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   Title: History of the Christian Church, Volume VII. Modern
   Christianity. The German Reformation.
   Creator(s): Schaff, Philip (1819-1893)
   Print Basis: Second edition, revised
   CCEL Subjects: All; History; Proofed;
   LC Call no: BR145.S3
   LC Subjects:

   Christianity

   History
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   This volume constitutes the first part of

   THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION

   by Philip Schaff

   It is included as Volume VII in the 8-volume

   HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

   Volume VIII in this series, on the Swiss

   Reformation, completes the 2-volume unit

   on he The History of the Reformation

   HISTORY

   of the

   CHRISTIAN CHURCH [1]

   by

   PHILIP SCHAFF

   professor of church history in the union theological seminary

   new york

   Christianus sum: Christiani nihil a me alienum puto

   VOLUME VII.

   MODERN CHRISTIANITY

   THE GERMAN REFORMATION

   This is a reproduction of the Second Edition, Revised
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   [1] Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, (Oak Harbor, WA:
   Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1997. This material has been carefully
   compared, corrected, and emended (according to the 1910 edition of
   Charles Scribner's Sons) by The Electronic Bible Society, Dallas, TX,
   1998.
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   PREFACE.

   I publish the history of the Reformation in advance of the concluding
   volume on the Middle Ages, which will follow in due time.

   The Reformation was a republication of primitive Christianity, and the
   inauguration of modern Christianity. This makes it, next to the
   Apostolic age, the most important and interesting portion of church
   history. The Luther and Zwingli celebrations of 1883 and 1884 have
   revived its memories, and largely increased its literature; while
   scholars of the Roman Church have attempted, with great ability, an
   ultramontane reconstruction of the history of Germany and Europe during
   the period of the Reformation. The Cultur-Kampf is still going on. The
   theological battles of the sixteenth century are being fought over
   again in modern thought, with a slow but steady approach to a better
   understanding and filial settlement. Protestantism with its freedom can
   afford to be fair and just to Romanism, which is chained to its
   traditions. The dogma of papal infallibility is fatal to freedom of
   investigation. Facts must control dogmas, and not dogmas facts. Truth,
   the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is the aim of the
   historian; but truth should be told in love (Eph. 4:15).

   The signs of the times point to a new era in the ever onward March of
   Christ's kingdom. God alone foreknows the future, and sees the end from
   the beginning. We poor mortals know only "in part," and see "in a
   mirror, darkly." But, as the plans of Providence unfold themselves, the
   prospect widens, old prejudices melt away, and hope and charity expand
   with our vision. The historian must be impartial, without being neutral
   or indifferent. He must follow the footsteps of Divine Providence,
   which shapes our ends, and guides all human events in the interest of
   truth, righteousness, and peace.

   I have collected much material for a comprehensive history of the
   Reformation, in the libraries of Europe, during several summer visits
   (thirteen in all), and digested it at home. I have studied the Luther
   literature in Berlin, the Zwingli literature in Zuerich, the
   Calvinistic literature in Geneva and Paris, the English and Scotch
   Reformation in London, Oxford, and Edinburgh. Two years ago I
   revisited, with great satisfaction, the classical localities made
   memorable by the Reformation,--Wittenberg, Eisleben, Eisenach, the
   Wartburg, Halle, Leipzig, Jena, Weimar, Erfurt, Gotha, Heidelberg,
   Zuerich, Geneva,--and found kind friends and Christian brethren
   everywhere. At Marburg, Coburg, Augsburg, I had been before. By way of
   contrast I made in the same year an interesting tour through
   Roman-Catholic Spain, the land of Ferdinand and Isabel, Charles V.,
   Philip II., and Ignatius Loyola, and compared her former and present
   state with the Protestant North. In Italy I have been three times,
   including a three-months sojourn in Rome. A visit to the places of
   events brings one nearer to the actors, and puts one almost into the
   position of a witness.

   This volume embraces, besides a general introduction to modern church
   history, the productive period of the German Reformation, from its
   beginning to the Diet of Augsburg (1530), and the death of Luther
   (1546), with a concluding estimate of the character and services of
   this extraordinary man. I have used the new Weimar edition of his works
   as far as published; for the other parts, Walch and the Erlangen
   edition. Of modern Protestant historians I have chiefly consulted Ranke
   (my teacher), and Koestlin (my friend), with whose views, on Luther and
   the Reformation I am in essential harmony. I have also constantly
   compared the learned Roman-Catholic works of Doellinger, and Janssen,
   besides numerous monographs. The reader will find classified lists of
   the sources and literature in all leading sections (e.g., pp. 94, 99,
   183, 272, 340, 399, 421, 494, 579, 612, 629, 695, 706), and occasional
   excursions into the field of the philosophy of church history (as in
   the introductory chapter, and in S:S: 49, 56, 63, 79, 87, 99, etc.). In
   these I have endeavored to interpret the past in the light of the
   present, and to make the movements of the sixteenth century more
   intelligible through their results in the nineteenth. For we must judge
   the tree by its fruits. "God's mills grind slowly, but wonderfully
   fine."

   I am conscious of the defects of this new attempt to reproduce the
   history of the Reformation, which has so often been told by friend and
   foe, but too often in a partisan spirit. I have done the best I could.
   God expects no more from his servants than faithfulness in the use of
   their abilities and opportunities.

   The Author.

   New York, September, 1888.

   HISTORY

   of

   MODERN CHRISTIANITY

   THE REFORMATION.

   FROM A.D. 1517 TO 1648.
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   CHAPTER I.

   ORIENTATION.

   Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
   is liberty.--2 Cor. 3:17.
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   S: 1. The Turning Point of Modern History.

   The Reformation of the sixteenth century is, next to the introduction
   of Christianity, the greatest event in history. It marks the end of the
   Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times. Starting from religion,
   it gave, directly or indirectly, a mighty impulse to every forward
   movement, and made Protestantism the chief propelling force in the
   history of modern civilization.

   The age of the Reformation bears a strong resemblance to the first
   century. Both are rich beyond any other period in great and good men,
   important facts, and permanent results. Both contain the ripe fruits of
   preceding, and the fruitful germs of succeeding ages. They are turning
   points in the history of mankind. They are felt in their effects to
   this day, and will be felt to the end of time. They refashioned the
   world from the innermost depths of the human soul in its contact, with
   the infinite Being. They were ushered in by a providential concurrence
   of events and tendencies of thought. The way for Christianity was
   prepared by Moses and the Prophets, the dispersion of the Jews, the
   conquests of Alexander the Great, the language and literature of
   Greece, the arms and laws of Rome, the decay of idolatry, the spread of
   skepticism, the aspirations after a new revelation, the hopes of a
   coming Messiah. The Reformation was preceded and necessitated by the
   corruptions of the papacy, the decline of monasticism and scholastic
   theology, the growth of mysticism, the revival of letters, the
   resurrection of the Greek and Roman classics, the invention of the
   printing press, the discovery of a new world, the publication of the
   Greek Testament, the general spirit of enquiry, the striving after
   national independence and personal freedom. In both centuries we hear
   the creative voice of the Almighty calling light out of darkness.

   The sixteenth century is the age of the renaissance in religion,
   literature, and art. The air was stirred by the spirit of progress and
   freedom. The snows of a long winter were fast, melting before the rays
   of the vernal sun. The world seemed to be renewing its youth; old
   things were passing away, all things were becoming new. Pessimists and
   timid conservatives took alarm at the threatened overthrow of cherished
   notions and institutions, and were complaining, fault-finding and
   desponding. A very useless business. Intelligent observers of the signs
   of the times looked hopefully and cheerfully to the future. "O
   century!" exclaimed Ulrich von Hutten, "the studies flourish, the
   spirits are awake, it is a luxury to live." And Luther wrote in 1522:
   "If you read all the annals of the past, you will find no century like
   this since the birth of Christ. Such building and planting, such good
   living and dressing, such enterprise in commerce, such a stir in all
   the arts, has not been since Christ came into the world. And how
   numerous are the sharp and intelligent people who leave nothing hidden
   and unturned: even a boy of twenty years knows more nowadays than was
   known formerly by twenty doctors of divinity."

   The same may be said with even greater force of the nineteenth century,
   which is eminently an age of discovery and invention, of enquiry and
   progress. And both then as now the enthusiasm for light and liberty
   takes two opposite directions, either towards skepticism and
   infidelity, or towards a revival of true religion from its primitive
   sources. But Christianity triumphed then, and will again regenerate the
   world.

   The Protestant Reformation assumed the helm of the liberal tendencies
   and movements of the renaissance, directed them into the channel of
   Christian life, and saved the world from a disastrous revolution. For
   the Reformation was neither a revolution nor a restoration, though
   including elements of both. It was negative and destructive towards
   error, positive and constructive towards truth; it was conservative as
   well as progressive; it built up new institutions in the place of those
   which it pulled down; and for this reason and to this extent it has
   succeeded.

   Under the motherly care of the Latin Church, Europe had been
   Christianized and civilized, and united into a family of nations under
   the spiritual government of the Pope and the secular government of the
   Emperor, with one creed, one ritual, one discipline, and one sacred
   language. The state of heathenism and barbarism at the beginning of the
   sixth century contrasts with the state of Christian Europe at the
   beginning of the sixteenth century as midnight darkness compared with
   the dawn of the morning. But the sun of the day had not yet arisen.

   All honor to the Catholic Church and her inestimable services to
   humanity. But Christianity is far broader and deeper than any
   ecclesiastical organization. It burst the shell of mediaeval forms,
   struck out new paths, and elevated Europe to a higher plane of
   intellectual, moral and spiritual culture than it had ever attained
   before.
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   S: 2. Protestantism and Romanism.

   Protestantism represents the most enlightened and active of modern
   church history, but not the whole of it.

   Since the sixteenth century Western Christendom is divided and runs in
   two distinct channels. The separation may be compared to the Eastern
   schism of the ninth century, which is not healed to this day; both
   parties being as firm and unyielding as ever on the doctrinal question
   of the Filioque, and the more important practical question of Popery.
   But Protestantism differs much more widely from the Roman church than
   the Roman church differs from the Greek, and the Protestant schism has
   become the fruitful mother of minor divisions, which exist in separate
   ecclesiastical organizations.

