CHAPTER V

Feast of All Saints—The Theses—Their Force—Moderation—Providence—Letter to Albert—Indifference of the Bishops—Dissemination of the Theses. The words of Luther had produced little effect. Tezel, without troubling himself, continued his traffic and his impious harangues. Will Luther submit to these crying abuses, and keep silence? As a pastor, he has earnestly exhorted those who have had recourse to his ministry, and, as a preacher, he has lifted his warning voice in the pulpit. It still remains for him to speak as a theologian—to address, not individuals in the confessional, not the assembly of the faithful in the church of Wittemberg, but all who, like himself, are teachers of the word of God. His resolution is taken.

He has no thought of attacking the Church, or of putting the pope on his defence. On the contrary, it is his respect for the pope that will not allow him to be any longer silent with regard to claims by which he is injured. He must take the part of the pope against audacious men, who dare to associate his venerable name with their disgraceful traffic. Far from thinking of a revolution which is to destroy the primacy of Rome, Luther expects to have the pope and Catholicism for his allies against impudent monks. The feast of All Saints was an important day for Wittemberg, and especially for the church which the Elector had there erected and filled with relics. On that day these relics, adorned with silver and gold, and precious stones, were brought out and exhibited to the eyes of the people, who were astonished and dazzled by their magnificence. Whoever on that day visited the church and confessed in it obtained a valuable indulgence. Accordingly, on this great occasion, pilgrims came in crowds to Wittemberg. On the 31st of October, 1517, Luther, who had already taken his resolution, walks boldly towards the church to which the superstitious crowds of pilgrims were repairing, and puts up on the door of this church ninety-five Theses or propositions against the doctrine of indulgences. Neither the Elector, nor Staupitz, nor Spalatin, nor any, even the most intimate of his friends, had been previously informed of this step. In these theses, Luther declares, in a kind of preamble, that he had written them with the express desire of setting the truth in the full light of day. He declares himself ready to defend them on the morrow at the university, against all and sundry. The attention which they excite is great; they are read and repeated. In a short time the pilgrims, the university, the whole town is ringing with them. The following are some of these Propositions, written with the pen of the monk, and fixed on the door of the church of Wittemberg.

1. “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says ‘repent,’ he means that the whole life of his followers on the earth is a constant and continual repentance.

2. “This expression cannot be understood of the sacrament of penitence, (that is to say, of confession and satisfaction,) as administered by the priest.

3. “Still the Lord intends not to speak merely of internal repentance. Internal repentance is null, if it does not manifest itself externally by the mortification of the flesh.

4. “Repentance and sorrow—that is to say, true penitence—continue so long as a man is displeased with himself—that is, until he passes from this life into life eternal.

5. “The pope is not able, and does not wish to remit any other penalty than that which he has imposed of his own good pleasure, or conformably to the canons, that is to say, the papal ordinances.

6. “The pope cannot remit any condemnation, but only declare and confirm the remission which God himself has given. At least he can only do it in cases which belong to him. If he does otherwise, the condemnation remains exactly as before.

8. “The laws of ecclesiastical penance ought to be imposed on the living only, and have nothing to do with the dead.

21. “The commissaries of indulgence are mistaken when they say that the pope’s indulgence delivers from all punishment and saves.

25. “The same power which the pope has over purgatory throughout the Church, each bishop has individually in his own diocese, and each curate in his own parish.

27. “It is the preaching of human folly to pretend, that at the very moment when the money tinkles in the strong box, the soul flies off from purgatory.

28. “This much is certain; as soon as the money tinkles, avarice and the love of gain arrive, increase, and multiply. But the aids and prayers of the Church depend only on the will and good pleasure of God.

32. “Those who imagine they are sure of salvation by means of indulgences will go to the devil, with those who teach them so.

35. “It is an antichristian doctrine to pretend, that, in order to deliver a soul from purgatory, or to purchase an indulgence, there is no need of either sorrow or repentance.

36. “Every Christian who truly repents of his sins has entire forgiveness of the penalty and the fault, and, so far, has no need of indulgence.

37. “Every true Christian, dead or alive, participates in all the blessings of Christ and of the Church by the gift of God and without a letter of indulgence.

38. “Still the dispensation and pardon of the pope must not be despised; for his pardon is a declaration of the pardon of God.

40. “Genuine sorrow and repentance seek and love punishment; but the mildness of indulgence takes off the fear of punishment, and begets hatred against it.

42. “Christians must be told that the pope has no wish and no intention that they should in any respect compare the act of purchasing indulgences with any work of mercy.

43. “Christians must be told that he who gives to the poor, or lends to the needy, does better than he who buys an indulgence:

44. “For the work of charity makes charity increase, and renders a man more pious; whereas the indulgence does not make him better, but only gives him more self-confidence, and makes him more secure against punishment.

