Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

J >> Julius Koestlin >> Life of Luther

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41

The negotiations above described involved the further question about
a Council, pending which a peaceful agreement was now effected. In
the article providing for the convocation of a 'free Christian
Council,' the Protestants demanded the addition of the words, 'in
which questions should be determined according to the pure Word of
God.' On this point, however, Luther was unwilling to prolong the
dispute. He remarked with practical wisdom that the addition would
be of no service; their opponents would in any case wish to have the
credit of having spoken according to the pure Word of God.

In June bad news came again from Nuremberg, tending to the belief
that the Papists had thwarted the work of peace. Luther again
exclaimed, as he had done after the Diet of Augsburg, 'Well, well!
your blood be upon your own heads; we have done enough.'

Towards the end of the month, when the Elector again invited his
opinion, he repeated, with even more urgency than before, his
warnings to those Protestants also who were 'far too clever and
confident, and who, as their language seemed to show, wished to have
a peace not open to dispute.' He begged the Elector, in all humility,
to 'write in earnest a good, stern letter to our brethren,' that they
might see how much the Emperor had graciously conceded to them which
could be accepted with a good conscience, and not refuse such a
gracious peace for the sake of some paltry, far-fetched point of
detail. God would surely heal and provide for such trifling defects.

On July 23 the peace was actually concluded at Nuremberg, and signed
by the Emperor on August 2. Both parties were mutually to practise
Christian toleration until the Council was held; one of these
parties being expressly designated as the Schmalkaldic allies. The
value of this treaty for the maintenance of Protestantism in Germany
was shown by the indignation displayed by the Papal legates from the
first at the Emperor's concessions.

The Elector John was permitted to survive the conclusion of the
peace, which he had been foremost among the princes in promoting.
Shortly after, on August 15, he was seized with apoplexy when out
hunting, and on the following day he breathed his last. Luther and
Melancthon, who were summoned to him at Schweinitz, found him
unconscious. Luther said his beloved prince, on awakening, would be
conscious of everlasting life; just as when he came from hunting on
the Lochau heath, he would not know what had happened to him; as
said the prophet (Isaiah lvii. 1, 2), 'The righteous is taken away
from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in
their beds.' Luther preached at his funeral at Wittenberg, as he had
done seven years before at his brother's, and Spalatin tells us how
he wept like a child.

John had, throughout his reign, laboured conscientiously to follow
the Word of God, as taught by Luther, and to encounter all dangers
and difficulties by the strength of faith. He has rightly earned the
surname of 'the Steadfast.' Luther especially praises his conduct at
the Diet of Augsburg in this respect; he frequently said to his
councillors on that occasion, 'Tell my men of learning that they are
to do what is right, to the praise and glory of God, without regard
to me, or to my country and people.' Luther distinguished piety and
benevolence as the two most prominent features of his character, as
wisdom and understanding had been those of the Elector Frederick's.
'Had the two princes,' he said, 'been one, that man would have been
a marvel.'

PART VI.

_FROM THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF NUREMBERG TO THE DEATH OF LUTHER_.

CHAPTER I.

LUTHER UNDER JOHN FREDERICK. 1632-34.

Political peace had been the blessing which Luther hoped to see
obtained for his countrymen and his Church, during the anxious time
of the Augsburg Diet. Such a peace had now been gained by the
development of political relations, in which he himself had only so
far co-operated as to exhort the Protestant States to practise all
the moderation in their power. He saw in this result the
dispensation of a higher power, for which he could never be thankful
enough to God. For the remainder of his life he was permitted to
enjoy this peace, and, so far as he could, to assist in its
preservation. In the enjoyment of it he continued to build on the
foundations prepared for him under the protecting patronage of
Frederick the Wise, and on which the first stone of the new Church
edifice had been laid under the Elector John.

