10. VIII - The Reformation

Chapter VIII The Reformation

1500-1550 A Catechism—Brethren of the Common Life—Luther—Tetzel—The ninety-five theses at Wittenberg—The Papal Bull burnt—Diet of Worms—The Wartburg—Translation of the Bible—Efforts of Erasmus for compromise—Development of the Lutheran Church—Its reform and limitations—Staupitz remonstrates—Luther’s choice between New Testament churches and National Church system—Loyola and the Counter Reformation. The connection between the brethren in different countries is illustrated by the fact that the same catechism for the instruction of their children was used by the Waldenses in the valleys, in France, and in Italy, also by the various brethren in the German lands, and in Bohemia by the United Brethren. It was a small book and was published in Italian, French, German and Bohemian. Different editions are known, printed at intervals from 1498 to 1530.

Closely connected with these brethren were the "Brethren of the Common Life" who in the 15th and early 16th centuries established a network of schools throughout the Netherlands and North-West Germany. Their founder was Gerhard Groote of Deventer, in Holland, who, in consultation with Jan van Rysbroeck, formed the brotherhood and established the first school, at Deventer. Groote expressed his principle of teaching when he said: "the root of study and the mirror of life must be in the first instance the Gospel of Christ." He thought that learning without piety was likely to be more of a curse than a blessing. The teaching was excellent, the school at Deventer under the famous schoolmaster Alexander Hegius had 2000 pupils. Thomas a Kempis, who afterwards wrote the "Imitation of Christ" went to school there; and Erasmus also was a pupil. The schools spread widely, Latin and some Greek were taught and the children learned to sing evangelical Latin hymns. Adult classes were carried on in which the Gospels were read in the language of the country. Money was earned by copying MSS. of the New Testament, and, later, by printing it. Tracts of the Brethren and of the Friends of God were multiplied. In this way a sound education was provided, based on the Holy Scriptures. A hymn book, published in Ulm in 1538, shows the provision made for praise and worship in the congregations of the brethren. The end of its long title states that it was for "the Christian Brotherhood, the Picards, until now considered as Unchristian and Heretics, used and sung daily to the honour of God."

It was the Bible which had the first place in enlightening and developing Luther; he was helped by Staupitz also, and found in the writings of Tauler and some of the brethren, more Divine doctrine, he said, than in all the Universities and teachings of the schoolmen; nothing was sounder and corresponded more with the Gospel. He soon became active as a writer and his early pamphlets (1517-20) were written in the spirit of the brethren, showing how salvation is not through the intervention of the Church, but that every man has direct access to God and finds salvation through faith in Christ and obedience to His Word. He was laid hold of by the teaching of Scripture that salvation is of the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, and not obtained by our own works. The ability and zeal with which Luther preached these truths not only awakened hope and expectation in the circles where they were already known, but also powerfully affected others who had hitherto been ignorant of them. In 1517 a prominent salesman of Papal indulgences, Tetzel, showed a shamelessness and buffoonery in his business which, more perhaps than anything else, impressed on people its inherent charlatanry. When he came to Wittenberg, Luther, failing to arouse the Elector of Saxony to action, and encouraged by Stanpitz, himself nailed on the church door the Ninety-five Theses which set Europe in a blaze, as men realized that a voice had at last been raised to utter what most felt—that the whole system of indulgences was a fraud and had no place in the Gospel. A poor monk now faced and fought the whole vast Papal power; his "Address to the Nobility of the German Nation on the Liberty of the Christian Man" and his "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" appealed to all Europe. The Pope issued a Bull excommunicating him; he burnt it publicly at Wittenberg (1520). Summoned to Worms before the Papal authorities, he braved all dangers and went, and none was able to harm him. When he left, his life being threatened, his friends carried him off secretly to a castle, the Wartburg, and let it be supposed that he was dead. There he translated the New Testament into German, following it later by the Old Testament. The effect of increased reading of the Scriptures, and that in a time when questions of religion were violently agitating masses of the population, was to change the whole aspect of Christendom. The dull hopelessness with which men had seen the ever-increasing corruption and rapacity of the Church, was exchanged for a vivid hope that now, at last, the time of revival had come, the time of a return to Apostolic, primitive Christianity; Christ Himself was seen afresh, revealed in the Scriptures as the Redeemer and immediate Saviour of sinners and the Way to God for suffering humanity. With such radical divergence of view and interest, however, conflict was inevitable. Luther’s following and band of sympathizers grew enormously, but the old system of the Roman Church was not to be changed without a struggle. There were some who, with Erasmus, hoped for compromise and peace, but the monks, who saw their position and privileges vanishing, were violent beyond measure, and the Papal authorities decided to use the old weapons of cursing and killing to crush the new movement, while Luther, leaving his early humility, grew to be as dogmatic as the Pope.

