Luther would abolish all commands to fast, on the ground that these ordinances of man are opposed to the freedom of the Bible. He would do away also with the mult.i.tude of festivals and holidays, as leading only to idleness, carousing, and gambling. He would check the foolish pilgrimages to Rome, on which so much money was wasted, whilst wife and child, and poor Christian neighbours were left at home to starve, and which drew people into so much trouble and temptation. As regards the management of the poor, Luther"s requirements were somewhat stringent. All begging among Christians was to be forbidden; each town was to provide for its own poor, and not admit strange beggars. As the universities at that time, no less than the schools, were in connection with the Church, Luther offers some suggestions for their reform. He singles out the writings of the ancients which were read in the philosophical faculty, and others, which might be done away with as useless or even pernicious.
With regard to the ma.s.s of civil law, he agreed with the complaint often heard among Germans, that it had become a wilderness: each state should be governed, as far as possible, "by its own brief laws." For children, girls as well as boys, he would like to see a school in every town. It grieved him to see how, in the very heart of Christendom, the young folk were neglected and allowed to perish for lack of timely sustenance with the bread of the gospel.
He reverts again to the question about the Bohemians, with a view to silencing at length the vile calumniations of his enemies. And in so doing he remarks of Huss, that even if he had been a heretic, "heretics must be conquered with the pen and not with fire. If to conquer them with fire were an art, the executioners would be the most learned doctors on the earth."
Lastly he refers briefly to the prevalent evils of worldly and social life; to wit, the luxury in dress and food, the habits of excess common among Germans, the practice of usury and taking interest. He would like to put a bridle into the mouth of the great commercial firms, especially the rich house of Fugger; for the ama.s.sing of such enormous wealth, during the life of one man, could never be done by right and G.o.dly means. It seemed to him "far more G.o.dly to promote agriculture and lessen commerce." Luther speaks in this as a man of the people, who were already suspicious about this acc.u.mulation of money, from a right feeling really of the moral and economical dangers thence accruing to the nation, even if ignorant of the necessary relations of supply and demand. As to this, Luther adds: "I leave that to the worldly-wise; I, as a theologian, can only say, Abstain from all appearance of evil." (1 Thessalonians v.
22.)
So wide a field of subjects did this little book embrace. We have only here mentioned the chief points. Luther himself acknowledges at the conclusion: "I am well aware that I have pitched my note high, that I have proposed many things which will be looked upon as impossible, and have attacked many points too sharply. I am bound to add, that if I could, I would not only talk but act; I would rather the world were angry with me than G.o.d." But Rome always remained the chief object of his attacks. "Well then," he says of her, "I know of another little song of Rome; if her ear itches for it, I will sing it to her and pitch the notes at their highest." He concludes, "G.o.d give us all a Christian understanding, and to the Christian n.o.bility of the German nation, especially, a true spiritual courage to do their best for the poor Church. Amen."
Whilst Luther was working on this treatise, new disquieting rumours and remonstrances addressed from Rome to the Elector reached him through Spalatin. But with them came also that promise of protection from Schauenburg. Luther answered Spalatin, "The die is cast, I despise alike the wrath and the favour of Rome; I will have no reconciliation with her, no fellowship." Friends who heard of his new work grew alarmed; Staupitz, even at the eleventh hour, tried to dissuade him from it. But before August was far advanced, four thousand copies were already printed and published. A new edition was immediately called for. Luther now added another section repudiating the arrogant pretension of the Pope, that through his means the Roman Empire had been brought to Germany.
Well might Luther"s friend Lange call this treatise a war-trumpet.
The Reformer, who at first merely wished to point out and open to men the right way of salvation, and to fight for it with the sword of his word, now stepped forward boldly and with determination, demanding the abolition of all unlawful and unchristian ordinances of the Romish Church, and calling upon the temporal power to a.s.sist him, if need be, with material force. The groundwork of this resolve had been laid, as we have seen, in the progress of his moral and religious convictions; in the inalienable rights which belong to Christianity in general, and the mission with which G.o.d entrusts also the temporal power or state; in the independence granted by Him to this power on its own domain, and the duties He has imposed upon all Christian authorities, even in regard to all moral and religious needs and dangers. But he denied altogether, and we may well believe him, that he had any wish to create disorder or disturbance; his intention was merely to prepare the way for a free Council. Not indeed that he shrank from the thought of battle and tumult, should the powers whom he invoked meet with resistance from the adherents of Rome or Antichrist. As for himself, though forced to make such a stormy appearance, he had no idea of himself being destined to become the Reformer, but was content rather to prepare the way for a greater man, and his thoughts herein turned to Melancthon. Thus he wrote to Lange these remarkable words: "It may be that I am the forerunner of Philip, and like Elias, prepare the way for him in spirit and in strength, destroying the people of Ahab" (1 Kings xviii). Melancthon, on the other hand, wrote to Lange just then about Luther, saying that he did not venture to check the spirit of Martin in this matter, to which Providence seemed to have appointed him.
