Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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In 1533 Erasmus published a work wherein he endeavoured to effect in
his own way the restoration of unity in the Church, by exhorting men
to abolish practical abuses and show submission in doctrinal
disputes, professing for his own part unvarying subjection to the
Church. In opposition to him, Luther hit the right point in a
preface he wrote to the reply of the Marburg theologian Corvinus.
Erasmus, he said, only strengthened the Papists, who cared nothing
about a safe truth for their consciences, but only kept on crying
out 'Church, Church, Church.' For he too kept on simply repeating
that he wished to follow the Church, whilst leaving everything
doubtful and undetermined until the Church had settled it. 'What,'
asks Luther, 'is to be done with those good souls, who, bound in
conscience by the word of Divine truth, cannot believe doctrines
evidently contrary to Scripture? Shall we tell them that the Pope
must be obeyed so that peace and unity may be preserved?' When,
therefore, Erasmus sought to obtain unity of faith by mutual
concession and compromise, Luther answered by declaring such unity
to be impossible, for the simple reason that the Catholics, by their
very boasting of the authority of the Church, absolutely refused on
their part to make any concession at all. But so far as 'unity of
charity' was concerned, he held that on that point the Evangelicals
needed no admonishment, for they were ready to do and suffer all
things, provided nothing was imposed upon them contrary to the
faith. They had never thirsted for the blood of their enemies,
though the latter would gladly persecute them with fire and sword.
As for Erasmus himself, Luther, as already stated, simply regarded
him as a sceptic, who with his attitude of subjection to the Church,
sought only for peace and safety for himself and his studies and
intellectual enjoyments. Acting on this view, Luther, in a letter to
Amsdorf, written in 1534, and intended for publication, heaped
reproaches on Erasmus which undoubtedly he uttered in honest zeal,
but in which his zeal did not allow him to form an impartial
estimate of his opponent or his writings. He saw the bad spirit of
Erasmus reflected in other men, who, like him, had seen the true
character of the Romish Church, but, like him also, rejoined her
communion. Instances of this were found in his old friend Crotus,
who had now entered the service of Cardinal Albert, and as his
'plate-licker,' as Luther called him, abused the Reformation; and in
the theologian George Witzel, a pupil of Erasmus and student at
Wittenberg, who formerly had been suspected even of sympathising
with the peasants in their rebellion, and of rejecting the doctrine
of the Trinity, but who now wished for a Reformation after Erasmus'
ideas, and was one of the foremost literary opponents of the
Lutheran Reformation. Luther, however, deemed it superfluous, after
all that he had said against the master, to turn also against his
subordinates, and the mere mouthpieces of his teaching.

In addition to Luther's polemics against Catholicism in general,
must be mentioned a fresh quarrel with Duke George. The latter, in
1532, had expelled from Saxony some evangelically disposed
inhabitants of Leipzig and Oschatz, decreed that everyone should
appear once a year at church for confession, and ordered some
seventy or eighty families of Leipzig, who had refused to do so, to
quit his dominions. Luther sent letters, which were afterwards
published, of comfort to the exiled, and of exhortation and advice
to those who were threatened. Duke George thereupon complained to
the Elector that Luther was exciting his subjects to sedition.
Luther, in reply, spoke out again with double vehemence in a public
vindication, whilst George made Cochlaeus write against him. Further
quarrelling was ended by the two princes agreeing, in November 1533,
to settle certain matters in dispute, and their theologians also
were commanded to keep at peace. With regard to the future, however,
Luther had spoken words of significance and weight to his persecuted
brethren at Leipzig, when he reminded them what great and unexpected
things God had done since the Diet of Worms, and how many
bloodthirsty persecutors He had since then snatched away. 'Let us
wait a little while,' he said, 'and see what God will bring to pass.
Who knows what God will do after the Diet of Augsburg, even before
ten years have gone by?'

Firmly, however, as Luther refused to listen to any surrender in
matters of faith, or to any subjection to a Catholic Council of the
old sort, he desired no less to adhere loyally to the 'political
concord.' His whole heart and sympathies, as a fellow-Christian and
a good German, went out with the German troops in their march
against the Turks, who he hoped might be well routed by the Emperor.
He never reflected how perilous the consequences of a decisive
victory by Charles V. over his foreign enemies would be for the
Protestants of Germany, and how divided, therefore, these must feel,
at least in their hopes and wishes, during the progress of the war.
He only saw in him again the 'dear good Emperor.' He wished him like
success against his evil-minded French enemy. The Pope especially he
reproached for his persistent ill-will to the Emperor. The Popes, he
said, had always been hostile to the Emperors, and had betrayed the
best of them and wantonly thwarted their desires.

