was
making light of his indulgences, and was warning the people against them as
deceptions. Tetzel literally foamed with rage, and bellowing more loudly than ever,
poured out a torrent of anathemas against the man who had dared to speak
disparagingly of the pardons of the Pope. To energetic words, Tetzel added significant
57
acts. Kindling a fire in the market-place of Juterbock, he gave a sign of what would be
done to the man who should obstruct his holy work. The Pope, he said, had given him
authority to commit all such heretics to the flames.
Nothing terrified by Tetzel’s angry words, or by the fire that blazed so harmlessly in
the market-place of Juterbock, Luther became yet more strenuous in his opposition.
He condemned the indulgences in his place in the university. He wrote to the Prince
Archbishop of Mainz, praying him to interpose his authority and stop a proceeding
that was a scandal to religion and a snare to the souls of men.[2] He little knew that he
was addressing the very man who had farmed these indulgences. He even believed the
Pope to be ignorant, if not of the indulgences, of the frightful excesses that attended
the sale of them. From the pulpit, with all affection but with all fidelity, he warned his
flock not to take part in so great a wickedness. God, he said, demands a satisfaction
for sin, but not from the sinner; Christ has made satisfaction for the sinner, and God
pardons him freely. Offences against herself the Church can pardon, but not offences
against God. Tetzel’s indulgences can not open the door of Paradise, and they who
believe in them believe in a lie, and unless they repent shall die in their sins.
In this Luther differed more widely from his Church than he was then aware of. She
holds with Tetzel rather than with Luther. She not merely remits ecclesiastical
censures, she pardons sin, and lifts off the wrath of God from the soul.
We have here a narrow stage but a great conflict. From the pulpit at Wittemberg is
preached a free salvation. At Juterbock stands the red cross, where heaven is sold for
money. Within a radius of a few miles is fought the same battle which is soon to cover
the face of Christendom. The two systems - salvation by Christ and salvation by
Rome - are here brought face to face; the one helps sharply to define the other, not in
their doctrines only, but in their issues, the holiness which the one demands and the
licentiousness which the other sanctions, that men may mark the contrast between the
two, and make their choice between the Gospel of Wittemberg and the indulgencemarket of Juterbock. Already Protestantism has obtained a territorial foothold, where
it is unfurling its banner and enlisting disciples.
Tetzel went on with the sale of his indulgences, and Luther felt himself driven to more
decisive measures. The Elector Frederick had lately built the castle-church of
Wittemberg, and had spared neither labour nor money in collecting relics to enrich
and beautify it. These relics, in their settings of gold and precious stones, the priests
were accustomed to show to the people on the festival of All Saints, the 1st of
November; and crowds came to Wittemberg to nourish their piety by the sight of the
precious objects, and earn the indulgence offered to all who should visit the church on
that day. The eve of the festival (October 31st) was now come. The street of
Wittemberg was thronged with pilgrims. At the hour of noon, Luther, who had given
no hint to any one of what he purposed, sallied forth, and joined the stream that was
flowing to the castle-church, which stood close by the eastern gate. Pressing through
the crowd, and drawing forth a paper, he proceeds to nail it upon the door of the
church. The strokes of his hammer draw the crowd around him, and they begin
eagerly to read. What is on the paper? It contains ninety-five “Theses” or propositions
on the doctrine of indulgences. We select the following as comprehensive of the spirit
and scope of the whole: -
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V. The Pope is unable and desires not to remit any other penalty than that which he
has imposed of his own good pleasure, or conformably to the canons - that is, to the
Papal ordinances.
VI. The Pope can not remit any condemnation, but can only declare and confirm the
remission that God himself has given, except only in cases that belong to him. If he
does otherwise, the condemnation continues the same.
VIII. The laws of ecclesiastical penance can be imposed only on the living, and in no
wise respect the dead.
XXI. The commissaries of indulgences are in error, when they say that by the Papal
indulgence a man is delivered from every punishment and is saved.
XXV. The same power that the Pope has over purgatory in the Church at large, is
possessed by every bishop and every curate in his own particular diocese and parish.
XXXII. Those who fancy themselves sure of salvation by indulgences will go to
perdition along with those who teach them so.
XXXVII. Every true Christian, dead or living, is a partaker of all the blessings of
Christ, or of the Church, by the gift of God, and without any letter of indulgence.
XXXVIII. Yet we must not despise the Pope’s distributive and pardoning power, for
his pardon is a declaration of God’s pardon.
XLIX. We should teach Christians that the Pope’s indulgence is good if we put no
confidence in it, but that nothing is more hurtful if it diminishes our piety.
L. We should teach Christians that if the Pope knew of the extortions of the preachers
of indulgences, he would rather the Mother Church of St. Peter were burned and
reduced to ashes, than see it built up with the skin, the flesh, and the bones of his
flock.
LI. We should teach Christians that the Pope (as it is his duty) would distribute his
own money to the poor, whom the indulgence-sellers are now stripping of their last
farthing, even were he compelled to sell the Mother Church of St. Peter.
LII. To hope to be saved by indulgences is a lying and an empty hope, although even
the commissary of indulgences - nay, further, the Pope himself - should pledge their
souls to guarantee it.
LIII. They are the enemies of the Pope and of Jesus Christ who, by reason of the
preaching of indulgences, forbid the preaching of the Word of God.
LXII. The true and precious treasure of the Church is the holy Gospel of the glory and
grace of God.
LXXVI. The Papal pardons can not remit even the least of venal sins as regards the
guilt.[3]
59
These propositions Luther undertook to defend next day in the university against all
who might choose to impugn them. No one appeared.
In this paper Luther struck at more than the abuses of indulgences. Underneath was a
principle subversive of the whole Papal system. In the midst of some remaining
darkness - for he still reverences the Pope, believes in purgatory, and speaks of the
merits of the saints - he preaches the Gospel of a free salvation. The “Theses” put
God’s gift in sharp antagonism to the Pope’s gift. The one is free, the other has to be
bought. God’s pardon does not need the Pope’s indorsement, but the Pope’s
forgiveness, unless followed by God’s, is of no avail; it is a cheat, a delusion. Such is
the doctrine of the “Theses.” That mightiest of all prerogatives, the power of
pardoning sins and so of saving men’s souls, is taken from the “Church” and given
back to God.
The movement is fairly launched. It is speeding on; it grows not by weeks only, but
by hours and moments; but no one has yet estimated aright its power, or guessed
where only it can find its goal. The hand that posted up these propositions can not
take them down. They are no longer Luther’s, they are mankind’s.
The news travelled rapidly. The feelings awakened were, of course, mixed, but in the
main joyful. Men felt a relief - they were conscious of a burden taken from their
hearts; and, though they could scarce say why, they were sure that a new day had
dawned. In the homes of the people, and in the cell of many a monk even, there was
joy. “While those,” says Mathesius, “who had entered the convents to seek a good
table, a lazy life, or consideration and honour, heaped Luther’s name with revilings,
those monks who lived in prayer, fasting, and mortification, gave thanks to God as
soon as they heard the cry of that eagle which John Huss had foretold a century
before.” The appearance of Luther gladdened the evening of the aged Reuchlin. He
had had his own battles with the monks, and he was overjoyed when he saw an abler
champion enter the lists to maintain the truth.
The verdict of Erasmus on the affair is very characteristic. The Elector of Saxony
having asked him what he thought of it, the great scholar replied with his usual
shrewdness, “Luther has committed two unpardonable crimes - he has attacked the
Pope’s tiara, and the bellies of the monks.” There were others whose fears
predominated over their hopes, probably from permitting their eyes to rest almost
exclusively upon the difficulties.
The historian Kranz, of Hamburg, was on his death-bed when Luther’s “Theses” were
brought to him. “Thou art right, brother Martin,” exclaimed he on reading them, “but
thou wilt not succeed. Poor monk, hie thee to thy cell, and cry, ‘O God, have pity on
me.’”[4] An old priest of Hexter, in Westphalia, shook his head and exclaimed, “Dear
brother Martin, if thou succeed in overthrowing this purgatory, and all these paperdealers, truly thou art a very great gentleman.” But others, lifting their eyes higher,
saw the hand of God in the affair. “At last,” said Dr. Fleck, prior of the monastery of
Steinlausitz, who had for some time ceased to celebrate mass, “At last we have found
the man we have waited for so long;” and, playing on the meaning of the word
Wittemberg, he added, “All the world will go and seek wisdom on that mountain, and
will find it.”
60
We step a moment out of the domain of history, to narrate a dream which the Elector
Frederick of Saxony had on the night preceding the memorable day on which Luther
affixed his “Theses” to the door of the castle-church.
The elector told it the next morning to his brother, Duke John, who was then residing
with him at his palace of Schweinitz, six leagues from Wittemberg. The dream is
recorded by all the chroniclers of the time. Of its truth there is no doubt, however we
may interpret it. We cite it here as a compendious and dramatic epitome of the affair
of the “Theses,” and the movement which grew out of them.
On the morning of the 31st October, 1517, the elector said to Duke John, “Brother, I
must tell you a dream which I had last night, and the meaning of which I should like
much to know. It is so deeply impressed on my mind, that I will never forget it, were I
to live a thousand years. For I dreamed it thrice, and each time with new
circumstances.”
Duke John: “Is it a good or a bad dream?”
The Elector: “I know not; God knows.”
Duke John: “Don’t be uneasy at it; but be so good as tell it to me.”
The Elector: “Having gone to bed last night, fatigued and out of spirits, I fell asleep
shortly after my prayer, and slept calmly for about two hours and a half; I then awoke,
and continued awake to midnight, all sorts of thoughts passing through my mind.
Among other things, I thought how I was to observe the Feast of All Saints. I prayed
for the poor souls in purgatory; and supplicated God to guide me, my counsels, and
my people according to truth. I again fell asleep, and then dreamed that Almighty God
sent me a monk, who was a true son of the Apostle Paul. All the saints accompanied
him by order of God, in order to bear testimony before me, and to declare that he did
not come to contrive any plot, but that all that he did was according to the will of God.
They asked me to have the goodness graciously to permit him to write something on
the door of the church of the Castle of Wittemberg. This I granted through my
chancellor. Thereupon the monk went to the church, and began to write in such large
characters that I could read the writing at Schweinitz. The pen which he used was so
large that its end reached as far as Rome, where it pierced the ears of a lion that was
crouching there, and caused the triple crown upon the head of the Pope to shake. All
the cardinals and princes, running hastily up, tried to prevent it from falling. You and
I, brother, wished also to assist, and I stretched out my arm; - but at this moment I
awoke, with my arm in the air, quite amazed, and very much enraged at the monk for
not managing his pen better. I recollected myself a little; it was only a dream.
“I was still half asleep, and once more closed my eyes. The dream returned. The lion,
still annoyed by the pen, began to roar with all his might, so much so that the whole
city of Rome, and all the States of the Holy Empire, ran to see what the matter was.
The Pope requested them to oppose this monk, and applied particularly to me, on
account of his being in my country. I again awoke, repeated the Lord’s prayer,
entreated God to preserve his Holiness, and once more fell asleep.”
“Then I dreamed that all the princes of the Empire, and we among them, hastened to
Rome, and strove, one after another, to break the pen; but the more we tried the stiffer
61
it became, sounding as if it had been made of iron. We at length desisted. I then asked
the monk (for I was sometimes at Rome, and sometimes at Wittemberg) where he got
this pen, and why it was so strong. ‘The pen,’ replied he, ‘belonged to an old goose of
Bohemia, a hundred years old. I got it from one of my old schoolmasters. As to its
strength, it is owing to the impossibility of depriving it of its pith or marrow; and I am
quite astonished at it myself.’ Suddenly I heard a loud noise - a large number of other
pens had sprung out of the long pen of the monk. I awoke a third time: it was
daylight.”
Duke John: “Chancellor, what is your opinion? Would we had a Joseph, or a Daniel,
enlightened by God!”
Chancellor: “Your highness knows the common proverb, that the dreams of young
girls, learned men, and great lords have usually some hidden meaning. The meaning
of this dream, however, we shall not be able to know for some time - not till the things
to which it relates have taken place. Wherefore, leave the accomplishment to God,
and place it fully in his hand.”
Duke John: “I am of your opinion, Chancellor; ‘tis not fit for us to annoy ourselves in
attempting to discover the meaning. God will overrule all for his glory.”
Elector: “May our faithful God do so; yet I shall never forget, this dream. I have,
indeed, thought of an interpretation, but I keep it to myself. Time, perhaps, will show
if I have been a good diviner.”[5]
So passed the morning of the 31st October, 1517, in the royal castle of Schweinitz.
The events of the evening at Wittemberg we have already detailed. The elector has
hardly made an end of telling his dream when the monk comes with his hammer to
interpret it.
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CHAPTER 10
LUTHER ATTACKED BY TETZEL, PRIERIO AND ECK
The day on which the monk of Wittemberg posted up his “Theses,” occupies a
distinguished place among the great days of history. It marks a new and grander
starting-point in religion and liberty.[1] The propositions of Luther preached to all
Christendom that God does not sell pardon, but bestows it as a free gift on the ground
of the death of his Son; the “Theses” in short were but an echo of the song sung by the
angels on the plain of Bethlehem fifteen centuries before - “On earth peace: good-will
to men.”
The world had forgotten that song: no wonder, seeing the Book that contains it had
long been hidden. Taking God to be a hard task-master, who would admit no one into
heaven unless he paid a great price, Christendom had groaned for ages under
penances and expiatory works of self-righteousness. But the sound of Luther’s
hammer was like that of the silver trumpet on the day of Jubilee: it proclaimed the
advent of the year of release - the begun opening of the doors of that great prisonhouse in which the human soul had sat for ages and sighed in chains.
Luther acted without plan - so he himself afterwards confessed. He obeyed an impulse
that was borne in upon him; he did what he felt it to be his duty at the moment,
without looking carefully or anxiously along the line of consequences to see whether
the blow might not fall on greater personages than Tetzel. His arm would have been
unnerved, and the hammer would have fallen from his grasp, had he been told that its
strokes would not merely scare away Tetzel and break up the market at Juterbock, but
would resound through Christendom, and centuries after he had gone to his grave,
would be sending back their echoes in the fall of hierarchies, and in the overthrow of
that throne before which Luther was still disposed to bow as the seat of the Vicar of
Christ.
Luther’s eye did not extend to these remote countries and times; he looked only at
what was before him - the professors and students of the university; his flock in
Wittemberg in danger of being ensnared; the crowd of pilgrims assembled to earn an
indulgence - and to the neighbouring towns and parts of Germany. These he hoped to
influence.
But far beyond these modest limits was spread the fame of Luther’s “Theses.” They
contained truth, and truth is light, and light must necessarily diffuse itself, and
penetrate the darkness on every side. The “Theses” were found to be as applicable to
Christendom as to Wittemberg, and as hostile to the great indulgence-market at Rome
as to the little one at Juterbock. Now was seen the power of that instrumentality which
God had prepared beforehand for this emergency - the printing-press. Copied with the
hand, how slowly would these propositions have travelled, and how limited the
number of persons who would have read them! But the printing-press, multiplying
copies, sowed them like snow-flakes over Saxony. Other printing-presses set to work,
and speedily there was no country in Europe where the “Theses” of the monk of
Wittemberg were not as well known as in Saxony.
The moment of their publication was singularly opportune; pilgrims from all the
surrounding States were then assembled at Wittemberg. Instead of buying an
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indulgence they bought Luther’s “Theses,” not one, but many copies, and carried
them in their wallets to their own homes. In a fortnight these propositions were
circulated over all Germany.[2] They were translated into Dutch, and read in Holland;
they were rendered into Spanish, and studied in the cities and universities of the
Iberian peninsula. In a month they had made the tour of Europe.[3] “It seemed,” to
use the words of Myconius, “as if the angels had been their carriers.” Copies were
offered for sale in Jerusalem. In four short weeks Luther’s tract had become a
household book, and his name a household word in all Europe.
The “Theses” were the one topic of conversation everywhere - in all circles, and in all
sorts of places. They were discussed by the learned in the universities, and by the
monks in their cells.[4] In the market-place, in the shop, and in the tavern, men
paused and talked together of the bold act and the new doctrine of the monk of
Wittemberg. A copy was procured and read by Leo X. in the Vatican.
The very darkness of the age helped to extend the circulation and the knowledge of
the “Theses.” The man who kindles a bonfire on a mountain-top by day will have
much to do to attract the eyes of even a single parish. He who kindles his signal amid
the darkness of night will arouse a whole kingdom. This last was what Luther had
done. He had lighted a great fire in the midst of the darkness of Christendom, and far
and wide over distant realms was diffused the splendour of that light; and men,
opening their eyes on the sudden illumination that was brightening the sky, hailed the
new dawn.
No one was more surprised at the effects produced than Luther himself. That a sharp
discussion should spring up in the university; that the convents and colleges of
Saxony should be agitated; that some of his friends should approve and others
condemn, was what he had anticipated; but that all Christendom should be shaken as
by an earthquake, was an issue he had never dreamed of. Yet this was what had
happened. The blow he had dealt had loosened the foundations of an ancient and
venerable edifice, which had received the reverence of many preceding generations,
and his own reverence among the rest. It was now that he saw the full extent of the
responsibility he had incurred, and the formidable character of the opposition he had
provoked. His friends were silent, stunned by the suddenness and boldness of the act.
He stood alone. He had thrown down the gage, and he could not now decline the
battle. That battle was mustering on every side. Still he did not repent of what he had
done. He was prepared to stand by the doctrine of his “Theses.” He looked upward.
Tetzel by this time had broken up his encampment at Juterbock - having no more sins
to pardon and no more money to gather - and had gone to the wealthier locality of
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. He had planted the red cross and the iron box on one of the
more fashionable promenades of the city. Thither the rumour of the Wittemberg
“Theses” followed him. He saw at a glance the mischief the monk had done him, and
made a show of fight after his own fashion. Full of rage, he kindled a great fire, and as
he could not burn Luther in person he burned his “Theses.” This feat accomplished,
he rubbed up what little theology he knew, and attempted a reply to the doctor of
Wittemberg in a set of counter-propositions. They were but poor affairs. Among them
were the following: -
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III. “Christians should be taught that the Pope, in the plenitude of his power, is
superior to the universal Church, and superior to Councils; and that entire submission
is due to his decrees.”
IV. “Christians should be taught that the Pope alone has the right to decide in
questions of Christian doctrine; that he alone, and no other, has power to explain,
according to his judgment, the sense of Holy Scripture, and to approve or condemn
the words and works of others.” V. “Christians should be taught that the judgment of
the Pope, in things pertaining to Christian doctrine, and necessary to the salvation of
mankind, can in no case err.”
XVII. “Christians should be taught that there are many things which the Church
regards as certain articles of the Catholic faith, although they are not found either in
the inspired Scripture or in the earlier Fathers.”[5]
There is but one doctrine taught in Tetzel’s “Theses” - the Pontifical supremacy,
namely; and there is but one duty enjoined - absolute submission. At the feet of the
Pope are to be laid the Holy Scriptures, the Fathers, human reason. The man who is
not prepared to make this surrender deserves to do penance in the fire which Tetzel
had kindled. So thought the Pope’s vendor of pardons.
The proceeding of Tetzel at Frankfort soon came to the knowledge of the students of
Wittemberg. They espoused with more warmth than was needed the cause of their
professor. They bought a bundle of Tetzel’s “Theses” and publicly burned them.
Many of the citizens were present, and gave unmistakable signs, by their laughter and
hootings, of the estimation in which they held the literary and theological attainments
of the renowned indulgence-monger. Luther knew nothing of the matter. The
proceedings savoured too much of Rome’s method of answering an opponent to find
favour in his eyes. When informed of it, he said that really it was superfluous to
kindle a pile to consume a document, the extravagance and absurdity of which would
alone have effected its extinction.
But soon abler antagonists entered the lists. The first to present himself was Sylvester
Mazzolini, of Prierio. He was Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome, and discharged
the office of censor. Stationed on the watch-tower of Christendom, this man had it in
charge to say what books were to be circulated, and what were to be suppressed; what
doctrines Christians were to believe, and what they were not to believe. Protestant
liberty, claiming freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of printing,
came at this early stage into immediate conflict with Roman despotism, which
claimed absolute control over the mind, the tongue, and the pen. The monk of
Wittemberg, who nails his “Theses” on the church door in the open day, encounters
the Papal censor, who blots out every line that is not in agreement with the Papacy.[6]
The controversy between Luther and Prierio, as raised by the latter, turned on “the
rule of faith.” Surely it was not altogether of chance that this fundamental point was
debated at this early stage. It put in a clear light the two very different foundations on
which Protestantism and the Papacy respectively stood.
Prierio’s performance took the form of a dialogue. He laid down certain great
principles touching the constitution of the Church, the authority vested in it, and the
obedience due by all Christians to that authority.[7] The universal Church essentially,
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said Prierio, is a congregation for worship of all believers; virtually it is the Roman
Church; representatively it is the college of cardinals; concentratively and organically
it is the supreme Pontiff, who is the head of the Church, but in a different sense from
Christ. Further he maintained that, as the Church universal can not err in determining
questions pertaining to faith and morals, neither can the organs through which the
Church elaborates and expresses its decisions - the Councils and the supreme Pontiff err.[8] These principles he applied practically, thus: “Whoever does not rely on the
teaching of the Roman Church and of the Roman Pontiff, as the infallible rule of faith,
from which the Holy Scriptures themselves derive their strength and their authority, is
a heretic.”
It is curious to note that already, in this first exchange of arguments between
Protestantism and the Papacy, the controversy was narrowed to this one great
question: Whom is man to believe, God or the Church? - in other words, have we a
Divine or a human foundation for our faith? The Bible is the sole infallible authority,
said the men of Wittemberg. No, said this voice from the Vatican, the sole infallible
authority is the Church. The Bible is a dead letter. Not a line of it can men understand:
its true sense is utterly beyond their apprehension. In the Church - that is, in the
priests - is lodged the power of infallibly perceiving the true sense of Scripture, and of
revealing it to Christians. Thus there are two Bibles. Here is the one a book, a dead
letter; a body without living spirit or living voice; practically of no use. Here is the
other, a living organization, in which dwells the Holy Spirit. The one is a written
Bible: the other is a developed Bible. The one was completed and finished eighteen
hundred years since: the other has been growing with the ages; it has been coming
into being through the decisions of Councils, the rules of canonists, and the edicts of
Popes. Councils have discussed and deliberated; interpreters and canonists have
toiled; Popes have legislated, speaking as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance; and, as
the product of all these minds and of all these ages, you have now the Bible - the
deposit of the faith - the sole infallible authority to which men are to listen. The
written book was the original seed; but the Church - that is, the hierarchy - is the stem
which has sprung from it. The Bible is now a dead husk; the living tree which has
grown out of it - the fully rounded and completely developed body of doctrine, now
before the world in the Church - is the only really useful and authoritative revelation
of God, and the one infallible rule by which it is his will that men should walk. The
Master of the Sacred Palace deposited the germ of this line of argument. Subsequent
Popish polemics have more fully developed the argument, and given it the form into
which we have thrown it.
Prierio’s doctrine was unchallengeably orthodox at the Vatican, for the meridian of
which it was calculated. At Wittemberg his tractate read like a bitter satire on the
Papacy. Luther thought, or affected to think, that an enemy had written it, and had
given it on purpose this extravagant loftiness, in order to throw ridicule and contempt
over the prerogatives of the Papal See. He said that he recognized in this affair the
hand of Ulric von Hutten - a knight, whose manner it was to make war on Rome with
the shafts of wit and raillery.
But Luther soon saw that he must admit the real authorship, and answer this attack
from the foot of the Papal throne. Prierio boasted that he had spent only three days
over his performance: Luther occupied only two in his reply. The doctor of
Wittemberg placed the Bible of the living God over against the Bible of Prierio, as the
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foundation of men’s faith. The fundamental position taken in his answer was
expressed in the words of Holy Writ: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach
any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be
accursed.” Prierio had centred all the faith, obedience, and hopes of men in the Pope:
Luther places them on that Rock which is Christ. Thus, with every day, and with each
new antagonist, the true nature of the controversy, and the momentous issues which it
had raised, were coming more clearly and broadly into view.
Prierio, who deemed it impossible that a Master of the Sacred Palace could be
vanquished by a German monk, wrote a reply. This second performance was even
more indiscreet than his first. The Pope’s prerogative he aimed at exalting to even a
higher pitch than before; and he was so ill-advised as to found it on that very
extraordinary part of the canon law which forbids any one to stop the Pope, or to
admit the possibility of his erring, though he should be found on the high road to
perdition, and dragging the whole world after him.[9] The Pope, finding that
Sylvester’s replies were formidable only to the Papacy, enjoined silence upon the too
zealous champion of Peter’s See.[10] As regarded Leo himself, he took the matter
more coolly than the master of his palace. There had been noisy monks in all ages, he
reflected; the Papacy had not therefore fallen. Moreover, it was but a feeble echo of
the strife that reached him in the midst of his statues, gardens, courtiers, and
courtesans. He even praised the genius of brother Martin;[11] for Leo could pardon a
little truth, it spoken wittily and gracefully. Then, thinking that he had bestowed too
much praise on the Germans, he hinted that the wine-cup may have quickened the wit
of the monk, and that his pen would be found less vigorous when the fumes of the
liquor had subsided, as they would soon do.
Scarcely had Prierio been disposed of, when another combatant started up. This was
Hochstraten, an inquisitor at Cologne. This disputant belonged to an order unhappily
more familiar with the torch than with the pen; and it was not long till Hochstraten
showed that his fingers, unused to the one, itched to grasp the other. He lost his
temper at the very outset, and called for a scaffold. If, replied Luther, nothing daunted
by this threat, it is the faggot that is to decide the controversy, the sooner I am burned
the better, otherwise the monks may have cause to rue it.
Yet another opponent! The first antagonist of Luther came from the Roman Curia; the
second from monachism; he who now appears, the third, is the representative of the
schools. This was Dr. Eck, professor of scholastic theology at Ingolstadt.[12] He rose
up in the fullness of his erudition and of his fame, to extinguish the monk of
Wittemberg, although he had but recently contracted a friendship with him, cemented
by an interchange of letters. Though a scholar, the professor of Ingolstadt did not
account it beneath him to employ abuse, and resort to insinuation. “It is the Bohemian
poison which you are circulating,” said he to Luther, hoping to awaken against him
the old prejudice which still animated the Germans against Huss and the Reformers of
Bohemia. So far as Eck condescended to argue, his weapons, taken from the
Aristotelian armoury, were adapted for a scholastic tournament only; they were
useless in a real battle, like that in which he now engaged. They were speedily
shivered in his hand. “Would you not hold it impudence,” asked Luther, meeting Dr.
Eck on his own ground, “in one to maintain, as a part of the philosophy of Aristotle,
what one found it impossible to prove Aristotle had ever taught? You grant it. It is the
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most impudent of all impudence to affirm that to be a part of Christianity which
Christ never taught.”
The doctor of Ingolstadt sank into silence. One after another the opponents of the
Reformer retire from Luther’s presence discomfited. First, the Master of the Sacred
Palace advances against the monk, confident of crushing him by the weight of the
Pope’s authority. “The Pope is but a man, and may err,” says Luther, as with quiet
touch he demolishes the mock infallibility: “God is truth, and can not err.” Next
comes the Inquisitor, with his hints that there is such an institution as the “Holy
Office” for convincing those whom nothing else can. Luther laughs these threats to
scorn. Last of all appears the doctor, clad in the armour of the schools, who shares the
fate of his predecessors. The secret of Luther’s strength they do not know, but it is
clear that all their efforts to overcome it can but advertise men that Roman infallibility
is a quicksand, and that the hopes of the human heart can repose in safety nowhere,
save on the Eternal Rock.
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CHAPTER 11
LUTHER’S JOURNEY TO AUGSBURG
The eyes of the Pope and the adherents of the Papacy now began to open to the real
importance of the movement inaugurated at Wittemberg. They had regarded it
slightingly, almost contemptuously, as but a quarrel amongst that quarrelsome
generation the monks, which had broken out in a remote province of their dominions,
and which would speedily subside and leave Rome unshaken. But, so far from dying
out, the movement was every day deepening its seat and widening its sphere; it was
allying itself with great spiritual and moral forces; it was engendering new thoughts in
the minds of men; already a phalanx of disciples, created and continually multiplied
by its own energies, stood around it, and, unless speedily checked, the movement
would work, they began to fear, the downfall of their system.
Every day Luther was making a new advance. His words were winged arrows, his
sermons were lightning-flashes, they shed a blaze all around: there was an energy in
his faith which set on fire the souls of men, and he had a wonderful power to evoke
sympathy, and to win confidence. The common people especially loved and respected
him. Many cheered him on because he opposed the Pope, but not a few because he
dealt out to them that Bread for which their souls had long hungered.
His “Theses” had been mistaken or misrepresented by ignorant or prejudiced persons;
he resolved to explain them in clearer language. He now published what he styled his
“Resolutions,” in which, with admirable moderation and firmness, he softens the
harder and lights up the darker parts of his “Theses,” but retracts nothing of their
teaching.
In this new publication he maintains that every true penitent possesses God’s
forgiveness, and has no need to buy an indulgence; that the stock of merit from which
indulgences are dispensed is a pure chimera, existing only in the brain of the
indulgence-monger; that the power of the Pope goes no farther than to enable him to
declare the pardon which God has already bestowed, and that the rule of faith is the
Holy Scriptures. These statements were the well-marked stages the movement had
already attained. The last especially, the sole infallible authority of the Bible, was a
reformation in itself - a seed from which must spring a new system. Rome, at this
crisis, had need to be decided and prompt; she strangely vacillated and blundered. Leo
X. was a sceptic, and scepticism is fatal to earnestness and rigor. The Emperor
Maximilian was more alive to the danger that impended over the Papal See than Leo.
He was nearer the cradle of the movement, and beheld with dismay the spread of the
Lutheran doctrines in his own dominions. He wrote energetically, if mayhap he might
rouse the Pope, who was slumbering in his palace, careless of everything save his
literary and artistic treasures, while this tempest was gathering over him. The Diet of
the Empire was at that moment (1518) sitting at Augsburg. The emperor sought to
inflame the members, of the Diet by pronouncing a furious philippic against Luther,
including the patrons and defenders whom the Reformer had found among the
powerful. The Elector Frederick of Saxony was especially meant. It helped to
augment the chagrin of the emperor, that mainly through the influence of Frederick he
had been thwarted in carrying a project through the Diet, on which he was much set as
tending to the aggrandizement of his dynasty - the election of his grandson, the future
Charles V., to succeed him in the Empire. But if Frederick herein did the emperor a
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disfavour, he won for himself greater consideration at the court of the Pope, for there
were few things that Leo X. dreaded more than the union of half the sceptres of
Europe in one hand. Meanwhile the energetic letter of Maximilian was not without
effect, and it was resolved to lay vigorous hold upon the Wittemberg movement. On
the 7th August, 1518, Luther was summoned to answer at Rome, within sixty days, to
the charges preferred against him.[1] To have gone to Rome would have been to
march into his grave. But the peril of staying was scarcely less than the peril of going.
He would be condemned as contumacious, and the Pope would follow up the
excommunication by striking him, if not with his own hand, with that of the emperor.
The powers of earth, headed by the King of the Seven Hills, were rising up against
Luther. He had no visible defence - no acknowledged protector. There seemed no
escape for the unbefriended monk.
The University of Wittemberg, of which Luther was the soul, made earnest
intercession for him at the court of the Vatican,[2] dwelling with special emphasis
upon the unsuspected character of his doctrine, and the blameless manners of his life,
not reflecting, apparently, how little weight either plea would carry in the quarter
where it was urged. A more powerful intercessor was found for Luther in the Elector
Frederick, who pleaded that it was a right of the Germans to have all ecclesiastical
questions decided upon their own soil, and urged in accordance therewith that some
fit person should be deputed to hear the cause in Germany, mentioning at the same
time his brother-elector, the Archbishop of Treves, as one every way qualified to
discharge this office. The peril was passed more easily than could have been
anticipated. The Pope remembered that Frederick of Saxony had done him a service at
the Diet of Augsburg, and he thought it not improbable that he might need his good
offices in the future. And, further, his legate-a-latere, now in Germany, was desirous
to have the adjudication of Luther’s case, never doubting that he should be able to
extinguish heresy in Germany, and that the glory of such a work would compensate
for his mortification at the Diet of Augsburg, where, having failed to engage the
princes in a war against the Turk, he was consequently without a pretext for levying a
tax upon their kingdoms. The result was that the Pope issued a brief, on the 23rd of
August, empowering his legate, Cardinal de Vio, to summon Luther before him, and
pronounce judgment in his case.[3] Leo, while appearing to oblige both Frederick and
the cardinal, did not show all his hand. This transference of the cause to Germany was
but another way, the Pope hoped, of bringing Luther to Rome.
Thomas de Vio, Cardinal St. Sixti, but better known as Cardinal Cajetan, cited the
doctor of Wittemberg to appear before him at Augsburg. The man before whom
Luther was now about to appear was born (1469) at Gaeta, a frontier town of the
Neapolitan kingdom, to which events in the personal history of a subsequent Pope
(Pius IX.) long afterwards gave some little notoriety. He belonged to the Dominican
order, and was, moreover, a warm admirer and a zealous defender of the scholastic
philosophy. The cardinal’s manners were suave to a degree, but his spirit was stern.
Beneath a polished, courtly, and amiable exterior, there lurked the Dominican. His
talents, his learning, and his fame for sanctity made him one of the most distinguished
members of the Sacred College. His master, the Pope, reposed great confidence in
him, and he merited it; for De Vie was a sincere believer in all the dogmas of the
Church, even in the gross forms into which they now began to develop; and no one
placed the Papal prerogatives higher, or was prepared to do stouter battle for them,
than he. Cardinal Cajetan took his place on the judgment-seat with much pomp, for he
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held firmly by the maxim that legates are above kings; but he sat there, not to
investigate Luther’s cause, but, to receive his unqualified and unconditional
submission. The cause, as we shall afterwards see, was already decided in the highest
quarter. The legate’s instructions were brief but precise, and were to this effect: that
he should compel the monk to retract; and, failing this, that he should shut him up in
safe custody till the Pope should be pleased to send for him.[4] This was as much as
to say, “Send him in chains to Rome.”
We must pause here, and relate an episode which took place just as Luther was on the
point of setting out for Augsburg, and which, from a small beginning, grew into most
fruitful consequences to the Reformation, and to Luther personally. A very few days
before Luther’s departure to appear before the cardinal, Philip Melancthon arrived at
Wittemberg, to fill the Greek chair in its university.[5] He was appointed to this post
by the Elector Frederick, having been strongly recommended by the famous
Reuchlin.[6] His fame had preceded him, and his arrival was awaited with no little
expectations by the Wittemberg professors. But when he appeared amongst them, his
exceedingly youthful appearance, his small figure, his shy manners, and diffident air,
but ill corresponded with their preconceptions of him. They looked for nothing great
from their young professor of Greek. But they did not know as yet the treasure they
had found; and little especially did Luther dream what this modest, shrinking young
man was to be to him in after-days.
In a day or two the new professor delivered his inaugural lecture, and then it was seen
what a great soul was contained in that small body. He poured forth, in elegant
Latintry, a stream of deep, philosophical, yet luminous thought, which delighted all
who listened, and won their hearts, as well as compelled the homage of their
intellects. Melancthon displayed in his address a knowledge so full, and a judgment so
sound and ripened, combined with an eloquence of such grace and power, that all felt
that he would make for himself a great name, and extend the fame of their university.
This young scholar was destined to do all this, and a great deal more.[7]
We must devote a few sentences to his previous life - he was now only twenty-one.
Melancthon was the son of a master armourer in Bretten in the Palatinate. His birth
took place on February 14th, 1497. His father, a pious and worthy man, died when he
was eleven years of age, and his education was cared for by his maternal
grandfather.[8] His disposition was as gentle as his genius was beautiful, and from his
earliest years the clearness and strength of his understanding made the acquisition of
knowledge not only easy to him, but an absolute pleasure. His training was conducted
first under a tutor, next at the public school of Pforzheim, and lastly at the University
of Heidelberg,[9] where he took his bachelor’s degree at fourteen. It was about this
time that he changed his name from the German Schwartzerd to the Greek
Melancthon.[10] The celebrated Reuchlin was a relation of his family, and charmed
with his genius, and his fondness for the Greek tongue, he presented him with a Greek
grammar and a Bible: two books which were to be the study of his life.[11]
Luther now stood on the threshold of his stormy career. He needed a companion, and
God placed Melancthon by his side. These two were the complement the one of the
other; united, they formed a complete Reformer. In the one we behold a singular
assemblage of all the lovelier qualities, in the other an equally singular combination of
all the stronger. The gentleness, the timidity, the perspicacity of Melancthon were the
companion graces of the strength, the courage, the passionate energy of Luther. It
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doubled the working powers of each for both to draw in the same yoke. Genius alone
would have knit them into friendship, but they found a yet more sacred bond in their
love of the Gospel. From the day that the two met at Wittemberg there was a new
light in the heart of Luther, a new force in the movement of the Reformation.
As at the beginning of Christianity, so was it now as regards the choice of instruments
by whom the work of reforming, as before of planting, the Church, was to be done.
From no academy of Greek philosophy, from no theatre of Roman eloquence, from no
school of Jewish learning were the first preachers of the Gospel taken. These bottles
were too full of the old wine of human science to receive the new wine of heavenly
wisdom. To the hardy and unlettered fishermen of Galilee was the call addressed,
“Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
All the leading Reformers, without exception, were of lowly birth. Luther first saw the
light in a miner’s cottage; Calvin was the grandson of a cooper in Picardy; Knox was
the son of a plain burgess of a Scottish provincial town; Zwingle was born in a
shepherd’s hut in the Alps; and Melancthon was reared in the workshop of an
armourer. Such is God’s method. It is a law of the Divine working to accomplish
mighty results by weak instruments. In this way God glorifies himself, and afterwards
glorifies his servants.
We return to the scenes which we recently left. Luther departed, amid the trembling of
his friends, to appear before the Legate of Rome. He might be waylaid on the road, or
his journey might end in a Roman dungeon. Luther himself did not share these
apprehensions. He set out with intrepid heart. It was a long way to Augsburg, and it
had all to be gone on foot, for whatever the conflict had brought the monk, it had not
brought him wealth. The Elector Frederick, however, gave him money for his
journey,[12] but not a safe-conduct.[13] This last, he said, was unnecessary. The fate
of John Huss, which many called to mind, did not justify his confidence.
On September 28th, our traveller reached Weimar, and lodged in the convent of the
Bare-footed friars. A young inmate of the monastery, who had already received
Luther’s doctrine into his heart, sat gazing upon him, but durst not speak to him. This
was Myconius.[14] The Cordeliers were not favourably disposed to their guest’s
opinions, and yet one of their number, John Kestner, the purveyor, believing that
Luther was going to his death, could not help expressing his sympathy. “Dear
brother,” he said, “in Augsburg you will meet with Italians, who are learned men, but
more likely to burn you than to answer you.”[15] “Pray to God, and to his dear Son
Jesus Christ,” replied Luther, “whose cause it is, to uphold it for me.” Luther here met
the elector, who was returning from Augsburg, and at his request preached before the
court on St. Michael’s day, but said not a word, as was remarked, in praise of the
saint.
From Weimar, Luther pursued his way, still on foot, to Nuremberg. Here he was
welcomed by warm friends. Among these were the illustrious painter and sculptor,
Albert Durer, Wenceslaus Link, monk and preacher, and others. Nuremberg had
formerly enjoyed an enriching trade; it was still famous for the skill of its artists; nor
were letters neglected, and the independence of mind thus engendered had led to the
early reception of Luther’s doctrines within it. Many came to see him, but when they
found that he was travelling without a safe-conduct, they could not conceal their fears
that he would never return from Augsburg. They tried to dissuade him from going
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farther, but to these counsels Luther refused to listen. No thoughts of danger could
alter his purpose or shake his courage. “Even at Augsburg,” wrote he, “in the midst of
his enemies, Christ reigns. May Christ live, may Luther die: may the God of my
salvation be exalted.”
There was one favour, however, which Luther did not disdain to accept at the hands
of his friends in Nuremberg. His frock, not the newest or freshest when he started
from Wittemberg, by the time he reached the banks of the Pegnitz bore but too plain
marks of his long journey, and his friends judged that it was not fit to appear in before
the legate. They therefore attired him in a frock belonging to his friend Link. On foot,
and in a borrowed cloak, he went on his way to appear before a prince of the Church,
but the serge of Luther was more sublime than the purple and fine linen of De Vio.
Link and another friend accompanied him, and on the evening of October 7th they
entered the gates of Augburg, and took up their abode at the Augustine monastery. On
the morrow he sent Link to notify his arrival to the cardinal.
Had Luther come a few weeks earlier he would have found Augsburg crowded with
princes and counts, among whom would have been found some willing to defend him;
but now all had taken their departure, the Diet being at an end, and no one remained
save the Roman Legate, whose secret purpose it was that Luther should
unconditionally submit, or otherwise never depart alive out of those gates within
which, to De Vio’s delight, he had now entered.
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CHAPTER 12
LUTHER’S APPEARANCE
BEFORE CARDINAL CAJETAN
A little melodrama preceded the serious part of the business. Early on the day after
Luther’s arrival, an Italian courtier, Urban of Serra Longa - a creature of the
cardinal’s, though he took care not to say so - presented himself at the door of the
monastery where Luther lodged. He made unbounded professions of friendship for the
doctor of Wittemberg, and had come, he said, to give him a piece of advice before
appearing in the presence of De Vio. A greater contrast it is impossible to imagine
than that between the smiling, bowing, and voluble Italian, and the bluff but honest
German.
The advice of Urban was expressed in a single word - “Submit. Surely he had not
come this long way to break a lance with the cardinal: of course he had not. He spoke,
he presumed, to a wise man.”
Luther hinted that the matter was not so plain as his adviser took it to be. “Oh,”
continued the Italian, with a profusion of politeness., “I understand: you have posted
up ‘Theses;’ you have preached sermons, you have sworn oaths; but three syllables,
just six letters, will do the business - Revoco.”
“If I am convinced out of the Sacred Scriptures,” rejoined Luther, “that I have erred, I
shall be but too glad to retract.”
The Italian Urban opened his eyes somewhat widely when he heard the monk appeal
to a Book which had long ceased to be read or believed in at the metropolis of
Christendom. But surely, he thought, Luther will not be so fanatical as to persist in
putting the authority of the Bible in opposition to that of the Pope; and so the courtier
continued.
“The Pope,” he said, “can by a single nod change or suppress articles of faith,[1] and
surely you must feel yourself safe when you have the Pope on your side, more
especially when emolument, position, and life might all lie on your coming to the
same conclusion with his Holiness.” He exhorted him not to lose a moment in tearing
down his “Theses” and recalling his oaths.
Urban of Serra Longa had overshot the mark. Luther found it necessary to tell him yet
more plainly that the thing was impossible, unless the cardinal should convince him
by arguments drawn from the Word of God that he had taught false doctrine.
That a single monk, nay, that a whole army of monks should stand up to contest a
matter with Rome, appeared to the supple Italian an astounding prodigy. The thing
was incomprehensible to him. The doctor of Wittemberg appeared to the courtier a
man bent on his own ruin. “What!” continued the Italian, “do you imagine that any
princes or lords will protect you against the Holy See? What support can you have?
Where will you remain?”
“I shall still have heaven,” answered Luther.[2] Luther saw through this man’s
disguise, despite his craft, and his protestations of regard, and perceived him to be an
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emissary of the legate, sent to sound and it might be to entrap him. He therefore
became more reserved, and dismissed his loquacious visitor with the assurance that he
would show all humility when he appeared before the cardinal, and would retract
what was proved to be erroneous. Thereupon Urban, promising to return and conduct
him into the legate’s presence, went back to the man from whom he had come, to tell
him how he had failed in his errand.
Augsburg was one of the chief cities of the Empire, and Luther was encouraged by
finding that even here his doctrines had made considerable way. Many of the more
honourable councillors of the city waited upon him, invited him to their tables,
inquired into his matters; and when they learned that he had come to Augsburg
without a safe-conduct, they could not help expressing their astonishment at his
boldness - “a gentle name,” said Luther, “for rashness.” These friends with one accord
entreated him on no account to venture into the legate’s presence without a safeconduct, and they undertook to procure one for him from the emperor, who was still
in the neighbourhood hunting. Luther deemed it prudent to follow their advice; they
knew De Vio better than he did, and their testimony regarding him was not assuring.
Accordingly, when Urban returned to conduct him to the audience of the cardinal,
Luther had to inform him that he must first obtain a safe-conduct. The Italian affected
to ridicule the idea of such a thing; it was useless; it would spoil all; the legate was
gentleness itself. “Come,” he urged, “come, and let us have the matter settled offhand; one little word will do it,” he repeated, imagining that he had found a spell
before which all difficulties must give way; “one little word - Revoco.” But Luther
was immovable: “Whenever I have a safe-conduct I shall appear.” The grimacing
Italian was compelled to put up with his repulse, and, biting his finger,[3] he returned
to tell the legate that his mission had sped even worse the second than the first time.
At length a safe-conduct was obtained, and the 11th of October was fixed for Luther’s
appearance before De Vio. Dr. Link, of Nuremberg, and some other friends,
accompanied him to the palace of the legate. On his entrance the Italian courtiers
crowded round him, eager to have “a peep at the Erostratus who had kindled such a
conflagration.” Many pressed in after him to the hall of audience, to be the witnesses
of his submission, for however courageous at Wittemberg, they never doubted that the
monk would be pliant enough when he stood before the Roman purple.
The customary ceremonies over, a pause ensued. The monk and the cardinal looked at
each other in silence: Luther because, having been cited, he expected Cajetan to speak
first; and the cardinal because he deemed it impossible that Luther would appear in
his presence with any other intention than that of retracting. He was to find that in this
he was mistaken.
It was a moment of supreme interest. The new age now stood face to face with the
old. Never before had the two come into such close contact. There sat the old, arrayed
in the purple and other insignia of an ancient and venerable authority: there stood the
new, in a severe simplicity, as befitted a power which had come to abolish an age of
ceremony and form, and bring in one of spirit and life. Behind the one was seen a
long vista of receding centuries, with their traditions, their edicts, and their Popes.
Behind the other came a future, which was as yet a “sealed book,” for the opening of
which all men now waited - some in terror, others in hope; but all in awe, no one
knowing what that future might bring, and the boldest not daring to imagine even the
half of what it was destined to bring - the laws it was to change; the thrones and altars
75
it was to cast down; the kingdoms it was to overturn, breaking in pieces the strong,
and lifting up the weak to dominion and glory. No wonder that these two powers,
when brought for the first time into the immediate presence of each other, paused
before opening a conflict from which issues so vast were to spring.
Finding that the legate still kept silence, Luther spoke: “Most worthy Father, in
obedience to the summons of his Papal Holiness, and in compliance with the orders of
my gracious Lord the Elector of Saxony, I appear before you as a submissive and
dutiful son of the Holy Christian Church, and acknowledge that I have published the
propositions and theses ascribed to me. I am ready to listen most obediently to my
accusation, and if I have erred, to submit to instruction in the truth.” These words
were the first utterance of the Reformation before a bar where in after-times its voice
was to be often heard.
De Vio thought this an auspicious commencement. A submission was not far off. So,
putting on a very gracious air, and speaking with condescending kindness, he said that
he had only three things to ask of his dear son: first, that he would retract his errors;
secondly, that he would abstain in future from promulgating his opinions; and thirdly,
that he would avoid whatever might tend to disturb the peace of the Church.[4] The
proposal, with a little more circumlocution, was precisely that which his emissary had
already presented - “Retract.”
Luther craved that the Papal brief might be read, in virtue of which the legate had full
powers to treat of this matter.
The courtiers opened their eyes in astonishment at the monk’s boldness; but the
cardinal, concealing his anger, intimated with a wave of his hand that this request
could not be granted.
“Then,” replied Luther, “deign, most reverend Father, to point out to me wherein I
have erred.” The courtiers were still more astonished, but Cajetan remained unruffled.
The legate took up the “Theses” of Luther: “Observe,” said he, “in the seventh
proposition you deny that the Sacrament can profit one unless he has faith; and in
your fifty-eighth proposition you deny that the merits of Christ form part of that
treasure from which the Pope grants indulgences to the faithful.”[5]
These both were heinous errors in the estimation of Rome. The power of regenerating
men by the opus operatum - that is, the simple giving of the Sacrament to them,
irrespective altogether of the disposition of the recipient - is a mighty power, and
invests her clergy with boundless influence. If, by the mere performance or the nonperformance of a certain act, they can save men or can destroy men, there is no limit
to the obedience they may exact, and no limit to the wealth that will flow in upon
them. And so of indulgences. If the Pope has a treasury of infinite merit on which he
can draw for the pardon of men’s sins, all will come to him, and will pay him his
price, how high soever he may choose to fix it. But explode these two dogmas; prove
to men that without faith, which is the gift not of the Pope but of God, the Sacrament
is utterly without efficacy - an empty sign, conferring neither grace now nor meekness
for heaven hereafter - and that the Pope’s treasury of inexhaustible merits is a pure
fiction; and who after that will bestow a penny in buying Sacraments which contain
no grace, and purchasing pardons which convey no forgiveness?
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This was precisely what Luther had done. His “Theses” had broken the spell which
opened to Rome the wealth of Europe. She saw at a glance the whole extent of the
damage: her markets forsaken, her wares unsaleable, and the streams of gold which
had flowed to her from all countries dried up. Cardinal Cajetan, therefore, obeying
instructions from head-quarters, put his finger upon those two most damaging points
of the “Theses,” and demanded of Luther an unconditional retractation of them. “You
must revoke both these errors,” said De Vio, “and embrace the true doctrine of the
Church.”
“That the man who receives the holy Sacrament must have faith in the grace offered
him,” said Luther, “is a truth I never can and never will revoke.”
“Whether you will or no,” returned the legate, getting angry, “I must have your
recantation this very day, or for this one error I shall condemn all your propositions.”
“But,” replied the professor of Wittemberg, with equal decision, though with great
courteousness, “I demand proof from Scripture that I am wrong; it is on Scripture that
my views rest.”
But no proof from Scripture could the Reformer get. The cardinal could only repeat
the common-places of Rome, re-affirm the doctrine of the opus operatum, and quote
one of the Extravagants of Clement VI.[6] Luther, indignant at seeing what stress the
legate laid on a Papal decree, exclaimed, “I can not admit any such constitution in
proof of matters so weighty as those in debate. These interpretations put Scripture to
the torture.” “Do you not know,” rejoined De Vio, “that the Pope has authority and
power over these things?” “Save Scripture,” said Luther eagerly.
“Scripture!” said the cardinal derisively, “the Pope is above Scripture, and above
Councils.[7] Know you not that he has condemned and punished the Council of
Basle?” “But,” responded Luther, “the University of Paris has appealed.” “And the
Parisian gentlemen,” said De Vio, “will pay the penalty.”
Luther saw plainly that at this rate they would never arrive at a settlement of the
matter. The legate sat in state, treating the man before him with affected
condescension, but real contempt. When Luther quoted Scripture in proof of his
doctrine, the only answer he received from the cardinal webs a shrug of his shoulders,
or a derisive laugh. The legate, despite his promise to reason the matter out on the
foundation of the Word of God, would not, or perhaps could not, meet Luther on that
ground.[8] He kept exclusively by the decretals and the schoolmen. Glad, perhaps, to
escape for the present from a controversy which was not so manageable as he had
hoped to find it, he offered to give the doctor of Wittemberg a day for deliberation,
but intimated at the same time that he would accept of nothing but a retractation. So
ended the first interview.
On returning to his convent his delight was great to find his valued friend Staupitz, the
Vicar-General of the Augustines, who had followed him to Augsburg, in the hope of
being serviceable to him at this crisis. On the morning when Luther returned to his
second interview with the cardinal, the Vicar-General and four imperial councillors
accompanied him, along with many other friends, a notary, and witnesses. After the
customary obeisance, Luther read a paper, protesting that he honoured and followed
the Holy Roman Church; that he submitted himself to the judgment and determination
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of that Church; that he was ready here present to answer in writing whatever objection
the legate of the Pope might produce against him; and, moreover, that he was willing
to submit his “Theses” to the judgment of the Imperial Universities of Basle,
Fribourg, and Louvain, and, if these were not enough, of Paris - from of old ever the
most Christian, and in theology ever the most flourishing university.[9]
The legate evidently had some difficulty in knowing what to reply to these reasonable
and manly proposals. He tried to conceal his embarrassment under an affected pity for
the monk. “Leave off,” he said, in accents of great mildness, “these senseless
counsels, and return to your sound mind. Retract, my son, retract.” Luther once more
appealed to the authority of Scripture, but De Vio becoming somewhat ruffled, the
conference ended, after Staupitz had craved and obtained leave for Luther to put his
views in writing.[10]
At the third and last interview, the doctor of Wittemberg read a full statement of his
views on all the points which had been under consideration. He maintained all his
former positions, largely fortifying them by quotations from Augustine and other
early Fathers, but more especially from Holy Writ.[11] The cardinal could not help,
even on the judgment-seat, displaying his irritation and chagrin. Drawing himself up
in his robes, he received the “declaration” with a look of contempt, and pronounced it
“mere words,” “a long phylactery;” but said that he would send the paper to Rome.
Meanwhile the legate threatened him with the penalties enacted by the Pope unless he
retracted.[12] He offered Luther, somewhat earnestly, a safe-conduct, if he would go
to Rome and there be judged. The Reformer knew what this meant. It was a safeconduct to a dungeon somewhere in the precincts of the Vatican. The proffered favour
was declined, much to the annoyance of De Vio, who thought, no doubt, that this was
the best way of terminating an affair which had tarnished the Roman purple, but lent
eclat to the monk’s serge.
This was a great crisis in the history of Protestantism, and we breathe more freely
when we find it safely passed. Luther had not yet sounded the Papal dogmas to the
bottom. He had not as yet those clear and well-defined views to which fuller
investigation conducted him. He still believed the office of Pope to be of Divine
appointment, and while condemning the errors of the man, was disposed to bow to the
authority of his office.
There was risk of concessions which would have hampered him in his future course,
or have totally wrecked his cause. From this he was saved, partly by his loyalty to his
own convictions, partly also by the perception on the part of the theologians of Rome
that the element of “faith,” on which Luther so strenuously insisted, constituted an
essential and eternal difference between his system and theirs. It substituted a Divine
for a human agency, the operation of the Holy Spirit for the opus operatum. On such a
point there could be no reconcilement on the basis of mutual concession, and this led
them to insist on absolute and unconditional retractation. Luther used to say that he
“did not learn all his divinity at once, but was constrained to sink deeper and deeper.
The Pope said, ‘Although Christ be the Head of the Church, yet notwithstanding there
must be a visible and corporeal head of the Church on earth.’ With this I could have
been well content, in case he had but taught the Gospel purely and clearly, and had
not brought forward human inventions and lies instead thereof.”[13]
78
So ended the first conflict between the old and the new powers. The victory remained
with the latter. This was no small gain. Besides, the two men had been able to take
each the measure of the other.
