THIRD DIVISION. History of the Development of the Church under Modern European Forms of Civilization.

§ 121. Character and Distribution of Modern Church History.

In the Reformation of the sixteenth century the intelligence of Germany, which had hitherto been under the training and tutelage of the Romish church, reached maturity by the application of the formal and material principles of Protestantism,―the sole normative authority of Scripture, and justification by faith alone without works of merit. It emancipated itself from its schoolmaster, who, for selfish ends, had made and still continued to make strenuous efforts to check every movement towards independence, every endeavour after ecclesiastical, theological, and scientific freedom, every struggle after evangelical reform. Yet this emancipation was not completely effected in all the purely German nationalities, much less among those Romanic and Slavonic peoples which had bowed their necks to the papal hierarchy. The Romish church of the Reformation not only adhered to the form and content of its former unevangelical constitution, but also still further developed and formally elaborated its creed in the same unevangelical direction, and the result was a split in the western church into an Evangelical Protestant and a Roman Catholic church. Then again the principles of the Reformation were set forth in different ways, and Protestantism branched off into two divisions, the Lutheran and the Reformed. Besides these three new western churches and the one old eastern church, which all rested upon the common œcumenical basis of the old Catholic church, a variety of sects sprang out of them. Through these greater and lesser divisions, modern church history, where, with some advantages and some disadvantages, one church is pitted against another, possesses a character entirely different from the church history of earlier times.

Modern church history naturally falls into four divisions. The distinguishing characteristic of each is found partly in the opposition of particular churches to one another, partly in the antagonism of faith and unbelief. The transition from one to another corresponds generally with the boundaries of the centuries. The sixteenth century forms the Reformation period, in which the new Protestantism, parted from the old Roman Catholicism, cast off the deformatory elements which had attached themselves to it, and developed for itself a system of doctrine, worship, and constitution; while the Roman Catholic church, from the middle of the century, set to work upon a counter-Reformation, by which it succeeded in large measure in reconquering the field that had been lost. The seventeenth century was characterized on the Protestant side as the age of orthodoxy, in which confessionalism obtained undivided supremacy, deteriorating however in doctrine and life into a frigid formalism, which called forth the movement of Pietism as a corrective; but, on the Roman Catholic side, it was characterized as a period of continued successful restoration. In the eighteenth century begins the struggle against the dominant church and the prevailing conceptions of Christianity in the forms of deism, naturalism, and rationalism within both the Protestant and Catholic churches. The fourth division embraces the nineteenth century. The newly awakened faith strives vigorously with rationalism, and then, on the Protestant side, splits into unionism and confessionalism; while, on the Roman Catholic side, it makes its fullest development in a zealous ultramontanism. But rationalism again renews its youth under the cloak of science, and alongside of it appears a more undisguised unbelief in the distinctly antichristian forms of pantheism, materialism, and communism, which seeks to annihilate everything Christian in church and state, in science and faith, in social and political life.

FIRST SECTION. CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

I. The Reformation.360

§ 122. The Beginnings of the Wittenberg Reformation.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century everything seemed to combine in favour of those reforming endeavours which had been held back during the Middle Ages. There was a lively perception of the corruptions of the church, a deep and universal yearning after reformation, the scientific apparatus necessary for its accomplishment, a pope, Leo X., careless and indolent; a trafficker in indulgences, Tetzel, stupidly bold and shameless; a noble, pious, and able prince, Frederick the Wise (§ 123, 9), to act as protector of the new creed; an emperor, Charles V. (§ 123, 5), powerful and hostile enough to kindle the purifying fire of tribulation, but too much occupied with political entanglements to be able to indulge in reckless and violent oppression. There were also thousands of other persons, circumstances, and relations helping, strengthening, and furthering the work. And now, at the right hour, in the fittest place, and with the most suitable surroundings, a religious genius, in the person of Luther, appeared as the reformer, with the rarest combination of qualities of head and heart, character and will, to engage upon that great work for which Providence had so marvellously qualified him. This mighty undertaking was begun by ninety-five simple theses, which he nailed to the door of the church of Wittenberg, and the Leipzig Disputation marked the first important crisis in its history.

§ 122.1. Luther’s Years of Preparation.―Martin Luther, a miner’s son, was born on November 10th, A.D. 1483. His childhood was passed under severe parental control and amid pinching poverty, and he went to school at Mansfeld, whither his parents had migrated; then at Magdeburg, where, among the Brothers of the Common Life, he had mainly to secure his own support as a singing boy upon the streets; and afterwards at Eisenach, where Madame Ursula Cotta, moved by his beautiful voice and earnest entreaty, took him into her house. In A.D. 1501 he entered on the study of jurisprudence at Erfurt (§ 120, 2), took the degree of bachelor in A.D. 1502, and that of master in A.D. 1505. During a fearful thunderstorm, which overtook him as he travelled home, he was driven by terror to vow that he would become a monk, impressed as he was by the sudden death of an unnamed friend which had taken place shortly before. On the 17th July, A.D. 1505, he entered the Augustinian convent at Erfurt. In deep concern about his soul’s salvation, he sought by monkish asceticism, fasting, prayer, and penances to satisfy his conscience, but the inward struggles only grew stronger. An old monk proclaimed to the weary inquirer, almost fainting under the anxiety of spirit and self-imposed tortures, the comforting declaration of the creed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Still more powerful in directing him proved the conversation of his noble superior, John Staupitz (§ 112, 6). He showed him the way of true repentance and faith in the Saviour crucified not for painted sins. Following his advice, Luther diligently studied the Bible, together with, of his own accord, Augustine’s writings. In A.D. 1507 he was ordained priest, and in A.D. 1508 Staupitz promoted him to the University of Wittenberg, founded in A.D. 1502, where he lectured on the “Dialectics” and “Physics” of Aristotle; and in A.D. 1509 he was made Baccalaureus biblicus. In the autumn of the same year he went again, probably by Staupitz’ advice, to Erfurt, until, a year and a half afterwards, he obtained a definite settlement at Wittenberg. Highly important for his subsequent development was the journey which, in A.D. 1511, he took to Rome in the interests of his order. On the first view of the holy city, he sank upon his knees, and with his hands raised to heaven cried out, “I greet thee, holy Rome.” But he withdrew utterly disgusted with the godless frivolity and immorality which he witnessed among the clergy on every side, and dissatisfied with the externalism of the penitential exercises which he had undertaken. During his whole journey the Scripture sounded in his ear, “The just shall live by his faith.” It was a voice of God in his soul, which at last carried the blessed peace of God into his wounded spirit. After his return, in A.D. 1512, Staupitz gave him no rest until he took the degree of doctor of divinity; and now he gave lectures in the university on Holy Scripture, and afterwards preached in the city church of Wittenberg. He applied himself more and more, by the help of Augustine, to the study of Scripture and its fundamental doctrine of justification by faith alone. About this time too he was powerfully influenced by Tauler’s mysticism and the “Deutsche Theologie,” of which he published an edition in A.D. 1516.

§ 122.2. Luther’s Theses of A.D. 1517.―The æsthetic and luxurious pope Leo X. (§ 110, 14), avowedly for the building of St. Peter’s, really to fill his own empty coffers, had proclaimed a general indulgence. Germany was divided between three indulgence commissions. The elector-cardinal Albert of Mainz, archbishop of Magdeburg, and brother of Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, undertook the direction of the commission for his archiepiscopal province, for which he was to receive half the proceeds for the payment of his debts. The most shameless of the traffickers in indulgences employed by him was the Leipzig Dominican prior, John Tetzel. This man had been sentenced at Innsbrück to be drowned for adultery, but on the intercession of the Elector of Saxony had his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life. He now was taken from his prison in order to do this piece of work for Albert. With great success he went from place to place, and offered his wares for sale, proclaiming their virtues in the public market with unparalleled audacity. He went to Jüterbock, in the vicinity of Wittenberg, where he attracted crowds of purchasers from all around. Luther discovered in the confessional the corrupting influence of such procedure, and on the afternoon of All Saints’ Day, October 31st, A.D. 1517, he nailed on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg ninety-five theses, explaining the meaning of the indulgence. Although they were directed not so much against the principle of indulgences as against their misunderstanding and abuse, they comprehended the real germ of the Reformation movement, negatively in the conception of repentance which they set forth, and positively in the distinct declaration that the grace of God in Christ can alone avail for the forgiveness of sin. With incredible rapidity the theses spread over all Germany, indeed over all Europe. Luther accompanied them with a sermon on indulgence and grace. The immense applause which its delivery called forth led the supporters of the old views to gird on their armour. Tetzel publicly burnt the theses at Jüterbock, and with the help of Wimpina posted up and circulated at Frankfort and other places counter-theses. The Wittenberg students purchased quantities of these theses, and in retaliation burnt them, but Luther did not approve their conduct. In April, A.D. 1518, Luther went to Heidelberg, to take part there in a regular chapter of the Augustinians, which was usually accompanied by public preaching and disputations by members of the order. The disputation, which on this occasion was assigned to Luther, gave him the welcome opportunity of making known to wider circles these philosophical and theological views which he had hitherto uttered only in Wittenberg. The professors of the University of Heidelberg repudiated and opposed them, but in almost every case mildly and with tolerance. On the other hand, many of the young theologians studying there enthusiastically accepted his doctrines, and several of them, e.g. Martin Bucer of Strassburg (§ 125, 1), John Brenz and Erhard Schnepf of Swabia (§ 133, 3), as well as Theobald Billicanus, afterwards reformer of Nördlingen, etc., there and then consecrated themselves to their life work.