   We must distinguish between Catholicism and Romanism. The former
   embraces the ancient Oriental church, the mediaeval church, and we may
   say, in a wider sense, all the modern evangelical churches. Romanism is
   the Latin church turned against the Reformation, consolidated by the
   Council of Trent and completed by the Vatican Council of 1870 with its
   dogma of papal absolutism and papal infallibility. Mediaeval
   Catholicism is pre-evangelical, looking to the Reformation; modern
   Romanism is anti-evangelical, condemning the Reformation, yet holding
   with unyielding tenacity the oecumenical doctrines once sanctioned, and
   doing this all the more by virtue of its claim to infallibility.

   The distinction between pre-Reformation Catholicism and
   post-Reformation Romanism, in their attitude towards Protestantism, has
   its historical antecedent and parallel in the distinction between
   pre-Christian Israel which prepared the way for Christianity, and
   post-Christian Judaism which opposed it as an apostasy.

   Catholicism and Protestantism represent two distinct types of
   Christianity which sprang from the same root, but differ in the
   branches.

   Catholicism is legal Christianity which served to the barbarian nations
   of the Middle Ages as a necessary school of discipline; Protestantism
   is evangelical Christianity which answers the age of independent
   manhood. Catholicism is traditional, hierarchical, ritualistic,
   conservative; Protestantism is biblical, democratic, spiritual,
   progressive. The former is ruled by the principle of authority, the
   latter by the principle of freedom. But the law, by awakening a sense
   of sin and exciting a desire for redemption, leads to the gospel;
   parental authority is a school of freedom; filial obedience looks to
   manly self-government.

   The characteristic features of mediaeval Catholicism are intensified by
   Romanism, yet without destroying the underlying unity.

   Romanism and orthodox Protestantism believe in one God, Father, Son,
   and Holy Spirit, and in one divine-human Lord and Saviour of the race.
   They accept in common the Holy Scriptures and the oecumenical faith.
   They agree in every article of the Apostles' Creed. What unites them is
   far deeper, stronger and more important than what divides them.

   But Romanism holds also a large number of "traditions of the elders,"
   which Protestantism rejects as extra-scriptural or anti-scriptural;
   such are the papacy, the worship of saints and relics,
   transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, prayers and masses for
   the dead, works of supererogation, purgatory, indulgences, the system
   of monasticism with its perpetual vows and ascetic practices, besides
   many superstitious rites and ceremonies.

   Protestantism, on the other hand, revived and developed the Augustinian
   doctrines of sin and grace; it proclaimed the sovereignty of divine
   mercy in man's salvation, the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule
   of faith, and the sufficiency of Christ's merit as a source of
   justification; it asserted the right of direct access to the Word of
   God and the throne of grace, without human mediators; it secured
   Christian freedom from bondage; it substituted social morality for
   monkish asceticism, and a simple, spiritual worship for an imposing
   ceremonialism that addresses the senses and imagination rather than the
   intellect and the heart.

   The difference between the Catholic and Protestant churches was
   typically foreshadowed by the difference between Jewish and Gentile
   Christianity in the apostolic age, which anticipated, as it were, the
   whole future course of church history. The question of circumcision or
   the keeping of the Mosaic law, as a condition of church membership,
   threatened a split at the Council of Jerusalem, but was solved by the
   wisdom and charity of the apostles, who agreed that Jews and Gentiles
   alike are "saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 15:11). Yet
   even after the settlement of the controversy by the Jerusalem
   compromise Paul got into a sharp conflict with Peter at Antioch on the
   same question, and protested against his older colleague for denying by
   his timid conduct his better conviction, and disowning the Gentile
   brethren. It is not accidental that the Roman Church professes to be
   built on Peter and regards him as the first pope; while the Reformers
   appealed chiefly to Paul and found in his epistles to the Galatians and
   Romans the bulwark of their anthropology and soteriology, and their
   doctrine of Christian freedom. The collision between Paul and Peter was
   only temporary; and so the war between Protestantism and Romanism will
   ultimately pass away in God's own good time.

   The Reformation began simultaneously in Germany and Switzerland, and
   swept with astonishing rapidity over France, Holland, Scandinavia,
   Bohemia, Hungary, England and Scotland; since the seventeenth century
   it has spread by emigration to North America, and by commercial and
   missionary enterprises to every Dutch and English colony, and every
   heathen land. It carried away the majority of the Teutonic and a part
   of the Latin nations, and for a while threatened to overthrow the papal
   church.

   But towards the close of the sixteenth century the triumphant march of
   the Reformation was suddenly arrested. Romanism rose like a wounded
   giant, and made the most vigorous efforts to reconquer the lost
   territory in Europe, and to extend its dominion in Asia and South
   America. Since that time the numerical relation of the two churches has
   undergone little change. But the progress of secular and ecclesiastical
   history has run chiefly in Protestant channels.

   In many respects the Roman Church of to-day is a great improvement upon
   the Mediaeval Church. She has been much benefited by the Protestant
   Reformation, and is far less corrupt and far more prosperous in
   Protestant than in Papal countries. She was driven to a counter-reform
   which abolished some of the most crying abuses and infused new life and
   zeal into her clergy and laity. No papal schism has disgraced her
   history since the sixteenth century. No pope of the character of
   Alexander VI. or even Leo X. could be elected any more. She lives
   chiefly of the past, but uses for her defence all the weapons of modern
   warfare. She has a much larger membership than either the Greek or the
   Protestant communion; she still holds under her sway the Latin races of
   both hemispheres; she satisfies the religious wants of millions of
   human beings in all countries and climes; she extends her educational,
   benevolent and missionary operations all over the globe; she advances
   in proportion as Protestantism degenerates and neglects its duty; and
   by her venerable antiquity, historical continuity, visible unity,
   centralized organization, imposing ritual, sacred art, and ascetic
   piety she attracts intelligent and cultured minds; while the common
   people are kept in ignorance and in superstitious awe of her mysterious
   authority with its claim to open the gates of heaven and hell and to
   shorten the purgatorial sufferings of the departed. For good and evil
   she is the strongest conservative force in modern society, and there is
   every reason to believe that she will last to the end of time.

   Thus the two branches of Western Christendom seem to hold each other in
   check, and ought to stimulate each other to a noble rivalry in good
   works.

   The unhappy divisions of Christendom, while they are the source of many
   evils, have also the good effect of multiplying the agencies for the
   conversion of the world and facilitating the free growth of every phase
   of religious life. The evil lies not so much in the multiplicity of
   denominations, which have a mission to fulfil, as in the spirit of
   sectarianism and exclusivism, which denies the rights and virtues of
   others. The Reformation of the sixteenth century is not a finale, but a
   movement still in progress. We may look hopefully forward to a higher,
   deeper and broader Reformation, when God in His overruling wisdom and
   mercy, by a pentecostal effusion of His Holy Spirit upon all the
   churches, will reunite what the sin and folly of men have divided.
   There must and will be, in the fullest sense of Christ's prophecy, "one
   flock, one Shepherd" (John 10:16). [2]
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   [2] We say "one flock" (mia poimne) not "one fold" (which would require
   mia aule). The latter is a strange mistranslation which has passed from
   the Latin version (ovile) into King James's version, and has often been
   abused as an argument for the papacy and ecclesiastical uniformity. It
   is corrected in the Revision. The two flocks, Jews and Gentiles, became
   one flock in the one Shepherd (poimen), not by entrance into the aule
   of the Jews. There may be one flock in many folds or ecclesiastical
   organizations. The prophecy was no doubt already fulfilled in the
   Apostolic Church (Eph. 2:11-22), but awaits a higher fulfillment when
   "the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in, and all Israel shall be
   saved." Rom. 11:25, 26.
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   S:3. Necessity of a Reformation.

   The corruption and abuses of the Latin church had long been the
   complaint of the best men, and even of general councils. A reformation
   of the head and the members was the watchword at Pisa, Constance, and
   Basel, but remained a pium desiderium for a whole century.

   Let us briefly review the dark side in the condition of the church at
   the beginning of the sixteenth century.

   The papacy was secularized, and changed into a selfish tyranny whose
   yoke became more and more unbearable. The scandal of the papal schism
   had indeed been removed, but papal morals, after a temporary
   improvement, became worse than ever during the years 1492 to 1521.
   Alexander VI. was a monster of iniquity; Julius II. was a politician
   and warrior rather than a chief shepherd of souls; and Leo X. took far
   more interest in the revival of heathen literature and art than in
   religion, and is said to have even doubted the truth of the gospel
   history.

   No wonder that many cardinals and priests followed the scandalous
   example of the popes, and weakened the respect of the laity for the
   clergy. The writings of contemporary scholars, preachers and satirists
   are full of complaints and exposures of the ignorance, vulgarity and
   immorality of priests and monks. Simony and nepotism were shamefully
   practiced. Celibacy was a foul fountain of unchastity and uncleanness.
   The bishoprics were monopolized by the youngest sons of princes and
   nobles without regard to qualification. Geiler of Kaisersberg, a stern
   preacher of moral reform at Strassburg (d. 1510), charges all Germany
   with promoting ignorant and worldly men to the chief dignities, simply
   on account of their high connections. Thomas Murner complains that the
   devil had introduced the nobility into the clergy, and monopolized for
   them the bishoprics. [3] Plurality of office and absence from the
   diocese were common. Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz was at the same time
   archbishop of Magdeburg and bishop of Halberstadt. Cardinal Wolsey was
   archbishop of York while chancellor of England, received stipends from
   the kings of France and Spain and the doge of Venice, and had a train
   of five hundred servants. James V. of Scotland (1528-1542) provided for
   his illegitimate children by making them abbots of Holyrood House,
   Kelso, Melrose, Coldingham and St. Andrews, and intrusted royal
   favorites with bishoprics.

   Discipline was nearly ruined. Whole monastic establishments and orders
   had become nurseries of ignorance and superstition, idleness and
   dissipation, and were the objects of contempt and ridicule, as may be
   seen from the controversy of Reuchlin with the Dominicans, the writings
   of Erasmus, and the Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum.