45. “Christians must be told that he who sees his neighbour want, and, instead of helping him, purchases an indulgence, purchases not the indulgence of the pope, but incurs the Divine displeasure.

46. “Christians must be told that if they have no superfluity, they are bound to keep what they have, in order to procure necessaries for their families, and not to lavish it on indulgences.

47. “Christians must be told that to purchase an indulgence is optional, not obligatory.

48. “Christians must be told that the pope having more need of prayer offered up in faith than of money, desires the prayer more than the money when he dispenses indulgences.

49. “Christians must be told that the indulgence of the pope is good provided they do not place their confidence in it, but that nothing is more hurtful if it diminishes piety.

50. “Christians must be told that if the pope knew of the extortions of the preachers of indulgences, he would rather that the metropolis of St. Peter were burned and reduced to ashes, than see it built with the skin, flesh, and bones, of his sheep.

51. “Christians must be told that the pope, as is his duty, would dispense his own money to the poor people whom the preachers of indulgences are now robbing of their last penny, were he, for that purpose, even to sell the metropolis of St. Peter.

52. “To hope to be saved by indulgences is an empty and lying hope even should the commissary of indulgences, nay, the pope himself, be pleased to pledge his own soul in security of it.

53. “Those who, on account of the preaching of indulgences, forbid the preaching of the word of God, are enemies of the pope and of Jesus Christ.

55. “The pope cannot have any other thought than this:—If the indulgence, which is the lesser matter, is celebrated with bell, pomp, and ceremony, it is necessary, à fortiori, to honour and celebrate the gospel, which is the greater matter, with a hundred bells, a hundred pomps, and a hundred ceremonies.

62. “The true and precious treasure of the Church is the holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.

65. “The treasures of the gospel are nets, which once caught the rich, and those who were at ease in their circumstances:

66. “But the treasures of indulgence are nets, in which, now-a-days, they catch, not rich people, but the riches of people.

67. “It is the duty of bishops and pastors to receive the commissaries of apostolic indulgences with all respect:

68. “But it is still more their duty to use their eyes and their ears, in order to see that the said commissaries do not preach the dreams of their own imaginations instead of the orders of the pope.

71. “Cursed be he who speaketh against the indulgence of the pope.

72. “But blessed be he who speaks against the foolish and impudent words of the preachers of indulgences.

76. “The indulgence of the pope cannot take away the smallest daily sin, in regard to the fault or delinquency.

79. “To say that a cross adorned with the arms of the pope is as powerful as the cross of Christ is blasphemy.

80. “Bishops, pastors, and theologians, who allow such things to be said to the people, will be called to account for it.

81. “This shameful preaching, these impudent eulogiums on indulgences make it difficult for the learned to defend the dignity and honour of the pope against the calumnies of the preachers, and the subtile and puzzling questions of the common people.

86. “Why, say they, does not the pope, whose wealth is greater than that of rich Crœsus, build the metropolis of St. Peter with his own money rather than with that of poor Christians?

92. “Would, then, that we were discumbered of all the preachers who say to the church of Christ, Peace! Peace! when there is no peace!

94. “Christians should be exhorted to diligence in following Christ their head through crosses, death, and hell.

95. “For it is far better to enter the kingdom of heaven through much tribulation, than to acquire a carnal security by the flattery of a false peace.”

Here, then, was the commencement of the work. The germ of the Reformation was contained in these theses of Luther. The abuses of indulgence were attacked in them, (and this was their most striking feature,) but behind those attacks there was, moreover, a principle which although it attracted the attention of the multitude far less, was destined one day to overthrow the edifice of the papacy. The evangelical doctrine of a free and gratuitous remission of sins was here publicly professed for the first time. Henceforth the work must grow. In fact, it was evident that any man who had faith in the remission of sins as preached by the doctor of Wittemberg; any one who had this conversion and sanctification, the necessity of which, he urged, would no longer concern himself about human ordinances, but would escape from the swaddling-bands of Rome, and secure the liberty of the children of God. All errors behoved to give way before this truth. By it light had at first entered Luther’s own mind, and by it, in like manner, light is to be diffused in the Church. What previous reformers wanted was a clear knowledge of this truth; and hence the unfruitfulness of their labours. Luther himself was afterwards aware that, in proclaiming justification by faith, he had laid the axe to the root of the tree. “This is the doctrine,” said he, “which we attack in the followers of the papacy. Huss and Wickliff only attacked their lives, but in attacking their doctrine, we take the goose by the neck. All depends on the Word which the pope took from us and falsified. I have vanquished the pope, because my doctrine is according to God, and his is according to the devil.