§ 122.3. Prierias, Cajetan, and Miltitz, A.D. 1518, 1519.―Leo X. at first regarded the matter as an insignificant monkish squabble, and praised Brother Martin as a real genius. He gave no heed to Hoogstraten’s outcry of heresy, nor did he encourage the Dominican Prierias in his attack on Luther. The book of Prierias was a harmless affair. Luther gave it a short and crushing reply. Prierias answered in a second and third tract, which Luther simply republished with sarcastic and overwhelming prefaces. The pope then enjoined silence upon his luckless steward. In May, A.D. 1518, Luther wrote a humble epistle to the pope, and added a series of Resolutiones in vindication of his theses. Staupitz is said to have revised both. Meanwhile it had been determined in Rome to deal with the Wittenberg business in earnest. The papal procurator made a complaint against Luther. A court was commissioned, which summoned him to appear in person at Rome to answer for himself. But, on the representations of the University of Wittenberg and the Elector Frederick the Wise, the pope charged Cardinal Cajetan, his legate at the Diet of Augsburg, to take up the consideration of the matter. Luther appeared, and made his appeal to the Bible. The legate however wished him to argue from the schoolmen, demanded an unconditional recantation, and at last haughtily dismissed “the beast with deep eyes and wonderful speculations in his head.” Luther made a formal appeal a sanctissimo Domino Leone male informato ad melius informandum, and quitted Augsburg in good spirits. The cardinal now sought to rouse Frederick against the refractory monk, but Luther’s buoyant and humble confidence won the noble elector’s heart. Cajetan continued a vigorous opponent of the reformed doctrine. But Luther’s superiority in Scripture knowledge had so impressed the cardinal, that he now applied himself closely to the study of the Bible in the original tongues; and thus, while firmly attached to the Romish system, he was led on many points, e.g. on Scripture and tradition, divorce, injunctions about meats, the use of the vernacular in public worship, the objectionableness of the allegorical interpretation, etc., to adopt more liberal views, so that he was denounced by some Roman Catholic controversialists as guilty of various heresies.―Luther had no reason in any case to look for any good from Rome. Hence he prepared beforehand an appeal for an œcumenical council, which the publisher, against Luther’s will, at once spread abroad. In Rome the cardinal’s pride was wounded by the failure of his undertaking. A papal bull defined the doctrine of indulgences, in order more exactly to guard against misrepresentations, and an accomplished courtier, the papal chamberlain, Carl von Miltitz, a Saxon, was sent to Saxony, in A.D. 1519, as papal nuncio, to convey to the elector the consecrated golden rose, and to secure a happy conclusion to the controversy. The envoy began by addressing a sharp admonition to Tetzel, and met Luther with hypocritical graciousness. Luther acknowledged that he had acted rashly, wrote a humble, submissive letter to the pope, and published “An Instruction on some Articles ascribed to him by his Traducers.” But after all the retractations which he made at the diet he still firmly maintained justification by faith, without merit of works. He promised the nuncio to abstain from all further polemic, on condition that his opponents also should be silent. But silent these would not be.

§ 122.4. The Leipzig Disputation, A.D. 1519.―John Eck of Ingolstadt had engaged in controversy with a zealous supporter and colleague of Luther, Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, professor and preacher at Wittenberg, and Luther himself took part in the discussion between the two. This disputation came off at Leipzig, and lasted from June 27th to July 16th. But Eck’s vanity led him not only to seek the greatest possible fame from his present disputation, but also to drag in Luther by challenging his theses. Eck disputed for eight days with Carlstadt about grace and free will, and with abundant eloquence, boldness, and learning vindicated Romish semi-Pelagianism. Then he disputed for fourteen days with Luther about the primacy of the pope, about repentance, indulgences, and purgatory, and pressed him hard about the Hussite heresy. But Luther sturdily opposed him on the grounds of Scripture, and confirmed himself in the conviction that even œcumenical councils might err, and that not all Hussite doctrines are heretical. Both parties claimed the victory. Luther continued the discussion in various controversial treatises, and Eck, too, was not silent. New combatants also, for and against, from all sides appeared upon the scene. The liberal humanists (§ 120, 2) had at first taken little notice of Luther’s contention. But the Leipzig Disputation led them to change their attitude. Luther seemed to them now a new Reuchlin, Eck another specimen of Ortuinus Gratius. A biting satire of Pirkheimer (§ 120, 3), “Der abgehobelte Eck,” appeared in the beginning of A.D. 1520, exceeding in Aristophanic wit any of the epistles of the Obscurantists. It was followed by several satires by Ulrich von Hutten, who received new inspiration from Luther’s appearance at Leipzig. Hutten and Sickingen, with their whole party, undertook to protect Luther with body and soul, with sword and pen. This was a covenant of some advantage to the Reformation in its early years; but had it not been again abrogated, it might have diverted the movement into an altogether wrong direction. From this time forth Duke George of Saxony, at whose castle and in whose presence the disputation had been conducted, became the irreconcilable enemy of Luther and his Reformation.

§ 122.5. Philip Melanchthon.―At the Leipzig Disputation there also appeared a man fated to become of supreme importance in the carrying out of the Reformation. Born on February 16th, A.D. 1497, at Bretten in the Palatinate, Philip Melanchthon entered the University of Heidelberg in his thirteenth year, and at the age of sixteen published a Greek grammar. He took the degree of master at seventeen, and at twenty-one, in A.D. 1518, on the recommendation of his grand-uncle Reuchlin, he was made Professor of Greek in Wittenberg. His fame soon spread over all Europe, and attracted to him thousands of hearers from all parts. Luther and Erasmus vied with one another in lauding his talents, his fine culture and learning, and his contemporaries have given him the honourable title of Præceptor Germaniæ. He was an Erasmus of nobler form and higher power, a thorough contrast to Luther. His whole being breathed modesty, mildness, and grace. With childlike simplicity he received the recognised truths of the gospel. He bowed humbly before the powerful, practical spirit of Luther, who also, on his part, acknowledged with profound thankfulness the priceless treasure God had sent to him and to his work in this fellow labourer. Melanchthon wrote to his friend Œcolampadius at Basel an account of the Leipzig Disputation, which by chance fell into Eck’s hands. This occasioned a literary controversy, in which Eck’s vain over-estimation of himself appears in very striking contrast to the noble modesty of Melanchthon. He took part in the Reformation first in February, A.D. 1521, by a pseudonymous apology for Luther.361

§ 122.6. George Spalatin.―In consequence of his influential position at the court of the elector, which he obtained on Mutian’s (§ 120, 2) recommendation, after completing his philosophical, legal, and theological studies at Erfurt, George Burkhardt, born in A.D. 1484 at Spalt, in the diocese of Eichstadt, and hence called Spalatinus, played an important part in the German Reformation. Frederick the Wise, who had, in A.D. 1509, entrusted him with the education of his nephew John Frederick, appointed him, in A.D. 1514, his court chaplain, librarian, and private secretary, in which capacity he accompanied the elector to all the diets, and was almost exclusively the channel for communicating to him tidings about Luther. John the Constant, in A.D. 1525, made him superintendent of Altenburg, and took him with him to the diets of Spires, in A.D. 1526, 1529, and of Augsburg in A.D. 1530. John Frederick the Magnanimous, his former pupil, employed him in A.D. 1537 on important negotiations at the conference of the princes at Schmalkald [Schmalcald] (§ 134, 1). From A.D. 1527 Spalatin was specially busy with the visitation and organization of the Saxon church (§ 127, 1), conducted, in the interests of the Reformation, an extensive correspondence, and composed several works on the history of his times and the history of the Reformation.

§ 123. Luther’s Period of Conflict, A.D. 1520, 1521.

The Leipzig Disputation had carried Luther to a more advanced standpoint. He came to see that he could not remain standing half way, that the carrying out of the Reformation principle, justification by faith, was incompatible with the hierarchical system of the papacy and its dogmatic foundation. But amid all the violence and subjective one-sidedness which he showed at the beginning of this period of conflict, he had sufficient control of himself to make clear the spiritual character of his reforming endeavours, and firmly to reject the carnal weapons which Ulrich von Hutten and his revolutionary companions wished him to take up, thankful as he was for their warm sympathy. His standpoint as a reformer is shown in the writings which he published during this period. The Romish bull of excommunication provoked him to strong words and extreme measures, and with heroic boldness he entered Worms to present to the emperor and diet an account of his doings. The papal ban was followed by the imperial decree of outlawry. But the Wartburg exile saved him from the hands of his enemies and―of his friends.

§ 123.1. Luther’s Three Chief Reformation Writings, A.D. 1520.―In the powerful treatise, “To His Imperial Majesty and the Christian Nobility of the German Nation on the Improvement of the Christian Condition,” which appeared in the beginning of August, A.D. 1520, Luther bombards first of all the three walls behind which the Romanists entrenched themselves, the superiority of the spiritual to the civil power, the sole right of the pope to interpret Scripture and to summon œcumenical councils. Then he commends to the laity, as consecrated by baptism to a spiritual priesthood, especially civil rulers ordained of God, the task of carrying out the reformation which God’s word requires, but the pope and clergy hinder; and then finally he makes a powerful appeal for carrying out this work in a practical way. He exposes the false pretensions of the papal curia, demands renunciation of annats and papal confirmation of newly elected bishops, complete abandonment of the interdict and the abuse of excommunication, the prohibition of pilgrimages and the begging of the monks, a limitation of holy days, reform of the universities, permission to the clergy to marry, reunion with the Bohemian Picards (§ 119, 8), etc.―The second work, “On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” is a dogmatic treatise, and is directed mainly against the misuse of the sacraments and the reckoning of them as seven, which have been made in the hands of the pope an instrument of tyranny over the church. Only three are recognised as founded on Scripture: baptism, penance, and the Lord’s Supper, with the remark that, strictly speaking, even penance, as wanting an outward sign, cannot be styled a sacrament. The doctrine of transubstantiation, the withholding of the cup from the laity, and the idea of a sacrifice in the mass are decidedly rejected. The third treatise, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” enters the ethical domain. It represents the life of the Christian, rooted in justifying faith, as complete oneness with Christ. His relation therefore to the world around is set forth in two propositions: A Christian man is a free lord over all things, and subject to no one; and a Christian man is a ministering servant of all things, and subject to every one. On the one hand, he has the perfect freedom of a king and priest set over all outward things; but, on the other hand, he yields complete submission in love to his neighbour, which, as consideration of the weak, his very freedom demands.362

§ 123.2. The Papal Bull of Excommunication, A.D. 1520.―In order to reap the fruits of his pretended victory at Leipzig, Eck had gone to Rome, and was sent back triumphant as papal nuncio with the bull Exsurge Domini of June 16th. It charged Luther with forty-one heresies, recommended the burning of his works, and threatened to put him and his followers, if they did not retract in sixty days, under the ban. Miltitz renewed his attempts at conciliation, which, however, led to no result, although Luther, to show at least his good will, attended the conference, and, as a basis for a mutual understanding, published his treatise, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” in Oct., A.D. 1520. He accompanied this with a letter to the pope, in which he treated him with personal respect, as a sheep among wolves and as a Daniel sitting among lions; but there was in it no word of repentance or of any desire to retract. It could easily have been foreseen that these two documents would prove thoroughly distasteful to the Romish court. Meanwhile Eck had issued the bull. Luther published a scathing polemic against it, and renewed his appeal, made two years before, to an œcumenical council. In Saxony Eck gained only scorn and reproach with his bull; but in Lyons, Mainz, Cologne, etc., Luther’s works were actually burnt. It was then that Luther took the boldest step in his whole career. With a numerous retinue of doctors and students, whom he had invited by a notice posted up on the blackboard, on the 10th Dec., A.D. 1520, at the Elster gate of Wittenberg, he cast into the blazing pile the bull and the papal decretals with the words, “Because thou hast troubled the saints of the Lord, let eternal fire consume thee.” It was the utter renunciation of the pope and his church, and with it he cut away every possibility of a return.

