CHAPTER I

Progress of the Reformation—New Period—Advantages of Luther’s Captivity—Agitation of Germany—Melancthon and Luther—Enthusiasm.…

Four years had elapsed since an ancient doctrine had again been preached in the church. The great doctrine of salvation by grace formerly published in Asia, Greece, and Italy, by Paul and his brethren, and again after several centuries discovered in the Bible by a monk of Wittemberg, had echoed from the plains of Saxony to Rome, Paris, and London, and the lofty mountains of Switzerland had repeated its energetic accents. The fountains of truth, liberty, and life had been again opened to humanity. Crowds had repaired thither and quaffed with joy, but those who had pressed forward and taken the draught had preserved their former appearance. All within was new, and yet all without seemed to have remained as before. The constitution of the Church, its ritual, and discipline, had not undergone any change. In Saxony, at Wittemberg even, in every place where the new ideas had penetrated, the papal worship gravely continued its pomp; the priest at the foot of the altar, in offering the host to God, seemed to produce an ineffable transformation; monks and nuns entered convents to undertake obligations that were to bind them for ever; pastors lived not as heads of families, brotherhoods assembled, pilgrimages were performed; the faithful hung up their votive offerings on the pillars of chapels; and all ceremonies, even to the most insignificant formality of the sanctuary, were celebrated as before. There was a new doctrine in the world, but it had not given itself a new body. The language of the priest formed a striking contrast to the proceedings of the priest. He was heard thundering from the pulpit against the mass as an idolatrous worship, and then seen descending and taking his place before the altar, to celebrate this pompous ceremony with scrupulous exactness. Every where the new gospel resounded beside the ancient ritual. The priest himself did not perceive the strange inconsistency, and the people who listened with acclamation to the bold discourses of the new preachers, devoutly observed their ancient customs as if they were never to abandon them. At the domestic hearth and in social life, as in the house of God, every thing remained the same. There was a new faith in the world, but not new works. The season of spring had appeared, but winter seemed still to hold nature in chains; no flowers—no leaves—nothing external gave indication of the new season. But these appearances were illusory; a potent, though hidden sap was already circulating beneath, and on the eve of changing the world. To this course, a course fraught with wisdom, the Reformation perhaps owes its triumphs. Prior to the actual accomplishment of any revolution there must be a revolution in thought. The inconsistency already alluded to did not even strike Luther at the first glance. He seemed to consider it quite natural that, while men were receiving his writings with enthusiasm, they should at the same time remain devotedly attached to the abuses which these writings attacked. It might even be thought that he had traced out his plan beforehand, and resolved to produce a change of minds before introducing a change of forms. This, however, were to ascribe to him a wisdom the honour of which belongs to a higher source. He executed a plan which was not of his own devising. These matters he was able at a later period to acknowledge and comprehend, but he had not imagined them, and accordingly had not regulated them. God took the lead; Luther’s part was to follow. Had Luther begun with an external reform: had he, immediately after he had spoken, attempted to abolish monastic vows, the mass, confession, and the existing forms of worship, he should undoubtedly have encountered the keenest opposition. Man must have time before he can adapt himself to great revolutions. Luther was by no means the violent, imprudent, rash innovator that some historians have represented. The people seeing nothing changed in the routine of their devotions, committed themselves without distrust to their new leader. They were even astonished at the attacks directed against a man who left them their mass, beads, and confessor, and attributed these attacks to the grovelling jealousy of obscure rivals, or the cruel injustice of powerful adversaries. Meanwhile Luther’s ideas aroused the minds of men, improved their hearts, and so undermined the ancient edifice that it soon fell of its own accord, without any human hand. Ideas do not act instantaneously: they make their way in silence, like water which, filtering behind rocks, detaches them from the mountain on which they rest: all at once the work done in secret manifests itself, and a single day suffices to display the work of several years, perhaps several ages. A new era in the reformation commences. The truth is already re-established in doctrine, and doctrine is now going to re-establish the truth in all the forms of the church and of society. The agitation is too great for men’s minds to remain fixed and immovable at the point at which they have arrived. On those dogmas which have been so powerfully shaken depend customs which are beginning to give way, and which must disappear along with them. There is too much courage and life in the new generation to feel under constraint in the presence of error. Sacraments, ritual, hierarchy, vows, constitution, domestic life, public life, all are about to be modified. The ship which has been slowly and laboriously built is about to leave the dock and be launched on the vast ocean. We shall have to follow its track across numerous perils. The captivity of the Wartburg separates these two periods. Providence, which designed to give a mighty impulse to the Reformation, had prepared its progress by leading him who was selected to be the instrument of it into profound retirement. For a time the work seemed buried with the workman; but the seed must be deposited in the earth in order to produce fruit, and from the prison which seemed destined to be the Reformer’s tomb the Reformation is going to come forth to make new conquests, and rapidly diffuse itself over the whole world.