   Theology was a maze of scholastic subtleties, Aristotelian dialectics
   and idle speculations, but ignored the great doctrines of the gospel.
   Carlstadt, the older colleague of Luther, confessed that he had been
   doctor of divinity before he had seen a complete copy of the Bible.
   Education was confined to priests and nobles. The mass of the laity
   could neither read nor write, and had no access to the word of God
   except the Scripture lessons from the pulpit.

   The priest's chief duty was to perform, by his magic words, the miracle
   of transubstantiation, and to offer the sacrifice of the mass for the
   living and the dead in a foreign tongue. Many did it mechanically, or
   with a skeptical reservation, especially in Italy. Preaching was
   neglected, and had reference, mostly, to indulgences, alms, pilgrimages
   and processions. The churches were overloaded with good and bad
   pictures, with real and fictitious relics. Saint-worship and
   image-worship, superstitious rites and ceremonies obstructed the direct
   worship of God in spirit and in truth.

   Piety which should proceed from a living union of the soul with Christ
   and a consecration of character, was turned outward and reduced to a
   round of mechanical performances such as the recital of Paternosters
   and Avemarias, fasting, alms-giving, confession to the priest, and
   pilgrimage to a holy shrine. Good works were measured by the quantity
   rather than the quality, and vitiated by the principle of
   meritoriousness which appealed to the selfish motive of reward.
   Remission of sin could be bought with money; a shameful traffic in
   indulgences was carried on under the Pope's sanction for filthy lucre
   as well as for the building of St. Peter's Dome, and caused that
   outburst of moral indignation which was the beginning of the
   Reformation and of the fearful judgment on the Church of Rome.

   This is a one-sided, but not an exaggerated description. It is true as
   far as it goes, and needs only to be supplemented by the bright side
   which we shall present in the next section.

   Honest Roman Catholic scholars, while maintaining the infallibility and
   consequent doctrinal irreformability of their church, admit in strong
   terms the decay of discipline and the necessity of a moral reform in
   the sixteenth century. [4]

   The best proof is furnished by a pope of exceptional integrity, Adrian
   VI., who made an extraordinary confession of the papal and clerical
   corruption to the Diet of Nuernberg in 1522, and tried earnestly,
   though in vain, to reform his court. The Council of Trent was called
   not only for the extirpation of heresy, but in part also "for the
   reformation of the clergy and Christian people;" [5] and Pope Pius IV.,
   in the bull of confirmation, likewise declares that one of the objects
   of the Council was "the correction of morals and the restoration of
   ecclesiastical discipline." [6]

   On the other hand, it must be admitted that the church was more than
   once in a far worse condition, during the papal schism in the
   fourteenth, and especially in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and yet
   she was reformed by Pope Hildebrand and his successors without a split
   and without an alteration of the Catholic Creed.

   Why could not the same be done in the sixteenth century? Because the
   Roman church in the critical moment resisted reform with all her might,
   and forced the issue: either no reformation at all, or a reformation in
   opposition to Rome.

   The guilt of the western schism is divided between the two parties, as
   the guilt of the eastern schism is; although no human tribunal can
   measure the share of responsibility. Much is due, no doubt, to the
   violence and extravagance of the Protestant opposition, but still more
   to the intolerance and stubbornness of the Roman resistance. The papal
   court used against the Reformation for a long time only the carnal
   weapons of political influence, diplomatic intrigue, secular wealth,
   haughty pride, scholastic philosophy, crushing authority, and bloody
   persecution. It repeated the course of the Jewish hierarchy, which
   crucified the Messiah and cast the apostles out of the synagogue.

   But we must look beyond this partial justification, and view the matter
   in the light of the results of the Reformation.

   It was evidently the design of Providence to develop a new type of
   Christianity outside of the restraints of the papacy, and the history
   of three centuries is the best explanation and vindication of that
   design. Every movement in history must be judged by its fruits.

   The elements of such an advance movement were all at work before Luther
   and Zwingli protested against papal indulgences.
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   [3] In his Narrenbeschwoerung (1512): "Aber seit der Teufel hat Den
   Adel bracht in Kirchenstat, Seit man kein' Bischof mehr will han Er sei
   denn ganz ein Edelmann," etc.

   [4] So Bellarmine and Bossuet. Moehler also (in his Kirchengesch. III.
   99) says: "We do not believe that the period before the Reformation was
   a flourishing period of church history, for we hear from it a thousand
   voices for a reformation in the head and members (wir hoeren aus
   derselben den tausendstimmigen Ruf nach einer Verbesserung anHaupt und
   Gliedern uns entgegentoenen)" Even Janssen, the eulogist of mediaeval
   Germany, devotes the concluding section of the first volume of his
   Geschichte des deutschen Volkes (p. 594-613) to a consideration of some
   of the crying evils of those times.

   [5] Sess. I. (held Dec. 13, 1545): "ad extirpationem haeresium , ad
   pacem et unionem ecclessiae, ad reformationem cleri et populi
   Christiani." See Smets, Concilii Trident. Canones et Decreta, p.10.

   [6] "Ad plurimas et perniciosissimas haereses extirpandas, ad
   corrigendos mores, et restituendam ecclesiasticam disciplinam" etc. See
   Smets, l.c. 209.
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   S: 4. The Preparations for the Reformation.

   C. Ullmann: Reformatoren vor der Reformation. Hamburg, 1841, 2d ed.
   1866, 2 vols. (Engl. trans. by R. Menzies, Edinb. 1855, 2 vols.). C. de
   Bonnechose: Reformateurs avant reforme du xvi. siecle. Par. 1853, 2
   vols. A good resume by Geo. P. Fisher: The Reformation. New York, 1873,
   ch. III. 52-84; and in the first two lectures of Charles Beard: The
   Reformation, London, 1883, p. 1-75. Comp., also the numerous monographs
   of various scholars on the Renaissance, on Wiclif, Hus, Savonarola,
   Hutten, Reuchlin, Erasmus, etc. A full account of the preparation for
   the Reformation belongs to the last chapters of the History of
   Mediaeval Christianity (see vol. V.). We here merely recapitulate the
   chief points.

   Judaism before Christ was sadly degenerated, and those who sat in
   Moses' seat had become blind leaders of the blind. Yet "salvation is of
   the Jews;" and out of this people arose John the Baptist, the Virgin
   Mary, the Messiah, and the Apostles. Jerusalem, which stoned the
   prophets and crucified the Lord, witnessed also the pentecostal miracle
   and became the mother church of Christendom. So the Catholic church in
   the sixteenth century, though corrupt in its head and its members, was
   still the church of the living God and gave birth to the Reformation,
   which removed the rubbish of human traditions and reopened the pure
   fountain of the gospel of Christ.

   The Reformers, it should not be forgotten, were all born, baptized,
   confirmed, and educated in the Roman Catholic Church, and most of them
   had served as priests at her altars with the solemn vow of obedience to
   the pope on their conscience. They stood as closely related to the
   papal church, as the Apostles and Evangelists to the Synagogue and the
   Temple; and for reasons of similar urgency, they were justified to
   leave the communion of their fathers; or rather, they did not leave it,
   but were cast out by the ruling hierarchy.

   The Reformation went back to first principles in order to go forward.
   It struck its roots deep in the past and bore rich fruits for the
   future. It sprang forth almost simultaneously from different parts of
   Europe and was enthusiastically hailed by the leading minds of the age
   in church and state. No great movement in history--except Christianity
   itself--was so widely and thoroughly prepared as the Protestant
   Reformation.

   The reformatory Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel; the conflict of
   the Emperors with the Popes; the contemplative piety of the mystics
   with their thirst after direct communion with God; the revival of
   classical literature; the general intellectual awakening; the biblical
   studies of Reuchlin, and Erasmus; the rising spirit of national
   independence; Wiclif, and the Lollards in England; Hus, and the
   Hussites in Bohemia; John von Goch, John von Wesel, and Johann Wessel
   in Germany and the Netherlands; Savonarola in Italy; the Brethren of
   the Common Life, the Waldenses, the Friends of God,--contributed their
   share towards the great change and paved the way for a new era of
   Christianity. The innermost life of the church was pressing forward to
   a new era. There is scarcely a principle or doctrine of the Reformation
   which was not anticipated and advocated in the fourteenth and fifteenth
   centuries. Luther made the remark that his opponents might charge him
   with having borrowed everything from John Wessel if he had known his
   writings earlier. The fuel was abundant all over Europe, but it
   required the spark which would set it ablaze.

   Violent passions, political intrigues, the ambition and avarice of
   princes, and all sorts of selfish and worldly motives were mixed up
   with the war against the papacy. But they were at work likewise in the
   introduction of Christianity among the heathen barbarians. "Wherever
   God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel close by." Human nature
   is terribly corrupt and leaves its stains on the noblest movements in
   history.

   But, after all, the religious leaders of the Reformation, while not
   free from faults, were men of the purest motives and highest aims, and
   there is no nation which has not been benefited by the change they
   introduced.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 5. The Genius and Aim of the Reformation.

   Is. Aug. Dorner: On the formal, and the material Principle of the
   Reformation. Two essays, first published in 1841 and 1857, and
   reprinted in his Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1883, p. 48-187. Also
   his History of Protestant Theology, Engl. trans. 1871, 2 vols.

   Phil. Schaff: The Principle of Protestantism, Chambersburg, Penn., 1845
   (German and English); Protestantism and Romanism, and the Principles of
   the Reformation, two essays in his "Christ and Christianity," N. York,
   1885. p. 124-134. Also Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I. 203-219.

   Dan. Schenkel: Das Princip des Protestantimus. Schaffhausen, 1852 (92
   pages). This is the concluding section of his larger work, Das Wesen
   des Protestantismus, in 3 vols.

   K. F. A. Kahnis: Ueber die Principien des Protestatismus. Leipzig,
   1865. Also his Zeugniss von den Grundwahrheiten des Protestantismus
   gegen Dr. Hengstenberg. Leipzig, 1862.

   Charles Beard: The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in its relation
   to Modern Thought and Knowledge. Hibbert Lectures for 1883. London,
   1883. A Unitarian view, written with ample learning and in excellent
   spirit.

   Henry Wace and C. A. Buchheim: First Principles of the Reformation, or
   the 95 Theses and three Primary Works of Dr. M. Luther. London, 1885.