§ 123.3. Erasmus, A.D. 1520.―Erasmus (§ 120, 6) had been hitherto on good terms with Luther. They entertained for one another a genuine regard. Diverse as their positive tendencies were, they were at one in contending against scholasticism and monkery. Erasmus was not sorry to see such heavy blows dealt to the detested monks, and constantly refused to write against Luther; he had also, he confessed, no wish to learn from his own experience the sharpness of Luther’s teeth. When the papal bull appeared, without hesitation he disapproved it, and indeed refused to believe in its genuineness. He, as the oracle of his age, was applied to by many for his opinion of the matter. His judgment was that not the papal decision in itself but its style and form should be disapproved. He desired a tribunal of learned, pious men and three princes (the emperor and the kings of England and Hungary), to whose verdict Luther would have to submit. When Frederick the Wise consulted him, he expressed the opinion that Luther had made two mistakes, in touching the crown of the pope and the belly of the monks; he regretted in Luther’s proceedings a want of moderation and discretion. Not without profit did the elector hear the oracle thus discourse.―Continuation § 125, 3.

§ 123.4. Luther’s Controversy with Emser, A.D. 1519-1521.―Emser, secretary and orator in the service of Duke George, after the Leipzig Disputation, which he had attended, sought by letter-writing to alienate the Bohemians (§ 139, 19) from Luther, representing him as having there spoken bitterly against them. This roused Luther to make a passionate reply. After several pamphlets of a violent character had been issued by both combatants, Emser issued his charge in a full and comprehensive treatise, to which Luther replied in his work, “The Answer of Martin Luther to the Unchristian, Ultra-ecclesiastical, and Over-ingenious Book of Emser at Leipzig.” They had also a sharp passage at arms with one another, in A.D. 1524, over the canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen, in which Emser, by his duke’s order, took a zealous part (§ 129, 1). But all the later writings in this controversy Luther left unanswered. Emser, with great bitterness, assailed Luther’s translation of the Bible, in which he professed to have found 1,400 heretical falsifications and more than 1,000 lexical blunders. Luther was candid enough to acknowledge that several of his animadversions were not unfounded. On Emser’s own translation, which appeared shortly before his death in A.D. 1527, see § 149, 14.

§ 123.5. The Emperor Charles V.―The Emperor Maximilian had died on 12th Jan., A.D. 1519. The Elector of Saxony, as administrator of the empire, managed to determine the election, which took place on 28th June, A.D. 1519, against the French candidate, Francis I., who was supported by the pope, in favour of the young king of Spain, Charles I., grandson of Maximilian. Detained at home by Spanish affairs, it was 23rd Oct., A.D. 1520, before he was crowned at Aachen. All hopes were now directed toward the young emperor. It was expected that he would put himself at the head of the religious and national movement in Germany. But Charles, uninspired by German sentiment, and even ignorant of the German language, had other interests, which he was not inclined to subordinate to German politics. The German crown was with him only an integral part of his power. Its interests must accommodate themselves to the common interests of the whole dominions, upon which the sun never set. The German movement he regarded as one, indeed, of high importance, but he regarded it not so much from its religious as from its political side. It afforded him the means for keeping the pope in check and obliging him to sue for his favour. Two things required he of the pope as the price of suppressing the German movement: renunciation of the French alliance, and repeal of the papal brief by which a transformation had been recommended of the Spanish Inquisition, the main buttress of absolute monarchy in Spain. The pope granted both demands, and the hopes of the Germans in their new emperor, that he would finally free their nation from the galling yoke of Rome, were thus utterly blasted.

§ 123.6. The Diet at Worms, A.D. 1521.―Immediately after the arrival of the bull the emperor gave it the full force of law in the Netherlands, where he was then staying. He did not at once venture to make the same proclamation for Germany, specially from regard to Frederick the Wise, Luther’s own prince, who insisted that he should not be condemned unheard. Personal negotiations between Frederick and the emperor and his councillors at Cologne, in November, A.D. 1520, ended with a demand that the elector should bring Luther to the diet, summoned to meet at Worms, on 28th January, A.D. 1521; but at the desire of Aleander, the papal nuncio, who energetically protested against the proposal that civil judges should treat of matters of faith with an already condemned heretic, the emperor, in December, withdrew this summons. In the beginning of February there came a papal brief, in which he was urgently entreated to give effect to the bull throughout Germany. Aleander even sketched an imperial mandate for its execution, but was not able to prevent the emperor from laying it before his councillors for their opinion and approval. This was done in the middle of February. And now there arose a quite unexpected storm of opposition. The councillors demanded that Luther should be brought under an imperial safe conduct to Worms, there to answer for himself. His attacks on Romish abuses they would not and could not regard as crimes, for they themselves, with Duke George at their head, had presented to the pope a complaint containing 101 counts. On the other hand, they declared that if Luther would not retract his doctrinal vagaries, they would be prepared to carry out the edict. They persisted in this attitude when another scheme was proposed to them, which insisted on the burning of Luther’s writings. In the beginning of March a third proposal was made, which asked only for the temporary sequestration of his works. And to this they agreed. The emperor, though against his own will, submitted to their demand, and cited the reformer of Wittenberg to answer for himself at Worms. On 6th March he signed a summons, accompanied with a safe conduct, both intended, as Aleander said in writing to Rome, rather to frighten him from coming than with any desire for his presence. But the result was not as they desired. The courier appointed to deliver this citation was not sent, but instead of him, on the 12th, an imperial herald, who delivered to Luther a respectful invitation beginning with the address, “Noble, dear, and worshipful sir.” This herald was to bring him honourably and safely to Worms, and to conduct him back again in safety. All this was done behind the back of Aleander, who first came to know about it on the 15th, and certainly was not wrong in attributing the emperor’s change of mind to a suspicion of French political intrigues, in which Leo X., notwithstanding his negotiations for an alliance with the emperor, was understood to have had a share. Two weeks later, however, such suspicions were seen to be unfounded. Too late the sending of the herald was regretted, and an effort was made to conciliate the nuncio by the publication of the sequestrating mandate, which had been hitherto suppressed.

§ 123.7. Luther was meanwhile not idle at Wittenberg, while waiting with heroic calm the issue of the Worms negotiations. He preached twice daily, delivered lectures at the university, taught and exhorted by books, letters, and conversations, fought with his opponents, especially Emser, etc. While Luther was engaged with these multifarious tasks the imperial herald arrived. He now set everything aside, and on 2nd April boldly and confidently obeyed the summons. The fears of his Wittenberg friends and the counsels to turn back which reached him on his way were rejected with a heroic consciousness that he was in the path of duty. He had written on 14th March to Spalatin, Intrabimus Wormatiam invitis omnibus portis inferni et potentatibus aëris; and again from Oppenheim he wrote him, that he would go to Worms even if there were as many devils there as tiles upon the roofs. Still another attempt was made upon him at Oppenheim. The emperor’s confessor, Glapio, a Franciscan, who was by no means a blind worshipper of the Roman curia, thought it possible that a good understanding might be reached. He was of opinion that if Luther would only withdraw the worst of his books, especially that on the Babylonish Captivity, and acknowledge the decisions of the Council of Constance, all might be agreeably settled. With this in his mind he applied to the Elector of Saxony, and when he received no encouragement there, to Franz von Sickingen, who invited Luther, on his arrival at Ebernburg, near Worms, to an interview with Glapio; but Luther declined the invitation.―His journey all through was like a triumphal march. On 16th April, amid a great concourse of people, he entered Worms, along with his friends Justus Jonas and Nic. Amsdorf, as well as his legal adviser Jerome Schurf. He was called to appear on the following day. He admitted that the books spread out before him were his, and when called on to retract desired one day’s adjournment. On the 18th the trial proper began. Luther distinguished three classes of his writings, systematic treatises, controversial tracts against the papacy and papal doctrine, and controversial tracts against private individuals, and did not know that he had said anything in them that he could retract. He was asked to give a direct answer. He then gave one “without horns or teeth,” saying that he could and would retract nothing unless proved false from Scripture, or on other good and clear grounds, and concluded with the words, “Here stand I; I can no otherwise! God help me, Amen.” Among the German knights and princes he had won many hearts, but had made no favourable impression on the emperor, who, when Luther denounced the absolute authority of councils, stopped proceedings and dismissed the heretical monk. On the following day, without consulting the opinion of the councillors, he passed sentence of unconditional condemnation. But the councillors would not have the matter settled in this fashion, and the emperor was obliged, on 24th April, to reopen negotiations before a select commission, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Treves. Of no avail was a private conference of the archbishop and Luther on the 25th, in which the prelate accompanied his exhortation to retract with the promise of a rich priorate in his neighbourhood under his own and the emperor’s protection and favour. Luther supported his refusal by confident reference to the words of Gamaliel, Acts v. 38. On 26th April he left Worms unhindered; for the emperor had decidedly refused to yield to the vile proposal that the safe conduct of a heretic should be violated.―In consequence of Luther’s persistent refusal to retract anything, the majority of the diet pronounced themselves ready to agree to the emperor’s judgment against him. The latter now assigned to Aleander the drawing up of a new mandate, which should in the severest terms proclaim the ban of the empire against Luther and all his friends. After it had been approved in an imperial cabinet council, and was ready for printing in its final form in Latin and German, with the date 8th May, it was laid before the emperor for signature, which, however, he put off doing from day to day, and finally, in spite of all the nuncio’s remonstrances, he decided that it must be produced before the diet. When it appeared that this must be done, the two nuncios were all impatient to have it passed soon. But it was only on the 25th May, after the close of the diet, and after several princes, especially the Electors of Saxony and the Palatinate, had gone, that Charles let them present the edict, to which all present agreed. On the 26th May, after Divine service in church, he solemnly signed the Latin and German forms, which were published with blast of trumpets on the following day, and on Wednesday the sequestrated books of Luther were burnt.―Undoubtedly political motives occasioned this long delay in signing the documents. Perhaps he suspected the pope of some new act of political treachery; probably also he wished to postpone the publication of the edict until the imperial councillors had promised to contribute to his proposed journey to Rome, and perhaps until the nobles dissenting from the proceedings against Luther had departed.