Early in 1534 Philip of Hesse set in earnest about his scheme, so
momentous for Protestantism, of forcibly expelling King Ferdinand
from Wurtemberg, and restoring it to the exiled Duke Ulrich. The
latter, whom the Swabian League in 1519, upon a decision of the
Emperor and Empire, had deprived of his territory, and transferred
it to the House of Austria, was staying with the Landgrave in 1529,
with whom he attended the conference at Marburg, and shared his
views on Church matters. Since then the Swabian League was
dissolved, and Philip seized this favourable opportunity to
interfere on behalf of his friend. The King of France promised his
aid, and in Germany, especially among the Catholic Bavarians, a
strong desire prevailed to weaken the power of Austria. Luther's
public judgment being of such weight, and his counsels so
influential with the Elector Frederick, Philip informed him, through
pastor Ottinger of Cassel, of his preparations for war, lest he
might otherwise be wrongly given to understand that he was
meditating a step against the Emperor. His intention, he declared,
was merely to 'restore and reinstate Duke Ulrich to his rights in
all fairness,' in the sight of God and of his Imperial Majesty. He
'belonged to no faction or sect:'--this, wrote Ottinger, he was
'instructed by his princely Highness not to conceal from Luther.'
The latter, however, at a conference with his Elector and the
Landgrave at Weimar, protested against a breach of the public peace,
as tending to bring disgrace upon the gospel; and the Elector, in
consequence, kept aloof from the enterprise. Philip, however,
persisted, and carried it through with rapidity and success.
Ferdinand, being helpless in the absence of the Emperor, consented,
in the treaty of Cadan, to the restoration of Ulrich, who
immediately set about a reformation of the Church in Wurtemberg.
Luther recognised in this result the evident hand of God, in that,
contrary to all expectation, nothing was destroyed and peace was
happily restored. God would bring the work to an end.

Meanwhile the Schmalkaldic allies clung tenaciously to their league,
and were intent on still further strengthening their position and
preparing themselves for all emergencies. No scruples as to whether,
if the Emperor should break the peace, they could venture to turn
their arms against him, any longer disturbed them. The terms
extorted from King Ferdinand by the Landgrave's victorious campaign,
were also in their favour. Ferdinand, in the treaty of Cadan,
promised to secure them against the suits which the Imperial
Chamber, notwithstanding the Religious Peace, still continued to
institute against them, in return for which John Frederick and his
allies consented to recognise his election as King of the Romans.

And in the interests and for the objects represented by the league,
namely, to oppose a sufficiently strong and compact power to Roman
Catholicism and its menaces, those further attempts were now made to
promote internal union among the Protestants, to which Butzer had so
unremittingly devoted his labours, and which the Landgrave Philip
among the princes considered of the utmost value.

Luther, although he admitted having formed a more favourable opinion
of Zwingli as a man, since their personal interview at Marburg, in
no way altered his opinion of Zwinglianism or of the general
tendency of his doctrines. Thus in a letter of warning sent by him
in December 1532 to the burgomaster and town-council of Munster, he
classed Zwingli with Munzer and other heads of the Anabaptists, as a
band of fanatics whom God had judged, and pointed out that whoever
once followed Zwingli, Munzer, or the Anabaptists, would very easily
be seduced into rebellion and attacks on civil government. At the
beginning of the next year he published a 'Letter to those at
Frankfort-on-the-Main,' in order to counteract the Zwinglian
doctrines and agitations there prevailing. He also warned the people
of Augsburg against their preachers, inasmuch as they pretended to
accept the Lutheran doctrine of the Sacrament, but in reality did
nothing of the kind. He abstained from entering into any further
controversy against the substance of doctrines opposed to his own.
He was concerned not so much about the victory of his own doctrine,
which he left with confidence in God's hands, but lest, under the
guise of agreement with him, error should creep in and deceit be
practised in a matter so sacred and important. He always felt
suspicious of Butzer on this point.

He now saw the evil and terrible fruits of that spirit which had
possessed Munzer and the Anabaptists,--such fruits as he had always
expected from it. In Munster, where his warning had passed
unregarded, the Anabaptists had been masters since February 1584. As
the pretended possessors of Christianity in its intellectual and
spiritual purity, they established there a kingdom of the saints,
with a mad, sensual fanaticism, a coarse worship of the flesh, and a
wild thirst for blood. This kingdom was demolished the next year by
the combined forces of the Emperor and the bishop, but a further
consequence of their defeat was the exclusion of Protestantism from
the city, which submitted again to episcopal authority. About the
Zwinglian 'Sacramentarianism' Luther wrote at that time, 'God will
mercifully do away with this scandal, so that it may not, like that
of Munster, have to be done away with by force.'