From the Electoral court Luther learned that his treatise was "not altogether displeasing." And just at this time he had to thank his prince for a present of game.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 22.--t.i.tLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND EDITION OF THIS TREATISE, in a rather smaller size.]
There is no doubt that Luther received also from that quarter the advice to approach the Emperor, who had just arrived in Germany, and whom he had wished to address in his treatise, with a direct personal request for protection, to prevent his being condemned unheard. He addressed to him a well-considered letter, couched in dignified language. He issued at the same time a short public "offer," appealing therein to the fact, that he had so long begged in vain for a proper refutation. These two writings were first examined and corrected by Spalatin, and so appeared only at the end of August, not, as is generally supposed, in the January of this year. Luther never received an answer to his letter to the Emperor, and therefore never heard how it was received.
The dangers which threatened Luther, and through him also the honour and prosperity of his Order, affected further his companions and friends who belonged to it. And of this Milt.i.tz took advantage to renew his attempts at mediation. He induced the brethren, at a convention of Augustinian friars held at Eisleben, to persuade Luther once more to write to the Pope, and solemnly a.s.sure him that he had never wished to attack him personally. A deputation of these monks, with Staupitz and Link at their head, came to Luther at Wittenberg on the 4th or 5th of September, and received his promise to comply with their wishes. At this convention, Staupitz, who felt his strength no longer equal to the difficult questions and controversies of the time, had resigned his office as Vicar of the Order, and Link had succeeded him. Luther saw him now at Wittenberg for the last time. He retired in quiet seclusion to Salzburg, where the Archbishop was his personal friend.
But Luther"s spirit would not let him desist for a moment from prosecuting his contest with Rome. He had yet "a little song" to sing about her. He was in fact at work in August, while rumours were already afloat that Eck was on his way with the bull, upon a new tract, and had even begun to have it printed. It was to treat of the "Babylonian Captivity of the Church," taking as its subject the Christian sacraments. Luther knew that in this he cut deeper into the theological and religious principles of the Church, which had come under discussion in his quarrel with Rome, than in all his demands for reform, put forward in his address to the n.o.bility. For while, in common with the Church herself, he saw in the Sacraments, inst.i.tuted by Christ, the most sacred acts of worship, and the channels through which salvation itself, forgiveness, grace, and strength are imparted from above, in those principles he saw them limited by man"s caprice in their original scope and meaning, robbed of their true significance, and made the instruments of Papal and priestly domination, while other pretended sacraments were joined to them, never inst.i.tuted by Christ. On this account he complained of the tyranny to which these sacraments, and with them the Church, were subject, of the captivity in which they lay. Against him were arrayed not only the hierarchy, but the whole forces of Scholastic learning. He knew that what he now propounded would sound preposterous to these opponents; he would make, he said, his feeble revilers feel their blood run cold. But he met them in the armour of profound erudition, and with learned arguments lucidly and concisely expressed in Latin. At the same time his language, where he explains the real essence of the sacraments, shows a clearness and religious fervour which no layman could fail to understand.
The subject of the deepest importance to Luther in this treatise was the sacrament of the altar. He dwells on the mutilated form, without the cup, in which the Lord"s Supper was given to the laity; on the doctrine invented about the change of the bread, instead of keeping to the simple word of Scripture; and, lastly, on the subst.i.tution of a sacrifice, supposed to be offered to G.o.d by the priest, for the inst.i.tution ordained by Christ for the nourishment of the faithful.
The withholding of the cup he calls an act of unG.o.dliness and tyranny, beyond the power of either Pope or Council to prescribe.