Luther had looked through and through Cajetan. He was astonished to find how weak
a polemic and how flimsy a theologian was the champion to whom Rome had
committed her battle. “One may guess from this,” wrote Luther to Spalatin, “what is
the calibre of those of ten times or a hundred times lower rank.” The Reformer went
forth ever after to meet Rome’s mighty men with less anxiety touching the issue. But
the cardinal had formed no contemptuous opinion of the monk, although he could find
none but contemptuous epithets in which to speak of him. “I will have no more
disputing with that beast,” said he, when Staupitz pressed him to debate the matter
once more with the doctor of Wittemberg, “for he has deep eyes and wonderful
speculation in his head.”[14]
79
CHAPTER 13
LUTHER’S RETURN TO
WITTEMBERG AND LABOURS THERE
Two days had passed since the legate had bidden Luther “be gone, and see his face no
more, unless he changed his mind.”[1] After leaving the cardinal’s presence, Luther
wrote him a letter (October 16th) in which, although he retracted nothing, he
expressed great respect and submission. The cardinal returned no answer to this. What
did his silence mean? “It bodes no good,” said Luther’s friends; “he is concocting
some plot with the emperor; we must be beforehand with him.”
In fact, Cajetan did not need to consult the emperor or any one else. He had received
instructions from his master at Rome in view of the possible miscarriage of his
mission. If he delayed to put these instructions in force, it was because he thought he
had snared his victim: the walls of Augsburg had shut him in.
The trap was not quite so sure as the cardinal deemed it. Mounted on a horse,
provided for him by his friends, a trusty guide by his side, Luther is traversing before
dawn the silent streets of Augsburg. He is escaping from the cardinal. He approaches
a small gate in the city walls. A friendly hand opens it, and he passes out into the open
country.[2] This was on the morning of the fourth day (October 20th) after his last
interview.
Behind him is the sleeping city, before him is the Champaign country, just beginning
to be visible in the early daybreak. In what direction shall he turn his horse’s head?
He stands a moment uncertain. The French ambassador had mentioned his name with
favour at the late Diet; may he not expect protection in his master’s dominions? His
hand is on his bridle-rein to direct his flight to France. But no; he turns northward. It
was Wittemberg, not Paris, that was destined to be the centre of the new movement.
The two travellers rode away at what speed they could. Luther was but little
accustomed to the saddle, the horse he rode was a hard trotter, and so overcome by
fatigue was he, that when he arrived at the end of his first stage, unable to stand
upright, he lay down upon the straw in the stable of the hostelry where he was to pass
the night.[3] On arriving at Nuremberg, he read for the first time the directions
forwarded from Rome to De Vio, touching the way in which himself and his cause
were to be disposed of.[4] These showed him that he had left Augsburg not a moment
too soon, and that during his stay there a sword had all the while been hanging above
his head.
The Papal brief - in the hands of the legate when he sat down on the judgment-seat enjoined him to compel Luther to retract. From Rome, then, had come the one word
Revoco, which Serra Longa first, and Cajetan next, dictated as that which Luther was
contritely to utter. If he could be brought to retract, and to beg forgiveness for the
disturbance he had made, and the scandal he had caused to the hierarchy, the legate
was empowered to “receive him into the unity of our Holy Mother the Church.” But if
the monk should prove obstinate, De Vio was to use summary and sharp measures to
have the business ended. He was to seize the person of Luther, and keep him in safe
custody, that he might be sent to Rome. To effect this, should it be necessary, the
legate was to demand the aid of the emperor, of the princes of Germany, and of all the
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communities and potentates ecclesiastical and secular. If, notwithstanding, Luther
should escape, he was to proscribe him in every part of Germany, and lay under
interdict all those princes, communities, universities, and potentates, with their cities,
towns, countries, and villages, which should offer him an asylum, or in any way
befriend him.[5]
Even before the summons to appear before De Vio had been put into Luther’s hands,
his cause had been adjudged and himself condemned as a heretic in a Papal court, that
of Jerome, Bishop of Ascoli. Of this Luther knew nothing when he set out for
Augsburg. When he learned it he exclaimed, “Is this the style and fashion of the
Roman court, which in the same day summons, exhorts, accuses, judges, condemns,
and declares a man guilty, who is so far from Rome, and who knows nothing of all
these things?” The danger was passed before he knew its full extent; but when he saw
it he gave thanks with his whole soul to God for his escape. The angel of the Lord had
encamped round about him and delivered him.
Like the Parthian, Luther discharged his arrows as he fled. He did not leave Augsburg
without leaving behind him something that would speak for him when he was gone;
and not in Augsburg only, but in all Christendom. He penned an appeal to Rome. In
that document he recapitulated the arguments with which he had combated
indulgences, and characterized the cardinal’s procedure as unreasonable, in insisting
on a retractation without deigning to show him wherein he had erred. He had not yet
renounced the authority of the Pope: he still reverenced the chair of Peter, though
disgraced by mal-administrations, and therefore he closed his appeal in the following
terms: - “I appeal from the Most Holy Father the Pope, ill-informed, to the Most Holy
Father the Pope Leo X., by the grace of God to be better-informed.”[6]
This appeal was to be handed to the legate only when the writer was at a safe distance.
But the question was, who should bell the cat. De Vio was in no mood to be
approached with such a document. The cardinal burned with a sense of the disaster
which had befallen himself and the cause of Rome, in Luther’s flight. He, and all the
men of craft, his advisers, had been outwitted by the German! He had failed to compel
the retractation of the monk; his person was now beyond his reach; and he carried
with him the prestige of victory; Rome had been foiled in this her first passage of
arms with the new faith; the cardinal, who hoped to rehabilitate himself as a
diplomatist, had come out of the affair as a bungler: what would they say of him at
Rome? The more he reflected, the greater appeared to him the mischief that would
grow out of this matter. He had secretly exulted when told that Luther was in
Augsburg; but better the monk had never entered its gates, than that he should come
hither to defy Rome in the person of her legate, and go away, not only unharmed, but
even triumphing. The cardinal was filled with indignation, shame, and rage.
Meanwhile Luther was every day placing a greater distance between himself and the
legate. The rumour spread through Germany that the monk had held his own before
the cardinal, and the inhabitants of the villages and towns in his route turned out to
congratulate him on his victory. Their joy was the greater inasmuch as their hopes had
been but faint that he should ever return. Germany had triumphed in Luther. Proud
Italy, who sent her dogmas and edicts across the Alps, to be swallowed without
examination, and who followed them by her tax-gatherers, had received a check. That
haughty and oppressive Power had begun to fall, and the dawn of deliverance had
broke for the Northern nations.
81
Luther re-entered Wittemberg on the day (October 30th, 1518) preceding the
anniversary of that on which he had posted up his “Theses.” The 1st of November was
All Saints’ Day. There came this year no crowd of pilgrims to Wittemberg to visit the
relics and purchase indulgences. So much for the blow Luther had struck: the trade of
Rome in these parts had well-nigh been ruined; it was manifest that the doctrines of
the Reformer were spreading.
But if the crowd of pilgrims that annually resorted to Wittemberg was all but extinct,
that of students had greatly increased. With the growing renown of Luther grew the
fame of the university, and the Elector Frederick saw with joy the prosperity of a
seminary in which he took so deep an interest. This helped to draw him to the side of
the Reformer. Luther resumed, with heart and soul, his labours in his chair. He strove
to forget what Rome might be hatching; he knew that trouble was not far off; but
meanwhile he went on with his work, being all the more anxious to make the best use
of the interval of quiet, the more he felt that it would be short.
It was short indeed. On November the 19th Frederick of Saxony received a letter from
Cardinal Cajetan, giving his version of the interviews at Augsburg,[7] and imploring
the elector no longer to sully the fame of his name and the glory of his house by
protecting a heretic, whom the tribunals of Rome were prosecuting, and of whom and
of whose affairs he had now and for ever washed his hands. The result of this
application was the more to be dreaded inasmuch as Frederick was as yet ignorant of
the reformed doctrine. But he well merited the epithet bestowed on him of “Wise;” in
all things he acted with consideration and candour, and he might be expected to do so
in this. The elector had no sooner received the legate’s letter than, desirous of hearing
both sides, he sent it to Luther.[8] The latter gave Frederick his account of the affair,
dwelling on Cajetan’s promise, which he had not kept, to convince him out of
Scripture; the unreasonableness of his demand, that he should retract, and the gross
and manifest perversion of those passages from Sacred Writ on which, in his letter to
the elector, Cajetan had professed to ground his cause; and all with such clearness,
force, and obvious truth, that Frederick resolved not to abandon Luther. He knew his
virtues, though he did not understand his doctrines, and he knew the grievances that
Germany groaned under from Italian pride and Papal greed. The reply of Frederick to
De Vio was in reality the same with that of Luther - “Prove the errors which you
allege” - a reply which deepened the mortification and crowned the misfortunes of the
cardinal.
To the unhappy De Vio, and the cause which he represented, one calamity followed
another in rapid succession. The day following that on which the Elector Frederick
dispatched his letter to the legate, Luther’s narrative of the Augsburg interview, which
he had been some time carefully preparing, issued from the press. The elector had
requested Luther to withhold it for a little while, and the Reformer was firmly
purposed to do so. But the eagerness of the public and the cupidity of the printers
overreached his caution. The printing-house was besieged by a crowd of all ranks and
ages, clamouring for copies. The sheets were handed out wet from the press, and as
each sheet was produced a dozen hands were stretched out to clutch it. The author was
the last person to see his own production. In a few days the pamphlet was spread far
and near.
Luther had become not the doctor of Wittemberg only, but of all Germany. The whole
nation, not less than the youth in the university, had been drawn into the study of
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theology. Through the printing-press Luther’s voice reached every hearth and every
individual in the Fatherland. It was a new life that men were breathing; it was a new
world that was opening to their eyes; it was a new influence, unfelt for ages, that was
stirring their souls; the ancient yoke was being broken and cast away. In the university
especially the theology of the Holy Scriptures was being studied with an ardour and a
perseverance to which we can find in later times no parallel. Professors and students,
kindled with the enthusiasm of Luther, if they could not keep pace with, strove to
follow him as closely as possible. “Our university,” wrote Luther, “glows with
industry like an ant-hill.”
With each new day came a new batch of students, till the halls of the university and
the accommodation at Wittemberg overflowed. Not from Germany only, but from far
countries, came these youths to receive here the seed of a reformed life, and to bear it
thence and scatter it over regions remote.
Great attention was given to the study of Hebrew and Greek, “the two languages
which, like porters, sit at the entrance of the Bible, holding the keys.” From the
university the passion for theological study passed to the court. The elector’s
secretary, Spalatin, in his correspondence with Luther, was perpetually asking and
receiving expositions of Scripture, and it was believed that behind the secretary’s
shadow sat the elector himself, quietly but earnestly prosecuting that line of inquiry
which was ultimately to place him by the side of Luther.
Meanwhile the plot was thickening. The tidings of Cajetan’s “victory,” as he himself
phrased it, had reached Rome; but the news of that “victory” caused only
consternation. The cannon of St. Angelo, which have proclaimed so many triumphs
before and since, forbore to proclaim this one. There were gloomy looks and anxious
deliberations in the halls of the Vatican. Rome must repair the disaster that had
befallen her; but here, too, fatality attended her steps. She could have done nothing
better to serve the cause of Luther than the course she took to oppose it. Serra Longa
had blundered, De Vio had blundered, and now Leo X. blunders worst of all. It
seemed as if the master wished to obliterate the mistakes of his servants by his own
greater mistakes.
On November 9 the Pontiff issued a new decretal, in which he sanctioned afresh the
doctrine of indulgences, and virtually confirmed all that Tetzel first and Cardinal
Cajetan next had taught on the head of the Church’s power to pardon sin. The edict
ran as follows: - “That the Roman Church, the mother of all Churches, had handed
down by tradition that the Roman Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, by the power of
the keys - that is, by removing the guilt and punishment due for actual sins by
indulgence - can for reasonable causes grant to the faithful of Christ, whether in this
life or in purgatory, indulgences out of the superabundance of the merits of Christ and
the saints; can confer the indulgence by absolution, or transfer it by suffrage. And all
those who have acquired indulgences, whether alive or dead, are released from so
much temporal punishment for their actual sins as is the equivalent of the acquired
indulgence. This doctrine is to be held and preached by all, under penalty of
excommunication, from which only the Pope can absolve, save at the point of
death.”[9] This bull was sent to Cajetan, who was then living at Linz, in Upper
Austria, whence copies were despatched by him to all the bishops of Germany, with
injunctions to have it published.
83
The weight that belonged to the utterance of Peter’s successor would, the Pope
believed, overwhelm and silence the monk of Wittemberg; and, the conscience of
Christendom set at rest, men would return to their former quiescence under the sceptre
of the Vatican. He little understood the age on which he was entering, and the state of
public feeling and sentiment north of the Alps. The age was past when men would
bow down implicitly before sheets of parchment and bits of lead. Wherein, men
asked, does the Pope’s teaching on indulgences differ from Tetzel’s, unless in the
greater decency of its language? The doctrine is the same, only in the one case it is
written in the best Latin they are now masters of at Rome, whereas in the other it is
proclaimed with stentorian voice in the coarsest Saxon. But plain it is that the Pope as
really as Tetzel brings the money-chest to our doors, and expects that we shall fill it.
He vaunts his treasure of merits, but it is as the chapman vaunts his wares, that we
may buy; and the more we sin, the richer will they be at Rome. Money - money money, is the beginning, middle, and end of this new decretal. It was in this fashion
that the Germans spoke of the edict of November 9, which was to bolster up Cajetan
and extinguish Luther. The Pope had exonerated Tetzel, but it was at the expense of
taking the whole of this immense scandal upon himself and his system. The chief
priest of Christendom presented himself before the world holding the bag with as
covetous a grip as any friar of them all.
In another way the decree of the Pope helped to overthrow the system it was meant to
uphold. It compelled Luther to go deeper than he had yet ventured to do in his
investigations into the Papacy. He now looked at its foundations. The doctrine of
indulgences in its sacrilegious and blasphemous form he had believed to be the
doctrine of Tetzel only; now he saw it to be the doctrine of Leo of Rome as well. Leo
had endorsed Tetzel’s and Cajetan’s interpretation of the matter. The conclusion to
which Luther’s studies were tending is indicated in a letter which he wrote about this
time to his friend Wenceslaus Link at Nuremberg: “The conviction is daily growing
upon me,” says he, “that the Pope is Antichrist.” And when Spalatin inquired what he
thought of war against the Turk - “Let us begin,” he replied, “with the Turk at home;
it is fruitless to fight carnal wars and be overcome in spiritual wars.”[10]
The conclusion was in due time reached. The Reformer drew up another appeal, and
on Sunday, the 28th of November, he read it aloud in Corpus Christi Chapel, in the
presence of a notary and witnesses. “I appeal,” he said, “from the Pontiff, as a man
liable to error, sin, falsehood, vanity, and other human infirmities - not above
Scripture, but under Scripture - to a future Council to be legitimately convened in a
safe place, so that a proctor deputed by me may have safe access.” This appeal marks
a new stage in Luther’s enlightenment. The Pope is, in fact, abjured: Luther no longer
appeals from Leo ill-informed to Leo well-informed,[11] but from the Papal authority
itself to that of a General Council, from the head of the Church to the Church
herself.[12]
So closed the year 1518. The sky overhead was thick with tempest. The cloud grew
blacker and bigger every day. The Reformer had written the appeal read in Corpus
Christi Chapel on the 28th of November, as the Israelites ate their last supper in
Egypt, “his robe tucked up and his loins girded, ready to depart,” though whither he
knew not. He only knew that he could go nowhere where God would not be his
“shield, and exceeding great reward.” The Papal anathemas he knew were being
prepared at Rome; they were not, improbably, at this moment on their way to
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Germany. Not because he feared for himself, but because he did not wish to
compromise the Elector Frederick, he held himself ready at a day’s notice to quit
Saxony. His thoughts turned often to France. The air seemed clearer there, and the
doctors of the Sorbonne spoke their thoughts with a freedom unknown to other
countries; and had Luther been actually compelled to flee, most probably he would
have gone to that country. And now the die was cast as it seemed. The elector sent a
message to him, intimating his wishes that he should quit his dominions. He will
obey, but before going forth he will solace himself, most probably for the last time, in
the company of his friends. While seated with them at supper, a messenger arrives
from the elector. Frederick wishes to know why Luther delays his departure. What a
pang does this message send to his heart!
What a sense of sadness and desolation does he now experience! On earth he has no
protector. There is not for him refuge below the skies. The beloved friends assembled
round him - Jonas, Pomeranus, Carlstadt, Amsdorf, the jurist Schurff, and, dearest of
all, Melancthon - are drowned in grief, almost in despair, as they behold the light of
their university on the point of being quenched, and the great movement which
promises a new life to the world on the brink of overthrow. So sudden an overcasting
of the day they had not looked for. They waited for light, and behold darkness! No
prince in all Christendom, no, not even their own wise and magnanimous elector, dare
give an asylum to the man who in the cause of righteousness has stood up against
Rome.[13] It was a bitter cup that Luther was now drinking. He must go forth. His
enemy, he knew, would pursue him from land to land, and would never cease to dog
his steps till she had overtaken and crushed him. But it was not this that troubled him.
His soul, the only thing of value about him, he had committed to One who was able to
keep it; and as for his body, it was at the disposal of Rome, to rot in her dungeons, to
hang on her gibbets, to be reduced to ashes in her fires, just as she might will. He
would have gone singing to the stake, but to go forth and leave his country in
darkness, this it was that pierced him to the heart, and drew from him a flood of bitter
tears.
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CHAPTER 14
MILTITZ - CARLSTADT - DR. ECK
We left Luther dispirited to the last degree. A terrible storm seemed to be gathering
over him, and over the work which he had been honoured to begin, and so far
auspiciously to advance. He had incurred the displeasure of a foe who had at
command all the powers of Europe. Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, seemed even
more intent on crushing the monk of Wittemberg, and stamping out the movement,
than Leo himself was. Letter after letter did he dispatch to Rome chiding the delays of
the Vatican, and urging it to toy no longer with a movement which threatened to breed
serious trouble to the chair of Peter. The Pope could not close his ear to appeals so
urgent, coming from a quarter so powerful. The Elector Frederick, Luther’s earthly
defender, was standing aloof. Wittemberg could no longer be the home of the
Reformer. He had taken farewell of his congregation; he had spoken his parting words
to the youth who had gathered round him from all the provinces of Germany, and
from distant countries; he had bidden adieu to his weeping friends, and now he stood,
staff in hand, ready to go forth he knew not whither, when all at once the whole face
of affairs was unexpectedly changed.
Rome was not yet prepared to proceed to extremities. She had not fully fathomed the
depth of the movement. Scarce an age was there in the past, but some rebellious priest
had threatened his sovereign lord, but all such attempts against the Pontiff had been in
vain. The Wittemberg movement would, like a tempest, exhaust itself, and the waves
would dash harmlessly against the rock of the Church. True, the attempts of Leo to
compose the Wittemberg troubles had so far been without result, or rather had made
the matter worse; but, like the conjurer in the tale, Rome had not one only, but a
hundred tricks; she had diplomatists to flatter, and she had red hats to dazzle those
whom it might not be convenient as yet to burn, and so she resolved on making one
other trial at conciliation.[1]
The person pitched upon to conduct the new operation was Charles Miltitz. Cajetan
was too stately, too haughty, too violent; Miltitz was not likely to split on this rock.
He was the chamberlain of the Pope: a Saxon by birth, but he had resided so long at
Rome as to have become a proficient in Italian craft, to which he added a liking for
music.[2] The new envoy was much more of a diplomatist than a theologian. This,
however, did not much matter, seeing he came not to discuss knotty points, but to
lavish caresses and lay snares. As he was a German by birth, it was supposed he
would know how to manage the Germans.
Miltitz’s errand to Saxony was not avowed. He did not visit the elector’s court on
Luther’s business; not at all. He was the bearer from the Pope to Frederick of the
“golden rose,”[3] a token of regard which the Pope granted only to the most esteemed
of his friends, and being solicitous that Frederick should believe himself of that
number, and knowing that he was desirous of receiving this special mark of Papal
affection,[4] he sent Miltitz this long road, with the precious and much-coveted gift.
Being on the spot he might as well try his hand at arranging “brother Martin’s”
business. But no one was deceived. “The Pope’s chamberlain comes,” said Luther’s
friends to him, “laden with flattering letters and Pontifical briefs, the cords with which
he hopes to bind you and carry you to Rome.” “I await the will of God,” replied the
Reformer.
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On his journey Miltitz made it his business to ascertain the state of public feeling on
the question now in agitation. He was astonished to find the hold which the opinions
of Luther had taken on the German mind. In all companies he entered, in the way-side
taverns, in the towns, in the castles where he lodged, he found the quarrel between the
monk and the Pope the topic of talk. Of every five Germans three were on the side of
Luther. How different the mental state on this side the Alps from the worn-out Italian
mind! This prognosticated an approaching emancipation of the young and ingenuous
Teutonic intellect from its thraldom to the traditionalism of Italy. At times the Pope’s
chamberlain received somewhat amusing answers to his interrogatories. One day he
asked the landlady of the inn where he had put up, what her opinion was of the chair
of Peter? “What can we humble folks,” replied the hostess, gawkily, “know of Peter’s
chair? we have never seen it, and can not tell whether it be of wood or of stone.”[5]
Miltitz reached Saxony in the end of the year 1518, but his reception at Frederick’s
court was not of a kind to inspire him with high hopes. The elector’s ardour for the
“golden rose” had cooled; its fragrance had been spoiled by the late breezes from
Augsburg and Rome, and he gave orders that it should be delivered to him through
one of the officers of the palace. The letters which Miltitz carried to Spalatin and
Pfeffinger, the elector’s councillors, though written with great fervour, did but little to
thaw the coldness of these statesmen. The envoy must reserve all his strength for
Luther himself, that was clear; and he did reserve it, and to such purpose that he came
much nearer gaining his point than Cajetan had done. The movement was in less
danger when the tempest appeared about to burst over it, than now when the clouds
had rolled away, and the sun again shone out.
Miltitz was desirous above all things of having a personal interview with Luther. His
wish was at last gratified, and the envoy and the monk met each other in the house of
Spalatin at Altenberg.[6] The courtier exhausted all the wiles of which he was master.
He was not civil merely, he was gracious; he fawned upon Luther.[7] Looking full
into his face, he said that he expected to see an old theologian, prosing over knotty
points in his chimney-corner; to his delight he saw, instead, a man in the prime of life.
He flattered his pride by saying that he believed he had a larger following than the
Pope himself, and he sought to disarm his fears by assuring him that, though he had
an army of 20,000 men at his back, he would never be so foolish as to think of
carrying off one who was so much the idol of the people.[8] Luther knew perfectly
that it was the courtier who was speaking, and that between the words of the courtier
and the deeds of the envoy there might possibly be some considerable difference. But
he took care not to let Miltitz know what was passing in his mind.
The envoy now proceeded to business. His touch was adroit and delicate. Tetzel, he
said, had gone beyond his commission; he had done the thing scandalously, and he
did not greatly wonder that Luther had been provoked to oppose him. Even the
Archbishop of Mainz was not without blame, in putting the screw too tightly upon
Tetzel as regarded the money part of the business. Still the doctrine of indulgences
was a salutary one; from that doctrine the German people had been seduced, and they
had been so by the course which he, Luther, had felt it his duty to pursue. Would he
not confess that herein he had erred, and restore peace to the Church? - a matter, the
envoy assured him, that lay very much upon his heart.[9]
Luther boldly answered that the chief offender in this business was neither Tetzel nor
the Archbishop of Mainz, but the Pope himself,[10] who, while he might have given
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the pallium freely, had put upon it a price so exorbitant as to tempt the archbishop to
employ Tetzel to get the money for him by hook or by crook. “But as for a
retractation,” said Luther in a very firm tone, “never expect one from me.”
A second and a third interview followed, and Miltitz, despairing of extorting from
Luther a recantation, professed to be satisfied with what he could get; and he got more
than might have been expected. It is evident that the arts of the envoy, his wellsimulated fairness and moderation, and the indignation, not wholly feigned, which he
expressed against Tetzel, had not been without their effect upon the mind of Luther.
The final arrangement come to was that neither side should write or act in the
question; that Luther should revoke upon proof of his errors, and that the matter
should be referred to the judgment of an enlightened bishop. The umpire ultimately
chosen was the Archbishop of Treves.[11]
The issue to which the affair had been brought was one that threatened disaster to the
cause. It seemed to prelude a shelving of the controversy. It was gone into for that
very purpose. The “Theses” will soon be forgotten; the Tetzel scandal will fade from
the public memory; Rome will observe a little more moderation and decency in the
sale of indulgences; and when the storm shall have blown over, things will revert to
their old course, and Germany will again lie down in her chains. Happily, there was a
Greater than Luther at the head of the movement.
Miltitz was overjoyed. This troublesome affair was now at an end; so he thought. His
mistake lay in believing the movement to be confined to the bosom of a single monk.
He could not see that it was a new life which had come down from the skies, and
which was bringing on an awakening in the Church. Miltitz invited Luther to supper.
At table, he did not conceal the alarm this matter had caused at Rome. Nothing that
had fallen out these hundred years had occasioned so much uneasiness in the Vatican.
The cardinals would give “ten thousand ducats” to have it settled, and the news that it
was now arranged would cause unbounded joy. The repast was a most convivial one;
and when it was ended, the envoy rose, took the monk of Wittemberg in his arms, and
kissed him - “a Judas kiss,” said Luther, writing to Staupitz, “but I would not let him
perceive that I saw through his Italian tricks.”[12]
There came now a pause in the controversy. Luther laid aside his pen, he kept silence
on indulgences; he busied himself in his chair; but, fortunately for the cause at stake,
this pause was of no long duration. It was his enemies that broke the truce. Had they
been wise, they would have left the monk in the fetters with which Miltitz had bound
him. Not knowing what they did, they loosed his cords.
This brings us to the Leipsic Disputation, an affair that made a great noise at the time,
and which was followed by vast consequences to the Reformation.
Such disputations were common in that age. They were a sort of tournament in which
the knights of the schools, like the knights of the Middle Ages, sought to display their
prowess and win glory. They had their uses. There were then no public meetings, no
platforms, no daily press; and in their absence, these disputations between the learned
came in their stead, as arenas for the ventilation of great public questions.
The man who set agoing the movement when it had stopped, thinking to extinguish it,
was Doctor John Eccius or Eck. He was famed as a debater all over Europe. He was
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Chancellor of the University of Ingolstadt; deeply read in the school-men, subtle,
sophistical, a great champion of the Papacy, transcendently vain of his dialectic
powers, vaunting the triumphs he had obtained on many fields, and always panting for
new opportunities of displaying his skill. A fellow-labourer of Luther, Andrew
Bodenstein, better known as Carlstadt, Archdeacon of the Cathedral at Wittemberg,
had answered the Obelisks of Dr. Eck, taking occasion to defend the opinions of
Luther. Eck answered him, and Carlstadt again replied. After expending on each other
the then customary amenities of scholastic strife, it was ultimately agreed that the two
combatants should meet in the city of Leipsic, and decide the controversy by oral
disputation, in the presence of George, Duke of Saxony, uncle of the Elector
Frederick, and other princes and illustrious personages.
Before the day arrived for this trial of strength between Carlstadt and Eck, the latter
had begun to aim at higher game. To vanquish Carlstadt would bring him but little
fame; the object of Eck’s ambition was to break a lance with the monk of Wittemberg,
“the little monk who had suddenly grown into a giant.”[13] Accordingly, he published
thirteen Theses, in which he plainly impugned the opinions of Luther.
This violation of the truce on the Roman side set Luther free; and, nothing loth, he
requested permission from Duke George to come to Leipsic and take up the challenge
which Eck had thrown down to him. The duke, who feared for the public peace,
should two such combatants wrestle a fall on his territories, refused the request.
Ultimately, however, he gave leave to Luther to come to Leipsic as a spectator; and in
this capacity did the doctor of Wittemberg appear on a scene in which he was destined
to fill the most prominent place.
It affords a curious glimpse into the manners of the age, to mark the pomp with which
the two parties entered Leipsic. Dr. Eck and his friends came first, arriving on the 21st
of June, 1519. Seated in a chariot, arrayed in his sacerdotal garments, he made his
entry into the city, at the head of a procession composed of the civic and ecclesiastical
dignitaries who had come forth to do him honour. He passed proudly along through
streets thronged with the citizens, who rushed from their houses to have a sight of the
warrior who had unsheathed his scholastic sword on so many fields - in Pannonia, in
Lombardy, in Bavaria - and who had never yet returned it into its scabbard but in
victory. He was accompanied by Poliander, whom he had brought with him to be a
witness of his triumph, but whom Providence designed, by the instrumentality of
Luther, to bind to the chariot of the Reformation. There is a skeleton at every banquet,
and Eck complains that a report was circulated in the crowd, that in the battle about to
begin it would be his fortune to be beaten. The wish in this case certainly was not
father to the thought, for the priests and people of Leipsic were to a man on Eck’s
side.
On the 24th of June the theologians from Wittemberg made their public entry into
Leipsic. Heading the procession came Carlstadt, who was to maintain the contest with
Eck. Of the distinguished body of men assembled at Wittemberg, Carlstadt was
perhaps the most impetuous, but the least profound. He was barely fit to sustain the
part which he had chosen to act. He was enjoying the ovation of his entry when, the
wheel of his carriage coming off, he suddenly rolled in the mud. The spectators who
witnessed his mischance construed it into an omen of a more serious downfall
awaiting him, and said that if Eck was to be beaten it was another than Carlstadt who
would be the victor.
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In the carriage after Carlstadt rode the Duke of Pomerania, and, one on each side of
him, sat the two theologians of chief note, Luther and Melancthon. Then followed a
long train of doctors-in-law, masters of arts, licentiates in theology, and surrounding
their carriages came a body of 200 students bearing pikes and halberds. It was not
alone the interest they took in the discussion which brought them hither; they knew
that the disposition of the Leipsickers was not over-friendly, and they thought their
presence might not be unneeded in guarding their professors from insult and injury.[14]
On the morning of the 27th, mass was sung in the Church of St. Thomas. The princes,
counts, abbots, councillors, and professors walked to the chapel in procession,
marching to the sound of martial music, with banners flying, and accompanied by a
guard of nearly 100 citizens, who bore halberds and other weapons. After service they
returned in the same order to the ducal castle of Pleisenberg, the great room of which
had been fitted up for the disputation. Duke George, the hereditary Prince John of
Saxony, the Duke of Pomerania, and Prince John of Anhalt occupied separate and
conspicuous seats; the less distinguished of the audience sat upon benches. At each
end of the hall rose a wooden pulpit for the use of the disputants. Over that which
Luther was to occupy hung a painting of St. Martin, whose name he bore; and above
that which had been assigned to Dr. Eck was a representation of St. George trampling
the dragon under foot: a symbol, as the learned doctor doubtless viewed it, of the feat
he was to perform in slaying with scholastic sword the dragon of the Reformation. In
the middle of the hall were tables for the notaries-public, who were to take notes of
the discussion.
All are in their places: there is silence in the hall. Mosellanus ascends the pulpit and
delivers the introductory address. He exhorts the champions to bear themselves
gallantly yet courteously; to remember that they are theologians, not duellists, and that
their ambition ought to be not so much to conquer as to be conquered, so that Truth
might be the only victor on the field now about to open.[15] When the address had
terminated, the organ pealed through the hall of the Pleisenberg, and the whole
assembly, falling on their knees, sang the ancient hymn - Veni, Sancte Spiritus. Three
times was this invocation solemnly repeated.[16]
The Church now stood on the line that divided the night from the day. The champions
of the darkness and the heralds of the light were still mingled in one assembly, and
still united by the tie of one ecclesiastical communion. A little while and they would
be parted, never again to meet; but as yet they assemble under the same roof, they
bow their heads in the same prayer, and they raise aloft their voices in the same
invocation to the Holy Spirit. That prayer was to be answered. The Spirit was to
descend; the dead were to draw to the dead, the living to the living, and a holy Church
was to look forth “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with
banners.”
It was now past noon. The opening of the discussion was postponed till after dinner.
Duke George had prepared a sumptuous repast for the two disputants and their
friends, and they accordingly adjourned to the ducal table. At two o’clock they reassembled in the hall where the disputation was to take place.[17]
The battle was now joined, and it continued to be waged on this and the sixteen
following days. The questions discussed were of the very last importance: they were
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those that lie at the foundations of the two theologies, and that constitute an essential
and eternal difference between the Roman and Protestant Churches, in their basis,
their character, and their tendencies. The discussion was also of the last importance
practically. It enabled the Reformers to see deeper than they had hitherto done into
fundamentals. It convinced them that the contrariety between the two creeds was far
greater than they had imagined, and that the diversity was not on the surface merely,
not in the temporal wealth and spiritual assumptions of the hierarchy merely, not in
the scandals of indulgences and the disorders of the Papal court merely, but in the
very first principles upon which the Papal system is founded, and that the discussion
of these principles leads unavoidably into an examination of the moral and spiritual
condition of the race, and the true character of the very first event in human history.
Before sketching in outline - and an outline is all that has come down to us - this
celebrated disputation, it may not be uninteresting to see a pen-and- ink sketch, by an
impartial contemporary and eye-witness, of the three men who figured the most
prominently in it. The portraits are by Peter Mosellanus, Professor of Greek in the
University of Leipsic, the orator who opened the proceedings.
“Martin Luther is of middle stature, and so emaciated by hard study that one might
almost count his bones. He is in the rigor of life, and his voice is clear and sonorous.
His learning and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures are beyond compare: he has the
whole Word of God at command. In addition to this he has great store of arguments
and ideas. It were, perhaps, to be wished that he had a little more judgment in
arranging his materials. In conversation he is candid and courteous; there is nothing
stoical or haughty about him; he has the art of accommodating himself to every
individual. His address is pleasing, and replete with good-humour; he displays
firmness, and is never discomposed by the menaces of his adversaries, be they what
they may. One is, in a manner, to believe that in the great things which he has done
God has assisted him. He is blamed, however, for being more sarcastic in his
rejoinders than becomes a theologian, especially when he announces new ideas.”
“Carlstadt is of smaller stature; his complexion is dark and sallow, his voice
disagreeable, his memory less retentive, and his temper more easily ruffled than
Luther’s. Still, however, he possesses, though in an inferior degree, the same qualities
which distinguish his friend.”
“Eck is tall and broad-shouldered. He has a strong and truly German voice, and such
excellent lungs that he would be well heard on the stage, or would make an admirable
town-crier. His accent is rather coarse than elegant, and he has none of the
gracefulness so much lauded by Cicero and Quintilian. His mouth, his eyes, and his
whole figure suggest the idea of a soldier or a butcher rather than a theologian. His
memory is excellent, and were his intellect equal to it he would be faultless. But he is
slow of comprehension, and wants judgment, without which all other gifts are useless.
Hence, when he debates, he piles up, without selection or discernment, passages from
the Bible, quotations from the Fathers, and arguments of all descriptions. His
assurance, moreover, is unbounded. When he finds himself in a difficulty he darts off
from the matter in hand, and pounces upon another; sometimes, even, he adopts the
view of his antagonist, and, changing the form of expression, most dexterously
charges him with the very absurdity which he himself was defending.”[18]
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Such were the three men who now stood ready to engage in battle, as sketched by one
who was too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of ancient pagan literature to care
about the contest farther than as it might afford him a little amusement or some
pleasurable excitement. The eyes of this learned Grecian were riveted on the past. It
was the scholars, heroes, and battles of antiquity that engrossed his admiration. And
yet what were these but mimic conflicts compared with the tremendous struggle that
was now opening, and the giants that were to wrestle in it! The wars of Greece and
Rome were but the world’s nursery tales; this war, though Mosellanus knew it not,
was the real drama of the race - the true conflict of the ages.
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CHAPTER 15
THE LEIPSIC DISPUTATION
The man who climbs to the summit of a mountain chain beholds the waters that gush
forth from the soil rolling down the declivity, some on this side of the ridge and some
on that. Very near to each other may lie the birth-places of these young rivers; but
how different their courses! how dissimilar the countries which they water, and how
widely apart lie the oceans, into which they ultimately pour their floods! This
difference of destiny is occasioned by what would seem no great matter. The line of
the mountain summit runs between their sources, and hence; though their beginnings
are here, at the traveller’s feet, on the same mountain-top, their endings are parted, it
may be, by hundreds of miles.
We are arrived at a similar point in the history of the two great systems whose rise
and course we are employed in tracing. We stand at the watershed of the two
theologies. We can here clearly trace the dividing line as it runs along, parting the
primeval sources of the Protestant and the Roman theologies. These sources lie close,
very close to each other, and yet the one is on this side of the line which divides truth
from error, the other is on that; and hence the different and opposite course on which
we behold each setting out; and so far from ever meeting, the longer they flow they
are but the farther parted. The discussion at Leipsic proceeded along this line; it was,
in fact, the first distinct tracing-out and settling of this line, as the essential and eternal
boundary between the two theologies - between the Roman and Protestant Churches.
The form which the question took was one touching the human will. What is the
moral condition of man’s will? in other words, What is the moral condition of man
himself? As the will is, so is the man, for the will or heart is but a term expressive of
the final outcome of the man; it is the organ which concentrates all the findings of his
animal, intellectual, and spiritual nature - body, mind, and soul - and sends them forth
in the form of wish and act. Is man able to choose that which is spiritually good? In
other words, when sin and holiness are put before him, and he must make his choice
between the two, will the findings of his whole nature, as summed up and expressed
in his choice, be on the side of holiness? Dr. Eck and the Roman theologians at
Leipsic maintained the affirmative, asserting that man has the power, without aid from
the Spirit of God, and simply of himself, to choose what is spiritually good, and to
obey God. Luther, Carlstadt, and the new theologians maintained the negative,
affirming that man lost this power when he fell; that he is now morally unable to
choose holiness; and that, till his nature be renewed by the Holy Spirit, he can not
love or serve God.[1]
This question, it is necessary to remark, is not one touching the freedom of man.
About this there is no dispute. It is admitted on both sides, the Popish and Protestant,
that man is a free agent. Man can make a choice; there is neither physical nor
intellectual constraint upon his will, and having made his choice he can act
conformably to it. This constitutes man a moral and responsible agent. But the
question is one touching the moral ability of the will. Granting our freedom of choice,
have we the power to choose good? Will the perceptions, bias, and desires of our
nature, as summed up and expressed by the will, be on the side of holiness as
holiness? They will not, says the Protestant theology, till the nature is renewed by the
Holy Spirit. The will may be physically free, it may be intellectually free, and yet, by
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reason of the bias to sin and aversion to holiness which the Fall planted in the heart,
the will is not morally free; it is dominated over by its hatred of holiness and love of
sin, and will not act in the way of preferring holiness and loving God, till it be rid of
the spiritual incapacity which hatred of what is good inflicts upon it. But let us return
to the combatants in the arena at Leipsic. Battle has already been joined, and we find
the disputants stationed beside the deepest sources of the respective theologies, only
half conscious of the importance of the ground they occupy, and the far-reaching
consequences of the propositions for which they are respectively to fight.
“Man’s will before his conversion,” says Carlstadt, “can perform no good work.
Every good work comes entirely and exclusively from God, who gives to man first
the will to do, and then the power of accomplishing.”[2]
Such was the proposition maintained at one end of the hall. It was a very old
proposition, though it seemed new when announced in the Pleisenberg hall, having
been thoroughly obscured by the schoolmen. The Reformers could plead Augustine’s
authority in behalf of their proposition; they could plead a yet greater authority, even
that of Paul. The apostle had maintained this proposition both negatively and
positively. He had described the “carnal mind” as “enmity against God;” (Romans
8:7, 8)[3] He had spoken of the understanding as “darkness,” and of men as “alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.” This same doctrine he had
put also in the positive form.
“It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
(Philippians 2:13)[4]
Our Saviour has laid down a great principle which amounts to this, that corrupt
human nature by itself can produce nothing but what is corrupt, when he said,
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” (John 3:6)[5]
And the same great principle is asserted, with equal clearness, though in figurative
language, when he says, “A corrupt tree can not bring forth good fruit.” And were
commentary needed to bring out the full meaning of this statement, we have it in the
personal application which the apostle makes of it to himself.
“For I know that in me [that is, in my flesh] dwelleth no good thing.” (Romans
7:18)[6]
If then man’s whole nature be corrupt, said the Reformer, nothing but what is corrupt
can proceed from him, till he be quickened by the Spirit of God. Antecedently to the
operations of the Spirit upon his understanding and heart, he lacks the moral power of
loving and obeying God, and of effecting anything that may really avail for his
deliverance and salvation; and he who can do nothing for himself must owe all to
God.
At the other end of the hall, occupying the pulpit over which was suspended the
representation of St. George and the dragon, rose the tall portly form of Dr. Eck. With
stentorian voice and animated gestures, he repudiates the doctrine which has just been
put forth by Carlstadt. Eck admits that man is fallen, that his nature is corrupt, but he
declines to define the extent of that corruption; he maintains that it is not universal,
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that his whole nature is not corrupt, that man has the power of doing some things that
are spiritually good; and that, prior to the action of God’s Spirit upon his mind and
heart, man can do works which have a certain kind of merit, the merit of congruity
even; and God rewards these good works done in the man’s own strength, with grace
by which he is able to do what still remains of the work of his salvation.[7]
The combatants at the one end of the hall fight for salvation by grace - grace to the
entire exclusion of human merit: salvation of God. The combatants at the other end
fight for salvation by works, a salvation beginning in man’s own efforts and good
works, and these efforts and good works running along the whole line of operation;
and though they attract to them supernatural grace, and make it their yoke-fellow as it
were, yet themselves substantially and meritoriously do the work. This is salvation of
man.
If rite doctrine of the corruption of man’s whole nature be true, if he has lost the
power of choosing what is spiritually good, and doing work spiritually acceptable to
God, the Protestant divines were right. If he retains this power, the Roman theologians
were on the side of truth. There is no middle position.
Thus the controversy came to rage around this one point - Has the Will the power to
choose and to do what is spiritually good? This, they said, was the whole controversy
between Romanism and Protestantism. All the lines of argument on both sides flowed
out of, or ran up into, this one point. It was the greatest point of all in theology viewed
on the side of man; and according as it was to be decided, Romanism is true and
Protestantism is false, or Protestantism is true and Romanism is false.
“I acknowledge,” said Eck, who felt himself hampered in this controversy by opinions
favourable to the doctrine of grace which, descending from the times of Augustine,
and maintained though imperfectly and inconsistently by some of the schoolmen, had
lingered in the Church of Rome till now - “I acknowledge that the first impulse in
man’s conversion proceeds from God, and that the will of man in this instance is
entirely passive.”
“Then,” asked Carlstadt, who thought that he had won rite argument, “after this first
impulse which proceeds from God, what follows on the part of man? Is it not that
which Paul denominates will, and which the Fathers entitle consent?”
“Yes,” answered the Chancellor of Ingolstadt, “but this consent of man comes partly
from our natural will and partly from God’s grace” - thus recalling what he appeared
to have granted; making man a partner with God in the origination of will or first act
of choice in the matter of his salvation, and so dividing with God the merit of the
work.
“No,” responded Carlstadt, “this consent or act of will comes entirely from God; he it
is who creates it in the man.”[8]
Offended at a doctrine which so completely took away from man all cause of
glorifying, Eck, feigning astonishment and anger, exclaimed, “Your doctrine converts
a man into a stone or log, incapable of any action.”
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The apostle had expressed it better: “dead in trespasses and sins.” Yet he did not
regard those in that condition whom he addressed as a stone or a log, for he gave them
the motives to believe, and held them guilty before God should they reject the Gospel.
A log or a stone! it was answered from Carlstadt’s end of the hall. Does our doctrine
make man such? does it reduce him to the level of an irrational animal? By no means.
Can he not meditate and reflect, compare and choose? Can he not read and understand
the statements of Scripture declaring to him in what state he is sunk, that he is
“without strength,” and bidding him ask the aid of the Spirit of God? If he ask, will
not that Spirit be given? will not the light of truth be made to shine into his
understanding? and by the instrumentality of the truth, will not his heart be renewed
by the Spirit, his moral bias against holiness taken away, and he become able to love
and obey God? In man’s capacity to become the subject of such a change, in his
possessing such a framework of powers and faculties as, when touched by the Spirit,
can be set in motion in the direction of good, is there not, said the Reformers,
sufficient to distinguish man from a log, a stone, or an irrational animal?
The Popish divines on this head have ignored a distinction on which Protestant
theologians have always and justly laid great stress, the distinction between the
rational and the spiritual powers of man.
Is it not matter of experience, the Romanists have argued, that men of themselves that is, by the promptings and powers of their unrenewed nature - have done good
actions? Does not ancient history show us many noble, generous, and virtuous
achievements accomplished by the heathen? Did they not love and die for their
country? All enlightened Protestant theologians have most cheerfully granted this.
Man even unrenewed by the Spirit of God may be truthful, benevolent, loving,
patriotic; and by the exercise of these qualities, he may invest his own character with
singular gracefulness and glory, and to a very large degree benefit his species. But the
question here is one regarding a higher good, even that which the Bible denominates
holiness - “without which no man can see God” - actions done conformably to the
highest standard, which is the Divine law, and from the motive of the highest end,
which is the glory of God. Such actions, the Protestant theology teaches, can come
only from a heart purified by faith, and quickened by the Spirit of God.[9]
On the 4th of July, Luther stepped down into the arena. He had obtained permission to
be present on condition of being simply a spectator; but, at the earnest solicitations of
both sides, Duke George withdrew the restriction, and now he and Eck are about to
join battle. At seven o’clock in the morning the two champions appeared in their
respective pulpits, around which were grouped the friends and allies of each. Eck
wore a courageous and triumphant air, claiming to have borne off the palm from
Carlstadt, and it was generally allowed that he had proved himself the abler disputant.
Luther appeared with a nosegay in his hand, and a face still bearing traces of the
terrible storms through which he had passed. The former discussion had thinned the
hall; it was too abstruse and metaphysical for the spectators to appreciate its
importance. Now came mightier champions, and more palpable issues. A crowd filled
the Pleisenberg hall, and looked on while the two giants contended.
It was understood that the question of the Pope’s primacy was to be discussed
between Luther and Eck. The Reformer’s emancipation from this as from other parts
of the Romish system had been gradual. When he began the war against the
96
indulgence-mongers, he never doubted that so soon as the matter should come to the
knowledge of the Pope and the other dignitaries, they would be as forward as himself
to condemn the monstrous abuse. To his astonishment, he found them throwing their
shield over it, and arguing from Scripture in a way that convinced him that the men
whom he had imagined as sitting in a region of serene light, were in reality immersed
in darkness. This led him to investigate the basis of the Roman primacy, and soon he
came to the conclusion that it had no foundation whatever in either the early Church
or in the Word of God. He denied that the Pope was head of the Church by Divine
right, though he was still willing to grant that he was head of the Church by human
right - that is, by the consent of the nations.
Eck opened the discussion by affirming that the Pope’s supremacy was of Divine
appointment. His main proof, as it is that of Romanists to this hour, was the wellknown passage, “Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church.” Luther
replied, as Protestants at this day reply, that it is an unnatural interpretation of the
words to make Peter the rock; that their natural and obvious sense is, that the truth
Peter had just confessed - in other words Christ himself - is the rock; that Augustine
and Ambrose had so interpreted the passage, and that therewith agree the express
declarations of Scripture “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ;”(1
Corinthians 3:11)[10]
and that Peter himself terms Christ
“the chief corner-stone, and a living stone on which we are built up a
spiritual house.”(1 Peter 2:4, 5, 6)[11]
It is unnecessary to go into the details of the disputation. The line of argument, so
often traversed since that day, has become very familiar to Protestants. But we must
not overlook the perspicacity and courage of the man who first opened the path, nor
the wisdom which taught him to rely so confidently on the testimony of Scripture, nor
the independence by which he was able to emancipate himself from the trammels of a
servitude sanctioned by the submission of ages.
Luther in this disputation laboured under the disadvantage of having to confront
numerous quotations from the false decretals. That gigantic forgery, which forms so
large a part of the basis of the Roman primacy, had not then been laid bare;
nevertheless, Luther looking simply at the internal evidence, in the exercise of his
intuitive sagacity, boldly pronounced the evidence produced against him from this
source spurious. He even retreated to his stronghold, the early centuries of Christian
history, and especially the Bible, in neither of which was proof or trace of the Pope’s
supremacy to be discovered.[12] When the doctor of Ingolstadt found that despite his
practiced logic, vast reading, and ready eloquence, he was winning no victory, and
that all his arts were met and repelled by the simple massive strength, knowledge of
Scripture, and familiarity with the Fathers which the monk of Wittemberg displayed,
he was not above a discreditable ruse. He essayed to raise a prejudice against Luther
by charging him with being “a patron of the heresies of Wycliffe and Huss.” The
terrors of such an accusation, we in this age can but faintly realise. The doctrines of
Huss and Jerome still lay under great odium in the West; and Eck hoped to
overwhelm Luther by branding him with the stigma of Bohemianism. The excitement
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in the hall was immense when the charge was hurled against him; and Duke George
and many of the audience half rose from their seats, eager to catch the reply.
Luther well knew the peril in which Eck had placed him, but he was faithful to his
convictions. “The Bohemians,” he said, “are schismatics; and I strongly reprobate
schism: the supreme Divine right is charity and unity. But among the articles of John
Huss condemned by the Council of Constance, some are plainly most Christian and
evangelical, which the universal Church can not condemn.”[13] Eck had unwittingly
done both Luther and the Reformation a service. The blow which he meant should be
a mortal one had severed the last link in the Reformer’s chain. Luther had formerly
repudiated the primacy of the Pope, and appealed from the Pope to a Council. Now he
publicly accuses a Council of having condemned what was “Christian” - in short, of
having erred. It was clear that the infallible authority of Councils, as well as that of
the Pope, must be given up. Henceforward Luther stands upon the authority of
Scripture alone.
The gain to the Protestant movement from the Leipsic discussion was great. Duke
George, frightened by the charge of Bohemianism, was henceforward its bitter enemy.
There were others who were incurably prejudiced against it. But these losses were
more than balanced by manifold and substantial gains. The views of Luther were
henceforward clearer. The cause got a broader and firmer foot-hold. Of those who sat
on the benches, many became its converts. The students especially were attracted by
Luther, and forsaking the University of Leipsic, flocked to that of Wittemberg. Some
names, that afterwards were among the brightest in the ranks of the Reformers, were
at this time enrolled on the evangelical side - Poliander, Cellarius, the young Prince of
Anhalt, Cruciger, and last and greatest of all, Melancthon. Literature heretofore had
occupied the intellect and filled the heart of this last distinguished man, but now,
becoming as a little child, he bowed to the authority of the Word of God, and
dedicating all his erudition to the Protestant cause, he began to expound the Gospel
with that sweetness and clearness which were so peculiarly his own. Luther loved him
before, but from this time he loved him more than ever. Luther and Melancthon were
true yoke-fellows; they were not so much twain as one; they made up between them a
perfect agent for the times and the work. How admirably has Luther hit this off! “I
was born,” said he, “to contend on the field of battle with factions and wicked spirits.
It is my task to uproot the stock and the stem, to clear away the briars and the
underwood. I am the rough workman who has to prepare the way and smooth the
road. But Philip advances quietly and softly. He tills and plants the ground; sows and
waters it joyfully, according to the gifts which God has given him with so liberal a
hand.”[14]
The war at Leipsic, then, was no affair of outposts merely. It raged round the very
citadel of the Roman system. The first assault was directed against that which
emphatically is the key of the Roman position, its deepest foundation as a theology namely, man’s independence of the grace of God. For it is on the doctrine of man’s
ability to begin and - with the help of a little supplemental grace, conveyed to him
through the sole channel of the Sacraments - to accomplish his salvation, that Rome
builds her scheme of works, with all its attendant penances, absolutions, and
burdensome rites. The second blow was struck at that dogma which is the cornerstone of Rome as a hierarchy - the Pope’s primacy.
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The Reformers strove to overthrow both, that they might substitute - for the first,
GOD, as the sole Author of man’s salvation; and for the second, CHRIST as the sole
Monarch of the Church.
Luther returned from Leipsic a freer, a nobler, and a more courageous man. The
fetters of Papalism had been rent. He stood erect in the liberty wherewith the Gospel
makes all who receive and follow it free. He no longer bowed to Councils; he no
longer did reverence to the “chair” set up at Rome, and to which the ages had listened,
believing the voice that proceeded from it to be the voice of God. Luther now
acknowledged no infallible guide on earth save the Bible. From this day forward there
was a greater power in every word and a greater freedom in every act of the
Reformer.
Once more in the midst of his friends at Wittemberg, Luther’s work was resumed.
Professors and students soon felt the new impetus derived from the quickened and
expanded views which the Reformer had brought back with him from his encounter
with Eck.
He had discarded the mighty fiction of the primacy; lifting his eyes above the throne
that stood on the Seven Hills, with its triple-crowned occupant, he fixed them on that
King whom God hath set upon the holy hill of Zion. In the living and risen Redeemer,
to whom all power in heaven and in earth has been given, he recognized the one and
only Head of the Church. This brought with it an expansion of view as regarded the
Church herself. The Church in Luther’s view was no longer that community over
which the Pope stretches his sceptre. The Church was that holy and glorious company
which has been gathered out of every land by the instrumentality of the Gospel. On all
the members of that company one Spirit has descended, knitting them together into
one body, and building them up into a holy temple. The narrow walls of Rome, which
had aforetime bounded his vision, were now fallen; and the Reformer beheld nations
from afar who had never heard of the name of the Pope, and who had never borne his
yoke, gathering, as the ancient seer had foretold, to the Shiloh. This was the Church to
which Luther had now come, and of which he rejoiced in being a member.
The drama is now about to widen, and new actors are about to step upon the stage.
Those who form the front rank, the originating and creative spirits, the men whose
words, more powerful than edicts and armies, are passing sentence of doom upon the
old order of things, and bidding a new take its place, are already on the scene. We
recognize them in that select band of enlightened and powerful intellects and purified
souls at Wittemberg, of whom Luther was chief. But the movement must necessarily
draw into itself the political and material forces of the world, either in the way of cooperation or of antagonism. These secondary agents, often mistaken for the first, were
beginning to crowd upon the stage. They had contemned the movement at its
beginning - the material always under-estimates the spiritual - but now they saw that it
was destined to change kingdoms - to change the world. Medievalism took the alarm.
Shall it permit its dominion quietly to pass from it? Reviving in a power and glory
unknown to it since the days of Charlemagne, if even then, it threw down the gage of
battle to Protestantism. Let us attend to the new development we see taking place, at
this crisis, in this old power.
Nothing more unfortunate, as it seemed, could have happened for the cause of the
world’s progress. All things were prognosticating a new era. The revival of ancient
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learning had given an impetus to the human mind. A spirit of free inquiry and a thirst
for rational knowledge had been awakened; society was casting off the yoke of
antiquated prejudices and terrors. The world was indulging the cheering hope that it
was about to make good its escape from the Dark Ages. But, lo! the Dark Ages start
up anew. They embody themselves afresh in the mighty Empire of Charles. It is a
general law, traceable through all history that before their fall a rally takes place in the
powers of evil.
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FOOTNOTES - BOOK FIVE
CHAPTER 1
[1] Melancthon. Vita Mart. Luth., p. 4; Vratislaviae, 1819.
[2] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p.5.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 5. Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 7, p.
17; Lipsiae, 1694.
[5] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 5.
[6] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 6.
[7] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 6.
[8] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 8, p. 20; Lipsiae, 1694.
CHAPTER 2
[1] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 7; Vratislaviae, 1819.
[2] Ibid., p. 11.
[3] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 7.
[4] “His genius,” says Melancthon, “became the admiration of the whole college” (toti
Academiae Lutheri ingenium admiratio esset). - Vita Mart. Luth., p. 7.