Political rivalries made the situation more dangerous. Oppression of the land workers led to the Peasants’ War (1524-5), for which Luther and his party were blamed by the other side. A general conflagration threatened the nations. Erasmus wrote (1520): "I wish Luther ... would be quiet for a while ... what he says may be true, but there are times and seasons." Again, to Duke George of Saxony (1524): "When Luther first spoke the whole world applauded, and your Highness among the rest. Divines who are now his bitterest opponents were then on his side. Cardinals, even monks, encouraged him. He had taken up an excellent cause. He was attacking practices which every honest man condemned, and contending with a set of harpies, under whose tyranny Christendom was groaning. Who could then dream how far the movement would go? ... Luther himself never expected to produce such an effect. After his Theses had come out I persuaded him to go no further.... I was afraid of riots.... I cautioned him to be moderate.... The Pope put out a Bull, the Emperor put out an Edict, and there were prisons, faggots and burnings. Yet all was in vain. The mischief only grew.... I did see, however, that the world was besotted with ritual. Scandalous monks were ensnaring and strangling consciences. Theology had become sophistry. Dogmatism had grown to madness, and, besides there were the unspeakable priests and Bishops and Roman officials.... I considered that it was a case for compromise and agreement.... Luther’s patrons were stubborn and would not yield a step. The Catholic divines breathed only fire and fury.... I trust, I hope, that Luther will make a few concessions and that the Pope and princes may still consent to peace. May Christ’s Dove come among us, or else Minerva’s owl. Luther has administered an acrid dose to a diseased body. God grant it may prove salutary!" Again (1525) he wrote "I regard Luther as a good man, raised up by Providence to correct the depravity of the age. Whence have all these troubles arisen? From the audacious and open immorality of the priesthood, from the arrogance of the theologians and the tyranny of the monks." He advised abolishing what was manifestly wrong but retaining all that could be kept without harm, exercising tolerance, allowing liberty of conscience, and he wrote, "Indulgences, with which the monks so long fooled the world, with the connivance of the theologians, are now exploded. Well, then, let those who have no faith in saints’ merits, pray to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, imitate Christ in their lives, and leave those alone who do believe in saints.... Let men think as they please of purgatory, without quarrelling with others who do not think as they do.... Whether works justify or faith justifies matters little, since all allow that faith will not save without works." The conflict was too bitter for such moderate counsels to prevail. They were few who saw any possibility of tolerance. The development of Luther himself under the influence of such extraordinary circumstances, in its turn influenced them. From having been a devoted Roman Catholic in his earlier years, he had by his meeting with Staupitz and occupation with the Scriptures been brought into sympathy with the Brethren and with the Mystics, but his conflict with the Romish clergy now drew him into close relations with a number of the German Princes; and