Butzer, however, did not allow himself to be deterred or wearied.
His wish was that the agreement in doctrine which had already been
arrived at between Luther and the South Germans admitted to the
Swabian League, should be publicly and emphatically acknowledged and
expressed. He laboured and hoped to convince even the people of
Zurich and the other Swiss that they attached--as, in fact, they
did--too harsh a meaning to Luther's doctrines, and so to induce
them to reconcile them as nearly as they could with their own. But
they could not be persuaded further than to admit that Christ's Body
was really present in the Sacrament, as food for the souls of those
who partook in faith. They were as suspicious, from their
standpoint, of his attempts at mediation, as Luther was from his.
Butzer represented to the Landgrave that the South German towns, his
allies, were united in doctrine, and that the only objection raised
by the Swiss was to the notion that Christ and His Body became
actual 'food for the stomach,'--a notion which Luther also refused
wholly to entertain. For when the latter said that Christ's Body was
eaten with the mouth, he explained at the same time that the mouth
indeed only touched the bread and did not reach this Body, and that
his doctrine was simply a declaration of a sacramental unity, in so
far as the mouth eats the bread which is united with the body in the
Sacrament. The matter, said Butzer, was a mere dispute about words,
and was only so difficult to settle because they had 'abused and
sent each other to the devil too much.'

[Illustration: PIG. 43.--BUTZER. (From the old original woodcut of
Reusner.)]

The Landgrave Philip wrote to Luther, and Luther now repeated with
warmth his own desire for a 'well-established union,' which would
enable the Protestants to oppose a common front to the immoderate
arrogance of the Papists. He only warned him again lest the matter
should remain 'rotten and unstable in its foundations.' The
Landgrave then arranged, with Luther's approval, a conference
between Melancthon and Butzer at Cassel for December 27, 1534.
Luther sent to them a 'Consideration, whether unity is possible or
not.' He repeated in this tract, with studied precision and
emphasis, those tenets of his doctrine to which Butzer had referred.
The matter, he said, ought not to remain uncertain or ambiguous. But
when Butzer now agreed with Luther's own opinion, and sent to him at
Wittenberg an explanation that Christ's Body was truly present, but
not as food for the stomach, Luther, in January 1535, declared as
his judgment, that, since the South German preachers were willing to
teach in accordance with the Augsburg Confession, he, for his part,
neither could nor would refuse such concord; and since they
distinctly confessed that Christ's Body was really and substantially
presented and eaten, he could not, if their hearts agreed with their
words, find fault with these words. He would only prefer, as there
was still too much mistrust among his own brethren, that the act of
concord should not be concluded quite so suddenly, but that time
should be allowed for a general quieting down. 'Thus,' he said, 'our
people will be able to moderate their suspicion or ill-will, and
finally let it drop; and if thus the troubled waters are calmed on
both sides, a real and permanent union can be ultimately brought
about.' Of the Swiss no notice was taken in these negotiations.

Meanwhile Butzer and Philip had to rest content with this; and was
it not an important step forwards? This work of union, together with
the Council which was to help in uniting the whole Church, took a
prominent place during the next few years of Luther's life and
labours.

CHAPTER II.

NEGOTIATIONS RESPECTING A COUNCIL AND UNION AMONG THE PROTESTANTS.--THE
LEGATE VERGERIUS 1535.--THE WITTENBERG CONCORD 1536.

Pope Paul III., who succeeded Clement VII. in October 1534, seemed
at once determined to bring about in reality the promised Council.
And in fact he was quite earnest in the matter. He was not so
indifferent as his predecessor to the real interests of the Church
and the need of certain reforms, and he hoped, like a clever
politician, to turn the Council, which could now no longer be
evaded, to the advantage of the Papacy. With this object, and with a
view in particular of arranging the place where the Council should
be held, which he proposed should be Mantua, he sent a nuncio, the
Cardinal Vergerius, to Germany.

In August 1535 Luther was desired by his Elector to submit an
opinion on the proposals of the Pope. He thought it sufficient to
repeat the answer he had given two years before, namely, that the
prince had then fully expressed his zeal for the restoration of
Church unity by means of a Council, but at the same time had
required that its decisions should be strictly according to God's
Word, and declared that he could not give any definite consent
without his allies. Luther still declined, moreover, to believe that
the project of a Council was sincere.