[5] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, p. 156; Edin., 1846.
[6] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, pp. 157, 158.
[7] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 8.
[8] Some say Alexius was killed by lightning, others that he fell in a duel. Melancthon
says “he knows not how Luther’s friend came by his death.” (Vita Mart. Luth., p. 9.)
[9] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 9, footnote.
CHAPTER 3
[1] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., p. 19; Lipsiae, 1694.
[2] Adam, Vita Luth., p. 103. Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., p. 21. D’Aubigne, Hist.
Reform., vol 1, p. 165.
[3] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 11.
[4] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., p. 19.
101
[5] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol 1, p. 168. Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 8.
Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., p. 21.
[6] “Exiguo pane et halece contentum esse.” (Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 8.)
[7] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., p. 21.
[8] Luther’s Works, 19. 2299.
[9] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 10.
CHAPTER 4
[1] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, bk 2, chap. 4, Adam, Vita Staupizii.
[2] Bishop King, Lectures on Jonah, delivered at York, 1594, p. 484; Lond., 1618.
[3] D Aubigue, Hist. Reform., vol 1, pp. 170 - 180.
[4] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 10.
[5] The author visited Erfurt in the summer of 1871, and may be permitted here to
give his reminiscences of the Augustinian convent and the cell of Luther. Erfurt is a
thriving town; its size and importance are notified to the traveller by the number and
elegance of its steeples and monuments. On a nearer approach he finds it enclosed by
a broad moat and strong fortifications. Its principal streets are spacious, its
ecclesiastical buildings numerous and superb, its population intelligent, orderly, and
prosperous. But the point in which the interest of the place centres is “Luther’s Cist.”
The convent of the Augustines still remains, with the chamber of Luther much as he
left it. It is placed in a quarter of the city which has not been touched by modern
improvements. It is a perfect net-work of narrow and winding lanes, numerous canals,
sweetly lined with tall poplars, and spanned at every short distance by a bridge. The
waters of the canals are employed in woollen and other manufactories. In the heart of
this region, we have said, is the convent. A wide postern gives you admission. You
find yourself in an open courtyard. You ascend a single flight of steps, and are
ushered into a chamber of about twelve feet in length by six in width. It has a wooden
floor, and roof and walls are lined with wood; the panelling looks old and dingy. The
window looks out upon a small garden. It contains a few relics of its former illustrious
occupant: an old cabinet, an arm-chair, a portrait of Luther, an old Bible, and a few
other things; but it is not what is seen, but what is unseen, that here engrosses one.
CHAPTER 5
[1] Worsley, Life of Mart. Luth., vol. 1, p. 53; Lond., 1856.
[2] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 8, p. 19.
[3] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 8, p. 18. Lipsiae, 1694.
[4] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 13.
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[5] His lecture-hour was one o’clock. It should have been six in the morning, but was
changed ob commoditatem. (Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, p. 19.)
[6] Melch. Adam, Vita Luth., p. 104. Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 8, p. 19.
[7] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 8, p. 17.
[8] Ruchat, Hist. de la Reformation de la Suisse, tom. 5, p. 192; Lausanne, 1836.
[9] “On the chapiters of the great pillars of the church at Strasburg there is a
procession represented in which a hog carrieth the pot with the holy water, and asses
and hogs in priestly vestments follow to make up the procession. There is also an ass
standing before an altar, as if he were going to consecrate, and one carrieth a case
with relics in which one seeth a fox; and the trains of all that go in this procession are
carried by monkeys.” (Misson, New Voyage to Italy, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 506; Lond.,
1739.)
[10] “Non in labris nasci, sed in pectore.” (Vita Mart. Luth., p. 13.)
CHAPTER 6
[1] Mathesius and Seckendorf place it in 1510, Melancthon in 1512. Some mention
two journeys. Luther himself speaks of only one. His object in going to Rome has also
been variously stated. The author has followed the oldest authorities, who are likely to
be also the best informed. Luther’s errand is a matter of small moment; the great fact
is that he did visit Rome.
[2] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, p. 190. Luth. Opp. (W) 22. 1468.
[3] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, pp. 190, 191.
[4] Worsley, Life of Luther, vol 1, p. 60. Michelet, Life of Luther, p. 15; Lond., 1846.
[5] Lechler bears his testimony to the teaching of Savonarola. He says: “Not only is
faith the gift and work of God, but also that faith alone justifies without the works of
the law. This Savonarola has clearly, roundly, and fully expressed. He has done so in
his exposition of the 31st and 51st Psalms, written in prison. And he quotes from
Rudelbach the following words in proof: ‘Haec fides sola justificat hominem, id est,
apud Deum absque operibus legis justum facit’” (Meditationes in Psalmos). - Lechler,
vol. 2, p. 542.
[6] “Savonarola,” says Rudelbach, “was a prophet of the Reformation.” Lechler adds:
“and the martyr of his prophecy; a martyr for reform before the Reformation.” (Vol.
2, p. 546.)
[7] The author was shown, in 1864, the Bible of Savonarola, which is preserved in the
library of San Lorenzo at Florence. The broad margin of its leaves is written all over
in a small elegant hand, that of Savonarola. After his martyrdom his disciples were
accustomed to come secretly and kiss the spot where he had been burned. This
coming to the knowledge of the reigning duke, Pietro de Medici, he resolved to put an
end to a practice that gave him annoyance. He accordingly erected on the spot a statue
of Neptune, with a fountain falling into a circular basin of water, and sea-nymphs
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clustering on the brim. The duke’s device has but the more effectually fixed in the
knowledge of mankind the martyrdom and the spot where it took place.
[8] In proof we appeal to the engravings of Piranesi now nearly 200 years old. These
represent the country around Rome as tolerably peopled and cultivated.
[9] Tischreden, 441.
CHAPTER 7
[1] Luth. Opp. (W) 22. 2374, 2377.
[2] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 8, p. 19.
[3] Tischreden, 441. Seckendorf, lib. 1, p. 19.
[4] Luth. Opp. (W) 22. 2376.
[5] Luth. Opp. Lat., Praefatio.
[6] These stairs are still in the Lateran, and still retain all the virtue they ever had.
When the author was at Rome in 1851, he saw some peasants from Rimini engaged in
climbing them. They enlivened their performance with roars of laughter, for it is the
devout act, not the devout feeling, that earns the indulgence. A French gentleman and
lady with their little daughter were climbing them at the same time, but in more
decorous fashion.
CHAPTER 8
[1] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., pp. 12, 13. Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, p.
21.
[2] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, p. 23.
[3] “He played,” says Michelet, “the part of the first King of Europe.” (Life of Luther,
chap. 2, p. 19.) Polano, after enumerating his qualities and accomplishments, says that
“he would have been a Pope absolutely complete, if with these he had joined some
knowledge of things that concern religion.” (Hist. Counc. Trent, lib. 1, p. 4.)
[4] Paul of Venice says that this Pope laboured under two grievous faults: “ignorance
of religion, and impiety or atheism” (ignorantia religionis, et impietate sive atheismo).
- Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 47, p. 190.
[5] Polano, Hist. Counc. Trent, bk. 1, p. 4; Lond., 1629. Sarpi, Hist. Conc. Trent, livr.
1, p. 14; Basle, 1738. Sleidan, Hist. Reform., bk. 1; Lond., 1689.
[6] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 6, p. 12.
[7] Gerdesius, Hist. Evan. Renov., tom. 1, p. 92.
[8] Hechtius, Vita Tezelii, p. 21. Seckendorf, Hist. Luth., lib. 1, sec. 7, p. 16. Sleidan,
bk. 13, p. 273.
104
[9] Melancthon, Vita Mart. Luth., p. 15.
[10] Myconius, Hist. Reform., p. 106. Gerdesius, Hist. Evan. Renov., tom. 1, p. 84.
[11] Myconius, Hist. Reform., p. 14; Ten. edit.
[12] Sleidan, Hist. Reform., bk. 13, p. 273.
[13] Gerdesius, Hist. Evan. Renov., tom. 1, p. 82.
[14] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol 1, p. 242.
[15] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 6, pp. 12 – 17
[16] Alberti Moguntini Summaria Instructio Sub-Commissariorum in Causa
Indulgentia. (Gerdesius, tom. 1, App. No. 9, p. 83.)
[17] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, pp. 241 - 243.
[18] Summaria Instructio. (Gerdesius, tom. 1, App. No. 9.)
[19] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, p. 247.
[20] Luther, Theses on Indulgences, 82, 83, 84.
[21] Sarpi, Hist. Conc. Trent, livr. 1, p. 16. Similar is the testimony of Guicciardini
and M. de Thou.
CHAPTER 9
[1] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 7, p. 17.
[2] Apologia Luth. cont. Hen. Ducem. Brunsvicensem. Ex Seckendorf, Hist.
Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 7, p. 16.
[3] Loesher has inserted these “Theses” in full in his Acts and Documents of the
Reformation, tom. 1, p. 438 et seq.; also Kappius in his Theatrum Nundinationis
Indulgentiariae Tezelianae, p. 73 et seq.; and so too Gerdesius, tom. 1, App. No. 11, p.
114.
[4] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., tom. 1, p. 132.
[5] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform. (Collins, 1870, pp. 79, 80), from an MS. in the archives
of Weimar, taken down from the mouth of Spalatin, and which was published at the
last jubilee of the Reformation, 1817.
CHAPTER 10
[1] In 1517 the Council of the Lateran, summoned by Julius II., for the reform of the
Church, was dissolved. In that same year, remarks Seckendorf, God sent the
Reformation.
[2] Myconius, Hist. Reform., 13.
105
[3] Gerdesius, Hist. Reform., tom. 1, p. 132.
[4] Mathesius, p. 13.
[5] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 12, p. 27. Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 2.
[6] His epithets are somewhat scurrilous for a Master of the Sacred Palace. “He would
like to know,” he says, “whether this Martin has an iron nose or a brazen head” (an
ferreum nasum, an caput oeneum). - Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 13, p. 31.
One thing was clear, that this Martin had an iron pen.
[7] Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 3.
[8] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 13, p. 31.
[9] This almost incredible decree runs as follows: - “If the Pope should become
neglectful of his own salvation, and of that of other men, and so lost to all good that
he draw down with himself innumerable people by heaps into hell, and plunge them
with himself into eternal torments, yet no mortal man may presume to reprehend him,
forasmuch as he is judge of all, and to be judged of no one.” (Corpus Juris Canonici,
Decreti, pars. 1, distinct., 40, can. 6.)
[10] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 15, p. 40.
[11] Ibid. “Che Fra Martino fosse un bellissimo ingegno.”
[12] Ibid., lib. 1, sec. 13, p. 30.
CHAPTER 11
[1] Pallavicino, Istoria del Concilio di Trento, lib. 1, cap. 6, p. 46; Napoli, 1757.
[2] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 7, p. 46. Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 16, p. 41.
[3] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 16, pp. 41, 42. Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 9, p.
52.
[4] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 9, p. 52. Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 5.
[5] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 16, p. 43.
[6] Joach. Camerarius, De Vita Phil. Melancth. Nar., cap, 7; Vratislaviae,1819.
[7] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec~ 16, p. 43.
[8] Camerarius, Vita Melancth., cap. 1.
[9] Ibid., cap. 3.
[10] Both terms signify the same thing, black earth. It was not uncommon for learned
men in those days to change their names from the harsher Teutonic into the more
euphonious Latin or Greek.
106
[11] Camerarius, Vita Melancth., cap. 2, p. 43.
[12] D’Aubigne, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, p. 366.
[13] Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran., lib. 1, sec. 16, p. 45.
[14] Melch. Adam, Vita Myconii, p. 176.
[15] Melch. Adam, Vita Myconii, p. 176.
CHAPTER 12
[1] L. Opp., 1. 144. D’Aubigne, 1. 372.
[2] Tischreden, 370 - 380. Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 16, p. 45.
[3] “Tam ille, gestu Italico mordens digitum, dixit, Hem.” (Then he, after the Italian
fashion biting his finger, said, Hem.) - Seckendorf.
[4] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 18, p. 46. Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 7.
[5] Pallavicino, tom. 1, lib. 1, cap. 9, p. 53. Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 18, p. 46.
[6] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 9, pp. 53 - 55. The cardinal founded this on the wellknown decree of Clement VI. Boniface VIII. ordained a jubilee every hundredth year.
Clement VI. shortened the term to fifty years; but lest men should think that this
frequent recurrence of the year of grace would empty the treasury whence all the
blessings bestowed in that year proceed, the Pope showed them that this calamity
could not possibly happen. “One drop of Christ’s blood,” he said, “would have
sufficed for the salvation of the whole world; but Christ shed all his blood,
constituting thereby a vast treasury of merits, the distribution of which has been given
to the Divine Peter [Divo Petro] and his successors. To this have been added the
merits of the Virgin Mary and all the saints, making the material of pardon [condoni
materies] literally inexhaustible.” Luther maintained that Christ had committed to
Peter and his successors the keys and ministry of the Word, whereby they were
empowered to declare the remission of their sins to the penitent; and that if this was
the meaning of Pope Clement’s decretal, he agreed with it; but if not, he disapproved
of it. (Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 9.)
[7] Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 7.
[8] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 18, p. 47.
[9] Pallavicino, tom. 1, lib. 1, cap. 9, p. 54.
[10] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 9, p. 54.
[11] Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 8.
[12] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 9, p. 54. Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 8.
[13] Table Talk.
107
[14] Myconius, Hist. Reform., p. 73. Gerdesius, Evan. Renov., tom. 1, p. 227.
CHAPTER 13
[1] Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 8.
[2] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 18, p. 49.
[3] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec 18, p. 49.
[4] Ibid., p. 51.
[5] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 9, p. 52.
[6] Luth. Opp., tom. 1, p. 232. Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 9. Paul. Sarpi, tom. 1, livr. 1, p. 23
(foot-note).
[7] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 11, pp. 58, 59. Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 10.
[8] Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 11. Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 11, pp. 59, 60.
[9] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 12, p. 62. Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 12. Paul. Sarpi, Hist. Conc.
Trent, tom. 1, livr. 1, p. 22.
[10] Letter, December 21, 1518. De Wette, 1, p. 200.
[11] “Ben informato.” (Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 12, p. 62.)
[12] Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 12.
[13] L. Epp., 1. 188 - 193. D’Aubigne, bk. 4, chap. 11.
CHAPTER 14
[1] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 14.
[2] The Germans invited him to their banquets. He forgot himself at table, and
verified the maxim, In vino veritas. He revealed the scandals of the city and court of
Rome. So Paul III. discovered and complained. (See Ranke, also Pallavicino, lib. 1,
cap. 28, p. 78. )
[3] Sleidan, bk. 1, p. 12. Along with the “rose” to Frederick, he carried a letter from
the Pope to Degenart Pfeffinger, one of Frederick’s councillors, asking his assistance
to enable Miltitz “to expel that son of Satan - Luther.” (Sleidan, ut supra. Seckendorf,
lib. 1, sec. 24, p. 64.)
[4] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 24: p. 61.
[5] Luth. Opp. (Lat.) in Praefatio.
[6] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 24, p. 61.
[7] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 13, p. 65.
108
[8] Luth. Opp. (Lat.) in Praefatio.
[9] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 14, p. 66.
[10] Ibid. “Che la colpa era del Papa.”
[11] Ibid., p. 67.
[12] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 24, p. 63. “Me accepto convivio, laetati sumus, et osculo
mihi dato discessimus” (He received me at supper, we were very happy, and he gave
me a kiss at parting). - Item Luth. Opp. (Lat.) in Praefatio.
[13] “He was as eager to engage this Goliath, who was defying the people of God, as
the young volunteer is to join the colors of his regiment.” (Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 14,
p. 68.)
[14] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 26, p. 85.
[15] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 26, p. 88.
[16] Ibid., p. 90.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Mosellanus in Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 26, p. 90.
CHAPTER 15
[1] Compare account of disputation as given by Seckendorf, lib. 1, see. 25 and 26, pp.
71 - 94, with that of Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 15 - 17.
[2] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 25, pp. 72 - 74; Add. 1.
[3] Romans 8:7, 8
[4] Philippians 2:13
[5] John 3:6
[6] Romans 7:18
[7] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 25, p. 74; Add. 1. Pallavicino, lib., 1, cap. 17, p. 76.
[8] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 25, pp. 75, 82. Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 17. Eck
distinguished between totum and totaliter, between whole and wholly. He admitted
that, the good in man, viewed as a whole, was produced by God, but not wholly. This
Pallavicino (lib. 1, cap. 15) explains by saying the whole apple (tutto il pomo) is
produced by the sun, (ma non tolamente) but not wholly - the plant cooperates; in like
manner, he said, the whole good in man comes from God, but man co-operates in its
production. Carlstadt, on the other hand, maintained that God is the one, exclusive,
and independent cause of that good - that is, of the conversion of man; that whatever
is pleasing to God, and springs from saving faith, comes of the efficacious,
independent, and proper working of God (totaliter a Deo esse, independenter,
109
effcaciter, et propria vi agente - Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 25), and that man in that work
contributes only the passive faculties on which God operates.
[9] Romish divines generally, and Bellarmine and Moehler in particular, have
misrepresented the views of both Luther and Calvin, and their respective followers, on
this head. They have represented Luther as teaching a doctrine which would deprive
fallen man of all religious and moral capacity. Calvin, they say, was less extravagant
than Luther, but to that extent less consistent with his fundamental position. There is
no inconsistency whatever between Luther’s and Calvin’s views on this point. The
only difference between the two lies in the point indicated in the text, even that Calvin
gives more prominence than Luther does to the remains of the Divine image still to be
found in fallen man, as attested by the virtues of the heathen. But as to man’s
tendency to spiritual good, and the power of realising to any degree by his own
strength his salvation, both held the same doctrine.
[10] 1 Corinthians 3:11
[11] 1 Peter 2:4, 5, 6. Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 16.
[12] We have seen bishops of name in our own day make the same confession. “I can
not find any traces of the Papacy in the times of the Apostles,” said Bishop
Strossmayer, when arguing against the Infallibility in the Council of the Vatican. “Am
I able to find them when I search the annals of the Church? Ah! well, I frankly
confess that I have searched for a Pope in the first four centuries, and have not found
him.”
[13] “Quos non possit universalis Ecclesia damnare.” (Loescher, Acts and Docum.
Reform. - Vide Gerdesius, tom. 1, 255.)
[14] Luth. Opp. (W) 14. 200. D’Aubigne, vol. 2, p. 68.
.
110
111
BOOK SIX
FROM THE LEIPSIC DISPUTATION
TO THE DIET AT WORMS, 1521
112
CHAPTER 1
PROTESTANTISM AND IMPERIALISM;
OR, THE MONK AND THE MONARCH
Among the actors that now begin to crowd the stage there are two who tower
conspicuously above the others, and fix the gaze of all eyes, well-nigh exclusively,
upon themselves. With the one we are already familiar, for he has been some time
before us, the other is only on the point of appearing. They come from the opposite
poles of society to mingle in this great drama. The one actor first saw the light in a
miner’s cottage, the cradle of the other was placed in the palace of an ancient race of
kings. The one wears a frock of serge, the other is clad in an imperial mantle. The
careers of these two men are not more different in their beginning than they are fated
to be in their ending. Emerging from a cell the one is to mount a throne, where he is to
sit and govern men, not by the force of the sword, but by the power of the Word. The
other, thrown into collision with a power he can neither see nor comprehend, is
doomed to descend through one humiliation after another, till at last from a throne, the
greatest then in the world, he comes to end his days in a cloister. But all this is yet
behind a veil.
Meanwhile the bulkier, but in reality weaker power, seems vastly to overtop the
stronger. The Reformation is utterly dwarfed in presence of a colossal Imperialism. If
Protestantism has come forth from the Ruler of the world, and if it has been sent on
the benign errand of opening the eyes and loosing the fetters of long-enslaved nations,
one would have thought that its way would be prepared, and its task made easy, by
some signal weakening of its antagonist. On the contrary, it is at this moment that
Imperialism develops into sevenfold strength. It is clear the great Ruler seeks no easy
victory. He permits dangers to multiply, difficulties to thicken, and the hand of the
adversary to be made strong. But by how much the fight is terrible, and the victory all
but hopeless, by so much are the proofs resplendent that the power which, without
earthly weapon, can scatter the forces of Imperialism, and raise up a world which a
combined spiritual and secular despotism has trodden into the dust, is Divine. It is the
clash and struggle of these two powers that we are now to contemplate. But first let us
glance at the situation of Luther.
Luther’s friends were falling away, or growing timid. Even Staupitz was hesitating,
now that the goal to which the movement tended was more distinctly visible. In the
coldness or the absence of these friends, other allies hastened to proffer him their
somewhat doubtful aid. Drawn to his side rather by hatred of Papal tyranny than by
appreciation of Gospel liberty and purity, their alliance somewhat embarrassed the
Reformer. It was the Teutonic quite as much as the Reformed element - a noble
product when the two are blended - that now stirred the German barons, and made
their hands grasp their sword-hilts when told that Luther’s life was in danger; that
men with pistols under their cloak were dogging him; that Serra Longa was writing to
the Elector Frederick, “Let not Luther find an asylum in the States of your highness;
let him be rejected of all and stoned in the face of heaven;” that Miltitz, the Papal
legate, who had not forgiven his discomfiture, was plotting to snare him by inviting
him to another interview at Treves; and that Eck had gone to Rome to find a balm for
his wounded pride, by getting forged in the Vatican the bolt that was to crush the man
whom his scholastic subtlety had not been able to vanquish at Leipsic.
113
There seemed cause for the apprehensions that now began to haunt his friends. “If
God do not help us,” exclaimed Melanchthon, as he listened to the ominous sounds of
tempest, and lifted his eye to a sky every hour growing blacker, “If God do not help
us, we shall all perish.” Even Luther himself was made at times to know, by the
momentary depression and alarm into which he was permitted to sink, that if he was
calm, and strong, and courageous, it was God that made him so. One of the most
powerful knights of Franconia, Sylvester of Schaumburg, sent his son all the way to
Wittemberg with a letter to Luther, saying, “If the electors, princes, magistrates fail
you, come to me. God willing, I shall soon have collected more than a hundred
gentlemen, and with their help I shall be able to protect you from every danger.”[1]
Francis of Sickingen, one of those knights who united the love of letters to that of
arms, whom Melanchthon styled “a peerless ornament of German knighthood,”
offered Luther the asylum of his castle. “My services, my goods, and my body, all
that I possess are at your disposal,” wrote he. Ulrich of Hutten, who was renowned for
his verses not less than for his deeds of valour, also offered himself as a champion of
the Reformer. His mode of warfare, however, differed from Luther’s. Ulrich was for
falling on Rome with the sword, Luther sought to subdue her by the weapon of the
Truth. “It is with swords and with bows,” wrote Ulrich, “with javelins and bombs that
we must crush the fury of the devil.” “I will not have recourse to arms and bloodshed
in defence of the Gospel,” said Luther, shrinking back from the proposal. “It was by
the Word that the Church was founded, and by the Word also it shall be reestablished.” And, lastly, the prince of scholars in that age, Erasmus, stood forward in
defence of the monk of Wittemberg. He did not hesitate to affirm that the outcry
which had been raised against Luther, and the disturbance which his doctrines had
created, were owing solely to those whose interests, being bound up with the
darkness, dreaded the new day that was rising on the world [2] - a truth palpable and
trite to us, but not so to the men of the early part of the sixteenth century.
When the danger was at its height, the Emperor Maximilian died (January 12th,
1519).[3] This prince was conspicuous only for his good nature and easy policy, but
under him the Empire had enjoyed a long and profound peace. An obsequious subject
of Rome, the Reformed movement was every day becoming more the object of his
dislike, and had he lived he would have insisted on the elector’s banishing Luther,
which would have thrown him into the hands of his mortal enemies. By the death of
Maximilian at this crisis, the storm that seemed ready to burst passed over for the
time. Till a new emperor should be elected, Frederick of Saxony, according to an
established rule, became regent. This sudden shifting of the scenes placed the
Reformer and the Reformation under the protection of the man who for the time
presided over the Empire.
Negotiations and intrigues were now set on foot for the election of a new emperor.
These became a rampart around the Reformed movement. The Pope, who wished to
carry a particular candidate, found it necessary, in order to gain his object, to
conciliate the Elector Frederick, whose position as regent, and whose character for
wisdom, gave him a potential voice in the electoral college. This led to a clearing of
the sky in the quarter of Rome.
There were two candidates in the field - Charles I. of Spain, and Francis I. of France.
Henry VIII. of England, finding the prize which he eagerly coveted beyond his reach,
had retired from the contest. The claims of the two rivals were very equally balanced.
114
Francis was gallant, chivalrous, and energetic, but he did not sustain his enterprises by
a perseverance equal to the ardour with which he had commenced them. Of
intellectual tastes, and a lover of the new learning, wise men and scholars, warriors
and statesmen, mingled in his court, and discoursed together at his table. He was only
twenty-six, yet he had already reaped glory on the field of war. “This prince,” says
Muller, “was the most accomplished knight of that era in which a Bayard was the
ornament of chivalry, and one of the most enlightened and amiable men of the
polished age of the Medici.”[4] Neither Francis nor his courtiers were forgetful that
Charlemagne had worn the diadem, and its restoration to the Kings of France would
dispel the idea that was becoming common, that the imperial crown, though
nominally elective, was really hereditary, and had now been permanently vested in the
house of Austria.
Charles was seven years younger than his rival, and his disposition and talents gave
high promise. Although only nineteen he had been trained in affairs, for which he had
discovered both inclination and aptitude. The Spanish and German blood mingled in
his veins, and his genius combined the qualities of both races. He possessed the
perseverance of the Germans, the subtlety of the Italians, and the taciturnity of the
Spaniards. His birth-place was Ghent. Whatever prestige riches, extent of dominion,
and military strength could give the Empire, Charles would bring to it. His hereditary
kingdom, inherited through Ferdinand and Isabella, was Spain. Than Spain there was
no more flourishing or powerful monarchy at that day in Christendom. To this
magnificent domain, the seat of so many opulent towns, around which was spread an
assemblage of corn-bearing plains, wooded sierras, and vegas, on which the fruits of
Asia mingled in rich luxuriance with those of Europe, were added the kingdoms of
Naples and Sicily, Flanders and the rich domains of Burgundy; and now the death of
his grand-father, the Emperor Maximilian, had put him in possession of the States of
Austria. Nor was this all; the discovery of Columbus had placed a new continent
under his sway; and how large its limit, or how ample the wealth that might flow from
it, Charles could not, at that hour, so much as conjecture. So wide were the realms
over which this young prince reigned. Scarcely had the sun set on their western
frontier when the morning had dawned on their eastern.
It would complete his glory, and render him without a peer on earth, should he add the
imperial diadem to the many crowns he already possessed. He scattered gold
profusely among the electors and princes of Germany to gain the coveted prize.[5] His
rival Francis was liberal, but he lacked the gold-mines of Mexico and Peru which
Charles had at his command. The candidates, in fact, were too powerful. Their
greatness had well-nigh defeated both of them; for the Germans began to fear that to
elect either of the two would be to give themselves a master. The weight of so many
sceptres as those which Charles held in his hand might stifle the liberties of Germany.
The electors, on consideration, were of the mind that it would be wiser to elect one of
themselves to wear the imperial crown. Their choice was given, in the first instance,
neither to Francis nor to Charles; it fell unanimously on Frederick of Saxony.[6] Even
the Pope was with them in this matter. Leo X. feared the overgrown power of Charles
of Spain. If the master of so many kingdoms should be elected to the vacant dignity,
the Empire might overshadow the mitre. Nor was the Pope more favourably inclined
towards the King of France: he dreaded his ambition; for who could tell that the
conqueror of Carignano would not carry his arms farther into Italy? On these grounds,
115
Leo sent his earnest advice to the electors to choose Frederick of Saxony. The result
was that Frederick was chosen. We behold the imperial crown offered to Luther’s
friend!
Will he or ought he to put on the mantle of Empire? The princes and people of
Germany would have hailed with joy his assumption of the dignity. It did seem as if
Providence were putting this strong sceptre into his hand, that therewith he might
protect the Reformer. Frederick had, oftener than once, been painfully sensible of his
lack of power. He may now be the first man in Germany, president of all its councils,
generalissimo of all its armies; and may stave off from the Reformation’s path, wars,
scaffolds, violences of all sorts, and permit it to develop its spiritual energies, and
regenerate society in peace. Ought he to have become emperor? Most historians have
lauded his declinature as magnanimous. We take the liberty most respectfully to differ
from them.
We think that Frederick, looking at the whole case, ought to have accepted the
imperial crown; that the offer of it came to him at a moment and in a way that, made
the point of duty clear, and that his refusal was an act of weakness.
Frederick, in trying to shun the snare of ambition, fell into that of timidity. He looked
at the difficulties and dangers of the mighty task, at the distractions springing up
within the Empire, and the hostile armies of the Moslem on its frontier. Better, he
thought, that the imperial sceptre should be placed in a stronger hand; better that
Charles of Austria should grasp it. He forgot that, in the words of Luther,
Christendom was threatened by a worse foe than the Turk; and so Frederick passed on
the imperial diadem to one who was to become a bitter foe of the Reformation.
But, though we can not justify Frederick in shirking the toils and perils of the task to
which he was now called, we recognize in his decision the overriding of a Higher than
human wisdom. If Protestantism had grown up and flourished under the protection of
the Empire, would not men have said that its triumph was owing to the fact that it had
one so wise as Frederick to counsel it, and one so powerful to fight for it? Was it a
blessing to primitive Christianity to be taken by Constantine under the protection of
the arms of the first Empire? True, oceans of blood would have been spared, had
Frederick girded on the imperial sword and become the firm friend and protector of
the movement. But the Reformation without martyrs, without scaffolds, without
blood! We should hardly have known it. It would be the Reformation without glory
and without power.
Not its annals only, but the annals of the race would have been immensely poorer had
they lacked the sublime spectacles of faith and heroism which were exhibited by the
martyrs of the sixteenth century. Not an age in the future which the glory of these
sufferers will not illuminate!
Frederick of Saxony had declined what the two most powerful sovereigns in Europe
were so eager to obtain. On the 28th of June, 1519, the electoral conclave, in their
scarlet robes, met in the Church of St. Bartholomew, in Frankfort-on-the-Main,
and[proceeded to the election of the new emperor.
The votes were unanimous in favour of Charles of Spain.[7] It was more than a year
(October, 1520) till Charles arrived in Germany to be crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle;
116
and meanwhile the regency was continued in the hands of Frederick, and the shield
was still extended over the little company of workers at Wittemberg, who were busily
engaged in laying the foundations of an empire that would long outlast that of the man
on whose head the diadem of the Caesars was about to be placed.
The year that elapsed between the election and the coronation of Charles was one of
busy and prosperous labour at Wittemberg. A great light shone in the midst of the
little band there gathered together, namely, the Word of God. The voice from the
Seven Hills fell upon their ear unheeded; all doctrines and practices were tried by the
Bible alone. Every day Luther took a step forward. New proofs of the falsehood and
corruption of the Roman system continually crowded in upon him. It was now that the
treatise of Laurentius Valla fell in his way, which satisfied him that the donation of
Constantine to the Pope was a fiction. This strengthened the conclusion at which he
had already arrived touching the Roman primacy, even that foundation it had none
save the ambition of Popes and the credulity of the people. It was now that he read the
writings of John Muss, and, to his surprise, he found in them the doctrine of Paul that which it had cost himself such agonies to learn - respecting the free justification
of sinners. “We have all,” he exclaimed, half in wonder, half in joy, “Paul, Augustine,
and myself, been Hussites without knowing it![8] and he added, with deep
seriousness, “God will surely visit it upon the world that the truth was preached to it a
century ago, and burned?” It was now that he proclaimed the great truth that the
Sacrament will profit no man without faith, and that it is folly to believe that it will
operate spiritual effects of itself and altogether independently of the disposition of the
recipient. The Romanists stormed at him because he taught that the Sacrament ought
to be administered in both kinds, not able to perceive the deeper principle of Luther,
which razed the opus operatum with all attendant thereon. They were defending the
outworks: the Reformer, with a giant’s strength, was levelling the citadel. It was
amazing what activity and rigour of mind Luther at this period displayed. Month after
month, rather week by week, he launched treatise on treatise. These productions of his
pen, “like sparks from under the hammer, each brighter than that which preceded it,”
added fresh force to the conflagration that was blazing on all sides. His enemies
attacked him: they but drew upon themselves heavier blows. It was, too, during this
year of marvellously varied labour, that he published his Commentary upon the
Galatians, “his own epistle” as he termed it. In that treatise he gave a clearer and fuller
exposition than he had yet done of what with him was the great cardinal truth, even
justification through faith alone. But he showed that such a justification neither makes
void the law, inasmuch as it proceeds on the ground of a righteousness that fulfils the
law, nor leads to licentiousness, inasmuch as the faith that takes hold of righteousness
for justification, operates in the heart to its renewal, and a renewed heart is the
fountain of every holy virtue and of every good work.
It was now, too, that Luther published his famous appeal to the emperor, the princes,
and the people of Germany, on the Reformation of Christianity [9] This was the most
graphic, courageous, eloquent, and spirit-stirring production which had yet issued
from his pen. It may be truly said of it that its words were battles. The sensation it
produced was immense. It was the trumpet that summoned the German nation to the
great conflict.
“The time for silence,” said Luther, “is past, and the time to speak is come.” And
verily he did speak.
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In this manifesto Luther first of ail draws a most; masterly picture of the Roman
tyranny. Rome had achieved a three-fold conquest. She had triumphed over all ranks
and classes of men; she had triumphed over all the rights and interests of human
society; she had enslaved kings; she had enslaved Councils; she had enslaved the
people. She had effected a serfdom complete and universal. By her dogma of
Pontifical supremacy she had enslaved kings, princes, and magistrates. She had
exalted the spiritual above the temporal in order that all rulers, and all tribunals and
causes, might be subject to her own sole absolute and irresponsible will, and that,
unchallenged and unpunished by the civil power, she might pursue her career of
usurpation and oppression.
Has she not, Luther asked, placed the throne of her Pope above the throne of kings, so
that no one dare call him to account? The Pontiff enlists armies, makes war on kings,
and spills their subjects’ blood; nay, he challenges for the persons of his priests
immunity from civil control, thus fatally deranging the order of the world, and
reducing authority into prostration and contempt.
By her dogma of spiritual supremacy Rome had vanquished Councils. The Bishop of
Rome claimed to be chief and ruler over all bishops. In him was centred the whole
authority of the Church, so that let him promulgate the most manifestly erroneous
dogma, or commit the most flagrant wickedness, no Council had the power to reprove
or depose him. Councils were nothing, the Pope was all. The Spiritual supremacy
made him the Church: the Temporal, the World.
By her assumed sole and infallible right of interpreting Holy Scripture, Rome had
enslaved the people. She had put out their eyes; she had bound them in chains of
darkness, that she might make them bow down to any god she was pleased to set up,
and compel them to follow whither she was pleased to lead - into temporal bondage,
into eternal perdition.
Behold the victory which Rome has achieved! She stands with her foot upon kings,
upon bishops, upon peoples! All has she trodden into the dust.
These, to use Luther’s metaphor, were the three walls behind which Rome had
entrenched herself.[10] Is she threatened with the temporal power? She is above it. Is
it proposed to cite her before a Council? She only has the right to convoke one. Is she
attacked from the Bible? She only has the power of interpreting it. Rome has made
herself supreme over the throne, over the Church, over the Word of God itself! Such
was the gulf in which Germany and Christendom were sunk. The Reformer called on
all ranks in his nation to combine for their emancipation from a vassalage so
disgraceful and so ruinous.
To rouse his countrymen, and all in Christendom in whose breasts there yet remained
any love of truth or any wish for liberty, he brought the picture yet closer to the
Germans, not trusting to any general portraiture, however striking. Entering into
details, he pointed out the ghastly havoc the Papal oppression had inflicted upon their
common country.
Rome, he said, had ruined Italy; for the decay of that fine land, completed in our day,
was already far advanced in Luther’s. And now, the vampire Papacy having sucked
the blood of its own country, a locust swarm from the Vatican had alighted on
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Germany. The Fatherland, the Reformer told the Germans, was being gnawed to the
very bones. Annats, palliums, commendams, administrations, indulgences, reversions,
incorporations, reserves - such were a few, and but a few, of the contrivances by
which the priests managed to convey the wealth of Germany to Rome. Was it a
wonder that princes, cathedrals, and people were poor? The wonder was, with such a
cormorant swarm preying upon them, that anything was left. All went into the Roman
sack which had no bottom. Here was robbery surpassing that of thieves and
highwaymen, who expiated their offences on the gibbet. Here were the tyranny and
destruction of the gates of hell, seeing it was the destruction of soul and body, the ruin
of both Church and State. Talk of the devastation of the Turk, and of raising armies to
resist him! there is no Turk in all the world like the Roman Turk.
The instant remedies which he urged were the same with those which his great
predecessor, Wycliffe, a full hundred and fifty years before, had recommended to the
English people, and happily had prevailed upon the Parliament to so far adopt. The
Gospel alone, which he was labouring to restore, could go to the root of these evils,
but they were of a kind to be corrected in part by the temporal power. Every prince
and State, he said, should forbid their subjects giving annats to Rome. Kings and
nobles ought to resist the Pontiff as the greatest foe of their own prerogatives, and the
worst enemy of the independence and prosperity of their kingdoms.
Instead of enforcing the bulls of the Pope, they ought to throw his ban, seal, and briefs
into the Rhine or the Elbe. Archbishops and bishops should be forbidden, by imperial
decree, to receive their dignities from Rome. All causes should be tried within the
kingdom, and all persons made amenable to the country’s tribunals. Festivals should
cease, as but affording occasions for idleness and all kinds of vicious indulgences, and
the Sabbath should be the only day on which men ought to abstain from working. No
more cloisters ought to be built for mendicant friars, whose begging expeditions had
never turned to good, and never would; the law of clerical celibacy should be
repealed, and liberty given to priests to marry like other men; and, in fine, the Pope,
leaving kings and princes to govern their own realms, should confine himself to
prayer and the preaching of the Word. “Hearest thou, O Pope, not all holy, but all
sinful? Who gave thee power to lift thyself above God and break His laws? The
wicked Satan lies through thy throat. - O my Lord Christ, hasten Thy last day, and
destroy the devil’s nest at Rome. There sits ‘the man of sin,’ of whom Paul speaks,
‘the son of perdition.’”
Luther well understood what a great orator [11] since has termed “the expulsive
power of a new emotion.” Truth he ever employed as the only effectual
instrumentality for expelling error. Accordingly, underneath Rome’s system of human
merit and salvation by works, he placed the doctrine of man’s inability and God’s free
grace. This it was that shook into ruin the Papal fabric of human merit. By the same
method of attack did Luther demolish the Roman kingdom of bondage. He penetrated
the fiction on which it was reared. Rome takes a man, shaves his head, anoints him
with oil, gives him the Sacrament of orders, and so infuses into him a mysterious
virtue. The whole class of men so dealt with form a sacerdotal order, distinct from and
higher than laymen, and are the divinely appointed rulers of the world.
This falsehood, with the grievous and ancient tyranny of which it was the cornerstone, Luther overthrew by proclaiming the antagonistic truth. All really Christian
men, said he, are priests. Had not the Apostle Peter, addressing all believers, said, “Ye
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are a royal priesthood”? It is not the shearing of the head, or the wearing of a peculiar
garment, that makes a man a priest. It is faith that makes men priests, faith that unites
them to Christ, and that gives them the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whereby they
become filled with all holy grace and heavenly power. This inward anointing - this
oil, better than any that ever came from the horn of bishop or Pope - gives them not
the name only, but the nature, the purity, the power of priests; and this anointing have
all they received who are believers on Christ.
Thus did Luther not only dislodge the falsehood, he filled its place with a glorious
truth, lest, if left vacant, the, error should creep back. The fictitious priesthood of
Rome - a priesthood which lay in oils and vestments, and into which men were
introduced by scissors and the arts of necromancy - departed, and the true priesthood
came in its room. Men opened their eyes upon their glorious enfranchisement. They
were no longer the vassals of a sacerdotal oligarchy, the bondsmen of shavelings; they
saw themselves to be the members of an illustrious brotherhood, whose Divine Head
was in heaven.
Never was there a grander oration. Patriots and orators have, on many great and
memorable occasions, addressed their fellow-men, if haply they might rouse them to
overthrow the tyrants who held them in bondage. They have plied them with every
argument, and appealed to every motive. They have, dwelt by turns on the bitterness
of servitude and the sweetness of liberty.
But never did patriot; or orator address his fellow-men on a greater occasion than this
- rarely, if ever, on one so great. Never did orator or patriot combat so powerful an
antagonist, or denounce so foul a slavery, or smite hypocrisy and falsehood with
blows so terrible. And if orator never displayed more eloquence, orator never showed
greater courage. This appeal was made in the face of a thousand perils. On these
Luther did not bestow a single thought. He saw only his countrymen, and all the
nations of Christendom, sunk in a most humiliating and ruinous thraldom, and with
fearless intrepidity and Herculean force he hurled bolt on bolt, quick, rapid, and fiery,
against that tyranny which was devouring the earth. The man, the cause, the moment,
the audience, all were sublime.
And never was appeal more successful. Like a peal of thunder it rang from side to
side of Germany. It sounded the knell of Roman domination in that land. The
movement was no longer confined to Wittemberg; it was henceforward truly national.
It was no longer conducted exclusively by theologians. Princes, nobles, burghers
joined in it. It was seen to be no battle of creed merely; it was a struggle for liberty,
religious and civil; for rights, spiritual and temporal; for the generation then living, for
all the generations that were to live in the future; a struggle, in fine, for the manhood
of the human race.
Luther’s thoughts turned naturally to the new emperor. What part will this young
potentate play in the movement? Presuming that it would be the just and
magnanimous one that became so great a prince, Luther carried his appeal to the foot
of the throne of Charles V. “The cause,” he said, “was worthy to come before the
throne of heaven, much more before an earthly potentate.” Luther knew that his cause
would triumph, whichever side Charles might espouse. But though neither Charles
nor all the great ones of earth could stop it, or rob it of its triumph, they might delay
it; they might cause the Reformation’s path to be amid scaffolds and bloody fields,
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over armies vanquished and thrones cast down. Luther would much rather that its
progress should be peaceful and its arrival at the goal speedy. Therefore he came
before the throne of Charles as a suppliant; trembling, not for his cause, but for those
who he foresaw would but destroy themselves by opposing it. What audience did the
monk receive? Tho emperor never deigned the doctor of Wittemberg a reply.
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CHAPTER 2
POPE LEO’S BULL
We have almost lost sight of Dr. Eck. We saw him, after his disputation with Luther
at Leipsic, set off for Rome. What was the object of his journey? He crossed the Alps
to solicit the Pope’s help against the man whom he boasted having vanquished. He
was preceded by Cardinal Cajetan, another “conqueror” after the fashion of Eck, and
who too was so little satisfied with the victory which he so loudly vaunted that, like
Eck, he had gone to Rome to seek help and find revenge.
In the metropolis of the Papacy these men encountered greater difficulties than they
had reckoned on. The Roman Curia was apathetic. Its members had not yet realised
the danger in its full extent. They scouted the idea that Wittemberg would conquer
Rome, and that an insignificant monk could shake the Pontiff’s throne. History
exhibited no example of any such astounding phenomenon. Great tempests had arisen
in former ages. Rebel kings, proud heresiarchs, and barbarous or heretical nations had
dashed themselves against the Papal chair, but their violence had no more availed to
overturn it than ocean’s foam to overthrow the rock.
The affair, however, was not without its risks, to which all were not blind. It was easy
for the Church to launch her ban, but the civil power must execute it. What if it should
refuse? Besides there were, even in Rome itself, a few moderate men who, having a
near view of the disorders of the Papal court, were not in their secret heart ill-pleased
to hear Luther speak as he did. In the midst of so many adulators, might not one
honest censor be tolerated? There were also men of diplomacy who said, Surely, amid
the innumerable dignities and honours in the gift of the Church, something may be
found to satisfy this clamorous monk. Send him a pall: give him a red hat. The
members of the Curia were divided. The jurists were for citing Luther again before
pronouncing sentence upon him: the theologians would brook no longer delay,[1] and
pleaded for instant anathema.
The indefatigable Eck left no stone unturned to procure the condemnation of his
opponent. He laboured to gain over every one he came in contact with. His eloquence
raised to a white heat the zeal of the monks. He spent hours of deliberation in the
Vatican. He melted even the coldness of Leo. He dwelt on the character of Luther - so
obstinate and so incorrigible that all attempts at conciliation were but a waste of time.
He dwelt on the urgency of the matter; while they sat in debate in the Vatican, the
movement was growing by days, by moments, in Germany. To second Eck’s
arguments, Cajetan, so ill as to be unable to walk, was borne every day in a litter into
the council-chamber.[2] The doctor of Ingolstadt found another, and, it is said, even a
more potent ally. This was no other than the banker Fugger of Augsburg. He was
treasurer of the indulgences, and would have made a good thing of it if Luther had not
spoilt his speculation. This awoke in him a most vehement desire to crush a heresy so
hurtful to the Church’s interest - and his own.
Meanwhile rumours reached Luther of what was preparing for him in the halls of the
Vatican. These rumours caused him no alarm; his heart was fixed; he saw a Greater
than Leo. A very different scene from Rome did Wittemberg at that moment present.
In the former city all was anxiety and turmoil, in the latter all was peaceful and
fruitful labour. Visitors from all countries were daily arriving to see and converse with
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the Reformer. The halls of the university were crowded with youth the hope of the
Reformation. The fame of Melanchthon was extending; he had just given his hand to
Catherine Krapp, and so formed the first link between the Reformation and domestic
life, infusing thereby a new sweetness into both. It was at this hour, too, that a young
Swiss priest was not ashamed to own his adherence to that Gospel which Luther
preached. He waited upon the interim Papal nuncio in Helvetia, entreating him to use
his influence at head-quarters to prevent the excommunication of the doctor of
Wittemberg. The name of this priest was Ulrich Zwingli. This was the first break of
day visible on the Swiss mountains.
Meanwhile Eck had triumphed at Rome. On the 15th of June, 1520, the Sacred
College brought their lengthened deliberations to a close by agreeing to fulminate the
bull of excommunication against Luther. The elegancies or barbarisms of its style are
to be shared amongst its joint concoctors, Cardinals Pucci, Ancona, and Cajetan.[3]
“Now,” thought the Vulcans of the Vatican, when they had forged this bolt, “now we
have finished the business. There is an end of Luther and the Wittemberg heresy.” To
know how haughty at this moment was Rome’s spirit, we must turn to the bull itself.
“Arise, O’ Lord!” - so ran this famous document - “arise and be Judge in Thy
own cause. Remember the insults daily offered to Thee by infatuated men.
Arise, O Peter! remember thy holy Roman Church, the mother of all
Churches, and mistress of the faith. Arise, O Paul! for here is a new
Porphyry, who is attacking thy doctrines, and the holy Popes our
predecessors’! Arise, in fine, assembly of all the saints, holy Church of God,
and intercede with the Almighty!” [4]
The bull then goes on to condemn as scandalous, heretical, and damnable, forty-one
propositions extracted from the writings of Luther. The obnoxious propositions are
simple statements of Gospel truth. One of the doctrines singled out for special
anathema was that which took from Rome the right of persecution, by declaring that
“to burn heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Ghost.”[5] After the maledictory
clauses of the bull, the document went on to extol the marvellous forbearance of the
Holy See, as shown in its many efforts to reclaim its erring son. To heresy Luther had
added contumacy. He ‘had had the hardihood to appeal to the General Council in the
face of the decretals of Plus II. and Julius II.; and he had filled up the measure of his
sins by slandering the immaculate Papacy. The Papacy, nevertheless, yearned over its
lost son, and “imitating the omnipotent God, who desireth not the death of a sinner,”
earnestly exhorted the prodigal to return to the bosom of his mother, to bring back
with him all he had led astray, and make proof of the sincerity of his penitence by
reading his recantation, and committing all his books to the flames, within the space
of sixty days. Failing to obey this summons, Luther and his adherents were
pronounced incorrigible and accursed heretics, whom all princes and magistrates were
enjoined to apprehend and send to Rome, or banish from the country in which they
happened to be found. The towns where they continued to reside were laid under
interdict, and every one who opposed the publication and execution of the bull was
excommunicated in “the name of the Almighty God, and of the holy apostles, St.
Peter and St. Paul.”[6]
These were haughty words; and at what a moment were they spoken! The finger of a
man’s hand was even then about to appear, and to write on the wall that Rome had
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fulfilled her glory, had reached her zenith, and would henceforward hasten to her
setting. But she knew not this. She saw only the track of light she had left behind her
in her onward path athwart the ages. A thick veil hid the future with all its
humiliations and defeats from her eyes.
The Pope advanced with excommunications in one hand and flatteries in the other.
Immediately on the back of this terrible fulmination came a letter to the Elector
Frederick from Leo X. The Pope in this communication dilated on the errors of that
“son of iniquity,” Martin Luther; he was sure that Frederick cherished an abhorrence
of these errors, and he proceeded to pass a glowing eulogium on the piety and
orthodoxy of the elector, who he knew would not permit the blackness of heresy to
sully the brightness of his own and his ancestors’ fame [7] There was a day when
these compliments would have been grateful to Frederick, but he had since drunk at
the well of Wittemberg, and lost his relish for the Roman cistern. The object of the
letter was transparent, and the effect it produced was just the opposite of that which
the Pope intended. From that day Frederick of Saxony resolved with himself that he
would protect the Reformer.
Every step that Rome took in the matter was marked by infatuation. She had launched
her bull, and must needs see to its being published in all the countries of Christendom.
In order to this the bull was put into the hands of two nuncios, than whom it would
hardly have been possible to find two men better fitted to render an odious mission
yet more odious. These were Eck and Aleander.
Eck, the conqueror at Leipsic, who had left amid the laughter of the Germans, now recrosses the Alps. He bears in his hand the bull that is to complete the ruin of his
antagonist. “It is Eck’s bull,” said the Germans, “not the Pope’s.” It is the treacherous
dagger of a mortal enemy, not the axe of a Roman lictor [8] Onward, however, came
the nuncio, proud of the bull, which he had so large a share in fabricating - the very
Atlas, in his own eyes, who bore up the sinking Roman world. As he passed through
the German towns, he posted up the important document, amid the coldness of the
bishops, the contempt of the burghers, and the hootings of the youth of the
universities. His progress was more like that of a fugitive than a conqueror. He had to
hide at times from the popular fury in the nearest convent, and he closed his career by
going into permanent seclusion at Coburg.
The other functionary was Aleander. To him was committed the task of bearing a
copy of the bull to the Archbishop of Mainz, and of publishing it in the Rhenish
towns. Aleander had been secretary to Pope Alexander VI., the infamous Borgia; and
no worthier bearer could have been found of such a missive, and no happier choice
could have been made of a colleague to Eck. “A worthy pair of ambassadors,” said
some; “both are admirably suited for this work, and perfectly matched in effrontery,
impudence, and debauchery.”[9]
The bull is slowly travelling towards Luther, and a glance at two publications which
at this time (6th of October, 1520) issued from his pen, enables us to judge how far he
is likely to meet it with a retractation. The Pope had exhorted him to burn all his
writing: here are two additional ones which will have to be added to the heap before
he applies the torch. The first is The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. “I denied,”
said Luther, owning his obligations to his adversaries, “that the Papacy was of Divine
origin, but I granted that it was of human right. Now, after reading all the subtleties on
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which these gentry have set up their idol, I know that the Papacy is none other than
the kingdom of Babylon, and the violence of Nimrod the mighty hunter [10] I
therefore beseech all my friends and all the booksellers to burn the books that I have
written on this subject, and to substitute this; one proposition in their place: The
Papacy is a general chase led by the Roman bishop to catch and destroy souls.” These
are not the words of a man who is about to present himself in the garb of a penitent at
the threshold of the Roman See.
Luther next passed in review the Sacramental theory of the Church of Rome. The
priest and the Sacrament - these are the twin pillars of the Papal edifice, the two
saviours of the world. Luther, in his Babylonian Captivity, laid his hands upon both
pillars, and bore them to the ground. Grace and salvation, he affirmed, are neither in
the power of the priest nor in the efficacy of the Sacrament, but in the faith of the
recipient. Faith lays hold on that which the Sacrament represents, signifies, and seals even the promise of God; and the soul resting on that promise has grace and salvation.
The Sacrament, on the side of God, represents the offered blessing; on the side of
man, it is a help to faith which lays hold of that blessing. “Without faith in God’s
promise,” said Luther, “the Sacrament is dead; it is a casket without a jewel, a
scabbard without a sword.” Thus did he explode the opus operatum, that great mystic
charm which Rome had substituted for faith, and the blessed Spirit who works in the
soul by means of it. At the very moment when Rome was advancing to crush him
with the bolt she had just forged, did Luther pluck from her hand that weapon of
imaginary omnipotence which had enabled her to vanquish men.
Nay, more: turning to Leo himself, Luther did not hesitate to address him at this crisis
in words of honest warning, and of singular courage. We refer, of course, to his wellknown letter to the Pope. Some of the passages of that letter read like a piece of
sarcasm, or a bitter satire; and yet it was written in no vein of this sort. The spirit it
breathes is that of intense moral earnestness, which permitted the writer to think but
of one thing, even the saving of those about to sink in a great destruction. Not thus did
Luther write when he wished to pierce an opponent with the shafts of his wit, or to
overwhelm him with the bolts of his indignation. The words he addressed to Leo were
not those of insolence or of hatred, though some have taken them for such, but of
affection too deep to remain silent, and too honest and fearless to flatter. Luther could
distinguish between Leo and the ministers of his government.
We need give only a few extracts from this extraordinary letter: “To the most Holy Father in God, Leo X., Pope at Rome, be all health in
Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
“From amid the fearful war which I have been waging for three years with
disorderly men, I can not help looking to you, O Leo, most Holy Father in
God. And though the folly of your impious flatterers has compelled me to
appeal from your judgment to a future Council, my heart is not turned away
from your holiness; and I have not ceased to pray God earnestly, and with
profound sighs, to grant prosperity to yourself and your Pontificate.
“It is true I have attacked some anti-Christian doctrines, and have inflicted a
deep wound on my adversaries because of their impiety. Of this I repent not,
as I have here Christ for an example. Of what use is salt if it have lost its
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savour, or the edge of a sword if it will not cut? Cursed be he who doeth the
work of the Lord negligently. Most excellent Leo, far from having conceived
any bad thoughts with regard to you, my wish is that you may enjoy the most
precious blessings throughout eternity. One thing only I have done; I have
maintained the word of truth. I am ready to yield to all in everything; but as
to this word I will not, I can not abandon it. He who thinks differently on this
subject is in error.
“It is true that I have attacked the court of Rome; but neither yourself nor any
man living can deny that there is greater corruption in it than was in Sodom
and Gomorrah, and that the impiety that prevails makes cure hopeless. Yes, I
have been horrified in seeing how, under your name, the poor followers of
Christ were deceived …
“You know it. Rome has for many years been inundating the world with
whatever could destroy both soul and body. The Church of Rome, formerly
the first in holiness, has become a den of robbers, a place of prostitution, a
kingdom of death and hell; so that Antichrist himself, were he to appear,
would be unable to increase the amount of wickedness. All this is as clear as
day.
“And yet, O Leo, you yourself are like a lamb in the midst of wolves - a
Daniel in the lions’ den. But, single-handed, what can you oppose to these
monsters? There may be three or four cardinals who to knowledge add
virtue. But what are these against so many? You should perish by poison
even before you could try any remedy. It is all over with the court of Rome.