§ 123.8. The Wartburg Exile, A.D. 1521, 1522.―Some days after Luther had dismissed the imperial herald, his carriage was stopped in a wood near Eisenach by two disguised knights with some retainers. He was himself carried off with show of violence, and brought to the Wartburg, where he was to remain in knight’s dress under the name of Junker Georg without himself knowing anything more of the matter. It was indeed a contrivance of the wise elector, though probably he took no active share in the matter, so that he could declare at Worms that he knew nothing of the Saxon monk. The most contradictory reports were spread. Sometimes the Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (§ 122, 2) was thought of as the perpetrator of the act, sometimes Franz von Sickingen (§ 124, 2), sometimes a Franconian nobleman who was on intimate terms with Frederick. And as the news rapidly spread that Luther’s body, pierced with a sword, had been found in an old silver mine, the tumult in Worms became so great that Aleander had good cause to fear for his life.―From the Wartburg Luther maintained a lively correspondence with his friends, and even to the general public he proved, by edifying and stirring tracts, that he still lived, and was not inclined to be silenced or repressed. He completed the exposition of the Magnificat, wrought upon the Latin exposition of the Psalms, issued the first series of his “Church Postils,” wrote an “Instruction to Penitents,” a book “On Confession, whether the Pope have the Power to Enjoin it,” another “Against the Abuses of the Mass,” also “On Priestly and Monkish Vows,” etc. When Cardinal Albert, in September, A.D. 1521, proclaimed a pilgrimage with unlimited indulgence to the relic shrine at Halle (§ 115, 9), Luther wrote a scathing tract, “Against the New Idol at Halle.” And when Spalatin assured him that the elector would not suffer its being issued, he declined to withhold it, but sent him the little book, with imperative orders to give it over to Melanchthon for publication. While Spalatin still delayed its issue, Luther left his castle, pushed his way toward Wittenberg through the very heart of Duke George’s territories, and suddenly appeared among his friends in the dress of a knight, with long beard and hair. When he heard that the mere report of what he was proposing to do had led those in Halle to stop the traffic in indulgences, he decided not to proceed with the publication, but instead he addressed a letter to Albert, in which the archbishop had to read many a strong word about “the knavery of indulgences,” “the Pharaoh-like hardened condition of ecclesiastical tyrants,” etc. The prelate sent a most humble, apologetic, and gracious reply to the bold reformer. Luther then returned to his protective exile, as he had left it, unmolested. But the longer it continued the more insupportable did this electoral guardianship become. He would rather “burn on glowing coals than spend thus a half idle life.” But it was just this enforced exile that saved Luther and the Reformation from utter overthrow. Apart from the dangers of the ban of the empire, which would have perhaps obliged him to throw himself into the arms of Hutten and his companions, and thus have turned the Reformation into a revolution this confinement in the Wartburg was in various ways a blessing to Luther and his work. It was of importance that men should learn to distinguish between Luther’s work and Luther’s person, and of yet greater importance was the discipline of this exile upon Luther himself. He was in danger of being drawn out of the path of positive reformation into that of violent revolutionism. The leisure of the Wartburg gave him time for calm reflection on himself and his work, and the extravagances of the Wittenberg fanatics and the wild excuses of the prophets of Zwickau (§ 124, 1) could be estimated with a freedom from prejudice that would have been impossible to one living and moving in the midst of them. Besides, he had not reached that maturity of theological knowledge needed for the conduct of his great undertaking, and was in many ways fettered by a one-sided subjectivism. In his seclusion he could turn from merely destructive criticism to construction, and by undisturbed study of Scripture became able to enlarge, purify, and confirm his religious knowledge. But most important of all was the plan which he formed in the Wartburg, and so far as the New Testament is concerned carried out there, of translating the whole of the Scriptures.363

§ 123.9. The Attitude of Frederick the Wise to the Reformation.―Frederick the Wise, A.D. 1486-1525, has usually been styled “the Promoter of the Reformation.” Kolde, however, has sought to represent him as favouring Luther because of his interest in the University of Wittenberg founded by him, the success of which was largely owing to Luther, and because of his patriotic desire to have German questions settled at home rather than in Rome. This author supposes that after the Diet of Worms Frederick took no particular interest in the Reformation, beyond watching to see how things would turn out. To all this Köstlin has replied that Frederick’s whole attitude during the Diet of Worms betrayed a warm and hearty interest in evangelical truth; that his correspondence with Tucher of Nuremberg, A.D. 1518-1523, supports this view; that in one of these letters he addresses his correspondent with evident satisfaction as a good Lutheran; that in another he incloses a copy of Luther’s Assertio omnium articulorum; that at a later period he forwards him a copy of Luther’s New Testament, and expresses the hope that he will gain spiritual blessing from its perusal. He himself found it his greatest comfort in the hour of death, partook of the communion in both kinds after the reformed manner, which takes away all ground for the suspicion that he yielded only to the importunities of his brother John and his chaplain Spalatin. And even though Frederick, as late as A.D. 1522, continued to increase the rich collection of relics which he had previously made for his castle church, this only proves that not all at once but only bit by bit he was able to break away from his earlier religious tendencies and predilections.

§ 124. Deterioration and Purification of the Wittenberg Reformation, A.D. 1522-1525.

During Luther’s absence, the Reformation at Wittenberg advanced only too rapidly, and at last ran out into the wildest extravagances. But Luther hastened thither, regulated the movement, and guided it back into wise evangelical ways. This fanaticism arose in Wittenberg, but soon spread into other parts. The Reformation was at the same time threatened with danger from another quarter. The religious movement came into contact with the struggle of the German knights against the princes and that of the German peasants against the nobles, and was in danger of being identified with these revolutionary proceedings and sharing their fate. But Luther stood firm as a wall against all temptations, and thus these dangers were avoided.

§ 124.1. The Wittenberg Fanaticism, A.D. 1521, 1522.―In A.D. 1521 an Augustinian, Gabriel Didymus or Zwilling, preached a violent tirade against vows and private masses. In consequence of this sermon, thirteen of the brethren of his order at once withdrew. Two priests in the neighbourhood married. Carlstadt wrote against celibacy and followed their example. At the Wittenberg convent, secessions from the order were allowed at pleasure, and mendicancy, as well as the sacrifice of the mass, was abolished. But matters did not stop there. Didymus, and still more Carlstadt, spread a fanatical spirit among the people and the students, who were encouraged in the wildest acts of violence. The public services were disturbed in order to stop the idolatry of the mass, images were thrown out of the churches, altars were torn down, and a desire evinced to put an end to theological science as well as to clerical orders. A fanatical spirit began now also to spread at Zwickau. At the head of this movement stood the tailor Nicolas Storch and a literate Marcus Stübner, who boasted of Divine revelations; while Thomas Münzer, with fervid eloquence, proclaimed the new gospel from the pulpit. Restrained by energetic measures taken against them, the Zwickau prophets wandered abroad. Münzer went to Bohemia, Storch and Stübner to Wittenberg. There they told of their revelations and inveighed against infant baptism as a work of Satan. The excitement in Wittenberg became greater day by day. The enemies of the Reformation rejoiced; Melanchthon could give no counsel, and the elector was confounded. Then could Luther no longer contain himself. Against the elector’s express command he left the Wartburg on 3rd March, A.D. 1522, wrote him a noble letter, availed himself of his knight’s incognito on the way, and appeared publicly at Wittenberg. For a week he preached daily against fanaticism, and got complete control of the wild revolutionary elements. The prophets of Zwickau left Wittenberg. Carlstadt remained, but for a couple of years held his peace. Luther and Melanchthon now laboured to secure a positive basis for the Reformation. Melanchthon had already made a beginning in A.D. 1521 by the publication of his Loci communes rerum theologicarum. Luther now, in A.D. 1522, against the decided wish of his friend, published his Annotationes in epist. t. Pauli ad Rom. et Cor. In Sept. of the same year appeared Luther’s translation of the N.T. Besides these he also issued several treatises in defence of the Reformation.

§ 124.2. Franz von Sickingen, A.D. 1522, 1523.―A private feud led Franz von Sickingen to attack the Elector and Archbishop of Treves in A.D. 1522, but soon other interests were involved, and he was joined by the whole party of the knights. Sickingen’s opponent was a prelate and a pronounced enemy of the Reformation, and he was also a prince and a peer of the empire. In both characters he was opposed by Sickingen, who called for support in the name of religion and freedom. The knights, discontented with the imperial government and bureaucracy, with princes and prelates, crowded to his standard. Sickingen would also have gladly secured the monk of Wittenberg as an ally, but Luther was not to be won. Sickingen’s enterprise failed. The Elector of the Palatinate and the young Landgrave of Hesse hasted to the help of their beleaguered neighbours. The knights were overthrown one after another; Sickingen died of mortal wounds in May, A.D. 1523, immediately after the taking of the shattered Ebernburg. The power of the knights was utterly broken. The Reformation thus lost indeed brave and noble protectors, but it was itself saved.

§ 124.3. Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, A.D. 1524, 1525.―Even after the suppression of the Wittenberg fanaticism, Carlstadt continued to entertain his revolutionary views, and it was only with difficulty that he restrained himself for a few years. In A.D. 1524 he left Wittenberg and went to Orlamünde. With bitter invectives against Luther’s popism, he there resumed his iconoclasm, and brought forward his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, in which the real presence of the body and blood of Christ was absolutely denied (§ 131, 1). In order to prevent disturbance, Luther, by the order of the elector, went to Jena, and there in Carlstadt’s presence preached most emphatically against image breakers and sacramentarians. This roused Carlstadt’s indignation. When Luther visited Orlamünde, he was received with stone throwing and curses. Carlstadt was now banished from his territories by the elector. He then went to Strassburg, where he sought to win over the two evangelical pastors, Bucer and Capito. Luther issued a letter of warning, “To the Christians of Strassburg.” Carlstadt went to Basel, and published violent tracts against Luther’s “unspiritual and irrational theology.” Luther replied in A.D. 1525, earnestly, thoroughly, and firmly in his treatise, “Against the Heavenly Prophets, or Images and the Sacraments.” Carlstadt had secured the support of the Swiss reformers, who continued the controversy with Luther. He involved himself in the Peasants’ War, and afterwards, by Luther’s intercession with the elector, obtained leave to return to Saxony. He retracted his errors, but soon again renewed his old disorderly practices; and, after a singularly eventful career, died as professor and preacher at Basel during the plague of A.D. 1541.

