Luther's life is both the epos and the tragedy of his age. It is an epos because its first part presents a hero and a prophet, who conquers apparently insuperable difficulties, and opens a new world to the human mind, without any power but that of divine truth and deep conviction, or any authority but that inherent in sincerity and unflinching, unselfish courage. But, Luther's life is also a tragedy; it is the tragedy of Germany as well as of the hero, her son, who in vain tried to rescue his country from unholy oppression, and to regenerate her from within, as a nation, by means of the gospel; and who died in unshaken faith in Christ and in his kingdom, although he lived to see his beloved fatherland going to destruction, not through, but in spite of, the Reformation.

Both parts of Luther's life are of the highest interest. In the epic part of it we see the most arduous work of the time,—the work for 200 years tried in vain, by councils and by prophets and martyrs, with and without emperors, kings, and princes,—undertaken by a poor monk alone, who carried it out under the ban both of the pope and the empire. In the second, we see him surrounded by friends and disciples, always the spiritual head of his nation, and the revered adviser of princes and preacher of the people; living in the same poverty as before, and leaving his descendants as unprovided for as Aristides left his daughter. So lived and died the greatest hero of Christendom since the apostles; the restorer of that form of Christianity which now sustains Europe, and (with all its defects) regenerating and purifying the whole human race; the founder of the modern German language and literature; the first speaker and debater of his country; and, at the same time, the first writer in prose and verse of his age.

And in what state had he found his native country? The once free and powerful aggregate of nations, which had overthrown the western empire, conquered Gaul, and transmuted healthier blood into the Romanized Celtic population of Britain, had gradually been broken up into nearly 400 (with the barons of the empire, 1200) sovereignties, under a powerless imperial government represented by emperors bent upon the destruction of nationality, and by an oligarchic diet with seven electoral princes at its head, three of whom, as ecclesiastics, were creatures of the pope, while the remaining four, imitating the emperor, were occupied rather with the selfish interests of their princely Houses than with those of their country. When, in 1486, Maximilian was to be elected king of the Romans, and when he became emperor (in 1493), Archbishop Berthold, elector of Mayence, a great and patriotic man, had prepared, with some other German princes, a plan for a sort of national executive, the members of which were not to be installed, as hitherto, by the emperor alone, but appointed by the Diet and the electors, in order to form a federal senate to co-operate with the emperor. But the Austrian prince, son-in-law of Charles of Burgundy, and heir to his kingly estates, was liberal in promises, unfulfilled, having lived not only to maintain but to strengthen the imperial autocracy. His great comfort on his deathbed was the reflection that his whole life had been devoted to the aggrandizement of his own House of Austria. The smaller German lords and knights of the empire made a last attempt to maintain their independence, and to restore the ancient liberties of the German nation; but acting in a lawless manner and without any political wisdom, they were crushed by the united power of the emperor and the electors. The more eminent and powerful portion of the mass of the nation was represented by the wealthy towns, which had purchased from the emperors the privileges of free imperial cities; and which, with the Hanseatic towns, would have formed, united with the estate of the knights, the most complete constituent parts of a House of Commons, by the side of the princes, dukes, and counts of the empire as House of Peers. The formation of such an effective federal empire must have been in the mind of those enlightened men, who, at the election of Maximilian, perceived that a constitution was necessary to prevent Germany from becoming a mere domain of the emperors. A truly representative government, federal and unitary, monarchical and aristocratical and popular, would have followed, as a matter of course, from such a beginning as that proposed. But since the failure of that plan nothing effectual had been accomplished; isolation and separation became more complete; the peace of the land was enforced at last, although imperfectly; and the imperial tribunal established by Maximilian acted with insufficient authority, and, as was believed, not with equal justice. The greatest iniquity was the condition of the peasantry. The freeholders had in many parts of Germany been, if not absorbed, at least considerably diminished by the feudal system; but the great grievances were the illegal abuses which had grown out of that system and the always increasing exactions of the lords of the manor, who, particularly in Southern Germany, had reduced the peasants to real serfs,—men who had to render unlimited services and scarcely could support life. There had been insurrections of peasants particularly along the Upper Rhine in 1491 and again in 1503; but being without leaders, they were each time crushed after a bloody struggle, and the ultimate result was still greater amount of hardship. The chains of the sufferers were riveted. In short, Germany was suffering from all the same evils as France and England without having gained that unity and strength of government which in those countries had resulted from similar struggles. On the other hand, however, the age was one of general progress. The invention of printing had given wings to the human mind; philosophy had opened the sources of historical knowledge as well as of philosophy and poetry; astrology began to give way to astronomy, and the idea of the universe emerged out of Jewish and other fables. As to Germany in particular, the cradle of the art of printing, Augsburg and other great cities were, with the Hanseatic towns, centres of European commerce, and partook of the resources opened by the discovery of America. The religious mind, too, had been awakened since the days of Wycliffe and of Huss. Believing Christendom, and, above all, believing Germany, had hoped for a real reform of the church, the abuses of which were doubly felt in consequence of the shameful immorality of the popes, and the ever-increasing exactions of the court of Rome. The issue of immense efforts on the part of emperors, princes, and people, was, that the council of Constance delivered Huss to the flames, and both the councils of Constance and Basle ended in a more decided supremacy of the Roman pontiffs. Certainly the religious mind of Germany was not a little damped by these disappointments; but the thirst after a reform was not quenched by the evident unwillingness of Rome to reform itself. The wise and good men of the time, however, could not discover any means to achieve what was generally desired and demanded. The faith in human, and gradually also in divine justice upon earth, had long disappeared in unfortunate Italy, as the writings of the age prove; but now it threatened to vanish even in the minds of the Germans, in whom that faith may be called eminently their innate individual and national religion. The Bible had been repeatedly printed in the vernacular tongue, but it was, and continued to be, a book closed with seven seals. There was a general feeling that the gospel ought to be made the foundation of purified religion and doctrine; but where was the man to resuscitate its letter and spirit, and to find the way from Christ to the soul through the darkness and the fictions, the usages and the abuses, of the intervening centuries? The voice of the Friends of God with Tauler at their head had been choked in blood, like that of the Waldenses; and then, supposing such an evangelical basis to have been found, was the existing state of injustice and wrong to continue? Were the emperors to continue to sacrifice the empire to their dynastic interests,—the princes and the nobles to their covetousness and licentiousness? Yes; would not the overthrow of the ecclesiastical power lead to universal conflagration, and rebellion and destruction, and thus Christendom be thrown back into a worse barbarism than that out of which they were anxious to emerge? In short, the work (so it seemed) could not be undertaken but in despair or in enthusiastic faith. In the former case it must succumb necessarily; but even if begun with the faith of Wycliffe and of Huss, would not the attempt in any case lead to a long-continued struggle, the end of which none of those who began it could live to witness? Who should enter on so tremendous a course?

Such was the work to be done, and such were the general and peculiar difficulties and the state of things in Germany, when Luther undertook it. Luther devoted a life of almost supernatural energy and suffering to secure its basis; and although at his death he left it surrounded by the greatest dangers, and one hundred years of bloody struggle were succeeded by another hundred years of agony and of exhaustion, still the Reformation survived, and proved essentially the renovating element of mankind instead of being (as its enemies prophesied) the promoter of revolution. It subsists to this hour as the only durable preserver of all liberties religious or political; and the nations and states which have embraced the Reformation are those only which have escaped the revolutions which for seventy years have agitated those of the Roman faith.

The life of him who was the beginner of this great and holy work, and who broke down the double tyranny of pope and emperor arrayed against him, must therefore be considered from a higher point of view than that of individual biography, or sectarian panegyric, or national vanity and prejudices. The article upon Luther will have to be treated from the central point of the universal history of mankind. This must be also the rule for fixing the epochs of Luther's life. One of the reasons why this life is not yet fully appreciated is, that it is not sufficiently understood; and this again arises in great measure from the want of due observation of the critical points in the development of the Reformation and of the history of Europe, and of Germany in particular.

We shall divide the following condensed but complete survey into three periods. The first will be the period of preparation, extending to Luther's first publication of theses against the indulgences, 31st October 1517; the second will comprise the next eight years of preaching the gospel and gospel doctrine in its three fundamental parts; the third is that of political and theological struggles, from 1525 to his death in 1546;—preparation, progressive action, and then struggle within and without. Luther's grand character and true piety shine in both periods of his public career; but the culminating point of his active and creative agency is in the first. It is, according to our view, the year 1523 which forms the critical epoch. In 1524 the foundation of the practical realization of the principles of the Reformation was laid with triumphant success. The year 1525 began hopefully, but it ended with the preparation for a struggle, of which Luther felt at once that he never should see the end. Before the close of 1525 he gave up the cause of Germany, not in consequence of any fault committed by himself, but because he saw that his party was not prepared for the struggle with the empire, and was still less resigned to leave the matter to God, who, as Luther firmly believed to his death, would never allow his work to perish till the end of the world. But was not the end of the world coming now?

First Period:—The Years of Preparation; or, the first Thirty-four Years of Luther's Life—(1483–1517).

Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, in the county of Mansfeld, in Thuringia, on the 10th November 1483, on the eve of St Martin's Day, in the same year as Raphael, nine years after Michael Angelo, and ten after Copernicus. His father was a miner, descended from a family of poor but free peasants, and possessed forges in Mansfeld, the small profits of which enabled him to send his son to the Latin school of the place. There Martin distinguished himself so much, that his father (by that time become a member of the municipal council) intended him for the study of the law. In the meantime, Martin had often to go about as one of the poor choristers, singing and begging at the doors of charitable people at Magdeburg and at Eisenach, to the colleges of which towns he was successively sent. His remarkable appearance and serious demeanour, his fine tenor voice and musical talent, procured him the attention and afterwards the support and maternal care of a pious matron, wife of Gotta, burgomaster of Eisenach, into whose house he was taken. Already, in his eighteenth year, he surpassed all his fellow-students in knowledge of the Latin classics, and in power of composition and of eloquence. His mind took more and more a deeply religious turn; but it was not till he had been for two years studying at Eisenach that he discovered an entire Bible, having until then only known the ecclesiastical extracts from the sacred volume, and the history of Hannah and Samuel. He now determined to study Greek and Hebrew, the two original languages of the Bible. A dangerous illness brought him within the near prospect of death; but he recovered, and, prosecuted, his study of philosophy and law, and tried hard to gain inward peace by a pious life and the greatest strictness in all external observances. His natural cheerfulness disappeared; and after experiencing the shock of the death of one of his friends by assassination in the summer of 1505, and soon after that, being startled by a thunderbolt striking the earth by his side, he determined to give up the world and retire into the convent of the Augustinians at Erfurt— much against the wishes and advice of his father, who, indeed, most strongly remonstrated. Luther soon experienced the uselessness of monastic life and discipline, and suffered from the coarseness of his brethren, who felt his exercises of study and meditation to be a reproach upon their own habits of gossiping and mendicancy. It was at this period that he began to study the Old Testament in Hebrew, yet continuing to fulfill scrupulously the rules of his order. "I tormented myself to death," he said at a later period, "to make my peace with God, but I was in darkness and found it not." The vicar-general of the order, Johann Von Staupitz, who had passed through the same discipline with the same result, comforted him by those remarkable words, which remained for ever engraven in Luther's heart—"There is no true repentance but that which begins with the love of righteousness and of God. Love him then who has loved thee first." In the struggles which followed Luther's real beginning of a new life, and in the perplexities into which Augustin's doctrine of election threw him, the book which, after the Bible, exercised the greatest and most beneficial influence upon his mind was that practical concentration of the sermons and other works of Tauler—the enlightened Dominican preacher and Christian philosopher of the middle of the fourteenth century—the *Theologia Germanica*, written by an anonymous author towards the latter part of that century, of which we shall have to speak hereafter.

When Luther regained his mental health, he took courage to be ordained priest in May 1507. Next year the Elector of Saxony nominated him professor of philosophy at the university of Wittemberg; and in 1509 he began to give, as bachelor in divinity, biblical lectures. These lectures were the awakening cause of new life in the university, and soon a great number of students from all parts of Germany gathered round Luther. Even professors came to attend his lectures and hear his preaching. The year 1511 brought an apparent interruption, but in fact only a new development of Luther's character and knowledge of the world. He was sent by his order to Rome on account of some discrepancies of opinion as to its government. His first impression of the city was that of profound admiration, soon mixed with a melancholy recollection of Scipio's Homeric exclamation on the ruins of Carthage. The tone of flippant impiety at the court and among the higher clergy of Rome, under Julius II., shocked the devout German monk. He then discovered the real state of the world in the centre of the western church; and often in after life he used to say—“I would not take 100,000 florins not to have seen Rome.” Always anxious to learn, he took during his stay Hebrew lessons from a celebrated rabbi, Elias Levita; but the grand effect upon him was, that now for the first time he understood Christ and St Paul—“The just shall live by faith”—that mighty saying with which he had begun at Wittemberg his interpretation of the Bible, now sounded on his ears in the midst of Rome. He saw that external works are nothing; that the pious spirit in which any work is done or any duty fulfilled,—an humble handicraft or the preaching of sermons,—is the only thing of value in the eye of God. On his return to the university, the favour of Staupitz and the generosity of the elector procured him a present of fifty florins (ducats) to defray the expenses of his promotion to the degree of Doctor of Divinity at the end of 1512. The solemn oath he had to pronounce on that occasion (to most only a formulary without deep meaning) “to devote his whole life to study, and faithfully to expound and defend the holy Scripture,” was to him the seal of his mission. He began his biblical teaching by attacking scholasticism, which at that time was called Aristotelianism. He showed that the Bible was a deeper philosophy: that, teaching the nothingness and wickedness of man as long as he is a selfish creature, it refutes and condemns all philosophical tenets which consider man separately from his relation to Deity. All his contemporaries praised as unparalleled the clearness of his Christian doctrine, the impressive eloquence of his preaching, and the mildness and sanctity of his character. Erasmus himself exclaimed—“There is not an honest divine who does not side with Luther.” Christ's self-devoted life and death—Christ crucified, was the centre of his doctrine; God's eternal love to mankind, and the sure triumph of faith, were his texts. Already, in 1516, philosophical tenets deduced from these spiritual principles were publicly defended at academical disputations, over which he presided. Luther himself preached at Dresden and other places the doctrine of justifying and vivifying faith; and then accepted, for a short time, the place of vicar-general of his order in that year. Even in the convents, spiritual, moral Christianity made its way in spite of forms and observances. When the plague came to Wittemberg, he remained when all others fled—“It is my post, and I have to finish my commentary upon the Epistle to the Galatians. Should brother Martin fail, yet the world will not fail.”

