Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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In his own personal relations towards God, Luther followed
persistently the road which he saw revealed by Christ, and which he
pointed out to others. He never lost the consciousness of his own
unworthiness, and therefore unholiness. In this consciousness he
sought refuge, with simple and childlike faith, in God's love and
mercy, which thus assured him of forgiveness and salvation, of
victory over the world and the devil, and of the freedom wherewith a
child of God may use the things of this world. He clung fondly to
simple, childlike forms of faith, and to common rites and
ordinances. Every morning he used to repeat with his children the
Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and a psalm. 'I do
this,' he says in one of his sermons, 'in order to keep up the
habit, and not let the mildew grow upon me.' He took part faithfully
in the church services; he who was wont to pray so unceasingly and
fervently in his own chamber declared that praying in company with
others soothed him far more than private prayer at home.

Lofty, nay proud as was the self-assurance he expressed in his
mission, and though possessed, as Mathesius says, of all the heart
and courage of a true man, yet he was personally of a very plain and
unasserting manner: Mathesius calls him the most humble of men,
always willing to follow good advice from others. Like a brother he
dealt with the lowliest of his brethren, while mixing at the same
time with the highest in the land with the most perfect and
unconscious simplicity. Troubled souls, who complained to him how
hard they found it to possess the faith he preached, he comforted
with the assurance that it was no easier matter for himself, and
that he had to pray God daily to increase his faith. His saying, 'A
great doctor must always remain a pupil,' was meant especially for
himself. The modesty which made him willing, even in the early days
of his reforming labours, to yield the first place to his younger
friend Melancthon, he displayed to the end, as we have seen in
reference to Melancthon's principal work, the 'Loci Communes.'
Whenever he was asked for a really good book for theological studies
and the pure exposition of the gospel, he named the Bible first and
then Melancthon's book. During the Diet at Augsburg we heard how
highly he esteemed the words even of a Brenz, in comparison with his
own. Touching Melancthon, we must add an earlier public utterance of
Luther's, dating from 1529: 'I must root out,' he said, 'the trunks
and stems.... I am the rough woodman who has to make a path, but
Philip goes quietly and peacefully along it, builds and plants, sows
and waters at his pleasure.' He said nothing of how much others
depended on his own power and independence of mind, not only as
regarded the task of making the path, but in the whole business of
planting and working, and how Melancthon only stamped the gold which
Luther had dug up and melted in the furnace. The later years of his
life were embittered by the conviction, gradually forced upon him,
that his former strength and energy had deserted him. His remarks on
this subject seem often exaggerated, but they were certainly meant
in all seriousness: he felt as he did, because the urgent need of
completing his task remained so vividly impressed upon his mind. He
wished and hoped that God would suffer him--the now useless
instrument of His Word--to stand at least behind the doors of His
kingdom. He wrote to Myconius, when the latter was dangerously ill,
saying that his friend must really survive him: 'I beg this; I will
it, and let my will be done, for it seeks not my own pleasure, but
the glory of God.'

With childlike joy he recognised God's gifts in nature, in garden
and field, plants and cattle. This joy finds constant expression in
his 'Table Talk,' and even in his sermons. It was chiefly awakened
by the beauties of spring. With sorrow he declares it to be the
well-earned penalty of his past sins that in his old age he should
not be able, as he might do and had need of doing, on account of the
burdens of business, to enjoy the gardens, the bud and bloom of tree
and flower, and the song of the birds. 'We should be so happy in
such a Paradise, if only there were no sin and death.' But he looks
beyond this to another and a heavenly world, where all would be
still more beautiful, and where an everlasting spring would reign
and abide.

Among all the gifts which God has bestowed upon us for our use and
enjoyment, music was to him the most precious; he even assigned to
it the highest honour next to theology. He himself had considerable
talent for the art, and not only played the lute, and sang
melodiously with his seemingly weak but penetrating voice, but was
able even to compose. He valued music particularly as the means of
driving away the devil and his temptations, as well as for its
softening and refining influence. 'The heart,' he said, 'grows
satisfied, refreshed, and strengthened by music.' He noticed, as a
wonder wrought by God, how the air was able to give forth, by a
slight movement of the tongue and throat, guided by the mind, such
sweet and powerful sounds; and what an infinite variety there was of
voice and language among the many thousand birds, and still more so
among men. Luther's best and most valued means of natural
refreshment, and the recreation of his mind and body, remained
always his intercourse and friendship with others--with wife and
children, with his friends and neighbours. Such was his own
experience, and so he would advise the sorrowful who sought his
counsel in like manner to come out of their solitude. He saw in this
intercourse also an ordinance of Divine wisdom and love. A friendly
talk and a good merry song he often declared to be the best weapon
against evil and sorrowful thoughts.