The university of Wittenberg had been removed during the summer to
Jena, on account of a fresh outbreak of the plague, or at all events
an alarm of it, and there they remained till the following February.
Luther, however, would not listen to the idea of leaving Wittenberg.
This time he could stay there in all rest and cheerfulness with
Bugenhagen, and make merry with the idle fears of others. To the
Elector, who was full of anxiety about him, Luther wrote on July 9,
saying that only one or two cases of the disease had appeared; the
air was not yet poisoned. The dog-days being at hand, and the young
people frightened, they might as well be allowed to walk about, to
calm their thoughts, until it was seen what would happen. He noticed,
however, that some had 'caught ulcers in their pockets, others colic
in their books, and others gout in their papers;' some, too, had no
doubt eaten their mother's letters, and hence got heart-ache and
homesickness. The Christian authorities, he said, must provide some
strong medicine against such a disease, lest mortality might arise
in consequence,--a medicine that would defy Satan, the enemy of all
arts and discipline. He was astonished to find how much more was
known of the great plague at Wittenberg in other parts than in the
town itself, where in truth it did not exist, and how much bigger
and fatter lies grew the farther they travelled. He assured his
friend Jonas, who had gone away with the university, that, thanks
to God, he was living there in solitude, in perfect health and
comfort; only there was a dearth of beer in the town, though he had
enough in his own cellar. Nor did Luther afterwards give way to
fear when compelled to acknowledge several fatal cases of the
plague, and when his own coachman once seemed to be stricken with
it. He himself was a sufferer, throughout the winter, from a cough
and other catarrhic affections. 'But my greatest illness,' he wrote
to a friend, 'is, that the sun has so long shone upon me,--a plague
which, as you know well, is very common, and many die of it.'

The Papal nuncio now arrived at Wittenberg, and desired to speak to
Luther in person. After an interview at Halle with the Archbishop
Albert, he had taken the road through Wittenberg on his way to visit
the Elector of Brandenburg at Berlin. On the afternoon of November
6, a Saturday, he entered Wittenberg in state, with twenty-one
horses and an ass, intending to take up his quarters there for the
night, and was received with all due honour at the Elector's castle
by the governor Metzsch. Luther was invited, at the nuncio's
request, to sup with him that evening, but as the former declined
the invitation, he was asked with Bugenhagen to take breakfast with
him the next morning. It was the first time, since his summons by
Caietan at Augsburg in 1518, that Luther had to speak with a Papal
legate--Luther, who had long since been condemned by the Pope as an
abominable child of corruption, and who in turn had declared the
Pope to be Antichrist. So important must Vergerius have thought it,
to attempt to influence, if even only partially, the powerful
adviser of the Protestant princes, and thereby to prevent him from
check-mating his plans in regard to a Council. And in this respect
Vergerius must have had considerable confidence in himself.

The next morning Luther ordered his barber to come at an unusually
early hour. Upon the latter expressing his surprise, Luther said
jokingly, 'I have to go to the Papal nuncio; if only I look young
when he sees me, he may think "Fie, the devil, if Luther has played
us such tricks before he is an old man, what won't he do when he is
one?"' Then, in his best clothes and with a gold chain round his
neck, he drove to the castle with the town-priest Bugenhagen
(Pomeranus). 'Here go,' he said, as he stepped into the carriage,
'the Pope of Germany and Cardinal Pomeranus, the instruments of
God!'