The wrath of God has overtaken and will consume it. It hates counsel - it
fears reform - it will not moderate the fury of its ungodliness; and hence it
may be justly said of it as of its mother: We would have healed Babylon, but
she is not healed - forsake her.
“Rome is not worthy of you, and those who resemble you.” This, however,
was no great compliment to Leo, for the Reformer immediately adds, “the
only chief whom she deserves to have is Satan himself, and hence it is that in
this Babylon he is more king than you are. Would to God that, laying aside
this glory which your enemies so much extol, you would exchange it for a
modest pastoral office, or live on your paternal inheritance. Rome’s glory is
of a kind fit only for Iscariots.
“Is it not true that under the vast expanse of heaven there is nothing more
corrupt, more hateful than the Roman court? In vice and corruption it
infinitely exceeds the Turks. Once the gate of heaven, it has become the
mouth of hell - a wide mouth which the wrath of God keeps open, so that on
seeing so many unhappy beings thrown headlong into it, I was obliged to lift
my voice as in a tempest, in order that, at least, some might be saved from
the terrible abyss.”
Luther next enters into some detail touching his communications with De Vio, Eck,
and Miltitz, the agents who had come from the Roman court to make him cease his
opposition to the Papal corruptions. And then he closes -
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“I can not retract my doctrine. I can not permit rules of interpretation to be
imposed upon the Holy Scriptures. The Word of God - the source whence all
freedom springs - must be left free. Perhaps I am too bold in giving advice to
so high a majesty, whose duty it is to instruct all men, but I see the dangers
which surround you at Rome; I see you driven hither and thither; tossed, as it
were, upon the billows of a raging sea. Charity urges me, and I can not resist
sending forth a warning cry.”
That he might not appear before the Pope empty-handed, he accompanied his letter
with a little book on the “Liberty of the Christian.” The two poles of that liberty he
describes as faith and love; faith which makes the Christian free, and love which
makes him the servant of all. Having presented this little treatise to one who “needed
only spiritual gifts,” he adds, “I commend myself to your Holiness. May the Lord
keep you for ever and ever! Amen.”
So spoke Luther to Leo - the monk of Wittemberg to the Pontiff of Christendom.
Never were spoken words of greater truth, and never were words of truth spoken in
circumstances in which they were more needed, or at greater peril to the speaker. If
we laud historians who have painted in truthful colours, at a safe distance, the
character of tyrants, and branded their vices with honest indignation, we know not on
what principle we can refuse to Luther our admiration and praise. Providence so
ordered it that before the final rejection of a Church which had once been renowned
throughout the earth for its faith, Truth, once more and for the last time, should lift up
her voice at Rome.
The bull of excommunication arrived at Wittemberg in October, 1520. It had ere this
been published far and wide, and almost the last man to see it was the man against
whom it was fulminated. But here at last it is. Luther and Leo: Wittemberg and Rome
now stand face to face - Rome has excommunicated Wittemberg, and Wittemberg
will excommunicate Rome. Neither can retreat, and the war must be to the death.
The bull could not be published in Wittemberg, for the university possessed in this
matter powers superior to those of the Bishop of Brandenburg. It did, indeed, receive
publication at Wittemberg, and that of a very emphatic kind, as we shall afterwards
see, but not such publication as Eck wished and anticipated. The arrival of the terrible
missive caused no fear in the heart of Luther. On the contrary, it inspired him with
fresh courage. The movement was expanding into greater breadth. He saw clearly the
hand of God guiding it to its goal.
Meanwhile the Reformer took those formal measures that were necessary to indicate
his position in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the Church which had condemned
him, and in the eyes of posterity. He renewed his appeal with all solemnity from Leo
X. to a future Council.[11] On Saturday, the 17th of November, at ten o’clock in the
morning, in the Augustine convent where he resided, in the presence of a notary
public and five witnesses, among whom was Caspar Cruciger, he entered a solemn
protest against the bull. The notary took down his words as he uttered them. His
appeal was grounded on the four following points: - First, because he stood
condemned without having been heard, and without any reason or proof assigned of
his being in error. Second, because he was required to deny that Christian faith was
essential to the efficacious reception of the Sacrament. Third, because the Pope exalts
his own opinions above the Word of God; and Fourth, because, as a proud contemner
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of the Holy Church of God, and of a legitimate Council, the Pope had refused to
convoke a Council of the Church, declaring that a Council is nothing of itself.
This was not Luther’s affair only, but that of all Christendom, and accordingly he
accompanied his protest against the bull by a solemn appeal to the “emperor, the
electors, princes, barons, nobles, senators, and the entire Christian magistracy of
Germany,” calling upon them, for the sake of Catholic truth, the Church of Christ, and
the liberty and right of a lawful Council, to stand by him and his appeal, to resist the
impious tyranny of the Pope, and not to execute the bull till he had been legally
summoned and heard before impartial judges, and convicted from Scripture. Should
they act dutifully in this matter, “Christ, our Lord,” he said, “would reward them with
His everlasting grace. But if there be any who scorn my prayer, and continue to obey
that impious man, the Pope, rather than God,” he disclaimed all responsibility for the
consequences, and left them to the supreme judgment of Almighty God.
In the track of the two nuncios blazed numerous piles - not of men, as yet, but of
books, the writings of Luther. In Louvain, in Cologne, and many other towns in the
hereditary estates of the emperor, a bonfire had been made of his works. To these
many piles of Eck and Aleander, Luther replied by kindling one pile. He had written
his bill of divorcement, now he will give a sign that he has separated irrevocably from
Rome.
A placard on the walls of the University of Wittemberg announced that it was
Luther’s intention to burn the Pope’s bull, and that this would take place at nine
o’clock in the morning of December 10th, at the eastern gate of the town. On the day
and hour appointed, Luther was seen to issue from the gate of the university, followed
by a train of doctors and students to the number of 600, and a crowd of citizens who
enthusiastically sympathised. The procession held on its way through the streets of
Wittemberg, till, making its exit at the gate, it bore out of the city - for all unclean
things were burned without the camp - the bull of the Pontiff.
Arriving at the spot where this new and strange immolation was to take place, the
members of procession found a scaffold already erected, and a pile of logs laid in
order upon it. One of the more distinguished Masters of Arts took the torch and
applied it to the pile. Soon the flames blazed up. At this moment, the Reformer,
wearing the frock of his order, stepped out from the crowd and approached the fire,
holding in his hand the several volumes which constitute the Canon Law, the
Compend of Gratian, the Clementines, the Extravagants of Julius II., and other and
later coinages of the Papal mint. He placed these awful volumes one after the other on
the blazing pile.
It fared with them as if they had been common things. Their mysterious virtue did not
profit in the fire. The flames, fastening on them with their fierce tongues, speedily
turned these monuments of the toil, the genius, and the infallibility of the Popes to
ashes. This hecatomb of Papal edicts was not yet complete. The bull of Leo X. still
remained. Luther held it up in his hand. “Since thou hast vexed the Holy One of the
Lord,” said he, “may everlasting fire vex and consume thee.”[12] With these words he
flung it into the burning mass. Eck had pictured to himself the terrible bull, as he bore
it in triumph across the Alps, exploding in ruin above the head of the monk. A more
peaceful exit awaited it. For a few moments it blazed and crackled in the flames, and
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then it calmly mingled its dust with the ashes of its predecessors, that winter morning,
on the smouldering pile outside the walls of Wittemberg.[13]
The blow had been struck. The procession reformed. Doctors, masters, students, and
townsmen, again gathering round the Reformer, walked back, amid demonstrations of
triumph, to the city.
Had Luther begun his movement with this act, he would but have wrecked it. Men
would have seen only fury and rage, where now they saw courage and faith. The
Reformer began by posting up his “Theses” - by letting in the light upon the dark
places of Rome. Now, however, the minds of men were to a large extent prepared.
The burning of the bull was, therefore, the right act at the right time. It was felt to be
the act, not of a solitary monk, but of the German people - the explosion of a nation’s
indignation. The tidings of it travelled fast and far; and when the report reached
Rome, the powers of the Vatican trembled upon their seats. It sounded like the Voice
that is said to have echoed through the heathen world at our Saviour’s birth, and
which awoke lamentations and wailings amid the shrines and groves of paganism:
“Great Pan is dead!”
Luther knew that one blow would not win the battle; that the war was only
commenced, and must be followed up by ceaseless, and if possible still mightier
blows. Accordingly next day, as he was lecturing on the Psalms, he reverted to the
episode of the bull, and broke out into a strain of impassioned eloquence and
invective. The burning of the Papal statutes, said he, addressing the crowd of students
that thronged the lecture-room, is but the signal, the thing signified was what they
were to aim at, even the conflagration of the Papacy. His brow gathered and his voice
grew more solemn as he continued:
“Unless with all your hearts you abandon the Papacy, you can not save your
souls. The reign of the Pope is so opposed to the law of Christ and the life of
the Christian, that it will be safer to roam the desert and never see the face of
man, than abide under the rule of Antichrist. I warn every man to look to his
soul’s welfare, lest by submitting to the Pope he deny Christ. The time is
come when Christians must choose between death here and death hereafter.
For my own part, I choose death here. I can not lay such a burden upon my
soul as to hold my peace in this matter: I must look to the great reckoning. I
abominate the Babylonian pest. As long as I live I will proclaim the truth. If
the wholesale destruction of souls throughout Christendom can not be
prevented, at least I shall labour to the utmost of my power to rescue my own
countrymen from the bottomless pit of perdition.” [14]
The burning of the Pope’s bull marks the closing of one stage and the opening of
another in the great movement. It defines the fullness of Luther’s doctrinal views; and
it was this matured and perfected judgment respecting the two systems and the two
Churches, that enabled him to act with such decision - a decision which astounded
Rome, and which brought numerous friends around himself. Rome never doubted that
her bolt would crush the monk. She had stood in doubt as to whether she ought to
launch it, but she never doubted that, once launched, it would accomplish the
suppression of the Wittemberg revolt. For centuries no opponent had been able to
stand before her. In no instance had her anathemas failed to execute the vengeance
they were meant to inflict. Kings and nations, principalities and powers, when struck
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by excommunication, straightway collapsed and perished as if a vial of fire had been
emptied upon them. And who was this Wittemberg heretic, that he should defy a
power before which the whole world crouched in terror? Rome had only to speak, to
stretch out her arm, to let fall her bolt, and this adversary would be swept from her
path; nor name nor memorial would remain to him on earth. Rome would make
Wittemberg and its movement a reproach, a hissing, and a desolation. She did speak,
she did stretch out her arm, she did launch her bolt. And what was the result? To
Rome a terrible and appalling one. The monk, rising up in his strength, grasped the
bolt hurled against him from the Seven Hills, and flung it back at her from whom it
came.
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CHAPTER 3
INTERVIEWS AND NEGOTIATIONS
From the posting of the “Theses” on the doors of the Schloss Kirk of Wittemberg, on
October 31st, 1517, to the burning of the Pope’s bull on December 10th, 1520, at the
eastern gate of the same town, are just three years and six weeks. In these three short
years a great change has taken place in the opinions of men, and indeed in those of
Luther himself. A blessed spring-time seems to have visited the world. How sweet the
light! How gracious the drops that begin to fall out of heaven upon the weary earth!
What a gladness fills the souls of men, and what a deep joy breaks out on every side,
making itself audible in the rising songs of the nations, which, gathering around the
standard of a recovered Gospel, now “come,” in fulfilment of an ancient oracle, “unto
Zion with singing! “
The movement we are contemplating has many circles or spheres. We trace it into the
social life of man; there we see it bringing with it purity and virtue. We trace it into
the world of intellect and letters; there it is the parent of rigour and grace - a literature
whose bloom is fairer, and whose fruit is sweeter than the ancient one, immediately
springs up. We trace it into the politics of nations; there it is the nurse of order, and
the guardian of liberty. Under its aegis there grow up mighty thrones, and powerful
and prosperous nations. Neither is the monarch a tyrant, nor are the subjects slaves;
because the law is superior to both, and forbids power to grow into oppression, or
liberty to degenerate into licentiousness. Over the whole of life does the movement
diffuse itself. It has no limits but those of society - of the world.
But while its circumference was thus vast, we must never forget that its centre was
religion or dogma - great everlasting truths, acting on the soul of man, and effecting
its renewal, and so restoring both the individual and society to right relations with
God, and bringing both into harmony with the holy, beneficent, and omnipotent
government of the Eternal. This was the pivot on which the whole movement rested,
the point around which it revolved.
At that centre were lodged the vital forces - the truths. These ancient, simple,
indestructible, changeless powers came originally from Heaven; they constitute the
life of humanity, and while they remain at its heart it can not die, nor can it lose its
capacity of reinvigoration and progress. These life-containing and life-giving
principles had, for a thousand years past, been as it were in a sepulchre, imprisoned in
the depths of the earth. But now, in this gracious spring-time, their bands were loosed,
and they had come forth to diffuse themselves over the whole field of human life, and
to manifest their presence and action in a thousand varied and beautiful forms.
Without this centre, which is theology, we never should have had the outer circles of
this movement, which are science, literature, art, commerce, law, liberty. The progress
of a being morally constituted, as society is, must necessarily rest on a moral basis.
The spiritual forces, which Luther was honoured to be the instrument of once more
setting in motion, alone could originate this movement, and conduct it to such a goal
as would benefit the world. The love of letters, and the love of liberty, were all too
weak for this. They do not go deep enough, nor do they present a sufficiently high
aim, nor supply motives strong enough to sustain the toil, the self-denial, the sacrifice
by which alone the end aimed at in any true reformation can be attained. Of this the
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history of Protestantism furnishes us with two notable examples. Duke George of
Saxony was a prince of truly national spirit, and favoured the movement at the first,
because he saw that it embodied a resistance to foreign tyranny. But his hatred to the
doctrine of grace made him, in no long time, one of its bitterest enemies. He
complained that Luther was spoiling all by his “detestable doctrines,” not knowing
that it was the doctrines that won hearts, and that it was the hearts that furnished
swords to fight the battle of civil liberty.
The career of Erasmus was a nearly equally melancholy one. He had many feelings
and sympathies in common with Luther. The Reformation owes him much for his
edition of the Greek New Testament.[1] Yet neither his refined taste, nor his exquisite
scholarship, nor his love of liberty, nor his abhorrence of monkish ignorance could
retain him on the side of Protestantism; and the man who had dealt Rome some heavy
blows, when in his prime, sought refuge when old within the pale of Romanism,
leaving letters and liberty to care for themselves.
We turn for a little while from Luther to Charles V., from Wittemberg to Aix-laChapelle. The crown of Charlemagne was about to be placed on the head of the young
emperor, in the presence of the electoral princes, the dukes, archbishops, barons, and
counts of the Empire, and the delegates of the Papal See. Charles had come from
Spain to receive the regalia of empire, taking England in his way, where he spent four
days in attempts to secure the friendship of Henry VIII., and detach his powerful and
ambitious minister, Cardinal Wolsey, from the interests of the French king, by
dangling before his eyes the brilliant prize of the Papal tiara. Charles was crowned on
the 23rd of October, in presence of a more numerous and splendid assembly than had
ever before gathered to witness the coronation of emperor.
Having fallen prostrate on the cathedral floor and said his prayers, Charles was led to
the altar and sworn to keep the Catholic faith and defend the Church. He was next
placed on a throne overlaid with gold. While mass was being sung he was anointed on
the head, the breast, the armpits, and the palms of his hands. Then he was led to the
vestry, and clothed as a deacon. Prayers having been said, a naked sword was put into
his hand, and again he promised to defend the Church and the Empire. Sheathing the
sword, he was attired in the imperial mantle, and received a ring, with the sceptre and
the globe. Finally, three archbishops placed the crown upon his head; and the
coronation was concluded with a proclamation by the Archbishop of Mainz, to the
effect that the Pope confirmed what had been done, and that it was his will that
Charles V. should reign as emperor.[2]
Along with the assemblage at Aix-la-Chapelle came a visitor whose presence was
neither expected nor desired - the plague; and the moment the coronation was over,
Charles V. and his brilliant suite took their departure for Cologne. The emperor was
now on his way to Worms, where he purposed holding his first Diet. The rules of the
Golden Bull had specially reserved that honour for Nuremberg; but the plague was at
present raging in that town also, and Worms was chosen in preference. In the journey
thither the court halted at Cologne, and in this ancient city on the banks of the Rhine
were commenced those machinations which culminated at the Diet of Worms.
The Papal See had delegated two special envoys to the imperial court to look after the
affair of Luther, Marino Caraccioli, and Girolamo Aleander.[3]
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This matter now held the first place in the thoughts of the Pope and his counsellors.
They even forgot the Turk for the time. All their efforts to silence the monk or to
arrest the movement had hitherto been in vain, or rather had just the opposite effect.
The alarm in the Vatican was great. The champions sent by Rome to engage Luther
had one after another been discomfited. Tetzel, the great indulgence-monger, Luther
had put utterly to rout. Cajetan, the most learned of their theologians, he had
completely baffled. Eck, the ablest of their polemics, he had vanquished; the plausible
Miltitz had spread his snares in vain, he had been outwitted and befooled; last of all,
Leo himself had descended into the arena; but he had fared no better than the others;
he had been even more ignominiously handled, for the audacious monk had burned
his bull in the face of all Christendom.
Where was all this to end? Already the See of Rome had sustained immense damage.
Pardons were becoming unsaleable. Annats and reservations and first-fruits were,
alas! withheld; holy shrines were forsaken; the authority of the keys and the ancient
regalia of Peter was treated with contempt; the canon law, that mighty monument of
Pontifical wisdom and justice, which so many minds had toiled to rear, was treated as
a piece of lumber, and irreverently thrown upon the burning pile; worst of all, the
Pontifical thunder had lost its terrors, and the bolt which had shaken monarchs on
their thrones was daringly flung back at the thunderer himself. It was time to curb
such audacity and punish such wickedness.
The two envoys at the court of the emperor left no stone unturned to bring the matter
to an issue. Of the two functionaries the more zealous was Aleander, who has already
come before us. An evil prestige attached to him for his connection with the Papal See
during the most infamous of its Pontificates, that of Alexander VI.; but he possessed
great abilities, he had scholarly tastes, indefatigable industry, and profound devotion
to the See of Rome. She had at that hour few men in her service better able to conduct
to a favourable issue this difficult and dangerous negotiation. Luther sums up
graphically his qualities. “Hebrew was his mother-tongue, Greek he had studied from
his boyhood, Latin he had long taught professionally. He was a Jew,[4] but whether
he had ever been baptised he did not know. He was no Pharisee, however, for
certainly he did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, seeing he lived as if all
perished with the body. His greed was insatiable, his life abominable, his anger at
times amounted to insanity. Why he seceded to the Christians he knew not, unless it
were to glorify Moses by obscuring Christ.[5]
Aleander opened the campaign with a bonfire of Luther’s writings at Cologne. “What
matters it,” said some persons to the Papal delegate, “to erase the writing on paper? it
is the writing on men’s hearts you ought to erase. Luther’s opinions are written there.”
“True,” replied Aleander, comprehending his age, “but we must teach by signs which
all can read.”[6]
Aleander, however, wished to bring something else to the burning pile - the author of
the books even. But first he must get him into his power. The Elector of Saxony stood
between him and the man whom he wished to destroy. He must detach Frederick from
Luther’s side. He must also gain over the young emperor Charles. The last ought to be
no difficult matter.
Born in the old faith, descended from an ancestry whose glories were entwined with
Catholicism, tutored by Adrian of Utrecht, surely this young and ambitious monarch
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will not permit a contemptible monk to stand between him and the great projects he is
revolving! Deprived of the protection of Frederick and Charles, Luther will be in the
nuncio’s power, and then the stake will very soon stifle that voice which is rousing
Germany and resounding through Europe! So reasoned Aleander; but he found the
path beset with greater difficulties than he had calculated on meeting.
Neither zeal nor labour nor adroitness was lacking to the nuncio. He went first to the
emperor. “We have burned Luther’s books,” he said [7] - the emperor had permitted
these piles to be kindled - “but the whole air is thick with heresy. We require, in order
to its purification, an imperial edict against their author.” “I must first ascertain,”
replied the emperor, “what our father the Elector of Saxony thinks of this matter.”
It was clear that before making progress with the emperor the elector must be
managed. Aleandor begged an audience of Frederick. The elector received him in the
presence of his counsellors, and the Bishop of Trent. The haughty envoy of the Papal
court assumed a tone bordering on insolence in the elector’s presence. He pushed
aside Caraccioli, his fellow-envoy, who was trying to win Frederick by flatteries, and
plunged at once into the business. This Luther, said Aleander, is rending the Christian
State; he is bringing the Empire to ruin; the man who unites himself with him
separates himself from Christ. Frederick alone, he affirmed, stood between the monk
and the chastisement he deserved, and he concluded by demanding that the elector
should himself punish Luther, or deliver him up to the chastiser of heretics, Rome [8]
The elector met the bold assault of Aleander with the plea of justice. No one, he said,
had yet refuted Luther; it would be a gross scandal to punish a man who had not been
condemned; Luther must be summoned before a tribunal of pious, learned, and
impartial judges.[9]
This pointed to the Diet about to meet at Worms, and to a public hearing of the cause
of Protestantism before that august assembly. Than this proposal nothing could have
been more alarming to Aleander. He knew the courage and eloquence of Luther. Hie
dreaded the impression his appearance before the Diet would make upon the princes.
He had no ambition to grapple with him in person, or to win any more victories of the
sort that Eck so loudly boasted. He knew how popular his cause already was all over
Germany, and how necessary it was to avoid everything that would give it additional
prestige. In his journeys, wherever he was known as the opponent of Luther, it was
with difficulty that he could find admittance at a respectable inn, while portraits of the
redoubtable monk stared upon him from the walls of almost every bedroom in which
he slept. He knew that the writing of Luther were in all dwellings from the baron’s
castle to the peasant’s cottage. Besides, would it not be an open affront to his master
the Pope, who had excommunicated Luther, to permit him to plead his cause before a
lay assembly? Would it not appear as if the Pope’s sentence might be reversed by
military barons, and the chair of Peter made subordinate to the States-General of
Germany? On all these grounds the Papal nuncio was resolved to oppose to the
uttermost Luther’s appearance before the Diet.
Aleander now turned from the Elector of Saxony to the emperor. “Our hope of
conquering,” he wrote to the Cardinal Julio de Medici, “is in the emperor only.”[10]
In the truth or falsehood of Luther’s opinions the emperor took little interest. The
cause with him resolved itself into one of policy. He asked simply which would
further most his political projects, to protect Luther or to burn him? Charles appeared
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the most powerful man in Christendom, and yet there were two men with whom he
could not afford to quarrel, the Elector of Saxony and the Pontiff. To the first he owed
the imperial crown, for it was Frederick’s influence in the electoral conclave that
placed it on the head of Charles of Austria. This obligation might have been forgotten,
for absolute monarchs have short memories, but Charles could not dispense with the
advice and aid of Frederick in the government of the Empire at the head of which he
had just been placed. For these reasons the emperor wished to stand well with the
elector.
On the other hand, Charles could not afford to break with the Pope. He was on the
brink of war with Francis I., the King of France. That chivalrous sovereign had
commenced his reign by crossing the Alps and fighting the battle of Marignano
(1515), which lasted three days - “the giant battle,” as Marshal Trivulzi called it.[11]
This victory gained Francis I. the fame of a warrior, and the more substantial
acquisition of the Duchy of Milan. The Emperor Charles meditated despoiling the
French king of this possession, and extending his own influence in Italy. The Italian
Peninsula was the prize for which the sovereigns of that age contended, seeing its
possession gave its owner the preponderance in Europe. This aforetime frequent
contest between the Kings of Spain and France was now on the point of being
resumed. But Charles would speed all the better if Leo of Rome were on his side.
It occurred to Charles that the monk of Wittemberg was a most opportune card to be
played in the game about to begin. If the Pope should engage to aid him in his war
with the King of France, Charles would give Luther into his hands, that he might do
with him as might seem good to him. But should the Pope refuse his aid, and join
himself to Francis, the emperor would protect the monk, and make him an opposing
power against Leo. So stood the matter. Meanwhile, negotiations were being carried
on with the view of ascertaining on which side Leo, who dreaded both of these
potentates, would elect to make his stand, and what in consequence would be the fate
of the Reformer, imperial protection or imperial condemnation.
In this fashion did these great ones deal with the cause of the world’s regeneration.
The man who was master of so many kingdoms, in both the Old and the New Worlds,
was willing, if he could improve his chances of adding the Dukedom of Milan to his
already overgrown possessions, to fling into the flames the Reformer, and with him
the movement out of which was coming the new times. The monk was in their hands;
so they thought. How would it have astonished them to be told that they were in his
hands, to be used by him as his cause might require; that their crowns, armies, and
policies were shaped and moved, prospered or defeated, with sole reference to those
great spiritual forces which Luther wielded! Wittemberg was small among the many
proud capitals of the world, yet here, and not at Madrid or at Paris, was, at this hour,
the centre of human affairs.
The imperial court moved forward to Worms. The two Papal representatives,
Caraccioli and Aleander, followed in the emperor’s train. Feats of chivalry, parties of
pleasure, schemes of ambition and conquest, occupied the thoughts of others; the two
nuncios were engrossed with but one object, the suppression of the religious
movement; and to effect this all that was necessary, they persuaded themselves, was
to bring Luther to the stake. Charles had summoned the Diet for the 6th of January,
1521. In his circular letters to the several princes, he set forth the causes for which it
was convoked. One of these was the appointment of a council of regency for the
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government of the Empire during his necessary absences in his hereditary kingdom of
Spain; but another, and still more prominent matter in the letters of convocation, was
the concerting of proper measures for checking those new and dangerous opinions
which so profoundly agitated Germany, and threatened to overthrow the religion of
their ancestors.[12]
Many interests, passions, and motives combined to bring together at Worms, on this
occasion, a more numerous and brilliant assemblage than perhaps had ever been
gathered together at any Diet since the days of Charlemagne. It was the emperor’s
first Diet. His youth, and the vast dominions over which his sceptre was swayed,
threw a singular interest around him. The agitation in the minds of men, and the
gravity of the affairs to be discussed, contributed further to draw unprecedented
numbers to the Diet. Far and near, from the remotest parts, came the grandees of
Germany. Every road leading to Worms displayed a succession of gay cavalcades.
The electors, with their courts; the archbishops, with their chapters; margraves and
barons, with their military retainers; the delegates of the various cities, in the badges
of their office; bands of seculars and regulars, in the habits of their order; the
ambassadors of foreign States - all hastened to Worms, where a greater than Charles
was to present himself before them, and a cause greater than that of the Empire was to
unfold its claims in their hearing.
The Diet was opened on the 28th of January, 1521. It was presided over by Charles - a
pale-faced, melancholy-looking prince of twenty, accomplished in feats of
horsemanship, but of weak bodily constitution. Thucydides and Machiavelli were the
authors he studied. Chievres directed his councils; but he does not appear to have
formed as yet any decided plan of policy. “Charles had chiefly acquired from
history,” says Muller, “the art of dissimulating, which he confounded with the talent
of governing.”[13] Amid the splendour that surrounded him, numberless affairs and
perplexities perpetually distracted him; but the pivot on which all turned was the
monk of Wittemberg and this religious movement. The Papal nuncios were night and
day importuning him to execute the Papal bull against Luther. If he should comply
with their solicitations and give the monk into their hands, he would alienate the
Elector of Saxony, and kindle a conflagration in Germany which all his power might
not be able to extinguish. If, on the other hand, he should refuse Aleander and protect
Luther, he would thereby grievously offend the Pope, and send him over to the side of
the French king, who was every day threatening to break out into war against him in
the Low Countries, or in Lombardy, or in both.
There were tournaments and pastimes on the surface, anxieties and perplexities
underneath; there were feastings in the banquet-hall, intrigues in the cabinet. The
vacillations of the imperial mind can be traced in the conflicting orders which the
emperor was continually sending to the Elector Frederick. One day he would write to
him to bring Luther with him to Worms, the next he would command him to leave
him behind at Wittemberg. Meanwhile Frederick arrived at the Diet without Luther.
The opposition which Aleander encountered only roused him to yet greater energy indeed, almost to fury. He saw with horror the Protestant movement advancing from
one day to another, while Rome was losing ground. Grasping his pen, he wrote a
strong remonstrance to the Cardinal de Medici, the Pope’s relative, to the effect that
“Germany was separating itself from Rome;” and that, unless more money was sent to
be scattered amongst the members of the Diet, he must abandon all hope of success in
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his negotiations,[14] Rome listened to the cry of her servant. She sent not only more
ducats, but more anathemas. Her first bull against Luther had been conditional,
inasmuch as it called on him to retract, and threatened him with excommunication if,
within sixty days, he failed to do so. Now, however, the excommunication was
actually inflicted by a new bull, fulminated at this time (6th January, 1521), and
ordered to be published with terrible solemnities in all the churches of Germany.[15]
This bull placed all Luther’s adherents under the same curse as himself; and thus was
completed the separation between Protestantism and Rome. The excision, pronounced
and sealed by solemn anathema, was the act of Rome herself.
This new step simplified matters to both Aleander and Luther, but it only the more
embroiled them to the emperor and his councillors. The politicians saw their path less
clearly than before. It appeared to them the wiser course to stifle the movement, but
the new ban seemed to compel them to fan it. This would be to lose the Elector even
before they had gained the Pope; for the negotiations with the court of the Vatican had
reached as yet no definite conclusion. They must act warily, and shun extremes.
A new device was hit upon, which was sure to succeed, the diplomatists thought, in
entrapping the theologians of Wittemberg. There was at the court of the emperor a
Spanish Franciscan, John Glapio by name, who held the office of confessor to
Charles. He was supple, plausible, and able. This man undertook to arrange the matter
[16] which had baffled so many wise heads; and with this view he craved an interview
with Gregory Bruck, or Pontanus, the councillor of the Elector of Saxony. Pontanus
was a man of sterling integrity, competently versed in theological questions, and
sagacious enough to see through the most cunning diplomatist in all the court of the
emperor. Glapio was a member of the reform party within the Roman pale, a
circumstance which favoured the guise he now assumed. At his interview with the
councillor of Frederick, Glapio professed a very warm regard for Luther; he had read
his writings with admiration, and he agreed with him in the main. “Jesus Christ,[17]
he said, heaving a deep sigh, “was his witness that he desired the reformation of the
Church as ardently as Luther, or any one.” He had often protested his zeal on this
head to the emperor, and Charles sympathised largely with his views, as the world
would yet come to know.
From the general eulogium pronounced on the writings of Luther, Glapio excepted
one work - the Babylonian Captivity. That work was not worthy of Luther, he
maintained. He found in it neither his style nor his learning.
Luther must disavow it. As for the rest of his works, he would propose that they
should be submitted to a select body of intelligent and impartial men, that Luther
should explain some things and apologise for others; and then the Pope, in the
plenitude of his power and benignity, would reinstate him. Thus the breach would be
healed, and the affair happily ended.[18] Such was the little artifice with which the
wise heads at the court of Charles hoped to accomplish so great things. They only
showed how little able they were to gauge the man whom they wished to entrap, or to
fathom the movement which they sought to arrest. Pontanus looked on while they
were spreading the net, with a mild contempt; and Luther listened to the plot, when it
was told him, with feelings of derision.
The negotiations between the emperor and the court of the Vatican, which meanwhile
had been going on, were now brought to a conclusion. The Pope agreed to be the ally
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of Charles in his approaching war with the French king, and the emperor, on his part,
undertook to please the Pope in the matter of the monk of Wittemberg. The two are to
unite, but the link between them is a stake. The Empire and the Popedom are to meet
and shake hands over the ashes of Luther. During the two centuries which included
and followed the Pontificate of Gregory VII., the imperial diadem and the tiara had
waged a terrible war with each other for the supremacy of Christendom. In that age
the two shared the world between them - other competitor there was none. But now a
new power had risen up, and the hatred and terror which both felt to that new power
made these old enemies friends. The die is cast. The spiritual and the temporal arms
have united to crush Protestantism.
The emperor prepared to fulfil his part of the arrangement. It was hard to see what
should hinder him. He had an overwhelming force of kingdoms and armies at his
back. The spiritual sword, moreover, was now with him.
If with such a combination of power he could not sweep this troublesome monk from
his path, it would be a thing so strange and unaccountable that history might be
searched in vain for a parallel to it.
It was now the beginning of February. The day was to be devoted to a splendid
tournament. The lists were already marked out, the emperor’s tent was pitched; over it
floated the imperial banner; the princes and knights were girding on their armour, and
the fair spectators of the show were preparing the honours and prizes to reward the
feats of gallantry which were to signalise the mimic war, when suddenly an imperial
messenger appeared commanding the attendance of the princes in the royal palace. It
was a real tragedy in which they were invited to take part. When they had assembled,
the emperor produced and read the Papal brief which had lately arrived from Rome,
enjoining him to append the imperial sanction to the excommunication against Luther,
and to give immediate execution to the bull. A yet greater surprise awaited them. The
emperor next drew forth and read to the assembled princes the edict which he himself
had drawn up in conformity with the Papal brief, commanding that it should be done
as the Pope desired.
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CHAPTER 4
LUTHER SUMMONED TO THE DIET AT WORMS
Yet the storm did not burst. We have seen produced the Pope’s bull of condemnation;
we have heard read the emperor’s edict empowering the temporal arm to execute the
spiritual sentence; we have only a few days to wait, so it seems, and we shall see the
Reformer dragged to the stake and burned. But to accomplish this one essential thing
was yet lacking. The constitution of the Empire required that Charles, before
proceeding further, should add that “if the States knew any better course, he was
ready to hear them.” The majority of the German magnates cared little for Luther, but
they cared a good deal for their prescriptive rights; they hated the odious tyranny and
grinding extortions of Rome, and they felt that to deliver up Luther was to take the
most effectual means to rivet the yoke that galled their own necks. The princes craved
time for deliberation. Aleander was furious; he saw the prey about to be plucked from
his very teeth. But the emperor submitted with a good grace. “Convince this
assembly,” said the politic monarch to the impatient nuncio. It was agreed that
Aleander should be heard before the Diet on the 13th of February.
It was a proud day for the nuncio. The assembly was a great one: the cause was even
greater. Aleander was to plead for Rome, the mother and mistress of all churches: he
was to vindicate the princedom of Peter before the assembled puissances of
Christendom. He had the gift of eloquence, and he rose to the greatness of the
occasion. Providence ordered it that Rome should appear and plead by the ablest of
her orators in the presence of the most august of tribunals, before she was condemned.
The speech has been recorded by one of the most trustworthy and eloquent of the
Roman historians, Pallavicino [1]
The nuncio was more effective in those parts of his speech in which he attacked
Luther, than in those in which he defended the Papacy. His charges against the
Reformer were sweeping and artful. He accused him of labouring to accomplish a
universal ruin; of striking a blow at the foundations of religion by denying the
doctrine of the Sacrament; of seeking to raze the foundations of the hierarchy by
affirming that all Christians are priests; of seeking to overturn civil order by
maintaining that a Christian is not bound to obey the magistrate; of aiming to subvert
the foundations of morality by his doctrine of the moral inability of the will; and of
unsettling the world beyond the grave by denying purgatory. The portion of seeming
truth contained in these accusations made them the more dangerous. “A unanimous
decree,” said the orator in closing his speech, “from this illustrious assembly will
enlighten the simple, warn the imprudent, decide the waverers, and give strength to
the weak … But if the axe is not laid at the root of this poisonous tree, if the deathblow is not struck, then … I see it overshadowing the heritage of Jesus Christ with its
branches, changing our Lord’s vineyard into a gloomy forest, transforming the
kingdom of God into a den of wild beasts, and reducing Germany into that state of
frightful barbarism and desolation which has been brought upon Asia by the
superstition of Mahomet.[2] I should be willing,” said he, with consummate art, “to
deliver my body to the flames, if the monster that has engendered this growing heresy
could be consumed at the same stake, and mingle his ashes with mine.” [3]
The nuncio had spoken for three hours. The fire of his style, and the enthusiasm of his
delivery, had roused the passions of the Diet; and had a vote been taken at that
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moment, the voices of all the members, one only excepted, would have been given for
the condemnation of Luther.[4] The Diet broke up, however, when the orator sat
down, and thus the victory which seemed within the reach of Rome escaped her grasp.
When the princes next assembled, the fumes raised by the rhetoric of Aleander had
evaporated, and the hard facts of Roman extortion alone remained deeply imprinted in
the memories of the German barons. These no eloquence could efface. Duke George
of Saxony was the first to present himself to the assembly. His words had the greater
weight from his being known to be the enemy of Luther, and a hater of the
evangelical doctrines, although a champion of the rights of his native land and a foe of
ecclesiastical abuses, he ran his eye rapidly over the frightful traces which Roman
usurpation and venality had left on Germany. Annats were converted into dues;
ecclesiastical benefices were bought and sold; dispensations were procurable for
money; stations were multiplied in order to fleece the poor; stalls for the sale of
indulgences rose in every street; pardons were earned not by prayer or works of
charity, but by paying the market-price of sin; penances were so contrived as to lead
to a repetition of the offence; fines were made exorbitant to increase the revenue
arising from them; abbeys and monasteries were emptied by commendams, and their
wealth transported across the Alps to enrich foreign bishops; civil causes were drawn
before ecclesiastical tribunals: all which “grievous perdition of miserable souls”
demanded a universal reform, which a General Council only could accomplish. Duke
George in conclusion demanded that such should be convoked.
To direct past themselves the storm of indignation which the archbishops and abbots
[5] saw to be rising in the Diet, they laid the chief blame of the undeniable abuses, of
which the duke had presented so formidable a catalogue, at the door of the Vatican.
So costly were the tastes and so luxurious the habits of the reigning Pope, they hinted,
that he was induced to bestow Church livings not on pious and learned men, but on
jesters, falconers, grooms, valets, and whosoever could minister to his personal
pleasures or add to the gaiety of his court. The excuse was, in fact, an accusation.
A committee was appointed by the Diet to draw up a list of the oppressions under
which the nation groaned.[6] This document, containing a hundred and one
grievances, was presented to the emperor at a subsequent meeting of the Diet,
together with a request that he would, in fulfilment of the terms of the capitulation
which he had signed when he was crowned, take steps to effect a reformation of the
specified abuses.
The Diet did not stop here. The princes demanded that Luther should be summoned
before it. It were unjust, they said, to condemn him without knowing whether he were
the author of the incriminated books, and without hearing what he had to say in
defence of his opinions.[7] The emperor was compelled to give way, though he
covered his retreat under show of doubting whether the books really were Luther’s.
He wished, he said, to have certainty on that point. Aleander was horror-struck at the
emperor’s irresolution. He saw the foundations of the Papacy shaken, the tiara
trembling on his master’s brow, and all the terrible evils he had predicted in his great
oration, rushing like a devastating tempest upon Christendom. But he strove in vain
against the emperor’s resolve, and the yet stronger force behind it, in which that
resolve had its birth - the feeling of the German people.[8] It was concluded in the
Diet that Luther should be summoned. Aleander had one hope left, the only mitigating
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circumstance about this alarming affair, even that Luther would be denied a safeconduct.
But this proposal he was ultimately unable to carry,[9] and on the 6th of March, 1521,
the summons to Luther to present himself within twenty-one days before the Diet at
Worms was signed by the emperor. Enclosed in the citation was a safe-conduct,
addressed “To the honourable, our well-beloved and pious Doctor Hartin Luther, of
the order of Augustines,”[10] and commanding all princes, lords, magistrates, and
others to respect this safe-conduct under pain of the displeasure of the Emperor and
the Empire.
Gaspard Sturm, the imperial herald, was commissioned to deliver these documents to
Luther and accompany him to Worms.[11]
The fiat has gone forth. It expresses the will and purpose of a Higher than Charles.
Luther is to bear testimony to the Gospel, not at the stake, but on the loftiest stage the
world can furnish. The master of so many kingdoms and the lords of so many
provinces must come to Worms, and there patiently wait and obediently listen while
the miner’s son speaks to them.[12] While the imperial herald is on his way to bring
hither the man for whom they wait, let us turn to see what is at that moment taking
place at the opposite poles of Christendom:
Far separated as are Rome and Wittemberg, there is yet a link binding together the
two. An unseen Power regulates the march of events at both places, making them
advance by equal steps. What wonderful harmony under antagonism! Let us turn first
to Rome. It is Maunday-Thursday. On the balcony of the Metropolitan Cathedral,
arrayed for one of the grand ceremonies of his Church, sits the Pope. Around him
stand attendant priests, bearing lighted torches; and beneath him, crowding in silence
the spacious area, their knees bent and their heads uncovered, are the assembled
Romans. Leo is pronouncing, as the wont is before the festival of Easter, the terrible
bull In Coena Domini.
This is a very ancient bull. It has undergone, during successive Pontificates, various
alterations and additions, with the view of rendering its scope more comprehensive
and its excommunications more frightful. It has been called “the pick of
excommunications.” It was wont to be promulgated annually at Rome on the
Thursday before Easter Sunday, hence its name the “Bull of the Lord’s Supper.” The
bells were tolled, the cannon of St. Angelo were fired, and the crowd of priests that
thronged the balcony around the Pope waved their tapers wildly, then suddenly
extinguished them; in short, no solemnity was omitted that could add terror to the
publication of the bull - superfluous task surely, when we think that a more frightful
peal of cursing never rang out from that balcony, from which so many terrible
excommunications have been thundered. All ranks and conditions of men, all
nationalities not obedient to the Papal See, are most comprehensively and
energetically cursed in the bull In Coena Domini. More especially are heretics of
every name cursed. “We curse,” said the Pope, “all heretics Cathari, Patarins, Poor
Men of Lyons, Arnoldists, Speronists, Wickliffites, Hussites, Fratricelli;” - “because,”
said Luther, speaking aside, “they desired to possess the Holy Scriptures, and required
the Pope to be sober and preach the Word of God.” “This formulary,” says Sleidan,
“of excommunication coming afterwards into Luther’s hands, he rendered it into High
Dutch, besprinkling it with some very witty and satirical animadversions.”[13]
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This year a new name had been inserted in this curse, and a prominent place assigned
it. It was the name of Martin Luther. Thus did Rome join him to all those witnesses
for the truth who, in former ages, had fallen under her ban, and many of whom had
perished in her fires. Casting him out of the Roman pale irrevocably, she united him
with the Church spiritual and holy and catholic.
At the same moment that Rome fulfils and completes her course, Luther fulfils and
completes his. He has now reached his furthest point of theological and ecclesiastical
advancement. Step by step he has all these years been going forward, adding first one
doctrine, then another, to his store of acquired knowledge; and at the same time, and
by an equal process, has he been casting off, one after another, the errors of
Romanism. The light around him has been waxing clearer and ever clearer, and now
he has come to the meridian of his day. In his cell he was made to feel that he was
utterly fallen, and wholly without power to save himself. This was his first lesson.
The doctrine of a free justification - salvation by grace - was next revealed to him. As
he stood encompassed by the darkness of despair, caused by the combined sense of
his utter ruin and his utter inability, this doctrine beamed out upon him from the page
of Scripture. The revelation of it was to him the very opening of the gates of Paradise.
From these initial stages he soon came to a clear apprehension of the whole of what
constituted the Reformed system - the nature and end of Christ’s obedience and death;
the office and work of the Holy Spirit; the sanctification of men by the instrumentality
of the Word; the relation of good works to faith; the nature and uses of a Sacrament;
the constituent principle of the Church, even belief in the truth and union to Christ.
This last, taken in connection with another great principle to the knowledge of which
he had previously attained, the sole infallible authority of Scripture, emancipated him
completely from a thraldom which had weighed heavily upon him in the earlier stages
of his career, the awe, even, in which he stood of Rome as the Church of Christ, and
the obedience which he believed he owed the Pontiff as head of the Church. The last
link of this bondage was now gone. He stood erect in the presence of a power before
which the whole of Christendom wellnigh still bowed down. The study of Paul’s
Epistles and of the Apocalypse, and the comparison of both with the history of the
past, brought Luther about this time to the full and matured conviction that the Church
of Rome as it now existed was the predicted “Apostasy,” and that the dominion of the
Papacy was the reign of Antichrist. It was this that broke the spell of Rome, and took
for him the sting out of her curse. This was a wonderful training, and not the least
wonderful thing in it was the exact coincidence in point of time between the maturing
of Luther’s views and the great crisis in his career. The summons to the Diet at
Worms found him in the very prime and fullness of his knowledge.
On the 24th of March the imperial herald, Gaspard Sturm, arrived at Wittemberg, and
put into the hands of Luther the summons of the emperor to appear before the Diet at
Worms.
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CHAPTER 5
LUTHER’S JOURNEY AND ARRIVAL AT WORMS
“Will he come?” asked the members of the Diet of one another, when they had
determined to summon Luther before them. The only man who did not hesitate a
moment on that point was Luther himself. In the citation now in his hand he beheld
the summons of a Greater than the emperor, and straightway he made ready to obey it.
He knew that in the assembly before which he was to appear there was but one man
on whom he could fully rely, the Elector Frederick. His safe-conduct might be
violated as that of John Huss had been. In going to Worms he might be going to the
stake. His opponents, he knew, thirsted for his blood, still not for a moment did he
permit fear to make him waver in his resolution to go to Worms. There he should be
able to bear testimony to the truth, and as to all beyond, it gave him no concern. “Fear
not,” he wrote to Spalatin, the elector’s secretary, “that I shall retract a single syllable.
With the help of Christ, I will never desert the Word on the battle-field.” [1] “I am
called,” said he to his friends, when they expressed their fears; “it is ordered and
decreed that I appear in that city. I will neither recant nor flee. I will go to Worms in
spite of all the gates of hell, and the prince of the power of the air.” [2]
The news that Luther had been summoned to the Diet spread rapidly through
Germany, inspiring, wherever the tidings came, a mixed feeling of thankfulness and
alarm. The Germans were glad to see the cause of their country and their Church
assuming such proportions, and challenging examination and discussion before so
august an assembly. At the same time they trembled when they thought what might be
the fate of the man who was eminently their nation’s representative, and by much the
ablest champion of both its political and its religious rights. If Luther should be
sacrificed nothing could compensate for his loss, and the movement which promised
to bring them riddance of a foreign yoke, every year growing more intolerable, would
be thrown back for an indefinite period. Many eyes and hearts, therefore, in all parts
of Germany followed the monk as he went his doubtful way to Worms.
On the 2nd of April the arrangements for his departure were completed. He did not set
out alone. Three of his more intimate friends, members of the university,
accompanied him. These were the courageous Amsdorff - Schurff, professor of
jurisprudence, as timid as Amsdorff was bold, yet who shrank not from the perils of
this journey - and Suaven, a young Danish nobleman, who claimed, as the
representative of the students, the honour of attending his master.
Most tender was the parting between Luther and Melancthon. In Luther the young
scholar had found again his country, his friends, his all. Now he was about to lose
him. Sad at heart, he yearned to go with him, even should he be going to martyrdom.
He implored, but in vain; for if Luther should fall, who but Philip could fill his place
and carry on his work? The citizens were moved as well as the professors and youth
of the university. They thronged the street to witness the departure of their great
townsman, and it was amidst their tears that Luther passed out at the gate, and took
his way over the great plains that are spread out around Wittemberg.
The imperial herald, wearing his insignia and displaying the imperial eagle, to show
under what guardianship the travellers journeyed, came first on horseback; after him
rode his servant, and closing the little cavalcade was the humble wagon which
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contained Luther and his friends. This conveyance had been provided by the
magistrates of Wittemberg at their own cost, and, provident of the traveller’s comfort,
it was furnished with an awning to shade him from the sun or cover him from the
rain.[3]
Everywhere, as they passed along, crowds awaited the arrival of the travellers.
Villages poured out their inhabitants to see and greet the bold monk. At the gates of
those cities where it was known that Luther would halt, processions, headed by the
magistrates, waited to bid him welcome. There were exceptions, however, to the
general cordiality. At Leipsic the Reformer was presented with simply the customary
cup of wine, as much as to say, “Pass on.”[4] But generally the population were
touched with the heroism of the journey. In Luther they beheld a man who was
offering himself on the altar of his country, and as they saw him pass they heaved a
sigh as over one who should never return. His path was strewed with hints and
warnings of coming fate, partly the fears of timid friends, and partly the menaces of
enemies who strove by every means in their power to stop his journey, and prevent his
appearance at the Diet.
His entrance into Erfurt, the city where he had come to the knowledge of the truth,
and on the streets of which he had begged as a monk, was more like that of a warrior
returning from a victorious campaign, than a humble doctor going to answer a charge
of heresy. Hardly had he come in sight of its steeples, when a numerous cavalcade,
composed of the members of the senate, the university, and two thousand burghers,[5]
met him and escorted him into the city. Through streets thronged with spectators he
was conducted to the old familiar building so imperishably associated with his
history, the convent of the Augustines. On the Sunday after Easter he entered its great
church, the door of which he had been wont, when a friar, to open, and the floor of
which he had been wont to sweep out; and from its pulpit he preached to an
overflowing crowd, from the words so suitable to the season, “Peace be unto you”
(John 20:19). Let us quote a passage of his sermon. Of the Diet - of the emperor, of
himself, not a word: from beginning to end it is Christ and salvation that are held
forth.
“Philosophers, doctors, and writers,” said the preacher, “have endeavoured to teach
men the way to obtain everlasting life, and they have not succeeded. I will now tell it
to you.
“There are two kinds of works - works not of ourselves, and these are good: our own
works, they are of little worth. One man builds a church; another goes on a pilgrimage
to St. Iago of Compostella, or St. Peter’s; a third fasts, takes the cowl, and goes barefoot; another does something else. All these works are nothingness, and will come to
naught, for our own works have no virtue in them.
But I am now going to tell you what is the true work. God has raised one Man from
the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he might destroy death, expiate sin, and shut the
gates of hell. This is the work of salvation.
“Christ, has vanquished! This is the joyful news! and we are saved by his work, and
not by our own … Our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Peace be unto you! behold my hands’
- that is to say, Behold, O man! it is I, I alone, who have taken away thy sins, and
ransomed thee; and now thou hast peace, saith the Lord.”[6]
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Such was the Divine wisdom which Luther dispensed to the men of Erfurt. It was ill
their city that he had learned it; and well might he have added what the centurion said
of his liberty: “With a great sum have I obtained this knowledge, which now I freely
give to you.”
Traversing ground every foot-breadth of which was familiar as forming the scene of
his childhood, he came soon after to Eisenach, the city of the good “Shunammite.” It
must have called up many memories. Over it towered the Wartburg, where the
Reformer was to open the second stage of his career, although this was hidden as yet.
At every step his courage was put to the test. The nearer he drew to Worms the louder
grew the threats of his enemies, the greater the fears of his friends. “They will burn
you and reduce your body to ashes, as they did that of John Huss,” said one to him.
His reply was that of a hero, but it was clothed in the grand imagery of the poet.
“Though they should kindle a fire,” said he, “all the way from Worms to Wittemberg,
the flames of which reached to heaven, I would walk through it in the name of the
Lord, I would appear before them, I would enter the jaws of this Behemoth, and
confess the Lord Jesus Christ between his teeth.”
All the way from Eisenach to Frankfort-on-the Maine, Luther suffered from
sickness.[7] This however produced no faintness of spirit. If health should serve him,
well; but if not, still his journey must be performed; he should be carried to Worms in
his bed. As to what might await him at the end of his journey he bestowed not a
thought. He knew that he who preserved alive the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace
still lived. If it was His pleasure he would, despite the rage of his foes, return safe
from Worms; but if a stake awaited him there, he rejoiced to think that the truth would
not perish with his ashes. With God he left it whether the Gospel would be better
served by his death or by his life, only he would rather that the young emperor should
not begin his reign by shedding his blood; if he must die, let it be by the hands of the
Romans.
The Roman party had hoped that the monk would not dare set foot within the gates of
Worms.[8] They were told that he was on the road, but they did not despair by
intrigues and menaces to make him turn back. They little knew the man they were
trying to affright. To their dismay Luther kept his face steadfastly toward Worms, and
was now almost under its walls. His approaching footsteps, coming nearer every hour,
sounded, as it were, the knell of their power, and caused them greater terror than if a
mighty army had been advancing against them.
Whispers began now to circulate in Worms that the Diet was not bound to respect the
safe-conduct of a heretic. This talk coming to the ears of Luther’s friends gave them
great uneasiness. Was the perfidy of Constance to be repeated? Even the elector
shared in the prevalent alarm; for Spalatin sent to Luther, who was now near the city,
to say to him not to enter.
Fixing his eyes on the messenger, Luther replied, “Go and tell your master that even
should there be as many devils in Worms as tiles on the house-tops, still I will enter
it.”[9] This was the sorest assault of all, coming as it did from one of his most trusted
friends; but he vanquished it as he had done all previous ones, and what remained of
his journey was done in peace.
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It was ten o’clock in the morning of the 16th of April, when the old towers of Worms
rose between him and the horizon. Luther, says Audin, sitting up in his car, began to
sing the hymn which he had composed at Oppenheim two days before, “A strong
Tower is our God.”[10] The sentinel on the look-out in the cathedral tower, descrying
the approach of the cavalcade, sounded his trumpet. The citizens were at dinner, for it
was now mid-day, but when they heard the signal they rushed into the street, and in a
few minutes princes, nobles, citizens, and men of all nations and conditions, mingling
in one mighty throng, had assembled to see the monk enter. To the last neither friend
nor foe had really believed that he would come. Now, however, Luther is in Worms.
The order of the cavalcade was the same as that in which it had quitted Wittemberg.
The herald rode first, making way with some difficulty through the crowded street for
the wagon in which, shaded by the awning, sat Luther in his monk’s gown,[11] his
face bearing traces of his recent illness, but there was a deep calm in the eyes whose
glance Cardinal Cajetan liked so ill at Augsburg.
The evil auguries which had haunted the monk at every stage of his journey were
renewed within the walls of Worms. Pressing through the crowd came a person in
grotesque costume, displaying a great cross, such as is carried before the corpse when
it is being borne to the grave, and chanting, in the same melancholy cadence in which
mass is wont to be sung for the dead, this doleful requiem “Advenisti, O desiderabilis!
Quem expectabamus in tenebris!”[12]
Those who arranged this ill-omened pageant may have meant it for a little grim
pleasantry, or they may have intended to throw ridicule upon the man who was
advancing single-handed to do battle with both the temporal and spiritual powers; or it
may have been a last attempt to quell a spirit which no former device or threat had
been able to affright. But whatever the end in view, we recognize in this strange affair
a most fitting, though doubtless a wholly undesigned, representation of the state and
expectancies of Christendom at that hour. Had not the nations waited in darkness darkness deep as that of those who dwell among the dead - for the coming of a
deliverer? Had not such a deliverer been foretold? Had not Huss seen Luther’s day a
century off, and said to the mourners around his stake, as the patriarchs on their
deathbed, “I die, but God will surely visit you?”
The “hundred years” had revolved, and now the deliverer appears. He comes in
humble guise - in cowl and frock of monk. He appears to many of his own age as a
Greater appeared to His, “a root out of a dry ground.”
How can this poor despised monk save us? men asked. But he brought with him that
which far transcends the sword of conqueror - the Word, the Light; and before that
Light fled the darkness. Men opened their eyes, and saw that already their fetters,
which were ignorance and superstition, were rent. They were free.