Against the sacrifice of the ma.s.s he had published just before a sermon in German. He was well aware that his principles involved, as indeed he intended, a revolution of the whole service, and an attack on an ordinance, upon which a number of other abuses, of great importance to the hierarchy, depended. But he ventured it, because G.o.d"s word obliged him to do it. So now he proceeds to describe, in contrast to this ma.s.s, the one of true Christian inst.i.tution, and resting wholly, as he conceived it, on the words of Christ, when inst.i.tuting the Last Supper, "Take, and eat," etc. Christ would here say, "See, thou poor sinner, out of pure love I promise to thee, before thou canst either earn or promise anything, forgiveness of all thy sins, and eternal life, and to a.s.sure thee of this I give here my Body and shed my Blood; do thou, by my death, rest a.s.sured of this promise, and take as a sign my Body and my Blood."
For the worthy celebration of this ma.s.s, nothing is required but faith, which shall trust securely in this promise; with this faith will come the sweetest stirrings of the heart, which will unfold itself in love, and yearn for the good Saviour, and in Him will become a new creature.
As regards baptism Luther lamented that it was no longer allowed to possess the true significance and value it ought to have for a man"s whole life. Whereas in truth the person baptized received a promise of mercy from G.o.d, to which time after time, even from the sins of his future life, he might and was bound to turn, it was taught, that in sinning after baptism, the Christian was like a shipwrecked man, who, instead of the ship, could only reach a plank; this being the sacrament of penance, with its accompanying outward formalities.
Whereas further, in true baptism he had vowed to dedicate his whole life and conduct to G.o.d, other vows of human invention were now demanded of him. Whereas he then became a full partaker of Christian liberty, he was now burdened with ordinances of the Church, devised by man.
Concerning this sacrament of penance, with confession, absolution, and its other adjuncts, Luther rates at its full value the word of forgiveness spoken to the individual, and values also the free confession made to his Christian brother by the Christian seeking comfort. But confession, he said, had been perverted into an inst.i.tution of compulsion and torture. Instead of leading the tempted brother to trust in G.o.d"s mercy, he was ordered to perform acts of penance, whereby nominally to give satisfaction to G.o.d, but in reality to minister to the ambition and insatiable avarice of the Roman see.
From all these abuses and perversions Luther seeks to liberate the sacraments, and restore them in their purity to Christians.
Nevertheless, he takes care to insist on the fact that it is not the mere external ceremony, the act of the priest in administering, and the visible partaking of the receiver, that make the latter a sharer in the promised grace and blessedness. This, he says, depends upon a hearty faith in the Divine promise. He who believes enjoys the benefit of the sacrament, even though its outward administration be denied him.
The mediaeval Church ordained four other sacraments, namely, confirmation, marriage, consecration of priests, and extreme unction. But Luther refuses to acknowledge any of these as a sacrament. Marriage, he says, in its sacramental aspect, was not an inst.i.tution of the New Testament, nor was it connected with any especial promise of grace. It was but a holy moral ordinance of daily life, existing since the beginning of the world and among those who were not Christians as well as those who were. At the same time he takes the opportunity to protest against those human regulations with which even this ordinance had been invaded by the Romish Church, especially against the arbitrary obstacles to marriage she had created. Even these were made a source of revenue to her, by the granting of dispensations. For the other three sacraments there was no especial promise. In the Epistle of St.
James (v. 14), where it speaks of anointing the sick with oil, the allusion is not to extreme unction to the dying, but to the exercise of that wonderful Apostolic gift of healing the sick through the power of faith and prayer. With regard to the consecration of priests, Luther repeats the principles laid down in his address to the n.o.bility. Ordination consists simply of this, that out of a community, all of whom are priests, one is chosen for the particular work of administering G.o.d"s word. If, as in consecration, the hand is laid upon him, this is a human custom and not inst.i.tuted by the Lord Himself. But in truth, says Luther, the outrageous tyranny of the clergy, with their priestly bodily anointing, their tonsure, and their dress, would arrogate a higher position than other Christians anointed with the Spirit; these are counted almost as unworthy as dogs to belong to the Church. And most seriously he warns a man not to strive for that outward anointing, unless he is earnestly intent on the true service of the gospel, and has disclaimed all pretension to become, by consecration, better than lay Christians.
In conclusion Luther declares: he hears that Papal excommunication is prepared for him, to force him to recant. In that case this little treatise shall form part of his recantation. After that he will soon publish the rest, the like of which has never been seen or heard by the Romish see.