   The literature on the difference between Lutheran and Reformed or
   Calvinistic Protestantism is given in Schaff's Creeds of Christendom,
   l. 211.

   The spirit and aim of evangelical Protestantism is best expressed by
   Paul in his anti-Judaistic Epistle to the Galatians: "For freedom did
   Christ set us free; stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled again
   in a yoke of bondage." Christian freedom is so inestimable a blessing
   that no amount of abuse can justify a relapse into a state of spiritual
   despotism and slavery. But only those who have enjoyed it, can properly
   appreciate it.

   The Reformation was at first a purely religious movement, and furnishes
   a striking illustration of the all-pervading power of religion in
   history. It started from the question: What must a man do to be saved?
   How shall a sinner be justified before God, and attain peace of his
   troubled conscience? The Reformers were supremely concerned for the
   salvation of the soul, for the glory of Christ and the triumph of his
   gospel. They thought much more of the future world than of the present,
   and made all political, national, and literary interests subordinate
   and subservient to religion. [7]

   Yet they were not monks, but live men in a live age, not pessimists,
   but optimists, men of action as well as of thought, earnest, vigorous,
   hopeful men, free from selfish motives and aims, full of faith and the
   Holy Ghost, equal to any who had preceded them since the days of the
   Apostles. From the centre of religion they have influenced every
   department of human life and activity, and given a powerful impulse to
   political and civil liberty, to progress in theology, philosophy,
   science, and literature.

   The Reformation removed the obstructions which the papal church had
   interposed between Christ and the believer. It opened the door to
   direct union with him , as the only Mediator between God and man, and
   made his gospel accessible to every reader without the permission of a
   priest. It was a return to first principles, and for this very reason
   also a great advance. It was a revival of primitive Christianity, and
   at the same time a deeper apprehension and application of it than had
   been known before.

   There are three fundamental principles of the Reformation: the
   supremacy of the Scriptures over tradition, the supremacy of faith over
   works, and the supremacy of the Christian people over an exclusive
   priesthood. The first may be called the objective, the second the
   subjective, the third the social or ecclesiastical principle. [8]

   They resolve themselves into the one principle of evangelical freedom,
   or freedom in Christ. The ultimate aim of evangelical Protestantism is
   to bring every man into living union with Christ as the only and
   all-sufficient Lord and Saviour from sin and death.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [7] What Dr. Baur, the critical Tuebingen historian, says of Luther, is
   equally applicable to all the other Reformers: "Dass fuer Luther die
   Reformation zur eigensten Sache seines Herzens geworden war, dass er
   sie in ihrem reinsten religioesen Interesse auffasste, getrennt von
   allen ihr fremdartigen blos aeusserlichen Motiven, dass es ihm um
   nichts anderes zu thun war, alsum die Sache des Evangeliums und
   seinerseligmachenden Kraft, wie er sie an sich selbst in seinem innern
   Kampf um die Gewissheit der Suendenvergebung erfahren hatte, diess ist
   es, was ihn zum Reformator machte."Gesch. der Christl. Kirche, vol. IV.
   5 (ed. by his son, 1863). Froude says of Luther: "He revived and
   maintained the spirit of piety and reverence in which, and by which
   alone, real progress is possible."Luther, Preface, p. vi.

   [8] German writers distinguish usually two principles of the
   Reformation, the authority of the Scriptures, and justification by
   faith, and call the first the formal principle (or Erkenntnissprincip,
   principium cognoscendi), the second the material principle (principium
   essendi); the third they omit, except Kahnis, who finds a third
   principle in the idea of the invisible church, and calls this the
   Kirchenprincip. The Lutheran Church gives to the doctrine of
   justification by faith the first place; and the Formula of Concord
   calls it "articulus praecipuus in tota doctrina Christiana." But the
   Reformed confessions give the first place to the doctrine of the
   normative authority of Scripture, from which alone all articles of
   faith are to be derived, and they substitute for the doctrine of
   justification by faith the ulterior and wider doctrine of election and
   salvation by free grace through faith. The difference is
   characteristic, but does not affect the essential agreement.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 6. The Authority of the Scriptures.

   The objective principle of Protestantism maintains that the Bible, as
   the inspired record of revelation, is the only infallible rule of faith
   and practice; in opposition to the Roman Catholic coordination of
   Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition, as the joint rules of faith.

   The teaching of the living church is by no means rejected, but
   subordinated to the Word of God; while the opposite theory virtually
   subordinates the Bible to tradition by making the latter the sole
   interpreter of the former and confining interpretation within the
   limits of an imaginary consensus patrum. In the application of the
   Bible principle there was considerable difference between the more
   conservative Lutheran and Anglican Reformation, and the more radical
   Zwinglian and Calvinistic Reformation; the former contained many
   post-scriptural and extra-scriptural traditions, usages and
   institutions, which the latter, in its zeal for primitive purity and
   simplicity, rejected as useless or dangerous; but all Reformers opposed
   what they regarded as anti-scriptural doctrines; and all agreed in the
   principle that the church has no right to impose upon the conscience
   articles of faith without clear warrant in the Word of God.

   Every true progress in church history is conditioned by a new and
   deeper study of the Scriptures, which has "first, second, third,
   infinite draughts." While the Humanists went back to the ancient
   classics and revived the spirit of Greek and Roman paganism, the
   Reformers went back to the sacred Scriptures in the original languages
   and revived the spirit of apostolic Christianity. They were fired by an
   enthusiasm for the gospel, such as had never been known since the days
   of Paul. Christ rose from the tomb of human traditions and preached
   again his words of life and power. The Bible, heretofore a book of
   priests only, was now translated anew and better than ever into the
   vernacular tongues of Europe, and made a book of the people. Every
   Christian man could henceforth go to the fountain-head of inspiration,
   and sit at the feet of the Divine Teacher, without priestly permission
   and intervention. This achievement of the Reformation was a source of
   incalculable blessings for all time to come. In a few years Luther's
   version had more readers among the laity than ever the Latin Vulgate
   had among priests; and the Protestant Bible societies circulate more
   Bibles in one year than were copied during the fifteen centuries before
   the Reformation.

   We must remember, however, that this wonderful progress was only made
   possible by the previous invention of the art of printing and by the
   subsequent education of the people. The Catholic Church had preserved
   the sacred Scriptures through ages of ignorance and barbarism; the
   Latin Bible was the first gift of the printing press to the world;
   fourteen or more editions of a German version were printed before 1518;
   the first two editions of the Greek Testament we owe to the liberality
   of a Spanish cardinal (Ximenes), and the enterprise of a Dutch scholar
   in Basel (Erasmus); and the latter furnished the text from which, with
   the aid of Jerome's Vulgate, the translations of Luther and Tyndale
   were made.

   The Roman church, while recognizing the divine inspiration and
   authority of the Bible, prefers to control the laity by the teaching
   priesthood, and allows the reading of the Scriptures in the popular
   tongues only under certain restrictions and precautions, from fear of
   abuse and profanation. Pope Innocent III. was of the opinion that the
   Scriptures were too deep for the common people, as they surpassed even
   the understanding of the wise and learned. Several synods in Gaul,
   during the thirteenth century, prohibited the reading of the Romanic
   translation, and ordered the copies to be burnt. Archbishop Berthold,
   of Mainz, in an edict of January 4th, 1486, threatened with
   excommunication all who ventured to translate and to circulate
   translations of sacred books, especially the Bible, without his
   permission. The Council of Constance (1415), which burnt John Hus and
   Jerome of Prague, condemned also the writings and the hopes of Wiclif,
   the first translator of the whole Bible into the English tongue, to the
   flames: and Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of
   England, denounced him as that "pestilent wretch of damnable heresy
   who, as a complement of his wickedness, invented a new translation of
   the Scriptures into his mother tongue." Pope Pius IV. (1564), in the
   conviction that the indiscriminate reading of Bible versions did more
   harm than good (plus detrimenti quam utilitiatis), would not allow
   laymen to read the sacred book except by special permission of a bishop
   or an inquisitor. Clement VIII. (1598) reserved the right to grant this
   permission to the Congregation of the Index. Gregory XV. (1622), and
   Clement XI. (in the Bull Unigenitus, 1713), repeated the conditional
   prohibition. Benedict XIV., one of the liberal popes, extended the
   permission to read the Word of God in the vernacular to all the
   faithful, yet with the proviso that the translation be approved in Rome
   and guarded by explanatory notes from the writings of the fathers and
   Catholic scholars (1757). This excludes, of course, all Protestant
   versions, even the very best. They are regarded as corrupt and
   heretical and have often been committed to the flames in Roman Catholic
   countries, especially in connection with the counter-Reformation of the
   Jesuits in Bohemia and elsewhere. The first edition of Tyndale's New
   Testament had to be smuggled into England and was publicly burnt by
   order of Tunstall, bishop of London, in St. Paul's church-yard near the
   spot from which Bibles are now sent to all parts of the globe. The
   Bible societies have been denounced and condemned by modern popes as a
   "pestilence which perverts the gospel of Christ into a gospel of the
   devil." The Papal Syllabus of Pius IX. (1864), classes "Societates
   Biblicae" with Socialism, Communism, and Secret Societies, calls them
   "pests frequently rebuked in the severest terms," and refers for proof,
   to several Encyclicals from November 9th, 1846, to August 10th, 1863.
   [9]

   Such fulminations against Protestant Bible societies might be in some
   measure excused if the popes favored Catholic Bible societies, which
   would be the best proof of zeal for the spread of the Scriptures. But
   such institutions do not exist. Fortunately papal bulls have little
   effect in modern times, and in spite of official prohibitions and
   discouragements, there are zealous advocates of Bible reading among
   modern Catholics, as there were among the Greek and Latin fathers. [10]
   Nor have the restrictions of the Council of Trent been able to prevent
   the progress of Biblical scholarship and exegesis even in the Roman
   church. E pur si muove. The Bible, as well as the earth, moves for all
   that.