About his own bodily care and enjoyment, even with all his
conviction of Christian liberty and his hostility to monkish
scruples and sanctity, he cared very little. He was content with
simple fare, and he would forget to eat and drink for days amid the
press of work. His friends wondered how such a portly frame could be
consistent with such a very meagre diet, and not one of his hostile
contemporaries has ever been able to allege against him that he had
belied by his own conduct the zeal with which he inveighed against
the immoderate eating and drinking of his fellow-Germans; but he
preserved his Christian liberty in this matter. In the evenings he
would say to his pupils at the supper-table, 'You young fellows, you
must drink the Elector's health and mine, the old man's, in a
bumper. We must look for our pillows and bolsters in the tankard.'
And in his lively and merry entertainments with his friends the 'cup
that cheers' was always there. He could even call for a toast when
he heard bad news, for next to a fervent Lord's Prayer and a good
heart, there was no better antidote, he used to say, to care.

His physical sufferings were chiefly confined to the pains in his
head, which never wholly left him, and which increased from time to
time, with fresh attacks of giddiness and fainting. The morning was
always his worst time. His old enemy, moreover--the stone--returned
in 1548 with alarming severity. Some time since an abscess had
appeared on his left leg, which seemed at the time to have healed.
Finding that a fresh breaking out of it seemed to relieve his head,
his friend Ratzeberger, the Elector's physician, induced him to have
a seton applied, and the issue thus kept open. His hair became
white. He had long been speaking of himself as a prematurely old
man, and quite worn out.

In spite of his sufferings he retained his peculiar bearing with
head thrown back and upturned face. His features, especially the
mouth, now showed more plainly even than in earlier life the calm
strength acquired by struggles and suffering. The pathos which later
portraits have often given to his countenance is not apparent in the
earlier ones, but rather an expression of melancholy. The deep glow
and energy of his spirit, which even Cranach's pencil has failed
wholly to represent, seems to have found chief expression in his
dark eyes. These evidently struck the old rector of Wittenberg,
Pollich, and the legate Caietan at Augsburg; it was with these that,
on his arrival at Worms, the legate Aleander saw him look around him
'like a demon'; it was these that 'sparkled like stars' on the young
Swiss Kessler, so that he could 'hardly endure their gaze.' After
his death, another acquaintance of his called them 'falcon's eyes';
and Melancthon saw in the brown pupils, encircled by a yellow ring,
the keen, courageous eye of a lion.

This fire in Luther never died. Under the pressure of suffering and
weakness, it only burst forth when stirred by opposition into new
and fiercer flames. It became, indeed, more easily provoked in later
life, and produced in him an irritation and restless impatience with
the world and all its doings. His full and clear gaze was fixed on
the Hereafter.

CHAPTER VIII.

LUTHER'S LAST YEAR AND DEATH.

The Emperor Charles, after concluding the peace of Crespy with King
Francis, turned his policy entirely to ecclesiastical affairs. The
Pope could no longer resist his urgent demand for a Council, and
accordingly a bull, of November 1544, summoned one to assemble at
Trent in the following March. With regard to the Turks, the Emperor
sought to liberate his hands by means of a peaceful settlement and
concessions. He entered into negotiations with them in 1545, in
which he was supported by an ambassador from France. These led
ultimately to the result that the Turks left him in possession, on
payment of a tribute, of those frontier fortresses which he still
occupied, and which they had previously demanded from him, and
agreed to a truce for a year and a half. 'This is the way,'
exclaimed Luther, 'in which war is now waged against those who have
been denounced so many years as enemies to the name of Christ, and
against whom the Romish Satan has amassed such heaps of gold by
indulgences and other innumerable means of plunder.'