Thus came the year of the Reformation, 1517. With more boldness than ever, the new pope Leo had sent, in 1516, agents through the world to sell indulgences, and the man chosen for Saxony, Tetzel the Dominican, and his band were among the most zealous preachers of this iniquity. “I would not exchange,” said he in one of his harangues, “my privilege (as vender of the papal letters of absolution) against those which St Peter has in heaven; for I have saved more souls by my indulgences than the apostle by his sermons. Whatever crime one may have committed”—naming an outrage upon the person of the Virgin Mary—“let him pay well and he will receive pardon. Likewise the sins which you may be disposed to commit in future, may be atoned for beforehand.” But he soon found that a spirit had been awakened among the serious minds of Germany to which such blasphemies were revolting. Luther preached and spoke out against this horrible abuse, which he said he could not believe to be sanctioned by the pope. As a great exhibition of relics, together with indulgences, was to take place on the day of All Saints in the church of Wittemberg, Luther appeared on the eve, 31st October, in the midst of the pilgrims who had flocked to the festival, and posted up at the church door the ninety-five theses against indulgences and the superstitions connected with them, in firm although guarded language. The Reformation began, like that of St John the Baptist, by the preaching of inward penitence, in opposition to penance and to absolution purchasable by gold; but Luther's preaching had the advantage that it was based upon man's redemption by Christ. Penitence was preached, as originating in the consciousness of man's unworthiness, God's mercy, and the redemption through Christ as placed before us in the gospel. The entire doctrine of these immortal Theses is summed up in the two last (94, 95), which run thus:—“The Christians are to be exhorted to make every effort to follow Christ their head through the cross, through death and hell; for it is much better they should through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven, than acquire a carnal security by the consolations of a false peace.” A great deed had been done that evening; a door had been opened for mankind into a course whose end is even now far from being reached. Those words—not the result of design and premeditation, but of the irresistible impulse of an honest mind brought face to face with the horrible reality of blasphemy—soon echoed through the whole world. Luther's public life had opened; the Reformation had begun.

**Second Period:**—*The First Part of the Public Life of Luther, or the time of Progressive Action.*

The pilgrims had come to Wittemberg to buy indul- Luther, and returned with the theses of Luther in their hands, and the impression of his powerful evangelical teaching in their hearts. Luther was urged on in his great work by German not by his friends, who were timid and terrified, but by the violence and frenzy of Tetzel and his adherents, and soon afterwards by the despotic acts of the Pope Leo X., who, having at first despised the affair as a monk's quarrel, thought he could crush it by arbitrary acts. The national mind in Germany had taken up the matter with a moral earnestness which made an impression not only upon the princes, but even upon bishops and monks. Compelled to examine the ancient history of the church, Luther soon discovered the whole tissue of fraud and imposture by which the canon law of the popes—the decrets—had been, from the ninth century downwards, foisted, advisedly and purposely, upon the Christian world. There is not one essential point in the ancient ecclesiastical history bearing upon the question of the invocation of saints, of clerical priesthood, and of episcopal and metropolitan pretensions, which his genius did not discern in its proper light. It is a remarkable fact, and must needs be considered by the philosopher of history as a proof of the spirit of God having guided Luther, that what he saw and said, at the earliest stage of historical criticism, respecting ecclesiastical forgeries and impostures, has all proved true. Soon after Luther, the Centuriators Magdeburgici, the fathers of criticism as to ecclesiastical history, took the matter up. Of course, the Romanists denied their assertions for 200 years, and wherever they dare, they still come back to the old fables and falsehoods. But the learned discussion has been given up, step by step, reluctantly, and with a very bad grace. Whatever Luther denounced as fraud or abuse from its contradiction to the canonical worship, may be said to have been since openly or tacitly admitted to be such. But what produced the greatest effect at the time were his short popular treatises exegetical and practical. Among these are particularly remarkable his Interpretation of the Magnificat or the Canticle of the Virgin Mary, his deep and earnest Exposition of the Ten Commandments, and his Exposition of the Lord's Prayer, which latter soon found its way into Italy, although without Luther's name, and which has never yet been surpassed, either in genuine Christian thought or in style. Having resolved to preach in person throughout Germany, Luther appeared in the spring of 1518 in Heidelberg, where a general meeting of his Order was held. The count palatine, to whom Luther had been introduced by the elector of Saxony, received him very courteously. In order to rouse the spirit of the professors, he held a public disputation on certain theses, called by him paradoxes, by which he intended to make apparent the contrast of the external view of religion taught by the schoolmen, and the spiritual and energetic view of gospel truth based upon justifying faith. It was here that Bucer, then a Dominican monk, but soon a zealous Reformer and controversialist, and the man who, after Calvin, had among foreigners the greatest influence upon the English Reformation, heard the voice of the gospel in his own heart, and resolved to confess and preach it at the university.

"It is not the pope (said Luther in one of his disputations) who governs the church militant of Christ, but Christ himself; for it is written that 'Christ must reign till he has put all his enemies under his feet.' He evidently has not done so yet. Christ's reign, in this our world, is the reign of faith; we do not see our Head, but we have Him."

On his return to Wittenberg in May 1518, Luther wrote and published an able and moderate exposition of the theses, and sent it to some German bishops. He then proclaimed the absolute necessity of a thorough reformation of the church, which could only be effected, with the aid of God, by an earnest co-operation of the whole of Christendom. But already Rome meditated his excommunication, uttering threats which he discussed with great courage and equanimity, saying, "God alone can reconcile with himself the fallen soul: He alone can dissolve the union of the soul with himself: blessed the man who dies under an unjust excommunication." In requesting his superior to send his very humble letter to Pope Leo, in which he declared his readiness to defend his cause, Luther added,—"Mark, I do not wish to entangle you in my own perilous affair, the consequences of which I am ready to bear alone. My cause is Christ's and God's." In the meantime, Luther was cited repeatedly to appear before the pope's tribunal at Rome. Leo, indeed, graciously promised to pay the expenses of his journey, which certainly would have been no large outlay, as none would have been required for his return. But Luther constantly declined summonses and invitations, and proposed instead one or other of the German universities as judge. This proposal was, of course, not acceptable to Rome, and therefore he was summoned before the pope's legate in Germany.

The pope's legate was Cardinal Cajetanus. Luther was summoned to appear before him at Augsburg, and all burg before princes and cities were threatened with the interdict, if the legate, they did not deliver Luther into the hands of the pope's tribunal. It was in these critical circumstances that Luther formed his acquaintance with Melanchthon, who soon became his most faithful friend, and remained his zealous adherent for life. When Melanchthon and all his other friends advised Luther not to go to Augsburg to be given up to the machinations of the legate, he replied,—"They have already torn my honour and my reputation, let them have my body, if it is the will of God; but my soul they shall not take." He undertook the journey, as a good monk, on foot; only provided with letters of recommendation from the elector, and accompanied by two friends, but without a safe conduct. He arrived at Augsburg on the evening of the 7th October 1518, almost exhausted by the hardships of the journey. The cardinal and his assistants employed in vain alternately threats and blandishments; scholastic arguments fell powerless, as he answered them by the Bible, and demanded to be refuted by the Word of God, to which he showed the decrets to be opposed, and therefore, according even to the declaration of the canonists, of no value. For these reasons he constantly refused to retract, as he was required to do, his two propositions,—the one that the treasure of indulgences is not composed of the merits of Christ; the other, that he who receives the sacrament must have faith in the grace offered to him. Luther left Augsburg after having addressed a firm but respectful letter to the legate; and his friends, who were sure that his life was not safe a moment longer, escorted him before daybreak out of the town on horseback. On his return to Wittenberg, he found the elector in great anxiety of mind, in consequence of an imperious missive of the cardinal legate. Luther wrote to the prince a dignified letter, saying,—"I would, in your place, answer the cardinal as he deserves for insulting an honest man without proving him to be wrong; but I do not wish to be an encumbrance to your highness; I am ready to leave your states, but I will not go to Rome." The elector refused to deliver him up to the legate, or to send him out of the states. Luther would have gone to France if deprived of his asylum in Saxony. The elector, however, having desired him to leave Wittenberg, and Luther being on the point of obeying his orders, the prince, touched by his humility and firmness, allowed him to remain and to prepare himself for a new conference. At the end of 1518, the papal bull concerning indulgences appeared, confirming the old doctrine, without any reference to the late dispute. Luther had already appealed from the pope to a general council.

The years 1519, 1520, 1521, were the time of a fierce but triumphant struggle with the hitherto irresistible power Luther's writings of this period are the finest productions of his pen. His book *On Good Works* is the best exposition of the doctrine of justification by faith. Melanchthon says, in reference to this treatise,—"No writer ever came nearer St Paul than Luther has done." In the same year (1520) he published that grand address to the nobles of the German nation, *On the Reformation of Christendom*, which may be considered as the finest specimen of the political and patriotic wisdom of a Christian. There he shows the reality and supreme dignity of the universal priesthood of Christians, and at the same time demands a thorough reform of the social system of Germany and Italy, beginning with the abrogation of the usurped power of the pope, while he calls for a national system of education as the foundation of a better order of things. This address, published on the 28th June 1520, electrified the nation. It was this appeal which first moved the patriotic and sainted spirit of Ulrich Zwinglie, the Swiss Reformer, who tried in vain to dissuade Rome from endeavouring to crush Luther by a bull of excommunication. It was too late. The great step had been decided upon.

Luther meanwhile continued his course of preaching and lecturing at Wittenberg, where nearly 2000 students were assembled. He published at this time his *Treatise on the Mass*, in which he applied to the sacraments the pervading doctrine of faith, proving from Scripture that every sacrament is dead without faith in God's word and promises. But his most striking work of this period is that on the *Babylonian Captivity of the Church* (October 1520), in which he boldly took the offensive against Rome, attacking papacy in its principles. It is remarkable that in this treatise he speaks of the baptism of infants, who necessarily are incapable of faith, as of an apparent contradiction, which, however, might be defended. Man is to have faith in the baptismal vow (to be ratified later, after the necessary instruction), and therefore he must not allow himself to be bound by any other vow, and must consider the work of his vocation, whatever it be, as equally sacred with that of priest or monk. Till the Christian church is organized upon that principle, the Christian people live in Babylonian captivity. In order to please some of his friends, and show to the world that he was not intractable, he addressed a letter to Leo X., and enclosed a treatise, *On the Liberty of the Christian*. He pitied the pope for having been thrown like Daniel into the midst of wolves, and predicts that the Roman court (*Curia Romana*) will fall because she hates reform, and that the world will be obliged, sooner or later, to apply to her the words of the prophet—"We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed; forsake her, and let us go every one unto his own country" (Jerem.-li.9). "O most holy father," he adds, "do not listen to those flattering syrens around you."

The treatise itself is a sublime and succinct exposition of the two truths, that by faith the soul acquires all that Christ has, and becomes free through Him; but then it begins to serve His brethren voluntarily from thankfulness to God. The pope's bull arrived in due time; but found the German nation deaf to its curses, and armed against its arguments. It was called Dr Eck's bull; and Luther, raised, on the 4th November, his voice of thunder against it in a short treatise *Against the Bull of Antichrist*; and, on the 17th of the same month, he drew up, before a notary and five witnesses, a solemn protest, in which he appealed to a general council. After this manifesto, he invited the Barmen university, on the 10th of December 1520, to see the anti-pope's bull. Christian bull burnt before the church door, and said,—"Now the serious work begins; I have begun it in the name of God—it will be brought to an end by his might." But where was the power to resist the pope, if the emperor supported the pope's cause? And, indeed, he had promised this support to the pontifical minister soon after his coronation. Luther, at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 22d October. He declared, however, at the same time, that he must act with every possible regard towards the elector; and this prince had courage enough to propose, as the only just measure, to grant to Luther a safe conduct, and place him before learned, pious, and impartial judges. Erasmus, whom he invited in order to learn his opinion, said,—“There was no doubt that the more virtuous and attached to the gospel any man was, the more he was found to incline towards Luther, who had been condemned only by two universities, and by them had not been confuted.”