In the beginning of October, probably on the 6th of that month, the book was issued. Luther had heard some ten days before that Eck had actually arrived with the bull. He had already caused it to be posted publicly at Meissen on September 21. Early in October he sent a copy of it also to the university of Wittenberg.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION, AND LUTHER"S REPLY.
At Rome, the bull, now newly arrived in Germany, had been published as early as June 16. It had been considered, when at length, under the pressure of the influences described above, the subject was taken up in earnest, very carefully in the Papal consistory. The jurists there were of opinion that Luther should be cited once more, but their views did not prevail. As for the negotiations, conducted through Milt.i.tz, for an examination of Luther before the Archbishop of Treves, no heed was now paid to the affair.
The bull begins with the words, "Arise, O Lord, and avenge Thy cause." It proceeds to invoke St. Peter, St. Paul, the whole body of the saints, and the Church. A wild boar had broken into the vineyard of the Lord, a wild beast was there seeking to devour &c. Of the heresy against which it was directed, the Pope, as he states, had additional reason to complain, since the Germans, among whom it had broken out, had always been regarded by him with such tender affection: he gives them to understand that they owed the Empire to the Romish Church. Forty-one propositions from Luther"s writings are then rejected and condemned, as heretical or at least scandalous and corrupting, and his works collectively are sentenced to be burnt. As to Luther himself, the Pope calls G.o.d to witness that he has neglected no means of fatherly love to bring him into the right way.
Even now he is ready to follow towards him the example of Divine mercy which wills not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live; and so once more he calls upon him to repent, in which case he will receive him graciously like the prodigal son.
Sixty days are given him to recant. But if he and his adherents will not repent, they are to be regarded as obstinate heretics and withered branches of the vine of Christ, and must be punished according to law. No doubt the punishment of burning was meant; the bull in fact expressly condemns the proposition of Luther which denounces the burning of heretics.
All this was called then at Rome, and has been called even latterly by the Papal party, "the tone rather of fatherly sorrow than of penal severity." The means by which the bull had been brought about, made it fitting that Eck himself should be commissioned with its circulation throughout Germany, and especially with its publication in Saxony. More than this, he received the unheard of permission to denounce any of the adherents of Luther at his pleasure, when he published the bull.
Accordingly, Eck had the bull publicly posted up in September at Meissen, Merseburg, and Brandenburg. He was charged, moreover, by a Papal brief, in the event of Luther"s refusing to submit, to call upon the temporal power to punish the heretic. But at Leipzig, where the magistrate, by order of Duke George, had to present him with a goblet full of money, he was so hustled in the streets by his indignant opponents, that he was forced to take refuge in the Convent of St. Paul, and hastened to pursue his journey by night, whilst the city officials rode about the neighbourhood with the bull. A number of Wittenberg students, adds Milt.i.tz, made their appearance also at Leipzig, who "behaved in a good-for-nothing way towards him."
At Wittenberg, where the publication of the bull rested with the university, the latter notified its arrival to the Elector, and objected for various reasons to publish it, alleging, in particular, that Eck, its sender, was not furnished with proper authority from the Pope. Luther for the first time felt himself, as he wrote to Spalatin, really free, being at length convinced that the Popedom was Antichrist and the seat of Satan. He was not at all discouraged by a letter sent at this time by Erasmus from Holland to Wittenberg, saying that no hopes could be placed in the Emperor Charles, as he was in the hands of the Mendicant Friars. As for the bull, so extraordinary were its contents, that he wished to consider it a forgery.
Still the promise which Luther had given to his Augustinian brethren, only a few weeks before, under pressure from Milt.i.tz, remained as yet unfulfilled. Nor did Milt.i.tz himself wish the threads of the web then spun to slip from his fingers. Even at this hour, with the consent and at the wish of the Elector, an interview had been arranged between Milt.i.tz and Luther at the Castle of Lichtenberg (now Lichtenburg, in the district of Torgau), where the monks of St. Antony were then housed. Just as Milt.i.tz, as we have seen, had thought to be able to avert the bull by getting Luther to write a letter to the Pope, so now he promised the Elector still to conciliate the Pope by that means. Only the letter was to be dated back to the time, before the publication of the bull, when Luther first gave his consent to write it. Its substance was to be as then agreed upon; Luther, as Milt.i.tz expressed it, was to "eulogise the Pope personally in a manner agreeable to him," and at the same time submit to him an historical statement of what he had done. Luther consented to publish a letter in these terms, in Latin and German, under date of September 6, and immediately gave effect to his promise.