this association, together with the returning influence of his old training, led him gradually to the formation of the Lutheran Church. The stages of this development were marked by a drawing away from the old congregations of brethren and, side by side with the revival of much Scripture truth, an incorporation in the new Lutheran Church of much also that was taken over from the Romish system. Luther emphasized the teachings of the Apostle Paul more, those of the Gospels less, than the old churches of believers; he pressed the doctrine of justification by faith, without a sufficiency of the balancing truth of the following of Christ which was so prominent in their preaching. His teaching as to the absence of any freedom of will or choice in man, and of salvation as being solely by the grace of God, went so far as to lead to the neglect of right conduct as a part of the Gospel. Among the doctrines carried over from the Church of Rome was that of baptismal regeneration, and, with this, the general practice of baptising infants. While reviving the teaching of Scripture as to individual salvation by faith in Christ Jesus and His perfect work, Luther did not go on to accept the New Testament teaching as to the churches, separate from the world, yet maintained in it as witnesses to it of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ; he adopted the Roman Catholic system of parishes, with their clerical administration of a world considered as Christianized. Having a number of rulers on his side, he maintained the principle of the union of Church and State, and accepted the sword of the State as the proper means of converting or punishing those who dissented from the new ecclesiastical authority. It was at the Diet, or Council, of Speyer (1529) that the Reform party presented the protest to the Roman Catholic representatives, from which the name Protestant came to be applied to the Reformers. The League of Smalcald in 1531, bound together nine Princes and eleven free cities as Protestant Powers. In view of Luther’s development, Staupitz warned him: "Christ help us that we may come at last to live according to the Gospel which now sounds in our ears and which many have on their lips, for I see that multitudes misuse the Gospel to give liberty to the flesh. Let my entreaty affect you, for I was once the pioneer of holy evangelical teaching." In finally declaring the divergence of his way from that which Luther was taking, he contrasts nominal Christians with real Christians, and writes: "It is the fashion now to separate faith from evangelical life, as though it were possible to have real faith in Christ and yet remain unlike Him in life. Oh, cunning of the foe! Oh, misleading of the people! Hear the speech of fools: Whoever believes in Christ requires no works. Listen to the saying of truth: Let him who serves Me follow Me. The evil spirit tells his fleshly Christians that a man is justified without works and that Paul preached this. This is false. He did indeed speak against those legal works and outward observances in which, through fear, men put their trust for salvation, and he strove against them as useless and leading to condemnation, but he never thought evil or did anything but praise those works which are the fruits of faith and love and obedience to the heavenly commandments, and he proclaimed and preached their necessity in all his epistles."