The emperor agreed at last to the proposal of the elector Frederic, and convened a diet at Worms for 6th January 1521, where the two questions of religion and of a reform in the constitution of the empire were to be treated. Luther, though in a suffering state of health, resolved immediately to appear when summoned. “If the emperor calls, it is God’s call,—I must go; if I am too weak to go in good health, I shall have myself carried thither sick. They will not have my blood, after which they thirst, unless it is God’s will.” Two things I cannot do,—shrink from the call nor retract my opinions.” The nuncio and his party, on their side, moved heaven and earth to procure Luther’s condemnation, and threatened the Germans with extermination, saying,—“We shall excite the one to fight against the other, that all may perish in their own blood”—a threat which the papists have carried out to the best of their power during 200 years. The emperor permitted the nuncio to appear officially in the diet, and to try to convince the princes of the empire there assembled. Alexander tried in vain to communicate to the assembly his theological hatred, or to obtain that Luther should be condemned as one judged by the pope, his books burnt and his adherents persecuted. The impression produced by his powerful harangue was only transitory: even princes who hated Luther personally, would not allow his person and writings and the general cause of reform to be confounded, and all crushed together. The abuses and exactions of Rome were too crying. A committee, appointed by the diet, presented a list of 101 grievances of the German nation against Rome. This startled the emperor, who, instead of ordering Luther’s books to be burned, issued only a provisional order that they should be delivered to the magistrates. When Luther heard of the measures preparing against him, he composed one of his most admirable treatises.—The Exposition of the Magnificat, or the Canticle of the Virgin Mary. He soon learnt what he was expected to retract. “If that is meant, I remain where I am; if the emperor will call me to have me put to death, I shall go.” The emperor summoned him, indeed, on the 6th March 1521, to appear before him, and granted him at last a safe conduct, on which all his friends insisted. Luther, in spite of all warnings, set out with the imperial herald on the 2d April. Everywhere on the road he saw the imperial edict against his book posted up, but witnessed also the hearty sympathies of the nation. At Erfurt the herald gave way to the universal request, and, against his instructions, consented to Luther’s preaching a sermon,—none the less remarkable for not containing a single word about himself.

On the 16th Luther entered the imperial city amidst an immense concourse of people. On his approach to Worms, the elector’s chancellor entreated him, in the name of his master, not to enter a town where his death was decided. The answer which Luther returned was simply this:—“Tell your master, that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter.” When surrounded by his friends on the morning of the 17th, on which day he was to appear before the august assembly, he said,—“Christ is to me what the head of the gorgon was to Perseus: I must hold it up against the devil’s attack.” When the hour approached, he fell upon his knees, and uttered in great agony a prayer such as can only be pronounced by a man filled with the spirit of Him who prayed at Gethsemane. Friends took down his words; and the authentic document has been published by the great historian of the Reformation. He rose from prayer and followed the herald. Before the throne he was asked two questions,—Whether he acknowledged the works before him to have been written by himself? and whether he would retract what he had said in them? Luther requested to be told the titles of the books, and then, addressing the emperor, acknowledged them as his; as to the second, he asked for time to reflect, as he might otherwise confound his own opinions with the declarations of the Word of God, and either say too much, or deny Christ and say too little, incurring thus the penalty which Christ had denounced,—“Whosoever shall deny me before men will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” The emperor, struck by this very measured answer, which some mistook for hesitation, after a short consultation, granted a day’s delay for the answer, which was to be by word of mouth. Luther’s resolution was taken: he only desired to convince his friends, as well as his enemies, that he did not act with precipitation at so decisive a moment. The next day he employed in prayer and meditation, making a solemn vow upon the volume of Scripture to remain faithful to the gospel, should he have to seal his confession with his blood. Luther’s address to the emperor has been preserved, and is a masterpiece of eloquence as well as of courage. Confining his answer to the first point, he said, that “nobody could expect him to retract indiscriminately all he had written in those books, since even his enemies admitted that they contained much that was good and conformable to Scripture. But I have besides,” he continued, “laid open the almost incredible corruptions of popery, and given utterance to complaints almost universal. By retracting what I have said on this score, should I not fortify rank tyranny, and open a still wider door to enormous impieties?” Nor can I recall what, in my controversial writings, I may have expressed with too great harshness against the supporters of popery, my opponents, lest I should give them encouragement to oppress Christian people still more. I can only say with Christ,—“If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil” (John xviii. 23). I thank God I see how that the gospel is in our days, as it was before, the occasion of doubt and discord. This is the doctrine of the Word of God,—“I am not come to send peace but a sword!” (Matt. x. 34). May this new reign not begin, and still less continue, under pernicious auspices. The Pharaohs of Egypt, the kings of Babylon and of Israel, never worked more effectually for their own ruin than when they thought to strengthen their power. I speak thus boldly, not because I think that such great princes want my advice, but because I will fulfil my duty towards Germany, as she has a right to expect from her children.” The emperor, probably in order to confound the poor monk, who having been kept standing so long in the midst of such an assembly, and in a suffocating heat, was almost exhausted in body, ordered him to repeat the discourse in Latin. His friends told him he might excuse himself; but he rallied boldly, and pronounced his speech in Latin with the same composure and energy as at first; and the reiterated question, Whether he would retract? Luther replied,—“I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to councils, for it is clear that they have often erred and contradicted themselves. I will retract nothing, unless convicted by the very passages of the Word of God which I have quoted.” And then, looking up to the august assembly before him, he concluded, saying,—“Here I take my stand: I cannot do otherwise: so help me God. Amen!” The courage of Luther made a deep impression even upon the emperor, who exclaimed,—“Forsooth, the monk speaks with intrepidity, and with a confident spirit." The chancellor of the empire said,—"The emperor and the state will see what steps to take against an obstinate heretic." All his friends trembled at this undisguised declaration. Luther repeated, "So help me God! I can retract nothing." Upon this he was dismissed, then recalled, and again asked whether he would retract a part of what he had written. "I have no other answer to make," was his reply. The Italians and Spaniards were amazed. Luther was told the diet would come to a decision the next day. When returning to his inn, he quieted the anxious multitude with a few words, who, seeing the Spaniards and Italians of the emperor's household follow him with imprecations and threats, exclaimed loudly, in the apprehension that he was about to be conducted to prison.

The elector and other princes now saw it was their duty to protect such a man, and sent their ministers to assure him of their support. The next day the emperor declared, "he could not allow that a single monk should disturb the peace of the church, and he was resolved to let him depart, under condition of creating no trouble; but to proceed against his adherents as against heretics who are under excommunication, and interdict them by all means in his power; and he demanded of the estates of the empire to conduct themselves as faithful Christians." This address, the suggestion of the Italian and Spanish party, created great commotion. The most violent members of that party demanded of the emperor that Luther should be burnt, and his ashes thrown into the Rhine; and it is now proved that, towards the end of his life, Charles reproached himself bitterly for not having thus sacrificed his word for the good of the church. But the great majority of the German party, even Luther's personal enemies, rejected such a proposition with horror, as unworthy of the good faith of Germans. Some said openly they had a child, misled by foreigners, for an emperor. The emperor decided at last that three days should be given to Luther to reconsider what he had said. The theologians began to try their skill upon him. "Give up the Bible as the last appeal; you allow all heresies have come from the Bible." Luther reproached them for their unbelief, and added: "The pope is not judge in the things that belong to the Word of God; every Christian man must see and understand himself how he is to live and to die." Two more days were granted, without producing any other result than Luther's declaration,—"I am ready to renounce the safe conduct, to deliver my life and body into the hands of the emperor; but the Word of God, never! I am also ready to accept a council, but one which shall judge only after the Scripture." "What remedy can you then name?" asked the venerable archbishop of Trèves. "Only that indicated by Gamabel," replied Luther; "if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God" (Acts v. 38, 39).

Frederic the Wise knew well that Luther's life was no longer safe anywhere at this moment. Charles pronounced an edict of condemnation, couched in the severest terms. Luther was placed under the ban of the empire. After twenty-one days his safe conduct would expire, and all persons be forbidden to feed or to give him shelter, and enjoined to deliver him to the emperor or to place him in safe keeping till the imperial orders should arrive; all his adherents were to be seized, and their goods confiscated; his books burnt; and the authors of all other books and prints obnoxious to the pope and the church were to be taken and punished. Whoever should violate this edict should incur the ban of the empire.

This Draconian edict had been passed by the majority; the friends of Luther, foreseeing the issue, had left Worms previously. Such was the condign punishment that befell the Germans for having chosen as their emperor the most powerful foreign prince of Europe, brought up among the most bigoted of nations. Under these circumstances, Frederic did what he could. In the forest of Thuringia, not far from Eisenach, Luther (who was not in the secret) was stopped by armed knights, set upon a horse, and conducted to the fortified castle above Eisenach—the Wartburg. Here the dress of a knight was ready for him. He was desired to consider himself as a prisoner, and to let his beard grow. None of his friends, even at Wittemberg, knew what had become of him. He had disappeared; the majority believed he had been kidnapped by his powerful enemies. Such was the indignation of the people at this supposed treachery, that the princes opposed to the Reformation, and even the pope's agents, began to be alarmed, and took pains to convince the people that Luther had not met with ill usage.

Luther remained ten months at the Wartburg; and it was here that he began his greatest work, the translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek text. Although suffering much in health from the confinement, which he modified latterly by excursions in the woods around the castle, he soon began also to compose new works, and obtained the necessary books through Melanchton, to whom he in time made known that he was safe.

It is a most astonishing fact, highly characteristic both of Luther and of the German nation, that, though for nearly four years, the true doctrine of the gospel had been preached through Germany, and the Romish rites and ceremonies exhibited as abuses, that yet not one single word or portion of these ceremonies had been changed. Luther consciously believed, what may be called the latent conviction of his countrymen, that inward truth will necessarily correct outward errors, and mould for itself fitting forms of expression. "The Spirit of God," he often said, "must first have regenerated minds, imbued with true gospel doctrine; then the new forms will result naturally from that Spirit." But it was clearly an unnatural and highly dangerous state of things, that the outward acts of worship should be utterly at variance with the belief of the worshippers; and Luther saw that if he would not take the matter in hand, others were certain to do so; the people themselves might proceed to precipitate acts. Luther felt this, and so strongly, that he broke silence; and in September published a declaration against monkish vows, in the form of theses, addressed to the bishops and deacons of Wittemberg. The audacious attempt of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Mayence, Albert of Brandenburg, to renew at Halle the sale of indulgences, called forth Luther's philippic (1st November) Against the new Idol of Halle.

This attack frightened even the court of the elector of Saxony, who was at that time rather of opinion that Luther could do nothing better than to cause himself to be forgotten. "I cannot allow him to attack my brother elector, and to disturb the public peace." Luther's greatness of soul had elevated the minds of the princes for the moment; they had saved his life, but they wished now to live in peace, such as they had before. Luther was indignant. "Do they think I suffered a defeat at Worms? It was a brilliant victory: so many against me, and not one to gainsay the truth." To Spalatin, the chaplain and adviser of the elector, he thus writes: "How, the elector will not allow me to write! and I, for my part, will not allow him to disallow my writing. I will rather destroy you, and the prince, and every creature! Having resisted the pope, should I not resist his agents?" At the request of Melanchton, he laid aside the treatise he had prepared, but wrote to the cardinal archbishop:—The God who raised such a fire out of the spark kindled by the words of a poor mendicant monk lives still; doubt it not. He will resist a cardinal of Mayence, even though supported by four emperors; for above all He lives to lay low the high cedar, and humble the proud Pharaohs. Put down the idol within a fortnight, or I shall attack you publicly."

The cardinal was frightened by the sternness of the man of God, and had the meanness to play the hypocrite. He thanked Luther by letter for his "Christian and brotherly reproof," promising, "with the help of God, to live henceforth as a pious bishop and Christian prince." Luther, however, could not credit the sincerity of this declaration—"This man, scarcely capable to rule over a small parish, will stand in the way of salvation as long as he does not throw off the mask of a cardinal and the pomp of a bishop."

The fact was, the cardinal elector wanted money. He had had to pay 26,000 ducats to Rome for his pallium, and the half of that sum he had charged upon the vendors of indulgences in his ecclesiastical province; he himself having to spend all his princely income on his court.