Meanwhile the Elector John had commissioned his theologians to
prepare the scheme of reformation which was to be submitted
according to the decree of the Diet at Spires. On January 14,1545,
they sent him a draft compiled by Melancthon. Luther headed with his
own the list of signatures. It was a last great message of peace
from his hand. The draft set forth clearly and distinctly the
principles of the Evangelical Church; but expressed a hope that the
bishops of the Catholic Church would fulfil the duties of their
office, and promised them obedience if they accepted and furthered
the preaching of the gospel in its purity. This was too moderate for
the Elector. His chancellor Bruck, however, assured him that Luther
and the others were agreed with Melancthon, though the document bore
no evidence of 'Doctor Martin's restless spirit.'

Nor did Luther even here insist on that strong expression of opinion
with regard to the Lord's Supper which he himself gave to the
doctrine of Christ's Bodily Presence in the Sacrament. They only
spoke briefly of the 'receiving the true Body and Blood of Christ,'
and of the object and benefit of this reception for the soul and for
faith.

But Luther now unburdened his heart with redoubled energy and
passion against the Pope and the Popedom, of which no mention had
been made in the draft. In January 1545 he learned of that Papal
letter in which the Holy Father had protested to his son the
Emperor, with pathetic indignation, against the decrees of the Diet
at Spires. Luther at first took it seriously for a forgery--a mere
pasquinade--until he was assured by the Elector of the genuineness
of this and another and similar letter, and thus provoked to take
public steps against it. He thought that, if the brief was genuine,
the Pope would sooner worship the Turks--nay, the devil himself--than
ever dream of consenting to a reform in accordance with God's Word.
Accordingly, he composed his pamphlet 'Against the Popedom at Rome,
instituted by the Devil.' In this his 'restless spirit' spoke out
once more with all its strength; he poured out the vials of his wrath
in the plainest and most violent language--more violent than in any
of his earlier writings--against the Antichrist of Rome. The very
first word gives the Pope the title of 'the most hellish Father.'
Luther is not surprised that to him and his Curia the words 'free
Christian German Council' are sheer poison, death, and hell. But he
asks him, what is the use of a Council at all if the Pope arrogates
to himself beforehand, as his decrees fulminate, the right of altering
and tearing up its decisions. Far better to spare the expense and
trouble of such a farce, and say, 'We will believe and worship your
hellship without any Councils.' The piece of arch-knavery practised
by the Pope in himself announcing a Council against Emperor and Empire
was, in fact, nothing new. The Popes from the very first had practised
all kinds of devilish wickedness, treachery, and murder against the
German Emperors. Luther recalls to mind how a Pope had caused the
noble Conradin to be executed with the sword. Paul III., in his
admonition to his 'son' the Emperor Charles, referred in pious strain
to the example of Eli, the high-priest, who had been punished for not
rebuking his sons for their sins. Luther now points him to his own,
the Pope's natural son, whom the Pope was so anxious to enrich; he
asks if Father Paul then had nothing to punish in him. It was well
known what tricks Paul himself, with his insatiable maw, was playing
together with his son with the property of the Church. Further, he
puts before the Pope his cardinals and followers, who forsooth needed
no admonition for their detestable iniquities. But his dear son
Charles, it seemed, had wished to procure for the German Fatherland
a happy peace and unity in religion, and to have a Christian Council,
and, finding he had been made a fool of by the Pope for four-and-twenty
years, sat last to convene a national Council. This was his sin in the
eyes of the Pope, who would like to see all Germany drowned in her own
blood: the Pope could not forgive the Emperor for thwarting his
horrible design. Luther dwells at length on such reflections in his
introduction, and then says 'I must now stop, for my head is too
weak, and I have not yet come to what I meant to say in this
treatise.' This was the three points, as follow: Whether, indeed, it
was true that the Pope was the head of Christendom; that none could
judge and depose him; and that he had brought the Holy Roman Empire
to the Germans, as he boasted so arrogantly he had done. On these
points he then proceeds to enlarge once more with a wealth of
searching proof. On the last point we hear him speak once more as a
true German. He wished that the Emperor had left the Pope his
anointing and coronation, for what made him truly Emperor was not
these ceremonies, but the election of the princes. The Pope had
never yielded a hairsbreadth to the Empire, but, on the contrary,
had plundered it immoderately by his lying and deceit and idolatry.
The book concludes thus: 'This devilish Popery is the supreme evil
on earth, and the one that touches us most closely; it is one in
which all the devils combine together. God help us! Amen.'