§ 124.4. Thomas Münzer, A.D. 1523, 1524.―The prophets when expelled from Wittenberg did not remain idle, but set themselves to produce all sort of disorders in church and state. At the head of these disturbers stood Thomas Münzer. After his expulsion from Zwickau, he had gone to Bohemia, and was there received as an apostle of the Taborite doctrine (§ 119, 7). In A.D. 1523 he returned to Saxony, and settled at Allstadt [Allstädt] in Thuringia, and when driven out by the elector he went to Mühlhausen. In both places he soon obtained a large following. The Wittenberg Reformation was condemned no less than the papacy. Not the word of Scripture but the Spirit was to be the principle of the Reformation; not only everything ecclesiastical but also everything civil was to be spiritualized and reorganized. The doctrine of the evangelical freedom of the Christian was grossly misconceived, the sacraments despised, infant baptism denounced, and sole weight laid on the baptism of the Spirit. Princes should be driven from their thrones, the enemies of the gospel destroyed by the sword, and all goods be held in common. When Luther wrote a letter of warning on these subjects to the church at Mühlhausen, Münzer issued an abusive rejoinder, in which he speaks contemptuously of Luther’s “honey-sweet Christ,” and “cunningly devised gospel.” From Mühlhausen, Münzer went forth on a proselytising crusade in A.D. 1524, to Nuremberg, and then to Basel, but found little response in either city. His revolutionary extravagances were more successful among the peasants of Southern Germany.

§ 124.5. The Peasant War, A.D. 1524, 1525.―The peasants of the empire had long groaned under their heavy burdens. Twice already, in A.D. 1502, 1514, had they risen in revolt, with little advantage to themselves. When Luther’s ideas of the freedom of a Christian man reached them, they hastily drew conclusions in accordance with their own desires. Münzer’s fanatical preaching led to the adoption of still more decidedly communistic theories. In August, A.D. 1524, in the Black Forest, a rebellion broke out, which was, however, quickly suppressed. In the beginning of A.D. 1525 troubles burst forth afresh. The peasants stated their demands in twelve articles, which they insisted upon princes, nobles, and prelates accepting. All Franconia and Swabia were soon under their power, and even many cities made common cause with them. Münzer, however, was not satisfied with this success. The twelve articles were too moderate for him, and still more distasteful to him were the terms that had been made with the nobles and clergy. He returned to Thuringia and settled again at Mühlhausen. From thence he spread his fanaticism through the whole land and organized a general revolt. With merciless cruelty thousands were massacred, all cloisters, castles, and palaces were ruthlessly destroyed. Boldly as Luther had attacked the existing ecclesiastical tyranny, he resolutely left civil matters alone. He preached that the gospel makes the soul free, but not the body or property. He had profound sympathy for the sorely oppressed peasants, and so long as their demands did not go beyond the twelve articles, he hoped to be able to regulate the movement by the power of the word. The revolutionists had themselves in their twelfth article offered to abandon any of their claims that might be found to have no countenance from the word of God. When Münzer’s disorders began in Thuringia, Luther visited the cities most threatened and exhorted them to quiet and obedience. But the death of the elector on 5th May called him back to Wittenberg. From thence he now published his “Exhortations to Peace on the Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants,” in which he speaks pointedly to the consciences of the nobles no less than of the peasants. But when the agitation continued to spread, and one enormity after another was perpetrated, he gave vent to his wrath in no measured terms in his book, “Against the Robbing and Murdering Peasants.” He there, with burning words, called upon the princes vigorously to stamp out the fanatical rebellion. Philip of Hesse was the first to take the field. He was joined by the new Elector of Saxony, Frederick’s brother, John the Constant, A.D. 1525-1532, as well as by George of Saxony and Henry of Brunswick. On 15th May, A.D. 1525, the rebels were annihilated after a severe struggle at Frankenhausen. Münzer was taken prisoner and beheaded. Even in Southern Germany the princes were soon in all parts masters of the situation. In this war 100,000 men had lost their lives and the most fertile districts had been turned into barren wastes.

§ 125. Friends and Foes of Luther’s Doctrine, A.D. 1522-1526.

Luther’s fellow labourers in the work of the gospel increased from day to day, and so too the number of the cities in Northern and Southern Germany in which pure doctrine was preached. But Wittenberg was the heart and centre of the whole movement, the muster-ground for all who were persecuted and exiled for the sake of the gospel, the gathering point and nursery of new preachers. Among the theological opponents of Luther’s doctrine appears a crowned head, Henry VIII. of England, and also “the king of literature,” Erasmus of Rotterdam, entered the lists against him. But neither the one nor the other, to say nothing of the rude invectives of Thomas Murner, was able to shake the bold reformer and check the rapid spread of his opinions.

§ 125.1. Spread of Evangelical Views.―The most powerful heralds of the Reformation were the monkish orders. Cloister life had become so utterly corrupt that the more virtuous of the brethren could no longer endure it. Anxious to breathe a healthier atmosphere, evangelists inspired by a purer doctrine arose in all parts of Germany, first and most of all among the Augustinian order (§ 112, 6), which almost to a man went over to the Reformation and had the glory of providing its first martyr (§ 128, 1). The order regarded Luther’s honour as its own. Next to them came the Franciscans, prominent during the Middle Ages as a fanatical opposition (§ 98, 4; 108, 5; 112, 2), of whom many had the courage to free themselves of their shackles. From their cloisters proceeded, e.g., the two famous popular preachers, Eberlin of Günzburg and Henry of Kettenbach in Ulm, the Hamburg reformer Stephen Kempen, the fervent Lambert reformer of Hesse, Luther’s friend Myconius of Gotha, and many more. Other orders too supplied their contingent, even the Dominicans, to whom Martin Bucer, the Strassburg reformer, belonged. Blaurer of Württemberg was a Benedictine, Rhegius a Carmelite, Bugenhagen a Premonstratensian, etc. At least one of the German bishops, George Polenz of Samland, openly joined the movement, preached the gospel in Königsberg, and inspired the priests of his diocese with the same views. Other bishops, such as those of Augsburg, Basel, Bamberg, Merseburg, sympathised with the movement or at least put no hindrance in its way. But the secular clergy gave crowds of witnesses. In all the larger and even in some of the smaller towns of Germany Luther’s doctrines were preached from the pulpits with the approval of the magistrates, and where these were refused the preachers took to the market-places and fields. Where ministers were wanting, artisans and knights, wives and maidens, carried on the work.―One of the first cities which opened its gates freely to the gospel was Strassburg. Nowhere were Luther’s writings more zealously read, discussed, printed, and circulated than in that city. Shortly before Geiler of Kaisersberg (§ 115, 11) had prepared the soil for receiving the first seed of the Reformation. From A.D. 1518 Matthew Zell had wrought as pastor at St. Laurence in Münster. When the chapter forbade him the use of the stone pulpit erected for Geiler, the joiners’ guild soon made him a wooden pulpit, which was carried in solemn procession to Münster, and set up beside the one that had been closed against him. Zell was soon assisted by Capito, Bucer, Hedio, and others.

§ 125.2. “The Sum of Holy Scripture” and its Author.―This work, called also Deutsche Theologie, appeared anonymously at Leyden in A.D. 1523, and was confiscated in March, A.D. 1524. In various Dutch editions and in French, Italian, and English translations, it was soon widely spread over Europe; but so vigorously was it suppressed, that by the middle of the century it had disappeared and was forgotten. In A.D. 1877 the Waldensian Comba discovered and published an old Italian version, and Benrath translated into German in A.D. 1880 an old Dutch edition of A.D. 1526, and succeeded in unravelling for the most part its interesting history. He found that it was composed in Latin, and on the entreaty of the author’s friends rendered into Dutch. This led to the discovery, in the possession of Prof. Toorenenberger of Amsterdam, of the Latin original, which had appeared anonymously at Strassburg in A.D. 1527 with the title, Æconomica christiana. Benrath has also discovered the author to be Hendrik van Bommel, who was in the first half of A.D. 1520 priest and rector of a sisterhood at Utrecht, expelled in A.D. 1536 from Cleves, from A.D. 1542 to 1560 evangelical teacher and preacher at Wesel, dying in A.D. 1570 as pastor at Duisburg. The “Sum” is evidently influenced by those works of Luther which appeared up to A.D. 1523, its thoroughly popular, edifying, and positive contents are based upon a careful study of Scripture, and it is throughout inspired by the one grand idea, that the salvation of sinful men rests solely on the grace of God in Christ appropriated by faith.