During these nearly ten months of seclusion, Luther's health suffered greatly, and subjected him to visions and hallucinations, in which he believed he saw the devil in form. His absence from his congregation, his students, and his friends and books at Wittemberg, weighed heavily upon him. Still, he held out patiently till events occurred which called upon the Reformer no longer to absent himself: He reappeared, without previous notice, among his friends at Wittemberg, whom he found in great commotion. Thirteen monks of Luther's own convent had left it on the ground of religious conviction, with the approbation of Melanchthon, who also countenanced the general demand for the abrogation of the mass. "What we are to celebrate," said he, "in the communion, is a sign of the grace given us through Christ, but differing from symbols invented by man by its inward power of rendering the heart certain of the will of God." This is the simplest and truest form of Luther's own view of the Lord's Supper, when he looked on it not scholastically. There is a reality in Christ's sacrifice for us; indeed, it is the reality of our destiny that we remember it, as He has hidden His disciples to do: it has therefore naturally an inward force, not an imaginary effect, like looking on a cross and similar outward forms. What calamities would the world have been spared if this view, in its profound simplicity and depth, had not been dressed up in formulæ partaking of that very scholasticism which the Reformation was to abolish! The prior of the convent discontinued from that time low masses. It was high time, indeed, that this central point of Christian worship should be taken in hand by the Reformers; for at Zwickau, in Saxony, an enthusiast, named Stork, arose, who pretended to have a commission from the archangel Gabriel to reform and govern the church and the world, and who was supported in this by a fanatic named Thomas Munzer. When they appeared at Wittemberg announcing their visions, even Melanchthon was startled, and especially hesitated as to the question of pedo-baptism. Carlstadt, Luther's disciple and friend, advocated the most revolutionary changes. He broke down the images, preached against leaning and study, and exhorted his hearers to go home and gain their bread by digging the ground. Luther did not hesitate a moment to condemn the whole movement as a delusion for men who gloried in their own wisdom, which could only cause a triumph to the enemies of reform. At an interview which he had with Munzer and Horst, they said they could prove to him that they had the Spirit; for they would tell him what now passed in his mind. Luther challenged them to the proof. "You think in your own heart that we are right," Luther exclaimed.—"Get thee behind me, Satan," and dismissed them. "They were quite right," he said to his friends afterwards; "that thought crossed my mind as to some of their assertions. A spirit evidently was in them, but what could it be but the evil one?" Here we see the difference between Luther and Melanchthon. Luther was not startled from his solid judgment as Melanchthon had been by this movement; and Melanchthon, in after years, was a more violent antagonist of anabaptism than Luther.

It was on the 3rd of March 1522 that Luther left for ever his asylum, and plunged into the midst of struggles very different in their character from those which he had hitherto so victoriously overcome. Before arriving at Wittemberg, he wrote a remarkable letter to the elector:—"You wish to know what to do in the present troublesome circumstances. Do nothing. As for myself, let the command of the emperor be executed in town and country. Do not resist if they come to seize and kill me; only let the doors remain open for the preaching of the Word of God." One of the editors of Luther's works observes on the margin,—"This is a marvellous writing of the third and last Elijah." The elector was touched by Luther's magnanimity. "I will take up his defence at the diet; only let him explain his reasons for having returned to Wittemberg, and say he did so without my orders." Luther complied, adding—"I can bear your highness' disfavour. I have done my duty towards those whom God has intrusted to me." And, indeed, he made it his first duty to preach almost daily the gospel of peace to his flock. "No violence!" he exclaimed, "against the superstitious or unbelieving. Let him who believes draw near, and let him who does not believe stand aloof. Nobody is to be constrained; liberty is essential to faith and all that belongs to it.... You have acted in faith," he said, "but do not forget charity, and the wisdom which mothers show in the care of their children. Let the reform of the mass be undertaken with earnest prayer. The power of the word is irresistible: the idols of Athens fell not by force, but before the mighty words of the apostle." This evangelical meekness of the man who had braved pope and emperor, and knew not fear, acted with divine power upon all minds. The agitation and sedition disappeared. The pretended prophets dispersed, or were silenced in public debate.

On the 21st September 1522 the translation of the New Testament appeared in 2 volumes folio, which sold at about a ducat and a half. The translation of the Old Testament was commenced in the same year. Thousands of copies were read with indescribable delight by the people; who had now access to the words of Him whom Luther had preached to them as the author of our salvation, in their mother tongue, in a purity and clearness unknown before, and never surpassed since. By choosing the Franconian dialect in use in the imperial chancery, Luther made himself intelligible both to those whose vernacular dialect was High German or Low German. Luther translated faithfully but vernacularly, with a native grace which up to this day makes his Bible the standard of the German language. It is Luther's genius applied to the Bible which has preserved the only unity which is, in our days, remaining to the German nation,—that of language, literature, and thought. There is no similar instance in the known history of the world of a single man achieving such a work. His prophetic mind foresaw that the Scripture would pervade the living languages and tongues all over the earth—a process going on still with more activity than ever.

Meanwhile the vanity and presumption of Henry VIII. induced him to publish a book against Luther, in which he heaped upon Luther every opprobrious epithet; even called in question his honesty and sincerity, and declared him worthy to be burned. His Defence of the Seven Sacraments merely recapitulates the old scholastic tradition without the slightest understanding of the Bible or of the evangelical doctrine. Henry's ambassador declared to the pope, in presenting the book, that the king was now ready to use the sword against Luther's adherents, after having refuted the errors of Luther himself. Luther, after having read the book, declared, contrary to the desire of the elector and of his other friends, that he must answer it. "Look," he writes, "what weapons are used against me; fire and the fury of those stupid Thomists. Let them burn me: alive I shall be the enemy of popery; burnt I shall be its ruin. Everywhere they will find me in their way, like a bear or a lion." In the answer itself he pays the king in his own coin. After having taken the crown from his head and beaten him like any other controversial writer, he exclaims—"I cry gospel, gospel! Christ, Christ! and they cease not to answer.—Usages, usages! ordinances, ordinances! fathers, fathers!" The apostle St Paul annihilates with a thunderstorm from heaven all these fooleries of Henry." The king wrote to the elector and the dukes of Saxony, exhorting them to extirpate this heresy, as being the revival of that of Wycliffe. Their answer referred Henry to the future council. The cause of the Reformation suffered nothing from Henry's attacks and the invectives of his courtiers. The movement against the sacerdotal and monkish vows extended through the whole of Germany—afflicting equally priests and laymen. Zealous preachers of the gospel rose from all ranks. Noble and pious women came forward to declare their faith. Luther's activity was unparalleled. In 1522 he published 130 treatises, and 83 in the following year.

The whole national literature of Germany became Protestant; and it is certainly a remarkable fact, that, in spite of the Reformation having since lost almost one-half of Germany, its literature, as well as its historical learning and philology, still remains Protestant. All the free cities, which were the cradle of the fine arts as well as of the wealth of the country, declared in favour of the Reformation. In Saxony there was, as Luther had proposed and demanded, perfect liberty of conscience; the Roman bishops had their preachers as well as the Reformers.

Luther's heart expanded in the consciousness of the Reformers' success such as he had never hoped to see. But he shrank from the idea that this work should be regarded as his, and that he should have the honour of it. "My true disciples," he said, "do not believe in Luther, but in Jesus Christ; I myself care nothing about Luther. What is it to me whether he be a saint or a miscreant? It is not him I preach, but Christ. If the devil can, let him have Christ; but if Christ remains ours, we also shall subside."

When Leo X. died in this year (1522), Adrian, the Flemish tutor of Charles V., his successor, a single-minded professor, could not (as Jarvis tells us) at first conceive how people could find a difficulty in the matter of indulgences, which he had explained so well in his lectures, till a cardinal remarked to him, that the unbelieving people had no faith in indulgences whatsoever, and that some of those who believed in Christ, thought that exactly for that reason they did not want them. "The church must reform," said he, "but step by step." "Yes," said Luther, "putting some centuries between every step." Nobody wanted his reforms less than the Romans; and Adrian exclaimed at last,—"How unfortunate is the position of the popes, who are not even free to do good."

In November 1522 the diet assembled at Nuremberg on account of an impending war with the Turks. While the nuncio and the bishops demanded Luther's death, the churches of the imperial free city resounded with the doctrine of the gospel; monks being amongst the most zealous preachers. What a change from the state of things at Worms in April 1521! The municipal council of the free city declared that if those preachers were to be seized by force, they would instantly set them free by force. The legate was obliged to abandon his plan of arresting them in the pope's name, as the diet declared itself incompetent to do so. Adrian's sincere avowal of the horrible abuses of Rome confirmed the people in the belief that Luther and the gospel were right, and made his threatening brief addressed to the elector, whom he declared worthy of death and eternal damnation, appear as ridiculous as it was arrogant. Luther and all his friends, whose advice the elector asked at this critical moment, declared that he ought not to fight for the gospel, seeing that the people, without whose consent he could not declare war, would not in the spirit of faith declare for such a measure. But other princes were frightened, because they had no faith whatever, except in superior strength and power of pope and emperor. "Let them take care," said Luther, "if they persecute the gospel, there will be a rebellion and civil war, and the princes will be in danger of losing their dominions. They wish to destroy me, but I wish to save them. Christ lives and reigns; and I shall live and reign with Him." Indeed, a bloody persecution began in many parts of Germany and in the Netherlands. Four Augustinian monks of Antwerp were the first martyrs; they were burnt on the 1st July 1523. Their blood called forth a rich harvest of new witnesses in Brussels and elsewhere.

When the successor of Adrian VI., Clement VII. (Julius de Medici), sent in 1524 the celebrated legate Campeggi to Nuremberg, he intended, according to usage, on passing through Augsburg, to give the people the papal benediction; but finding that the ceremony called forth public derision, the legate entered Nuremberg as much ineoauto as Luther had entered Worms two years before. The German princes asked what had become of the 101 grievances of the German nation, to which Rome never had deigned to return an answer. Campeggi declared the document to have been considered at Rome merely as a private pamphlet; on which the diet, in great indignation, insisted upon the necessity of an universal council, and proceeded to annul the edict of Worms; declaring, however, in their communication to the pope, that "it should be conformed to as much as possible;" which, with respect to many princes and cities, meant not at all. Finally, it was resolved that a diet, to be held at Spires in November, was to decide on religious differences. Many states which had hitherto kept aloof,—the landgrave of Brandenburg (not the elector, a strong papist) at the head,—declared immediately for the reform, and against the seven sacraments, the abuses of the mass, the worship of saints and supremacy of the pope. "That is a good move," said Luther. "Frederic must lose his electoral hat," cried the Roman agent, "and France and England must interfere." A catholic league was formed, by the Bavarian and other bishops, at Ratisbon under Campeggi's direction and presidency. But the princes were still afraid of the universally spreading national movement. Charles threw his power into the balance, and declared that not the German nation, but the emperor alone, had a right to demand a council, and the pope alone had the right to grant it. His designated successor, his brother Ferdinand, began the bloody work of persecution in the hereditary states of Austria immediately after the congress of the league at Ratisbon. At Passau in Bavaria, and at Buda in Hungary, the faggots were lighted. The dukes of Bavaria followed the same impulse.

Meanwhile, began at Wittemberg the unhappy dispute about the mode in which the consecration affected the elements in the celebration of the communion enjoined by Christ. Luther as yet had not taken up that doctrinal scholastic opinion, which afterwards produced the fatal schism. In opposing Carlstadt's view, he combated not so much the later Swiss exposition as Carlstadt's false interpretation of the words, "This is my body," which was, that Christ, in pronouncing them, had pointed to his own body, which soon would die. He admitted soon afterwards, in reference to that exposition, in 1520, that he was very near thinking the Swiss interpretation the reasonable view of the case, but that he had rejected the notion as a "tempta- But in the same manner as this dispute was a prelude to the fatal sacramental disputes with Zwinglie and Calvin, Luther's defeat in the attempt to detach the congregation of a small town (Orlamunde, near Jena) from Carlstadt, who introduced iconoclastic and violent proceedings, proved an index of the critical state of public feeling. Luther felt the urgent necessity of applying the principles of the gospel to Christian worship and to the constitutions of the church. But, on the first point, he wished changes to be introduced gradually, and rather as a purification of the existing forms, than by an abrogation. While as to the second, he felt that it was not his immediate vocation, and he thought he must leave the work to the princes, and content himself with preaching to them the leading evangelical principles. This, of course, was not the view of the real friends of the Reformation, nor was it consistent with Luther's usual profound sagacity, but must be regarded as a remnant of the effect produced by his monkish scholastic education brought into accordance with Christianity. His more practical, and perhaps impatient friends wanted to see the pagan condition of the world, with its social relations, changed into a Christian state of things, as an earnest and pledge of the reality of the gospel preaching. Still, for some time longer, Luther and the popular feeling marched peaceably together, and he remained the national as well as the theological leader. It was at this time that he directed a powerful address to the municipal councils of the German towns, in order to enlist them to establish everywhere Christian schools, as well elementary as learned. "Oh, my dear Germans (he exclaims), the divine word is now in abundance offered to you: God knocks at your door; open it to him! Forget not the poor youth. Look how the ancient Jewish, Greek, and Roman world lost the Word of God, and perished. The strength of a town does not consist in its towers and buildings, but in counting a great number of learned, serious, honest, well-educated citizens. Do not fancy Hebrew and Greek to be unnecessary. These languages are the sheath which cover the sword of the Spirit. The ignorance of the original Scriptures was an impediment to the progress of the Waldenses, whose doctrine is perfectly pure. How could I have combated and overthrown pope and sophists, even having the true faith, if I had not possessed the languages? You must found libraries for learned books,—not only the fathers, but also the pagan writers; the fine arts, law, history, medicine, must be represented in such collections." These expressions prove that from the very beginning and in the very person of Luther, the Reformation was connected with scholarship—with philology in its most extended sense, and equally with the highest aspirations of the fine arts.