The surging crowd soon pushed aside the bearer of the black cross, and drowned his
doleful strains in the welcome which they accorded the man who, contrary to the
expectation of every one, had at last entered their gates. Luther’s carriage could
advance at only a slow pace, for the concourse on the streets was greater than when
the emperor had entered a few days previously. The procession halted at the hotel of
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the Knights of Rhodes, which conveniently adjoined the hall of the Diet. “On
descending from his car,” says Pallavicino, “he said bravely, ‘God will be for
me.’”[13]
This reveals to us the secret of Luther’s courage.
After his recent illness, and the fatigue of his journey, now continued for fourteen
days, the Reformer needed rest. The coming day, too, had to be thought of; eventful
as the day now closing had been, the next would be more eventful still. But the
anxiety to see the monk was too great to permit him so much as an hour’s repose.
Scarcely had he taken possession of his lodgings when princes, dukes, counts,
bishops, men of all ranks, friends and foes, besieged his hotel and crowded into his
apartments. When one relay of visitors had been dismissed, another waited for
admission. In the midst of that brilliant throng Luther stood unmoved. He heard and
replied to all their questions with calmness and wisdom. Even his enemies could not
withhold their admiration at the dignity with which he bore himself. Where has the
miner’s son acquired those manners which princes might envy, that courage which
heroes might strive in vain to emulate, and where has he learnt that wisdom which has
seduced, say some - enlightened, say others - so many thousands of his countrymen,
and which none of the theologians of Rome have been able to withstand? To friend
and foe alike he was a mystery. Some revered him, says Pallavicino, as a prodigy of
knowledge, others looked upon him as a monster of wickedness; the one class held
him to be almost divine, the other believed him to be possessed by a demon.[14]
This crowd of visitors, So varied in rank and so different in sentiments, continued to
press around Luther till far into the night. They were now gone, and the Reformer was
left alone. He sought his couch, but could not sleep. The events of the day had left
him excited and restless. He touched his lute; he sang a verse of a favourite hymn; he
approached the window and opened the casement. Beneath him were the roofs of the
now silent city; beyond its walls, dimly descried, was the outline of the great valley
through which the Rhine pours its floods; above him was the awful, fathomless, and
silent vault. He lifted his eyes to it, as was his wont when his thoughts troubled
him.[15] There were the stars, fulfilling their courses far above the tumults of earth,
yet far beneath that throne on which sat a greater King than the monarch before whom
he was to appear on the morrow. He felt, as he gazed, a sense of sublimity filling his
soul, and bringing with it a feeling of repose. Withdrawing his gaze, and closing the
casement, he said, “I will lay me down and take quiet rest, for thou makest me dwell
in safety.”
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CHAPTER 6
LUTHER BEFORE THE DIET AT WORMS
Next morning - Wednesday, the 17th of April - at eight o’clock, the hereditary
Marshal of the Empire, Ulrich von Pappenheim, cited Luther to appear, at four of the
afternoon, before his Imperial Majesty and the States of the Empire. An important
crisis, not only in the life of Luther, but also in the history of that Reformation which
he had so recently inaugurated, was fast approaching, and the Reformer prepared
himself to meet it with all the earnestness that marked his deeply religious nature. He
remained all forenoon within doors, spending most of the time in prayer. His
supplications and the moans that accompanied them were audible outside his chamber
door. From kneeling before the throne of the Eternal God, with whom lay the issues
of the coming strife, Luther rose up to stand before the throne of Charles. At four the
Marshal of the Empire, accompanied by a herald, returned, and Luther set out with
them to the Diet. But it was no easy matter to find their way to the town-hall, where
the princes were assembled. The crowd in the streets was greater than on the previous
day.
Every window had its group of faces; every house-top had its cluster of spectators,
many of whom manifested considerable enthusiasm as they caught sight of the
Reformer. The marshal with his charge had proceeded but a little way, when he found
that he would never be able to force a passage through so dense a multitude. He
entered a private dwelling, passed out at the back door and conducting Luther through
the gardens of the Knights of Rhodes, brought hint to the town-hall; the people
rushing down alleys, or climbing to the roofs, to catch a glimpse of the monk as he
passed on to appear before Charles.
Arrived at the town-hall they found its entrance blocked up by a still denser crowd.
The soldiers had to clear a way by main force. In the vestibule and ante-chambers of
the hall every inch of space, every recess and window-sill was occupied by courtiers
and their friends, to the number of not less than 5,000 - Germans, Italians, Spaniards,
and other nationalities.
As they were elbowing their way, and were now near the door at which they were to
be ushered into the presence of the Diet, a hand was laid upon Luther’s shoulder. It
was that of the veteran George Freundsberg, whose name was a synonym with his
countrymen for gallantry. He had ere this been in many a hard fight, but never, he felt,
had he been in so hard a one as that to which the man on whose shoulder his hand
now rested was advancing. “My monk, my good monk,” said the soldier, “you are
now going to face greater peril than any of us have ever encountered on the bloodlest
field; but if you are right, and feel sure of it, go on, and God will fight for you.”[1]
Hardly had these words been uttered, when the door opened, and Luther passed in and
stood before the august assembly.
The first words which reached his ear after he had entered the Diet, whispered to him
by someone as he passed through the throng of princes to take his place before the
throne of Charles, were cheering: “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how
or what you shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall
speak;” while other voices said, “Fear not them that can kill the body, and after that
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have no more that they can do.” Thus were the hopes which he expressed when he
alighted at his hotel-door fulfilled. God was with him, for this was His voice.
The sudden transition from the uneasy crowd to the calm grandeur of the Diet had its
effect upon him. For a moment he seemed intimidated and bewildered. He felt all eyes
suddenly turned upon him; even the emperor scrutinised him keenly. But the agitation
of the Reformer quickly passed, and his equanimity and composure returned. Luther
advanced till he stood in front of the throne of Charles.
“Never,” says D’Aubigne, “had man appeared before so imposing an
assembly. The Emperor Charles V., whose sovereignty extended over great
part of the old and new worlds; his brother the Archduke Ferdinand; six
electors of the Empire, most of whose descendants now wear the kingly
crown; twenty-four dukes, the majority of whom were independent
sovereigns over countries more or less extensive, and among whom were
some whose names afterwards became formidable to the Reformation; the
Duke of Alva and his two sons; eight margraves; thirty archbishops, bishops,
and abbots; seven ambassadors, including those from the Kings of France
and England; the deputies of ten free cities; a great number of princes,
counts, and sovereign barons; the Papal nuncios - in all two hundred and four
persons: such was the imposing court before which appeared Martin Luther.
“This appearance was of itself a signal victory over the Papacy. The Pope
had condemned the man, and he was now standing before a tribunal which,
by this very act, set itself above the Pope. The Pope had laid him under an
interdict, and cut him off from all human society, and yet he was summoned
in respectful language, and received before the most august assembly in the
world. The Pope had condemned him to perpetual silence, and he was now
about to speak before thousands of attentive hearers drawn together from the
furthest parts of Christendom. An immense revolution had thus been effected
by Luther’s instrumentality. Rome was already descending from her throne,
and it was the voice of a monk that caused this humiliation.”[2]
Let us take a nearer view of the scene as it now presented itself to the eyes of Luther.
Chief in this assemblage of the powers spiritual and temporal of Christendom, sat the
emperor. He wore the Spanish dress, his only ornaments being the usual ostrichplume, and a string of pearls circling his breast, from which depended the insignia of
the Golden Fleece. A step lower than the imperial platform, on a chair of state, sat his
brother, Archduke Ferdinand. On the right and left of the throne were the six electors
of the Empire - the three ecclesiastical electors on the emperor’s right, and the three
secular electors on his left. At his feet sat the two Papal nuncios - on this side
Caraccioli, and on that Aleander. On the floor in front of the imperial seat was the
table at which were the clerks and Dr. Eccius, who interrogated Luther, and who is
not to be confounded with the Dr. Eck with whom the Reformer held the disputation
at Leipsic. From the table extending backwards to the wall were rows of benches,
which were occupied by the members of the Diet, princes, counts, archbishops, and
bishops, the deputies of the towns and the ambassadors of foreign States. Here and
there at various points of the hall were stationed guards, with polished armour and
glittering halberds.
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The sun was near his setting. His level rays, pouring in at the windows and falling in
rich mellow light on all within, gave additional splendour to the scene. It brought out
in strong relief the national costumes, and variously coloured dresses and equipments,
of the members of the Diet. The yellow silken robes of the emperor, the velvet and
ermine of the electors, the red hat and scarlet gown of the cardinal, the violet robe of
the bishop, the rich doublet of the knight, covered with the badges of his rank or
valour, the more sombre attire of the city deputy, the burnished steel of the warrior all showed to advantage in the chastened radiance which was now streaming in from
the descending luminary. In the midst of that scene, which might have been termed
gay but for its overwhelming solemnity, stood Luther in his monk’s frock.
John Eck or Eccius, Chancellor of the Archbishop of Treves,[3] and spokesman of the
Diet, rose in deep silence, and in a sonorous voice repeated, first in Latin and then in
German, the following words: “Martin Luther, his sacred and invincible Majesty has
cited you before his throne, with advice and counsel of the States of the Holy Roman
Empire, to answer two questions. First, do you acknowledge these books,” pointing
with his finger to a pile of volumes on the table, “to have been written by you?
Secondly, are you prepared to retract and disavow the opinions you have advanced in
them?[4]
Luther was on the point of owning the author-ship of the books, when his friend
Schurf, the jurist, hastily interposed. “Let the titles of the books be read,” said he.
The Chancellor Eck advanced to the table, and read, one after another, the titles of the
volumes - about twenty in all.[5]
This done, Luther now spoke. His bearing was respectful, and his voice low. Some
members of the Diet thought that it trembled a little; and they fondly hoped that a
retractation was about to follow.
The first charge he frankly acknowledged.
“Most gracious Emperor, and most gracious Princes and Lords,” said he, “the
books that have just been named are mine. As to the second, seeing it is a
question which concerns the salvation of souls, and in which the Word of
God than which nothing is greater in heaven or in earth - is interested, I
should act imprudently were I to reply without reflection. I entreat your
imperial Majesty, with all humility, to allow me time, that I may reply
without offending against the Word of God.”[6]
Nothing could have been more wise or more becoming in the circumstances. The
request for delay, however, was differently interpreted by the Papal members of the
Diet. He is breaking his fall, said they - he will retract. He has played the heretic at
Wittemberg, he will act the part of the penitent at Worms. Had they seen deeper into
Luther’s character, they would have come to just the opposite conclusion. This pause
was the act of a man whose mind was thoroughly made up, who felt how unalterable
and indomitable was his resolve, and who therefore was in no haste to proclaim it, but
with admirable self-control could wait for the time, the form, the circumstances in
which to make the avowal so that its full and concentrated strength might be felt, and
it might appear to all to be irrevocable.
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The Diet deliberated. A day’s delay was granted the monk. Tomorrow at this time
must he appear again before the emperor and the assembled estates, and give his final
answer. Luther bowed; and instantly the herald was by his side to conduct him to his
hotel.
The emperor had not taken his eyes off Luther all the time he stood in his presence.
His worn frame, his thin visage, which still bore traces of recent illness, and, as
Pallavicino has the candour to acknowledge, “the majesty of his address, and the
simplicity of his action and costume,” which contrasted strongly with the theatrical
airs and the declamatory address of the Italians and Spaniards, produced on the young
emperor an unfavourable impression, and led to a depreciatory opinion of the
Reformer.
“Certainly,” said Charles, turning to one of his courtiers as the Diet was breaking up,
“certainly that monk will never make a heretic of me.” [7]
Scarcely had the dawn of the 18th of April (1521) broke, when the two parties were
busy preparing for the parts they were respectively to act in the proceedings of a day
destined to influence so powerfully the condition of after-ages. The Papal faction,
with Aleander at its head, had met at an early hour to concert their measures.[8] Nor
was this wakeful activity on one side only. Luther, too, “prevented the dawning, and
cried.”
We shall greatly err if we suppose that it was an iron firmness of physical nerve, or
great intrepidity of spirit, that bore Luther up and carried him through these awful
scenes; and we shall not less err if we suppose that he passed through them without
enduring great suffering of soul. The services he was destined to perform demanded a
nature exquisitely strung, highly emotional, as well as powerfully reflective, with a
full complement of the truest sympathies and tenderest sensibilities. But such a
constitution renders its possessor, to a proportional extent, liable to the access of
tormenting anxieties and gloomy forecastings. There were moments in which Luther
gave way to these feelings. That they did not crush him, was owing to an influence
higher far than his natural powers, which filled his soul and sustained him till the
crisis had passed. The sweet, gracious, omnipotent Spirit of God descended upon him,
and shed a divine serenity and strength into his mind; but so sweetly and gently did it
infuse itself into, and work along with, his own natural faculties, that Luther was
sensible of the indwelling influence only by his feeling that - to use Melancthon’s
beautiful words - “he was more than himself.” He was also made sensible of this by
the momentary withdrawal at times of this upholding power.[9] Then he was again
simply himself weak as other men; and difficulties would of a sudden thicken around
him, and dangers would all at once rise like so many giants in his path, and threaten
him with destruction. So did it befall him on the morning of this eventful day. He felt
as if he were forsaken. A horror of great darkness filled his soul; he had come to
Worms to perish.
It was not the thought that he would be condemned and led to the stake that shook the
Reformer on the morning of his second appearance before the Imperial Diet. It was
something more terrible than to die - than to die a hundred times. The crisis had come,
and he felt himself unable to meet it. The upholding power which had sustained him
in his journey thither, and which had made the oft-repeated threat of foe, and the
gloomy anticipation of friend, as ineffectual to move him as ocean’s spray is to
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overturn the rock, had been withdrawn. What will he do? He sees a terrible
catastrophe approaching; he will falter before the Diet; he will wreck his cause; he
will blast the hopes of future ages; and the enemies of Christ and the Gospel will
triumph.
Let us draw near to his closet-door, and hear his groans and strong cryings! They
reveal to us the deep agony of his soul.
He has already been some considerable while engaged in prayer. His supplication is
drawing to a close.
“O God! my God, hearest thou me not? … My God, art thou dead? … No!
thou canst not die. Thou hidest thyself only. Thou hast chosen me for this
work; I know it well! … Act then, O God! … Stand at my side, for the sake
of thy well-beloved Jesus Christ, who is my defense, my shield, and my
strong tower.”
Then comes an interval of silence. Again we hear his voice. His wrestlings once more
become audible.
“Lord, where stayest thou? … O my God! where art thou? Come, come! I am
ready … I am ready to lay down my life for thy truth … patient as a lamb. For it
is the cause of justice - it is thine … I will never separate myself from thee;
neither now, nor through eternity. And though the world should be filled with
devils - though my body, which is still the work of thy hands, should be slain,
should be racked on the wheel … cut in pieces … reduced to ashes … my soul is
thine … Yes! thy Word is my assurance of it. My soul belongs to thee! It shall
abide for ever with thee … Amen! … O God! help me … Amen!” [10]
This is one of those solemn points in history where the seen touches the unseen;
where earth and heaven meet; where man the actor below, and the Great Actor above,
come both together, side by side upon the stage. Such points in the line of history are
rare; they occur only at long intervals, but they do occur. The veil is rent; a hand is
stretched out; a light breaks in as from a world separated indeed from that on which
the terrestrial actors are placed, yet lying at no great distance from it, and the reader of
history at such moments feels as if he were nearing the very precincts of the Eternal
Throne, and walking on mysterious and holy ground.
Luther now rises from his knees, and in the calm reigning in his soul feels that already
he has received an answer to his prayer. He sits down to arrange his thoughts, to draft,
in outline, his defence, and to search in Holy Scripture for passages wherewith to
fortify it. This task finished, he laid his left hand upon the sacred volume, which lay
open on the table before him, and raising his right hand to heaven, he swore to remain
ever faithful to the Gospel, and to confess it, even should he have to seal his
confession with his blood. After this the Reformer experienced a still deeper peace.
At four of the clock, the grand marshal and the herald presented themselves. Through
crowded streets, for the excitement grew greater with each passing hour, was the
Reformer conducted to the town-hall. On arriving in the outer court they found the
Diet in deep deliberation. When Luther should be admitted no one could say. One
hour passed, then another;[11] the Reformer was still standing amid the hum and
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clamour of the multitude that filled the area. So long a delay, in such circumstances,
was fitted to exhaust him physically, and to ruffle and distract him mentally.
But his tranquillity did not for a moment forsake him. He was in a sanctuary apart,
communing with One whom the thousands around him saw not. The night began to
fall; torches were kindled in the hall of the assembly. Through the ancient windows
came their glimmering rays, which, mingling with the lights of evening, curiously
speckled the crowd that filled the court, and imparted an air of quaint grandeur to the
scene.
At last the door opened, and Luther entered the hall. If this delay was arranged, as
some have conjectured, by Aleander, in the hope that when Luther presented himself
to the Diet he would be in a state of agitation, he must have been greatly disappointed.
The Reformer entered in perfect composure, and stood before the emperor with an air
of dignity. He looked around on that assembly of princes, and on the powerful
monarch who presided over them, with a calm, steadfast eye.
The chancellor of the Bishop of Treves, Dr. Eck, rose and demanded his answer.
What a moment! The fate of ages hangs upon it. The emperor leans forward, the
princes sit motionless, the very guards are still: all eager to catch the first utterances of
the monk.
He salutes the emperor, the princes, and the lords graciously. He begins his reply in a
full, firm, but modest tone.[12] Of the volumes on the table, the authorship of which
he had acknowledged the day before, there were, he said, three sorts. There was one
class of his writings in which he had expounded, with all simplicity and plainness, the
first principles of faith and morals. Even his enemies themselves allowed that he had
done so in a manner conformable to Scripture, and that these books were such as all
might read with profit. To deny these would be to deny truths which all admit - truths
which are essential to the order and welfare of Christian society.
In the second class of his productions he had waged war against the Papacy. He had
attacked those errors in doctrine, those scandals in life, and those tyrannies in
ecclesiastical administration and government, by which the Papacy had entangled and
fettered the conscience, had blinded the reason, and had depraved the morals of men,
thus destroying body and soul. They themselves must acknowledge that it was so. On
every side they heard the cry of oppression. Law and obedience had been weakened,
public morals polluted, and Christendom desolated by a host of evils temporal and
spiritual. Should he retract this class of his writings, what would happen? Why, that
the oppressor would grow more insolent, that he would propagate with greater licence
than ever those pernicious doctrines which had already destroyed so many souls, and
multiply those grievous exactions, those most iniquitous extortions which were
impoverishing the substance of Germany and transferring its wealth to other
countries. Nay, not only would the yoke that now weighs upon the Christian people be
rendered heavier by his retractation, it would become in a sense legitimate, for his
retractation would, in the circumstances, be tantamount to giving this yoke the
sanction of his Serene Majesty, and of all the States of the Empire. He should be the
most unhappy of men. He should thus have sanctioned the very iniquities which he
had denounced, and reared a bulwark around those very oppressions which he had
sought to overthrow. Instead of lightening the burden of his countrymen he should
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have made it ten-fold heavier, and himself would have become a cloak to cover every
kind of tyranny.
There was a third class of his writings in which he said he had attacked those persons
who put themselves forward as the defenders of the errors which had corrupted the
faith, the scandals which had disgraced the priesthood, and the exactions which had
robbed the people and ground them into the dust. These individuals he may not have
treated with much ceremony; it may be that he had assailed them with an acrimony
unbecoming his ecclesiastical profession; but although the manner may have been
faulty, the thing itself was right, and he could not retract it, for that would be to justify
his adversaries in all the impieties they had uttered, and all the iniquities they had
done.
But he was a man, he continued, and not God, and he would defend himself not
otherwise than Christ had done. If he had spoken evil or written evil, let them bear
witness of that evil. He was but dust and ashes, liable every moment to err, and
therefore it well became him to invite all men to examine what he had written, and to
object if they had aught against it. Let him but be convinced from the Word of God
and right reason that he was in error, and he should not need to be asked twice to
retract, he would be the first to throw his books into the flames.[13]
In conclusion, he warned this assembly of monarchs of a judgment to come: a
judgment not beyond the grave only, but on this side of it: a judgment in time. They
were on their trial. They, their kingdoms, their crowns, their dynasties, stood at a great
Bar. It was to them the day of visitation; it was now to be determined whether they
were to be planted in the earth, whether their thrones should be stable, and their power
should continue to flourish, or whether their houses should be razed, and their thrones
swept away in a deluge of wrath, in a flood of present evils, and of eternal desolation.
He pointed to the great monarchies of former ages - to Egypt, to Babylon, to Nineveh,
so mighty in their day, but which, by fighting against God, had brought upon
themselves utter ruin; and he counselled them to take warning by these examples if
they would escape the destruction that overtook them. “You should fear,” said he,
“lest the reign of this young and noble prince, on whom (under God) we build such
lofty expectations, not only should begin, but should continue and close, under the
most gloomy auspices. I might speak of the Pharaohs, of the Kings of Babylon, and
those of Israel, whose labours never more effectually contributed to their own
destruction, than when they sought by counsels, to all appearance most wise, to
strengthen their dominion. ‘God removeth mountains and they know it not who
overturneth them in his anger.’”
Having thus spoken, Luther sat clown and rested for a few minutes. He then rose once
more, and repeated in Latin what he had said in German. The chancellor had made
request that he do so, chiefly for the emperor’s sake, who understood German but
imperfectly. Luther spoke with equal facility and unabated animation in the second as
in the first delivery of his address. He had occupied in all two hours.[14]
To their amazement, the princes found that a change had somehow come over the
scene. Luther no longer stood at their bar - they had come suddenly to stand at his.
The man who two hours before had seemed to them the accused, was now
transformed into the judge - a righteous and awful judge - who, unawed by the crowns
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they wore and the armies they commanded, was entreating, admonishing, and
reproving them with a severe but wholesome fidelity, and thundering forth their
doom, should they prove disobedient, with a solemnity and authority before which
they trembled. “Be wise, ye kings.” What a light has the subsequent history of Europe
shed upon the words of Luther! and what a monument are the Popish kingdoms at this
day of the truth of his admonition!
At the conclusion of Luther’s address Dr. Eck again rose, and with a fretted air and in
peevish tones [15] said, addressing Luther:
“You have not answered the question put to you. We did not call you here to
bring into question the authority of Councils; there can be no dispute on that point
here. We demand a direct and precise answer: will you, or will you not, retract?”
Unmoved, Luther replied:
“Since your most Serene Majesty, and your High Mightiness, require from me a
direct and precise answer, I will give you one, and it is this. I can not submit my
faith either to the Pope or to the Councils, because it is clear as day they have
frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless, therefore, I am convinced
by the testimony of Scripture, or on plain and clear grounds of reason, so that
conscience shall bind me to make acknowledgment of error, I can and will not
retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything contrary to conscience.”
And then, looking round on the assembly, he said - and the words are among the
sublimest in history “HERE I STAND. I CAN DO NO OTHER. MAY GOD HELP ME. AMEN.”
[16]
These words still thrill us after three centuries. The impression which they made on
the princes was overpowering, and a murmur of applause, as emphatic as the respect
due to the imperial presence permitted, burst out in the Diet. Not from all, however;
its Papal partisans were dismayed. The monk’s NO had fallen upon them like a
thunderbolt. From that hall that NO would go forth, and travel throughout
Christendom, and it would awaken as it rolled onward the aspirations of liberty, and
summon the nations to rise and break the yoke of Rome. Rome had lost the battle.
After this it mattered absolutely nothing what her champions in the Diet might do
with Luther. They might burn him, but to what avail? The fatal word had already been
spoken; the decisive blow had been struck. A stake could neither reverse the defeat
they had sustained, nor conceal, although it might enhance, the glory of the victory
that Luther had won. Grievous, inexpressibly grievous, was their mortification. Could
nothing be done?
Luther was bidden withdraw for a little; and during his absence the Diet deliberated. It
was easy to see that a crisis had arisen, but not so easy to counsel the steps by which it
was to be met. They resolved to give him another opportunity of retracting.
Accordingly he was called in, led again in front of the emperor’s throne, and asked to
pronounce over again - now the third time - his YES or NO. With equal simplicity
and dignity he replied that “he had no other answer to give than that which he had
already given.” In the calmness of his voice, in the steadfastness of his eye, and in the
155
leonine lines of his rugged German face, the assembly read the stern, indomitable
resolve of his soul. Alas! for the partisans of the Papacy. The No could not be
recalled. The die had been cast irrevocably.
There are two Powers in the world, and there are none other greater than they. The
first is the Word of God without man, and the second is conscience within him. These
two Powers, at Worms, came into conflict with the combined forces of the world. We
have seen the issue. A solitary and undefended monk stood up as the representative of
conscience enlightened and upheld by the Word of God. Opposed to him was a power
which, wielding the armies of emperors, and the anathemas of Popes, yet met utter
discomfiture. And so has it been all along in this great war.
Victory has been the constant attendant of the one power, defeat the as constant
attendant of the other. Triumph may not always have come in the guise of victory; it
may have come by the cord, or by the axe, or by the fiery stake; it may have worn the
semblance of defeat; but in every case it has been real triumph to the cause, while the
worldly powers which have set themselves in opposition have been slowly consumed
by their own efforts, and have been undermining their dominion by the very successes
which they thought were ruining their rival.
156
CHAPTER 7
LUTHER PUT UNDER THE BAN OF THE EMPIRE
Our line of narration has, hitherto, been in the main continuous. We have followed the
current of Protestant development, which has flowed so far within well-defined
channels. But now we have reached the point where the movement notably widens.
We see it branching out into other countries, and laying hold on the political
combinations and movements of the age. We must therefore ascend, and take a more
extensive survey of the stage of Christendom than we have as yet had occasion to do,
noting the marvellously varied forms, and the infinitely diversified results, in which
Protestantism displays itself. It is necessary to mark not only the new religious centres
it is planting, but the currents of thought which it is creating; the new social life to
which it is giving birth; the letters and arts of which it is becoming the nurse; the new
communities and States with which it is covering Christendom, and the career of
prosperity it is opening to the nations, making the aspect of Europe so unlike what it
has been these thousand years past.
But first let us succinctly relate the events immediately following the Diet of Worms,
and try to estimate the advance the Protestant movement had made, and the position
in which we leave it at the moment when Luther entered into his “Patmos.”
“The Diet will meet again tomorrow to hear the emperor’s decision,” said Chancellor
Eck, dismissing the members for the night. The streets through which the princes
sought their homes were darkened but not deserted. Late as the hour was, crowds still
lingered in the precincts of the Diet, eager to know what the end would be. At last
Luther was led out between two imperial officers. “See, see,” said the bystanders,
“there he is, in charge of the guard! … Are they taking you to the prison?” they
shouted out. “No,” replied Luther, “they are conducting me to my hotel.” The crowd
instantly dispersed, and the city was left to the quiet of the night. Spalatin and many
friends followed the Reformer to his lodgings. They were exchanging mutual
congratulations, when a servant entered, bearing a silver jug filled with Eimbeck beer.
Presenting it to the doctor, the bearer said, “My master invites you to refresh yourself
with this draught.” “Who is the prince,” asked Luther, “who so graciously remembers
me?” It was the aged Duke Eric of Brunswick, one of the Papal members of the Diet.
Luther raised the vessel to his lips, took a long draught, and then putting it down, said,
“As this day Duke Eric has remembered me, so may the Lord Jesus Christ remember
him in the hour of his last struggle.” Not long after this, Duke Eric of Brunswick lay
dying. Seeing a young page standing by his bedside, he said to him, “Take the Bible,
and read in it to me.” The page, opening the Bible, read out these words: “Whosoever
shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to me, verily I
say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.[1] Duke Eric was refreshed in his turn.
When his heart and strength were failing him a golden cup was put to his lips, and he
drank there from a draught of the Water of Life.
The Elector Frederick was overjoyed at the appearance Luther had made before the
Diet. The force and pertinency of his matter, the eloquence of his words, his intrepid
yet respectful bearing, had not only delighted the sovereign of Saxony, but had made
a deep impression on the princes of the Diet. From that hour many of them became
attached friends of Luther and the Reformation. Some of them openly avowed their
change of sentiment at the time; in others the words of Luther bore fruit in after-years.
157
Frederick was henceforward more resolved than ever to protect the Reformer; but
knowing that the less his hand was seen in the matter, the more effectually would he
further the cause and shield its champion, he avoided personal intercourse with the
Reformer.[2] On one occasion only did the two men meet.
The mortification of the Papal party was extreme. They redoubled their activity; they
laid snares to entrap the Reformer. They invited him to private conferences with the
Archbishop of Treves; they submitted one insidious proposal after another, but the
constancy of the Reformer was not to be overcome. Meanwhile Aleander and his
conclave had been closeted with the emperor, concocting measures of another kind.
Accordingly, at the meeting of the Diet next day, the decision of Charles, written in
his own hand,[3] was delivered and read. It set forth that after the example of his
Catholic ancestors, the Kings of Spain and Austria, etc., he would defend, to the
utmost of his ability, the Catholic faith and the Papal chair. “A single monk,” said he,
“misled by his own folly, has risen against the faith of Christendom. To stay such
impiety, I will sacrifice my kingdom, my treasures, my friends, my body, my blood,
my life, and my soul.[4] I am about to dismiss the Augustine Luther. I shall then
proceed against him and his adherents as contumacious heretics, by
excommunication, by interdict, and by every means calculated to destroy them.”
But the zeal of Charles had outrun his powers. This proscription could not be carried
out without the consent of the States. The announcement of the emperor’s decision
raised a storm in the Diet. Two parties instantly declared themselves. Some of the
Papal party, especially the Elector of Brandenburg, demanded that Luther’s safeconduct should be disregarded, and that the Rhine should receive his ashes, as it had
done those of John Huss a century before.[5] But, to his credit, Louis, Elector
Palatine, expressed instant and utter abhorrence of the atrocious proposal. True, he
said, Huss was burned at the stake, but ever since calamity has never ceased to pursue
Germany. We dare not, said he, erect a second scaffold. He was joined by Duke
George, whose repudiation of the proposed infamy was the more emphatic that he was
Luther’s avowed enemy. That the princes of Germany should for a moment entertain
the purpose of violating a safe-conduct, was a thing he held impossible. They never
would bring such a stain upon the honour of the Fatherland; nor would they open the
reign of the young emperor with such an evil augury.[6] The Bavarian nobles, though
mostly Papal, also protested against the violation of the public faith. The proposition
met with the fate it deserved; it was expelled the Diet with scorn and indignation.
The extreme men of the Papal party would, without hesitation, have planted the
Reformer’s stake, but what would have been the result? A civil war in Germany the
very next day. The enthusiasm of all classes was immense. Even Dean Cochlaeus and
Cardinal Pallavicino assure us that there were hundreds of armed men in Worms
itself, ready to unsheathe the sword and demand blood for blood. Only a dozen miles
away, in his strong castle of Ebernburg, “the refuge of the Righteous,” was the
valorous Sickingen, and the fiery knight Hutten, at the head of a corps of men-at-arms
amounting to many thousands, ready to descend on Worms, should Luther be
sacrificed, to hold a reckoning with all those who were concerned in his death. From
the most distant cities of Germany men watched, their hands on their sword-hilts, to
see what would happen at Worms. The moderate men among the Papal members of
the Diet were well aware that to violate the safe-conduct, would simply be to give the
signal for outbreak and convulsion from one end of Germany to the other.
158
Nor could Charles be blind to so great a danger. Had he violated the safe-conduct, his
first would probably have been his last Diet; for the Empire itself would have been
imperilled. But if we may trust historians of name,[7] his conduct in this matter was
inspired by nobler sentiments than these of self-interest. In opposing the violation of
the plighted faith of the Empire, he is reported to have said that “though faith should
be banished from all the earth, it ought to find refuge with princes.” Certainly a kingly
sentiment, well becoming so powerful a potentate, but there was not wanting a little
alloy in its gold. War was then on the point of breaking out between him and the King
of France. Charles only half trusted the Pope, and even that was trusting him a little
too much. The Pope had just concluded a secret treaty with both kings,[8] Charles and
Francis, pledging his aid to both, with, of course, the wise reservation of giving it only
to the one by aiding whom he should, as future events might show, most effectually
aid himself. This double-handed policy on the part of Leo, Charles met by tactics
equally astute. In the game of checking the Pope, which he found he must needs play,
he judged that a living Luther would be a more valuable counter than a dead one.
“Since the Pope greatly feared Luther’s doctrine,” says Vetteri, “he designed to hold
him in check with that rein.”[9]
The result of so many conflicting yet conspiring circumstances was that Luther
departed in peace from those gates out of which no man had expected ever to see him
come alive. On the morning of the 26th April, surrounded by twenty gentlemen on
horseback, and a crowd of people who accompanied him beyond the walls, Luther left
Worms.[10] His journey back was accomplished amid demonstrations of popular
interest more enthusiastic even than those which had signalised his progress thither. A
few days after he was gone, the emperor fulminated his “edict” against him, placing
him beyond the pale of law, and commanding all men, whenever the term of Luther’s
safe-conduct expired, to withhold from him food and drink, succour and shelter, to
apprehend him and send him bound to the emperor. This edict was drafted by
Aleander, and ratified at a meeting of the Diet which was held, not in the hall of
assembly, but in the emperor’s own chamber. The Elector Frederick, the Elector
Palatine, and many others, had ere this left Worms. The edict was dated the 8th of
May, but in point of fact the imperial signature was appended to it on the 26th of
May, as Pallavicino tells us, in the cathedral church of Worms, after the celebration of
high mass; the design of the ante-dating being, the same writer says, to give to the
edict the appearance of carrying with it the authority of a full Diet.[11] This edict was
more discursive than such documents usually are. Its style, instead of being formal
and stately, was figurative and rhetorical. It opened with a profusion of epithets meant
to be descriptive of the great heretic of Wittemberg; it ran on, in equally fertile vein,
in an enumeration of the heresies, blasphemies, and vices into which he had fallen,
and the crimes to which he was inciting the People - “schism, war, murder, robbery,
incendiarism” - and it foretold in alarming terms the perdition into which he was
dragging society, and the ruin that impended unless his “furious rage” should be
checked. The edict reached its climax in the startling affirmation that “this man was
not a man, but Satan himself under the form of a man, and dressed in a monk’s
frock.”[12]
So spake Charles the Fifth to the electors, princes, prelates, and people of his Empire.
Luther had entered Worms with one sword hanging over his head - the anathema of
the Pope; he quits it with two unsheathed against him, for now to the Pope’s
excommunication is added the emperor’s ban.
159
Meanwhile the Reformer was going on his way. It was now the ninth day (May 4th)
since he set out from Worms. He had traversed the mountains of the Black Forest.
How grateful, after the stirs and grandeurs of Worms, their silent glades, their firembowered hamlets, their herds quietly pasturing, the morning shooting its silvery
shafts through the tall trees, and the evening with its shadows descending from the
golden west!
The pines were getting fewer, the hills were sinking into the plain; our traveller was
nearing Eisenach; he was now on ground familiar to him from boyhood. At this point
of the journey, Schurf, Jonas, and Sauven left him and went on to Wittemberg, taking
the high road that leads eastward over the plain by Elgurt. Amsdorff alone remained
with him. The doctor and his companion struck northward to the town of Mora to visit
his grandmother, who still survived. He passed the next day in the refreshing quiet of
this little place. The following morning he resumed his journey, and had reached a
lonely spot near the Castle of Altenstein, when a troop of horsemen, wearing masks
and completely armed, rushed suddenly upon him. The wagon in which he sat was
stopped, the waggoner thrown to the ground, and while one of the masks laid firm
hold of Amsdorff, another pulling Luther hastily out of the car, raised him to the
saddle, and grasping his horse’s bridle-rein, plunged quickly with him into the forest
of Thuringia.
All day long the troop of horsemen wandered hither and thither in the wood, their
purpose being to defy pursuit. When night fell they began to ascend a mountain, and a
little before midnight they came under the walls of a castle that crowned its summit
[13] The drawbridge was let down, the portcullis raised, and the cavalcade passing in,
the troopers dismounted in the rocky court of the castle. The captive was led up a
single flight of steps, and ushered into an apartment, where he was told he must make
a sojourn of unknown length, and during it must lay aside his ecclesiastical dress,
attire himself in the costume of a knight, which lay ready to his hand, and be known
only by the name of Knight George.
When morning broke, and Luther looked from the casement of his apartment, he saw
at a glance where he was. Beneath him were the forest glades, the hamlets, and all the
well-known scenes that adjoin Eisenach; although the town itself was not in view.
Farther away were the plains around Mora, and bounding these was the vast circle of
the hills that sweep along on the horizon.[14] He could not but know that he was in
the Castle of the Wartburg, and in friendly keeping.
Thus suddenly the man on whom all eyes were fixed was carried off, as if by a
whirlwind, no one knew whither; nor could any one in all Germany, save his captors,
toll whether he was now dead or alive. The Pope had launched his bolt, the emperor
had raised his mailed hand to strike, on every side destruction seemed to await the
Reformer; at that moment Luther becomes invisible. The Papal thunder rolls
harmlessly along the sky - the emperor’s sword cleaves only the yielding air.
Strangely have the scenes been shifted, and the stage has become suddenly dark. But a
moment ago the theatre was crowded with great actors, emperors, princes,
ecclesiastical dignitaries, and ambassadors. Powerful interests were in conflict, and
mighty issues were about to be decided. The thunder of a fearful ban had just pealed
forth, the sword of the emperor had left its scabbard, matters were hurrying to a crisis,
and the crash of some terrible catastrophe seemed to be impending. All at once the
160
action is arrested, the brilliant throng vanishes, a deep silence succeeds the tumult and
noise, and we have time to meditate on what we have seen, to revolve its lessons, and
to feel in our hearts the presence and the hand of that Great Ruler who “sits King
upon the floods.”
161
FOOTNOTES - BOOK SIX
CHAPTER 1
[1] Seckendorf, lib. 1., sec. 27, p. 111.
[2] Sleidan, bk. 1., p. 21.
[3] Ibid., p. 13.
[4] MullerUniv. Hist., bk. 19, sec. 1.
[5] Robertson, Hist. Charles V., bk. 1., p. 83.
[6] Sleidan, bk. 1., p. 18.
[7] After the election the ambassadors of Charles offered a large sum of money to the
Elector Frederick; he not only refused it, but commanded all about him to take not a
farthing. (Sleidan, bk. 1., p. 18.)
[8] L. EPP., 2., p. 452.
[9] Sleidan, bk. 1., p. 31.
[10] Seckendorf, lib. 1., sec. 28, p. 112.
[11] Dr. Chalmers.
CHAPTER 2
[1] Polano, 1., p. 9.
[2] Pallavicino, lib. 1., cap. 20.
[3] Pallavicino, lib. 1., cap. 20.
[4] Sleidan, bk. 2., p. 35.
[5] Art. 33 of the bull condemns this proposition: - “Haereticos comburi est contra
voluntatem Spiritus.” (Bullarium Romanum, tom. 1., p. 610; Luxemburg, 1742.)
[6] Sarpi, livr. 1., p. 28; Basle, 1738. Sleidan, bk 1 p.35
[7] Sleidan, bk. 1., p. 32.
[8] Pallavicino, lib. 1. cap. 20, p. 81.
[9] D’Aubigne, vol. 2., p. 135.
[10] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 28, p. 112. Sleidan, bk. 2, p. 36.
[11] Lath. Opp., 2: 315; Jenae.
162
[12] Seckendorf, lib. l, sec. 31, p. 121.
[13] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 22.
[14] Luth. Opp. (Lat.) 2, 123. D’Aubigne, 2 152.
CHAPTER 3
[1] Published, privately in 1515; publicly in 1516. He thus, as Gerdesius says,
exhibited the foundation and rule of all reformation. (Hist. Renovati Doctrinoeque
Reformata, tom. 1, p. 147.)
[2] Sleidan, bk. 2, p. 37.
[3] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 23.
[4] Pallavicino informs us that Aleander was born of a respectable family in Friuli.
[5] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 34, p. 125.
[6] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 23, pp. 91, 92.
[7] Ibid., p. 89. Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 34, p. 124.
[8] Seckendorf, lib. 1 sec. 34, p, 125
[9] Ibid
[10] Pallavicino, lib. 1., cap. 24, p. 93.
[11] Muller, Univ. Hist. vol. 2, pp. 406, 420.
[12] Robertson, Hist. Charles V, bk.2
[13] Muller, Univ. Hist., vol. 3, p. 32
[14] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 25, pp. 95, 96: “Il gran seguito di Martino; 1’ alienazione
del popolo d’Alemagna dalla Corte di Roma … e il rischio di perdere la Germania per
avarizia d’ una moneta.”
[15] This bull is engrossed in Bullarum, Jan., 1521, under the title of Decret.
Romannm Pontificem.
[16] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 24, p. 93.
[17] Weimar State Papers: apud D’Aubigne, vol. 2, p. 192.
[18] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 37, p. 143.
CHAPTER 4
[1] See Aleander’s speech in Pallavicino, bk. 1, chap. 25, pp. 98-108.
163
[2] “Onde vvengadella Germania per la licenziosa Eresia di Lutero cio ch’ e avvenuto
dell’ Asia per la sensuale Superstizione di Macometto.” (Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 25.)
[3] Pallavicino, lib. 1., cap. 25, p. 97. Seckendorf has said that Pallavicino invented
this speech and put it into the mouth of Aleander. Some Protestant writers have
followed Seckendorf. There is no evidence in support of this supposition. D’Aubigne
believes in the substantial authenticity of the speech. Pallavicino tells us the sources
from which he took the speech; more especially Aleander’s own letters, still in the
library of the Vatican.
[4] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 26, p. 108: “la maggior partede raunati concorreva nella
sentenza d’ estirpar l’ Eresia Luterana.”
[5] The progress which the reforming spirit had made, even among the German
ecclesiastics, may be judged of from the indifference of many who were deeply
interested in the maintenance of the old system. “Even those,” complained Eck, “who
hold from the Pope the best benefices and the richest canonries remained mute as
fishes; many of them even extolled Luther as a man filled with the Spirit of God, and
called the defenders of the Pope sophists and flatterers.” (D’Aubigne.)
[6] The important catalogue has been preserved in the archives of Weimar.
(Seckendorf.p.328; apud D’Aubigue, vol. 2, p. 203.)
[7] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 26, p. 108.
[8] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 38, p. 150. Varillas says that Charles had a strong desire to
see Luther.
[9] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 26, p. 109.
[10] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 38, p. 151
[11] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 26, p. 109.
[12] “It may perhaps appear strange,” says Moaheim, “and even inconsistent with the
laws of the Church, that a cause of a religious nature should be examined and decided
in the public Diet. But it must be considered that these Diets in which the archbishops,
bishops, and even certain abbots had their places, as well as the princes of the Empire,
were not only political assemblies, but also provincial councils for Germany, to whose
jurisdiction, by the ancient canon law, such causes as that of Luther properly
belonged.” (Eccl. Hist., cent. 16, bk. 4, sec. 1, ch. 2.)
[13] Sleidan, bk. 3, p. 42.
CHAPTER 5
[1] L.Epp., 1 574. D’Aubigne, 2, 208.
[2] Luth. Opp., 1, 987.
[3] Maimbourg has obligingly provided our traveler with a magnificent chariot and a
guard of a hundred horsemen. There is not a particle of proof to show that this
164
imposing cavalcade ever existed save on the page of this narrator. The Canon of
Altenburg, writing from Worms to John, brother of Frederick the Elector, April 16th,
1521, says: “To- day Mr. Martin arrived here in a common Saxon wagon.”
(Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 39, p. 152.)
[4] Letter of Canon of Altenburg to John of Saxony.
[5] Letter of Warbeccius, Canon of Altenburg. (Secken-dorf, lib. 1, sec. 39, p. 152 Additio.)
[6] Luth. Opp. (L) 12:485. D’Aubigne 2: 224-226.
[7] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 39, p. 152.
[8] Letter of Canon of Altenburg to John of Saxony. (Seckendorf.)
[9] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 39, p. 152. “These words,” says Seekendorf, “were
remembered by many. They were repeated by Luther himself, a little while before his
death, at Eisleben.” He added, “I know not whether I would be as courageous now.”
[10] Audin, 2, p. 90. The common opinion is that this hymn, “Ein feste Burg ist unser
Gott,” was composed some years later. Audin’s supposition, however, has great
inherent probability, and there are some facts which seem to support it. The combined
rhythm and strength of this hymn can not be transferred to a translation.
[11] “I entered Worms in a covered wagon and my monk’s gown.” said Luther
afterwards. (Luth. Opp. 17, 587.)
[12] “Lo, thou art come, O thou greatly desired one, whom we have waited for in the
darkness of the grave.” (M. Adam, Vita Lutheri, p. 118.)
[13] “E nello smontar di carozza disse forte: Iddio sard por me.” (Pallavicino, lib. 1,
cap. 26, p. 109.)
[14] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 26, p. 109.
[15] Worsley, vol. 1, p. 230.
CHAPTER 6
[1] Seckendort, lib. 1, sec. 42, p. 156.
[2] D’Aubigne, vol. 2, p. 237.
[3] A learned man,” says Pallavicino, “a Catholic, and an intimate friend of
Aleander’s.”
[4] Luth. Opp. (L) 17, 588. D’Aubigne, vol. 2, p. 238. 1045
[5] Pallavicino tells us that these had been collected by the industry of Aleander.
[6] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 26, p. 110.
165
[7] “Costui certamente non mi farebbe mai diventar Eretico.” (Pallavicino, lib. 1, p.
110.)
[8] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 27, p. 110.
[9] Seckendorf (lib. 1, p. 156) gives extracts from Luther’s letters to Spalatin,
descriptive of his feelings at Worms, which prove this.
[10] “This prayer,” says D’Aubigne, “is to be found in a collection of documents
relative to Luther’s appearance at Worms, under No. 16, in the midst of safe-conducts
and other papers of a similar nature. One of his friends had no doubt overheard it, and
has transmitted it to posterity. In our opinion, it is one of the most precious documents
in all history.” (Hist. Reform., vol. 2, p. 243.)
[11] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 41, p. 154.
[12] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 41, p. 154.
[13] Sarpi, Hist. Conc. Trent., tom. 1, pp, 32, 33; Basle, 1738.
[14] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 27, p. 111. Pallavicino, who has given Aleander’s speech
before the Diet at such great length, and in such eloquent phrase, has devoted scarcely
more than half a page to Luther’s. The effect of Aleander’s address evaporated in a
week: Luther’s has been stirring men these three centuries, and its influence is still
powerful for good. For the disparity of the two reports, however, we do not blame the
historian of the Council of Trent. His narrative, he tells us, was compiled from
original documents in the Vatican Library, and especially the letters of Aleander, and
it was natural perhaps that Aleander should make but short work with the oration of
his great opponent. We have Luther’s speech from German sources. It is given with
considerable fullness by D’Aubigne, who adds, “This speech, as well as all the other
expressions we quote, is taken literally from authentic documents. See L. Opp. (L) 17,
776 - 780.” (D’Aubigne, vol 2, p. 248, foot-note.)
[15] Sleidan, bk. 3, p. 44.
[16] Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott belle mir. Amen.”
CHAPTER 7
[1] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 44, Additio 1, p. 160.
[2] Ibid., lib. 1, sec. 42, Additio 1, p. 157.
[3] Cochlaeus, p. 32. Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 27, p. 111.
[4] Pero aver egli statuito d’ impiegar i regni, i tesori, gli amici, il corpo, il sangue la
vita, e lo spirito.” (Pallavicino, lib. 1, p. 112.) How affecting these words when one
thinks of what now is the condition of the kingdom, the treasures, and the royal house
of Spain!
[5] Sleidan, bk. 3, p. 44. Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 44, p.160. Polano, Hist. Counc. Trent,
bk. 1, p. 14; Lond., 1629.
166
[6] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 44, Additio 1, p. 160.
[7] Seckendorf (quoting from Altingius), lib. 1, sec. 44, Additio 1:Pallavicino denies
that it was proposed to violate the safe-conduct. He founds his denial upon the silence
of Aleander. But the Papal nuncio’s silence, which is exceedingly natural, can weigh
but little against the testimony of so many historians.
[8] The imperial proscription of Luther is said to have been dated on the same day on
which the treaty with the Pope was concluded. (Ranke, Hist. of the Popes, vol. 1, p.
65; Bohn’s edit., Lond., 1847.)
[9] Sommario della Storia d’ Italia. (Ranke, vol. 1, p. 66.)
[10] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 28, p. 114.
[11] Pallavicino, lib. 1, cap. 28, p. 117. Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 42, p. 158.
[12] “Nicht ein Mensch, sondern als der bose Fiend in Gestalt eines Menschen mit
angenommener Monsch-skutten.” - Luth. Opp. (L) 17:598.
[13] Seckendorf, lib. 1, sec. 44, p. 159. L. Epp., 2:3.
[14] The author has surveyed the scene from the same window, and he describes it as
he saw it, and as it must have been daily seen by Luther. The hill of the Wartburg is a
steep and wooded slope on all sides, save that on which the window of Luther’s
chamber is placed. On this side a bare steep runs sheer down to almost the foot of the
mountain.
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BOOK SEVEN
PROTESTANTISM IN ENGLAND, FROM THE
TIMES OF WYCLIFFE TO THOSE OF HENRY VIII
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CHAPTER 1
THE FIRST PROTESTANT MARTYRS IN ENGLAND
The Protestant movement, which, after flowing during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries within narrow channels, began in the sixteenth to expand and to fill a wider
area, had two sources. The first, which was in heaven, was the Holy Spirit; the
second, which was on the earth, was the Bible.
For ages the action of both agencies on human society had been suspended. The Holy
Spirit was withheld and the Bible was hidden. Hence the monstrous errors that
deformed the Church, and hence all the frightful evils that afflicted the world.
At length a new era had opened. That sovereign, beneficent, and eternal Spirit, who
acts when and where and how He will, began again to make His presence felt in the
world which He had made; He descended to erect a Temple in which He might dwell
with men upon the earth. The Omnipotent and Blessed One put forth His creative
power through the instrumentality which He Himself had prepared, even the
Scriptures of Truth, which He inspired holy men to write. The recovery of the Holy
Scriptures and their diffusion over Christendom was the one instrumentality, as the
Spirit who dwells in and operates through the Scriptures was the one Author, of that
great movement which was now renewing the world. On this supposition only - that
this great movement was not originated by human forces, but created by a Divine
agent - can we account for the fact that in all the countries of Christendom it appeared
at the same moment, took the same form, and was followed by the same blessed fruits
- virtue in private life and order in public.
We left Luther in the Wartburg. At a moment of great peril, Providence opened for
him an asylum; not there to live idly, but to do a work essential to the future progress
of Protestantism. While Luther is toiling out of sight, let us look around and note the
progress of Protestantism in the other countries of Christendom. We return to
England, the parent land of the movement, briefly to chronicle events during the
century and a half which divides the era of Wycliffe from that of Luther.
Wycliffe was dead (1384), and now it was seen what a hold he had taken of England,
and how widely his doctrine had spread. His disciples, styled sometimes Wycliffites,
sometimes Lollards, travelled the kingdom preaching the Gospel. In the Act of
Richard II. (1382), which the clergy, practising upon the youth of the king, got passed
without the knowledge of the Commons, mention is made of a great number of
persons “going about from country to country, and from town to town, in frieze
gowns, without the licence of the ordinaries, and preaching, not only in churches and
churchyards, but in market-places and at fairs, divers sermons containing heresies and
notorious errors, to the blemishing of the Christian faith, the estate of holy Church,
and the great peril of souls.”[1] Wycliffe was yet alive, and these men “in frieze
gowns,” which the Act empowered the bishops to seize and confine in their houses
and prisons, were the missionaries of the great Reformer. These preachers were not
troubled with doubts touching their right to assume the sacred office. They reasoned
that the same charter which gave to the Church her right to exist, gave to her members
the right to discharge those functions that are needful to her welfare. They went not to
Rome, therefore, but to the Bible for their warrant to minister.
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Their countrymen flocked to their sermons. The soldiers mingled with the civilians,
sword in hand, ready to defend the preacher should violence be offered to him.
Several of the nobility joined their party, and were not ashamed to confess themselves
the disciples of the Gospel. There followed, wherever their doctrine was received, a
reformation of manners, and in some places a purging of the public worship by the
removal of idolatrous symbols.
These signs promised much; in the eyes of the Wycliffites they promised everything.
They believed that England was ready to throw off the yoke of Rome, and in this
belief they resolved on striking a vigorous blow at the reigning superstition. Within
ten years of the death of Wycliffe (1395) they petitioned Parliament for a reformation
in religion, accompanying their petition with twelve “conclusions,” or grounds,[2] for
such a reformation; of which the second, which we give as a sample of the style and
spirit of the whole, was as follows: - “That our usual priesthood, which took its
original at Rome, and is feigned to be a power higher than angels, is not that
priesthood which Christ ordained unto His disciples. This conclusion is thus proved:
forasmuch as this priesthood is done with signs, and Pontifical rites, and ceremonies,
and benedictions of no force and effect, neither having any ground in Scripture,
forasmuch as the bishops ordinal and the New Testament do nothing at all agree:
neither do we see that the Holy Ghost doth give any good gift through any such signs
or ceremonies, because that He, together with noble and good gifts, can not consist
and be in any person with deadly sin. The corollary or effect of this conclusion is that
it is a lamentable and dolorous mockery unto wise men to see the bishops mock and
play with the Holy Ghost in the giving of their orders, because they give (shaven)
crowns for their characters, and marks instead of white hearts, and this character is the
mark of Antichrist, brought into the holy Church, to cloak and cover their idleness.”
These conclusions they also posted up on the walls of Westminster, and suspended on
the gates of St. Paul’s.[3]
England was not yet prepared for such “plainness of speech.” The great mass of the
nation, without instruction, awed by tradition, and ruled over by the hierarchy, was
inert and hostile. The Wycliffites forgot, too, when they went to Parliament, that
Reformations are not made, they must grow. They can not be evoked by royal
proclamations, or by Parliamentary edicts; they must be planted by the patient labour
of evangelists, and watered not unfrequently by the blood of martyrs. Of all harvests
that of truth is the slowest to ripen, although the most plentiful and precious when it
has come to full maturity. These were lessons which these early disciples had yet to
learn.
The bold step of the Wycliffites threw back the movement, or we ought rather to say,
made it strike its roots downward in the nation’s heart. The priests took the alarm.
Arundel, Archbishop of York, posted with all speed to Ireland, where Richard II. then
was, and implored him to return and arrest the movement, which was growing to a
head. His pious wife, Anne of Luxemburg, a disciple of Wycliffe, was dead (1394),
and the king readily complied with Arundel’s request. He forbade the Parliament to
proceed in the matter of the Lollard petition, and summoning the chief authors of the
“conclusions” before him, he threatened them with death should they continue to
defend their opinions.[4] But Richard II. did not long retain a sceptre which he had
begun to wield against the Lollards. Insurrection broke out in his kingdom; he was
deposed, and thrown into the Castle of Pontefract. There are but few steps between
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the prisons and the graves of princes. Richard perished miserably by starvation, and
was succeeded by Henry IV., son of that Duke of Lancaster who had been the friend
of Wycliffe.
The cause which the father had defended in the person of its great apostle, found no
favour in the eyes of the son. Henry had mounted the throne by Arundel’s help, and
he must needs repay the service by devotion to the Church of which Arundel was one
of the main pillars. To consolidate his power, the son of John of Gaunt sacrificed the
Wycliffites. In his reign was passed a law adjudging men to death for religion - the
first of the sort to stain the Statute-book. It enacted that all incorrigible heretics should
be burned alive.