§ 125.3. Henry VIII. and Erasmus.―Henry VIII. of England, as a second son, had been originally destined for the church. Hence he retained a certain predilection for theological studies and was anxious to be regarded as a learned theologian. In A.D. 1522 he appeared as the champion of the Romish doctrine of the seven sacraments in opposition to Luther’s book on the “Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” treating the peasant’s son with lordly contempt. Luther paid him in the same coin, and treated his royal opponent with less consideration than he had shown to Emser and Eck. The king obtained what he desired, the papal honorary title of Defensor fidei, but Luther’s crushing reply kept him from attempting to continue the controversy. He complained to the elector, who consoled him by reference to a general council (comp. § 129, 1). The pretty tolerable relations between Erasmus and Luther now suffered a severe shock. Erasmus, indebted to the English king for many favours, was roused to great bitterness by Luther’s unmeasured severity. He had hitherto refused all calls to write against Luther. Many pulpits charged him with having a secret understanding with the heretic; others thought he was afraid of him. All this tended to drive Erasmus into open hostility to the reformer. He now diligently studied Luther’s writings, for which he obtained the pope’s permission, and seized upon a doctrine which would not oblige him to appear as defender of Romish abuses, though to gauge and estimate it in its full meaning he was quite incompetent. Luther’s life experiences, joined with the study of Paul’s epistles and Augustine’s writings, had wrought in him the conviction that man is by nature incapable of doing any good, that his will is unfree, and that he is saved without any well doing of his own by God’s free grace in Christ. With Luther, as with Augustine, this conviction found expression in the doctrine of absolute predestination. Melanchthon had also formulated the doctrine in the first edition of his Loci communes. This fundamental doctrine of Luther was now laid hold upon by Erasmus in A.D. 1524 in his treatise, Διατριβή de libra arbitrio, pronounced dangerous and unbiblical, while his own semi-Pelagianism was set over against it. After the lapse of a year, Luther replied in his treatise, De servo arbitrio, with all the power and confidence of personal, experimental conviction. Erasmus answered in his Hyperaspistes diatribes adv. Lutheri servum arbitrium of A.D. 1526, in which he gave free vent to his passion, but did not advance the argument in the least. Luther therefore saw no need to continue the discussion.364

§ 125.4. Thomas Murner.―The Franciscan, Thomas Murner of Strassburg, had published in A.D. 1509 his “Fools’ Exorcism” and other pieces, which gave him a high place among German satirists. He spared no class, not even the clergy and the monks, took Reuchlin’s part against the men of Cologne (§ 120, 4), but passionately opposed Luther’s movement. His most successful satire against Luther is entitled, “On the Great Lutheran Fool as Exorcised by Dr. Murner, A.D. 1522.” It does not touch upon the spiritual aspect of the Reformation, but lashes with biting wit the revolutionary, fanatical, and rhetorical extravagances which were often closely associated with it. Luther did not venture into the lists with the savagely sarcastic monk, but the humanists poured upon him a flood of scurrilous replies.

§ 125.5. A notable Catholic witness on behalf of the Reformation is the “Onus ecclesiæ,” an anonymous tract of A.D. 1524, written by Bishop Berthold Pirstinger of Chiemsee. In apocalyptic phraseology it describes the corruption of the church and calls for reformation. The author however denounces Luther as a sectary and revolutionist, though he distinctly accepts his views of indulgences. He would reform the church from within. Four years after, the same divine wrote a “Tewtsche Theologey,” in which, with the exception of the doctrine of indulgence, the whole Romish system is vindicated and the corruptions of the church are ignored.

§ 126. Development of the Reformation in the Empire, A.D. 1522-1526.

In consequence of the terms of his election, Charles V. had, at the Diet of Worms, to agree to the erection of a standing imperial government at Nuremberg, which in his absence would have the supreme direction of imperial affairs. Within this commission, though presided over by Archduke Ferdinand, the emperor’s brother, a majority was soon found which openly favoured the new religion. Thus protected by the highest imperial judicature, the Reformation was able for a long time to spread unhindered and so made rapid progress (§ 125, 1). The Nuremberg court succumbed indeed to the united efforts of its political opponents, among whom were many nobles of an evangelical spirit, but all the more energetically did these press the interests of the Reformation. And their endeavours were so successful, that it was determined that matters should be settled without reference to pope and council at a general German national assembly. But the papal legate Campegius formed at Regensberg [Regensburg], in A.D. 1524, a league of the Catholic nobles for enforcing the edict of Worms, against which the evangelical nobles established a defensive league at Torgau, in A.D. 1526. The general national assembly was vetoed by the emperor, but the decision of the Diet of Spires of A.D. 1526 gave to all nobles the right of determining the religious matters of their provinces after their own views.

§ 126.1. The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D. 1522, 1523.―The imperial court held its first diet in the end of A.D. 1522. Leo X. had died in Dec., A.D. 1521, and Hadrian VI. (§ 149, 1), strictly conservative in doctrine and worship, a reformer of discipline and hierarchical abuses, had succeeded with the determination “to restore the deformed bride of Christ to her pristine purity,” but vigorously to suppress the Lutheran heresy. His legate presented to the diet a letter confessing abuses and promising reforms, but insisting on the execution of the edict of Worms. The diet declared that in consequence of the admitted corruptions of the church, the present execution of the Worms edict was not to be thought of. Until a general council in a German city, with guaranteed freedom of discussion, had been called, discussion should be avoided, and the word of God, with true Christian and evangelical explanation, should be taught.

§ 126.2. The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D. 1524.―A new diet was held at Nuremberg on 14th Jan., A.D. 1524. It dealt first of all with the question of the existence of the imperial court. The reformatory tendencies of the government showed that what was vital to this court was so also to the Reformation. This party had important supporters in the arch-catholic Ferdinand, who hoped thus to strengthen himself in his endeavour to obtain the Roman crown, in the Elector of Mainz, the prime mover in the traffic in indulgences, who had personal antipathies to the foes of the court, in the elector of Saxony, its proper creator, and in the princes of Brandenburg. But there were powerful opponents: the Swabian league, the princes of Treves, the Palatinate and Hesse, who had been successful in opposition to Sickingen, and the imperial cities, which, though at one with the court in favouring the Reformation, were embittered against it because of its financial projects. The papal legate Campegius also joined the opposition. Hadrian VI. had died in A.D. 1523, and was succeeded by Clement VII., A.D. 1523-1534. A skilful politician with no religious convictions, he determined to strengthen in every possible way the temporal power of the papal see. His legate was a man after his own mind. The opposition prevailed, and even Ferdinand after a struggle gave in. The newly organized governing body was only a shadow of the old, without power, influence, or independence. Thus a second (§ 124, 2) powerful support was lost to the Reformation, and the legate again pressed for the execution of the edict of Worms. But the evangelicals mustering all their forces, especially in the cities, secured a majority. They were indeed obliged to admit the legality of the edict; they even promised to carry it out, but with the saving clause “as far as possible.” A council in the sense of the former diet was demanded, and it was resolved to call a general national assembly at Spires, to be wholly devoted to religious and ecclesiastical questions. In the meantime the word of God in its simplicity was to be preached.

§ 126.3. The Convention at Regensburg, A.D. 1524.―While the evangelical nobles, by their theologians and diplomatists, were eagerly preparing for Spires, an assembly of the supporters of the old views met at Regensburg, June and July, A.D. 1524. Ignoring the previous arrangement, they proceeded to treat of the religious and ecclesiastical questions which had been reserved for the Spires Diet. This was the result of the machinations of Campegius. The Archduke Ferdinand, the Bavarian dukes, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and most of the South German bishops, joined the legate at Regensburg in insisting upon the edict of Worms. Luther’s writings were anew forbidden, their subjects were strictly enjoined not to attend the University of Wittenberg; several external abuses were condemned, ecclesiastical burdens on the people lightened, the number of festivals reduced, the four Latin Fathers, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory, set up as the standard of faith and doctrine, while it was commanded that the services should be conducted unchanged after the manner of these Fathers. Thus was produced that rent in the unity of the empire which never again was healed.―The imperial and the papal policies were so bound up with one another, that the proceedings of the Nuremberg diets, with their national tendencies, were distasteful to the emperor; and so in the end of July there came an imperial rescript, making attendance at the national assembly a crimen læsæ majestatis, punishable with ban and double-ban. The nobles obeyed, and the assembly was not held. With it Germany’s hopes of a peaceful development were shattered.

§ 126.4. The Evangelical Nobles, A.D. 1524.―Several nobles hitherto indifferent became now supporters of the Reformation. Philip of Hesse, moved by an interview with Melanchthon, gave himself enthusiastically to the cause of evangelical truth. Also the Margrave Casimir, George of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, the Elector Louis of the Palatinate, and Frederick I. of Denmark, as Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, did more or less in their several countries for the furtherance of the Reformation cause. The grand-master of the Teutonic order, Albert of Prussia, returned from the Diet of Nuremberg, where he had heard Osiander preach, doubtful of the scripturalness of the rule of his order. He therefore visited Wittenberg to consult Luther, who advised him to renounce the rule, to marry, and obtain heirs to his Prussian dukedom (§ 127, 3). The cities took up a most decided position. At two great city diets at Spires and Ulm in A.D. 1524, it was resolved to allow the preaching of a pure gospel and to assist in preventing the execution of the edict of Worms in their jurisdiction.

§ 126.5. The Torgau League, A.D. 1526.―Friends and foes of the Reformation had joined in putting down the peasant revolt. Their religious divergences however immediately after broke out afresh. George consulted at Dessau in July, A.D. 1525, with several Catholic princes as to means for preventing a renewal of the outbreak, and they unanimously decided that the condemned Lutheran sect must be rooted out as the source of all confusion. Soon afterwards two Leipzig citizens, who were found to have Lutheran books in their possession, were put to death. But Elector John of Saxony had a conference at Saalfeld with Casimir of Brandenburg, at which it was agreed at all hazards to stand by the word of God; and at Friedewald in November Hesse and the elector pledged themselves to stand true to the gospel. A diet at Augsburg in December, for want of a quorum, had reached no conclusion. A new diet was therefore summoned to meet at Spires, and all the princes were cited to appear personally. Duke George meanwhile gathered the Catholic princes at Halle and Leipzig, and they resolved to send Henry of Brunswick to Spain to the emperor. Shortly before his arrival, the emperor had concluded a peace at Madrid with the king of France, who had been taken prisoner in the battle of Pavia. Francis I., feeling he could not help himself, had agreed to all the terms, including an undertaking to join in suppressing the heretics. Charles therefore fully believed that he had a free hand, and determined to root out heresy in Germany. Henry of Brandenburg brought to the German princes an extremely firm reply, in which this view was expressed. But before its arrival the elector and the landgrave had met at Gotha, and had subsequently at Torgau, the residence of the elector, renewed the league to stand together with all their might in defence of the gospel. Philip undertook to gain over the nobles of the uplands. But the fear of the empire hindered his success. The elector was more fortunate among the lowland nobles. On 9th June the princes of Saxony, Lüneberg [Lüneburg], Grubenhagen, Anhalt, and Mansfeld met at Magdeburg, and subscribed the Torgau League. Also the city of Magdeburg, emancipated since A.D. 1524 from the jurisdiction of its archbishop, Albert of Mainz, and accepting the Lutheran confession, now joined the league.