Here we must conclude this first glorious period of Luther's life, which, taken altogether, has no parallel since the days of the apostle Paul. But the problem to be solved was not to be solved by Luther and by Germany: the progressive, vital element of reformation passed from Germany to Switzerland, and through Switzerland to France, Holland, England, and Scotland. Before he descended into the grave and Germany into thraldom, Luther saved (as much as was in him) his country and the world, by maintaining the fundamental principles of the Reformation against Melanchthon's pusillanimity: but three Protestant princes and the free cities were the leaders; the confession was the work of Melanchthon, but the deed of the laity of the nation. The German Reformation was made by a scholastically trained monk, seconded by professors; the Swiss Reformation was the work of a free citizen, an honest Christian, trained by the classics of antiquity, and nursed in true, hard-won, civil liberty. That was the providential saving of the world. Luther's work was continued, preserved, advanced by the work of the Swiss and French Reformers. The monk and the Semitic element began; the citizens and the Japhetic element finished. If the one destroyed Judaism, the other converted paganism, then most powerful, both as idolatry and as irreligious learning. But as long as Luther lived he did not lose his supremacy, and he deserved to keep it. His mind was universal, and therefore catholic in the proper sense of the word.

THIRD PERIOD:—Luther's Life from 1525 to 1546; or the Period of Stagnation.

The first year after Luther's return to Wittenberg was a glorious period: the true halcyon days of the Reform and of Luther's personal history. In the second period of his life, the epic was changed into tragedy; for the Anabaptist tumult arose, and the war of the peasants broke out in the Black Forest in July 1524.

The Anabaptist movement of Thomas Munzer was the War of movement of Carlstadt mixed up with wild enthusiasm, the peasantry, rebellion, and imposture. Luther's doctrinal opposition to it was constant and consistent; but it would have been more effectual if Luther had not involved himself as a schoolman in an indissoluble difficulty. He was safe in defending paedo-baptism; but that could be done without ascribing to it the power of individual regeneration: an opinion from which the greatest part of Christendom has most decisively declared its dissent all over the globe. He was equally justified in maintaining the word of the gospel: "Whoever believes, and is baptized, shall be saved;" but he ought not to have forgotten that this is a juxtaposition of two things, of which the one can only be of value as a consequence of the first. This brings the question back to a solemn profession and vow before the Christian congregation of him who, having been instructed in Christ's saving faith, finds himself ready and compelled to make that solemn promise, which St. Peter calls (1st Peter iii., 21),—"the premise (or vow) of a good conscience." Munzer and all the other so-called apostles of the Spirit attacked Luther as a mere worldly man who had sold himself to the princes. They abolished chanting and all ceremonies, and committed acts of violence against churches and convents. Luther said to Munzer,—"The spirit who moves thee must be an evil one, for it brings forth nothing but pillage of convents and churches; the greatest robbers on the earth could do no more." While combating them by preaching and writing, he advised, however, the elector to let them preach freely. "The Word of God itself must come forward and contend with them. If their spirit is the true one, Munzer will fear our constraint; if ours is the true one, he will not fear their violence. Let the spirits meet with all might, and fight each other. Perhaps some will be seduced; well, there is no battle without wounds; but he that fights faithfully will be crowned. But if they have recourse to the sword, then defend your own subjects, and order the Anabaptists to leave the country."

It was indeed a wonderful faith that produced such toleration in these times, and it had a wonderful result—the elector's states remained undisturbed. Munzer fled into Switzerland.

It was otherwise with the war of the peasants. We have already observed that the Reformation did not originate the rebellion of the peasants, but found it prepared. The first coalitions of the peasants against the intolerable rapacity and cruelty of the feudal aristocracy had begun before the close of the fifteenth century; then they broke out along the Upper Rhine, in Alsace, and the palatinate, in 1503; consequently 18 years before the beginning of Luther's Reformation. No doubt Luther's preaching, in the spirit of the gospel, against all the revolting injustice and oppression of the conscience of Chris- Lutherian men, had kept back that movement for a time; but Munzer carried the spirit of rebellion and fanaticism among the peasants and part of the citizens of the countries of the Upper Rhine. The fact was, that all the oppressed inclined towards Luther, and the oppressors, most of whom were the sovereigns, bishops, and abbots, towards the pope. The struggle which now began was therefore between the reforming and the papist party, and it was easily to be foreseen that Luther would soon be dragged into it. Indeed, the revolutionary movement was already, in January 1525, extending from the Black Forest to Thuringia and Saxony, the very heart of Luther's sphere of action. The peasants had proclaimed twelve articles, of half biblical half political character. In the introduction to these articles they protest against the imputation of wanting anything but the gospel applied to the social body. They declare their desire to uphold its injunctions—peace, patience, and union. There is no doubt that many of them were sincere in their professions. At all events, neither the gospel nor its true preachers and followers were the revolutionists, but the wild, selfish, passionate enthusiasts among them and their leaders. Like the Puritans in the following century, the peasants say they raise their voice to God who saved the people of Israel; and they believe that God can save them as well from their powerful oppressors as he did the Israelites from the hand of Pharaoh.

As to what they demanded in their twelve articles, all impartial historians declare that on the whole their demands were just; and all of them are now the law of Germany. As to the influence of the Reformation, the very words of Scripture brought forward this time by the peasants, prove clearly that Luther's preaching of the gospel and of truth had not acted upon the movement as an incentive but as a corrective. It was Luther himself who now, in the critical moment, brought the Word of God to speak out against the insurrection, as being in itself an act of unchristian self-defence, although he acknowledged their case to be very hard, and their cause, on the whole, a just one. Luther's position was grand; he spoke as the arbiter between lord and peasant; in the name of Christ exhorting both parties to peace, and as a good citizen and patriot giving them advice equally practical and Christian. He first speaks thus in substance to the lords:—"I might now make common cause with the peasants against you, who impute this insurrection to the gospel and to my teaching; whereas I have never ceased to enjoin obedience to authority, even to one so tyrannical and intolerable as yours. But I will not envenom the wound; therefore, my lords, whether friendly or hostile to me, do not despise either the advice of a poor man, or this edition; not that you ought to fear the insurgents, but fear God the Lord, who is incensed against you. He may punish you and turn every stone into a peasant, and then neither your cuirasses nor your strength would save you. Put then bounds to your exactions—pause in your hard tyranny—consider them as intoxicated—and treat them with kindness, that God may not kindle a fire throughout Germany, which none will be able to extinguish. What you may perhaps lose will be made good to you a hundred-fold by peace. Some of the twelve articles of the peasants are so equitable that they dishonour you before God and the world; they cover the princes with shame, as the 109th Psalm says. I should have yet graver things to tell you respecting the government of Germany, and I have addressed you in this cause in my book to the German nobility. But you have considered my words as wind, and therefore all these demands come now upon you. You must not refuse their demand as to choosing pastors who preach to them the gospel; the government has only to see that insurrection and rebellion be not preached; but there must be perfect liberty to preach the true gospel as well as the false. The remaining articles, which regard the social state of the peasant, are equally just. Government is not established for its own interest, nor to make the people subservient to caprice and evil passions, but for the interest of the people. Your exactions are intolerable; you take away from the peasant the fruit of his labour, in order to spend his money upon your finery and luxury. So much for you."

"Now, as regards you, my dear friends, the peasants. Luther's address to the lords. You want the free preaching of the gospel to be secured to address to you. God will assist your just cause if you follow up your work with conscience and justice. In that case you are sure to triumph in the end. Those of you who may fall in the struggle will be saved. But if you act otherwise you are lost, soul and body, even if you have success, and defeat the princes and lords. Do not believe the false prophets who have come among you, even if they invoke the holy name of the gospel. They will call me a hypocrite, but I do not mind that. I wish to save the pious and honest men among you. I fear God and none else. Do you fear Him also, and use not His name in vain, that He may not punish you. Does not the Word of God say: 'He who takes up the sword, shall perish by the sword;' and 'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers?' You must not take justice into your own hands; that is also the prescription of the natural law. Do you not see that you put yourself in the wrong by rebellion? The government takes away part of what is yours, but you take away all in destroying principle. Fix your eye on Christ at Gethsemane rebuking St Peter for using the sword although in the defence of his master; and on Christ on the cross praying for his persecutors. And has not his kingdom triumphed? Why have pope and emperor not been able to put me down? Why has the gospel spread the more the greater the effort they made to hinder and destroy it? Because I have never had recourse to force, but preached obedience even towards those who persecuted me, depending exclusively on God. But whatever you do, do not try to cover your enterprise by the cloak of the gospel and the name of Christ. If war there must be, it will be a war of pagans, for Christians use other weapons: their general suffered the cross, and their triumph is humility: that is their chivalry. Pray, my dear friends, stop and consider before you proceed further. Your quotations from the Bible do not prove your case."

After having thus spoken out boldly and fearlessly to each party, Luther concludes with a touching expostulation to both. "The substance of his address is in these words:—'You see you are both in the wrong, and are drawing the divine punishments upon you and upon your common country, Germany. My advice would be that arbitrators should be chosen, some from the nobility, and some from the towns. You both have to give up something: let the matter be settled equitably by human law.'"

This certainly was the voice of the true prophet of the age, if ever there was any. It was not heard. The lords showed little disposition towards concessions, and what they did offer came too late, when the bloody struggle had already begun. The peasants, excited by Munzer, exceeded, on their side, all bounds, and Luther felt himself obliged, when the stream of rebellion and destruction rolled on to Thuringia and Saxony, to speak out most strongly against them. The princes leagued together (for the empire, of course, did nothing, Charles having full employment in Spain), and the peasants were routed everywhere. Fifty thousand of their party were slain or butchered by wholesale executions. Among this number there were many of the quietest and most moderate people made victims in the general slaughter, because they were known or suspected to be friends of the Reformation and of Luther, which indeed all the citizens and peasants of Germany were at that time.

None felt more deeply this misery, and what it involved in its effects on the cause of the gospel in Germany; and he never recovered the shock. He thus unburdens his soul at the close of this fatal year, which crushed for centuries the rights and hopes of the peasants and labourers, and weakened the towns and cities, the seats of all that was best in the national life.—"The spirit of these tyrants is powerless—cowardly—estranged from every honest thought. They deserve to be the slaves of the people. But by the grace of Christ I am sufficiently revenged by the contempt I have for them, and for Satan their god. And in the next year he said, "I fear Germany is lost; it cannot be otherwise, for they will employ nothing but the sword."

In all this Luther stands higher than ever, but as a sufferer. He sees the work in Germany is lost for this time. He submits, and is supported by his faith. So he is consoled when he sees how Ferdinand of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria imprison and slaughter Christians on account of the gospel, and that not only the pope and the emperor are league together against the Reformation, but also the king of France, besides the king of England. All the powers of the world are against him: Germany is doomed to perish, but the word and the work of God cannot perish. Even the sad results of a general visitation of the churches which he undertook throughout the states of the elector did not shake his faith. He sees how ignorant and savage all these wars and revolts have rendered even the Protestant congregations; but he says the spirit of God will not forsake them. The elector Frederic, Luther's timid but honest supporter, had descended into the tomb on the 5th May 1525, confessing on his deathbed his firm belief in Christ as his only saviour. His successor, John, known by the well-deserved name, John the Constant, followed in his footsteps, and was a firm friend to Luther.

But the Roman league also gained friends in the north of Germany. Duke George of Saxony had, in July of this year, concluded at Dessau an alliance against the Reformation with Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, and with the dukes of Brunswick, and proved himself in earnest by causing two citizens of Leipzig to be beheaded for having the writings of Luther in their houses. At the same time, Charles declared from Spain his intention to hold a diet at Augsburg, evidently in order to crush the Reformation by means of the Catholic league acting in the name of the empire. His victory at Pavia made him more than ever the master of Germany. Finally, the remains of the party of Munzer declared they would take the life of Luther as a traitor.

It was under such suspires that Luther decided at last to take a wife, as he had long advised his friends among the priests and monks to do. They had often reminded him of his profession, and of the duty of himself setting an example to prove his sincerity. His father himself urged him continually to marry. All around him was now in a stationary, if not a retrograde state. The university of Wittenberg had suffered much during the late troubles, and it was generally believed that the new elector did not mean to support it. Luther's warm and loving heart opened the more readily to the contemplation of matrimonial union with Catharina von Bora, a lady 24 years of age, of a noble Saxon family, in 1523, who had left her convent, together with eight other sisters, in order to worship Christ without the oppression nor peace to the soul. Since that time they had lived together in utter retirement, forming a free Christian community. Pious citizens at Torgau were their protectors, and by them they were presented to Luther in the convent of the Augustinians. Soon followed, as we have seen, the great regenerative movement of the Christian worship; and Luther appeared, on the 9th October 1524, before the congregation in the simple habit of a secular priest. Luther soon remained alone in the convent; all the monks had left it. At the end of the year he sent the key to the elector, who, however, desired him to continue to inhabit it. In the meantime, Luther had observed and witnessed the Christian faith and life of Catharina von Bora, and on the 11th of June he married her, in the presence of Lucas Cranach, the celebrated painter, and of another friend, as witnesses. Catharina von Bora had no dowry, and Luther lived on his appointment as professor; he would never take money for any of his books, but only some copies for presents. His marriage was a happy one, and was blessed with six children. Luther was a tender husband and the most loving of fathers.