The preamble of the Act sets forth that “divers false and perverse people of a certain
new sect of the faith of the Sacraments, damnably thinking, and against the law of
God and the Church, usurping the office of preaching,” were going from diocese to
diocese, holding conventicles, opening schools, writing books, and wickedly teaching
the people.
To remedy this, the diocesan was empowered to arrest all persons suspected of
heresy, confine them in his strong prison, bring them to trial, and if on conviction they
refused to abjure, they were to be delivered to the sheriff of the county or the mayor
of the town, who were “before the people, in a high place, them to do to be burnt.”
Such was the statute DeHoeretico Comburendo, of which Sir Edward Coke remarks
that it appears that the bishops are the proper judges of heresy, and that the business
of the sheriff was only ministerial to the sentence of the spiritual court.[5] “King
Henry IV.,” say’s Fox, “was the first of all English Kings that began the unmerciful
burning of Christ’s saints for standing against the Pope.” [6]
The law was not permilted to remain a dead letter. William Sawtrey, formerly Rector
of St. Margaret’s in Lynn, and now of St. Osyth in London - “a good man and faithful
priest,” says Fox - was apprehended, and an indictment preferred against him. Among
the charges contained in it we find the following: - “That he will not worship the cross
on which Christ suffered, but only Christ who suffered upon the cross.” “That after
pronouncing the Sacramental words of the body of Christ, the bread remaineth of the
same nature that it was before, neither doth it cease to be bread.” He was condemned
as a heretic by the archbishop’s court, and delivered to the secular power to be
burned.[7]
Sawtrey being the first Protestant to be put to death in England, the ceremony of his
degradation was gone about with great formality. First the paten and chalice were
taken out of his hands; next the chasuble was pulled off his back, to signify that now
he had been completely stripped of all his functions and dignities as a priest. Next the
New Testament and the stole were taken away, to intimate his deposition from the
order of deacon, and the withdrawal of his power to teach. His deposition as
subdeacon was effected by stripping him of the alb. The candlestick and taper were
next taken from him to “put from thee all order of an acolyte.” He was next deprived
of the holy water book, and with it he was bereft of all power as an exorcist [8] By
these and sundry other ceremonies, too tedious to recite, William Sawtrey was made
as truly a layman as before the oil and scissors of the Church had touched him.
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Unrobed, disqualified for the mystic ministry, and debarred the sacrificial shrines of
Rome, he was now to ascend the steps of an altar, whereon he was to lay costlier
sacrifice than any to be seen in the Roman temples. That altar was the stake, that
sacrifice was himself. He died in the flames, February 12, 1401. As England had the
high honour of sending forth the first Reformer, England had likewise the honour, in
William Sawtrey, of giving the first martyr to Protestantism.[9]
His martyrdom was a virtual prophecy. To Protestantism it was a sure pledge of
victory, and to Rome a terrible prognostic of defeat! Protestantism had now made the
soil of England its own by burying its martyred dead in it. Henceforward it will feel
that, like the hero of classic story, it stands on its native earth, and is altogether
invincible. It may struggle and bleed and endure many a seeming defeat; the conflict
may be prolonged through many a dark year and century, but it must and shall
eventually triumph. It has taken a pledge of the soil, and it can not possibly perish
from off it. Its opponent, on the other hand, has written the prophecy of its own defeat
in the blood it has shed, and struggle as it may it shall not prevail over its rival, but
shall surely fall before it.[10]
The names of many of these early sufferers, to whom England owes, under
Providence, its liberties and its Scriptural religion, have fallen into oblivion.
Among those whom the diligence of our ancient chroniclers has rescued from this fate
is that of John Badby. He was a layman of the diocese of Worcester. Arraigned on the
doctrine of the Sacrament, he frankly confessed his opinions. In vain, he held, were
the “Sacramental words” spoken over the bread on the altar: despite the conjuration it
still remained “material bread.” If it was Christ whom the priest produced on the altar,
let him be shown Him in his true form, and he would believe. There could be but one
fate in reserve for the man who, instead of bowing implicitly to his “mother the
Church,” challenged her to attest her prodigy by some proof or sign of its truth. He
was convicted before the Bishop of Worcester of “the crime of heresy,” but reserved
for final judgment before Arundel, now become the Archbishop of Canterbury.[11]
On the 1st of March, 1409, the haughty Arundel, assembling his suffragans, with
quite a crowd of temporal and spiritual lords, sat down on the judgment-seat in St.
Paul’s, and commanded the humble confessor to be brought before him. He hoped,
perhaps, that Badby would be awed by this display of authority. In this, however, he
was mistaken. The opinions he had avowed before the Bishop of Worcester, he
maintained with equal courage in presence of the more august tribunal of the primate,
and the more imposing assemblage now convened in St. Paul’s. The prisoner was
remanded till the 15th of the same month, being consigned meanwhile to the convent
of the Preaching Friars, the archbishop himself keeping the key of his cell,[12]
When the day for the final sentence, the 15th of March, came, Arundel again
ascended his episcopal throne, attended by a yet more brilliant escort of lords spiritual
and temporal, including a prince of the blood. John Badby had but the same answer to
give, the same confession to make, on his second as on his first appearance. Bread
consecrated by the priest was still bread, and the Sacrament of the altar was of less
estimation than the humblest man there present.[13] This rational reply was too
rational for the men and the times. To them it appeared simple blasphemy. The
archbishop, seeing “his countenance stout and his heart confirmed,” pronounced John
Badby “an open and public heretic,” and the court “delivered him to the secular
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power, and desired the temporal lords then and there present, that they would not put
him to death for that his offence,” as if they had been innocent of all knowledge that
that same secular power to which they now delivered him had, at their instigation,
passed a law adjudging all heretics to the fire, and that the magistrate was bound
under excommunication to carry out the statute De Haeritico Comburendo.
A few hours only elapsed till the fire was lighted. Sentence was passed upon him in
the forenoon: on the afternoon of the same day, the king’s writ, ordering the
execution, arrived. Badby was hurried to Smithfield, “and there,” says Fox, “being put
in an empty barrel, he was bound with iron chains fastened to a stake, having dry
wood put about him.” As he was standing in the barrel, Prince Henry, the king’s
eldest son, appeared at the outskirts of the crowd. Touched with pity for the man
whom he saw in this dreadful position, he drew near and began to address him,
exhorting him to forsake these “dangerous labyrinths of opinion” and save his life.
The prince and the man in the barrel were conversing together when the crowd
opened and the procession of the Sacrament, with twelve torches burning before it,
passed in and halted at the stake. The Prior of St. Bartholomew, coming forward,
requested Badby to speak his last word.
The slightest act of homage to the Host, once more presented before him, would loose
his chain and set him free. But no! amid the faggots that were to consume him, as
before the assembled grandees in St. Paul’s, the martyr had but the same confession to
make: “it was hallowed bread, not God’s body.”
The priests withdrew, the line of their retreat through the dense crowd being marked
by their blazing torches, and the Host borne aloft underneath a silken canopy. The
torch was now brought. Soon the sharp flames began to prey upon the limbs of the
martyr. A quick cry escaped him in his agony, “Mercy, mercy!” But his prayer was
addressed to God, not to his persecutors. The prince, who still lingered near the scene
of the tragedy, was recalled by this wail from the stake. He commanded the officers to
extinguish the fires. The executioners obeyed. Addressing the half-scorched man, he
said that if he would recant his errors and return to the bosom of the Church, he would
not only save him from the fire, but would give him a yearly stipend all the days of
his life.[14] It was kindly meant, no doubt, on the part of the prince, who
commiserated the torments but could not comprehend the joys of the martyr. Turn
back now, when he saw the gates opening to receive him, the crown ready to be
placed upon his head? No! not for all the gold of England. He was that night to sup
with a greater Prince. “Thus,” says Fox, “did this valiant champion of Christ,
neglecting the prince’s fair words … not without a great and most cruel battle, but
with much greater triumph of victory … perfect his testimony and martyrdom in the
fire.”[15]
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CHAPTER 2
THE THEOLOGY OF THE
EARLY ENGLISH PROTESTANTS
This violence did not terrify the disciples of the truth. The stakes they had seen
planted in Smithfield, and the edict of “burning” now engrossed on the Statute-book,
taught them that the task of winning England would not be the easy one which they
had dreamed; but this conviction neither shook their courage nor abated their zeal. A
cause that had found martyrs had power enough, they believed, to overcome any force
on earth, and would one day convert, not England only, but the world. In that hope
they went on propagating their opinions, and not without success, for, says Fox, “I
find in registers recorded, that these foresaid persons, whom the king and the Catholic
Fathers did so greatly detest for heretics, were in divers counties of this realm
increased, especially at London, in Lincolnshire, in Norfolk, in Hertfordshire, in
Shrewsbury, in Calais, and other quarters.”[1] Wycliffe was but newly laid in his
grave; Huss had not yet begun his career in Bohemia; in France, in Germany, and the
other countries of Christendom, all was dark; but in England the day had broken, and
its light was spreading. The Reformation had confessors and martyrs within the
metropolis; it had disciples in many of the shires; it had even crossed the sea, and
obtained some footing in Calais, then under the English crown: and all this a century
wellnigh before Henry VIII., whom Romish writers have credited as the author of the
movement, was born.
William Thorpe, in the words of the chronicler, “was a valiant warrior under the
triumphant banner of Christ.” His examination before Thomas Arundel, Archbishop
of Canterbury, shows us the evangelical creed as it was professed by the English
Christians of the fifteenth century. Its few and simple articles led very directly to the
grand centre of truth, which is Christ. Standing before him, these early disciples were
in the Light. Many things, as yet, they saw but dimly; it was only the early morning;
the full day was at a distance: those great lights which God had ordained to illuminate
the skies of His Church in the following century, had not yet arisen: the mists and
shadows of a night, not yet wholly chased away, lay dense on many parts of the field
of revelation; but one part of it was, in their eyes, bathed in light; this was the centre
of the field, whereon stands the cross, with the great Sacrifice lifted up upon it, the
one object of faith, the everlasting Rock of the sinner’s hope. To this they clung, and
whatever tended to shake their faith in it, or to put something else in its room, they
instinctively rejected. They knew the voice of the Shepherd, and a stranger they
would not follow.
Imprisoned in the Castle of Saltwood (1407), Thorpe was brought before the primate,
Arundel, for examination. The record of what passed between him and the archbishop
is from the pen of Thorpe. He found Arundel in “a great chamber,” with a numerous
circle around him; but the instant the archbishop perceived him, he withdrew into a
closet, attended by only two or three clerics.
Arundel: “William, I know well that thou hast this twenty winters or more travelled in
the north country, and in divers other countries of England, sowing false doctrine,
labouring, with undue teaching, to infect and poison all this land.”
174
Thorpe: “Sir, since ye deem me a heretic, and out of the faith, will you give me, here,
audience to tell you my belief?”
Arundel: “Yea, tell on.”
Hereupon the prisoner proceeded to declare his belief in the Trinity; in the Incarnation
of the Second Person of the God-head; and in the events of our Lord’s life, as these
are recorded by the four Evangelists: continuing thus Thorpe: “When Christ would make an end here of this temporal life, I believe that in
the next day before He was to suffer passion He ordained the Sacrament of His flesh
and His blood, in form of bread and wine - that is, His own precious body - and gave
it to His apostles to eat; commanding them, and, by them all their after-comers, that
they should do it in this form that He showed to them, use themselves, and teach and
administer to other men and women, this most worshipful and holiest sacrament, in
remembrance of His holiest living, and of this most true preaching, and of His willing
and patient suffering of the most painful passion.”
“And I believe that, this Christ, our Saviour, after that He had ordained this most
worthy Sacrament of His own precious body, went forth willingly … and as He
would, and when He would, he died willingly for man’s sake upon the cross.”
“And I believe in holy Church - that is, all they that have been, and that now are, and
that to the end of the world shall be, a people that shall endeavour to know and keep
the commandments of God.”
“I believe that the gathering together of this people, living now here in this life, is the
holy Church of God, fighting here on earth against the devil, the prosperity of the
world, and their own lusts. I submit myself to this holy Church of Christ, to be ever
ready and obedient to the ordinance of it, and of every member thereof, after my
knowledge and power, by the help of God.”
The prisoner next confessed his faith in the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments, “as the council of the Three Persons of the Trinity,” that they were
sufficient for man’s salvation, and that he was resolved to guide himself by their light,
and willing to submit to their authority, and also to that of the “saints and doctors of
Christ,” so far as their teaching agreed with the Word of God.
Arundel: “I require that thou wilt swear to me that thou wilt forsake all the opinions
which the sect of the Lollards hold.” Further, the archbishop required him to inform
upon his brethren, and cease from preaching till he should come to be of a better
mind. On hearing this the prisoner stood for awhile silent.
Arundel: “Answer, one way or the other.”
Thorpe: “Sir, if I should do as you require, full many men and women would (as they
might full truly) say that I had falsely and cowardly forsaken the truth, and slandered
shamefully the Word of God.”
The archbishop could only say that if he persisted in this obstinacy he must tread the
same road that Sawtrey had gone. This pointed to a stake in Smithfield.
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Hereupon the confessor was again silent. “In my heart,” says he, “I prayed the Lord
God to comfort me and strengthen me; and to give me then and always grace to speak
with a meek and quiet spirit; and whatever I should speak, that I might have
authorities of the Scriptures or open reason for it.”
A clerk: “What thing musest thou? Do as my lord hath commanded thee.” Still the
confessor spoke not.
Arundel: “Art thou not yet determined whether thou wilt do as I have said to thee? “
Thorpe humbly assured the primate that the knowledge which he taught to others he
had learned at the feet of the wisest, the most learned, and the holiest priests he could
hear of in England.
Arundel: “Who are these holy and wise men of whom thou hast taken thine
information? “
Thorpe: “Master John Wycliffe. He was held by many men the greatest clerk that they
knew then living: great men communed often with him. This learning of Master John
Wycliffe is yet held by many men and women the learning most in accordance with
the living and teaching of Christ and His apostles, and most openly showing how the
Church of Christ has been, and yet should be, ruled and governed.”
Arundel: “That learning which thou callest truth and soothfastness is open slander to
holy Church; for though Wycliffe was a great clerk, yet his doctrine is not approved
of by holy Church, but many sentences of his learning are damned, as they well
deserve. Wilt thou submit thee to me or no?”
Thorpe: “I dare not, for fear of God, submit me to thee.”
Arundel, angrily to one of his clerks: “Fetch hither quickly the certificate that came to
me from Shrewsbury, under the bailiff’s seal, witnessing the errors and heresies which
this fellow hath venomously sown there.”
The clerk delivered to the archbishop a roll, from which the primate read as follows: “The third Sunday after Easter, the year of our Lord 1407, William Thorpe came unto
the town of Shrewsbury, and through leave granted unto him to preach, he said
openly, in St. Chad’s Church, in his sermon, that the Sacrament of the altar, after the
consecration, was material bread; and that images should in nowise be worshipped;
and that men should not go on pilgrimages; and that priests have no title to tithes; and
that it is not lawful to swear in anywise.”
Arundel, rolling up the paper: “Lo, here it is certified that thou didst teach that the
Sacrament of the altar was material bread after the consecration. What sayest thou?”
Thorpe: “As I stood there in the pulpit, busying me to teach the commandment of
God, a sacred bell began ringing, and therefore many people turned away hastily, and
with noise ran towards it; and I, seeing this, said to them thus: ‘Good men, ye were
better to stand here still, and to hear God’s Word. For the virtue of the most holy
Sacrament of the altar stands much more in the faith that you ought to have in your
soul, than in the outward sight of it, and therefore ye were better to stand still quietly
to hear God’s Word, because that through the hearing of it men come to true belief.”
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Arundel: “How teachest thou men to believe in this Sacrament?”
Thorpe: “Sir, as I believe myself, so I teach other men.”
Arundel: “Tell out plainly thy belief thereof.”
Thorpe: “Sir, I believe that the night before Jesus-Christ suffered for mankind, He
took bread in His holy hands, lifting up His eyes, and giving thanks to God His
Father, blessed this bread and brake it, and gave it unto His disciples, saying to them,
‘Take and eat of this, all you; this is My body.’ I believe, and teach other men to
believe, that the holy Sacrament of the altar is the Sacrament of Christ’s flesh and
blood in the form of bread and wine.”
Arundel: “Well, well, thou shalt say otherwise before I leave thee; but what say you to
the second point, that images ought not to be worshipped in anywise?”
Thorpe repudiated the practice as not only without warrant in Scripture, but as plainly
forbidden in the Word of God. There followed a long contention between him and the
archbishop, Arundel maintaining that it was good to worship images on the ground
that reverence was due to those whom they represented, that they were aids in
devotion, and that they possessed a secret virtue that showed itself at times in the
working of miracles.
The prisoner intimated that he had no belief in these miracles; that he knew the Word
of God to be true; that he held, in common with the early doctors of the Church,
Augustine, Ambrose, and Chrysostom, that its teaching was in nowise doubtful on the
point in question, that it expressly forbade the making of images, and the bowing
down to them, and held those who did so as guilty of the sin and liable to the doom of
idolaters. The archbishop found that the day was wearing, and passed from the
argument to the next point.
Arundel: “What sayest thou to the third point that is certified against thee, that
pilgrimage is not lawful?”
Thorpe: “There are true pilgrimages, and lawful, and acceptable to God.”
Arundel: “Whom callest thou true pilgrims?”
Thorpe: “Those travelling towards the bliss of heaven. Such busy themselves to know
and keep the biddings of God; flee the seven deadly sins; do willingly all the works of
mercy, and seek the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Every good thought they think, every
virtuous word they speak, every fruitful work they accomplish, is a step numbered of
God toward Him into heaven.
“But,” continued the confessor, “the most part of men and women that now go on
pilgrimages have not these conditions, nor love to have them. For, as I well know,
since I have full often tried, examine whoever will twenty of these pilgrims, and he
shall not find three men or women that know surely a commandment of God, nor can
say their Paternosters and Ave Maria, nor their creed, readily, in any manner of
language. Their pilgrimage is more to have here worldly and fleshly friendship, than
to have friendship of God and of His saints in heaven. Also, sir, I know that when
several men and women go thus after their own wills, and fixing on the same
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pilgrimage, they will arrange beforehand to have with them both men and women that
can sing wanton songs, and other pilgrims will have with them bagpipes; so that every
town that they come through, what with the noise of their singing, and with the sound
of their piping, and with the tangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking of
dogs after them, they make more noise than if the king came there with all his clarions
and minstrels.”
Arundel: “What! janglest thou against men’s devotion? Whatever thou or such other
say, I say that the pilgrimage that now is used is to them that do it a praiseworthy and
a good means to come to grace.”
After this there ensued another long contention between Thorpe and the primate, on
the subject of confession. The archbishop was not making much way in the argument,
when one of the clerks interposed and put an end to it.
“Sir,” said he, addressing the primate, “it is late in the day, and ye have far to ride
tonight; therefore make an end with him, for he will make none; but the more, sir, that
ye busy you to draw him toward you, the more contumacious he is made.”
“William, kneel down,” said another, “and pray my Lord’s Grace, and leave all thy
fancies, and become a child of holy Church.” The archbishop, striking the table
fiercely with his hand, also demanded his instant submission. Others taunted him with
his eagerness to be promoted to a stake which men more learned than he had
prudently avoided by recanting their errors.
“Sir,” said he, replying to the archbishop, “as I have said to you several times today, I
will willingly and humbly obey and submit to God, and to His law, and to every
member of holy Church, as far as I can perceive that these members accord with their
Head, Christ, and will teach me, rule me, or chastise me by authority, especially of
God’s law.”
This was a submission; but the additions with which it was qualified robbed it of all
grace in the eyes of the archbishop. Once more, and for the last time, the primate put
it plainly thus: “Wilt thou not submit thee to the ordinance of holy Church?”
“I will full gladly submit me,” replied Thorpe, “as I showed you before.”[2]
Hereupon Thorpe was delivered to the constable of the castle. He was led out and
thrown into a worse prison than that in which he had before been confined. At his
prison-door we lose all trace of him. He never again appears, and what his fate was
has never been ascertained.[3]
This examination, or rather conference between the primate and Thorpe, enables us to
form a tolerable idea of English Protestantism, or Lollardism, in the twilight time that
intervened between its dawn, in the days of Wycliffe, and its brighter rising in the
times of the sixteenth century. It consisted, we may say, of but three facts or truths.
The first was Scripture, as the supreme and infallible authority; the second was the
Cross, as the sole fountain of forgiveness and salvation; and the third was Faith, as the
one instrumentality by which men come into possession of the blessings of that
salvation. We may add a fourth, which was not so much a primary truth as a
consequence from the three doctrines which formed the skeleton, or frame-work, of
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the Protestantism of those days - Holiness. The faith of these Christians was not a
dead faith: it was a faith that kept the commandments of God, a faith that purified the
heart, and enriched the life.
If, in one sense, Lollard Protestantism was a narrow and limited system, consisting
but of a very few facts, in another sense it was perfect, inasmuch as it contained the
germ and promise of all theology. Given but one fundamental truth, all must follow in
due time.
In the authority of Scripture as the inspired Word of God, and the death of Christ as a
complete and perfect atonement for human guilt, they had found more than one
fundamental truth. They had but to go forward in the path on which they had entered,
guiding themselves by these two lights, and they would come, in due time, into
possession of all revealed truth. At every step the horizon around them would grow
wider, the light falling upon the objects it embraced would grow continually clearer,
the relations of truth to truth would be more easily traceable, till at last the whole
would grow into a complete and harmonious system, truth linked to truth, and all
ranging themselves in beautiful order around the grand central truths of the religion of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Meanwhile these early English Christians were beset without by scrupulosities and
prejudices, arising from the dimness and narrowness of their vision. They feared to
lay their hand on the New Testament and be sworn; they scrupled to employ
instrumental music in public worship; and some of them condemned all war. But
within what a vast enlargement had they already experienced! Bowing to the authority
of the Word of God, their understandings were emancipated from the usurped
authority of man. Having this anointing, they refused to look with the eyes of others,
and see on the inspired page doctrines which no rule of exegesis could discover there,
and from which their, reason revolted as monstrous. In leaning on the Cross, they had
found that relief of heart which so many of their countrymen were seeking, but not
finding, in fasts, in penances, in offerings to the saints, and in pilgrimages, performed
sometimes in sackcloth and tears, and severe mortification of the flesh, and sometimes
in gay apparel, and on soft-paced and richly-caparisoned mules, to the screaming of
bagpipes and the music of merry songs.
The best evidence of the continued spread of Lollardism - in other words, of
Protestantism - is the necessity under which its opponents evidently felt to adopt more
vigorous measures for its repression. The “well” which Wycliffe had digged at
Oxford was still flowing; its waters must be stopped. The light he had kindled in his
vernacular Bible was still burning, and sending its rays over England; it must be
extinguished. The accomplishment of these two objects became now the main labour
of Arundel. Convening at Oxford (1408) the bishops and clergy of his province, he
promulgated certain provisions for the checking of heresy, digested into thirteen
chapters, and known as the Constitutions of Arundel,[4] a designation they are
entitled to bear, seeing they all run under the authority of the archbishop. The drift of
these Constitutions was, first, to prohibit all from exercising the function of preacher
who had not a special licence from the diocesan, or had not undergone an examination
before him touching their orthodoxy; secondly, to charge preachers to eschew all
Wycliffite novelties, and to frame their discourses in every respect according to the
doctrine of holy Church; and thirdly, seeing “the errors of the Lollards have seized the
University of Oxford, therefore, to prevent the fountain being poisoned, ‘tis decreed
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by the Synod that every warden, master, or principal of any college or hall shall be
obliged to inquire, at least every month, into the opinions and principles of the
students in their respective houses, and if they find them maintain anything repugnant
to the Catholic faith, to admonish them; and if they continue obstinate, to expel
them.” “In regard that,” said the sixth Constitution, “the new roads in religion are
more dangerous to travel than the old ones,” the primate, careful for the safety of
wayfarers, proceeded to shut up all the new roads thus: “we enjoin and require that no
book or tract, written by John Wycliffe, or any other person either in Wycliffe’s time
or since, or who for the future shall write any other book upon a subject in divinity,
shall be suffered to be read either in schools, halls, or any other places within our
Province of Canterbury, unless such books shall first be examined by the University
of Oxford or Cambridge,” etc. The infraction of this enactment subjected the offender
to prosecution, “as one that makes it his business to spread the infection of schism and
heresy.”[5]
The seventh Constitution began thus: “‘Tis a dangerous undertaking, as St. Jerome
assures us, to translate the Holy Scriptures. We therefore decree and ordain,” it
continued, “that from henceforward no unauthorised person shall translate any part of
Holy Scripture into English, or any other language, under any form of book or
treatise. Neither shall any such book, treatise, or version, made either in Wycliffe’s
time or since, be read, either in whole or in part, publicly or privately, under the
penalty of the greater excommunication, till the said translation shall be approved
either by the bishop of the diocese or a provincial council, as occasion shall
require.”[6]
No such authorization was ever given. Consequently all translations of the Sacred
Scriptures into English, or any other tongue, and all reading of the Word of God in
whole or in part, in public or in private, were by this Constitution proscribed, under
the penalty of the greater excommunication.
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CHAPTER 3
GROWTH OF ENGLISH PROTESTANTISM
We have already spoken of the schism by which the Papal world was divided, and its
governing head weakened, at the very moment when Wycliffe was beginning his
Reformation.[1] To this event, in no small degree, was it owing that the Reformer was
permitted to go to his grave in peace, and that the seeds of truth which he had
scattered were suffered to spring up and take some hold of the soil before the tempest
burst. But if the schism was a shield over the infant reformation, it was a prolific
source of calamities to the world. Consciences were troubled, not knowing which of
the two chairs of Peter was the indubitable seat of authority and true fountain of grace.
The nations were distracted, for the rival Popes had carried their quarrel to the battlefield, and blood was flowing in torrents.
To put an end to these scandals and miseries, the French king sent an embassy to Pope
Gregory XII., to induce him to fulfil the oath he had taken at his election, to vacate the
chair provided his rival could be brought to terms. “He received,” says Collier, “a
shuffling answer.”[2]
In November, 1409, the Cardinal of Bordeaux arrived in England from France, on the
design of engaging the two crowns to employ their authority in compelling Gregory to
make good his oath. The cardinals, too, lent their help towards terminating the,
schism. They took steps for commencing a General Council at Pisa, to which the
English clergy sent three delegates.[3]
King Henry had previously dispatched ambassadors, who carried, with other
instructions, a letter to the Pope from the king. Henry IV. spoke plainly to his “most
Holy Father.” He prayed him to “consider to what degree the present schism has
embarrassed and embroiled Christendom, and how many thousand lives have been
lost in the field in this quarrel.” Would he lay these things to heart, he was sure that
“his Holiness” would renounce the tiara sooner than keep it at the expense of creating
“division in the Church, and fencing against peace with evasive answers. For,” added
he, “were your Holiness influenced by serviceable motives, you would be governed
by the tenderness of the true mother, who pleaded before King Solomon, and rather
resign the child than suffer it to be cut in pieces.” [4] He who gives good advice, says
the proverb, undertakes a thankless office. The proverb especially holds good in the
case of him who presumes to advise an infallible man. Gregory read the letter, but
made no sign.
Archbishop Arundel, by way of seconding his sovereign, got Convocation to agree
that Peter’s pence should be withheld till the breach, which so afflicted Christendom,
were healed. If with the one hand the king was castigating the Pope, with the other he
was burning the Lollards: what wonder that he sped so ill in his efforts to abate the
Papal haughtiness and obstinacy?
Still the woeful sight of two chairs and two Popes continued to afflict the adherents of
the Papacy. The cardinals, more earnestly than ever, resolved to bring the matter to an
issue between the Pope and the Church; for they foresaw, if matters went on as they
were doing, the speedy ruin of both.
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Accordingly they gave notice to the princes and prelates of the West, that they had
summoned a General Council at Pisa, on the 25th of March next ensuing (1409). The
call met a universal response. “Almost all the prelates and venerable men of the Latin
world,” says Walsingham, “repaired to Pisa.”[5] The Council consisted of 22
cardinals, 4 patriarchs, 12 archbishops in person and 14 by proxy, 80 bishops in
person and a great many by their representatives, 87 abbots, the ambassadors of
nearly all the princes of Europe, the deputies of most of the universities, the
representatives of the chapters of cathedral churches, etc.[6] The numbers, rank, and
authority of the Council well entitled it to represent the Church, and gave good
promise of the extinction of the schism.
It was now to be seen how much the Papacy had suffered in prestige by being cleft in
twain, and how merciful this dispensation was for the world’s deliverance. Had the
Papacy continued entire and unbroken, had there been but one Pope, the Council
would have bowed down before him as the true Vicar; but there were two; this forced
the question upon the members - Which is the false Pope? May not both be false? And
so in a few days they found their way to the conclusion which they put into a definite
sentence in their fourteenth session, and which, when we take into account the age,
the men, and the functionaries over whom their condemnation was suspended, is one
of the most remarkable decisions on record. It imprinted a scar on the Papal power
which is not effaced to this day. The Council pronounced Gregory XII. and Benedict
XIII. “to be notorious and incorrigible schismatics and heretics, and guilty of plain
perjury; which imputations being evidently proved, they deprive them both of their
titles and authority, pronounce the Apostolic See vacant, and all the censures and
promotions of these pretended Popes void and of none effect.[7]
The Council, having ejected ignominiously the two Popes, and having rescued, as it
thought, the chair on which each had laid hold with so tenacious and determined a
grasp, proceeded to place in it the Cardinal of Milan, who began to reign under the
title of Alexander V.[8] This Pontificate was brief, for within the year Alexander
came by his end in a manner of which Balthazar, who succeeded him as John XXIII.,
was supposed to know more than he was willing to disclose. The Council, instead of
mending matters, had made them worse. John, who was now acknowledged the
legitimate holder of the tiara, contributed nothing either to the honour of the Church
or the repose of the world. The two Popes, Gregory and Benedict, refusing to submit
themselves to the Council, or to acknowledge the new Pope, were still in the field,
contending with both spiritual and temporal arms. Instead of two rival Popes there
were now three; “not three crowns upon one Pope’s head,” says Fox, “but three heads
in one Popish Church,” each with a body of followers to support his pretensions. The
schism thus was not only not healed, it was wider than ever; and the scandals and
miseries that flowed from it, so far from being abated or extinguished, were greatly
aggravated; and a few years later, we find another General Council assembling at
Constance, if haply it might effect what that of Pisa had failed to accomplish.[9]
We return to England. While the schism continued to scandalize and vex Romanists
on the Continent, the growth of Lollardism was not less a torment to the clergy in
England. Despite the rigour of Arundel, who spared neither edicts nor faggots, the
seeds which that arch-enemy of the Papacy, Wycliffe, had sown, would ever be
springing up, and mingling the wheat of Rome with the tares of heresy. Oxford,
especially, demanded the primate’s attention. That fountain had savoured of
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Lollardism ever since Wycliffe taught there. It must be purified. The archbishop set
out, with a pompous retinue, to hold a visitation of the university (1411). The
chancellor, followed by a numerous body of proctors, masters, and students, met him
at a little distance from the gates, and told him that if he came merely to see the town
he was welcome, but if he came in his character of visitor, he begged to remind his
Grace that the University of Oxford, in virtue of the Papal bull, was exempt from
episcopal and archiepiscopal jurisdiction. This rebuff Arundel could ill bear. He left
Oxford in a day or two, and wrote an account of the affair to the king. The heads of
the university were sent for to court, and the chancellor and proctors were turned out
of their office. The students, taking offence at this rigor, ceased their attendance on
the public lectures, and were on the point of breaking up and dissolving their body.
After a warm contention between the university and the archbishop, the matter, by
consent of both parties, was referred to the king. Henry decided that the point should
remain on the footing on which Richard II. had placed it [10] Thus judgment was
given in favour of the archbishop, and the royal decision was confirmed first by
Parliament and next by John XXIII., in a bull that made void the privilege of
exemption which Pope Boniface had conferred on the university.[11]
This opened the door of Oxford to the archbishop. Meanwhile Convocation raised a
yet louder cry of Wycliffitism in the university, and pressed the primate to interpose
his authority ere that “former seat of learning and virtue” had become utterly corrupt.
It was an astounding fact, Convocation added, that a testimonial in favour of Wycliffe
and his doctrines, with the seal of the university affixed to it, had lately issued from
the halls of Oxford.[12] Arundel did not delay. Presently his delegates were down on
the college. These inquisitors of heretical pravity summoned before them the
suspected professors, and by threats of Henry’s burning statute compelled them to
recant. They next examined the writings of Wycliffe. They extracted out of them 246
propositions which they deemed heretical [13] This list they sent to the archbishop.
The primate, after branding it with his condemnation, forwarded it to the Pope, with a
request that he would stamp it with his final anathema, and that he would send him a
bull, empowering him to dig up Wycliffe’s bones and burn them. “The Pope,” says
Collier, “granted the first, but refused the latter, not thinking it any useful part of
discipline to disturb the ashes of the dead.” [14]
While, with the one hand, Arundel maintained the fight against the infant
Protestantism of England, with the other he strove to promote a Catholic revival He
bethought him by what new rite he could honour, with what new grace he could
crown the “mother of God.” He instituted, in honour of Mary, “the tolling of Aves,”
with certain Aves, the due recital of which were to earn certain days of pardon.[15]
The ceremonies of the Roman Church were already very numerous, requiring a whole
technological vocabulary to name them, and wellnigh all the days of the year for their
observance. In his mandate to the Bishop of London, Arundel set forth the grounds
and reasons of this new observance. The realm of England verily owed “Our Lady”
much, the archbishop argued. She had been the “buckler of our protection.” She had
“made our arms victorious,” and “spread our power through all the coasts of the
earth.” Yet more, to the Virgin Mary the nation owed its escape from a portentous evil
that menaced it, and of which it was dreadful to think what the consequences would
have been, had it overtaken it. The archbishop does not name the monstrous thing; but
it was easy to see what was meant, for the archbishop goes on to speak of a new
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species of wolf that waited to attack the inhabitants of England and destroy them, not
by tearing them with their teeth after the usual manner of wild beasts, but in the
exercise of some novel and strange instinct, by mingling poison with their food. “To
whom [Mary] we may worthily ascribe, now of late in these our times, our
deliverance from the ravening wolves, and the mouths of cruel beasts, who had
prepared against our banquets a mess of meat mingled full of gall.”[16] On these
grounds the archbishop issued his commands (Feb. 10th, 1410), that peals should be
tolled, morning and evening, in praise of Mary; with a promise to all who should say
the Lord’s prayer and a “hail Mary” five times at the morning peal, of a forty-days’
pardon.[17]
To whom, after “Our Lady,” the archbishop doubtless thought, did England owe so
much as to himself? Accordingly, we find him putting in a modest claim to share in
the honours he had decreed to his patroness. This next mandate, directed to Thomas
Wilton, his somner, enjoined that, at what time he should pass through his Province of
Canterbury, having his cross borne before him, the bells of all the parish churches
should be rung, “in token of special reverence that they bear to us.”[18] Certain
churches in London were temporarily closed by the archbishop, because “on Tuesday
last, when we, between eight and nine of the clock, before dinner, passed openly on
foot as it were through the midst of the City of London, with our cross carried before
us, they showed toward us irreverence, ringing not their bells at all at our coming.”
“Wherefore we command you that by our authority you put all these churches under
our indictment, suspending God’s holy organs and instruments in the same.” [19]
“Why,” inquires the chronicler, “though the bells did not clatter in the steeples, should
the body of the church be suspended? The poor organs, methinks, suffered some
wrong in being put to silence in the quire, because the bells rang not in the tower.”
There are some who may smile at these devices of Arundel to strengthen Popery, as
betokening vain-glory rather than insight. But we may grant that the astute archbishop
knew what he was about. He thus made “the Church” ever present to Englishmen of
that age. She awoke them from slumber in the morning, she sang them to repose at
night. Her chimes were in their ears and her symbols before their eyes all day long.
Every time they kissed an image, or repeated an Ave, or crossed themselves with holy
water, they increased their reverence for “mother Church.” Every such act was a
strengthening of the fetter which dulled the intellect and bound the soul. At each
repetition the deep sleep of the conscience became yet deeper.
The persecution against the Protestants did not abate. The pursuit of heretics became
more strict; and their treatment, at the hands of their captors, more cruel. The prisons
in the bishops’ houses, heretofore simply places of confinement, were now often
provided with instruments of torture. The Lollards’ Tower, at Lambeth, was crowded
with confessors, who have left on the walls of their cell, in brief but touching phrase,
the record of their “patience and faith,” to be read by the men of after-times; nay, by
us, seeing these memorials are not yet effaced. Many, weak in faith and terrified by
the violence that menaced them, appeared in penitential garb, with lighted tapers in
their hand, at market crosses, and church doors, and read their recantation. But not all:
else England at this day would have been what Spain is. There were others, more
largely strengthened from on high, who aspired to the glory, than which there is no
purer or brighter on earth, of dying for the Gospel. Thus the stake had its occasional
victim.
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So passed the early years of English Protestantism. It did not grow up in dalliance and
ease, amid the smiles of the great and the applause of the multitude; no, it was
nurtured amid fierce and cruel storms. From its cradle it was familiar with hardship,
with revilings and buffetings, with cruel mockings and scourgings, nay, moreover,
with bonds and imprisonments.
The mob derided it; power frowned upon it; and lordly Churchmen branded it as
heresy, and pursued it with sword and faggot. Let us draw around its cradle, placed
under no gorgeous roof, but in a prison-cell, with jailers and executioners waiting
beside it. Let us forget, if only for awhile, the denominational names, and
ecclesiastical classifications, that separate us; let us lay aside, the one his lawn and the
other his Genevan cloak, and, simply in our character of Christians and Protestants,
come hither, and contemplate the lowliness of our common origin. It seems as if the
“young child” had been cast out to perish; the Roman Power stands before it ready to
destroy it, and yet it has been said to it, “To thee will I give England.”
There is a lesson here which, could we humble ourselves, and lay it duly to heart,
would go far to awaken the love and bring back the union and strength of our first
days.
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CHAPTER 4
EFFORTS FOR THE REDISTRIBUTION
OF ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY
In the former chapter we saw the Protestants of England stigmatised as Lollards,
proscribed by edicts, and haled to prisons, which they left, the many to read their
recantation at cathedral doors and market crosses, and the few to fulfil their witnessbearing at the stake. The tempest was growing in violence every hour, and the little
company on whom it beat so sorely seemed doomed to extinction. Yet in no age or
country, perhaps, has the Church of God more perfectly realised the promise wrapped
up in her earliest and most significant symbol, than in England at the present time. As
amid the granite peaks of Horeb, so here in England, “The bush burned and was not
consumed.”
This way of maintaining their testimony by suffering, was a surer path to victory than
that which the English Protestants had fondly chalked out for themselves. In the sixth
year of Henry IV., they had moved the king, through Parliament, to take possession of
the temporalities of the Church, and redistribute them in such a manner as would
make them more serviceable to both the crown and the nation.
The Commons represented to the king that the clergy possessed a third of the lands in
the realm, that they contributed nothing to the public burdens, and that their riches
disqualified them from the due performance of their sacred functions. Archbishop
Arundel was by the king’s side when the petition was presented by the Speaker of the
house, Sir John Cheney. He was not the man to stand silent when such an accusation
was preferred against his order. True it was, said the archbishop, that the clergy did
not go in person to the wars, but it was not less true that they always sent their vassals
and tenants to the field, and in such numbers, and furnished with such equipments, as
corresponded to the size of their estates; and further, the archbishop maintained that as
regarded the taunt that the clerics were but drones, who lived idly at home while their
countrymen were serving abroad, the Speaker had done them injustice. If they donned
the surplice or betook them to their breviary, when their lay brethren buckled on the
coat of mail, and grasped rapier or cross-bow, it was not because they were chary of
their blood, or enamoured of ease, but because they wished to give their days and
nights to prayer for theft country’s welfare, and especially for the success of its arms.
While the soldiers of England were fighting, her priests were supplicating;[1] the
latter, not less than the former, contributed to those victories which were shedding
such lustre on the arms of England.
The Speaker of the Commons, smiling at the primate’s enthusiasm, replied that “he
thought the prayers of the Church but a slender supply.” Stung by this retort, Arundel
quickly turned on Sir John, and charged him with profaneness. “I perceive, sir,” said
the prelate, “how the kingdom is likely to thrive, when the aids of devotion, and the
favour of Heaven, are thus slighted and ridiculed.”
The king “hung, as it were, in a balance of thought.” The archbishop, perceiving his
indecision, dropped on his knees before him, and implored Henry to remember the
oath he had sworn on coming to the crown, to maintain the rights of the Church and
defend the clergy; and he counselled him, above all, to beware incurring the guilt of
sacrilege, and the penalties thereto annexed. The king was undecided no longer; he
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bade the archbishop dismiss his fears, and assured him that the clergy need be under
no apprehensions from such proposals as the present, while he wore the crown; that
he would take care to leave the Church in even a better condition than that in which
he had found it. The hopes of the Lollards were thus rudely dashed.[2]
But their numbers continued to increase; by-and-by there came to be a “Lollard
party,” as Walsingham calls it, in Parliament, and in the eleventh year of Henry’s
reign they judged the time ripe for bringing forward their proposal a second time,.
They made a computation of the ecclesiastical estates, which, according to their
showing, amounted to 485,000 merks of yearly value, and contained 18,400 ploughs
of land. This property, they suggested, should be divided into three parts, and
distributed as follows: one part was to go to the king, and would enable him to
maintain 6,000 men-at-arms, in addition to those he had at present in his pay; it would
enable him besides to make a new creation of earls and knights. The second was to be
divided, as an annual stipend, among the 15,000 priests who were to conduct the
religious services of the nation; and the remaining third was to be appropriated to the
founding of 100 new hospitals. But the proposal found no favour with the king, even
though it promised to augment considerably his military following. He dared not
break with the hierarchy, and he might be justly suspicious of the changes which so
vast a project would draw after it.
Addressing the Commons in a tone of great severity, he charged them never again, so
long as he lived, to come before the throne with any such proposal. He even refused to
listen to the request with which they had accompanied their petition, that he would
grant a mitigation of the edict against heresy, and permit convicted Lollards to be sent
to his own prisons, rather than be immured in the more doleful strongholds of the
bishops. Even these small favours the Protestants could not obtain, and lest the clergy
should think that Henry had begun to waver between the two faiths, he sealed his
devotion to the Church by anew kindling the pile for the Lollards.[3]
By other weapons were the Wycliffites to win England than by royal edicts and
Parliamentary petitions. They must take slow and laborious possession of it by their
tears and their martyrdom. Although the king had done as they desired, and the edict
had realised all that they expected from it, it would after all have been but a fictitious
and barren acquisition, liable to be swept away by every varying wind that blew at
court. But when, by their painful teachings, by their holy lives, and their courageous
deaths, they had enlightened the understandings and won the hearts of their
countrymen to the Protestant doctrine, then would they have taken possession of
England in very deed, and in such fashion that they would hold it for ever. These early
disciples did not yet clearly see wherein lay the great strength of Protestantism. The
political activity into which they had diverged was an attempt to gather fruit, not only
before the sun had ripened it, but even before they had well sowed the seed. The
fabric of the Roman Church was founded on the belief, in the minds of Englishmen,
that the Pope was heaven’s delegate for conferring on men the pardon of their sins
and the blessings of salvation. That belief must first be exploded. So long as it kept its
hold, no material force, no political action, could suffice to overthrow the domination
of Rome. Amid the scandals of the clergy and the decay of the nation, it would have
continued to flourish to our day, had not the reforming and spiritual forces come to
the rescue. We can the more easily pardon the mistake of the English Protestants of
the fifteenth century when we reflect that, even yet, the sole efficacy - the
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omnipotency - of these forces finds only partial belief in the general mind of even the
religious world.
From the hour that the stake for Protestantism was planted in England, neither the
king nor the nation had rest. Henry Plantagenet (Bolingbroke) had returned from
exile, on his oath not to disturb the succession to the crown. He broke his vow, and
dethroned Richard II. The Church, through her head the primate, was an accomplice
with him in this deed. Arundel anointed the new king with oil from that mysterious
vial which the Virgin was said to have given to Thomas aBecket, during his exile in
France, telling him that the kings on whose head this oil should be poured would
prove valiant champions of the Church.[4] The coronation was followed by the dark
tragedy in the Castle of Pontefract; and that, again, by the darker, though more
systematic, violence of the edict De Hereretico Comburendo, which was followed in
its turn by the imprisonings in the Tower, and the burnings in Smithfield. The reign
thus inaugurated had neither glory abroad nor prosperity at home. Faction rose upon
faction; revolt trod on the heels of revolt; and a train of national calamities followed
in rapid succession, till at last Henry had completely lost the popularity which helped
him to mount the throne; and the terror with which he reigned made his subjects
regret the weak, frivolous, and vicious Richard, whom he had deprived first of his
crown, and next of his life. Rumors that Richard still lived, and would one day claim
his own, were continually springing up, and occasioned, not only perpetual alarms to
the king, but frequent conspiracies among his nobles; and the man who was the first to
plant the stake in England for the disciples of the Gospel had, before many days
passed by, to set up scaffolds for the peers of his realm. His son, Prince Henry, added
to his griefs. The thought, partly justified by the wild life which the prince then led,
and the abandoned companions with whom he had surrounded himself, that he wished
to seize the crown before death had given it to him in the regular way, continually
haunted the royal imagination; and, to obviate this danger, the monarch took at times
the ludicrous precaution of placing the regalia on his pillow when he went to sleep.[5]
His brief reign of thirteen years and five months wore away, as an old chronicler says,
“with little pleasure.”
The last year of Henry’s life was signalized by a projected expedition to the Holy
Land. The monarch deemed himself called to the pious labour of delivering Jerusalem
from the Infidel. If he should succeed in a work so meritorious, he would spend what
might remain to him of life with an easier conscience, as having made atonement for
the crimes by which he had opened his way to the throne. As it turned out, however,
his efforts to achieve this grand enterprise but added to his own cares, and to his
subjects’ burdens. He had collected ships, money, provisions, and soldiers.
All was ready; the fleet waited only till the king should come on board to weigh
anchor and set sail [6] But before embarking, the monarch must needs visit the shrine
of St. Edward. “While he was making his prayers,” says Holinshed, “there as it were
to take his leave, and so to procede forth on his journie, he was suddenlie and
grievouslie taken, that such as were about him feared that he should have died
presentlie; wherefore, to relieve him, if it were possible, they bare him into a chamber
that was next at hand, belonging to the Abbot of Westminister, where they laid him on
a pallet before the fire, and used all remedies to revive him. At length he recovered his
speech and understanding, and perceiving himself in a strange place which he knew
not, he willed to know if the chamber had any particular name, whereunto answer was
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made that it was called ‘Jerusalem.’ Then said the king, ‘Lauds be given to the Father
of Heaven, for I know that I shall die here in this chamber, according to the prophecy
of me, which declared that I should depart this life in Jerusalem.’”[7]
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CHAPTER 5
TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION
OF SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE
Struck down by apoplexy in the prime of manhood, March 20th, 1413, Henry IV. was
carried to his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, and his son, Henry V., mounted his
throne. The new king was crowned on Passion Sunday, the 9th of April. The day was
signalised by a fearful tempest, that burst over England, and which the spirit of the
age variously interpreted.[1] Not a few regarded it as a portent of evil, which gave
warning of political storms that were about to convulse the State of England.[2] But
others, more sanguine, construed this occurrence more hopefully. As the tempest, said
they, disperses the gloom of winter, and summons from their dark abodes in the earth
the flowers of spring, so will the even-handed justice of the king dispel the moral
vapors which have hung above the land during the late reign, and call forth the virtues
of order and piety to adorn and bless society.[3] Meanwhile the future, which men
were striving to read, was posting towards them, bringing along with it those sharp
tempests that were needful to drive away the exhalations of a night which had long
stagnated over England. Religion was descending to resume the place that superstition
had usurped, and awaken in the English people those aspirations and tendencies,
which found their first arena of development on the field of battle; and their second,
and more glorious one, in the halls of political and theological discussion; and their
final evolution, after two centuries, in the sublime fabric of civil and religious liberty
that stood completed in England, that other nations might study its principles and
enjoy its blessings.
The youth of Henry V., who now governed England, had been disorderly. It was
dishonoured by “the riot of pleasure, the frolic of debauchery, the outrage of wine.”[4]
The jealousy of his father, by excluding him from all public employment, furnished
him with an excuse for filling the vacancies of his mind and his time with low
amusements and degrading pleasures. But when the prince put on the crown he put off
his former self. He dismissed his old associates, called around him the counsellors of
his father, bestowed the honours and offices of the State upon men of capacity and
virtue; and, pensioning his former companions, he forbade them to enter his presence
till they had become better men. He made, in short, a commendable effort to effect a
reformation in manners and religion. “Now placed on the royal seat of the realm,”
says the chronicler, “he determined to begin with something acceptable to the Divine
Majesty, and therefore commanded the clergy sincerely and truly to preach the Word
of God, and to live accordingly, that they might be lanterns of light to the temporality,
as their profession required. The laymen he willed to serve God and obey their prince,
prohibiting them, above all things, breach of matrimony, custom in swearing, and
wilful perjury.”[5]
It was the unhappiness of Henry V., who meant so well by his people, that he knew
not the true source whence alone a real reformation can proceed. The astute Arundel
was still by his side, and guided the steps of the prince into the same paths in which
his father had walked. Lollard blood still continued to flow, and new victims from
time to time mounted the martyr’s pile.
The most illustrious of the Protestants of that reign was Sir John Oldcastle, a knight of
Herefordshire. Having married the heiress of Cowling Castle, near Rochester, he sat
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in Parliament under the title of Lord Cobham, in right of his wife’s barony.[6] The
youth of Lord Cobham had been stained with gay pleasures; but the reading of the
Bible, and the study of Wycliffe’s writings, had changed his heart; and now, to the
knightly virtues of bravery and honour, he added the Christian graces of humility and
purity. He had borne arms in France, under Henry IV., who set a high value on his
military accomplishments. Hewas not less esteemed by the son, Henry V., for his
private worth,[7] his shrewd sense, and his gallant bearing as a soldier.[8] But the
“dead fly” in the noble qualities and upright character of the stout old baron:, in the
opinion of the king, was his Lollardism.
With characteristic frankness, Lord Cobham made no secret of his attachment to the
doctrines of Wycliffe. He avowed, in his place in Parliament, so early as the year
1391, “that it would be very commodious for England if the Pope’s jurisdiction
stopped at the town of Calais, and did not cross the sea.” [9]
It is said of him, too, that he had copies made of Wycliffe’s works, and sent them to
Bohemia, France, Spain, Portugal, and other countries.[10]
He threw open Cowling Castle to the Lollard preachers:, making it their head-quarters
while they itinerated in the neighbourhood, preaching the Gospel. He himself often
attended their sermons, taking his stand, sword in hand, by the preacher’s side, to
defend him from the insults of the friars.[11] Such open disregard of the ecclesiastical
authority was not likely long to either escape notice or be exempt from censure.
Convocation was sitting at the time (1413) in St. Paul’s. The archbishop rose and
called the attention of the assembly to the progress of Lollardism, and, pointing
specially to Lord Cobham, declared that “Christ’s coat would never be without seam”
till that notorious abettor of heretics were taken out of the way. On that point all were
agreed; but Cobham had a friend in the king, and it would not do to have him out
forthwith into Smithfield and burn him, as if he were an ordinary heretic. They must,
if possible, take the king along with them in all they did against Lord Cobham.
Accordingly, Archbishop Arundel, with other bishops and members of Convocation,
waited on the king, and laid before him their complaint against Lord Cobham. Henry
replied that he would first try what he himself could do with the brave old knight
whom he bore in so high esteem.[12]
The king sent for Cobham, and exhorted him to abandon his scruples, and submit to
his mother the Church. “You, most worthy prince,” was the reply, “I am always
prompt and willing to obey, forasmuch as I know you are a Christian king, and
minister of God; unto you, next to God, I owe my whole obedience, and submit me
thereunto. But, as touching the Pope and his spirituality, truly I owe them neither suit
nor service, forasmuch as I know him, by the Scriptures, to be the great Antichrist, the
open adversary of God, and the abomination standing in the holy place.” [13] At the
hearing of these words the king’s countenance fell; his favour for Cobham gave way
to his hatred of heresy; he turned away, purposing with himself to interfere no farther
in the matter.
The archbishop came again to the king, who now gave his ready consent that they
should proceed against Lord Cobham according to the laws of the Church. These, in
all such cases as the present, were compendiously summarised in the one statute of
Henry IV., De Haeretico Comburendo.
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The archbishop dispatched a messenger to Cobham, summoning him to appear before
him on September 2nd, and answer to the articles of accusation. Acting on the
principle that he “owed neither suit nor service” to the Pope and his vassals, Lord
Cobham paid no attention to the summons. Arundel next prepared citations, in due
form, and had them posted up on the gates of Cowling Castle, and on the doors of the
neighbouring Cathedral of Rochester. These summonses were speedily torn down by
the friends and retainers of Lord Cobham. The archbishop, seeing the Church in
danger of being brought into contempt, and her authority of being made a laughingstock, hastened to unsheathe against the defiant knight her ancient sword, so terrible
in those ages. He excommunicated the great Lollard; but even this did not subdue
him. A third time were citations posted up, commanding his appearance, ‘under threat
of severe penalties;[14] and again the summonses were contemptuously torn down.
Cobham had a stout heart in his bosom, but he would show the king that he had also a
good cause. Taking his pen, he sat down and drew out a statement of his belief. He
took, as the groundwork of his confession of faith, the Apostles’ Creed, giving,
mainly in the words of Scripture, the sense in which he received its several articles.
His paper has all the simplicity and spirituality, but not the clear, well-defined and
technical expression, of the Reformation theology of the sixteenth century.[15] He
carried it to the king, craving him to have it examined “by the most godly, wise, and
learned men of his realm.” Henry refused to look at it. Handing it to the archbishop,
the king said that, in this matter, his Grace was judge.
There followed, on the part of Cobham, a proposal which, doubtless, would cause
astonishment to a modern divine, but which was not accounted incongruous or
startling in an age when so many legal, political, and even moral questions were left
for decision to the wager of battle. He offered to bring a hundred knights and esquires
into the field, for his purgation, against an equal number on the side of his accusers; or
else, said he, “I shall fight, myself, for life or death, in the quarrel of my faith, with
any man living, Christian or heathen, the king and the lords of his council
excepted.”[16] The proposal was declined, and the issue was that the king suffered
him to be seized, in his privy chamber, and imprisoned in the Tower.