It is hardly conceivable how Milt.i.tz could still have nurtured such a hope. Neither his wish to ingratiate himself with the Elector Frederick, and to checkmate the plans of Eck whom he detested, nor his personal vanity and flippancy of character, are sufficient to account for it. He must have learnt from his own previous personal intercourse with the Pope, and his experiences of the Papal court, that Leo did not take up Church questions and controversies so gravely and so seriously as not to remain fully open all the time to influences and considerations of other kinds, and that around him were parties and influential personages, arrayed in mutual hostility and rivalry. He must have been strangely ignorant of the state of things at Rome. But as to Luther and his cause there was no longer any hesitation in that quarter.
In what sense Luther himself was willing to comply with the demand of Milt.i.tz, the contents of his letter suffice to show. He makes it clear that nothing was further from his intention than to appease the angry Pontiff by any dexterous artifices or concealments. The a.s.surance required from him, that he had no wish to attack the Pope personally, he construes in its literal terms, apart altogether from the official character and acts of Leo. And in fact against his personal character and conduct he had never said a word. But he takes this opportunity, at the same time, of speaking to him plainly, as a Christian is bound to do to his fellow-Christian; of repeating to him, face to face, the severest charges yet made by him against the Romish chair; of excusing Leo"s own conduct in this chair simply and solely on the ground that he regarded him as a victim of the monstrous corruption which surrounded him, and of warning him once more against it as a brother. He tells him to his face that he himself, the Holy Father, must acknowledge that the Papal see was more wicked and shameful than any Sodom, Gomorrah, or Babylon; that G.o.d"s wrath had fallen upon it without ceasing; that Rome, which had once been the gate of heaven, was now an open jaw of h.e.l.l. Most earnestly he warns Leo against his flatterers,--the "ear-ticklers"
who would make him a G.o.d. He a.s.sures him that he wishes him all that is good, and therefore he wishes that he should not be devoured by these jaws of h.e.l.l, but on the contrary, should be freed from this G.o.dless idolatry of parasites, and be placed in a position where he would be able to live on some smaller ecclesiastical preferment, or on his own patrimony. As for the historical retrospect which Milt.i.tz wanted, and which Luther briefly appends to this letter, all that the latter says in vindication of himself is, that it was not his own fault, but that of his enemies, who had driven him further and further onward, that "no small part of the unchristian doings at Rome had been dragged to light."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 23.--t.i.tLE-PAGE, slightly reduced, of the original Tract "On the Liberty of a Christian Man." The Saxon swords are represented above, and the arms of Wittenberg below.]
Luther sent with this letter, as a present to the Pope, a pamphlet ent.i.tled "On the Liberty of a Christian Man." This is no controversial treatise intended for the great struggle of churchmen and theologians, but a tract to minister to "simple men." For their benefit he wished to describe compendiously the "sum of a Christian life"; to deal thoroughly with the question, "What was a Christian?
and how he was to use the liberty which Christ had won and given to him." He premises as an axiom that a Christian is a free lord over all things, and subject to n.o.body. He considers, first of all, the new, inner, spiritual man, and asks what makes him a good and free Christian. Nothing external, he says, can make him either good or free. It does not profit the soul if the body puts on sacred vestments, or fasts, or prays with the lips. To make the soul live, and be good and free, there is nothing else in heaven or on earth but the Holy Scriptures, in other words, G.o.d"s Word of comfort by His dear Son Jesus Christ, through Whom our sins are forgiven us. In this Word the soul has perfect joy, happiness, peace, light, and all good things in abundance. And to obtain this, nothing more is required of the soul than what is told us in the Scriptures, namely, to give itself to Jesus with firm faith and to trust joyfully in Him. At first, no doubt, G.o.d"s command must terrify a man, seeing that it must be fulfilled, or man condemned; but when once he has been brought thereby to recognise his own worthlessness, then comes G.o.d"s promise and the gospel, and says, Have faith in Christ, in Whom I promise thee all grace; believe in Him, and thou hast Him. A right faith so blends the soul with G.o.d"s word, that the virtues of the latter become her own, as the iron becomes glowing hot from its union with the fire. And the soul becomes joined to Christ as a bride to the bridegroom; her wedding-ring is faith. All that Christ, the rich and n.o.ble bridegroom possesses, He makes His bride"s; all that she has, He takes unto Himself. He takes upon Himself her sins, so that they are swallowed up in Him and in His unconquerable righteousness. Thus the Christian is exalted above all things, and becomes a lord; for nothing can injure his salvation; everything must be subject to him and help towards his salvation; it is a spiritual kingdom. And thus all Christians are priests; they can all approach G.o.d through Christ, and pray for others. "Who can comprehend the honour and dignity of a Christian? Through his kingship he has power over all things, through his priesthood he has power over G.o.d, for G.o.d does what he desires and prays for."