   Modern Protestant theology is much more just to ecclesiastical
   tradition than the Reformers could be in their hot indignation against
   the prevailing corruptions and against the papal tyranny of their day.
   The deeper study of ecclesiastical and secular history has dispelled
   the former ignorance on the "dark ages," so called, and brought out the
   merits of the fathers, missionaries, schoolmen, and popes, in the
   progress of Christian civilization.

   But these results do not diminish the supreme value of the sacred
   Scripture as an ultimate tribunal of appeal in matters of faith, nor
   the importance of its widest circulation. It is by far the best guide
   of instruction in holy living and dying. No matter what theory of the
   mode and extent of inspiration we may hold, the fact of inspiration is
   plain and attested by the universal consent of Christendom. The Bible
   is a book of holy men, but just as much a book of God, who made those
   men witnesses of truth and sure teachers of the way of salvation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [9] Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II. 218; Koellner, Symbolik II. 351,
   sqq.; Hase, Handbuch der Protestant. Polemik, fourth ed., 1878, p. 68
   sqq. There were indeed vernacular translations of the Bible long before
   the Reformation; but it is a most astounding exaggeration when Perrone,
   as quoted by Hase, asserts (Praelect. Theol. III. S: 317): "Per idem
   tempus 800plus minus editiones Bibliorum aut N. T. ante Reformationem
   prodierant, ac per universam Europam catholicam circumferebantur,
   antequam vel protestantis nomen agnosceretur. Et ex his 200 versiones
   in linguis vernaculis diversarum gentium omnium manibus libere
   versabantur."

   [10] See L. Van Ess,Auszuege ueber das nothwendige und nuetzliche
   Bibellesen aus den Kirchenvaetern und anderen kathol. Schriften, second
   ed., 1816; also the preface to his translation of the New Testament.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 7. Justification by Faith.

   The subjective principle of Protestantism is the doctrine of
   justification and salvation by faith in Christ; as distinct from the
   doctrine of justification by faith and works or salvation by grace and
   human merit. Luther's formula is sola fide. Calvin goes further back to
   God's eternal election, as the ultimate ground of salvation and comfort
   in life and in death. But Luther and Calvin meant substantially the
   same thing, and agree in the more general proposition of salvation by
   free grace through living faith in Christ (Acts 4:12), in opposition to
   any Pelagian or Semi-pelagian compromise which divides the work and
   merit between God and man. And this is the very soul of evangelical
   Protestantism. [11]

   Luther assigned to his solifidian doctrine of justification the central
   position in the Christian system, declared it to be the article of the
   standing or falling (Lutheran) church, and was unwilling to yield an
   inch from it, though heaven and earth should collapse. [12] This
   exaggeration is due to his personal experience during his convent life.
   The central article of the Christian faith on which the church is
   built, is not any specific dogma of the Protestant, or Roman, or Greek
   church, but the broader and deeper truth held by all, namely, the
   divine-human personality and atoning work of Christ, the Lord and
   Saviour. This was the confession of Peter, the first creed of
   Christendom.

   The Protestant doctrine of justification differs from the Roman
   Catholic, as defined (very circumspectly) by the Council of Trent,
   chiefly in two points. Justification is conceived as a declaratory and
   judicial act of God, in distinction from sanctification, which is a
   gradual growth; and faith is conceived as a fiducial act of the heart
   and will, in distinction from theoretical belief and blind submission
   to the church. The Reformers derived their idea from Paul, the
   Romanists appealed chiefly to James (2:17-26); but Paul suggests the
   solution of the apparent contradiction by his sentence, that "in Christ
   Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but
   faith working through love."

   Faith, in the biblical and evangelical sense, is a vital force which
   engages all the powers of man and apprehends and appropriates the very
   life of Christ and all his benefits. It is the child of grace and the
   mother of good works. It is the pioneer of all great thoughts and
   deeds. By faith Abraham became the father of nations; by faith Moses
   became the liberator and legislator of Israel; by faith the Galilean
   fishermen became fishers of men; and by faith the noble army of martyrs
   endured tortures and triumphed in death; without faith in the risen
   Saviour the church could not have been founded. Faith is a saving
   power. It unites us to Christ. Whosoever believeth in Christ "hath
   eternal life." "We believe," said Peter at the Council of Jerusalem,
   "that we shall be saved through the grace of God," like the Gentiles
   who come to Christ by faith without the works and ceremonies of the
   law. "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved," was Paul's
   answer to the question of the jailor: "What must I do to be saved?"

   Protestantism does by no means despise or neglect good works or favor
   antinomian license; it only subordinates them to faith, and measures
   their value by quality rather than quantity. They are not the
   condition, but the necessary evidence of justification; they are not
   the root, but the fruits of the tree. The same faith which justifies,
   does also sanctify. It is ever "working through love" (Gal. 5:6).
   Luther is often charged with indifference to good works, but very
   unjustly. His occasional unguarded utterances must be understood in
   connection with his whole teaching and character. "Faith" in his own
   forcible language which expresses his true view, "faith is a living,
   busy, active, mighty thing and it is impossible that it should not do
   good without ceasing; it does not ask whether good works are to be
   done, but before the question is put, it has done them already, and is
   always engaged in doing them; you may as well separate burning and
   shining from fire, as works from faith."

   The Lutheran doctrine of Christian freedom and justification by faith
   alone, like that of St. Paul on which it was based, was made the cloak
   of excesses by carnal men who wickedly reasoned, "Let us continue in
   sin that grace may abound" (Rom. 6:1), and who abused their "freedom
   for an occasion to the flesh" (Gal. 5:13). All such consequences the
   apostle cut off at the outset by an indignant "God forbid."

   The fact is undeniable, that the Reformation in Germany was accompanied
   and followed by antinomian tendencies and a degeneracy of public
   morals. It rests not only on the hostile testimonies of Romanists and
   separatists, but Luther and Melanchthon themselves often bitterly
   complained in their later years of the abuse of the liberty of the
   gospel and the sad state of morals in Wittenberg and throughout Saxony.
   [13]

   But we should remember, first, that the degeneracy of morals,
   especially the increase of extravagance, and luxury with its attending
   vices, had begun in Catholic times in consequence of discoveries and
   inventions, the enlargement of commerce and wealth. [14] Nor was it
   near as bad as the state of things which Luther had witnessed at Rome
   in 1510, under Pope Julius II., not to speak of the more wicked reign
   of Pope Alexander VI. Secondly, the degeneracy was not due so much to a
   particular doctrine, as to the confusion which necessarily followed the
   overthrow of the ecclesiastical order and discipline, and to the fact
   that the Lutheran Reformers allowed the government of the church too
   easily to pass from the bishops into the hands of secular rulers.
   Thirdly, the degeneracy was only temporary during the transition from
   the abolition of the old to the establishment of the new order of
   things. Fourthly, the disorder was confined to Germany. The Swiss
   Reformers from the start laid greater stress on discipline than the
   Lutheran Reformers, and organized the new church on a more solid basis.
   Calvin introduced a state of moral purity and rigorism in Geneva such
   as had never been known before in the Christian church. The Huguenots
   of France, the Calvinists of Holland, the Puritans of England and New
   England, and the Presbyterians of Scotland are distinguished for their
   strict principles and habits. An impartial comparison of Protestant
   countries and nations with Roman Catholic, in regard to the present
   state of public and private morals and general culture, is eminently
   favorable to the Reformation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [11] Only in this sense can it be called Augustinian; for otherwise
   Augustin's conception of justificatio is catholic, and he identifies it
   with sanctificatio. Moreover he widely differs from the Protestant
   conception of the church and its authority. Luther felt the difference
   in his later years.

   [12] Articuli Smalcaldici, p. 305 (ed. Rechenb., or 310 ed. Mueller):
   "De hoc articulo [solam fidem nos justificare] cedere or aliquid contra
   illum largiri aut permittere nemo piorum potest etiamsi coelum et terra
   et omnia corruant. (Acts 4:12; Isa. 53:3). Et in hoc articulo sita sunt
   et consistunt omnia, quae contra papam, diabolum et universum mundum in
   vita nostra docemus, testamur et agimus. Quare opportet nos de hac
   doctrina esse certos, et minime dubitare, alioquin actum est prorsus,
   et papa et diabolus et omnia adversa jus et victoriam contra nos
   obtinent." Luther inserted in his translation of Rom. 3:28, the word
   allein (sola fide, hence the term solifidianism), and the revised
   Probebibel of 1883 retained it. On the exegetical questions involved,
   see my annotations to Lange on Romans 3:28.

   [13] The weight of Doellinger's three volumes on the Reformation (1848)
   consists in the collection of such unfavorable testimonies from the
   writings of Erasmus, Wizel, Haner, Wildenauer, Crotus Rubeanus,
   Biblicanus, Staupitz, Amerpach, Pirkheimer, Zasius, Frank, Denk,
   Hetzer, Schwenkfeld, Luther, Melanchthon, Spalatin, Bugenhagen, and
   others. They give, indeed, a very gloomy, but a very one-sided picture
   of the times. Janssen makes good use of these testimonies. But both
   these Catholic historians whose eminent learning is undeniable, wrote
   with a polemic aim, and make the very truth lie by omitting the bright
   side of the Reformation. Comp. on this subject the controversial
   writings of Koestlin and Ebrard against Janssen, and Janssen's replies,
   An meine Kritiker, Freiburg i. B. 1883 (Zehntes Tausend, 227 pages),
   and Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, Freib. 1883 (Zwoelftes Tausend,
   144 pages).

   [14] Even Janssen admits this, but is silent about the greater
   corruption in Rome. See his Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes I. 375 sqq.
   Comp. his Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, p. 82.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 8. The Priesthood of the Laity.

   The social or ecclesiastical principle of Protestantism is the general
   priesthood of believers, in distinction from the special priesthood
   which stands mediating between Christ and the laity.

   The Roman church is an exclusive hierarchy, and assigns to the laity
   the position of passive obedience. The bishops are the teaching and
   ruling church; they alone constitute a council or synod, and have the
   exclusive power of legislation and administration. Laymen have no voice
   in spiritual matters, they can not even read the Bible without the
   permission of the priest, who holds the keys of heaven and hell.