On Saturday, September 23rd, 1413, Lord Cobham was brought before Archbishop
Arundel, who, assisted by the Bishops of London and Winchester, opened his court in
the chapter-house of St. Paul’s. The primate offered him absolution if he would
submit and confess himself. He replied by pulling out of his bosom and reading a
written statement of his faith, handing a copy to the primate, and keeping one for
himself. The court then adjourned till the Monday following, when it met in the
Dominican Friars, on Ludgate Hill, with a more numerous attendance of bishops,
doctors, and friars. Absolution was again offered the prisoner, on the old terms: “Nay,
forsooth will I not,” he replied, “for I never yet trespassed against you, and therefore I
will not do it.” Then falling down on his knees on the pavement, and extending his
hands toward heaven, he said, “I shrive me here unto thee, my eternal living God, that
in my frail youth I offended thee, O Lord, most grievously, in pride, wrath, and
gluttony, in covetousness and in lechery. Many men have I hurt, in mine anger, and
done many horrible sins; good Lord, I ask thee, mercy.” Then rising up, the tears
streaming down his face, he turned to the people, and cried, “Lo, good people, for the
breaking of God’s law these men never yet cursed me; but now, for their own laws
and traditions, they most cruelly handle me and other men.”[17]
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The court took a little while to recover itself after this scene. It then proceeded with
the examination of Lord Cobham, thus: The archbishop: “What say you, sir, to the four articles sent to the Tower for your
consideration, and especially to the article touching the Sacrament of the altar? “
Lord Cobham: “My Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, sitting at his last supper, with his
most dear disciples, the night before he should suffer, took bread in his hand, and,
giving thanks to his eternal Father, blessed it, brake it, and gave it unto them, saying,
‘Take it unto you, and eat thereof, all. This is my body, which shall be betrayed for
you. Do this hereafter in my remembrance.’ This do I thoroughly believe.”
The archbishop: “Do you believe that it was bread after the Sacramental words had
been spoken? “
Lord Cobham: “I believe that in the Sacrament of the altar is Christ’s very body, in
form of bread; the same that was born of the Virgin, done on the cross, and now is
glorified in heaven.”
A doctor: “After the Sacramental words be uttered there remaineth no bread, but only
the body of Christ.”
Lord Cobham: “You said once to me, in the Castle of Cowling, that the sacred Host
was not Christ’s body. But I held then against you, and proved that therein was his
body, though the seculars and friars could not therein agree, but held one against the
other.”
Many doctors, with great noise: “We say all that it is God’s body.” They angrily
insisted that he should answer whether it was material bread after consecration, or no.
Lord Cobham (looking earnestly at the archbishop): “I believe surely that it is Christ’s
body in form of bread. Sir, believe not you thus?”
The archbishop: “Yea, marry, do I.”
The doctors: “Is it only Christ’s body after the consecration of a priest, and no bread,
or not? “
Lord Cobham: “It is both Christ’s body and bread. I shall prove it thus: For like as
Christ, dwelling here upon the earth, had in him both Godhood and manhood, and had
the invisible Godhood covered under that manhood which was only visible and seen
in him: so in the Sacrament of the altar is Christ’s very body, and very bread also, as I
believe. The bread is the thing which we see with our eyes; the body of Christ, which
is his flesh and his blood, is hidden there-under, and not seen but in faith.”
Smiling to one another, and all speaking together: “It is a foul heresy.”
A bishop: “It is a manifest heresy to say that it is bread after the Sacramental words
have been spoken.”
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Lord Cobham: “St. Paul, the apostle, was, I am sure, as wise as you are, and more
godly-learned, and he called it bread: writing to the Corinthians, he says, ‘The bread
that we break, is it not the partaking of the body of Christ?’”
All: “St. Paul must be otherwise understood; for it is heresy to say that it is bread after
consecration.”
Lord Cobham: “How do you make that good? “
The court: “It is against the determination of holy Church.”
The archbishop: “We sent you a writing concerning the faith of the blessed
Sacrament, clearly determined by the Church of Rome, our mother, and by the holy
doctors.”
Lord Cobham: “I know none holier than is Christ and his apostle. And for that
determination, I wot, it is none of theirs, for it standeth not with the Scriptures, but is
manifestly against them. If it be the Church’s, as ye say it is, it hath been hers only
since she received the great poison of worldly possessions, and not afore.”
The archbishop: “What do you think of holy Church? “
Lord Cobham: “Holy Church is the number of them which shall be saved, of which
Christ is the head. Of this Church, one part is in heaven with Christ; another in
purgatory (you say); and the third is here on earth.”
Doctor John Kemp: “Holy Church hath determined that, every Christian man ought to
be shriven by a priest. What say ye to this?”
Lord Cobham: “A diseased or sore wounded man had need to have a wise surgeon
and a true. Most necessary were it, therefore, to be first shriven unto God, who only
knoweth our diseases, and can help us. I deny not in this the going to a priest, if he be
a man of good life and learning. If he be a vicious man, I ought rather to flee from
him; for I am more likely to have infection than cure from him.”
Doctor Kemp: “Christ ordained St. Peter to be his Vicar here on earth, whose see is
the Church of Rome; and he granted the same power to all St. Peter’s successors in
that see. Believe ye not this?”
Lord Cobham: “He that followeth St. Peter most nearly in holy living is next unto him
in succession.”
Another doctor: “What do ye say of the Pope?”
Lord Cobham: “He and you together maketh the whole great Antichrist. The Pope is
the head; you, bishops, priests, prelates, and monks, are the body; and the Begging
Friars are the tail, for they hide the wickedness of you both with their sophistry.”
Doctor Kemp: “Holy Church hath determined that it is meritorious to go on
pilgrimage to holy places, and there to worship holy relics and images of saints and
martyrs. What say ye to this?”
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Lord Cobham: “I owe them no service by any commandment of God. It were better to
brush the cobwebs from them and put them away, or bury them out of sight, as ye do
other aged people, which are God’s images. But this I say unto you, and I would all
the world should know it, that with your shrives and idols, your reigned absolutions
and pardons, ye draw unto you the substance, wealth, and chief pleasures of all
Christian realms.”
A priest: “What, sir, will ye not worship good images?”
Lord Cobham: “What worship should I give unto them?”
Friar Palmer: “Sir, will ye worship the cross of Christ, that he died upon?”
Lord Cobham: “Where is it?”
The friar: “I put the case, sir, that it were here even now before you.”
Lord Cobham: “This is a wise man, to put to me an earnest question of a thing, and
yet he himself knows not where the thing is. Again I ask you, what worship should I
give it?”
A priest: “Such worship as St. Paul speaks of, and that is this, ‘God forbid that I
should joy, but only in the cross of Jesus Christ.’”
The Bishop of London: “Sir, ye wot well that Christ died on a material cross.”
Lord Cobham: “Yea, and I wot also that our salvation came not by that material cross,
but by him alone that died thereon; and well I wot that holy St. Paul rejoiced in no
other cross but Christ’s passion and death.”
The archbishop: “Sir, the day passeth away. Ye must either submit yourself to the
ordinance of holy Church, or else throw yourself into most deep danger. See to it in
time, for anon it will be too late.”
Lord Cobham: “I know not to what purpose I should submit me.”
The archbishop: “We once again require you to look to yourself, and to have no other
opinion in these matters, save that is the universal faith and belief of the holy Church
of Rome; and so, like an obedient child, return to the unity of your mother. See to it, I
say, in time, for yet ye may have remeid, whereas anon it will be too late.”
Lord Cobham: “I will none otherwise believe in these points than I have told you
before. Do with me what you will.”
The archbishop: “We must needs do the law: we must proceed to a definite sentence,
and judge and condemn you for an heretic.”
Hereupon the archbishop stood up to pronounce sentence. The whole assembly bishops, doctors, and friars - rose at the same time, and uncovered. The primate drew
forth two papers which had been prepared beforehand, and proceeded to read them.
The first set forth the heresies of which Lord Cobham had been convicted, and the
efforts which the court, “desiring the health of his soul,” had made to bring him to
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“the unity of the Church;” but he, “as a child of iniquity and darkness,[18] had so
hardened his heart that he would not listen to the voice of his pastor.” “We,
thereupon,” continued the archbishop, turning to the second paper, “judge, declare,
and condemn the said Sir John Oldcastle, knight, for a most pernicious and detestable
heretic, committing him to the secular jurisdiction and power, to do him thereupon to
death.”
This sentence Arundel pronounced with a sweet and affable voice, the tears trickling
down his face. It is the primate himself who tells us so; otherwise we should not have
known it; for certainly we can trace no signs of pity or relenting in the terms of the
sentence. “I pronounced it,” says the archbishop, referring to the sentence dooming
Sir John to the fire, “in the kindest and sweetest manner, with a weeping
countenance.”[19] If the primate wept, no one saw a tear on the face of Lord Cobham.
“Turning to the multitude,” says Bale, “Lord Cobham said, with a most cheerful
voice, ‘Though ye judge my body, which is but a wretched thing, yet can ye do no
harm to my soul. He that created it will, of his infinite mercy, save it. Of that I have
no manner of doubt.’ Then falling down on his knees, and lifting up his eyes, with
hands outstretched toward heaven, he prayed, saying, ‘Lord God eternal, I beseech
thee, for thy great mercy’s sake, to forgive my pursuers, if it be thy blessed will.’ He
was thereupon delivered to Sir Robert Morley, and led back to the Tower.”[20]
The sentence was not to be executed till after fifty days.[21] This respite, so unusual,
may have been owing to a lingering affection for his old friend on the part of the king,
or it may have been prompted by the hope that he would submit himself to the
Church, and that his recantation would deal a blow to the cause of Lollardism. But
Lord Cobham had counted the cost, and his firm resolve was to brave the horrors of
Smithfield, rather than incur the guilt of apostasy. His persecutors, at last, despaired
of bringing him in a penitent’s garb, with lighted tapers, to the door of St. Paul’s, as
they had done humbler and weaker confessors, there to profess his sorrow for having
scoffed at the prodigious mystery of transubstantiation, and placed the authority of the
Scriptures above that of the Church. But if a real recantation could not be had, a
spurious one might be fabricated, and given forth as the knight’s confession. This was
the expedient to which his enemies had now recourse. They gave out that “Sir John
had now become a good man, and had lowly submitted himself in all things to holy
Church;” and thereupon they produced and published a written “abjuration,” in which
they made Lord Cobham profess the most unbounded homage for the Pope (John
XXIII.!), “Christ’s Vicar on earth and head of the Church,” his clergy, his
Sacraments, his laws, his pardons and dispensations, and recommend “all Christian
people to observe, and also most meekly to obey, the aforesaid;” and further, they
made him, in this “abjuration,” renounce as “errors and heresies” all the doctrines he
had maintained before the bishops, and, laying his hand upon the “holy evangel of
God,” to swear that he should nevermore henceforth hold these heresies, “or any other
like unto them, wittingly.” [22]
The fabricators of this “abjuration” had overshot the mark. But small discernment,
truly, was needed to detect so clumsy a forgery. Its authors were careful, doubtless,
that the eye of the man whom it so grievously defamed should not light upon it; and
yet it would appear that information was conveyed to Cobham, in his prison, of the
part the priests were making him act in public; for we find him sending out to rebut
the slanders and falsehoods that were spread abroad regarding him, and protesting that
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as he had professed when he stood before the archbishop, so did he still believe,[23]
“This abjuration,” says Fox, “never came into the hands of Lord Cobham, neither was
it compiled by them for that purpose, but only to blear the eyes of the unlearned
multitude for a time.”[24] Meanwhile - whether by the aid of his friends, or by
connivance of the governor, is not certainly known - Lord Cobham escaped from the
Tower and fled to Wales, where he remained secreted for four years.
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CHAPTER 6
LOLLARDISM DENOUNCED AS TREASON
Lord Cobham had for the time escaped from the hands of his persecutors, but humbler
confessors were within their reach, and on these Arundel and his clergy now
proceeded to wreak their vengeance. This thing, which they branded as heresy, and
punished in the fire, was spreading over England despite all their rigors. That the new
opinions were dangerous to the authority of the Roman Church was sufficiently clear,
but it suited the designs of the hierarchy to represent them as dangerous also to the
good order of the State. They went to the king, and complaining of the spread of
Lollardism, told him that it was the enemy of kings and the foe of commonwealths,
and that if it were allowed to remain longer unsuppressed, it would in no long time be
the undoing of his realm. “The heretics and Lollards of Wycliffe’s opinion,” said they,
“are suffered to preach abroad so boldly, to gather conventicles unto them, to keep
schools in men’s houses, to make books, compile treatises, and write ballads; to teach
privately in angles and corners, as in woods, fields, meadows, pastures, groves, and
caves of the ground. This,” they added, “will be a destruction to the commonwealth, a
subversion to the land, and an utter decay of the king’s estate royal, if a remedy be not
sought in time.”[1]
This picture, making allowance for some little exaggeration, shows us the wonderful
activity of these early Protestants, and what a variety of agencies they had already
begun to employ for the propagation of their opinions. It justifies the saying of Bale,
that “if England at that time had not been unthankful for the singular benefit that God
then sent it in these good men, the days of Antichrist and his tyrannous brood had
been shortened there long ago.”[2]
The machinations of the priests bore further fruit. The more effectually to rouse the
apprehensions of the king, and lead him to cut off the very men who would have
sowed the seeds of order in his dominions, and been a bulwark around his throne, they
professed to adduce a specific instance in support of their general allegations of
disloyalty and treason against the Lollards. In January, 1414, they repaired to Eltham,
where the king was then residing, and startled him with the intelligence of a
formidable insurrection of the Wycliffites, with Lord Cobham at their head, just ready
to break out. The Lollards, they declared, proposed to dethrone the king, murder the
royal household, pull down Westminster Abbey, and all the cathedrals in the realm,
and to wind up by confiscating all the possessions of the Church.[3] To give a
colouring of truth to the story, they specified the time and place fixed upon for the
outbreak of the diabolical plot. The conspirators were to meet on a certain midnight
“in Ficket Field beside London, on the back side of St. Giles,” and then and there
begin their terrible work.[4] The king on receiving the alarming news quitted Eltham,
and repaired, with a body of armed men, to his Palace of Westminster, to be on the
spot and ready to quell the expected rebellion. The night came when this terrible plot
was to explode, and to leave before morning its memorials in the overthrow of the
throne, and the destruction of the hierarchy. The martial spirit of the future hero of
Agincourt was roused. Giving orders for the gates of London to be closed, and
“unfurling a banner,” says Walden, “with a cross upon it” - after the Pope’s example
when he wars against the Turk - the king marched forth to engage the rebels. He
found no such assembly as he had been led to expect. There was no Lord Cobham
there; there were no armed men present. In short, instead of conspirators in rank and
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file, ready to sustain the onset of the royal troops, the king encountered only a
congregation of citizens, who had chosen this hour and place as the fittest for a field
preaching. Such, in sober truth, appears to have been the character of the assembly.
When the king rode in among them with his men-at-arms, he met absolutely with no
resistance. Without leaders and without arms, the multitude broke up and fled. Some
were cut down on the spot, the rest were pursued, and of these many were taken.
The gates of the city had been closed, and why? “To prevent the citizens joining the
rebels,” say the accusers of the Lollards, who would fain have us believe that this was
an organised conspiracy. The men of London, say they, were ready to rush out in
hundreds to support the Lollards against the king’s troops. But where is the evidence
of this? We do not hear of a single citizen arming himself. Why did not the Londoners
sally forth and join their friends outside before night had fallen and they were attacked
by the soldiery? Why did they not meet them the moment they arrived on Ficket
Field? Their coming was known to their foes, why not also to their friends? No; the
gates of London were shut for the same reason, doubtless, which led, at an afterperiod, to the closing of the gates of Paris when a conventicle was held outside its
walls - even that the worshippers, when attacked, might not find refuge in the city.
The idea that this was an insurrection, planned and organised, for the overthrow of
Government, and the entire subversion of the whole ecclesiastical and political estate
of England, appears to us too absurd to be entertained.[5] Such revolutionary and
sanguinary schemes were not more alien to the character and objects of the Lollards
than they were beyond their resources. They sought, indeed, the sequestration or
redistribution of the ecclesiastical property, but they employed for this end none but
the legitimate means of petitioning Parliament. Rapine, bloodshed, revolution, were
abhorrent to them. If the work they now had in hand was indeed the arduous one of
overturning a powerful Government, how came they to assemble without weapons?
Why, instead of making a display of their numbers and power, as they would have
done had their object been what their enemies alleged, did they cover themselves with
the darkness of the night? While so many circumstances throw not only doubt, but
ridicule, upon the idea of conspiracy, where are the proofs of such a thing? When
searched to the bottom, the matter rests only on the allegations of the priests. The
priests said so to the king. Thomas Walsingham, monk of St. Albans, reported it in his
Chronicles; and one historian after another has followed in his wake, and treated us to
an account of this formidable rebellion, which they would have us believe had so
nearly plunged the kingdom into revolution, and extinguished the throne in blood. No
the epithet of heresy alone was not enough to stigmatize the young Protestantism of
England. To heresy must be joined treason, in order to make Lollardism sufficiently
odious; and when this double-headed monster should be seen by the terrified
imaginations of statesmen, stalking through the land, striking at the throne and the
altar, trampling on law as well as on religion, confiscating the estate of the noble as
well as the glebe of the bishop, and wrapping castle and hamlet in flames, then would
the monarch put forth all his power to crush the destroyer and save the realm. The
monks of Paris a hundred and twenty years after drew the same hideous picture of
Protestantism, and frightened the King of France into planting the stake for the
Huguenots. This was the game which had begun to be played in England. Lollardism,
said the priests, means revolution. To make such a charge is an ancient device. It is
long since a certain city was spoken of before a powerful monarch as “the rebellious
and the bad,” within which they had “moved sedition of old time.”[6] The calumny
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has been often repeated since; but no king ever yet permitted himself to be deceived
by it, who had not cause to rue it in the tarnishing of his throne and the impoverishing
of his realm, and it might be in the ruin of both.
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CHAPTER 7
MARTYRDOM OF LORD COBHAM
The dispersion of this unarmed assembly, met in the darkness of the night, on the then
lonely and thicket-covered field of St. Giles, to listen, it might be, to some favourite
preacher, or to celebrate an act of worship, was followed by the execution of several
Lollards. The most distinguished of these was Sir Roger Acton, known to be a friend
of Lord Cobham. He was seized at the midnight meeting on St. Giles’ Field, and was
immediately thereafter condemned and executed. The manner of his death has been
variously reported. Some chroniclers say he was burned,[1] others that he was drawn
on a hurdle to Tyburn, and there hanged.[2] Two other Lollards were put to death at
the same time - Master John Brown, and John Beverly, formerly a priest, but now a
Wycliffite preacher. “So many persons were apprehended,” says Holinshed, “that all
the prisons in and about London were full.” The leaders only, however, were put to
death, “being condemned,” says the chronicler, “for heresy by the clergy, and
attainted of high treason in the Guildhall of London, and adjudged for that offence to
be drawn and hanged, and for heresy to be consumed with fire, gallows and all, which
judgment was executed the same month on the said Sir Roger Acton, and twenty-eight
others.”[3] The chronicler, however, goes on to say, what strongly corroborates the
view we have taken of this affair, even that the overthrow of the Government formed
no part of the designs of these men, that their only crime was attachment to Protestant
truth, and that their assembling, which has been magnified into a dark and diabolical
plot, was simply a peaceful meeting for worship. “Certain affirm,” says Holinshed,
“that it was for reigned causes, surmised by the spirituality, more upon displeasure
than truth; and that they were assembled to hear their preacher (the aforesaid Beverly)
in that place there, out of the way from resort of people, since they might not come
together openly about any such matter, without danger to be apprehended.”[4] Other
martyrdoms followed. Of these sufferers some were burned in Smithfield, others were
put to death in the provinces; and not a few, to escape the stake, fled into exile, as
Bale testifies. “Many fled out of the land into Germany, Bohemia, France, Spain,
Portugal, and into the wilds of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.”[5] Such terror had the
rigor of the archbishop infused into the now numerous adherents of the Protestant
doctrines.
We pause to record another death, which followed, at the distance of less than a
month, those of which we have just made mention. This death takes us, not to
Smithfield, where the stake glorifies those whom it consumes, but to the
archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth. There on his bed, Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of
Canterbury, together with his life, was yielding up his primacy, which he had held for
seventeen years.[6]
Thomas Arundel was of noble birth, being the son of Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of
Arundel. His talents, naturally good, had been improved by study and experience; he
was fond of pomp, subtle, resolute, and as stern in his measures as he was suave in his
manners. A devoted son of his mother the Church, he was an uncompromising foe of
Protestantism, which bore in his days the somewhat concealing name of Lollardism,
but which his instincts as a Churchman taught him to regard as the one mortal enemy
of that system, wherewith were bound up all dignities, titles, and happiness. He had
experienced great diversity of fortune. He shared the exile of Henry Plantagenet, and
he returned with him to assist in dethroning the man who had condemned and
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banished him as a traitor, and in elevating in his room Henry IV., whom he anointed
with oil from the sacred vial which fell down from Mary out of heaven. He continued
to be the evil genius of the king. His stronger will and more powerful intellect
asserted an easy supremacy over Henry, who never felt quite sure of the ground on
which he stood.
When at last the king was carried to Canterbury, and laid in marble, Arundel took his
place by the side of his son, Henry V., and kept it during the first year of his reign.
This prince was not naturally cruel, but Arundel’s arrogant spirit and subtle counsel
seduced him into paths of intolerance and blood. The stakes which the king and
Arundel had planted were still blazing when the latter breathed his last, and was
carried to lie beside his former master in Canterbury Cathedral. The martyrdoms
which succeeded the Lollard assembly in St. Giles’ Field, took place in January, 1414,
and the archbishop died in the February following. “Yet died not,” says Bale, “his
prodigious tyranny with him, but succeeded with his office in Henry Chicheley.”[7]
Before entering on any recital of the fortunes of English Protestantism under the new
primate, let us pursue to a close the story of Sir John Oldcastle the good Lord
Cobham, as the people called him. When he escaped from the Tower, the king offered
a reward of 1,000 marks to any one who should bring him to him, dead or alive. Such,
however, was the general estimation in which he was held, that no one claimed or
coveted the price of blood. During four years Cobham remained undisturbed in his
concealment among the mountains of the Welsh Principality. At length Lord Powis,
prompted by avarice, or hatred of Lollardism, discovering his hiding-place, betrayed
him to his pursuers. The brave old man was not to be taken without resistance.[8] In
the scuffle his leg was broken, and, thus maimed, he was laid upon a home-litter,
carried to London, and consigned to his former abode in the Tower.[9] The
Parliament happened to be at that time sitting in London, and its records tell us the
sequel. “On Tuesday, the 14th day of December (1417), and the 29th day of said
Parliament, Sir John Oldcastle, of Cowling, in the county of Kent, knight [Lord
Cobham], being outlawed (as is before mentioned) in the King’s Bench, and
excommunicated before by the Archbishop of Canterbury for heresy, was brought
before the Lords, and having heard his said convictions, answered not thereto in his
excuse. Upon which record and process it was judged that he should be taken, as a
traitor to the king and the realm; that he should be carried to the Tower of London,
and from thence down through London, unto the new gallows in St. Giles without
Temple Bar, and there be hanged, and burned hanging.”[10]
When the day came for the execution of this sentence, Lord Cobham was brought out,
his hands pinioned behind his back, but his face lighted up with an air of
cheerfulness.[11] By this time Lollardism had been made treason by Parliament, and
the usual marks of ignominy which accompany the death of the traitor were, in Lord
Cobham’s case, added to the punishment of which he was judged worthy as a heretic.
He was placed on a hurdle, and drawn through the streets of London to St. Giles-inthe-Fields.
On arriving at the place of execution he was assisted to alight, and, falling on his
knees, he offered a prayer for the forgiveness of his enemies. He then stood up, and
turning to the multitude, he exhorted them earnestly to follow the laws of God as
written in the Scriptures; and especially to beware of those teachers whose immoral
lives showed that neither had they the spirit of Christ nor loved his doctrine. A new
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gallows had been erected, and now began the horrible tragedy. Iron chains were put
round his waist, · he was raised aloft, suspended over the fire, and subjected to the
double torture of hanging and burning. He maintained his constancy and joy amid his
cruel sufferings; “consuming alive in the fire,” says Bale, “and praising the name of
the Lord so long as his life lasted.” The priests and friars stood by the while,
forbidding the people to pray for one who, as he was departing “not in the obedience
of their Pope,” was about to be plunged into fiercer flames than those in which they
beheld him consuming.
The martyr, now near his end, lifting up his voice for the last time, commended his
soul into the hands of God, and “so departed hence most Christianly.”[12] “Thus,”
adds the chronicler, “rested this valiant Christian knight, Sir John Oldcastle, under the
Altar of God, which is Jesus Christ; among that godly company which, in the
kingdom of patience, suffered great tribulation, with the death of their bodies, for his
faithful word and testimony; abiding there with them the fulfilling of their whole
number, and the full restoration of his elect.[13]
“Chains, gallows, and fire,” as Bale remarks, are no pleasant things, and death by
their means is not precious in the eyes of men; and yet some of the noblest spirits that
have ever lived have endured these thine - have worn the chain, mounted the gallows,
stood at the stake; and in that ignominious guise, arrayed in the garb and enduring the
doom of felons, have achieved victories, than which there are none grander or so
fruitful in the records of the world. ‘What better are we at this hour that Henry V. won
Agincourt? To what purpose was that sea of blood - English and French - poured out
on the plains of France? To set the trumpet of idle fame a-sounding? - to furnish
matter for a ballad? - to blazon a page in history? That is about all when we reckon it
up. But the blood of Cobham is yielding its fruits at this day. Had Sawtre, Badby, and
Cobham been careful of their name, their honour, their lives; had they blushed to
stand before tribunals which they knew were prepared to condemn them as traitors;
had they declined to become a gazing-stock to mobs, who waited to scoff at and insult
them as heretics; had they shrunk from the cruel torture and the bitter death of the
stake - where would have been the Protestantism of England? and, without its
Protestantism, where would have been its liberty? - still unborn. It was not the valor
of Henry V., it was the grander heroism of Lord Cobham and his fellow-martys that
awoke the soul of England, when it was sleeping a dead sleep, and fired it to pluck the
bandage of a seven-fold darkness from its eyes, and to break the yoke of a seven-fold
slavery from its neck. These are the stars that illuminate England’s sky; the heroes
whose exploits glorify her annals; the kings whose spirits rule from their thrones,
which are their stakes, the hearts and souls of her noblest sons. The multitude lays its
homage at the feet of those for whom the world has done much; whose path it has
made smooth with riches; whose head it has lifted up with honours; and for whom,
while living, it provided a stately palace; and when dead, a marble tomb. Let us go
aside from the crowd: let us seek out, not the men for whom the world has done
much, but the men who have done much for the world; and let us pay our homage, not
indeed to them, but to Him who made them what they were. And where shall we find
these men? In kings’ houses? in schools and camps? - not oft. In jails, or at the bar of
a tyrannical tribunal, or before a bench of Pharisees, or on a scaffold, around which
mobs hoot, while the executioner stands by to do his office. These are not pleasant
places; and yet it is precisely there that those great examples have been exhibited
which have instructed the world, and those mighty services rendered which have
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ennobled and blessed the race. It was amid such humiliations and sufferings that the
Lollards sowed, all through the fifteenth century, the living seed, which the gracious
spring-time of the sixteenth quickened into growth; which the following centuries, not
unmingled with conflict and the blood of martyrdom, helped to ripen; and the fully
matured harvest of which it remains for the generations to come to carry home.
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CHAPTER 8
LOLLARDISM UNDER HENRY V AND HENRY VI
The martyrdom of Lord Cobham has carried us a little way beyond the point to which
we had come in tracing the footprints faint and intermittent - of Protestantism in
England during the fifteenth century. We saw Arundel carried from the halls of
Lambeth to be laid in the sepulchral vaults of Canterbury. His master, Henry IV., had
preceded him to the grave by only a few months. More lately Sir Roger Acton and
others had expired at the stake which Arundel’s policy had planted for them; and, last
of all, he went to render his own account to God.
Arundel was succeeded in the primacy by Henry Chicheley. Chicheley continued in
the chair of St. Anselm the same policy which his predecessor had pursued. His
predecessor’s influence at court he did not wield, at least to the same extent, for
neither was Chicheley so astute as Arundel, nor was Henry V. so facile as his father;
but he inherited Arundel’s hatred of Lollardism, and resolved to use all the powers of
his high office for its suppression. The persecution, therefore, still went on. The
“Constitutions of Arundel,” passed in the previous reign, had spread the net so wide
that scarcely was it possible for any one who had imbibed the opinions of John
Wycliffe to avoid being caught in its meshes. Besides, under the reign of Henry V.,
new and more stringent ordinances were framed to oppress the Lollards. In a
Parliament held at Leicester (1414), it was enacted “that whoever should read the
Scriptures in English, which was then called ‘Wycliffe’s Learning,’ should forfeit
land, cattle, goods, and life, and be condemned as heretics to God, enemies to the
crown, and traitors to the kingdom; that they should not have the benefit of any
sanctuary, though this was a privilege then granted to the most notorious malefactors;
and that, if they continued obstinate, or relapsed after pardon, they should first be
hanged for treason against the king, and then burned for heresy against God.”[1]
While the Parliament stretched out one hand to persecute the Lollards, it put forth the
other to despoil the clergy. Their wealth was enormous; but only the smallest fraction
of it was given for the public service. The complaints on this head were growing
louder every year. At this same Parliament of Leicester a storm was like to have burst
out, had not the wit and policy of Henry Chicheley arrested the danger. The Commons
reminded the king of the demand which had twice before been made in Parliament first in Richard II.’s time (1394), and next in Henry IV.’s (1410) - relative to
converting the lands and possessions of the clergy to the service of the State. “This
bill,” says Hall, “made the fat abbots to sweat; the proud priors to frown; the poor
priors to curse; the silly nuns to weep; and indeed all her merchants to fear that Babel
would down.”
Though Henry had lent the clergy his power to burn Lollards, they were far from sure
that he might not be equally ready to lend the Parliament his authority to rob the
Church. He was active, bold, fond of display, lavish in his habits; and the wealth of
the hierarchy offered a ready and tempting means of maintaining his magnificence,
which Henry might not have virtue to resist. They thought of binding the king to their
interests by offering him a wealthy gift; but the wiser heads disapproved the policy: it
would be accounted a bribe, and might be deemed scarce decent on the part of men in
sacred office. The Archbishop of Canterbury hit on a more likely expedient, and one
that fell in with the genius of the king, and the aspirations of the nation.
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The most effectual course, said the archbishop, in a synod at London, of averting the
impending storm, is to find the king some other business to employ his courage. We
must turn his thoughts to war; we must rouse his ambition by reminding him of the
crown of France, descended to him from Edward III. He must be urged to demand the
French crown, as the undoubted heir; and if refused, he must attempt the recovery of
it by arms. To cause these counsels to prevail, the clergy agreed to offer a great sum
of money to defray the expenses of the war. They further resolved to give up all the
alien priories [2] in the kingdom, to the number of 110, the lands of which would
considerably increase the revenues of the crown.[3]
This policy, being approved by the synod at London, was vigorously advocated by the
primate in the Parliament at Leicester. The archbishop, rising in the House, addressed
the king as follows: - “You administer justice to your people with a noble equity; you
are illustrious in the arts of a peaceful government: but the glory of a great king
consists not so much in a reign of serenity and plenty, in great treasures, in
magnificent palaces, in populous and fair cities, as in the enlargement of his
dominions; especially when the assertion of his right calls him out to war, and justice,
not ambition, authorizes all his conquests. Your Highness ought to wear the crown of
France, by right descended to you from Edward III., your illustrious predecessor.”
The speaker went on, at great length, to trace the title, and to establish its validity, to
the satisfaction, doubtless, of the audience which he addressed; and he wound up his
oration by a reference to the unprecedentedly large sum which the liberality of the
clergy had placed at the service of the king, to enable him to make good his title to the
crown of France.
The primate added, “Since therefore your right to the realm of France is so clear and
unquestionable; since ‘tis supported by the laws both of God and man; ‘tis now your
Highness’ part to assert your title, to pull the crown from the heads of the French
usurpers, and to pursue the revolt of that nation with fire and sword. ‘Tis your
Highness’ interest to maintain the ancient honour of the English nation, and not, by a
tame overlooking of injurious treatment, give your posterity an occasion to reproach
your memory.”[4] No one present whispered into the speakers ear the conjuration
which our great national poet puts into the mouth of King Henry “God doth know how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person;
How you awake the sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
‘Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.”[5]
The project met with the approval of the king.
To place the fair realm of France under his sceptre; to unite it with England and
Scotland - for the king’s uncle, the Duke of Exeter, suggested that he who would
conquer Scotland must begin with France - in one monarchy; to transfer, in due time,
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the seat of government to Paris, and make his throne the first in Christendom, was an
enterprise grand enough to fire the spirit of a monarch less ambitious and valorous
than Henry V. Instantly the king set about making preparations on a vast scale.
Soldiers were levied from all parts of England; ships were hired from Holland and
Flanders for the transport of men and ammunition. Money, provisions, horses,
carriages, tents, boats covered with skins for crossing rivers - everything, in fine,
requisite for the success of such an enterprise was provided; and the expedition was
now ready to be launched.
But before striking the blow a feint was made at negotiation with France. This was
conducted by Archbishop Chicheley, the very man with whom war was a foregone
conclusion; and, as might have been foreseen, the attempts at conciliation came to
nothing, and hostilities were now commenced. The king, crossing the Channel with an
army of 30,000 men, landed on the coast of France.[6] Towns were besieged and
taken; battles were fought; but sickness setting in among the soldiers, and winter
coming on, the king deemed it advisable, in order to preserve the remnant of his army,
to retreat to Calais for winter quarters. On his march he encountered the French host,
which four times outnumbered his own, now reduced to 10,000. He had to fight the
terrible battle of Agincourt. He conquered on this bloody field, on which, stretched
out in death, lay the flower of the French nobility. Leaving the vultures to give them
burial, Henry resumed his march, and held on his way to England,[7] where, tidings
of his victory having preceded him, he was welcomed with acclamations. Archbishop
Chicheley had succeeded in diverting the mind of the king and Parliament from their
projected attempt on the possessions of the clergy; but at what a price!
Neither England nor France had yet seen the end of this sad and very sanguinary
affair. The English king, now on fire, was not the man to let the enterprise drop half
achieved; and the policy of the primate was destined to develop into yet other
tragedies, and yet more oceans of French and English blood. Henry made a second
descent upon France (1417), the mutual hate and fierce contentions of the French
factions opening the gates of the kingdom for his entrance. He passed on through the
land, marking in blood the line of his march. Towns besieged, provinces wasted, and
their inhabitants subjected to the horrors of famine, of rapine and slaughter, were the
scenes which presented themselves around his steps. He made himself master of
Normandy, married the king’s youngest daughter, and after a time returned once more
to his own land.[8]
Soon affairs called King Henry again to France. This time he made a public entry into
Paris, accompanied by his queen, Catherine,[9] on purpose to show the Parisians their
future sovereign. France was no nearer recognising his alleged right to reign over it;
and Henry began, as before, to besiege its towns and slaughter its children, in order to
compel a submission which it was clear would not be voluntarily given. He was thus
occupied when an event took place which put an end to his enterprise for ever; he felt
that the hand of death was upon him, and he retired from Cosne, which he was
besieging, to Vincennes, near Paris. The Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, and the
Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, when his end approached, came to his bedside to
receive his instructions. He addressed them, protesting that “neither the ambitious
desire of enlarging his dominions, nor of winning vain renown and worldly fame, had
moved him to engage in these wars, but only the prosecution of his just title; that he
might in the end attain to a perfect peace, and come to enjoy those parts of his
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inheritance which to him of right belonged; and that, before the beginning of the same
wars, he was fully persuaded by men both wise and of great holiness of life, that upon
such intent he might and ought both begin the same wars, and follow them till he had
brought them to an end justly and rightly, and that without all danger of God’s
displeasure or peril of soul.”[10] After making a few necessary arrangements
respecting the government of England and France, he recited the seven penitential
psalms, received the Sacrament, and so he died, August 31st, 1422.
The magnificence of his funeral is thus described by the chronicler: - “His body,
embalmed and enclosed in lead, was laid in a chariot royal, richly apparelled with
cloth of gold. Upon his coffin was laid a representation of his person, adorned with
robes, diadem, sceptre, and ball, like a king; the which chariot six horses drew, richly
trapped, with several appointments: the first with the arms of St. George, the second
with the arms of Normandy, the third of King Arthur, the fourth of St. Edward, the
fifth of France, and the sixth with the arms of England and France. On this same
chariot gave attendance James, King of Scots, the principal mourner; King Henry’s
uncle, Thomas, Duke of Exeter; Richard, Earl of Warwick;” and nine other lords and
knights. Other lords carried banners and standards.
“The hatchments were carried only by captains, to the number of twelve; and round
about the chariot rode 500 men-at-arms, all in black armour, their horses barbed
black, and they with the butt-ends of their spears upwards.”
“The conduct of this dolorous funeral was committed to Sir William Philip, Treasurer
of the King’s household, and to Sir William Porter, his chief carver, and others.
Besides this, on every side of his chariot went 300 persons, holding long torches, and
lords bearing banners, bannerds, and pennons. With this funeral appointment was he
conveyed from Bets de Vincennes to Paris, and so to Rouen, to Abbeville, to Calais,
to Dover; from thence through London to Westminster, where he was interred with
such solemn ceremonies, mourning of lords, prayer of priests, and such lamenting of
commons, as never before then the like was seen in England,”[11] Tapers were kept
burning day and night on his tomb, till the Reformation came to put them out.
Henry V. had not a few great qualities which, in other circumstances, would have
enabled him to render services of great value and lasting benefit to his nation. His
strength of character was attested by his conquest over his youthful passions and
habits when he came to the throne. He was gentle in disposition, frank in manners,
and courageous in spirit, he was a lover of justice, and showed a desire to have it
purely administered. He ate temperately, passed but few hours in bed, and in field
exercises displayed the strength of an athlete. His good sense made him valuable in
council; but it was in marshalling an army for battle that his genius especially shone.
Had these talents and energies been exercised at home, what blessings might they not
have conferred upon his subjects? But the fatal counsel of the archbishop and the
clergy diverted them all into a channel in which they were productive of terrible
mischiefs to the country of which he was the rightful lord, and to that other which he
aspired to rule, but the crown of which riot all his valour and toil were able to place
upon his head. He went down into the grave in the flower of his age, in the very prime
of his manhood, after a reign of ten years, “and all his mighty projects vanished into
smoke.”[12] He left his throne to his son, an infant only a few months old,
bequeathing to him along with the crown a legacy of complications at home and wars
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abroad, for which a “hundred Agincourts” would not have compensated. This episode
of Henry and his wars with France belongs to the history of Protestantism, springing
as it does directly out of the policy which was framed for arresting it.
While these armaments and battles were going forward, how fared it, we return to ask,
with the new opinions and their disciples in England? Did these great storms root out,
or did they shelter, the seed which Wycliffe had sowed, and which the blood of the
martyrs who came after him had watered and caused to spring up? They were a
protection, we are disposed to think, on the whole, to the infant Protestantism of
England. Its adherents were a humble, unorganised company of men, who shunned
rather than courted observation. Still we trace their presence in the nation, as we light,
in the ecclesiastical records of their age, at brief intervals of time, upon a stake, and a
Lollard sealing his testimony thereat.
On August 17, 1415, John Claydon, a currier in London, was brought before Henry,
Archbishop of Canterbury. In former years, Claydon had been in the prison of the
Fleet on a charge of heresy. He was set free on abjuring his opinions. On this his
second apprehension, he boldly confessed the faith he had denied aforetime. One of
the main charges against him was his having in his house many books written in
English, and in especial one book, called the Lanthorn of Light. This book was
produced against him by the Mayor of London, who had taken possession of it, along
with others, when he apprehended him. It was bound in red leather, written on
parchment, in a good English hand, and Claydon confessed that it had been made at
his own cost and charges, and that he often read in it, for he found it “good and
healthful for his soul.” The mayor said that the books he found in the house of
Claydon “were, in his judgment, the worst and most perverse he ever did read or see.”
He was sentenced as a relapsed heretic, and delivered to the secular power.
Committed to the fire at Smithfield, “he was there meekly,” says Fox, “made a burntoffering to the Lord.” He is said by some to have had a companion at the stake,
George Gurmyn, with whom, as it came out on his examination, he had often
communed about the matters of their common faith.[13]
The year after the martyrdom of Claydon, the growth of Lollardism was borne
testimony to by Archbishop Chicheley, in a new edict which he issued, in addition to
those that his predecessor, Arundel, had enacted. The archbishop’s edict had been
preceded by the Act of Parliament, passed in 1414, soon after the midnight meeting at
St. Giles-in-the-Fields, which made it one and the same thing to be a Lollard and to be
a traitor. The preamble of the Act of Parliament set forth that “there had been great
congregations and insurrections, as well by them of the sect of heresy commonly
called Lollardy, as by others of their confederacy, to the intent to annul, destroy, and
subvert the Christian faith, and also to destroy our Sovereign Lord the King, and all
other manner of Estates of the Realm of England, as well spiritual as temporal, and
also all manner of policy, and finally the laws of the land.” These simple men, who
read the Scriptures, believed what they taught, and assembled in secret places to
worship God, are painted in the Act as the most dangerous of conspirators - as men
aiming at the destruction of society itself, and so are to be hunted out and
exterminated. Accordingly, the Act goes on to enjoin that all judges, justices, and
magistrates shall take an oath to make inquisition for Lollards, and that they shall
issue warrants for their apprehension, and delivery to the ecclesiastical judges, that
they may “be acquit or convict by the laws of holy Church.”[14]
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This paved the way for the edict of the primate, which enjoined on his suffragan
bishops and their commissaries a similar pursuit of heretics and heresy. In pointing
out whom he would have apprehended, the archbishop undesignedly gives us the true
character of the men whom Parliament had branded as conspirators, busy plotting the
destruction of the Christian religion, and the entire subversion and ruin of the
commonwealth of England. And who are they? Men of immoral life, who prowl about
with arms in their hands, and make themselves, by their lawless and violent courses,
the terror of the neighbourhood in which they live? No. The men on whose track the
primate sets his inquisitors are the men who “frequent conventicles, or else differ in
life and manners from the common conversation of other Catholic men, or else that
hold any either heresies or errors, or else that have any suspected books in the English
tongue” - “Wycliffe’s learning” for example - in short, “those heretics who, like
foxes, lurk and hide themselves in the Lord’s vineyard.” The personal search of the
bishop and archdeacon, or their commissaries, was not, the archbishop judged,
enough; they were to supplement their own diligence by calling to their aid certain of
the “honestest men, to take their oath upon the holy evangelists, that if they shall
know or understand any such” they should report them “to our suffragans, or
archdeacons, or to their commissaries.”[15]
These edicts raise the curtain, and show us how numerous were the followers of
Wycliffe in England in the fifteenth century, and how deep his teaching had gone into
the hearts of the English people. It is only the choice spirits of the party who come
into view at the stake. The greater part hid their Lollardism under the veil of an
outward conformity, or of an almost entire seclusion from the world; or, if
apprehended on a charge of heresy, they quailed before the terrible alternative offered
them, and preferred submission to the Church to burning. We may be permitted to
draw a covering over their weakness, and to pass on to those whose stronger faith
doomed them indeed to the fire, but won for them a place by the side of the ancient
“worthies” on the great roll of renown.[16]
The first martyr under Henry VI. was William Taylor. He was a priest of the province
of Canterbury. Accused of heresy before Archbishop Arundel, he abjure!, and
appeared at Lambeth to receive absolution at the hands of the primate. “Laying aside
his cloak, his cap, and stripped to his doublet, he kneeled at the feet of the archbishop,
who then, standing up, and having a rod in his hand, began the ‘Miserere.’”[17] The
prescribed forms of penance having been duly gone through, Taylor received
absolution. In 1419 he was again charged with heretical teaching, and brought before
Archbishop Chicheley. On a profession of penitence, he was let free on bail. Little
more than a year only elapsed when he was a third time arraigned. Twice had he
fallen; but he will not be guilty of a third relapse. Refusing to abjure, he was delivered
to the secular power, a form of words consigning him to burning in Smithfield.
Before being led to the stake he was degraded. He was deprived of priesthood by
taking from him the chalice and paten; of deaconship, by taking from him the gospelbook and tunicle; of sub-deaconship, by taking from him the epistle-book and tunicle;
of acolyteship, by taking from him the cruet and candlestick; of the office of exorcist,
by taking from him the book of exorcisms or gradual; of sextonship, by taking from
him the church-door key and surplice. On the 1st of March, 1422, after long
imprisonment, he was brought to Smithfield, and there, “with Christian constancy,
consummated his martyrdom.”[18]
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Two years afterwards (1424), William White, a priest, whose many virtues and
continual labours had won him the esteem of all good men in Norfolk, was burned at
Norwich.He had previously renounced his priesthood, married, and become a Lollard
evangelist. In 1424 he was attached at Canterbury for the following articles: 1. That
men should seek for the forgiveness of their sins only at the hand of God. 2. That men
ought not to worship images and other idolatrous painting. 3. That men ought not to
worship the holy men who are dead. 4. That the Romish Church is the fig-tree which
the Lord Jesus Christ hath accursed, seeing it hath brought forth no fruit of the true
belief. 5. That such as wear cowls, or be anointed or shorn, are the lance-knights or
soldiers of Lucifer, and that they all, because their lamps are not burning, shall be shut
out when the Lord shall come.
At Canterbury he “lost courage and strength,” and abjured. But “afterwards,” says the
martyrologist, “he became much stouter and stronger in Jesus Christ, and confessed
his error and offence.” He exerted himself more zealously than ever in writing and
preaching. At last he was apprehended, and, being convicted of thirty articles, he was
condemned by the Bishop of Nextrich to be burned.[19] As he stood at the stake, he
essayed to speak to the people, and to exhort them to steadfastness in the doctrine
which he had taught them; but a servant of the bishop struck him on the mouth, and
forced him to keep silence. The utterance of the tongue might be suppressed, but the
eloquence of his death it was impossible to suppress. In 1430, William Hoveden, a
wool-spinner and citizen of London, having imbibed the opinions of Wycliffe, “could
by no means be plucked back,” says Fox, “and was burned hard by the Tower of
London.” In 1431, Thomas Bagley, Vicar of Monenden, near Malden, “a valiant
disciple and adherent of Wycliffe,” was condemned for heresy, and burned in
Smithfield.
Only one other martyr of the’ fifteenth century shall we name - John Huss; “for
England,” says Fox, “has also its John Huss as well as Bohemia.” Being condemned,
he was delivered to one of the sheriffs to see him burned in the afternoon. The sheriff,
being a merciful man, took him to his own house, and began to exhort him to
renounce his errors. The confessor thanked him, but intimated that he was well
assured of that for which he was about to die: one thing, however, would he beg of
him - a little food, for he was hungry and faint. His wish was gladly complied with,
and the martyr sat down and dined composedly, remarking to those that stood by that
“he had made a good and competent meal, seeing he should pass through a sharp
shower ere he went to supper.” Having given thanks, he rose from table, and
requested that he might shortly be led to the place where he should yield up his spirit
unto God.
“It is to be noted,” says Fox, “that since the time of King Richard II., there is no reign
of any king in which some good man or other has not suffered the pains of fire for the
religion and true testimony of Christ Jesus.”[20]
It were truly tedious to relate the number of apprehensions and trials for heresy that
took place in those days. No spectacle was then more common than that of men and
women, at church doors and market crosses, in a garb meant to humiliate and degrade
them, their feet and limbs naked, their head bare, with tapers in their hands, making
abjuration of their Protestantism. “Within the space of three or four years,” says Fox,
“that is from 1428 to 1431, about the number of 120 men and women were cast into
prison, and sustained great vexation for the profession of the Christian faith, in the
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dioceses of Norfolk and Suffolk.[21] These were the proofs at once of their numbers
and their weakness; and for the latter the martyrologist thus finely pleads their excuse:
“These soldiers of Christ,” says he, “being much beaten with the cares and troubles of
those days, were constrained to protest otherwise with their tongues than their hearts
did think, partly through correction and partly through infirmity, being as yet but newtrained soldiers in God’s field.”[22] These confessors attained not the first rank, yet
were they soldiers in the army of the Reformed faith, and contributed their moiety of
help towards that great victory which ultimately crowned their cause, and the fruits of
which we are reaping at this day.
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CHAPTER 9
ROME’S ATTEMPT TO REGAIN
DOMINANCY IN ENGLAND
Henry V., overtaken by death in the midst of his wars in a foreign land, left his throne,
as we have seen, to his son, then only a few months old. England now experienced, in
amplest measure, the woe predicted of the land whose king is a child. During the long
minority, many evil fruits grew out of the counsel tendered to the king by the clergy.
If ever a country needed a firm will and a strong hand, it was England at the era that
saw this infant placed on its throne. There were factions to be repressed; turbulent
nobles to be curbed; conspirators, though the Lollards were not of the number, to be
hunted out and punished; and, above all, there was the rising spirit of reform to be
guided into the channel of peaceful progress, that so it might rectify institutions
without destroying them. But the power, the enlightenment, and the patriotism
necessary for this were lacking, and all these elements of conflict, unregulated and
uncontrolled, broke out, and strove together in the now distracted and miserable
country.
The natural tendency of corruptions, when first approached by the pruning-knife, is to
strengthen themselves - to shoot up in new and ranker luxuriance - the better to resist
the attacking forces. So was it with the Church of Rome at this era in England. On the
one side Lollardism had begun to question the truth of its doctrines, on the other the
lay power was assailing the utility of its vast possessions, and the Roman hierarchy,
which had not made up its mind to yield to the call for reformation now addressed to
it, had no alternative but to fortify itself against both the Lollards without and the cry
for reform within. It became instantly more exacting in its homage and more stringent
in its beliefs. Aforetime a very considerable measure of freedom had been allowed to
friend and foe on both points. If one was disposed to be witty, or satirical, or
humorous at the expense of the Church or her servants, he might be so without
running any great risk of being branded as a heretic. Witness the stinging diatribes
and biting satires of Petrarch, written, we may say, under the very roof of the Popes at
Avignon. But now the wind set in from another quarter, and if one spoke irreverently
of saint, or indulged in a quiet laugh at monk, or hinted a doubt of any miracle or
mystery of “Holy Church,” he drew upon himself the suspicion of heresy, and was
fortunate indeed if he escaped the penalties thereto annexed. Some there were who
aimed only at being wits, who found to their dismay that they were near becoming
martyrs.
Protestantism, which has only one object of worship, has only one great Festival - that
DAY which stands in majesty unapproachable among the other days. But the fetes
and festivals of Rome crowded the calendar, and if more should be added to the list, it
would be almost necessary that more days should be added to the year. Yet now there
came a great addition to these days of unholy idleness. The previous century had
entrenched the Romish ceremonial with “All Souls,” the “Conception of the Blessed
Virgin,” and “Corpus Christi.” To these Boniface IX. had added the Salutation of
Mary and Elizabeth, “cram-full of indulgences,” as Walsingham says, for those who
should duly honour the feast. Treading in the footsteps of the Pontiff, although at a
becoming distance, Archbishop Arundel contributed his share to this department of
the nation’s piety by raising, cum permissu, St. Dunstan’s and St. George’s days to
the rank of the greater festivals. Next came the monks of Bury in this pious work of
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enriching England with sacred days and holy places. They procured special
indulgences for the shrine of St. Edmund. Nor were the monks of Ely and Norwich
behind their brethren of Bury. They were enabled to offer full absolution to all who
should come and confess themselves in their churches in Trinity week. Even the
bloody field of Agincourt was made to do its part in augmenting the nation’s spiritual
wealth: from October 25th, this day began to be observed as a greater festival. And,
not to multiply instances, the canons of St. Bartholomew, hard by Smithfield, where
the fires of martyrdom were blazing, were diligently exercising their new privilege of
pardoning all sorts of persons all manner of sins, one sin only excepted, the
unpardonable one of heresy. The staple of the trade now being so industriously driven
was pardon; the material cost nothing, the demand was extensive, the price was good,
and the profits were correspondingly large. This multiplication of festivals was
Rome’s remedy for the growing irreverence of the age. It was the only means she
knew of heightening the spirit of devotion among her members, and strengthening the
national religion.
It was at this time that Pope Martin V., of the haughty house of Colonna, who was
elevated to the Papal chair by the Council of Constance, which place he soon
thereafter left for Rome in a blaze of magnificence,[1] turned his eyes on England,
thinking to put it as completely under his feet as it had been under those of Innocent
III., in the days of King John. The statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, passed in the
reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., were heavy blows to the Papal power in
England. The Popes had never acquiesced in this state of matters, nor relinquished the
hope of being able to compel Parliament to cancel these “execrable statutes.” But the
calamities of the Popedom, and more especially the schism, which lasted forty years,
delayed the prosecution of the fixed determination of the Papal See. Now, however,
the schism was healed, a prince, immature in years and weak in mind, occupied the
throne of England, the nation had a war with France upon its hands, factions and
conspiracies were weakening the country at home, and success was ceasing to gild its
arms abroad, and so the Pope thought the time ripe for advancing anew his claim for
supremacy over England. His demand was, in short, that the statutes of Provisors and
Praemunire, which had shut out his briefs and bulls, his bishops and legates, and had
cut off the outflow of English gold, so much prized at Rome, should be repealed.
This request Pope Martin did not send directly to the king or the regent. The Vatican
in such cases commonly acts through its spiritual machinery. In the first place, the
Pontiff is too exalted above other monarchs to make suit in person to them; and in the
second place, he is too politic to do so. It lessens the humiliation of a rebuff that it be
given to the servant and not the master. Pope Martin wrote to Archbishop Chicheley,
frowning right pontifically upon him for a state of things which Chicheley could no
more prevent than Martin himself could.[2]
“Martin, Bishop, servant of the servants of God,” began the Pontiff - it is the usual
Papal phraseology, especially when some arrogant demand is to follow - to his
reverend brother, the Archbishop of Canterbury, greeting, and apostolic benediction.”
So far well, but the sweetness exhales in the first sentence; the brotherly kindness of
Papal benediction is soon exhausted, and then comes the Papal displeasure. Pope
Martin goes on to accuse his “reverend brother” of forgetting what “a strict account he
had to give to Almighty God of the flock committed to his care.” He upbraids him as
“sleepy and negligent,” otherwise he would have opposed to the utmost of his power
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“those who had made a sacrilegious invasion upon the privileges settled by our
Saviour upon the Roman Church” - the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, to wit.
While Archbishop Chicheley was slumbering, “his flock, alas!” the Pope tells him,
“were running down a precipice before his face.” The flock in the act of hurling
themselves over a precipice are seen, in the next sentence, feeding quietly beside their
shepherd; for the Pope immediately continues, “You suffer them to feed upon
dangerous plants, without warning; and, which is horribly surprising, you seem to put
poison in their mouths with your own hands.” He had forgotten that Archbishop
Chicheley’s hands were at that moment folded in sleep, and that he was now uttering
a cry to awaken him. But again the scene suddenly shifts, and the Papal pencil
displays a new picture to our bewildered sight; for, adds the writer, “you can look on
and see the wolves scatter and pull them in pieces, and, like a dumb dog, not so much
as bark upon the occasion.”
After the rhetoric comes a little business. “What abominable violence has been let
loose upon your province, I leave it to yourself to consider. Pray peruse that royal
law” the Pope now comes to the point - “if there is anything that is either law or royal
belonging to it. For how can that be called a statute which repeals the laws of God and
the Church? I desire to know, reverend brother, whether you, who are a Catholic
bishop, can think it reasonable such an Act as this should be in force in a Christian
country?” Not content with having exhibited the statute of Praemunire under the three
similitudes of a “precipice,” “poison,” and “wolves,” Pope Martin goes on thus: “Under colour of this execrable statute, the King of England reaches into the spiritual
jurisdiction, and governs so fully in ecclesiastical matters, as if our Saviour had
constituted him His Vicar. He makes laws for the Church, as if the keys of the
kingdom of heaven were put into his hands.
“Besides this hideous encroachment, he has enacted,” continues the Pope, “several
terrible penalties against the clergy.”