Hitherto the Reformation had been concentrated in the person of the Reformer. His appearance before the Diet of Worms was undoubtedly the sublimest moment of his life. His character then appeared almost exempt from blemish, and hence it has been said, that if God who hid the Reformer during ten months within the walls of the Wartburg had, at that moment, withdrawn him for ever from the eye of the world, his end would have been a kind of apotheosis. But God wills not an apotheosis for his servants; and Luther was preserved to the Church in order that he might show by his very faults that the faith of Christians must be founded on the word of God alone. He was abruptly transported far from the scene where the great revolution of the sixteenth century was in course of accomplishment; the truth which he had for four years so powerfully preached continued in his absence to act upon Christendom, and the work of which he was only a feeble instrument thenceforth bore not the impress of a man but the seal of God himself.

Germany was moved by the captivity of Luther. The most contradictory reports circulated throughout her provinces. Men’s minds were more agitated by the absence of the Reformer than they would have been by his presence. Here it was affirmed that friends, who had come from France, had set him in safety on the other bank of the Rhine. There it was said that assassins had put him to death. Even the smallest villages were anxious for information about Luther; the passing traveller was interrogated, and groups assembled in the market place. Sometimes an unknown orator gave the people an animated narrative of the manner in which the doctor had been carried off; he showed the barbarous horsemen binding fast the hands of their prisoner, hastening at full speed, dragging him on foot behind them, wearing out his strength, shutting their ears to his cries, causing the blood to spring from his fingers.² “The dead body of Luther,” added he, “has been seen pierced with wounds.” Then cries of grief were heard. “Ah,” said the multitude, “no more shall we see, no more shall we hear the noble-minded man whose voice stirred our hearts.” The friends of Luther muttering wrath swore to avenge his death. Women and children, the lovers of peace, and the aged looked forward with alarm to new struggles. Nothing could equal the terror of the partisans of Rome. The priests and monks, thinking themselves sure of victory, because one man was dead, at first had been unable to conceal their joy, and had raised their heads with an insulting air of triumph, but now they would gladly have fled far away from the wrath and threats of the people.⁴ These men, who, while Luther was at liberty, had given free vent to their fury, trembled now that he was captive. Aleander especially was in consternation. “The only means of safety now left us,” wrote a Roman Catholic to the Archbishop of Mentz, “is to kindle torches and make a search for Luther over the whole world, in order to restore him to the wishes of the nation.” It might have been said that the Reformer’s ghost, all pale, and clanking its chains, had appeared to spread terror and demand vengeance. The general exclamation was, “Luther’s death will cause torrents of blood to flow!”² No where were the minds of men more deeply agitated than at Worms itself; energetic measures were proposed both among people and princes. Ulrich von Hiitten and Hermann Busch filled the country with their plaintive songs and warlike cries. Charles V and the nuncios were loudly accused. The nation took up the cause of the poor monk, who by the power of his faith had become its chief. At Wittemberg, his colleagues and friends, Melancthon especially, were at first astounded with grief. Luther had imparted to this young scholar the treasures of that sacred theology which had thenceforth completely filled his soul. It was Luther who had given substance and life to the purely intellectual culture which Melancthon had brought to Wittemberg. The profundity of the Reformer’s doctrine had struck the young Hellenist, and his courage in maintaining the rights of the eternal word against all human authority, had filled him with enthusiasm. He had been associated with him in his work; he had seized the pen, and in that admirable style which he had derived from the study of antiquity, had successfully, and with a powerful hand, lowered the authority of the Fathers and the authority of Councils before the sovereign Word of God. The decision which Luther had in action Melancthon had in science. Never were more diversity and more unity exhibited in two individuals. “Scripture,” said Melancthon, “imparts to the soul a holy and marvellous delight. It is a heavenly ambrosia.” “The Word of God,” exclaimed Luther, “is a sword, a war, a destruction; it springs upon the children of Ephraim like the lioness in the forest.” Thus, in Scripture, the one saw a power of consolation, and the other an energetic opposition to the corruption of the world. Both held it to be the greatest thing on earth, and hence they understood each other perfectly. “Melancthon,” said Luther, “is a miracle: all now acknowledge this. He is the most formidable enemy of Satan and the schoolmen, for he knows their folly, and the rock which is Christ. This little Greek surpasses me even in theology: he will be as useful to you as many Luthers.” And he added, that he was ready to abandon an opinion if Philip did not approve of it. Melancthon, on his part, full of admiration for the knowledge which Luther had of Scripture, placed him far above the fathers of the Church. He had a wish to excuse the pleasantries for which Luther was sometimes upbraided, and compared him to a vessel of clay containing precious treasure under a coarse covering. “I will take good care not to blame him for them inconsiderately,” said he. But these two souls so intimately united are now separated. These two valiant soldiers can no longer march together for the deliverance of the Church. Luther has disappeared, and is perhaps lost for ever. The consternation of Wittemberg was extreme: it might have been likened to an army standing with sullen and downcast look over the bloody remains of the general who was leading them on to victory.