Luther taught: "Learn from St. Paul that the Gospel teaches of Christ that He came, not to give a new law by which we should walk, but that He might give Himself an offering for the sins of the whole world." The old churches had always taught that a true Christian was one who, having received the life of Christ by faith, constantly desired and endeavoured, by the help of His indwelling life, to walk according to His example and word.

Luther by his mighty strokes hewed a way through long consecrated privileges and abuses, so that reform became possible. He revealed Christ to countless sinners as the Saviour to whom each one was invited to come, without intervention of priest or saint or church or sacrament, not on account of any goodness in himself, but as a sinner in all his needs, to find in Christ, through faith in Him, perfect salvation, founded in the perfect work of the Son of God. Instead, however, of continuing in the way of the Word, Luther then built up a church, in which some abuses were reformed, but which in many respects was a reproduction of the old system. Multitudes who looked to him for guidance accepted that form in which he moulded the Lutheran Church; many, seeing that he did not continue in the way of return to the Scriptures which they had hoped for, remained where they were, in the Roman Catholic Church, and the hopes awakened among the brethren gradually faded away as they saw themselves placed between two ecclesiastical systems, each of which was ready to enforce conformity in matters of conscience, by the sword.

Luther had seen the Divine pattern for the churches, and it was not without an inward struggle that he abandoned the New Testament teaching of independent assemblies of real believers, in favour of the National or State Church system which outward circumstances pressed upon him. The irreconcilable difference between these two ideals was the essential ground of conflict. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper took on such importance in the fight only because in the true Church they mark the gulf dividing the Church from the world, whereas in a National Church they are used to bridge it, infant baptism and the general administration of the Lord’s Supper doing away with the necessity for personal faith in the recipients. Moreover, the powers arrogated to a priesthood alone competent to perform these rites bring the nation under a domination in matters of faith and conscience, which, when working in unison with the State, or civil Government, make free churches impossible, and religion a matter of nationality. Such a National Church is very comprehensive. It can include a great variety of views. It can take in unbelievers, and condone much wickedness, and can allow even its clergy to express disbelief in the Scriptures; but, if it has power to prevent it, it will not tolerate those who baptize believers, or who take the Lord’s Supper among themselves as disciples of Christ; because these things strike at the foundations of its character as a national church, though it is not the rites themselves which are the fundamental cause of difference, but the Church question. With unprecedented power and courage Luther had brought to light the Scripture truths as to the individual salvation of the sinner by faith, but failed when he might have shown the way to a return to Scripture in all things, including its teaching as to the Church. He had taught: "I say it a hundred thousand times, God will have no forced service." "No one can or ought to be forced to believe." In 1526 he had written: "The right kind of evangelical order cannot be exhibited among all sorts of people, but those who are seriously determined to be Christians and confess the Gospel with hand and mouth, must enrol themselves by name and meet apart, in one house, for prayer, for reading, to baptize, to take the Sacrament, and exercise other Christian works. With such order it would be possible for those who did not behave in a Christian manner to be known, reproved, restored, or excluded, according to the rule of Christ (Mat 18:15). Here also they could, in common, subscribe alms, which would be willingly given and distributed among the poor, according to the example of Paul (2Co 9:1-12). Here it would not be necessary to have much or fine singing. Here a short and simple way of baptism and the Sacrament could be practised, and all would be according to the Word and in love. But I cannot yet order and establish such an assembly, for I have not yet the right people for it. If, however, it should come about that I must do it, and am driven to it, I will willingly do my part. In the meantime I will call, excite, preach, help, forward it, until the Christians take the Word so in earnest that they will themselves find how to do it and continue in it." Yet Luther knew that the "right people" were there; people whom he described as "true, pious, holy children of God." After much hesitation he came at last to oppose any attempt to put into practice what he had so excellently portrayed. He did not, however, as did many of his followers, look upon the Lutheran Church as being the best possible form of religion that could be devised; he described it as "provisional", as the "outer court," and not the "Sanctuary" and he did not cease to exhort and warn the people. He said: "If we look aright at what people now do who reckon themselves as Evangelical and know how to talk much about Christ, there is nothing behind it. Most of them deceive themselves. The number of those who began with us and had pleasure in our teaching was ten times greater, now not a tenth part of them remains steadfast. They learn indeed to speak words, as a parrot repeats what people say, but their hearts do not experience them; they remain just as they are, they neither taste nor feel how true and faithful God is. They boast much of the Gospel and at first seek it earnestly, yet afterwards nothing remains; for they do what they like, follow their lusts, become worse than they were before and are much more undisciplined and presumptuous ... than other people, for peasants, citizens, nobles, all are more covetous and undisciplined than they were under the Papacy." "Ah, Lord God, if we only practised this doctrine aright, Thou shouldest see, that where now a thousand go to the Sacrament scarcely a hundred of them would go. Then the horrible sins would be less with which the Pope with his hellish law has flooded the world: then at last we should come to be a Christian assembly, where now we are almost utter heathen with the name of Christian; then we could separate from ourselves those of whom we know by their works that they never believed and never had life, a thing that now is impossible to us."