A longer time was given him for this work than he had anticipated.
We have had occasion frequently to refer not only to his thoughts of
approaching death, but also to the severe attacks of illness which
actually threatened to prove fatal. Although these attacks did not
recur with such dangerous severity in the later years of his life,
still a sense of weakness and premature old age invariably remained
behind them. Exhaustion, caused by his work and the struggles he had
undergone, debarred him from exertion for which he had all the will.
He constantly complained of weakness in the head and giddiness,
which totally unfitted him for work, especially in the morning. He
would break out to his friends with the exclamation, 'I waste my
life so uselessly, that I have come to bear a marvellous hatred
towards myself. I don't know how it is that the time passes away so
quickly, and I do so little. I shall not die of years, but of sheer
want of strength.' In begging one of his friends at a distance to
visit him once more, he reminds him that, in his present state of
health, he must not forget that it might be for the last time. No
wonder then if his natural excitability was often morbidly
increased. He always looked forward with joy to his leaving this
'wicked world,' but as long as he had to work in it, he exerted all
his powers no less for his own immediate task than for the general
affairs of the Church, which incessantly demanded his attention.

The mutual trust and friendship subsisting between the Reformer and
his sovereign continued unbroken with John's son and successor, John
Frederick. This Elector, born in 1503, had, while yet a youth,
embraced Luther's teaching with enthusiasm, and leaned upon him as
his spiritual father. Luther, on his side, treated him with a
confidential, easy intimacy, but never forgot to address him as 'Most
illustrious Prince' and 'Most gracious Lord.' When the young man
assumed the Electorship, and appeared at Wittenberg a few days after
his father's death, he at once invited Luther to preach at the castle
and to dine at his table. Luther expressed indeed to friends his fear
that the many councillors who surrounded the young Elector might try
to exert evil influences upon him, and that he might have to pay dearly
for his experience. It might be, he said, that so many dogs barking
round him would make him deaf to anyone else. For instance, they might
take a grudge against the clergy and cry out, if admonished by them,
what can a mere clerk know about it? But his relations with his prince
remained undisturbed. He saw with joy how the latter was beginning to
gather up the reins which his gentle-minded father had allowed to grow
too slack, and he hoped that if God would grant a few years of peace,
John Frederick would take in hand real and important reforms in his
government, and not merely command them but see them executed.

The Elector's wife, Sybil, a princess of Juliers, shared her
husband's friendship for Luther. The Elector had married her in
1526, after taking Luther into his confidence, and being warned by
him against needlessly delaying the blessing which God had willed to
grant him. On what a footing of cordial intimacy she stood with both
Luther and his wife, is shown by a letter she wrote to him in
January 1529, while her husband was away on a journey. She says that
she will not conceal from him, as her 'good friend and lover of the
comforting Word of God,' that she finds the time very tedious now
that her most beloved lord and husband is away, and that therefore
she would gladly have a word of comfort from Luther, and be a little
cheerful with him; but that this is impossible at Weimar, so far off
as it is, and so she commends all, and Luther and his dear wife, to
the loving God, and will put her trust in Him. She begs him in
conclusion: 'You will greet your dear wife very kindly from us, and
wish her many thousand good-nights, and if it is God's will, we
shall be very glad to be with her some day, and with you also, as
well as with her: this you may believe of us at all times.' In the
last years of his life Luther had to thank her for similar greetings
and inquiries after his own health and that of his family.

In the tenth year of the new Elector's reign Luther was able
publicly and confidently to bear witness against the calumnies
brought against his government. 'There is now,' he said 'thank God,
a chaste and honourable manner of life, truthful lips, and a
generous hand stretched out to help the Church, the schools, and the
poor; an earnest, constant, faithful heart to honour the Word of
God, to punish the bad, to protect the good, and to maintain peace
and order. So pure also and praiseworthy is his married life, that
it can well serve as a beautiful example for all, princes, nobles,
and everyone--a Christian home as peaceful as a convent, which men
are so wont to praise. God's Word is now heard daily, and sermons
are well attended, and prayer and praise are given to God, to say
nothing of how much the Elector himself reads and writes every day.'
Only one thing Luther could not and would not justify, namely, that
at times the Elector, especially when he had company, drank too much
at table. Unhappily the vice of intemperance prevailed then not only
at court but throughout Germany. Still John Frederick could stand a
big drink better than many others, and, with the exception of this
failing, even his enemies must allow him to have been endued with
great gifts from God, and all manner of virtues becoming a
praiseworthy prince and a chaste husband. Luther's personal
relations with the Elector never made him scruple to express to him
freely, in his letters, words of censure as well as of praise.