The princes who were friendly to the Reformation gradually gained more courage; the Elector John of Saxony established the principle in his states that all rites should be abrogated which were contrary to the Scriptures, and that masses for the dead be abolished at once. The young Landgrave Philippe of Hesse gained over the son of the furious Duke George to the cause of the Reformation. Albert, Duke of Prussia, had established it at Konigsberg, as hereditary duke, abolishing the vows of the Order, whose master he had been, saying:—"There is only one Order, and that is Christendom." At the request of the pope, Charles placed Albert under interdict as an apostate monk. The Alliance to evangelical princes found in all these circumstances a still stronger motive to act at Augsburg as allies in the cause of the evangelical party; and when the diet opened in December 1525, they spoke out boldly:—"It is violence which brought on the war of the peasants. If you will by violence tear the truth of God out of the hearts of those who believe, you will draw greater dangers and evils upon you." The Romanist party was startled. "The cause of the holy faith" was adjourned to the next diet at Spire. The landgrave and the elector made a formal alliance in February 1526, at Torgau.

Luther being consulted as to his opinion, felt helpless. "You have no faith; you put not your trust in God; leave all to Him." The landgrave, the real head of the evangelical alliance, perceived that Luther's advice was not practical—that Luther forsook the duty of self-defence and the obligation to do one's duty according to the dictates of reason, in religious matters as well as in other political questions. But the alliance found no new friends. Germany showed all her misery by the meanness of her princes and the absence of any great national body to oppose the league formed by the pope, the emperor, and the Romanists, throughout Europe. The archbishop of Treves preferred a pension from Charles to the defence of the national cause. The evangelically-disposed palatine desired to avoid getting into trouble on that account. The imperial city of Frankfort, thus surrounded by open enemies and timid friends, declined to accede to the alliance. There was more national feeling and courage in the Anglo-Saxon north of Germany. The princes of Brunswick, Luxemburg, Mecklenburg, Anhalt, and Mansfeld, assembled at Magdeburg, and made a solemn and heroic declaration of their resolution to pledge their estates, lives, states, and subjects, for the maintenance of the holy Word of God, relying on Almighty God, as whose instruments they would act." The town of Magdeburg (which then had about three times as many inhabitants as now) and Duke Albert of Prussia adhered to the alliance. The league doubled its efforts. Charles, strong and rendered safe by the peace of Madrid concluded with Francis, sent word from Seville in March 1526, through the Roman Duke Henry of Brunswick, that he would soon come himself to crush the heresy. Luther saw the dangers crowding around him; his advice was—"We are threatened with war; let us force our enemies to keep the peace, conquered by the Spirit of God, before whose throne we must now combat with the arms of prayer; that is the first work to be done."

Towards the end of 1525, Luther had resolved to answer a book which had been written against him in the previous au- Luther's reply.

Erasmus was in his heart rather a sceptic; he would in his earlier days have professed openly the cause of the gospel, and defended it with his superior erudition and knowledge, had he believed in its success; but neither the Swiss nor the German Reformation gave him that certainty, and thus, at last, he gave way to King Henry and others, who urged him to attack Luther. No controversy has been less generally understood than this; but it may also be said that it might have been carried on not only with less malice by Erasmus, but also with more speculative skill by Luther. The antagonism is essentially the same as that of Augustine and Pelagius, or that between the Jansenists and Jesuits: a better speculative method and a deeper philosophy of the mind have since shown how the scholastic method never could solve that most important as well as most difficult problem. We have no hesitation in saying that the result of dialectic metaphysics is no other than that Luther was perfectly right and Erasmus totally wrong, in this dispute; but it was hopeless from the beginning. Erasmus defined free will as the faculty of man to decide for himself; be it for good or evil. Consequently, to deny his thesis in this sense would have been to deny the moral responsibility of man. But Luther's ideas respecting moral free will were as dissonant from this terminology as St Paul's reasoning on faith, from the use of that word in the sense in which St James employs or rather attacks it. In regard to Luther's terms and fundamental ideas, we have touched upon them in speaking of the influence of Tauler and of the *Theologia Germanica* upon his mind, when he was disturbed by what appeared to him the dreadfull consequences of the doctrine of grace and election. That theology of the German school of the fourteenth century rested upon a simpler, because deeper basis than that of Augustine, and, more lately, of Calvin and Pascal. There is in man, as a creature, the power of self-will; this is not only evil as such, but the root of all evil, and sin. The power of deciding whether or not to commit an action is therefore nothing but the power of measuring and contrasting selfish principles, neither of which being good, can produce good actions. There is no power against this selfishness of the creature but the divine principle. This, the old German school maintained, is equally an inherent element in man,—not as a creature, but as God's image,—and the instrument of the infinite, divine Spirit, which is essentially goodness, and love of what is good and true as such, apart from any reference to ourselves. To follow up this view successfully, it is evidently necessary not to establish an absolute separation between the divine principle in itself (in God, the infinite) and in man; and this was not clearly understood by Augustine (whose influence upon Luther was paramount, in consequence of his earliest impressions), and still less skilfully used by Luther. The absurdities to which, as each of the combatants proved of his opponent, the consistent following up of an antagonistic principle conducts, are shown by Kant to be the necessary organic consequence of our reasoning with finite notions upon the infinite; his antinomies of free will and necessity are those of Erasmus and Luther, divested of theological and dogmatic terms. But the same philosophy (and Kant himself, in his *Moral Philosophy*, and his *Philosophy of Religion*), shows that Christianity and the analysis of conscience and moral consciousness of ourselves teach equally what Luther maintained against Erasmus. The rationalism of Erasmus and of the Jesuits is condemned by this philosophy; and whatever may be thought of the philosophical demonstration (which we think capable of great simplification), St John and St Paul are certainly irreconcilable with it. "Erasmus ignores God," said Luther, "and that word is more powerful than any scholastic argument." Erasmus felt himself crushed by Luther's strong hits, against which his eloquence availed him nothing. "The victory must remain," Luther said, "with stammering truth, not with lying eloquence;" and he concluded thus: "Who ever possessed so much science and eloquence, and such art in speaking and in writing? I have nothing of all this; but I glory in one thing—I am a Christian. May God raise you in the knowledge of the gospel infinitely above me, so that you may surpass me as much in this respect as you do already in all others." Erasmus henceforth lost all measure and philosophical equanimity, never having sought truth for its own sake.

The diet of Spires, which was to put an end to Luther's Reformation, opened on June 25, 1526. Ferdiand indeed republished, on the 3d of August, the decree of Seville, enjoining strict execution of the edict of Worms; but, in the meantime, Clement the VII, having Luther's quarrelled with Charles, and Ferdinand being called to Hungary in order to maintain against Soliman and other competitors the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, left him, to 1529, by King Louis after the battle of Mohacz, Charles commissioned the famous Captain Frundsberg (the same who had good-naturedly accosted Luther at Worms, and who was devoted to the evangelical cause) to enlist an army in Germany against the pope, and thousands hastened to join his ranks in consequence. And thus the Reformation was saved this time, and a proposition presented by the cities was accepted, "that until a council met, every governor should, within his own states, act according to his conscience." Within a year, if not a universal, at least a national council was to meet. In consequence, the Reformation had time to consolidate itself from 1526 to 1529. The man of Germany at that time among the princes was the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, and he was enlightened by a citizen, James Sturm, the deputy of Strasbourg at the diet of Spire, had convinced him that the basis of the true evangelical church was the acknowledgment of the self-government of the church by synods composed of representatives of the whole Christian people. Thus the first Protestant constitution—that agreed upon in Hesse—was essentially that which has proved since to be the most universal and the most powerful. For that constitution is neither Lutheran nor Anglican, but syndical Christianity, which has converted and is now converting and conquering the world. The constitution acknowledged the episcopal element, but not episcopal rule,—sovereignty being invested in the people of God. We admit (say the articles) no word but that of our sovereign pastor. Bishops and deacons are to be elected by the Christian people; bishops are to be consecrated by the imposition of hands of three bishops; and deacons may be instituted by imposition of the hands of the elders. The general synod is to be held annually, consisting of the pastor of each parish and of pious men elected from the midst of each church, or rather congregation, or from single churches. Three men are to be elected yearly to exercise the right of visitation. This was soon found to be an inconvenient form; six superintendents (episcopi) for life were substituted. This board of superintendents became afterwards an oligarchy, and at last a mere instrument of the state—the consequence of the disruption of Germany and the paralysis of all national institutions. Luther had professed already, in 1523 and in 1524, principles entirely identical with those established in 1526 in Hesse. But there his action ceased; he left to the princes what they had no mind to carry out; and what could a people do cut up into 400 sovereignties? Never, however, did Luther acknowledge Cesaropapism or Erastianism, as a principle and as a right. He considered the rights of the Christian people as a sacred trust, provisionally deposited in the hands of their representatives. "Where (he asked) are the people to form the synods? I cannot find them." This was a political calamity or mistake, but it was not a treason to the rights of the Christian people. Still more did Luther Luther abhor the rapacity of the nobility and of the courtiers to possess themselves of the spoils of the church. It was Melanchthon's influence which facilitated the despotic system, and hampered the thorough reform of the forms of worship. Luther withdrew from a sphere which was not his. He composed, in 1529, the small and great Catechisms, of which the former has maintained its place as a guide of popular doctrine up to this day; but when measures of persecution were proposed, he raised his voice against them. He wrote, in 1528, *False Teachers are not to be put to Death; it suffices to Remove them*. While Luther preached this doctrine, the most bloody persecution went on in the estates of the elector of Brandenburg (where the electress professed courageously the principles of the gospel), in Bavaria, and, above all, in the hereditary states of Austria. In February 1528 the impetuous landgrave was on the point of committing a rash act, in consequence of a forged document which had been shown to him, purporting to be a secret convention to assassinate Luther and Melanchthon, and crush the evangelical princes. Philip infected the elector with his apprehensions, and violent measures of persecution were to be resorted to, when Luther and Melanchthon both gave, as their solemn advice, this verdict,—"The attack must not come from our side, and the guilt of blood-shedding must not come upon us. Let the emperor know of this odious conspiracy." The elector, however, assembled his troops; but the forgery was soon discovered when the document was communicated to the Romanist princes. The attitude taken by the Protestant princes had, however, the effect of making the archbishop of Mainz renounce, in 1528, the spiritual jurisdiction he had hitherto exercised over Saxony and Hesse. But among the public at large, all believed in the existence of a secret plot against the evangelical party.

Under these auspices was opened the celebrated diet of Spires in 1529. The emperor, who, in the meantime, had taken Rome, and annihilated the ambitious plans of Clement VII., now took again to his natural part. German credulity and good nature had served his turn. Now that he felt himself master of the field, he spoke as a Spanish despot; the elector and landgrave were forbidden to celebrate divine worship in their hotels, as they had done in 1527, after the use of a church had been denied them. The imperial commissioners desired to return to the edict of Worms of 1521. The solemn act of toleration voted by the diet of 1527 was abrogated by an arbitrary act of the emperor alone, contrary to the constitution of the empire. Luther, the proscribed, was not present; but Melanchthon, who had accompanied the princes, reported to him what passed. The majority of the diet passed at last, on 7th April, a resolution, that where the edict of Worms could not be executed without fear of revolution, no further reform would be allowed. This evidently was nothing but the intended forerunner of the restoration of Popery.

It was against this iniquitous decree that the elector, the landgrave, the margrave of Brandenburg, the prince of Anhalt, and the chancellor of Luneburg, together with the dignitaries of the towns, laid down that solemn protestation from which originates the name of "Protestants." "The diet has overstepped its authority," they said; "our acquired right is, that the decree of 1526, unanimously adopted, do remain in force until a council can be convened. Up to this time the decree has maintained the peace since, and we protest against its abrogation." Of thirty-five free cities, fourteen stood out firmly, when Ferdinand threatened them with the loss of their privileges. Strasburg, which was at the head of the protesting cities, was placed by this most arbitrary act under the interdict. To the princes Ferdinand declared there remained nothing for them but to submit; and he closed the diet without awaiting the resolutions of the evangelical princes, who had passed, as was the constitutional custom, into an adjoining apartment in order to deliberate. The princes then drew up their declaration, and caused it to be read to the diet, which had remained sitting when Ferdinand rose with the imperial commissioners.

The celebrated Protest of the 15th April 1529, is one of the finest and noblest documents of Christian history, displaying an apostolic faith in Christ and Scripture, and a dignified adherence to national law as far as constitutional liberties are concerned. The protesting princes and cities claim as their right, as Germans, what they consider a sacred duty as Christians,—freely to preach the Word of God and the message of salvation, that all who will hear it may join the community of the believers. This great act was, besides, an earnest of true evangelical union; for it was well known that most of the cities inclined more towards Zwingli's than towards Luther's view of the sacrament. And this union was not a negative but a positive one; it was founded on the faith, energetically and sincerely professed by Ocolampadius, as the organ of the Swiss Reformed churches, that, "with the visible symbols invisible grace is given and received."