§ 126.6. The Diet of Spires, A.D. 1526.―The diet met on 25th June, A.D. 1526. The evangelical princes were confident; on their armour was the motto, Verbum Dei manet in æternum. In spite of all the prelates’ opposition, three commissions were approved to consider abuses. When the debates were about to begin, the imperial commissioners tabled an instruction which forbade them to make any change upon the old doctrines and usages, and finally insisted upon the execution of the edict of Worms. The evangelicals however took comfort from the date affixed to the document. They knew that since its issue the relation of pope and emperor had become strained. Francis I. had been relieved by the pope from the obligation of his oath, and the pope had joined with Francis in a league at Cognac, to which also Henry VIII. of England adhered. All Western Europe had combined to break the supremacy gained by the Burgundian-Spanish dynasty at Pavia, and the duped emperor found himself in straits. Would he now be inclined to stand by his instruction? The commissioners, apparently at Ferdinand’s wish, had kept back the document till the affairs of the Catholics became desperate. The evangelical nobles felt encouraged to send an embassy to the emperor, but before it started the emperor realized their wishes. In a letter to his brother he communicated a scheme for abolishing the penalties of the edict of Worms and referring religious questions to a council. At the same time he called for help against his Italian enemies. Seeing then that in present circumstances it did not seem advisable to revoke, still less to carry out the edict, the only plan was to give to each prince discretionary power in his own territory. This was the birthday of the territorial constitution on a formally legitimate basis.

§ 127. Organization of the Evangelical Provincial Churches, A.D. 1526-1529.

The nobles had now not only the right but also had it enjoined on them as a duty to establish church arrangements in their territories as they thought best. The three following years therefore marked the period of the founding and organizing of the evangelical provincial churches. The electorate of Saxony came first with a good example. After this pattern the churches of Hesse, Franconia, Lüneburg, East Friesland, Schleswig and Holstein, Silesia, Prussia, and a whole group of Low German states modelled their constitution and worship.

§ 127.1. The Organization of the Church of the Saxon Electorate, A.D. 1527-1529.―Luther wrote in A.D. 1528 an instruction to visitors of pastors in the electorate, which showed what and how ministers were to preach, indicated the reforms to be made in worship, protested against abuse of the doctrine of justification by urging the necessity of preaching the law, etc. The whole territory was divided under four commissions, comprising lay and clerical members. Ignorant and incompetent religious teachers were to be removed, but to be provided for. Teachers were to be settled over churches and schools, and superintendents over them were to inspect their work periodically, and to these last the performance of marriages was assigned. Vacant benefices were to be applied to the improvement of churches and schools; and those not vacant were to be taxed for maintenance of hospitals, support of the poor, founding of new schools, etc. The dangers occasioned by the often incredible ignorance of the people and their teachers led to Luther’s composing his two catechisms in A.D. 1529.

§ 127.2. The Organization of the Hessian Churches, A.D. 1526-1528.―Philip of Hesse had assembled the peers temporal and spiritual of his dominions in Oct., A.D. 1526, at Homberg, to discuss the question of church reform. A reactionary attempt failed through the fervid eloquence of the Franciscan Lambert of Avignon, a notable man, who, awakened in his cloister at Avignon by Luther’s writings, but not thoroughly satisfied, set out for Wittenberg, engaged on the way at Zürich in public disputation against Zwingli’s reforms, but left converted by his opponent, and then passed through Luther’s school at Wittenberg. There he married in A.D. 1523, and after a long unofficial and laborious stay at Strassburg, found at last, in A.D. 1526, a permanent residence in Hesse. He died in A.D. 1530.―Lambert’s personality dominated the Homberg synod. He sketched an organization of the church according to his ideal as a communion of saints with a democratic basis, and a strict discipline administered by the community itself. But the impracticability of the scheme soon became evident, and in A.D. 1528 the Hessian church adopted the principles of the Saxon church visitation. Out of vacant church revenues the University of Marburg was founded in A.D. 1527 as a second training school in reformed theology. Lambert was one of its first teachers.

§ 127.3. Organization of other German Provincial Churches, A.D. 1528-1530.―George of Franconian-Brandenburg, after his brother Casimir’s death, organized his church at the assembly of Anspach after the Saxon model. Nuremberg, under the guidance of its able secretary of council, Lazarus Spengler, united in carrying out a joint organization. In Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duke Ernest, powerfully impressed by the preaching of Rhegius at Augsburg, introduced the evangelical church organization into his dominions. In East Friesland, where the reigning prince did not interest himself in the matter, the development of the church was attended to by the young nobleman Ulrich of Dornum. In Schleswig and Holstein the prelates offered no opposition to reorganization, and the civil authorities carried out the work. In Silesia the princes were favourable, Breslau had been long on the side of the Reformation, and even the grand-duke who, as king of Bohemia, was suzerain of Silesia, felt obliged to allow Silesian nobles the privileges provided by the Diet of Spires. In Prussia (§ 126, 4), Albert of Brandenburg, hereditary duke of these parts, with the hearty assistance of his two bishops, provided for his subjects an evangelical constitution.

§ 127.4. The Reformation in the Cities of Northern Germany, A.D. 1524-1531.―In these cities the Reformation spread rapidly after their emancipation from episcopal control. It was organized in Magdeburg as early as A.D. 1524 by Nic. Amsdorf, sent for the purpose by Luther (§ 126, 5). In Brunswick the church was organized in A.D. 1528 by Bugenhagen of Wittenberg. In Bremen in A.D. 1525 all churches except the cathedral were in the hands of the Lutherans; in A.D. 1527 the cloisters were turned into schools and hospitals, and then the cathedral was taken from the Catholics. At Lübeck, nobles, councillors, and clergy had oppressed and driven away the evangelical pastors; but the councillors in their financial straits became indebted to sixty-four citizens, who stipulated that the pastors must be restored, the Catholics expelled, the cloisters turned into hospitals and schools, and finally Bugenhagen was called in to prepare for their church a Lutheran constitution.

§ 128. Martyrs for Evangelical Truth, A.D. 1521-1529.

On the publication of the edict of Worms several Catholic princes, most conspicuously Duke George of Saxony, began the persecution. Luther’s followers were at first imprisoned, scourged, and banished, and in A.D. 1521 a bookseller who sold Luther’s books was beheaded. The persecution was most severe in the Netherlands, a heritage of the emperor independent of the empire. Also in Austria, Bavaria, and Swabia many evangelical confessors were put to death by the sword and at the stake. The peasant revolt of A.D. 1525 increased the violence of the persecution. On the pretence of punishing rebels, those who took part in the Regensburg Convention (§ 126, 3) were expelled the country, thousands of them with no other fault than their attachment to the gospel. The conclusion of the Diet of Spires in A.D. 1526 (§ 126, 6) added new fuel to the flames. While the evangelical nobles, taking advantage of that decision, proceeded vigorously to the planting and organizing of the reformed church, the enemies of the Reformation exercised the power given them in cruel persecutions of their evangelical subjects. The vagaries of Pack (§ 132, 1) led to a revival and intensification of the spirit of persecution. In Austria, during A.D. 1527, 1528, a church visitation had been arranged very much in the style of that of Saxony, but with the object of tracking out and punishing heretics. In Bavaria the highways were watched, to prevent pilgrims going to preaching over the borders. Those caught were at first fined, but later on they were drowned or burned.

The first martyrs for evangelical truth were two young Augustinian monks of Antwerp, Henry Voes and John Esch, who died at the stake in A.D. 1523, and their heroism was celebrated by Luther in a beautiful hymn. They were succeeded by the prior of the cloister, Lampert Thorn, who was strangled in prison. The Swabian League, which was renewed after the rising of the Diet of Spires, with the avowed purpose of rooting out the Anabaptists, directed its cruel measures against all evangelicals. The Bishop of Constance in A.D. 1527 had John Hüglin burnt as an opposer of the holy mother church. The Elector of Mainz cited the court preacher, George Winkler, of Halle, for dispensing the sacrament in both kinds at Ascheffenburg [Aschaffenburg]. Winkler defended himself, and was acquitted, but was murdered on the way. Luther then wrote his tract, “Comfort to the Christians of Halle on the Death of their Pastor.” In North Germany there was no bloodshedding, but Duke George had those who confessed their faith scourged by the gaoler and driven from the country. The Elector Joachim of Brandenburg with his nobles resolved in A.D. 1527 to give vigorous support to the old religion. But the gospel took deep root in his land, and his own wife Elizabeth read Luther’s writings, and had the sacrament administered after the Lutheran form. But the secret was revealed, and the elector stormed and threatened. She then escaped, dressed as a peasant woman, to her cousin the Elector of Saxony.

§ 129. Luther’s Private and Public Life, A.D. 1523-1529.

Only in December, A.D. 1524, did Luther leave the cloister, the last of its inhabitants but the prior, and on 13th June, A.D. 1525, married Catherine Bora, of the convent of Nimptschen, of whom he afterwards boasted that he prized her more highly than the kingdom of France and the governorship of Venice. Though often depressed with sickness, almost crushed under the weight of business, and harassed even to the end by the threats of his enemies against his life, he maintained a bright, joyous temper, enjoyed himself during leisure hours among his friends with simple entertainments of song, music, intellectual conversation, and harmless, though often sharp and pungent, interchange of wit. Thus he proved a genuine comfort and help in all kinds of trouble. By constant writing, by personal intercourse with students and foreigners who crowded into Wittenberg, by an extensive correspondence, he won and maintained a mighty influence in spreading and establishing the Reformation. By Scripture translation and Scripture exposition, by sermons and doctrinal treatises, he impressed upon the people his own evangelical views. A peculiarly powerful factor in the Reformation was that treasury of sacred song (§ 142, 3) which Luther gave his people, partly in translations of old, partly in the composition of new hymns, which he set to bright and pleasing melodies. He was also most diligent in promoting education in churches and schools, in securing the erection of new elementary and secondary schools, and laid special stress on the importance of linguistic studies in a church that prized the pure word of God.