Cranach published a series of sketches or caricatures, controversial
and satirical, against the Popedom, some of which are cynically
coarse, one of them representing to his countrymen the murder of
Conradin, the Pope himself beheading him, and another a German
Emperor with the Pope standing on his neck. Luther added short
verses to these pictures. But he disapproved of one of Cranach's
caricatures, as insulting to woman.

We have seen already what degree of importance Luther attached to a
Council appointed by the Pope. The Protestants could not, of course,
consent to submit to the one at Trent. On the other hand, their demand
that the Council must be a 'free' and a 'Christian' one in their sense
of the terms was an impossibility for the Emperor and the Catholics;
for it meant not only their independence of the Pope--which he could
never assent to--but also a free reversion to the single rule and
standard of Holy Scripture, with a possible rejection of tradition
and the decrees of previous Councils. The Emperor thereupon granted
something for appearance sake to the Protestant States by arranging
another conference on religion to be held at Ratisbon in January
1546. He told the Pope, in June 1545, that he could not engage to
make war on the Protestants for at least another year. The Council
was opened in December 1545, without the Protestants taking any part
in it.

While all this was going on, the newly-opened rupture between Luther
and the Swiss remained unhealed. In the spring of 1545 Bullinger
published a clever reply to his 'Short Confession.' It could,
however, effect no reconciliation, for, mild as was its language in
comparison with the violence of Luther's, it made too much merit of
this mildness, while, as Calvin, for example, accused the author, it
imputed more to Luther than common fairness justified, took him to
task for his manner of speaking, and contributed nothing to an
understanding in point of dogma. From the impression produced by
this letter upon Luther, fears were entertained again for
Melancthon, who had continued to maintain a friendly correspondence
with Bullinger; and Melancthon himself felt very anxious about the
result. But not one harsh or suspicious or unkind word was uttered
by Luther. He only wished to answer the Zurichers briefly and to the
point, for he had written, he said, quite enough on the subject
against Zwingli and Oecolampadius, and did not want to spoil the
last years of his life with arrogant and idle chatter. He only
inserted afterwards in a series of theses, with which he replied in
the late summer of that year to a fresh condemnation pronounced
against him by the theologians of Louvain, an article against the
Zwinglians, declaring that they and all those who disgraced the
Sacrament by denying the actual bodily reception of the true Body of
Christ were undoubtedly heretics and schismatics from the Christian
Church. This doctrinal antagonism was sufficient even now, when the
test of actual war was imminent, to keep the Swiss excluded from the
League of Schmalkald.

Luther still continued, in the face of menaces, to trust in God, his
Helper hitherto, and he found in the latest signs of the times still
more convincing proof of the End, which seemed to be at hand. In the
miserable oppression of the Germano-Roman Empire by the Turks he saw
a sign of its approaching downfall, as also in the impotence
displayed by the Imperial Government even in small matters of
administration. There was no longer any justice, any government; it
was an Empire without an Empire; and he rejoiced to believe that
with the end of this Empire the last day--the day of salvation--was
approaching.

But more painful and harassing to him than even the threats of the
Romanists and the attacks upon his teaching, which his own words, he
was convinced, had long since refuted, was the condition of
Wittenberg and the university. It was a favourite reproach against
him of the Catholics that his doctrine yielded no fruits of strict
morality. Notwithstanding all the rebukes which he had uttered for
years, we hear of the old vices still rampant at Wittenberg--the
vices of gluttony, of increasing intemperance and luxury, especially
at baptisms and weddings; of pride in dress and the low-cut bodices
of ladies; of rioting in the streets; of the low women who corrupted
the students; of extortion, deceit, and usury in trade; and of the
indifference and inability of the authorities and the police to put
down open immorality and misdemeanours. Things of which there were
growing complaints at that time in the German towns and universities
became intolerable to the aged Reformer, who had no longer the power
to bring his whole influence to bear upon his own fellow-townsmen.

In the summer of 1545 he was tortured again by his old enemy the stone.
On Midsummer day his tormentor--as he wrote to a friend--would have
done for him had God not willed it otherwise. 'I would rather die,' he
adds, 'than be at the mercy of such a tyrant.'