   In the New Testament every believer is called a saint, a priest, and a
   king. "All Christians," says Luther, "are truly of the spiritual
   estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. As
   St. Paul says, we are all one body, though each member does its own
   work, to serve the others. This is because we have one baptism, alike;
   one gospel, one faith, and are all Christians for baptism, gospel and
   faith, these alone make spiritual and Christian people." And again: "It
   is faith that makes men priests, faith that unites them to Christ, and
   gives them the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whereby they become
   filled with all holy grace and heavenly power. The inward
   anointing--this oil, better than any that ever came from the horn of
   bishop or pope--gives them not the name only, but the nature, the
   purity, the power of priests; and this anointing have all they received
   who are believers in Christ."

   This principle, consistently carried out, raises the laity to active
   co-operation in the government and administration of the church; it
   gives them a voice and vote in the election of the pastor; it makes
   every member of the congregation useful, according to his peculiar
   gift, for the general good. This principle is the source of religious
   and civil liberty which flourishes most in Protestant countries.
   Religious liberty is the mother of civil liberty. The universal
   priesthood of Christians leads legitimately to the universal kingship
   of free, self-governing citizens, whether under a monarchy or under a
   republic.

   The good effect of this principle showed itself in the spread of Bible
   knowledge among the laity, in popular hymnody and congregational
   singing, in the institution of lay-eldership, and in the pious zeal of
   the magistrates for moral reform and general education.

   But it was also shamefully perverted and abused by the secular rulers
   who seized the control of religion, made themselves bishops and popes
   in their dominion, robbed the churches and convents, and often defied
   all discipline by their own immoral conduct. . Philip of Hesse, and
   Henry VIII. of England, are conspicuous examples of Protestant popes
   who disgraced the cause of the Reformation. Erastianism and
   Territorialism whose motto is: cujus regio, ejus religio, are
   perversions rather than legitimate developments of lay-priesthood. The
   true development lies in the direction of general education, in
   congregational self-support and self-government, and in the intelligent
   co-operation of the laity with the ministry in all good works, at home
   and abroad. In this respect the Protestants of England, Scotland, and
   North America, are ahead of the Protestants on the Continent of Europe.
   The Roman church is a church of priests and has the grandest temples of
   worship; the Lutheran church is a church of theologians and has most
   learning and the finest hymns; the Reformed church is a church of the
   Christian people and has the best preachers and congregations.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 9. The Reformation and Rationalism.

   G. Frank: De Luthero rationalismi praecursore. Lips., 1857.

   S. Berger: La Bible an seizieme siecle; etude sur les origines de la
   critique. Paris, 1879.

   Charles Beard: The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in relation, to
   Modem Thought and Knowledge (Hibbert Lectures). London, 1883. Lect. V.

   Comp. also Lecky: History of Rationalism in Europe. London, 4th ed.
   1870, 2 vols. George P. Fisher: Faith and Rationalism. New York, 1879,
   revised 1885 (191 pages).

   The Roman Catholic Church makes Scripture and tradition the supreme
   rule of faith, laying the chief stress on tradition, that is, the
   teaching of an infallible church headed by an infallible Pope, as the
   judge of the meaning of both. [15]

   Evangelical, Protestantism makes the Scripture alone the supreme rule,
   but uses tradition and reason as means in ascertaining its true sense.

   Rationalism raises human reason above Scripture and tradition, and
   accepts them only as far as they come within the limits of its
   comprehension. It makes rationality or intelligibility the measure of
   credibility. We take the word Rationalism here in the technical sense
   of a theological system and tendency in distinction from rational
   theology. The legitimate use of reason in religion is allowed by the
   Catholic and still more by the Protestant church, and both have
   produced scholastic systems in full harmony with orthodoxy.
   Christianity is above reason, but not against reason.

   The Reformation is represented as the mother of Rationalism both by
   Rationalistic and by Roman Catholic historians and controversialists,
   but from an opposite point of view, by the former to the credit, by the
   latter to the disparagement of both.

   The Reformation, it is said, took the first step in the emancipation of
   reason: it freed us from the tyranny of the church. Rationalism took
   the second step: it freed us from the tyranny of the Bible. "Luther,"
   says Lessing, the champion of criticism against Lutheran orthodoxy,
   "thou great, misjudged man! Thou hast redeemed us from the yoke of
   tradition: who will redeem us from the unbearable yoke of the letter!
   Who will at last bring us a Christianity such as thou would teach us
   now, such as Christ himself would teach!"

   Roman Catholics go still further and hold Protestantism responsible for
   all modern revolutions and for infidelity itself, and predict its
   ultimate dismemberment and dissolution. [16] But this charge is
   sufficiently set aside by the undeniable fact that modern infidelity
   and revolution in their worst forms have appeared chiefly in Roman
   Catholic countries, as desperate reactions against hierarchical and
   political despotism. The violent suppression of the Reformation in
   France ended at last in a radical overthrow of the social order of the
   church. In Roman Catholic countries, like Spain and Mexico, revolution
   has become a chronic disease. Romanism provokes infidelity among
   cultivated minds by its excessive supernaturalism.

   The Reformation checked the skepticism of the renaissance, and the
   anarchical tendencies of the Peasants' War in Germany and of the
   Libertines in Geneva. An intelligent faith is the best protection
   against infidelity; and a liberal government is a safeguard against
   revolution.

   The connection of the Reformation with Rationalism is a historical
   fact, but they are related to each other as the rightful use of
   intellectual freedom to the excess and abuse of it. Rationalism asserts
   reason against revelation, and freedom against divine as well as human
   authority. It is a one-sided development of the negative, protesting,
   antipapal and antitraditional factor of the Reformation to the
   exclusion of its positive, evangelical faith in the revealed will and
   word of God. It denies the supernatural and miraculous. It has a
   superficial sense of sin and guilt, and is essentially Pelagian; while
   the Reformation took the opposite Augustinian ground and proceeded from
   the deepest conviction of sin and the necessity of redeeming grace. The
   two systems are thus theoretically and practically opposed to each
   other. And yet there is an intellectual and critical affinity between
   them, and Rationalism is inseparable from the history of Protestantism.
   It is in the modern era of Christianity what Gnosticism was in the
   ancient church--a revolt of private judgment against the popular faith
   and church orthodoxy, an overestimate of theoretic knowledge, but also
   a wholesome stimulus to inquiry and progress. It is not a church or
   sect (unless we choose to include Socinianism and Unitarianism), but a
   school in the church, or rather a number of schools which differ very
   considerably from each other.

   Rationalism appeared first in the seventeenth century in the Church of
   England, though without much effect upon the people, as Deism, which
   asserted natural religion versus revealed religion; it was matured in
   its various phases after the middle of the eighteenth century on the
   Continent, especially in Protestant Germany since Lessing (d. 1781) and
   Semler (d. 1791), and gradually obtained the mastery of the chairs and
   pulpits of Lutheran and Reformed churches, till about 1817, when a
   revival of the positive faith of the Reformation spread over Germany
   and a serious conflict began between positive and negative
   Protestantism, which continues to this day.

   1. Let us first consider the relation of the Reformation to the use of
   reason as a general principle.

   The Reformation was a protest against human authority, asserted the
   right of private conscience and judgment, and roused a spirit of
   criticism and free inquiry in all departments of knowledge. It allows,
   therefore, a much wider scope for the exercise of reason in religion
   than the Roman church, which requires an unconditional submission to
   her infallible authority. It marks real progress, but this progress is
   perfectly consistent with a belief in revelation on subjects which lie
   beyond the boundary of time and sense. What do we know of the creation,
   and the world of the future, except what God has chosen to reveal to
   us? Human reason can prove the possibility and probability of the
   existence of God and the immortality of the soul, but not the certainty
   and necessity. It is reasonable, therefore, to believe in the
   supernatural on divine testimony, and it is unreasonable to reject it.

   The Reformers used their reason and judgment very freely in their
   contest with church authority. Luther refused to recant in the crisis
   at Worms, unless convinced by testimonies of the Scriptures and "cogent
   arguments." [17] For a while he was disposed to avail himself of the
   humanistic movement which was skeptical and rationalistic in its
   tendency, but his strong religious nature always retained the mastery.
   He felt as keenly as any modern Rationalist, the conflict between
   natural reason and the transcending mysteries of revelation. He was
   often tormented by doubts and even temptations to blasphemy, especially
   when suffering from physical infirmity. A comforter of others, he
   needed comfort himself and asked the prayers of friends to fortify him
   against the assaults of the evil spirit, with whom he had, as he
   thought, many a personal encounter. He confessed, in 1524, how glad he
   would have been five years before in his war with papal superstition,
   if Carlstadt could have convinced him that the Eucharist was nothing
   but bread and wine, and how strongly he was then inclined to that
   rationalistic view which would have given a death blow to
   transubstantiation and the mass. He felt that every article of his
   creed--the trinity, in unity, the incarnation, the transmission of
   Adam's sin, the atonement by the blood of Christ, baptismal
   regeneration, the real presence, the renewal of the Holy Spirit, the
   resurrection of the body--transcended human comprehension. In Aug. 2,
   1527, during the raging of the pestilence at Wittenberg, he wrote to
   Melanchthon, who was absent at Jena: "For more than a week I have been
   tossed about in death and hell; so that, hurt in all my body, I still
   tremble in every limb. For having almost wholly lost Christ, I was
   driven about by storms and tempests of despair and blasphemy against
   God. But God, moved by the prayers of the saints, begins to have pity
   upon me, and has drawn my soul out of the lowest hell. Do not cease to
   pray for me, as I do for you. I believe that this agony of mine
   pertains to others also." [18]

   In such trials and temptations he clung all the more mightily to the
   Scriptures and to faith which believes against reason and hopes against
   hope. "It is a quality of faith," he says in the explanation of his
   favorite Epistle to the Galatians, "that it wrings the neck of reason
   and strangles the beast, which else the whole world, with all
   creatures, could not strangle. But how? It holds to God's Word, and
   lets it be right and true, no matter how foolish and impossible it
   sounds. So did Abraham take his reason captive and slay it, inasmuch as
   he believed God's Word, wherein was promised him that from his
   unfruitful and as it were dead wife, Sarah, God would give him seed."