Before the legate he 'acted,' as he expressed it, 'the complete
Luther.' He employed towards him only the most indispensable forms
of civility, and made use of the most ill-humoured language. Thus he
asked him whether he was looked upon in Italy as a drunken German.
When they came to speak about the settlement of the Church questions
in dispute by a Council, Vergerius reminded him that one individual
fallible man had no right to consider himself wiser than the
Councils, the ancient Fathers, and other theologians of Christendom.
To this Luther replied that the Papists were not really in earnest
about a Council, and, if it were held, they would only care to treat
about such trifles as monks' cowls, priests' tonsures, rules of
diet, and so forth; whereupon the legate turned to one of his
attendants, who was sitting by, with the words 'he has hit the right
nail on the head.' Luther went on to assert that they, the
Evangelicals, had no need of a Council, being already fully assured
about their own doctrine, though other poor souls might need one,
who were led astray by the tyranny of the Popedom. Nevertheless he
promised to attend the proposed Council, even though he should be
burned by it. It was the same to him, he said, whether it was held
at Mantua, Padua, or Florence, or anywhere else. 'Would you come to
Bologna?' said Vergerius. Luther asked, thereupon, to whom Bologna
belonged, and on being told 'to the Pope,' 'Gracious heavens,' he
exclaimed, 'has the Pope seized that town too?--Very well, I will
come to you even there.' Vergerius politely hinted that the Pope
himself, would not refuse to come to Wittenberg. 'Let him come,'
said Luther; 'we shall be very glad to see him.' 'But,' said
Vergerius, 'would you have him come with arms or without?' 'As he
pleases,' replied Luther; 'we shall be ready to receive him in
either way.' When the legate, after their meal, was mounting his
horse to depart, he said to Luther, 'Be sure to hold yourself in
readiness for the Council.' 'Yes, sir,' was the reply, 'with this my
very neck and head.'

Vergerius afterwards related that he had found Luther to be coarse
in conversation, and his Latin bad, and had answered him as far as
possible in monosyllables. The excuse he urged for his interview was
that Luther and Bugenhagen were the only men of learning at
Wittenberg, with whom he could converse in Latin. He evidently felt
himself unpleasantly deceived in the expectations and projects he
had formed before the meeting. Ten years later, when his conflict
with Evangelical doctrine had taught him thoroughly its real meaning
and value, this high dignitary himself became a convert to it.

In the meantime, while the eyes of all were fixed upon the
approaching Council, the state of affairs in Germany was eminently
favourable to the Evangelicals.

The Emperor, during the summer of 1535, was detained abroad by his
operations against the corsair Chaireddin Barbarossa in Tunis, and
Luther rejoiced over the victory with which God blessed his arms.
The King of France was threatening with fresh claims on Italian
territory. The jealousy between Austria and Bavaria still continued.
With regard to the Church, King Ferdinand learned to value
Lutheranism at any rate as a barrier against the progress of the
more dangerous doctrines of Zwingli. John Frederick journeyed in
November 1535 to Vienna, to receive from him at length, in the name
of the Emperor, the investiture of the Electorship, and met with a
friendly reception.

Under these circumstances the Schmalkaldic League resolved, at a
convention at Schmalkald in December 1535, to invite other States of
the Empire, which were not yet recognised in the Religious Peace as
members of the Augsburg Confession, to join them. The Dukes Barnim
and Philip of Pomerania had now accepted this Confession. Philip
also married a sister of John Frederick. Luther performed the
marriage service on the evening of February 27 at Torgau, and
Bugenhagen pronounced, the next morning, the customary benediction
on the young couple, Luther being prevented from doing so by a fresh
attack of giddiness. The following spring a convention of the allies
at Frankfort-on-the-Main received the Duke of Wurtemberg, the Dukes
of Pomerania, the princes of Anhalt, and several towns into their
league.

Outside Germany, the Kings of France and England sought fellowship
with the allies. Ecclesiastical and religious questions, of course,
had first to be considered; and Luther with others was called on for
his advice.

King Francis, so many of whose Evangelical subjects were complaining
of oppression and persecution, was anxious, as he was now meditating
a new campaign in Italy, to secure an alliance with the German
Protestants against the Emperor, and accordingly pretended with
great solicitude that he had in view important reforms in the
Church, and would be glad of their assistance. They were invited to
send Melancthon and Luther to him for that purpose. With these he
negotiated also in person. Melancthon felt himself much attracted by
the prospect thus opened to him of rendering important and useful
service. The Elector, however, refused him permission to go, and
rebuked him for having already entangled himself so far in the
affair. Melancthon's expectations were certainly very vain: the King
only cared for his political interests, and in no case would he
grant to any of his subjects the right to entertain or act upon
religious convictions which ran counter to his own theory of the
Church. Moreover, John Frederick's relations with King Ferdinand had
by this time become so peaceful, that the Elector was anxious not to
disturb them by an alliance with the enemy of the Emperor.
Melancthon, however, was much excited by his refusal and reproof; he
suspected that others had maliciously intrigued against him with his
prince. Luther, at first moved by Melancthon's wish and the
entreaties of French Evangelicals, had earnestly begged the Elector
to permit Melancthon 'in the name of God to go to France.' 'Who
knows,' he said, 'what God may wish to do?' He was afterwards
startled on his friend's account by the severe letter of the
Elector, but was obliged to acknowledge that the latter was right in
his distrust of the affair.