A few weeks later he sought refreshment for mind and body in a
journey. He first travelled with his colleague Cruciger by way of
Leipzig to Zeitz, where Cruciger had to settle a dispute between two
clergymen. On the road he was cordially received by several
acquaintances, and that did him good. At Zeitz he took part in the
proceedings. He was anxious to proceed farther, to Merseburg, for
his friend there, George of Anhalt, had seized the opportunity to
send him a pressing invitation, in order to receive from him his
consecration. But the painful experiences he had made at Wittenberg
pursued him on his travels, and were aggravated by much that he
heard about his own town. On July 28 he wrote from Zeitz to his
wife, saying, 'I should be so glad not to return to Wittenberg; my
heart is grown cold, so that I don't care about being there any
longer.... So I will roam about and rather beg my bread than vex my
poor remaining days with the disorderly doings at Wittenberg, with
my hard and precious labour all lost.' He actually wished that they
should sell the house and garden at Wittenberg, and go and live at
Zulsdorf. The Elector, he said, would surely leave him his salary
at least for one year more, near as he was to the close of his
fast-waning life, and he would spend the money in improving his
little farm. He begged his wife, if she would, to let Bugenhagen
and Melancthon know this.

The excitement, however, as might be hoped, was only temporary. To
quiet his emotion, the university at once sent Bugenhagen and
Melancthon to him, the Wittenberg magistrate sent the burgomaster,
and the Elector his private physician Ratzeberger. The Elector also
reminded him in a friendly manner that he ought to have apprised him
beforehand of his intention to take this journey, to enable him to
provide an escort and defray his expenses. The Wittenberg
theologians, sent as deputies to Merseburg, had now arrived there,
and met Luther on August 2, at the solemn consecration of George.
Luther stayed with his host for a couple of days, during which he
preached in the neighbouring town of Halle, and was here presented
by the town-council with a cup of gold. This journey improved his
health. After having paid a visit to the Elector, at his desire, at
Torgau, he returned on the l6th of the month to Wittenberg, where an
attempt was now being made to put down, by an ordinance of police,
the immorality he had denounced.

He now resumed his lectures, in which he was still busily engaged
with the Book of Genesis, and which he brought at length to an end
on November 17. He also preached at Wittenberg several times in the
afternoons, it being unadvisable for him to do so any longer in the
mornings on account of his health. He further occupied himself in
writing a sequel to his first book against the Papacy, and at the
same time meditated a letter against the Sacramentarians.

The autumn of this year brought with it a matter from Mansfeld,
having nothing indeed to do with religion or doctrine, but which
called him away from Wittenberg. The Counts of Mansfeld had long
been quarrelling among themselves about certain rights and revenues,
especially in connection with Church patronage. Luther had already
entreated them earnestly in God's name to come to a peaceful
agreement. They now at length agreed so far as to invite his
mediation, and obtained permission from the Elector, who, however,
would rather have seen Luther spared this trouble. Luther all his
life had cherished a warm and grateful affection for this his early
home; whilst labouring for his great Fatherland of Germany, he
called Mansfeld his own special fatherland. Wearied as he was, he
resolved to serve his home once more.

At the beginning of October, accordingly, he journeyed thither with
Melancthon and Jonas, but his visit proved in vain, since the
Counts, before he could do anything for them, were called away to
war. He held himself in readiness, however, to make a second
attempt.

In the meantime Luther quickly composed another pamphlet, with
reference to the Duke of Brunswick, who three years before had been
driven from his country by the Landgrave Philip and the Saxon
princes, and had now suddenly invaded it again, but was defeated and
taken prisoner by the combined forces of the allied princes,
assisted also by the Counts of Mansfeld. At the instigation of the
chancellor Bruck, and with the consent of his Elector, Luther
addressed a public letter to the princes and the Landgrave, and had
it printed. In it he warned them not to allow--as Philip for various
reasons seemed inclined to do--so dangerous a prisoner to go free,
and thereby to tempt God. Behind the Duke he saw the Pope and the
Papists, without whom he would never have been able to carry on his
campaign. They should at any rate wait and see until the thoughts of
hearts should be further revealed. None the less did he warn the
victors against self-exaltation and arrogance.