We too have in our day forgotten the capital doctrine of justification by faith, though, in a sense, the reverse of that of our fathers. “In the time of Luther,” says one of our contemporaries, “the remission of sins at least cost money, but in our day every one supplies himself gratis.” These two extremes are very much alike. Perhaps there is even more forgetfulness of God in our extreme, than in that of the sixteenth century. The principle of justification by the grace of God, which brought the Church out of so much darkness at the time of the Reformation, is also the only principle which can renew our generation, put an end to its doubts and waverings, destroy the canker of egotism, establish the reign of morality and justice, and, in one word reunite the world to God, from whom it has been separated. But if the theses of Luther were mighty in virtue of the truth which they proclaimed, they were not less so through the faith of their declared defender. He had boldly unsheathed the sword of the Word, and he had done it trusting to the power of truth. He had felt, that in leaning on the promises of God he could, in the language of the world, afford to risk something. Speaking of this bold attack, he says, “Let him who would begin a good enterprise undertake it, trusting to its own merits, and not (of this let him beware) to the help and countenance of man. Moreover, let not men, nor even the whole world, deter him. For these words will never deceive:—‘It is good to trust in the Lord; and none that trust in him shall be confounded.’ But let him who neither is able nor willing to hazard something through trust in God, beware of undertaking any thing.” Doubtless, Luther, after putting up his theses on the door of the church of All Saints, retired to his tranquil cell, in full possession of the peace and joy imparted by an action done in the name of the Lord, and for the sake of eternal truth.

These theses, notwithstanding of their great boldness, still bespeak the monk, who refuses to allow a single doubt as to the authority of the See of Rome. But in attacking the doctrine of indulgences, Luther had, without perceiving it, assailed several errors, the exposure of which could not be agreeable to the pope, seeing that they tended, sooner or later, to bring his supremacy in question. Luther, at the time, did not see so far; but he felt all the boldness of the step which he had just taken, and, consequently, thought himself bound to temper it in so far as was consistent with the respect due to truth. He, accordingly, presented his theses only as doubtful propositions on which he was anxious for the views of the learned; and, conformably to the established custom, annexed to them a solemn protestation, declaring that he wished not to say or affirm any thing not founded on Holy Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and the rights and decretals of the See of Rome.

Often, in the sequel, on contemplating the immense and unlooked-for consequences of this courageous attack, Luther was astonished at himself, and could not understand how he had ventured upon it. An invisible hand, mightier than his own, held the leading reins, and pushed him into a path which he knew not, and from the difficulties of which he would, perhaps, have recoiled, if he had known them, and been advancing alone and of himself. “I engaged in this dispute,” says he, “without premeditated purpose, without knowing it or wishing it; and was taken quite unprepared. For the truth of this I appeal to the Searcher of hearts.”

Luther had become acquainted with the source of these abuses. He had received a little book, ornamented with the arms of the Archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg, and containing the regulations to be observed in the sale of indulgences. It was this young prelate, therefore, this accomplished prince, who had prescribed, or at least sanctioned, all this quackery. In him Luther only sees a superior to whom he owes fear and reverence; and wishing not to beat the air, but to address those entrusted with the government of the Church, he sends him a letter, distinguished at once by its frankness and humility. Luther wrote this letter to Albert the same day on which he put up his theses.

“Pardon me, most reverend Father in Christ, and most illustrious Prince,” says he to him, “if I, who am only the dregs of mankind, have the presumption to write your High Mightiness. The Lord Jesus is my witness, that, feeling how small and despicable I am, I have long put off doing it.… Will your Highness, however, be pleased to let fall a look on a grain of dust, and, in accordance with your episcopal meekness, graciously receive my petition.

“There are people who are carrying the papal indulgence up and down the country in the name of your Grace. I do not so much blame the declamation of the preachers, (I have not heard them,) as the erroneous ideas of unlearned and simple people, who imagine that by buying indulgences they secure their salvation …

“Good God! souls entrusted to your care, most venerable Father, are conducted to death, and not to life. The just and strict account which will be required of you grows and augments from day to day.… I have not been able to continue longer silent. Ah! man is not saved by works, or by the performances of his bishop.… Even the righteous scarcely is saved; and the way that leadeth unto life is strait. Why, then, do the preachers of indulgences by vain fables inspire the people with a false security?

“According to them, indulgence alone ought to be proclaimed, ought to be extolled.… What! Is it not the chief and only duty of bishops to instruct the people in the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ has nowhere ordered the preaching of indulgence; but has strongly enjoined the preaching of the gospel.² How dreadful, then and how perilous, for a bishop to allow the gospel to be passed in silence, and nothing but the sound of indulgence to be incessantly dunned into the ears of his people.…

“Most worthy Father in God, in the Instruction of the commissaries, which has been published in name of your Grace, (doubtless without your knowledge,) it is said that the indulgence is the most precious treasure,—that it reconciles man to God, and enables those who purchase it to dispense with repentance.