In his academical lectures Luther devoted his chief labours for
several terms after 1531 to St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. He
had already commenced this task before and during the contest about
indulgences, his object having been to expound to and impress upon
his hearers and readers the great truth of justification by faith,
set forth in that Epistle with such conciseness and power. This
doctrine he always regarded as a fundamental verity and the
groundwork of religion. In all its fulness and clearness, and with
all his old freshness, vigour, and intensity of fervour, he now
exhaustively discussed this doctrine. His lectures, published, with
a preface of his, by the Wittenberg chaplain Rorer in 1535, contain
the most complete and classical exposition of his Pauline doctrine
of salvation. In the introduction to these lectures he declared that
it was no new thing that he was offering to men, for by the grace of
God the whole teaching of St. Paul was now made known; but the
greatest danger was, lest the devil should again filch away that
doctrine of faith and smuggle in once more his own doctrine of human
works and dogmas. It could never be sufficiently impressed on man,
that if the doctrine of faith perished, all knowledge of the truth
would perish with it, but that if it flourished, all good things
would also flourish, namely, true religion, and the true worship and
glory of God. In his preface he says: 'One article--the only solid
rock--rules in my heart, namely, faith in Christ: out of which,
through which, and to which all my theological opinions ebb and flow
day and night.' To his friends he says of the Epistle to the
Galatians: 'That is my Epistle, which I have espoused: it is my
Katie von Bora.'

His sermons to his congregation were now much hindered by the state
of his health. It was his practice, however, after the spring of
1532, to preach every Sunday at home to his family, his servants,
and his friends.

But his greatest theological work, which he intended for the service
of all his countrymen, was the continuation and final conclusion of
his translation of the Bible. After publishing in 1532 his
translation of the Prophets, which had cost him immense pains and
industry, the Apocrypha alone remained to be done;--the books which,
in bringing out his edition of the Bible, he designated as inferior
in value to the Holy Scriptures, but useful and good to read. Well
might he sigh at times over the work. In November 1532, being then
wholly engrossed with the book of Sirach, he wrote to his friend
Amsdorf saying that he hoped to escape from this treadmill in three
weeks, but no one can discover any trace of weariness or vexation in
the German idiom in which he clothed the proverbs and apophthegms of
this book. Notwithstanding the length of time which his task
occupied, and his constant interruptions, it has turned out a work
of one mould and casting, and shows from the first page to the last
how completely the translator was absorbed in his theme, and yet how
closely his life and thoughts were interwoven with those of his
fellow countrymen, for whom he wrote and whose language he spoke. In
1534 the whole of his German Bible was at length in print, and the
next year a new edition was called for. Of the New Testament, with
which Luther had commenced the work, as many as sixteen original
editions, and more than fifty different reimpressions, had appeared
up to 1533.

With regard to the wants of the Church, Luther looked to the energy
of the new Elector for a vigorous prosecution of the work of
visitation. A reorganisation of the Church had been effected by
these means, but many more evils had been exposed than cured, nor
had the visitations been yet extended to all the parishes. The
Elector John had already called on Luther, together with Jonas and
Melancthon, for their opinion as to the propriety of resuming them,
and only four days before his death he gave instructions on the
subject to his chancellor Bruck. John Frederick, in the first year
of his rule, did actually put the new visitation into operation, in
concert with his Landtag. The main object sought at present was to
bring about better discipline among the members of the various
congregations, and to put down the sins of drunkenness, unchastity,
frivolous swearing, and witchcraft. Luther and even Melancthon were
no longer required to give their services as visitors: Luther's
place on the commission for Electoral Saxony was filled by
Bugenhagen. His own views and prospects in regard to the condition
of the people remained gloomy. He complains that the Gospel bore so
little fruit against the powers of the flesh and the world; he did
not expect any great and general change through measures of
ecclesiastical law, but trusted rather to the faithful preaching of
the Divine Word, leaving the issue to God. It was particularly the
nobles and peasants whom he had to rebuke for open or secret
resistance against this Word. He exclaims in a letter to Spalatin,
written in 1533: '0 how shamefully ungrateful are our times!
Everywhere nobles and peasants are conspiring in our country against
the Gospel, and meanwhile enjoy the freedom of it as insolently as
they can; God will judge in the matter!' He had to complain besides
of indifference and immorality in his immediate neighbourhood, among
his Wittenbergers. Thus he addressed, on Midsummer Day 1534, after
his sermon, a severe rebuke to drunkards who rioted in taverns
during the time of Divine service, and he exhorted the magistrates
to do their duty by proceeding against them, so as not to incur the
punishment of the Elector or of God.