This “rigor,” worse, the Pope calls it, than any to which “Jew” or “Turk” was
subjected, was the exclusion from the kingdom of those Italians and others whom the
Pope had nominated to English livings without the king’s consent, and in defiance of
the statute.
“Was ever,” asks the Pope, “such iniquity as this passed into a law? Can that be styled
a Catholic kingdom where such profane laws are made and practised? where St.
Peter’s successor is not allowed to execute our Saviour’s commission? For this Act
will not allow St. Peter’s See to proceed in the functions of government, nor make
provisions suitable to the necessities of the Church.”
“Is this,” asks the Pope, in fine, “a Catholic statute, or can it be endured without
dishonour to our Saviour, without a breach upon the laws of the Gospel, and the ruin
of people’s souls? Why, therefore, did you not cry aloud? why did you not lift up your
voice like a trumpet? Show your people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob
their sins, that their blood may not be required at your hands.”[3]
Such were the terms in which Pope Martin deemed it becoming to speak of the Act by
which the Parliament prohibited foreigners - many of whom did not know our tongue,
and some of whom, too lazy to come in person, sent their cooks or butlers to do duty
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for them - holding livings in England. He rates the Senate of a great nation as if it
were a chapter of friars or a corps of Papal pensioners, who dared not meet till he had
given them leave, nor transact the least piece of business till they had first ascertained
whether it was agreeable to his Pontifical pleasure. And the primate, the very man
who at that moment was enacting new edicts against heresy, deeming the old not
severe enough, and was burning Lollards for the “greater glory” of the Church, he
indecently scolds as: grossly and traitorously negligent of the interests of the Papal
See. This sharp reprimand was followed by an order to the archbishop, under pain of
excommunication, instantly to repair to the Privy Council, and exert his utmost
influence to have the statute repealed; and he was further enjoined, as soon as
Parliament should sit, to apply to it for the same purpose, and to tell the Lords and
Commons of England from the Pope, “that all who obeyed that statute were under
excommunication.” The primate was further required to charge all the clergy to
preach the same doctrine. And, lastly, he was ordered to take two grave personages
with him to attest his diligence, and to certify the Pope of the result of the matter.[4]
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CHAPTER 10
RESISTANCE TO PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS
Why this explosion of Papal wrath against the Primate of England? Why this torrent
of abusive epithets and violent accusations? Even granting the Act of Praemunire to
have been the atrociously wicked thing the Pope held it to be - the very acme of
rebellion against God, against St. Peter, and against one whom the Pope seemed to
think greater than either - himself - could Archbishop Chicheley have prevented the
passing of it? It was passed before his time. And why, we may ask, was this tempest
reserved for the head of Archbishop Chicheley? Why was not the See of Canterbury
taxed with cowardice and prevarication before now? Why were not Courtney and
Arundel reprimanded upon the same score? Why had the Pope held his peace till this
time? The flock in England for half a century had been suffering the treble scourge of
being driven over a precipice, of being poisoned, and of being torn by wolves, and yet
the Pontiff had not broken silence or uttered a cry of warning all that time. The chief
shepherd had been slumbering as well as the under-shepherd, and ought first to have
made confession of his own faults before so sharply calling others to a reckoning for
theirs. Why was this?
We have already hinted at the reasons. The affairs of the Papal See were in great
confusion. The schism was in its vigour. There were at times three claimants of St.
Peter’s chair. While matters were so embroiled, it would have been the height of
imprudence to have ruffled the English bishops; it might have sent them over to a
rival interest. But now Martin had borne down all competitors, he had climbed to the
sole occupancy of the Papal throne, and he will let both the English Parliament and
the English Primate know that he is Pope.
But Chicheley had offended in another point, and though the Pope does not mention
it, it is possible that it wounded his pride just as deeply as the other. The archbishop,
in his first Convocation, moved the annulling of Papal exemptions in favour of those
under age. “This he did,” says Walsingham, “to show his spirit.”[1] This was an act of
boldness which the court of Rome was not likely to pardon. But, further, the
archbishop brought himself into yet deeper disfavour by counselling Henry V. to
refuse admission to the Bishop of Winchester [2] as legate-a-latere. The Pope could
not but deem this a special affront. Chicheley showed the king that “this commission
of legate-a-latere might prove of dangerous consequence to the realm; that it appeared
from history and ancient records that no legates-a-latere had been sent into England
unless upon very great occasions; that before they were admitted they were brought
under articles, and limited in the exercise of their character. Their commission
likewise determined within a year at farthest, whereas the Bishop of Winchester’s was
granted for life.”[3]
Still further to convince the king of the danger of freely admitting such a functionary,
he showed from canon law the vast jurisdiction with which he was vested; that from
the moment the legate entered, he, Henry, would be but half a king; that the legate-alatere was the Pope in all but the name; that he would bring with him the Pope’s
power in all but its plenitude; that the chair of the legate would eclipse the throne of
the king; that the courts of the legate would override the courts of Westminster Hall;
that the legate would assume the administration of all the Church property in the
kingdom; that he would claim the right of adjudicating upon all causes in which, by
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any pretext, it could be made appear that the Church had interest; in short, that the
legate-a-latere would, divide the allegiance of the subjects between the English crown
and the Roman tiara, reserving the lion’s share to his master.
Henry V. was not the man to fill the place of lieutenant while another was master in
his kingdom. Winchester had to give way; as the representative of Rome’s majesty the
Pope’s other self - he must not tread the English sod while Henry lived. But in the
next reign, after a visit to Rome, the bishop returned in the full investiture of the
legatine power (1428). He intimated his commission to the young king and the Duke
of Gloucester, who was regent, but he did not find the way so smooth as he hoped.
Richard Caudray, being named the king’s deputy, met him with a protest in form, that
no legate from the Pope could enter the realm without the king’s consent, that the
kings of England had long enjoyed this privilege, and that if Winchester intended to
stretch his legatine authority to the breach of this ancient custom, and enter of his own
right, it was at his peril. The cardinal, finding the king firm, gave his solemn promise
that he would do nothing to the prejudice of the prerogatives of the crown, and the
rights and privileges of the kingdom,[4] The spirited and patriotic conduct of
Archbishop Chicheley, in advising that the legate-a-latere should not be recognised,
was the more honourable to him inasmuch as the man who in this case bore the
legatine commission was an Englishman, and of the blood royal. It was rare indeed
that any but an Italian was appointed to an office that came so near equality, in its
influence and dignity, with the Papal chair itself.[5]
The primate’s conduct in the matter was, doubtless, reported at Rome. It must have
been specially offensive to a court which held it as a maxim that to love one’s country
is to hate one’s Church. But the Vatican could not show its displeasure or venture on
resenting the indignity while the warlike Henry V. occupied the throne. Now,
however, the silent aisles of Westminster had received him. The offence was
remembered, and the kingdom from whom it had come must be taught how heinous it
is to humiliate the See of Rome, or encroach upon the regaltries of St. Peter. The
affair of the legate-a-latere was but one in a long series of affronts. To avenge it was
not enough; the Pope must go further back and deeper down, and get at the root of
that spirit of rebellion which had actuated England from the days of Edward III., and
which had come to a head in the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire.[6]
We have seen the primate commanded to go to the Privy Council, and also to
Parliament, and demand the repeal of these statutes. Excommunication was to be the
penalty of refusal. But the Pope went further. In virtue of his own supremacy he made
void these laws. He wrote to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury - for the Pope
names York before Canterbury, as if he meant to modify the latter - commanding
them to give no obedience to the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire - that is, to
offer no resistance to English causes being carried for adjudication to the courts of
Rome, or to the appointment of foreigners to English livings, and the transport beyond
sea of their revenues - and declaring that should they themselves, or any others,
submit to these laws, they would ipso facto be excommunicated, and denied
absolution, except at the point of death and from the Pope himself.[7] About the same
time the Pope pronounced a censure upon the archbishop, and it serves to illustrate the
jealousy with which the encroachments of the Vatican were watched by the English
sovereign and his council, to find the primate complaining to the Pope that he could
not be informed of the sentence in the regular way, that he knew it only by report, “for
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he had not so much as opened the bulls that contained the censure, because he was
commanded by the king to bring these instruments, with the seals whole, and lodge
them in the paper-office till the Parliament sat.”[8]
The Pope did not rest with enjoining the clergy to hold the obnoxious statutes null and
void; he took the extraordinary step of writing four letters - two to the king, one to the
Parliament, and another to the Duke of Bedford, then Regent of France - urging and
commanding them, as they valued the salvation of their souls, to repeal the Act of
Praemunire.
The Pope’s letter to the Duke of Bedford is a specimen of the spirit that animated the
Popedom under Martin V. It is fair to state, however, that the Pope at that moment
had received a special provocation which explains so far, if it does not excuse, the
heat of his language. His nuncio had been lately imprisoned in England for delivering
his briefs and letters. It may be supposed, although the bull does not acknowledge it,
that they contained matter prejudicial to the crown. The Pope, in his letter to the Duke
of Bedford, appears to strike only at the Act of Praemunire, but he does so with all his
might. He calls it “an execrable statute,” that was contrary to all reason and religion;
that in pursuance of this Act the law of nations and the privilege of ambassadors were
violated, and his nuncios much more coarsely used in a Christian country than those
of that character among Saracens and Turks; that it was a hideous reproach to the
English to fall thus short of infidels in justice and humanity; and that, without speedy
reformation, it was to be feared some heavy judgment would be drawn down upon
them. He concludes by desiring the Duke of Bedford to use his interest to wipe off the
imputation from the Government, to retrieve the honour of the Church, and “chain up
the rigor of these persecuting statutes.” It is an old trick of Rome to raise the cry of
“persecution,” and to demand “justice,” whenever England has withstood her
encroachments, and tried to bind up her hands from meddling with the gold or
violating the laws of the nation.
When Parliament assembled, the two archbishops, Canterbury and York,
accompanied by several bishops and abbots, presented themselves in the Refectory of
the Abbey of Westminster, where the Commons were sitting, and, premising that they
intended nothing to the prejudice of the king’s prerogative or the integrity of the
Constitution, they craved Parliament to satisfy the Pope by repealing the Act of
Praemunire. Chicheley had begun to quail before the storm gathering at Rome.
Happily the Commons were more jealous of the nation’s honour and independence
than the hierarchy. Rejecting the archbishops’ advice to “serve two masters,” they
refused to repeal the Act.[9]
The Pope, notwithstanding that he had been balked in his attempts to bend the
Parliament of England to his will, continued his aggressions upon the privileges of the
English Church. He sustained himself its chief bishop, and conducted himself as if the
Act of Praemunire did not exist. Paying no respect to the right of the chapters to elect,
and the power of the king to grant his conge d’elire, he issued his provisors appointing
to vacant livings, not on the ground of piety or learning, but of riches and interest. The
highest price in the market of Rome commanded the benefice. Pope Martin V., on the
termination of the Council of Constance, promoted not less than fourteen persons to
various bishoprics in the province of Canterbury alone. The Pope empowered his
favourites to hold sees in commendam, that is, to draw their temporalities, while
another discharged the duty, or professed to do so. Pope Eugene IV. (1438)gave the
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bishopric of Ely in cornmendam to the Archbishop of Rouen, and after some
resistance this Frenchman was allowed to enjoy the revenues.[10] He ventured on
other stretches of his supremacy in the matter of pluralities, of non-residence, and of
exemptions in favour of minors, as the holders of ecclesiastical livings. We find the
Pope, further, issuing bulls empowering his nuncios to impose taxes upon the clergy,
and collect money. We trace, in short, in the ecclesiastical annals of the time, a steady
and persistent effort on the one side to encroach, and a tolerably steady and
continuous effort on the other to repel. The Ven. Henry Edward Manning,
Archdeacon of Chichester,[11] with strict historical truth, says: “If any man will look
down along the line of early English history, he will see a standing contest between
the rulers of this land and the Bishops of Rome. The Crown and Church of England
with a steady opposition resisted the entrance and encroachment of the secularised
power of the Pope in England.”[12] From the days of King John the shadow of the
Vatican had begun to go back on England; it was still shortening in the fifteenth
century, and its lessening line gave promise of a time, for the advent of which the
good Lord Cobham had expressed an ardent wish, when that ominous penumbra,
terminating at Calais, would no longer be projected across the sea to the English
shore.
While the English monarchs were fighting against the Papal supremacy with the one
hand, they were persecuting Lollardism with the other. At the very time that they were
framing such Acts as those of Provisors and Praemunire, to defend the canons of the
Church, and the constitution of the State, from the utter demolition with which both
were threatened by a foreign tyranny, they were enacting edicts for the conviction of
Lollards, and planting stakes to burn them. This does not surprise us. It is ever so in
the earliest stage of a great reform. The good which has begun to stir in the quiet
depths below, sends the evil to the surface in quickened activity.
Hence such contradictions as that before us. To a casual eye, matters appear to be
getting worse; whereas the very effervescence and violence of the old powers is a sign
that the new are not far off, and that a reformation has already set in. The Jews have a
proverb to this effect - “When the tale of bricks is doubled, then Moses will come,”
which saying, however, if it were more exactly to express the truth of the fact and the
law of the Divine working, should run - The tale of bricks has been doubled, therefore
Moses is come.
We trace in the England of the fifteenth century two powerful currents, and both are,
in a sense, Protestant.
Lollardism, basing itself upon the Word of God and the rights of conscience, was
essentially and wholly Protestant. The fight against the Roman supremacy, basing
itself upon the canons of the Church and the laws of the kingdom, was also so far
Protestant. It was a protest against a power that was lifting its seat above all law, and
crushing every right. And what, we ask, engendered this spirit of opposition? Little
did the party who were fighting against the supremacy dream whence their movement
drew its existence. They would have been ashamed to own it, even if made aware of
it. And yet it is true that the very Lollardism which they were seeking to trample out
had originated the spirit that was now shown in defence of national independence and
against Papal encroachments. The Lollard, or Protestant, or Christian principle - for it
matters not by which one of these three names we designate it - had all along through
the Dark Ages been present in the bosom of European Christendom, preserving to the
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conscience some measure of action and power, to the intellect some degree of energy
and expansion, and to the soul the desire and the hope of liberty. Ordinarily this
principle attested its presence by the piety with which it nourished the heart, and the
charity and purity with which it enriched the lives of individual men and women,
scattered up and down in monasteries, or in cathedral chapters, or in rural vicarages,
or in hidden places where history passed them by. At other times it forced itself to the
surface, and revealed its power on a large scale, as in the Albigensan revival. But the
powers of evil were then too strong, to permit of its keeping the footing it had
momentarily obtained. Beaten down, it again became torpid. But in the great springtime which came along with Wycliffe it was effectually roused never again to
slumber. Taking now its place in the front, it found itself supported by a host of
agencies, of which itself was the real although the indirect creator. For it was the
Lollard or Christian spirit, never, amid all the barbarism and strifes and superstitions
that overlaid Medieval society, eliminated or purged out, that hailed letters in that
early morning, that tasted their sweetness, that prompted to the cultivation of them,
that panted for a wider sphere, for a greater liberty, for a purer state of society, and
never rested till it had achieved it. This despised principle - for in the fifteenth century
it is seen at the bar of tribunals, in prisons, at stakes, in the guise of a felon - was in
truth the originator of these activities; it communicated to them the first impulse.
Without it they never would have been: night, not morning, would have succeeded the
Dark Ages. It was the day-spring to Christendom. And this is certified to us when,
tracing the course of the two contemporary currents which we find flowing in
England in the century under review, we see them, at a point a little way only in
advance of that at which we are now arrived, uniting their streams, and forming one
combined movement, known as the English Reformation.
But before that point could be reached England had to pass through a terrible conflict.
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CHAPTER 11
INFLUENCE OF THE WARS OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY ON THE PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM
The Day that was hastening towards the world sent terrible tempests before it as the
heralds of its approach. Than the middle of the fifteenth century there is, perhaps, no
point in modern history that presents a scene of more universal turmoil and calamity,
if we except the period that witnessed the fall of the Western Empire. Nowhere is
there stability or rest. All around, as far as the eye can reach, appears a sea whose
waters, swollen into huge billows by the force of the mighty winds, are assailing the
very foundations of the earth. The Christian of that day, when he cast his eyes around
on a world rocked and tossed by these great tempests, must have despaired, had he not
remembered that there is One who “sits King upon the floods.”
The armies of the Turk were gathering round Constantinople, and the Queen of the
East was about to bow her head and sink in a tempest of pillage, of rapine, and of
slaughter. The land of Bohemia, watered, as with a plenteous rain, once, again, and a
third time, with German blood, was gloomy and silent. Germany had suffered far
more than she had inflicted.
From the Rhine to the Elbe, from the Black Forest to the Baltic, her nations were
lamenting their youth slaughtered in the ill-fated campaigns into which Rome had
drawn them against the Hussites. Italy, split up into principalities, was ceaselessly
torn by the ambitions and feuds of its petty rulers, and if for a moment the din of these
intestine strifes was hushed, it was in presence of some foreign invader whom the
beauty of that land had drawn with his armies across the Alps. The magnificent cities
of Spain, adorned by the art and enriched by the industry of the Moors, were being
emptied of their inhabitants by the crusades of bigotry; the Moslem flag was being
torn down on the walls of Granada, and the race which had converted the Vega
around the Moorish capital into a garden, watering it with the icy torrents of the Sierra
Nevada, and clothing it with corn-fields and orange-groves, were fleeing across the
Straits to form new seats on the northern shores of Africa. The Swiss, who had looked
for centuries with almost uninterrupted indifference on the wars and convulsions that
distracted the nations that dwelt at the feet of their mountains, finding in their great
hills an impregnable fortress against invasion, now saw themselves menaced in their
valleys with a foreign sword, and had to fight for their immemorial independence.
They were assailed by the two powerful kingdoms on each side of them; for Austria
and France, in their desire to enlarge their territories, had become forgetful that in
levelling the Alps of the Swiss, they but effaced the barrier between themselves,
which prevented the two nations mingling their blood on fierce and frequent battlefields.
As if the antipathies of race, and the ambition of princes, were not enough to afflict an
unhappy age, another element of contention was imported into the strife by the Papal
schism. The rival Popes and their supporters brought their cause into the battle-field,
and torrents of Christian blood were shed to determine the question which was the
true Vicar.’ The arguments from piety, from wisdom, from learning were but dust in
the balance against the unanswerable argument of the sword, and the gospel of peace
was converted into the tocsin of war. The evils flowing from the schism, and which
for so many years afflicted Christendom, can not but raise the question in every
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dispassionate mind how far the Popes have fulfilled the office assigned them as the
“Fathers of Christendom” and the Peacemakers of the World?, Leaving out of view
their adulators on the one side, and their incriminators on the other, let us put to
history the question, How many are the years of peace, and how many are the years of
war, which have come out of the Papal chair, and what proportion does the one bear
to the other?
To put, then, a few plain questions touching matters of fact, let us ask, from whom
came the crusades which for two centuries continued to waste the treasure and the
blood of both Europe and Asia? History answers, from the Popes. Monks preached
the crusades, monks enlisted soldiers to fight them and when the host was marshalled
and all was ready, monks placed themselves at their head, and led them onward, their
track marked by devastation, to the shores of Syria, where their furious fanaticism
exploded in scenes of yet greater devastation and horror. In these expeditions the
Popes were always the chiefs; the crossed emperors and kings were enlisted under
their banner, and put under the command of their legates; at the Popes’ mandate it was
that they went forth to slay and to be slain. In the absence of these princes the Popes
took into their hands the government of their kingdoms; the persons and goods of all
the crusaders were declared under their protection; in their behalf they caused every
process, civil and criminal, to be suspended; they made a lavish distribution of
indulgences and dispensations, to keep alive fanatical fervour and sanguinary zeal;
they sometimes enjoined as a command, and sometimes as a penance, service in the
crusades; their nuncios and legates received the alms and legacies bequeathed for
maintaining these wars; and when, after two dismal centuries, they came to an end, it
was found that none save the Popes were the gainers thereby. While the authority of
the Papal See was vastly strengthened, the secular princes were in the same proportion
weakened and impoverished; the sway of Rome was confirmed, for the nations,
broken and bowed down, suffered a yoke to be riveted upon their necks that could not
be broken for ages.[1]
We ask further, from whom came the contest between the mitre and the Empire - the
war of investitures, - which divided and ravaged Christendom for a full century and a
half? History answers, from the Pope - Gregory VII. From whom came the
Albigensian crusades, which swept in successive tempests of fire and blood across the
south of France?
History answers, from the Pope - Innocent III. Whence came those armies of
assassins, which times without number penetrated into the Waldensian valleys,
carrying the torch into dwelling and sanctuary, and inflicting on the unoffending
inhabitants barbarities and cruelties of so horrible a nature that they never can be
known, because they never dare be told? History answers, from the Pope. Who made
donations of kingdoms - Naples, Sicily, Aragon, Poland, and others - knowing that
those to whom they had gifted them could possess them only by fighting for them?
History answers, the Popes.
Who deposed sovereigns, and sanctioned insurrection and war between them and their
subjects? The Popes. Who so often tempted the Swiss from their mountains to shed
their blood on the plains of Italy? The Bishop of Sion, acting as the legate of the Pope.
Who was it that, the better to maintain the predominance of their own sway, kept Italy
divided, at the cost of almost ceaseless intestine feuds and wars, and the leaving the
gates of the country unguarded, or purposely open, for the entrance of foreign hordes?
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History answers, the Popes. Who was it that, having entered into war with France,
threw aside the mitre for the helmet, and, passing over a bridge on the Tiber, is said to
have thrown the keys of St. Peter into the river, seeing they had served him so ill, and
called for the sword of St. Paul? Pope Julius II. Who organised the successive
campaigns waged against the Hussites, and on two several occasions sent his legate-alatere to lead the crusaders? History answers, the Pope.
We stop at the era of the Reformation. We put no questions to history touching the
wars in Germany, the wars in France, the wars in the Low Countries, the wars in
Hungary, and in other lands; in which, too, the blood of the scaffold was largely
mingled with the blood of the battle-field. We restrict our examples to those ages
when Rome was not only a power, but the power in Christendom. Kings were then
her vassals, and she had only to speak to be obeyed. Why then did she not summon
them to her bar, and command them to sheathe their swords? Why did she not bind
them in the chain of her excommunications, and compel them to be at peace till she
had arbitrated in their quarrels, and so prevent this great effusion of human blood?
Here are the Pope’s exploits on the field of war. Why has history forgotten to
chronicle his labours and sacrifices in the blessed work of peace? True, we do find a
few outstanding instances of the Popes enjoining peace among Christian princes. We
find the Council of Lyons (1245) ordaining a general cessation of arms among the
Western sovereigns, with power to prelates to proceed by censures against those who
refused to acquiesce; but for what end? in order that the crusade which had been
projected might be carried out with greater unanimity and vigour.[2] We find Gregory
X. sending his nuncio to compel observance of this decree of the Council on Philip
III. of France and the King of Castile, knowing that these two sovereigns were about
to decide a certain difference by arms, because he needed their swords to fight his
own battles. We find, further, Boniface VIII. enjoining all sovereigns to terminate all
wars and differences at home, that, they might be in circumstances to prosecute more
vigorously the holy wars of the Church.
These, and a few similar instances, are all that we have on the one side to set over
against the long roll of melancholy facts on the other. History’s verdict is, that with
the ascent of the Popes to supremacy came not peace but war to the nations of
Christendom. The noon of the Papal power was illustrated, not by its calm splendours
and its tranquil joys, but by tempest and battle and destruction.
We return from this digression to the picture of Europe in the middle of the fifteenth
century. To the distractions that were rife in every quarter, in the east, in the south,
and in the centre of Christendom, we have to add those that raged in the north. The
King of England had proclaimed war against France. Mighty armaments were setting
sail from “that pale, that white-faced shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean’s roaring tides,
And coops from other lands her islanders”[3]
the man who led them being forgetful that nature had ordained the sea around
England to be at once the limit of her seat and the rampart of her power, and that by
extending he was imperilling his dominions. This ill-starred expedition, out of which
came so many calamities to both countries, was planned, we have seen, by the
Romish clergy, for the purpose of finding work for the active-minded Henry V., and
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especially of diverting his eye from their own possessions to a more tempting prize,
the crown of France. The mischiefs and woes to which this advice opened the door
did not exhaust themselves till the century was drawing to a close.
The armies of England smote not merely the northern coasts of France, they
penetrated to the centre of the kingdom, marking the line of their march by cities
sacked and provinces devastated and partially depopulated. This calamity fell heavily
on the upper ranks of French society. On the fatal field of Agincourt perished the
flower of their nobility; moanings and lamentations resounded in their chateaux and
royal residences; for there were few indeed of the great families that had not cause to
mourn the counsel of Archbishop Chicheley to Henry V., which had directed this
destructive tempest against their country.
At last the Cloud of calamity returned northward (1450), and discharged its last and
heaviest contents on England itself. The long and melancholy train of events which
now began to run their course at home took its rise in the war with France. The
premature death of Henry V.; [4] the factions and intrigues that strove around the
throne of his infant son; the conspiracies that spread disquiet and distraction over the
kingdom; and, finally, the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses, which, like a fearful
conflagration, consumed all the great families of the kingdom, the royal house
included; all these tragedies and crimes connect themselves with, and can be traced up
to, the fateful counsel of the clergy, so eagerly adopted and acted upon by the king.
Nor was the blood sprit on the battle-field the only evil that darkened that unhappy
period. In the wake of fierce civil war came a relaxation of law, and a suspension of
industry. The consequence of the former was that the country was defiled by crime
and outrage; and of the latter, that frequent famines and pestilences decimated the
population.[5]
The contest which opened in 1452 between the White Rose of York and the Red Rose
of Lancaster, it is the province of the civil historian to narrate. We notice it here only
so far as it bears on the history of Protestantism. The war was not finished in less than
thirty years; it was signalised by twelve pitched battles; it is computed to have cost the
lives of eighty princes of the blood, and almost entirely annihilated the ancient
nobility of England.[6] The kingdom had seemed as a stricken land ever since the De
Hoeretico Comburendo law was placed upon its statute-book, but the Wars of the
Roses filled up its cup of misery.[7]
The rival hosts were inflamed with the rancorous hate peculiar to civil conflicts, and
seldom have more sanguinary battles been fought than those which now deluged the
soil of England with the blood of its own children. Sometimes the House of York was
victorious, and then the Lancastrians were mercilessly slaughtered; at other times it
was the House of Lancaster that triumphed, and then the adherents of York had to
expiate in the hour of defeat the barbarities they had inflicted in the day of victory.
The land mourned its many woes. The passage of armies to and fro over it was
marked by castles, churches, and dwellings burned, and fields wasted.[8] In these
calamities passed the greater part of the second half of the fifteenth century. The reign
of the Plantagenets, who had so long governed England, came to an end on the bloody
field of Bosworth (1485), and the House of Tudor, in the person of Henry VII.,
mounted the throne.
225
If these troubles were so far a shield to the Wycliffites, by giving the King of England
and his nobles other things to think of than hunting for Lollards, they rendered any
revival of their cause impossible. The work of doing to death those who professed and
preached the Reformed faith, though hindered by the causes before alluded to, did not
actually cease.
From time to time during this period, some were called, to use the words of Fox, “to
consummate their testimony in the fire.” “The intimidated Lollards,” says D’Aubigne,
“were compelled to hide themselves in the humblest ranks of the people, and to hold
their meetings in secret. The work of redemption was proceeding noiselessly among
the elect of God.
Of these Lollards there were many who had been redeemed by Jesus Christ, but in
general they knew not, to the same extent as the Protestant Christians of the sixteenth
century, the quickening and justifying power of faith. They were plain, meek, and
often timid folk, attracted by the Word of God, affected by the condemnation it
pronounces against the errors of Rome, and desirous of living according to its
commandments. God had assigned them a part - and an important part too - in the
great transformation of Christianity. Their humble piety, their passive resistance, the
shameful treatment which they bore with resignation, the penitent’s robes with which
they were covered, the tapers they were compelled to hold at the church door - all
these things betrayed the pride of the priests, and filled the most generous mind with
doubts and vague desires. By a baptism of suffering, God was then preparing the way
to a glorious Reformation.” [9]
Looking only at the causes acting on the surface, surveying the condition and working
of established institutions, especially the “Church,” which was every day mounting
higher in power, and at the same time plunging deeper into error; which had laid its
hand upon the throne and made its occupant simply its lieutenant - upon the statutebook, and had made it little better than the register of its intolerant edicts - upon the
magistracy, and left it hardly any higher function than the humble one of executing its
sentences - looking at all this, one would have expected nothing else than that the
darkness would grow yet deeper, and that the storms now afflicting the world would
rage with even greater fury. And yet the dawn had already come. There was light on
the horizon. Nay, these furious blasts were bearing on their wings blessings to the
nations. Constantinople was falling, that the treasures of ancient literature might be
scattered over the Western world, and the human mind quickened. The nobility of
France and England was being weakened on the battlefield, that the throne might rise
into power, and be able to govern.
It was needful that an institution, the weakness of which had invited the lawlessness
of the nobles, and the arrogance of the hierarchy, should be lifted up and made strong.
This was one of the first steps towards the emancipation of society from the spiritual
bondage into which it had fallen.
Ever since the days of Gregory VII., monarchy had been in subordination to
priesthood. The policy of the Popes, pursued through four centuries, was to centralise
their power, and place it at the summit. One of the means adopted for this end was to
make the nobles a poise to the kings, and by weakening both parties, to make the Pope
the most powerful of the three. This policy had been successful. The Popes had grown
to be more than a match for the petty sovereigns of the fifteenth century. Nothing but
226
a system of strong monarchies could now cope with that chair of combined spiritual
and temporal power which had established itself at Rome, and grown to be so strong
that it made kings their tools, and through them scourged their subjects.
Accordingly we see at last emerging from the tempests that raged all through the
century under review, three powerful thrones - that of England, that of France, and
that of Spain. The undivided power of Christendom was no longer in one hand, and
that hand the holder of the tiara. The three powerful sovereigns who had risen up
could keep their nobles in check, could spurn the dictation of the hierarchy, and so
could meet on equal terms the sovereign of the Vatican. With that sovereign their
interests were sometimes in accordance, and sometimes in opposition, and this poise
between Popedom and monarchy constituted a shield for that great expansion of the
Protestant movement which was about to take place.
Before leaving England in the fifteenth century, it is necessary to remember that
during this century the great movement which had been originated by the
instrumentality of Wycliffe in the previous one, was parted into two; the one branch
having its seat in the west, and the other in the east of Christendom.
Further, that movement was known under two names - Hussitism in Bohemia, and
Lollardism in England. When the famous Protest was given in by the German princes
in 1529 it dropped both appellatives, and received henceforward that one designation
by which it has been known these three centuries. The day will come when it will
drop in turn the name it now bears - that of Protestantism - and will resume that more
ancient, more catholic, and more venerable one, given it eighteen centuries ago in
Antioch, where the disciples were first called - Christians.
Although there was one spirit in both branches of the movement, yet was there
diversity of operations. The power of Protestantism was shown in Bohemia in
converting a nation into heroes, in England it was shown in making martyrs. In the
one country its history leads us to camps and battlefields, in the other it conducts us to
prisons and stakes. The latter reveals the nobler champions, and the more glorious
conflict. Yet do we not blame the Hussites. Unlike the Lollards, they were a nation.
Their country was invaded, their consciences were threatened; and they violated no
principle of Christianity that we are acquainted with, when they girded on the sword
in defence of their hearths and their altars. And surely we do not err when we say that
Providence set the seal of its approval upon their patriotic resistance, in that
marvellous success that crowned their arms, and which continued to flow in a tide that
knew not a moment’s ebb till that fatal day when they entered into compact with
Rome. In the Great Roll we find the names of those who “waxed valiant in fight,
turned to flight the armies of the aliens” as well as that of those who “were stoned,
were sawn asunder, were tortured, were slain with the sword, not accepting
deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.”
Still, it must be confessed that the stake of the Lollard showed itself in the end a more
powerful weapon for defending Protestantism than the sword of the Hussite. The arms
of the Bohemians merely extinguished enemies, the stakes of the Lollards created
disciples. In their deaths they sowed the seed of the Gospel; that seed remained in the
soil, and while “the battle of the warrior, with its confused noise and garments rolled
in blood,” was swaying to and fro over the face of England, it continued to germinate
227
in silence, awaiting the sixteenth century, with its mollient air, for the time of
springing.
228
FOOTNOTES - BOOK SEVEN
CHAPTER 1
[1] Fox, pp. 229, 230; Lond. 1838.
[2] These included the condemnation of transubstantiation; exorcisms; the blessing of
bread, oil, wax, water, etc.; the union of spiritual and temporal offices; clerical
celibacy; prayers for the dead; the worship of saints and images; pilgrimages;
auricular confession; indulgences; conventual vows, etc. etc. (Collier, Eccles. Hist.,
vol. 1, pp. 597, 598; Lond., 1708.)
[3] Walsingham, Hist. Anglae, p. 328; Camdeni Anglica, Frankfort, 1603. Lewis,
Wyclif, p. 337. Fox, Acts and Mon., bk. 1, p. 662; Lond., 1641.
[4] Fox, bk. 1, p. 664.
[5] Instit., pax. 3, cap. 5, fol. 39. Collier, Eccles. Hist., vol 1, pp. 614, 615.
[6] Fox, bk. 1, p. 675. This statute is known as 2 Henry IV., cap. 15. Cotton remarks
“that the printed statute differs greatly from the record, not only in form, but much
more in matter, in order to maintain ecclesiastical tyranny.” His publisher, Prynne, has
this note upon it: “This was the first statute and butcherly knife that the impeaching
prelates procured or had against the poor preachers of Christ’s Gospel.” (Cobbett,.
Parliament. Hist., vol. 1, p. 287; Lond., 1806.) The “Statute of Heresy” was passed in
the previous reign - Richard II., 1382. It is entitled “An Act to commission sheriffs to
apprehend preachers of heresy, and their abettors, reciting the enormities ensuing the
preaching of heretics.” It was surreptitiously obtained by the clergy and enrolled
without the consent of the Commons. On the complaint of that body this Act was
repealed, but by a second artifice of the priests the Act of repeal was suppressed, and
prosecutions carried on in virtue of the “Act of Heresy.” (See Cobbett, Parliament.
Hist., vol. 1, p. 177.) Sir Edward Coke (Instit., par. 3, cap. 5, fol. 39) gives the same
account of the matter. He says that the 6th of Richard II., which repealed the statute of
the previous year (5th Richard II.), was not proclaimed, thus leaving the latter in
force. Collier (Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p. 606) argues against this view of the case. The
manner of proclaiming laws, printing being then unknown, was to send a copy on
parchment, in Latin or French, to each sheriff, who proclaimed them in his county;
and had the 6th of Richard II., which repealed the previous Act, been omitted in the
proclamation, it would, Collier thinks, have been known to the Commons.
[7] Fox, bk. 1, p. 675. Collier, Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p 618
[8] Fox, bk. 1, p. 674.
[9] Collier,. Eccles. Hist., 1, 618. Burnet, Hist. Ref., 1:24.
[10] There is some ground to think that Sawtrey was not the first to be put to death for
religion in England. “A chronicle of London,” says the writer of the Preface to Bale’s
Brefe Chronycle, “mentions one of the Albigenses burned A.D. 1210.” And Camden,
it is thought, alludes to this when he says: “In the reign of John, Christians began to
be put to death in the flames by Christians amongst us.” (Bale, Preface 2)
229
[11] Fox, bk. 5, p. 266.
[12] Ibid. p. 267.
[13] Collier. Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p. 629. Fox, bk. 5, p. 266.
[14] Walsingham, Hist. Angliae, p. 570; Camdeni Anglica, Frankfort, 1603.
Holinshed, Chronicles, vol. 3, pp. 48, 49; Lond., 1808. Holinshed says the prince
“promised him not only life, but also three pence a day so long as he lived, to be paid
out of the king’s coffers.” Cobbett, in his Parliamentary History, tells us that the
wages of a thresher were at that time twopence per day.
[15] Fox, bk. 5, pp. 266, 267; Lond., 1838.
CHAPTER 2
[1] Fox, bk. 5, p. 268.
[2] This account of Thorpe’s examination is from Fox greatly abridged. Our aim has
been to bring out his doctrinal views, seeing they may be accepted as a good general
representation of the Lollard theology of his day. The threats and contumelious
epithets addressed to him by the primate, we have all but entirely suppressed.
[3] There were clearly but two courses open to him - retractation or condemnation.
We agree with Fox in thinking that he was not likely to retract.
[4] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 625.
[5] Collier, 1, bk. 7, p. 626.
[6] Ibid.
CHAPTER 3
[1] See ante, bk.2, chap.10.
[2] Ibid., p.628.
[3] Collier, vol. 1, p. 628.
[4] Walsingham, Hist. Angliae, p. 569; Camdeni Anglica, Frankfort, 1603.
[5] Ibid., p. 570.
[6] Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, pp. 628, 629.
[7] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 629. Concil. Lab. at Cossar., tom. 10, pars. 2, col. 2126.
[8] Ibid., col. 2131.
[9] See ante, bk. 3, chap. 4.
[10] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 630.
230
[11] This bull was afterwards voided by Sixtus IV. Wood, Hist. Univ.; Oxon, 205.
Cotton’s Abridgment, p. 480. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 630.
[12] The university seal, it is believed, was surreptitiously obtained; but the
occurrence proves that among the professors at Oxford were not a few who thought
with Wycliffe.
[13] Fox, bk. 5, p. 282; Lond., 1838.
[14] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 631.
[15] Fox, bk. 5, p. 280.
[16] Fox, bk. 5., p. 280.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
CHAPTER 4
[1] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 30. Cobbett, vol. 1, cols. 295, 296. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p.
620.
[2] Walsingham, pp. 371, 372. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, pp. 620, 621.
[3] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 48. Walsingham, p. 379. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 629.
[4] Walsingham, pp. 360, 361. This vial, the chronicler tells us, had lain for many
years, neglected, locked up in a chest in the Tower of London.
[5] The chronicler, Holinshed, records a curious interview between the prince and his
father, in the latter days of Henry. The prince heard that he had been slandered to the
king, and went to court with a numerous train, to clear himself. “He was appareled,”
says Holinshed, “in a gown of blue satin and full of small owlet holes, at every hole
the needle hanging by a silk thread with which it was sewed.” Falling on his knees, he
pulled out a dagger, and presenting it to the king, he bade him plunge it into his
breast, protesting that he did not wish to live a single day under his father’s
suspicions. The king, casting away the dagger, kissed the prince, and was reconciled
to him. (Chron., vol. 3, p. 54.)
[6] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 632. Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 57.
[7] Holinshed, Vol 3, p.58.
CHAPTER 5
[1] “A sore, ruggie, and tempestuous day, with wind, snow, and sleet, that men greatly
marvelled thereat, making diverse interpretations what the same might signify.”
(Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 61.)
231
[2] Fox, bk. 5, p. 282.
[3] Walsingham, p. 382.
[4] Hume, chap. 19.
[5] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 62.
[6] See Dugdale, Baronetage.
[7] Walsingham, p. 382.
[8] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 632.
[9] Bale, Brefe Chron., p. 13; Lond., 1729.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, p. 632.
[12] Bale, p. 23. Holinshed, vol 3, p. 62.
[13] Bale, pp. 24, 25. Fox. bk. 5, p. 282.
[14] Bale, pp. 25-28. Collier, 7, 633. Fox, 5, 282.
[15] The document is given in full by Bale and Fox.
[16] Bale, p. 35.
[17] Bale. pp. 50, 51. Fox. bk. 5, p. 284.
[18] “Iniquitatis et tenebrarum filius.” (Walsingham, Hist. Ang., p. 385.)
[19] “Affabiliter et suaviter recitavit excommunicationem, flebili vultu.” (Rymer,
Federa, vol. 5, p. 50. Walsingham, p. 384.)
[20] We give this account of Lord Cobham’s (Sir John Oldcastle) examination,
slightly abridged, from Bale’s Brefe Chronycle, pp. 49-73. Walsingham gives
substantially, though more briefly, the same account of the matter (pp. 383, 384). See
also Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, p. 634. “Lingard’s commentary on the trial,” says M’Crie
(Am. Eng. Presb., 51), “is in the true spirit of the religion which doomed the martyr to
the stake with crocodile tears: ‘The prisoner’s conduct was as arrogant and insulting
as that of his judge was mild and dignified!’” (Hist. Eng., vol. 5, p. 5.)
[21] Walsingham, p. 385.
[22] Bale, pp. 83-38. Fox, bk. 5, p. 288.
[23] Fox, bk. 5, p.287.
[24] Ibid, bk. 5, p.288.
232
CHAPTER 6
[1] Bale, p. 90.
[2] Bale, p. 16.
[3] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 634.
[4] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 63.
[5] The allegation of conspiracy, advanced beforehand by the priests, was of course
entered on the records of King’s Bench as the ground of proceedings, but it stands
altogether unsupported by proof or probability. No papers containing the plan of
revolution were ever discovered. No confession of such a thing was made by any of
those who were seized and executed. Even Walsingham can only say, “The king
heard they intended to destroy him and the monasteries,” etc., and “Many were taken
who were said to have conspired” (qui dicebantur conspirasse) - Hist. Ang., p. 386.
When four years afterwards Lord Cobham was taken and condemned, his judges did
not dare to confront him with the charge of conspiracy, but simply outlawry, passed
upon him when he fled. As an instance of the wild rumours then propagated against
the Lollards, Walden, the king’s confessor, and Polydore Virgil, the Pope’s collector
of Peter’s pence in England, in their letters to Martin V., give vivid descriptions of
terrible insurrections in England, wherein, as Bale remarks, “never a man was hurt;”
and Walden, in his first preface to his fourth book against the Wycliffites, says that
Sir John Oldcastle conspired against King Henry V. in the first year of his reign, and
offered a golden noble for every head of monk, canon, friar, or priest that should be
brought to him; while in his Fasciculus Zizaniorum Wiclevi, he tells us that Sir John
was at that very time a prisoner in the Tower (Bale, p. 101). Fox, the martyrologist,
charges the Papists with not only inventing the plot, but forging the records which
accuse Sir John Oldcastle of complicity in it; and though Collier has attempted to
reply to Fox, it is with no great success. All dispassionate men will now grant that the
meeting was a voluntary one for worship, or a trap laid for the Lollards by their
enemies.
[6] Ezra 4, 12-15.
CHAPTER 7
[1] Bale, p. 10.
[2] Fox, bk. 5, p. 288.
[3] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 63.
[4] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 64.
[5] Bale, p. 92.
[6] Collier, vol. 1, p. 635.
[7] Bale, p. 95.
233
[8] Walsingham, p. 399.
[9] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 645.
[10] Fox, bk. 5, p. 323. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 645. Walsingham (p. 399) says that he
ran out into a long address on the duty of man to forgive, and leave the punishment of
offenses in the hands of the Almighty; and, on being stopped, and asked by the court
to speak to the charge of outlawry, he began a second sermon on the same text.
Walsingham has been followed in this by Collier, Cotton, and Lingard. “There is
nothing more in the records,” says the younger M’Crie, speaking from a personal
examination of them, “than a simple appeal to mercy.” (Ann. Eng. Presb., p. 54.)
[11] Bale, p. 96.
[12] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 94. Bale, pp. 96, 97.
[13] Bale, pp. 98, 99. Fox, bk. 5, p. 323. The monks and friars who wrote our early
plays, and acted our dumb shows, did not let slip the opportunity this gave them of
vilifying, lampooning, and caricaturing the first English peer who had died a
Protestant martyr. Having burned him, they never could forgive him. He was handed
down, “from fair to fair, and from inn-yard to inn-yard,” as a braggart, a debauchee,
and a poltroon. From them the martyr came to figure in the same character on
Shakespeare’s stage. But the great dramatist came to discover how the matter really
stood, and then he struck out the name “Oldcastle,” and inserted instead “Falstaff.”
Not only so; as if he wished to make yet greater reparation for the injustice he had
unwittingly done him, he proclaimed that Lord Cobham “died a martyr.” This
indicates that Shakespeare himself had undergone some great change. “The point is
curious,” says Mr. Hepworth Dixon. “It is not the change of a name, but of a state of
mind. For Shakespeare is not content with striking out the name of Oldcastle and
writing down that of Falstaff. He does more - much more - something beyond
example in his works: he makes a confession of his faith. In his own person, as a poet
and as a man, he proclaims from the stage, ‘Oldcastle died a martyr.’ … Shakespeare
changed his way of looking at the old heroes of English thought.” The play - The First
Part of the True and Honourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the Good
Lord Cobham - is a protest against the wrong which had been done to Oldcastle on the
stage. The prologue said “It is no pampered glutton we present,
Nor aged councillor to youthful sin;
But one whose virtue shone above the rest,
A valiant martyr and a virtuous peer.”
“These lines,” says Mr. Dixon, “are thought to be Shakespeare’s own. They are in his
vein, and they repeat the declaration which he had already made: ‘Oldcastle died a
martyr!’ The man who wrote this confession in the days of Archbishop Whitgift was a
Puritan in faith.” (Her Majesty’s Tower pp. 100-102; Lond., 1869.)
CHAPTER 8
[1] Bale, pp. 91, 92. Cobbett, vol. 1, pp. 323, 324.
234
[2] These alien priories were most of them cells to monasteries in France. “‘Twas
argued,” says Collier, “that these monks, being foreigners, and depending upon
superiors in another kingdom, could not be true to the interest of the English nation:
that their being planted here gave them an opportunity of maintaining correspondence
with the enemy, besides their transporting money and other commodities was no
ordinary damage.” (Vol. 1, p. 650.)
[3] Bale, p. 91. Collier, vol. 1, p. 636. Fox, vol. 1, p. 775. Cobbet, vol. 1, p. 324.
[4] Collier, vol. 1, p. 638.
[5] Shakspeare, Henry V., act 1.
[6] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 68.
[7] Ibid., pp. 79-83. Collier, vol. 1., p. 641. Hume, chap. 20.
[8] Holinshed, vol. 3, pp. 90-114. Cobbett, vol. 1, col. 338.
[9] This is that Catherine who, after the death of her husband, Henry V., married Sir
Owen Tudor, a Welsh gentleman, whose descendants afterwards mounted the throne
of England.
[10] Holinshed, vol. 3, pp. 132, 133.
[11] Holmshed, vol 3, p. 134.
[12] Hume, chap. 19.
[13] Fox, bk. 5, pp. 319, 320.
[14] Collier, vol. 1, p. 639.
[15] Fox, bk. 5, pp. 320, 321.
[16] Hebrews 11.
[17] Fox, bk. 6, p. 339.
[18] Holinshed, 3, p. 135. Collier, 7, p. 650. Fox, p. 339.
[19] Fox, bk. 6, p. 341
[20] Ibid, p. 361.
[21] Ibid, p. 340
[22] Ibid, p. 340
CHAPTER 9
[1] See ante, bk. 3, chap. 13.
235
[2] We may here quote the statute of Praemunire, as passed in the 16th of Richard II.
After a pre-ambulatory remonstrance against the encroachments of the Pope in the
way of translating English prelates to other sees in England, or in foreign countries, in
appointing foreigners to English sees, and in sending his bulls of excommunication
against bishops refusing to carry into effect his appointments, and in withdrawing
persons, causes, and revenues from the jurisdiction of the king, and after the
engagement of the Three Estates to stand by the crown against these assumptions of
the Pope, the enacting part of the statute follows: “Whereupon our said Lord the King, by the assent aforesaid, and at the request of
his said Commons, hath ordained and established, that if any purchase or pursue,
or cause to be purchased or pursued, in the court of Rome or elsewhere [the Papal
court was at times at Avignon], any such translations, processes, or sentences of
excommunication, bulls, instruments, or any other things whatsoever, which
touch the King, against him, his crown, or his regalty, or his realm as is aforesaid;
and they which bring within the realm, or them receive, or make thereof
notification, or any other execution whatsoever within the same realm, or
without, that they, their notaries, procurators, maintainers, abettors, ranters, and
counsellors, shall be put out of the King’s protection, and their lands and
tenements, goods and chattels, forfeit to our Lord the King. And that they be
attached by their bodies, and if they may be, found, and brought before the King
and his Council, there to answer to the cases aforesaid, or that processes be made
against them by Praemunire facias, in manner as it is ordained in other statutes of
Provisors. And other which do sue in any other court in derogation of the regalty
of our Lord the King.”
Sir Edward Coke observes that this statute is more comprehensive and strict than that
of 27th Edward III. Thus provision was made, as is expressed in the preamble, against
the throne and nation of England being reduced to servitude to the Papal chair.
“The crown of England, which has always been so free and independent as not to
have any earthly sovereign, but to be immediately subject to God in all things
touching the prerogatives and royalty of the said crown, should be made subject
to the Pope, and the laws and statutes of the realm defeated and set aside by him
at pleasure, to the utter destruction of the sovereignty of our Lord the King, his
crown, and royalty, and whole kingdom, which God forbid.” (Collier, vol. 1, bk.
7 pp. 594- 596.)
[3] Collier, vol. 1, pp. 653, 654.
[4] Ibid., p. 654.
CHAPTER 10
[1] “Ut manifestaret bilem suam” - his bile or choler. The word chosen shows that the
chronicler did not quite approve of such a display of independence. (Walsingham, p.
387.)
[2] This was the same Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester - a son of John of Gaunt
- to whom the Pope gave a commission to raise a new crusade against the Bohemians.
In this way the Pope hoped, doubtless, to draw in the English to take part in those
236
expeditions which had already cost the German nations so much treasure and blood.
In fact the legate came empowered by the Pope to levy a tax of a tenth upon the
English clergy for the war in Bohemia. This, however, was refused. (Collier, vol. 1, p.
658.) See ante, bk. 3, chap. 17.
[3] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 655.
[4] Duck, in Vit. Chichely, p. 37; apud. Collier, vol. 1,bk. 7, p. 657.
[5] In the petition given in to Henry VI. by the Duke of Gloucester (1441) against the
Cardinal of Winchester, legate-a-latere, we find the duke saying, “My lord, your
father would as leif see him set his crown beside him as see him wear a cardinal’s hat.
… His intent was never to do so great derogation to the Church of Canterbury, as to
make them that were his suffragans sit above their ordinary and metropolitan. …
Item, it is not unknown to you, how through your lands it is noised that the said
cardinal and the Archbishop of York had and have the governance of you, and of all
your land, the which none of your true liege men ought to usurp or take upon them.”
(Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 199.) For this honest advice the Duke of Gloucester had in afteryears (1447) to pay the penalty of his life. Henry Beaufort, the rich cardinal as he was
styled, died in 1447. “He was,” says Holinshed, “more noble in blood than notable in
learning; haughty in stomach and high of countenance; rich above measure, but not
very liberal; disdainful to his kin, and dreadful to his lovers; preferring money to
friendship; many things beginning and few performing, save in malice and mischief.”
(Vol. 3, p. 112.) He was succeeded in his bishopric by William Waynflete, a prelate of
wisdom and learning, who was made Chancellor of England, and was the founder of
Magdalen College, Oxford.
[6] It may be viewed, perhaps, as collateral evidence of the reviving power of
Christianity in England, that about this time it was enacted that fairs and markets
should not be held in cathedrals and churches, save twice in the year (Collier); that no
commodities or victuals should be exposed for sale in London on Sabbath, and that
artificers and handicraftsmen should not carry home their wares to their employers on
the sacred day. “But this ordinance was too good,” says the author from whom
Holinshed quotes, “for so bad an age, and therefore died within a short time after the
magistrate had given it life.” (Vol. 3, p. 206.)
[7] Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, p. 655. The letter is dated 8th December, the tenth year of his
Popedom. Collier supposes that this is a mistake for the eleventh year of Martin’s
Pontificate, which would make the year 1427.
[8] Burnet, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, p. 111. Collier, vol. 1, p. 656.
[9] Burner, Collection of Records, vol. 1, p. 100; apud Collier, vol. 1, p. 656. In 1438,
Charles VII. established the Pragmatic Sanction in his Parliament at Bourges. The
Pragmatic Sanction was very much in France what the Act of Praemunire was in
England.
[10] Collier, Vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 666.
[11] Created a Cardinal of the Church of Rome, March, 1875.
237
[12] The Unity of the Church, p. 361; Lond., 1842.
CHAPTER 11
[1] In proof of this summary view of the origin and effects of the crusades, the author
begs to refer his readers to Baron., Ann., 1096; Gibbon, chap. 58, 59; Moreri, Le
Grand Dict. Hist., tom. 3; Innet, Origines Anglicance, vol. 2; Sismondi, Hist., etc. etc.
The author speaks, of course, of the direct and immediate effects which flowed from
the crusades; there were remote and indirect results of a beneficent kind evolved from
them, but this was the doing of an overruling Providence, and was neither foreseen
nor intended by their authors.
[2] Hardouin, Acta Concil., tom. 7, p; 395; Parisiis, 1714.
[3] Shakespeare, King John, act 2, scene 1.
[4] “God suddenly touched him, unbodying his soul in the flower of his youth, and the
glory of his conquest.” - Speech of Duke of York to Parliament, 1460. (Holinshed, vol
3, p. 264.) While the duke was asserting his title to the crown in the Upper House,
there happened, says the chronicler, “a strange chance in the very same instant among
the Commons in the Nether House. A crown, which did hang in the middle of the
same, to garnish a branch to set lights upon, without touch of man, or blast of wind,
suddenly fell down. About the same time also fell down the crown which stood on the
top of Dover Castle. Soon after the duke was slain on the battlefield, and with him
2,800, mostly young gentlemen, heirs of great families. His head, with a crown of
paper, stuck on a pole, was presented to the queen. Some write,” says the chronicler,
“that he was taken alive, made to stand on a mole-hill, with a garland of bulrushes
instead of a crown, and his captors, kneeling before him in derision, said, ‘Hail, king
without rule!-hail, king without heritage! - hail, duke and prince without people and
possessions!’” and then struck off his head.
[5] “This year, 1477,” says Holinshed (vol. 3, p. 346),”happened so fierce and quick a
pestilence that the previous fifteen years consumed not the third part of the people that
only four months miserably and pitifully dispatched and brought to their graves.”
[6] Hume, Hist. Eng. chap. 29.
[7] Rumours of prodigies and portents helped to augment the prevalent foreboding
and alarm of the people. Of these the following may be taken as a sample, the more
that there is a touch of the dramatic about it: - “In November, 1457, in the isle of
Portland, not far from the town of Weymouth, was seen a cock coming out of the sea,
having a great crest upon his head, and a great red beard, and legs half a yard long. He
stood on the water and crowed three times, and every time turned him about, and
beckoned with his head, toward the north, the south, and the west, and was in colour
like a pheasant, and when he had crowed three times he vanished away.” (Holinshed,
vol. 3, p. 244.) We read of “a rain of blood” in Bedfordshire, “which spotted clothes
hung out to dry.”
[8] The Romish clergy were careful, in the midst of this general destruction of life and
substance, that their possessions should not come by loss. The following award was
made at Westminster, 23rd March, 1458: - “That at the costs, charges, and expenses
238
of the Duke of York, the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, forty-five pounds of yearly
rent should be assured by way of mortisement for ever, unto the monastery of St.
Albans, for suffrages and obits to be kept, and alms to be employed for the souls of
Edmund, late Duke of Somerset; Henry, late Earl of Northumberland; and Thomas,
late Lord Clifford, lately slain in the battle of St. Albans, and buried in the Abbey
church, and also for the souls of all others slain in the same battle.” (Holinshed, vol. 3,
p. 247.)
[9] D’Aubigne, vol. 5, p. 148.
239