Once the new Church was put under the power of the State it could not be altered, but Luther never pretended that the churches which he had established were ordered after the pattern of the Scriptures. While Melanchthon spoke of the Protestant Princes as "chief members of the Church", Luther called them "makeshift Bishops" and frequently expressed his regret for the lost liberty of the Christian man and independence of the Christian congregations that had once been his aim. At the time when Luther burnt the Pope’s Bull and the Reformation began its course, another man was preparing himself for the work which was to be the chief means of checking the progress of Protestantism, and of organizing the counter-Reformation which won back to the Church of Rome large districts where the movement of Reform had already prevailed.

Ignatius Loyola, of noble Spanish ancestry, was born in 1491, became a page at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, and then a soldier, distinguished from the first by his intrepid courage, but a wound which he received when he was thirty years of age, and which made him permanently lame, changed the whole course of his life. During the long illness following his wound he read some of the books of the Mystics and became passionately desirous of being delivered from the lusts of his former life and of doing great things, not now for military glory in the service of an earthly king, but for God and as a soldier of Jesus Christ. "Show me O Lord" he prayed, "where I can find Thee: I will follow like a dog, if I can only learn the way of salvation." After long conflict he yielded himself to God, found peace in the assurance that his sins were forgiven, and was delivered from the power of carnal desire. At the famous monastery of Montserrat, among the mountain peaks which look as though leaping flames had suddenly been turned to stone, after a night’s watch and confession, Loyola hung up his weapons before the ancient wooden image of the Virgin and dedicated himself to her service and that of Christ, gave away his very clothes, and, taking the rough garb of a pilgrim, limped to the neighbouring Dominican monastery of Manresa. There he not only followed the methods of self-examination common to the Mystics, but set himself to note with minute exactness all that he observed in himself, meditations, visions, and also outward postures and positions, to find out which were most favourable to the development of spiritual ecstasies. There he wrote a great part of his book, "Spiritual Exercises" which was afterwards to have so powerful an influence. The quest of the Mystics for immediate communion with God, without priestly or other intervention, constantly brought them into conflict with the priests. Suspected of being of this mind, Loyola was more than once imprisoned by the Inquisition and by the Dominicans, but was always able to show them that he was not what they thought and to obtain release. Indeed, although at first so strongly affected by the writings of the Mystics, Loyola evolved a system which was the very contrary of their teaching. Instead of seeking experiences of direct communion with Christ, he placed each member of his Society under the guidance of a man, his confessor, to whom he was pledged to make known the most intimate secrets of his life and to yield implicit obedience. The plan was that of a soldier, each one was subject to the will of one above him, and even the highest was controlled by those appointed to observe every act and judge every motive. In the course of years of study and travel, of teaching and charitable activities, during which there were unavailing efforts to get to Jerusalem, and also interviews with the Pope, that company gradually gathered round Loyola, which was organized by him as the "Company of Jesus" in Paris in 1534. He and six others, including Francis Xavier, took vows of poverty and chastity and of missionary activity, and in 1540 the Pope recognized the "Society of Jesus", to which the name of "Jesuit" was first given by Calvin and others, its opponents. The careful choice and the long and special training of its members, during which they were taught entire submission of their own will to that of their superiors, made of them a weapon by which not only was the Reformation checked, but a "Counter Reformation" was organized which regained for Rome much that she had lost. The Society worked consistently and skilfully for reaction. Its rapid growth in power and its unscrupulous methods raised many enemies against it even in the Church of Rome, as well as in various countries where its interference not only in religious, but also in civil matters, was resented. Its history was a stormy one. At times it rose to the point of entirely dominating the policy of a nation; then it would be driven out and forbidden altogether—only to return when circumstances once more became favourable. The attempt of Hermaun von Wied, Archbishop Elector of Cologne, to bring about a Catholic Reformation and a reconciliation with the Reformers, was frustrated by Canisius, the able representative whom the Society had won in Germany, while in countless instances movements of reform were repressed or rendered nugatory and the dominion of Rome strengthened, by its activities. Diligent and devoted members went out as missionaries and brought the form of religion which they represented, to the heathen peoples of India, China, and America.