But the Christian, as Luther states in his second axiom, is not only this new inner man. He has another will in his flesh, which would make him captive to sin. Accordingly, he dare not be idle, but must work hard to drive out evil l.u.s.ts and mortify his body. He lives, moreover, among other men on earth, and must labour together with them. And as Christ, though Himself full of the Kingdom of G.o.d, for our sake stripped Himself of His power and ministered as a servant, so should we Christians, to whom G.o.d through Christ has given the Kingdom of all goodness and blessedness, and therewith all that is sufficient to satisfy us, do freely and cheerfully for our heavenly Father whatever pleases Him, and do unto our neighbours as Christ has done for us. In particular, we must not despise the weakness and weak faith of our neighbour, nor vex him with the use of our liberty, but rather minister with all we have to his improvement.
Thus the Christian, who is a free lord and master, becomes a useful servant of all and subject to all. But he does these works, not that he may become thereby good and blessed in the sight of G.o.d; he is already blessed through his faith, and what he does now he does freely and gratuitously. Luther thus sums up in conclusion: "A Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbour; in Christ through faith, in his neighbour through love. Through faith he rises above himself in G.o.d, from G.o.d he descends again below himself through love; and yet remains always in G.o.d and in G.o.dlike love."
This tract was a remarkable pendant to Luther"s remarkable letter to the Pope. His Holiness, so he wrote to him in his dedication, might taste from its contents what kind of occupation the author would rather, and might with more profit, be engaged in, if only the G.o.dless Papal flatterers did not hinder him. And in fact the Pope could plainly see from it how Luther lived and laboured, with his inmost being, in these profound but simple ideas of Christian truth, and how he was inwardly compelled and delighted to represent them in their n.o.ble simplicity. The whole tone and tenor of this dedication, so tranquil, fervent, and tender, shows further what profound peace reigned in the soul of this vehement champion of the faith, and what happiness the excommunicated heretic found in his G.o.d. Next to Luther"s Address to the German n.o.bility and his Babylonian Captivity, this tract is one of the most important contributions of his pen to the cause of the Reformation. It is clear from its pages that when Luther wrote his letter, at the request of Milt.i.tz, to the Pope, he had no thought of making peace with the Papacy, or of even a moment"s truce in the campaign.
The bull of excommunication he met in the manner intimated to Spalatin from the first. He launched a short tract against it, "On the new Bull and Falsehoods of Eck," treating it as Eck"s forgery.
This he followed up with another tract in German and Latin, "Against the Bull of Antichrist." He was resolved to unmask the blindness and wickedness of the Roman evil-doers. He saw partly his own real doctrines perverted, partly the Christian and Scriptural truth that his doctrines contained, stigmatised as heresy and condemned. He declared that if the Pope did not retract and condemn this bull, no one would doubt that he was the enemy of G.o.d and the disturber of Christianity.
He then solemnly renewed, on November 17, the appeal to a Council, which he had made two years before. But how was his att.i.tude changed since then! He, the accused and condemned heretic, now himself proclaims condemnation and ruin to his enemy, the antichristian power that seeks to domineer the world. Nor is it only from a future Council, and one const.i.tuted as the previous great a.s.semblies of the Church, that he expects and demands protection for himself and the Christian truth; again and again he calls upon the Christian laity to a.s.sist him. Thus in his appeal now published, he invites the Emperor Charles, the Electors and Princes of the Empire, the counts, barons, and n.o.bles, the town councils, and all Christian authorities throughout Germany, to support him and his appeal, that so the true Christian belief and the freedom of a Council might be saved.
Similarly, in the Latin edition of his tract against the bull, he calls upon the Emperor Charles, on Christian kings and princes and all who believe in Christ, together with all Christian bishops and learned doctors, to resist the iniquities of the Popedom. In his German version he defends himself against the charge of stirring up the laity against the Pope and priesthood; but he asks if, indeed, the laity will be reconciled, or the Pope excused, by the command to burn the truth. The Pope himself, he says, and his bishops, priests, and monks are wrestling to their own downfall, through this iniquitous bull, and want to bring upon themselves the hatred of the laity. "What wonder were it, should princes, n.o.bles, and laymen beat them on the head, and hunt them out of the country?"