   This and many similar passages clearly show the bent of Luther's mind.
   He knew the enemy, but overcame it; his faith triumphed over doubt. In
   his later years he became more and more a conservative churchman. He
   repudiated the mystic doctrine of the inner word and spirit, insisted
   on submission to the written letter of the Scriptures, even when it
   flatly contradicted reason. He traced the errors of the Zwickau
   prophets, the rebellious peasants, the Anabaptists, and the radical
   views of Carlstadt and Zwingli, without proper discrimination, to
   presumptuous inroads of the human reason into the domain of faith, and
   feared from them the overthrow of religion. He so far forgot his
   obligations to Erasmus as to call him an Epicurus, a Lucian, a doubter,
   and an atheist. Much as he valued reason as a precious gift of God in
   matters of this world, he abused it with unreasonable violence, when it
   dared to sit in judgment over matters of faith. [19]

   Certainly, Luther must first be utterly divested of his faith, and the
   authorship of his sermons, catechisms and hymns must be called in
   question, before he can be appealed to as the father of Rationalism. He
   would have sacrificed his reason ten times rather than his faith.

   Zwingli was the most clear-headed and rationalizing among the
   Reformers. [20] He did not pass through the discipline of monasticism
   and mysticism, like Luther, but through the liberal culture of Erasmus.
   He had no mystic vein, but sound, sober, practical common sense. He
   always preferred the plainest sense of the Bible. He rejected the
   Catholic views on original sin, infant damnation and the corporeal
   presence in the eucharist, and held advanced opinions which shocked
   Luther and even Calvin. But he nevertheless reverently bowed before the
   divine authority of the inspired Word of God, and had no idea of
   setting reason over it. His dispute with Luther was simply a question
   of interpretation, and he had strong arguments for his exegesis, as
   even the best Lutheran commentators must confess.

   Calvin was the best theologian and exegete among the Reformers. He
   never abused reason, like Luther, but assigned it the office of an
   indispensable handmaid of revelation. He constructed with his logical
   genius the severest system of Protestant orthodoxy which shaped French,
   Dutch, English and American theology, and fortified it against
   Rationalism as well as against Romanism. His orthodoxy and discipline
   could not keep his own church in Geneva from becoming Socinian in the
   eighteenth century, but he is no more responsible for that than Luther
   for the Rationalism of Germany, or Rome for the infidelity of Voltaire.
   Upon the whole, the Reformed churches in England, Scotland and North
   America, have been far less invaded by Rationalism than Germany.

   2. Let us now consider the application of the principle of free inquiry
   to the Bible. [21]

   The Bible, its origin, genuineness, integrity, aim, and all its
   circumstances and surroundings are proper subjects of investigation;
   for it is a human as well as a divine book, and has a history, like
   other literary productions. The extent of the Bible, moreover, or the
   Canon, is not determined by the Bible itself or by inspiration, but by
   church authority or tradition, and was not fully agreed upon till the
   close of the fourth century, and even then only by provincial synods,
   not by any of the seven oecumenical Councils. It was therefore justly
   open to reinvestigation.

   The Church of Rome, at the Council of Trent, settled the Canon,
   including the Apocrypha, but without any critical inquiry or definite
   theological principle; it simply confirmed the traditional usage, and
   pronounced an anathema on every one who does not receive all the books
   contained in the Latin Vulgate. [22] She also checked the freedom of
   investigation by requiring conformity to a defective version and a
   unanimous consensus of the fathers, although such an exegetical
   consensus does not exist except in certain fundamental doctrines.

   The Reformers re-opened the question of the extent of the Canon, as
   they had a right to do, but without any idea of sweeping away the
   traditional belief or undermining the authority of the Word of God. On
   the contrary, from the fulness of their faith in the inspired Word, as
   contained in the Scriptures, they questioned the canonicity of a few
   books which seem to be lacking in sufficient evidence to entitle them
   to a place in the Bible. They simply revived, in a new shape and on
   doctrinal rather than historical grounds, the distinction made by the
   Hebrews and the ancient fathers between the canonical and apocryphal
   books of the Old Testament, and the Eusebian distinction between the
   Homologumena and Antilegomena of the New Testament, and claimed in both
   respects the freedom of the ante-Nicene church.

   They added, moreover, to the external evidence, the more important
   internal evidence on the intrinsic excellency of the Scripture, as the
   true ground on which its authority and claim to obedience rests; and
   they established a firm criterion of canonicity, namely, the purity and
   force of teaching Christ and his gospel of salvation. They did not
   reject the testimonies of the fathers, but they placed over them what
   Paul calls the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. 2:4).

   Luther was the bold pioneer of a higher criticism, which was indeed
   subjective and arbitrary, but, after all, a criticism of faith. He made
   his central doctrine of justification by faith the criterion of
   canonicity. [23] He thus placed the material or subjective principle of
   Protestantism above the formal or objective principle, the truth above
   the witness of the truth, the doctrine of the gospel above the written
   Gospel, Christ above the Bible. Romanism, on the contrary, places the
   church above the Bible. But we must remember that Luther first learnt
   Christ from the Bible, and especially, from the Epistles of Paul, which
   furnished him the key for the understanding of the scheme of salvation.

   He made a distinction, moreover, between the more important and the
   less important books of the New Testament, according to the extent of
   their evangelic purity and force, and put Hebrews, James, Jude, and
   Revelation at the end of the German Bible. [24]

   He states his reason in the Preface to the Hebrews as follows:
   "Hitherto we have had the right and genuine books of the New Testament.
   The four that follow have been differently esteemed in olden times." He
   therefore appeals to the ante-Nicene tradition, but his chief objection
   was to the contents.

   He disliked, most of all, the Epistle of James because he could not
   harmonize it with Paul's teaching on justification by faith without
   works, [25] and he called it an epistle of straw as compared with the
   genuine apostolic writings. [26]

   He objected to the Epistle to the Hebrews because it seems to deny (in
   Heb. 6, 10 and 12) the possibility of repentance after baptism,
   contrary to the Gospels and to Paul, and betrays in 2:3, a
   post-apostolic origin. He ascribed the authorship to Apollos by an
   ingenious guess, which, though not supported by ancient tradition, has
   found great favor with modern commentators and critics, [27] chiefly
   because the authorship of any other possible writer (Paul, Barnabas,
   Luke, Clement) seems to offer insuperable difficulties, while the
   description of Apollos in Acts 18:24-28, compared with the allusions in
   1 Cor. 1:12; 3:6; 4:6; 16:12, seems to fit exactly the author of this
   anonymous Epistle.

   He called the Epistle of Jude an "unnecessary epistle," a mere extract
   from Second Peter and post-apostolic, filled with apocryphal matter,
   and hence rejected by the ancient fathers.

   He could at first find no sense in the mysteries of the Apocalypse and
   declared it to be "neither apostolic nor prophetic," because it deals
   only with images and visions, and yet, notwithstanding its obscurity,
   it adds threats and promises, "though nobody knows what it means"; but
   afterwards he modified his judgment when the Lutheran divines found in
   it welcome weapons against the church of Rome.

   The clearest utterance on this subject is found at the close of his
   preface to the first edition of his German version of the New Testament
   (1522), but it was suppressed in later editions. [28]

   Luther's view of inspiration was both strong and free. With the
   profoundest conviction of the divine contents of the Bible, he
   distinguished between the revealed truth itself and the human wording
   and reasoning of the writers. He says of one of the rabbinical
   arguments of his favorite apostle: "My dear brother Paul, this argument
   won't stick." [29]

   Luther was, however, fully aware of the subjective and conjectural
   character of these opinions, and had no intention of obtruding them on
   the church: hence he modified his prefaces in later editions. He judged
   the Scriptures from an exclusively dogmatic, and one-sidedly Pauline
   standpoint, and did not consider their gradual historical growth.

   A few Lutheran divines followed him in assigning a subordinate position
   to the seven Antilegomena of the New Testament; [30] but the Lutheran
   church, with a sound instinct, accepted for popular use the traditional
   catholic Canon (not even expressly excluding the Jewish Apocrypha), yet
   retained his arrangement of the books of the New Testament. [31] The
   Rationalists, of course, revived, intensified, and carried to excess
   the bold opinions of Luther, but in a spirit against which he would
   himself raise the strongest protest.

   The Reformed divines were more conservative than Luther in accepting
   the canonical books, but more decided in rejecting the Apocrypha of the
   Old Testament. The Reformed Confessions usually enumerate the canonical
   books.

   Zwingli objected only to the Apocalypse and made no doctrinal use of
   it, because he did not deem it an inspired book, written by the same
   John who wrote the fourth Gospel. [32] In this view he has many
   followers, but the severest critical school of our days (that of
   Tuebingen) assigns it to the Apostle John. Wolfgang Musculus mentions
   the seven Antilegomena, but includes them in the general catalogue of
   the New Testament; and Oecolampadius speaks of six Antilegomena
   (omitting the Hebrews), as holding an inferior rank, but nevertheless
   appeals to their testimony. [33]

   Calvin had no fault to find with James and Jude, and often quotes
   Hebrews and Revelation as canonical books, though he wrote no
   commentary on Revelation, probably because he felt himself incompetent
   for the task. He is silent about Second and Third John. He denies,
   decidedly, the Pauline authorship, but not the canonicity, of Hebrews.
   [34] He is disposed to assign Second Peter to a pupil of Peter, who
   wrote under the auspices and by direction of the Apostle; but he guards
   in this case, also, against unfavorable inferences from the uncertainty
   of origin. [35]

   Calvin clearly saw the inconsistency of giving the Church the right of
   determining the canon after denying her right of making an article of
   faith. He therefore placed the Canon on the authority of God who bears
   testimony to it through the voice of the Spirit in the hearts of the
   believer. The eternal and inviolable truth of God, he says, is not
   founded on the pleasure and judgment of men, and can be as easily
   distinguished as light from darkness, and white from black. In the same
   line, Peter Vermilius denies that "the Scriptures take their authority
   from the Church. Their certitude is derived from God. The Word is older
   than the Church. The Spirit of God wrought in the hearts of the bearers
   and readers of the Word so that they recognized it to be truly divine."
   This view is clearly set forth in several Calvinistic Confessions. [36]
   In its exclusive form it is diametrically opposed to the maxim of
   Augustin, otherwise so highly esteemed by the Reformers: "I should not
   believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Church."
   [37] But the two kinds of evidence supplement each other. The human
   authority of tradition though not the final ground of belief, is
   indispensable as an historical witness of the genuineness and
   canonicity, and is of great weight in conflict with Rationalism. There
   is no essential antagonism between the Bible and the Church in the
   proper sense of the term. They are inseparable. The Church was founded
   by Christ and the apostles through the preaching of the living Word of
   God, and the founders of the Church are also the authors of the written
   Word, which continues to be the shining and guiding light of the
   Church; while the Church in turn is the guardian, preserver,
   translator, propagator, and expounder of the Bible.