The territories of Anhalt, immediately adjoining the dominions of
the Saxon Elector, now openly joined the Evangelical Confession, of
which their prince, Wolfgang of Kothen, had long been a faithful
adherent; and Luther contracted in this quarter new and close
friendships, like that which subsisted between himself and his own
Elector. Anhalt Dessau was under the government of three nephews of
Wolfgang, namely, John, Joachim, and George. They had lost their
father in early life. One of them had for his guardian the strictly
Catholic Elector of Brandenburg, the second, Duke George of Saxony,
and the third, the Cardinal Archbishop Albert. George, born in 1507,
was made in 1518 canon at Merseburg, and afterwards prebendary of
Magdeburg cathedral. The Cardinal had taken peculiar interest in him
ever since his boyhood, on account of his excellent abilities, and
he did honour to his office by his fidelity, zeal, and purity of
life. The new teaching caused him severe internal struggles. His
theological studies showed him how rotten were the foundations of
the Romish system, but, on the other hand, the new doctrine awakened
suspicions on his part lest, with its advocacy of gospel liberty and
justification by faith, it might tempt to sedition and immorality.
But it finally won his heart, when he learned to know it in its pure
form through the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of Melancthon,
while the Catholic Refutation drawn up for the Diet of Augsburg
excited his disgust. His two brothers, whose devoutness of character
their enemies could no more dispute than his own, became converts
also to Protestantism. In 1532 they appointed Luther's friend
Nicholas Hausmann their court-preacher, and invited Luther and
Melancthon to stay with them at Worlitz. George, in virtue of his
office as archdeacon and prebendary of Magdeburg, himself undertook
the visitation, and had the candidates for the office of preacher
examined at Wittenberg. Luther eulogised the two brothers as
'upright princes, of a princely and Christian disposition,' adding
that they had been brought up by worthy and Godfearing parents. He
kept up a close and intimate friendship with them, both personally
and by letter. A disposition to melancholy on the part of Joachim
gave Luther an opportunity of corresponding with him. While cheering
him with spiritual consolation, he recommended him to seek for
mental refreshment in conversation, singing, music, and cracking
jokes. Thus he wrote to him in 1534 as follows: 'A merry heart and
good courage, in honour and discipline, are the best medicine for a
young man--aye, for all men. I, who have spent my life in sorrow and
weariness, now seek for pleasure and take it wherever I can....
Pleasure in sin is the devil, but pleasure shared with good people
in the fear of God, in discipline and honour, is well-pleasing to
God. May your princely Highness be always cheerful and blessed, both
inwardly in Christ, and outwardly in His gifts and good things. He
wills it so, and for that reason He gives us His good things to make
use of, that we may be happy and praise Him for ever.'

During these years, the negotiations concerning the general affairs
of the Church, the restoration of harmony in the Christian Church of
the West, and the internal union of the Protestants, still
proceeded, though languidly and with little spirit.

With the promise, and pending the assembly, of a Council, the
Religious Peace had been at length concluded. Before the close of
1532 the Emperor actually succeeded in inducing Pope Clement, at a
personal interview with him at Bologna, to announce his intention to
convoke a Council forthwith. He urged him to do so by frightening
him with the prospect of a German national synod, such as even the
orthodox States of the Empire might resolve on, in the event of the
Pope obstinately opposing a Council, and in that case, of a possible
combination of the entire German nation against the Papal see. He
knew, indeed, well enough, that the Holy Father, in making this
promise, had no intention whatever of keeping it. The Pope now sent
a nuncio to the German princes, to make preparations for giving
effect to his promise; the Emperor sent with him an ambassador of
his own, as well for his control as his support.