§ 129.1. Luther’s Literary Works.―In A.D. 1524 appeared the first collection of spiritual songs and psalms, eight in number, with a preface by Luther. His reforms of worship were extremely moderate. In A.D. 1523 he published little tracts on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, repudiating the idea of a sacrifice in the mass, and insisting on communion in both kinds. In A.D. 1527 he wrote his “German Mass and Order of Public Worship” (§ 127, 1) which was introduced generally throughout the elector’s dominions. He wrote an address to burgomasters and councillors about the improvement of education in the cities. Besides his polemic against Erasmus and Carlstadt, against Münzer and the rebellious peasants, as well as against the Sacramentarians (§ 131), he engaged at this time in controversy with Cochlæus. A papal bull for the canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen (§ 93, 9) called forth in A.D. 1524 Luther’s tract, “Against the new God and the old Devil being set up at Meissen.” He was persuaded by Christian II. of Denmark to write, in A.D. 1526, a very humble letter to Henry VIII. of England (§ 125, 3), which was answered in an extremely venomous and bitter style. When his enemies triumphantly declared that he had retracted, Luther answered, in A.D. 1527, with his book, “Against the Abusive Writing of the King of England,” in which he resumed the bold and confident tone of his earlier polemic. A humble, conciliatory epistle sent in A.D. 1526 to Duke George was no more successful. He now unweariedly continued his Bible translation. The first edition of the whole Bible was published by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, in A.D. 1534. A collection of sayings of Luther collected by Lauterbach, a deacon of Wittenberg, in A.D. 1538, formed the basis of later and fuller editions of “Luther’s Table Talk.” A chronologically arranged collection was made ten years later, and was published in A.D. 1872 from a MS. in the Royal Library at Dresden. Aurifaber in his collection did not follow the chronological order, but grouped the utterances according to their subjects, but with many arbitrary alterations and modifications. The saying falsely attributed to Luther, “Who loves not wine, women, and song?” etc., is assigned by Luther himself to his Erfurt landlady, but has been recently traced to an Italian source.

§ 129.2. The famous Catholic Church historian Döllinger, who in his history of the Reformation had with ultramontane bitterness defamed Luther and his work, twenty years later could not forbear celebrating Luther in a public lecture as “the most powerful patriot and the most popular character that Germany possessed.” In A.D. 1871 he wrote as follows: “It was Luther’s supreme intellectual ability and wonderful versatility that made him the man of his age and of his nation. There has never been a German who so thoroughly understood his fellow countrymen and was understood by them as this Augustinian monk of Wittenberg. The whole intellectual and spiritual making of the Germans was in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter. He has given more to his nation than any one man has ever done: language, popular education, Bible, sacred song; and all that his opponents could say against him and alongside of him seemed insipid, weak, and colourless compared with his overmastering eloquence. They stammered, he spoke. It was he who put a stamp upon the German language as well as upon the German character. And even those Germans who heartily abhor him as the great heretic and betrayer of religion cannot help speaking his words and thinking his thoughts.”

§ 130. The Reformation in German Switzerland, A.D. 1519-1531.

While Luther’s Reformation spread in Germany, a similar movement sprang up in the neighbouring provinces of German Switzerland. Its earliest beginnings date back as far as A.D. 1516. The personal characteristics of its first promoter, and the political democratic movement in which it had its rise, gave it a complexion entirely different from that of the Lutheran Reformation. The most conspicuous divergence occurred in the doctrine of the supper (§ 131), and since the Swiss views on this point were generally accepted in the cities of the uplands, the controversy passed over into the German Reformed Church and hindered common action, notwithstanding common interests and common dangers.

§ 130.1. Ulrich Zwingli.―Zwingli, born at Wildhaus in Toggenburg on January 1st, A.D. 1484, a scholar of the famous humanist Thomas Wyttenbach at Basel, was, after ten years’ service as pastor at Glarus, made pastor of Maria-Einsiedeln in A.D. 1516. The crowding of pilgrims to the famous shrine of Mary at that place led him to preach against superstitious notions of meritorious performances. But far more decisive in determining his attitude toward the Reformation was his appointment on January 1st, A.D. 1519, as Lent priest at Zürich, where he first became acquainted with Luther’s works, and took sides with him against the Romish court party. Zwingli soon took up a distinctive position of his own. He would be not only a religious, but also a political reformer. For several years he had vigorously opposed the sending of Swiss youths as mercenaries into the armies of foreign princes. His political opponents, the oligarchs, whose incomes depended on this traffic, opposed also his religious reforms, so that his support was wholly from the democracy. Another important distinction between the Swiss and German movements was this, that Zwingli had grown into a reformer not through deep conviction of sin and spiritual conflicts, but through classical and biblical study. The writings of Pico of Mirandola (§ 120, 1), too, were not without influence upon him. To him, therefore, justification by faith was not in the same degree as to Luther the guiding star of his life and action. He began the work of the Reformation not so much with purifying the doctrine, as with improving the worship, the constitution, the ecclesiastical and moral life. His theological standpoint is set forth in these works: Comment. de vera et falsa relig., A.D. 1525; Fidei ratio ad Car. Imp., A.D. 1530; Christian. fidei brevis at clara expos., ed. Bullinger, A.D. 1536; De providentia Dei; and Apologeticus. Of the two principles of the anti-Romish Reformation (§ 121) the Wittenberg reformer placed the material, the Zürich reformer the formal, in the foreground. The former only rejected what was not reconcilable with Scripture; the latter repudiated all that was not expressly enjoined in Scripture. The former was cautious and moderate in dealing with forms of worship and mere externals; the latter was extreme, immoderate, and violent. Luther retained pictures, altars, the ornaments of churches, and the priestly character of the service, purifying it simply from unevangelical corruptions; Zwingli denounced all these things as idolatry, and burnt even organ pipes and clock bells. Luther recognised no action of the Holy Spirit apart from the word and sacrament; Zwingli separated it from these, and identified it with mere subjective feeling. The sacraments were with him mere memorial signs; justification solely by the merits of Christ as a joyous assurance of salvation had for him a negative rather than a positive significance, i.e. opposition to the Romish doctrine of merits; original sin was for him only hereditary moral sickness, a naturalis defectus, which is not itself sin, and virtuous heathens, like Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, and Cato were admitted as such into the society of the blessed, without apparently sharing in the redemption of Christ. His speculations, which led on one side almost to pantheism, favoured a theory of predestination, according to which the moral will has no freedom over against Providence.365

§ 130.2. The Reformation in Zürich, A.D. 1519-1525.―In A.D. 1518 a trafficker in indulgences, the Franciscan Bernard Samson, of Milan, carried on his disreputable business in Switzerland. At Zwingli’s desire Zürich’s gates were closed against him. In A.D. 1520 the council gave permission to priests and preachers in the city and canton to preach only from the O. and N.T. All this happened under the eyes of the two papal nuncios staying in Zürich; but they did not interfere, because the curia was extremely anxious to get auxiliaries for the papal army for an attack on Milan. Zwingli was promised a rich living if he would no more preach against the pope. He refused the bait, and went on his way as a reformer. The continued indulgence of the curia allowed the Reformation to take even firmer root. Zwingli published, in A.D. 1522, his first work, “Of Election, and Freedom in Use of Food,” and the Zürichers ate flesh and eggs during Lent of A.D. 1522. He also claimed liberty to marry for the clergy. At this time Lambert came from Avignon to Zürich (§ 127, 2). He preached against the new views, disputed in July with Zwingli, and confessed himself defeated and convinced. Zwingli’s opponents had placed great hopes in Lambert’s eloquence and dialectic skill. All the greater was the effect of the unexpected result of the disputation. The council, now impressed, commanded that the word of God should be preached without human additions. But when the adherents of the Romish party protested, it arranged a public disputation on 29th Jan., A.D. 1523, on sixty-seven theses or conclusiones drawn up by Zwingli: “All who say, The gospel is nothing without the guarantee of the Church, blaspheme God;―Christ is the one way to salvation;―Our righteousness and our works are good so far as they are Christ’s, neither right nor good so far as they are our own,” etc. A former friend of Zwingli, John Faber, but quite changed since he had made a visit to Rome, and now vicar-general of the Bishop of Constance, undertook to support the old doctrines and customs against Zwingli. Being restricted to Scripture proof he was forced to yield. The cloisters were forsaken, violent polemics were published against the canon of the mass and the worship of saints and images. The council resolved to decide the question of the mass and images by a second disputation in October, A.D. 1523. Leo Judä, Lent priest at St. Peter’s in Zürich, contended against image worship, Zwingli against the mass. Scarcely any opposition was offered to either of them. At Pentecost, A.D. 1524, the council had all images withdrawn from the churches, the frescoes cut down, and the walls whitewashed. Organ playing and bell ringing were forbidden as superstitious. A new simple biblical formula of baptism was introduced, and the abolition of the mass, in A.D. 1525, completed the work. At Easter of this year Zwingli celebrated a lovefeast, at which bread was carried in wooden trenchers, and wine drunk from wooden cups. Thus he thought the genuine Christian apostolic rite was restored. In A.D. 1522 he had married a widow of forty-three years of age, but he publicly acknowledged it only in A.D. 1524. He penitently confesses that his pre-Reformation celibate life, like that of most priests of his age, had not been blameless; but the moral purity of his later life is beyond suspicion.

§ 130.3. Reformation in Basel, A.D. 1520-1525.―In Basel, at an early period, Capito and Hedio wrought as biblical preachers. But so soon as they had laid a good foundation they accepted a call to Mainz, in A.D. 1520, which they soon again quitted for Strassburg, where they carried on the work of the Reformation along with Bucer. Their work at Basel was zealously and successfully continued by Röublin. He preached against the mass, purgatory, and saint worship, often to 4,000 hearers. On the day of Corpus Christi he produced a Bible instead of the usual relics, which he scornfully called dead bones. He was banished, and afterwards joined the Anabaptists. A new epoch began in Basel in A.D. 1523. Œcolampadius or John Hausschein, born at Weinsberg in A.D. 1482, Zwingli’s Melanchthon, was preacher in Basel in A.D. 1516, and was on intimate terms there with Erasmus. He accepted a call in A.D. 1518 to the cathedral of Augsburg, but a year after withdrew into an Augsburg convent of St. Bridget. There he studied Luther’s writings, and, in A.D. 1522, found shelter from persecution in Sickingen’s castle, where he officiated for some months as chaplain. He then returned to Basel, became preacher at St. Martin’s, and was soon made, along with Conrad Pellican (§ 120, 4 footnote), professor in the university. Around these two a group of younger men soon gathered, who energetically supported the evangelical movement. They dispensed baptism in the German language, administered the communion in both kinds, and were indefatigable in preaching. In A.D. 1524 the council allowed monks and nuns, if they so wished, to leave their cloisters. Of special importance for the progress of the Reformation in Basel was the arrival in A.D. 1524 of William Farel from Dauphiné (§ 138, 1). He had been obliged to fly from France, and was kindly received by Œcolampadius, with whom he stayed for some months. In February he had a public disputation with the opponents of the Reformation. University and bishop had interdicted it, but all the more decided was the council that it should come off. Its result was a great impulse to the Reformation, though Farel in this same year, probably at the suggestion of Erasmus, whom he had described as a new Balaam, was banished by the council (§ 138, 1).366