“What then, can I, what ought I to do, most venerable Bishop, most serene Prince? Ah! I supplicate your Highness, by the Lord Jesus Christ, to turn upon this business an eye of paternal vigilance, to suppress the pamphlet entirely, and ordain preachers to deliver a different sort of discourses to the people. If you decline to do so, be assured you will one day hear some voice raised in refutation of these preachers, to the great dishonour of your most serene Highness.”

Luther at the same time sent his theses to the archbishop, and, in a postscript, asked him to read them, that he might be convinced how little foundation there was for the doctrine of indulgences.

Thus Luther’s whole desire was, that the watchmen of the Church should awake, and exert themselves in putting an end to the evils which were laying it waste. Nothing could be more noble and more respectful than this letter from a monk to one of the greatest princes of the Church and the empire. Never was there a better exemplification of the spirit of our Saviour’s precept—“Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.” This is not the course of violent revolutionists, who contemn powers and blame dignities. It is a cry proceeding from the conscience of a Christian and a priest, who gives honour to all, but in the first place fears God. However, all prayers and supplications were useless. Young Albert, engrossed by his pleasures and ambitious designs, made no reply to this solemn appeal. The Bishop of Brandebourg, Luther’s ordinary—a learned and pious man, to whom, also, he sent his theses—replied that he was attacking the power of the Church, that he would involve himself in great trouble and vexation, that the thing was beyond his strength, and that his earnest advice to him was to keep quiet. The princes of the Church shut their ears against the voice of God, thus energetically and affectingly declared by the instrumentality of Luther. They would not comprehend the signs of the times; they were struck with that blindness which has been the ruin of so many powers and dignities. “Both thought,” says Luther afterwards, “that the pope would be too many for a miserable mendicant like me.” But Luther was better able than the bishops to perceive the disastrous effects which the indulgences had upon the manners and lives of the people; for he was in direct correspondence with them. He had constantly a near view of what the bishops learned only by unfaithful reports. If the bishops failed him, God did not fail him. The Head of the Church, who sits in heaven, and to whom has been given all power upon the earth, had himself prepared the ground, and deposited the grain in the hands of his servant. He gave wings to the seed of truth, and sent it in an instant over the whole length and breadth of his Church.

Nobody appeared at the university next day to attack the propositions of Luther. The traffic of Tezel was too much in discredit, and too disgraceful for any other than himself, or some one of his creatures, to dare to take up the gauntlet. But these theses were destined to be heard in other places than under the roof of an academical hall. Scarcely had they been nailed to the door of the castle church of Wittemberg, than the feeble strokes of the hammer were followed throughout Germany by a blow which reached even to the foundations of proud Rome, threatening sudden ruin to the walls, the gates, and the pillars of the papacy, stunning and terrifying its champions, and at the same time awakening thousands from the sleep of error.

These theses spread with the rapidity of lightning. A month had not elapsed before they were at Rome. “In a fortnight,” says a contemporary historian, “they were in every part of Germany, and in four weeks had traversed almost the whole of Christendom; as if the angels themselves had been the messengers, and carried them before the eyes of all men. Nobody can believe what a noise they made.” They were afterwards translated into Dutch and Spanish, and a traveller even sold them at Jerusalem. “Every one,” says Luther, “was complaining of the indulgences; and as all the bishops and doctors had kept silence, and nobody had ventured to bell the cat, poor Luther became a famous doctor, because, as they expressed it, one had at length come who dared to do it. But I liked not this glory; the music seemed to me too lofty for the words.”

²

Some of the pilgrims, who had flocked from different countries to Wittemberg for the feast of All Saints, instead of indulgences carried home with them the famous theses of the Augustin monk, and thus helped to circulate them. All read, pondered, and commented on them. They occupied the attention of all convents and all universities. All pious monks who had entered the cloister to save their soul, all upright and honest men, rejoiced in this striking and simple confession of the truth, and wished with all their heart that Luther would continue the work which he had begun. At length a monk had had the courage to undertake this perilous contest. It was a reparation made to Christendom, and the public conscience was satisfied. In these theses piety saw a blow given to all kinds of superstition; the new theology hailed in them the defeat of the scholastic dogmas; princes and magistrates regarded them as a barrier raised against the encroachments of ecclesiastical power; while the nations were delighted at seeing the decided negative which this monk had given to the avarice of the Roman chancery. Erasmus, a man very worthy of credit, and one of the principal rivals of the Reformer, says to Duke George of Saxony, “When Luther attacked this fable, the whole world concurred in applauding him.” “I observe,” said he on another occasion to Cardinal Campeggi, “that those of the purest morals, and an evangelical piety, are the least opposed to Luther. His life is lauded even by those who cannot bear his faith. The world was weary of a doctrine containing so many childish fables, and was thirsting for that living water, pure and hidden, which issues from the springs of the evangelists and the apostles. The genius of Luther was fitted to accomplish these things, and his zeal must have animated him to the noble enterprise.”