When the nuncio and ambassador reached John Frederick at Weimar, the
Elector consulted with Luther, Bugenhagen, Jonas, and Melancthon
about the object of their coming, and for that purpose, on June 15,
1533, he came in person to Wittenberg, and had an opinion drawn up in
writing. The Papal invitation to the Council stated that, agreeably
with the demands of the Germans, it should be a free Christian Council,
and also that it should be held in accordance with ancient usage as
from the beginning. Luther declared that this was merely a 'muttering
in the dark,' half angel-like, half devil-like. For if by the words
'from the beginning' were meant the primitive Christian assemblies,
such as those of the Apostles (Acts xv.), then the Council now intended
was bound to act according to the Word of God, freely, and without
regard to any future Councils; a Council on the other hand, held
according to previous usage, as, for example, that of Constance, was
a Council contrary to the Word of God, and held in mere human blindness
and wantonness. The Pope, in describing the Council proposed by himself
as a free one, was making sport of the Emperor, the request of the
Evangelicals, and the decrees of the Diet. How could the Pope possibly
tolerate a free Christian Council when he must be quite aware how
disadvantageous such a Council would be to himself? Luther's advice
was briefly summed up in this: to restrict themselves to the bare
formalities of speech required, and to wait for further events. 'I
think it is best,' he said, 'not to busy ourselves at present with
anything more than what is necessary and moderate, and that can give
no handle to the Pope or the Emperor to accuse us of intemperate
conduct. Whether there be a Council or not, the time will come for
action and advice.' And it soon became clear enough, that Clement at any
rate would not convene a Council. He now entered into an understanding
with King Francis, who was again meditating an attack against the
power of Charles V., listened to his proposal that the Council might
be abandoned, and in March 1534 announced to the German princes
that, agreeably to the King's wish, he had resolved to adjourn its
convocation.

How firmly Luther persisted--Council or no Council--in his
uncompromising opposition to the Romish system, was now shown by
several of his new writings, more especially by his treatise 'On
private Masses and the Consecration of Priests.' Concerning private
masses, and the sacrifice of Christ's Body supposed to be there
offered, he now declared that, where the ordinance of Christ was so
utterly perverted, Christ's Body was assuredly not present at all,
but simple bread and simple wine was worshipped by the priest in
vain idolatry, and offered for others to worship in like manner. He
knew how they would 'come rolling up to him with the words, "Church,
Church; custom, custom," just as they had answered him once before
in his attack on indulgences; but neither the Church nor custom had
been able to preserve indulgences from their fate.' In the Church,
even under the Popedom, he recognised a holy place, for in it was
baptism, the reading of the Gospel, prayer, the Apostles' Creed, &c.
But he repeats now, what he had said in his most pungent writings
during the earlier struggles of the Reformation, namely, that
devilish abominations had entered into this place, and so penetrated
it with their presence, that only the light of the Holy Spirit would
enable one to distinguish between the place itself and these
abominations. He contrasts the mass-holding priests and their
stinking oil of consecration with the universal Christian priesthood
and the evangelical office of preacher. To the principle of this
priesthood he still firmly adhered, faithless though he saw the
large mass of the congregations to the priestly character with which
baptism had invested them, and strictly as he had to guide his
action, in the appointment and outward constitution of that office,
by existing circumstances and historical requirements. Thus he
repeats what he had said before, 'We are all born simple priests and
pastors in baptism; and out of such born priests, certain are chosen
or called to certain offices, and it is their duty to perform the
various functions of those offices for us all.' This universal
priesthood he would assert and utilise in the celebration of Divine
service and in the true Christian mass; and he appeals for that
purpose to the true worship of God by an Evangelical congregation.
'There,' he says, 'our priest or minister stands before the altar,
having been duly and publicly called to his priestly office; he
repeats publicly and distinctly Christ's words of institution; he
takes the Bread and Wine, and distributes it according to Christ's
words; and we all kneel beside and around him, men and women, young
and old, master and servant, mistress and maid, all holy priests
together, sanctified by the Blood of Christ. And in such our
priestly dignity are we there, and (as pictured in Revelations iv.)
we have our crowns of gold on our heads, harps in our hands, and
golden censers; and we do not let our priest proclaim for himself
the ordinance of Christ, but he is the mouthpiece of us all, and we
all say it with him from our hearts, and with sincere faith in the
Lamb of God, Who feeds us with His Body and Blood.'