Suddenly intelligence the most gratifying was received. “Our dearly beloved father lives,” exclaimed Melancthon in the joy of his heart, “take courage and be strong.” But grief soon resumed the ascendancy. Luther was alive but in prison. The edict of Worms with its cruel prescriptions,³ had been circulated by thousands throughout the empire, and even in the mountains of the Tyrol. Could the Reformation avoid being crushed by the iron hand which lay upon it? Melancthon’s gentle spirit sank within him while he uttered a cry of grief. But above the hand of man a more powerful hand was at work: God himself deprived the formidable edict of its force. The German princes who had always sought to humble the power of Rome in the empire, trembled on seeing the alliance of the emperor with the pope, and feared lest it should result in the destruction of all their liberties. Accordingly, though Charles, on his passage through the Low Countries, smiled ironically as he saluted the flames which some flatterers and fanatics were kindling in the public places with the writings of Luther, these writings were read in Germany with constantly increasing avidity, and every day new pamphlets appeared to support the Reformation, and make new assaults on the papacy. The nuncios were disconcerted out of measure on seeing that the edict, which had cost them so much injustice, produced so little effect. “The ink of the Emperor’s signature,” said some with bitterness, “was scarcely dry, before the decree itself was every where torn in pieces … The people become more and more attached to the wondrous man who unawed by the thunders of Charles and the pope, had confessed his faith with the courage of a martyr. “He offered to retract,” observed others, “if he was refuted, but none ventured to undertake the refutation. Is not this a proof that what he teaches is true?” Accordingly, at Wittemberg and throughout the empire, the first movement of alarm was succeeded by a movement of enthusiasm. Even the Archbishop of Mentz, seeing how strongly the sympathy of the people was expressed, did not venture to give permission to the Cordeliers to preach against the Reformer. The university, which seemed on the eve of destruction, raised its head. There the new doctrines were two well established to be shaken by Luther’s absence. In a short time the academic halls could scarcely contain the crowds of hearers.