If one considers this great act impartially, it is impossible not to see that neither Luther nor Melanchthon were the real leaders of the time. Already in 1526, Luther had so little real comprehension of what ought to be done, or was now doing in Germany, to preserve the gospel from destruction, that he wrote to a friend on the very same day that the decree of that first diet at Spires was published:—

"The diet is going on in the German way,—they drink and they gamble; for the rest, nothing is done there." He shows no sympathy for the first attempt made in Hesse at self-government of the church; still less did he see the importance of the great act now achieved at Spires by the combined courage and Christian common sense of some few princes, and all cities which could act freely. It was evident that Charles was now, after the peace of Cambray, perfect master of Germany; so far, at least, as to make it impossible that Germany should become a Protestant nation, and that the protesting princes and cities had seen the necessity of strengthening that alliance of which they had just laid the foundation. Luther dissuaded the elector from sending deputies to the meeting agreed upon to be held at Schmalkalden. "In silence and rest will be your strength," was his vote. The elector sent deputies in order to hinder that anything should be decided. Luther was proud of this success. "Christ the Lord will deliver us without the landgrave, and even against the landgrave," was his saying. This apparent blindness and perversion of mind in Luther at this time admits a twofold explanation. The first is Luther's loyal and sound policy. He abhorred rebellion, and shuddered from a civil war, even if it should be unavoidable as self-defence. He besides saw clearly that the princes, divided among themselves as they were, could do nothing against the emperor without the best part of the nation, represented by the cities; and that here, too, there was want of mutual trust and good-will, and above all of unity. But this key opens only the outer door to Luther's mind. To understand him, when he seems proof against reason, and reasoning even his own, it is necessary to consider his unshaken faith, and that he partook of the quietism of his German master, Tauler, and the *Theologia Germanica*. "Suffer God to do his work in you and about you," was the motto of that school. But the scholastic training also had its influence as to his view of the Zwinglian Reformation, and it centred in Luther's sacramentalism. This point requires a more ample consideration.

It must be confessed that there was a theological scruple at the bottom of Luther's opposition to a vigorous Protestant alliance and national attitude, which was sure not to bring on war, but to prevent it by making the execution of the aggressive plans of the pope and emperors impossible. This betrays itself, first, in an uneasiness about Zwingle's rising influence in Germany; and, second, as a doctrinal idiosyncrasy respecting the sacrament of the communion. Philip of Hesse instantly saw through this, and said—"I see they are against the alliance on account of the Zwinglians; well, let us see whether we cannot make these theological differences disappear." It is well known that all the efforts made to effect a union between the Zwinglian and Lutheran parties, from the conference at Marburg, in 1529, to the end of Luther's life, were fruitless; and it is impossible not to admit that the fault was Luther's, and that he became aware of that only on his deathbed. As we are thus arrived at the deepest tragedy of Luther's life and of the history of Protestantism, and as we must endeavour, within the narrow limits of an article, to establish historical truth on these important points, as far as it is indispensable for a true and philosophical view of Luther's life, we think it unnecessary to prove that there were no mean passions at work in Luther's mind; but we will say shortly that it was the great tragedy of the Christian mind during more than one thousand years to which Luther paid now his tribute.

When Luther was raised above himself by the great problem before him, in that glorious period of action, from 1518 to 1524, he considered the sacraments altogether as a part of the services of the church, and a secondary point, in comparison with the right view of faith, or the inward Christianity which implies necessarily an unsellish, believing, and thankful mind. Having come to the conviction that there was no inherent virtue in the elements abstractedly from the communion, it was indifferent to him how the spirituality of the action and the real presence, even the transubstantiation, might be reconciled with that faith. But when he felt himself called upon at a later period to form a theory respecting the doctrine of the sacrament, he could never get free from the action of those two theological schools, the mystical German and the Latin scholastic, in the point where they combined. Thus, to his end Luther firmly believed that the act of the priest pronouncing the words, "This is my body," produced a change in the elements, making them the body and blood of Christ, which he interpreted, however, as meaning the whole creature of Christ. Now, nothing was ever more historically erroneous. It has been shown elsewhere by the writer of this article, through an uninterrupted chain of documentary evidence of the very liturgies, from the second to the sixth century, that the recital of the words of the institution was nothing but the historical introduction to a prayer of blessing for the communicants. This prayer invoked the Spirit of God to descend upon the assembled worshipping congregation. The first step which unconsciously led to misunderstandings, was, that the blessing of God was also called down upon the elements in order to make the food prepared for the faithful the body and blood of Christ. The consecration, in other words, was put the recital of the words of institution, but a prayer, down to the time of Basilus, extemporized, or at least freely spoken, and always ending with the Lord's prayer. It is a tragic complication that the question as to what the elements became,—a question unknown and even unintelligible during the first five centuries,—should have entangled the mighty evangelical mind of the Reformer, whose appointed work was the destruction of the Romish system of delusion founded upon a total perversion of the fundamental Christian notions respecting sacrifice, priest, and atonement. It was this fatal ignorance of the oblation of the sound and organic, as well as the morbid Christian worship development, which blinded Luther to such a degree as not only to put a simply absurd interpretation upon the words of the institution, but to base the question of Christian communion between evangelical Christians upon the same, instead of allowing it to be freely discussed as a scholastic question. When staking all upon what he called a literal interpretation of the words, "This is my body," he ought to have acknowledged, at least, that others might as well take objection, if not to the absurdity of such a meaning, at least to the liberty which Luther claimed for himself at the same time, of making the body stand for the whole life contained in it, not to speak of the objection founded upon the words of institution as we find them in Luke and St Paul.

After these general observations, our historical relation of what remains to be told of Luther's life may be very short.

The first event was the conference of Marburg. The unassuming spirit of the landgrave, and the heroic self-denying devotion of Zwingle, who accepted the invitation at that and the evident risk of his life, brought about that celebrated meeting on the first days of October 1527. The frank Marburg, and liberal declarations and concessions of the Swiss Reformers soon cleared away all shadows of difference and dissent, except that about the sacrament. In the half public disputation of the 2d of October, Zwingle embarrassed Luther by observing, that if the body of Christ was in the bread and wine, in any other than a spiritual sense, he must be present in a given place, by the very nature of matter, and not above matter, in heaven. Luther parried that stroke by saying,—"I do not mind its contradicting nature, provided it do not contradict the faith." Still less could he disentangle himself from the words of Christ in the 6th chapter of St John, which Zwingle declared he could not discard, as it was a text and a clear one. Not more satisfactory was Luther's appeal to the fathers. The discussions of the four following days, however, resulted in recognizing the point of difference, but reducing its expression to the mildest form, and placing it in the background, as compared with the full statement of the points on which both parties were united. Tears of joy filled all eyes; and Zwingle, with Ecolampadius and Bucer, returned satisfied, although the promised alliance between Germany and Switzerland was not concluded owing to Luther's reluctance. Zwingle had triumphed; his views became naturalized in Germany, where hitherto they were little known, and the dreadful words of Luther,—"Submit yourselves; believe as we do, or you cannot be acknowledged as Christians," were forgotten. But no sooner had Luther returned to Wittemberg than he modified the articles in an exclusive sense, which necessarily shocked and alienated the Reformed party.

The issue of the conference at Marburg was a sad one. The diet prelude to the great and decisive diet to be held at Augsburg in 1530,—the diet immortalized by the first confession of evangelical Christendom. All the appearances were changed; the elector, who, as well as the landgrave, went there in great pomp, was received by the emperor in the most flattering manner. All was to be peace and concord in Germany. Behind the scenes we see the emperor quieting his brother Ferdinand, the head of the Romish and fanatical party, who protested against such encouragement to heresy. He writes to him:—"I shall go on negotiating without concluding anything; fear nothing if I even should conclude; there will never be pretences wanting to you to chastise the rebels, and you will find people enough too happy to offer you their power as a means of vengeance."

Charles was an Austrian tyrant and a Spanish bigot, and a great politician of the Italian school, which has procured him, even from historians of our time, the name of a great man. The only reason why he did not now follow the advice of the cardinal legate and the Spaniards, and of his own brother Ferdinand, was simply that he thought the good Germans would do the work of destruction themselves, and that in the mean time he would have in them a check upon the pope. But in his own mind he was ready to sacrifice to the bigoted party all the constitutional rights of the diet, as he had sacrificed that wonderful republic of Florence to the Medici family at the request of the holy father, who (said Charles) could not demand anything wrong; of course, least of all in a case which regarded his own house.

The diet of Augsburg is the bright point in the life of the Elector John the Constant, as the conference of Marburg is in that of the landgrave. When the emperor's ministers, who preceded him at Augsburg, announced to the elector the emperor's intentions, in order to intimidate him, he said,—"If the emperor intends to stop the preaching of the gospel, I shall immediately betake myself to my home." Luther had been left at Coburg, the nearest safe place for the proscribed, and was consulted daily. He told the elector he had no right to say so; "the emperor was his master, and Augsburg was an imperial town."

Grand and heroic, although erroneous, advice of the man whose life must have been the first sacrifice of a policy which the elector meant to resist! The lawyers, however, were here also in fault; their Byzantine notions of imperial rights made them timid in the application of the principles of the German constitution. The Protestant princes had a clear constitutional right to resist the emperor, standing upon the resolutions and the edict of Worms, and the solemn declaration of Spires. Melanchthon himself thought they might maintain the right of preaching the gospel, only abstaining from any controversial point. But undoubtedly those were right who advised the elector to remain. As to the chief practical point, Chancellor Bruck confirmed the elector in his resolution not to allow the preaching of the gospel to be interdicted to him and his friends. As to alliances and leagues, the elector said,—"I have formed no secret alliances; but I will show those I have entered into if the others will show theirs." In the meantime, Melanchthon had by the middle of April prepared the articles of the confession with their defence, the so-called apology. Luther sat all the time in his solitary castle. "It is my Sinai," he said, "where I lift up my hands to pray, as Moses did during the battle." He worked at the Psalms and the prophets (he translated here Jeremiah and Ezekiel), and dedicated his hours of recreation to a popular edition of what was called Aesop's Fables, as Socrates did in his prison. "I am making a Zion out of this Sinai, and build there three tents, viz., one for the psalms, one for the prophets, one for Aesop;" a truly German saying, which the historian of the Reformation ought not to have censured. How could Luther endure his solitude in that tremendous crisis which, as far as the affairs of Germany were concerned, he saw in darker colours than anybody, unless he had some recreation of this kind. But besides, his object was to place his Aesop (which contains many compositions of his own) in the hands of the people, instead of a common popular book of the time, of the same title, of the lowest and most immoral description. It was also in this solitude that he wrote that admirable letter to his son Hans, with the description of the garden of wonders. While here he received the news of his father's death, which affected him deeply, so that his health began to give way, and his hallucinations, or waking dreams, recommenced. The news of the league between Charles V., Francis I., the Pope, and Venice, roused at times the political spirit which was in him. "I do not believe a word," he said, "as to the reality of such a league. Monsieur par ma foi! (Francis) cannot forget the battle of Pavia; Monsieur in nomine domini (Clement VIII.) is, first, a Welsh (Italian), which is bad enough; secondly, a Florentine, which is worse; thirdly, a bastard, a child of the devil; and, fourthly, he will never forget the indignity of the plundering of Rome. The Venetians, finally, are Venetians, and they have reasons enough to hate the posterity of Maximilian. Poor Charles, he is like a sheep among wolves; God will save him!" There is the sound politician and the loyal German, hoping against hope, and trusting his prince's promises as long as he breathes! He wrote letters full of comfort to the elector, and at the same time addressed one of his most powerful writings to the clergy assembled in the diet at Augsburg, in which he shows them the absurdity of their system, and the unchristian spirit of their claims. The address concludes with the prophetic verse,

"Pestis eram vivus; moriens ero mors tua Papa!"