Hutten now followed with a stormy demand for a general rising of Germany against the tyranny of Rome, whose hirelings and emissaries were to be chased away by main force. When two papal legates, Aleander and Caraccioli, appeared on the Rhine to execute the bull and work upon the Emperor in person, he was anxious to strike a blow at them on his own account, little good as, on calm reflection, it was evident could have come of it. Luther, on hearing of it, could not refrain remarking in a letter to Spalatin, "If only he had caught them!"
Luther however persisted in repeating to himself and his friends the warning of the Psalmist, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in them." Nay, when Spalatin, who had gone with the Elector to the Emperor, told him how little was to be hoped for from the latter, he expressed to him his joy at finding that he too had learned the same lesson. G.o.d, he said, would never have entrusted simple fishermen with the Gospel, if it had needed worldly potentates to propagate it. It was to the Last Day that he looked with full confidence for the overthrow of Antichrist. And, indeed, his idea that Antichrist had long reigned at Rome was connected in his mind with the belief that the Last Day was close at hand. Of this, as he wrote to Spalatin, he was convinced, and for many strong reasons.
And in fact the Emperor Charles, before leaving the Netherlands, on his journey to Aix-la-Chapelle to be crowned, had already been induced by Aleander to take his first step against Luther. He had consented to the execution of the sentence in the bull, condemning Luther"s works to be burnt, and had issued orders to that effect throughout the Netherlands. They were burnt in public at Louvain, Cologne, and Mayence. At Cologne this was done while he was staying there. It was in this town that the two legates approached the Elector Frederick with the demand to have the same done in his territory, and to execute due punishment on the heretic himself, or at least to keep him close prisoner, or deliver him over to the Pope. Frederick however refused, saying that Luther must first be heard by impartial judges. Erasmus also, who was then staying at Cologne, expressed himself to the same effect, in an opinion obtained from him by Frederick through Spalatin. At an interview with the Elector he said to him, "Luther has committed two great faults; he has touched the Pope on his crown and the monks on their bellies." The Archbishop of Mayence, Cardinal Albert, received directions from the Pope to take more decisive and energetic steps against Hutten as well. The burning of Luther"s books at Mayence was effected without hindrance, though Hutten was able to inform Luther that, according to the account received from a friend, Aleander narrowly escaped stoning, and the mult.i.tude were all the more inflamed in favour of Luther. The legates in triumph proceeded to carry out their mission elsewhere.
Luther, however, lost no time in following up their execution of the bull with his reply. On December 10 he posted a public announcement that the next morning, at nine o"clock, the antichristian decretals, that is, the Papal law-books, would be burnt, and he invited all the Wittenberg students to attend. He chose for this purpose a spot in front of the Elster Gate, to the east of the town, near the Augustinian convent. A mult.i.tude poured forth to the scene. With Luther appeared a number of other doctors and masters, and among them Melancthon and Carlstadt. After one of the masters of arts had built up a pile, Luther laid the decretals upon it, and the former applied the fire. Luther then threw the Papal bull into the flames, with the words "Because thou hast vexed the Holy One of the Lord, [Footnote: It is obvious that he refers to Christ, who is spoken of in Scripture as the Holy One of G.o.d (St. Mark i. 24, Acts ii. 27), not, as ignorance and malice have suggested, to himself.] let the everlasting fire consume thee." Whilst Luther with the other teachers returned to the town, some hundreds of students remained upon the scene, and sang a Te Deum, and a Dirge for the decretals.
After the ten o"clock meal, some of the young students, grotesquely attired, drove through the town in a large carriage, with a banner emblazoned with a bull four yards in length, amidst the blowing of bra.s.s trumpets and other absurdities. They collected from all quarters a ma.s.s of Scholastic and Papal writings, and especially those of Eck, and hastened with them and the bull, to the pile, which their companions had meanwhile kept alight. Another Te Deum was then sung, with a requiem, and the hymn "O du armer Judas."
Luther at his lecture the next day told his hearers with great earnestness and emotion what he had done. The Papal chair he said, would yet have to be burnt. Unless with all their hearts they abjured the Kingdom of the Pope, they could not obtain salvation.