On the 4th of June Gattinara, the chancellor of Charles, died—an Italian, who most earnestly wished a real reform of the church; and the advocates of persecution got the upper hand. On the side of the Protestants, the Swiss party began to suspect Melanchthon, and complained of the use of Latin chants and surplices in Saxony; while, on his side, Melanchthon detested what he called the seditious principles and worldly reasoning of the Swiss. Soon afterwards, we see him ready to give up some of the essential points to the emperor, who, on his approach to Augsburg, said:—"What do the electors want? I shall do what I like." Well had he learned in Spain the lessons of tyranny which Cardinal Ximenes knew so well to apply under Philip II. But he prayed four hours every day, so that the people said (as he scarcely ever spoke),—"He talks more with God than with men." When in the conference with the Protestant princes, he demanded of them to cease from their present mode of worship, they declared that their conscience did not allow them to do so, and the margrave of Brandenburg, bowing down towards Charles, and putting his hands upon his neck, cried out,—"Rather than allow myself to be deprived of the Word of the Lord, and rather than deny my God, I will have my head cut off at your majesty's feet." This startled the Spaniard. "Dear prince," he exclaimed, "not the head, not the head!" Imprisonment will do, he thought all the while, and those incantations words betray that thought. This was all his Sacred Cassanese Majesty deemed to utter during the diet. Great was his wrath when the princes declared indignantly that they would not consent to follow the procession of the host at the festivals of Corpus Domini. Why not worship a wafer which the priest has made God? And why not show this respect to the emperor and cardinal? asked Ferdinand. "We can and we will worship none but God," they unanimously declared. Their worship went on, and the vast church of the Franciscans was always crowded; an eloquent Zwinglian preached powerful sermons from the book of Joshua about the people of Israel in the face of Canaan. Charles was furious; an insidious compromise was proposed; the emperor would name preachers who should simply read the epistles and gospel of the day, and the ordinary prayer of confession before the mass. The pusillanimity of Melanchthon, and the legal opinions of some of the lawyers of the Protestant princes as to the emperor's power in an imperial town, overcame the repugnance of the elector. All the Protestant preachers left the place in dismay. The whole town was in consternation. "Our Lord God," exclaimed the elector, "has received order to hold his tongue at the diet?" Luther all the while had been quiet, waiting in patience. But this was too much for him. "This is the first step," he said, "to the demand that we give up our faith. We have to fight against the gates of hell." "Keep up your courage," he wrote to Melanchthon, "for you are the ambassadors of a great King." The elector and his theologians thought it justifiable that, in virtue of his office as grand marshal of the empire, he should bear before the emperor the sword of state, when the latter attended the mass of the Holy Ghost at the opening of the diet; on which occasion an Italian archbishop preached a most fanatical and insulting sermon against the Germans, as being worse enemies of God than the Turks. In the imperial opening speech, Charles spoke of the lamentable dissensions which encroached upon the imperial majesty, and must produce sedition and murder. The Protestants were required to present their confession. The elector signed it first; four other princes and two cities after him, without any observation; the landgrave of Hesse, however, did not sign it without saying he did not agree as to the doctrine of the communion. The article says—“That the body and blood of Christ are verily present, and are administered in the Lord’s Supper to those who partake of it [and we disapprove those who teach otherwise]:” The words in brackets were left out in later editions made during Luther’s lifetime. On this occasion the princes took really the lead, and the whole was done as a great national, not as a sacerdotal work, in spite of poor Melancthon’s scruples. This good man was indeed entirely out of his sphere, and lost his time, and committed the cause of Protestantism, by trying to bring about a compromise where there was no possibility of an honest understanding. In the mean time, Luther was left in complete and cruel ignorance of all that was going on; and when at last the letters of Melancthon arrived, they were full of fears and sad misgivings. During all this anxious time, Luther sought and found his comfort in constant prayer and occupation with the Word of God. “Where is Christ’s church, if it is not with us? Faith alone is required. I will rather fall with Christ than stand with Caesar.” Luther reprimanded Melancthon sharply for his pusillanimity, and some of his letters to him are addressed—“To Master Philip Kleinmuth” (pusillanimous).

After many tergiversations, the Protestants obtained their just demand; the confession, drawn up by Melancthon and approved by Luther, was read in public sitting on the 25th June 1530. A great day, worthy of the most glorious days of the apostolic times. Luther was not present; he was dead as a public man. But he lived in God, and for his faith and country. Nothing could damp his spirits. “I also have my diet,” he said; “and what lively discussions!” —referring playfully to the rocks which swarmed round his tower.

The emperor ordered the confession to be read in Latin. “No,” said the elector; “we are Germans, and on German ground. I hope, therefore, your majesty will allow us to speak German.” The emperor gave way, recollecting for the nonce he was in Germany, and that the Germans had a language of their own, and the strange fancy of using it even in theological affairs. When the chancellor of the elector had read the first part of that grand confession, which expounds the principles of the Reformation, and, in particular, the doctrine of justification by faith,—“that faith which is not the mere knowledge of a historical fact, but that which believes not only the history, but also the effect of that history upon the mind,”—there was an indescribable effect visibly produced upon the assembly. The opponents felt that there was a reality before them which they had never imagined; and others said, such a profession of faith by such princes was a more effectual preaching than that which had been stopped. “Christ,” exclaimed Jonas (Melancthon’s companion), “is in the diet, and he does not keep silence; the Word of God is indeed not to be bound.” And forth these words have gone through a world wider than that to which the apostles preached. After a pause, the second part, the articles about the abuses of the church of Rome, was read and heard with profound silence by the mitred prelates of that church who were there assembled. As to the emperor, he slept during the whole of the reading, or seemed to sleep, like a tiger ready to spy the most convenient moment for leaping upon his prey. In the meantime, he calculated, undoubtedly, what political capital he could make of the Protestants against the pope.

Luther addressed a letter to the cardinal elector of Mainz, demanding nothing but one article, but insisting upon that unconditionally—the liberty of preaching the gospel. “Neither emperor,” he says, “nor pope has the right of forcing any one to believe.” With Melancthon and the other friends he insisted on their leaving Augsburg immediately. “Home—home—home!” he exclaimed. “Might it please God that I should be immolated at this council, as John Huss was at Constance?” All the sayings of Luther during this crisis are sublime and of a truly prophetic character. He foresaw that now every effort would be made at Augsburg to destroy the principles of the Reformation by a treacherous compromise and a false peace. “The diet,” he said, “is a regular dramatic piece; first, there is the prologue, then the exposition, then the action,—now comes the catastrophe; but I think it will not be a tragic, but a comic end.” And, indeed, so it turned out to be, tragic as it was. The first triumphant effect of the confession soon passed away; the new converts, particularly among the prelates, withdrew; the fanatical party doubled its efforts, and Charles gave way to it, and aided its ends by all diplomatic artifices. Melancthon was caught. He entered into conferences in the vain hope they would lead to concord; he declared himself ready to maintain and obey the supreme authority of the pope, if he would, by an act of clemency, connive at, if not approve, some points which they could not change. During the treacherous conferences which now began, the emperor tried to intimidate the elector by threatening not to grant him the investiture, which the elector claimed, however, as his hereditary right as brother of his predecessor; and to frighten all the Protestant princes and the Protestant imperial city of Augsburg with measures of violence, by calling in the imperial troops, and keeping the gates closed. The landgrave escaped. This act caused dismay among the ranks of the Catholics, for a war could not be risked at this moment. The Romanists changed their tactics; they conceded, or rather feigned to concede; for, meanwhile, the pope had declared solemnly that he would not give up those very points. The Protestants acknowledged the jurisdiction of the bishops and the supremacy of the pope. A cry of indignation rose among the princes, and, above all, among the brave citizens of Augsburg. “Rather die with Jesus Christ,” they declared, “than conquer without Him the favour of the whole world.”

At this critical moment Luther’s indignation rose to a holy wrath, like that of the prophets of old. “I understand,” said he to Melancthon, “that you have begun a marvellous work, namely, to make Luther and the pope agree together; but the pope will say that he will not, and Luther begs to be excused. Should you, however, after all, succeed in your affair, I will follow your example, and make an agreement between Christ and Belial. Take care that you give not up the justification by faith; that is the heel of the seed of the woman to crush the serpent’s head. Take care not to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the bishops; they will soon take all. In short, all your negotiations have no chance of success unless the pope will renounce papacy. Now, mind, if you mean to shut up that glorious eagle, the gospel, in a sack, as sure as Christ lives, Luther will come to deliver that eagle with might.”

But Melancthon was changed: Luther’s voice had lost its power over him. The extreme Protestant views maintained in a declaration which Zwingle had delivered to the emperor, disposed him to cling still more to Rome. All seemed for the moment lost; but Luther’s faith had discerned the way in which God meant to save the Protestant cause, and had said,—“Christ lives; he who has vanquished the violence of our enemies, can also give us the power of breaking through their artifices." The Romanists fortunately insisted upon four points,—celibacy, confession, the denial of the cup to the laity, and the retaining of private masses. This was too much; the conference separated. The Romanists now conceded the cup and the marriage of the priests; but they would not give up the private masses, nor the obligation of confession and penance for the remission of sin, and required an acknowledgment of the meritorious character of good works. Melanchthon stood firm, on which the emperor and Clement played out their last card: an ecumenical council should be convened; but, in the meantime, the Protestants should conform to the doctrine and rites of the Catholic church. Charles accompanied this communication with the most insulting threats against the Protestant princes, who declined to negotiate, and declared their resolution to abide by the status quo of Worms until the council should assemble. The emperor indeed went so far as to forbid the princes to quit Augsburg, but the elector was firm as a rock: his son left the town on the 12th of September. Melanchthon had regained his courage and sagacity, When Luther heard what was taking place, he raised his voice from Coburg—"Depart, depart! even if it must be, with the curse of pope and emperor upon you. You have confessed Jesus Christ, you have offered peace, you have obeyed the emperor, you have supported insults of every kind, you have withstood blasphemies; now I will encourage you,—as one of the faithful members of Jesus Christ. He is making ready our enemies as victims for the sacrifice; he will presently consume their pride and deliver his people. Yes, he will bring us safely out of Babylon and her burning walls." When the emperor saw that the elector was resolved on departing, he communicated to the five princes and the six towns (four more having joined since Nuremberg and Reutlingen), a proposal for a recess, or definitive decree of the diet,—that six months' should elapse to give time for an arrangement; and meantime, Protestants and Catholics should unite in a common attack upon the Anabaptists and those who denied the holy sacrament, the Zwinglians; but the Protestants alike withstand threats and flatteries; and the elector took his leave, as he had announced, on the 23rd of September.

The author of this article cannot agree with the saying of the eloquent historian of the Reformation, that if the glorification of man was the purpose and end of God's ways, and not God's glory alone, one must wish Luther had died at the Wartburg. We have seen that it was he who, in 1524, pacified Wittemberg and Saxony by his appearance, and achieved wonders as a practical reformer; and, in 1525, attempted, as pacifier of Germany, what nobody but himself could and would have done. But whose was the never-shaken mind? Who among the German theologians and Reformers was the organ of God and of the German nation during the greater part of the momentous diet of Augsburg? Who else but the man in the solitary tower at Coburg! From this time forth, however, he had nothing left to do but to look the tragedy in the face, as a believer in God and His kingdom on earth, praying and preaching, and finally to die the death of a faithful and hopeful Christian saint. All the rest is patient, suffering martyrdom.

Some of the most powerful Romanist princes, the archbishop of Mayence at their head, assured the elector, on his departure, that they would never join the emperor in adopting any violent measures against him, although the brother of the archbishop Joachim, elector of Brandenburg, had presumed to promise in their name that they would. Even Ferdinand said some civil words. But why? Simply because (as Charles could not refrain from saying in his wrath) the emperor was more than ever resolved to resort to arms. "Nothing but armaments will have any effect," he said. Indeed, he announced this as his resolution immediately to the pope, and requested him to summon all Christian princes to assist him. The Catholic league was signed on the 13th of October. The anti-reformatory movement was begun in the town of Augsburg itself. The answer to this was the declaration of sixteen imperial towns, instead of six, that they would not grant any subsidies against the Turks so long as the affairs of Germany remained unsettled. The Zwinglian and Lutheran towns shook hands; and this was the expression of the real feeling of the whole German nation, only priests, pastors, and theologians excepted. The Protestant dignitaries declared that they rejected the imperial closing declaration, as the emperor had no right to command in matters of faith. Luther was the organ of the universal feeling of the German people, when he exclaimed, "Our enemies do not fill me with fear. If, on the contrary, shall put them down in the strength of the Lord. My life shall be their executioner; my death their hell." Indeed, his work was accomplished—for all countries and for all ages. The rest of his life was one long pang, although he did not live to see the most dreadful calamity,—the breaking out of the civil war of religion which began immediately after his death. He wrote an address to the German nation, warning them not to yield to Rome and not to trust any negotiations; "for," said he, "they know no argument but force. Be not deceived by their words about obedience to the church. The church is a poor erring sinner without Christ; not the church, but Christ is the faith." The cause of the Reformation made progress; the Protestant alliance, begun by the convention of Schmalkalden, gained new members; Denmark acceded, and Joachim II., because as staunch a defender of the faith of his mother as Joachim I. had been its violent enemy. As Luther had prophesied, the negotiations with the papish party in 1541, renewed at Ratisbon, led to no result. The emperor, at the diet of Spires in 1544, dared no longer refuse to the Protestants the equal right which they claimed. The Romish council opened at Trent in 1544, and its first proceeding was to read the pope's anathema against the Protestants.

It is in this latter period (from 1539 to 1543) that a secret letter of advice, drawn up by Melanchthon, was given by Luther and his friends to the landgrave Philip in answer to his pressing request (sanctioned by the landgravine, who suffered from an incurable inward disorder) to deliver him from the sin of fornication, by allowing him to marry a lady of the landgravine's court. After the masterly discussion of this subject by Archdeacon Hare in his Vindication of Luther, republished (1553) from the notes to his Mission of the Comforter, it is not necessary, least of all to English readers, to enter into details in order to prove the report of Bossuet to be a tissue of falsehoods and malignity. We limit, therefore, ourselves to stating the decisive facts.

First, The error committed in this secret advice by the Reformers was a perfectly sincere one; it arose from an indistinct view of the applicability of the patriarchal ordinances and of the Mosaic law, which admits a second wife legally, as indeed Moses himself seems to have had two wives at the same time. Now, as the Reformers could not show an express abrogation of those ordinances and of this law, they were led into this sad mistake. Secondly, There was in their advice no worldly regard whatever, as to any benefits and advantages, which might accrue to themselves, or to the cause of the Reformation. They knew that the landgrave had his whole heart in the cause of the Reformation, and had often risked his life and states for it. Thirdly, When in 1540, Philip divulged the secret, contrary to his promise, they spoke out and confessed their mistake, and Melanchthon was brought by his grief to the verge of the grave. Fourthly, When, in the course of the controversy, Bucer published, in 1541, his pamphlet in defence of polygamy (under the name of Huldric Neobulus), Luther pro