   3. The liberal views of the Reformers on inspiration and the canon were
   abandoned after the middle of the sixteenth century, and were succeeded
   by compact and consolidated systems of theology. The evangelical
   scholasticism of the seventeenth century strongly resembles, both in
   its virtues and defects, the catholic scholasticism of the Middle Ages
   which systematized and contracted the patristic theology, except that
   the former was based on the Bible, the latter on church tradition. In
   the conflict with Romanism the Lutheran and Calvinistic scholastics
   elaborated a stiff, mechanical theory of inspiration in order to set an
   infallible book against an infallible pope. The Bible was identified
   with the Word of God, dictated to the sacred writers as the penmen of
   the Holy Ghost. Even the classical purity of style and the integrity of
   the traditional text, including the Massoretic punctuation, were
   asserted in the face of stubborn facts, which came to light as the
   study of the origin and history of the text advanced. The divine side
   of the Scriptures was exclusively dwelled upon, and the human and
   literary side was ignored or virtually denied. Hence the exegetical
   poverty of the period of Protestant scholasticism. The Bible was used
   as a repository of proof texts for previously conceived dogmas, without
   regard to the context, the difference between the Old and New
   Testaments, and the gradual development of the divine revelation in
   accordance with the needs and capacities of men.

   4. It was against this Protestant bibliolatry and symbololatry that
   Rationalism arose as a legitimate protest. It pulled down one dogma
   after another, and subjected the Bible and the canon to a searching
   criticism. It denies the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, except
   in a wider sense which applies to all works of genius, and treats them
   simply as a gradual evolution of the religious spirit of Israel and the
   primitive Christian Church. It charges them with errors of fact and
   errors of doctrine, and resolves the miracles into legends and myths.
   It questions the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch, the genuineness of
   the Davidic Psalms, the Solomonic writings, the prophecies of
   Deutero-Isaiah and Daniel, and other books of the Old Testament. It
   assigns not only the Eusebian Antilegomena, but even the Gospels, Acts,
   the Catholic Epistles, and several Pauline Epistles to the
   post-apostolic age, from a.d. 70 to 150.

   In its later developments, however, Rationalism has been obliged to
   retreat and make several concessions to orthodoxy. The canonical
   Gospels and Acts have gained by further investigation and discovery;
   [38] and the apostolic authorship of the four great Epistles of Paul to
   the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians and the Apocalypse of John is
   fully admitted by the severest school of criticism (that of Tuebingen).
   A most important admission: for these five books teach or imply all the
   leading facts and truths of the gospel, and overthrow the very
   foundations of Rationalism. With the Christ of the Gospels, and the
   Apostle Paul of his acknowledged Epistles, Christianity is safe.

   Rationalism was a radical revolution which swept like a flood over the
   Continent of Europe. But it is not negative and destructive only. It
   has made and is still making valuable contributions to biblical
   philology, textual criticism, and grammatico-historical exegesis. It
   enlarges the knowledge of the conditions and environments of the Bible,
   and of all that belongs to the human and temporal side of Christ and
   Christianity. It cultivates with special zeal and learning the sciences
   of Critical Introduction, Biblical Theology, the Life of Christ, the
   Apostolic and post-Apostolic Ages.

   5. These acquisitions to exegetical and historical theology are a
   permanent gain, and are incorporated in the new evangelical theology,
   which arose in conflict with Rationalism and in defense of the positive
   Christian faith in the divine facts of revelation and the doctrines of
   salvation. The conflict is still going on with increasing strength, but
   with the sure prospect of the triumph of truth. Christianity is
   independent of all critical questions on the Canon, and of human
   theories of inspiration; else Christ would himself have written the
   Gospels, or commanded the Apostles to do so, and provided for the
   miraculous preservation and inspired translation of the text, . His
   "words are spirit, and are life." "The flesh profiteth nothing."
   Criticism and speculation may for a while wander away from Christ, but
   will ultimately return to Him who furnishes the only key for the
   solution of the problems of history and human life. "No matter," says
   the world-poet Goethe in one of his last utterances, "how much the
   human mind may progress in intellectual culture, in the science of
   nature, in ever-expanding breadth and depth: it will never be able to
   rise above the elevation and moral culture which shines in the
   Gospels."

   Notes.

   The famous close of the Preface of Luther's edition of the German New
   Testament was omitted in later editions, but is reprinted in Walch's
   ed. XIV. 104 sqq., and in the Erlangen Frankf. ed. LXIII. (or eleventh
   vol. of the Vermischte Deutsche Schriften), p. 114 sq. It is verbatim
   as follows:

   "Aus diesem allen kannst du nu recht urtheilen unter allen Buechern,
   und Unterschied nehmen, welchs die besten sind. Denn, naemlich, ist
   Johannis Evangelion, und St. Pauli Episteln, sonderlich die zu den
   Roemern, und Sanct Peters erste Epistel der rechte Kern und Mark unter
   allen Buechern; welche auch billig die, ersten sein sollten, und einem
   jeglichen Christen zu rathen waere, das er dieselben am ersten und
   allermeisten laese, und ihm durch taeglich Lesen so gemein maechte, als
   das taeglich Brod.

   "Denn in diesen findist [findest] du nicht viel Werk und Wunderthaten
   Christi beschrieben; du findist aber gar meisterlich ausgestrichen, wie
   der Glaube an Christum Suend, Tod und Hoelle ueberwindet, und das
   Leben, Gerechtigkeit und Seligkeit gibt. Welchs die rechte Art ist des
   Evangelii, wie du gehoeret hast.

   "Denn wo ich je der eins mangeln sollt, der Werke oder der Predigt
   Christi, so wollt ich lieber der Werke denn seiner Predigt mangeln.
   Denn die Werke helfen mir nichts; aber seine Worte, die geben das
   Leben, wie er selbst sagt (Joh 5.V.51). Weil nu Johannes gar wenig
   Werke von Christo, aber gar viel seiner Predigt schreibt; wiederumb die
   andern drei Evangelisten viel seiner Werke, wenig seiner Worte
   beschreiben: ist Johannis Evangelion das einige zarte, recht(e)
   Hauptevangelion, und den andren dreien weit fuerzuzichen und hoeher zu
   heben. Also auch Sanct Paulus und Petrus Episteln weit ueber die drei
   Evangelia Matthai, Marci und Lucae vorgehen.

   "Summa, Sanct Johannis Evangel. und seine erste Epistel, Sanct Paulus
   Epistel(n), sonderlich die zu den Roemern, Galatern, Ephesern, und
   Sanct Peters erste Epistel. das sind die Buecher, die dir Christum
   zeigen, und alles lehren, das dir zu wissen noth und selig ist ob du
   sohon kein ander Buch noch Lehre nummer [nimmermehr] sehest and horist
   [hoerest]. Darumb ist Sanct Jakobs Epistel ein recht strohern(e)
   Epistel, gegen sie, denn sie doch kein(e) evangelisch(e) Art an ihr
   hat. Doch davon weiter in andern Vorreden."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [15] "I am the tradition" (la tradizione son io), said Pope Pius IX.,
   during the Vatican Council which substituted an infallible papacy for
   an infallible council, in conflict both with oecumenical councils and
   popes who officially denounced Pope Honorius III. as a Monotheletic
   heretic. See vol. IV. 500 sqq.

   [16] This charge is sanctioned by several papal Encyclicals; it is
   implied, negatively, in the Syllabus of Pius IX. (1864), and,
   positively, though cautiously, in the Encyclical of Leo XIII Immortale
   Dei (Nov. 1, 1885), which characterizes the Reformation movements
   (without naming them) as "those pernicious and deplorable revolutionary
   tendencies which were aroused in the sixteenth century, and which,
   after introducing confusion into Christendom, soon, by a natural
   course, entered the domain of philosophy, and from philosophy into all
   the lines of civil society. Hasak, in his book--Dr. M. Luther
   (Regensburg, 1881), takes as his motto: " Be reconciled to the Church
   of God, the old mother church, which, for these eighteen hundred years,
   has been the preserver of the eternal truth, before the bloody flood of
   atheism and the socialistic republic breaks upon us as a true judgment
   of the world."

   [17] "Scripturae sacrae testimoniis vel evidenti ratione," or
   "evidentissimis rationibus; in the German form, as repeated by him on
   the occasion, "durch Zeugnisse der heil. Schrift und durch helle
   Gruende."See Koestlin II. 452 sq. and 800. The words seem to assign to
   reason an independent position by, the side of the Scriptures, but in
   case of conflict Luther always allowed the decision to the Scriptures.

   [18] Briefe, ed. de Wette, III. 189: "Ego sane ... plus tota hebdomada
   in morte et inferno jactatus, ita ut toto corpore laesus adhuc tremam
   membris," etc. Comp. Luther's letters to Spalatin, July 10th and Aug.
   19th, 1527, l.c. III. 187, 191.

   [19] He called reason "the mistress of the devil,"" the ugly devil's
   bride,"" a poisonous beast with many dragons' heads," "God's bitterest
   enemy." The coarsest invective against this gift of God is found in the
   last sermon he preached at Wittenberg, in the year of his death (1546),
   on Rom. 12:3. He here represents reason as the fountain of gross and
   subtle idolatry, and says: Wucherei, Saeuferei, Ehebruch, Mord,
   Todtschlag, etc., die kann man merken, und verstehet auch die Welt,
   dass sie Suende sein; aber des Tuefels Braut, Ratio, die shoene Metze,
   faehret herein, und will klug sein, und was sie saget, meinet sie, es
   sei der heilige Geist; wer will da helfen? Weder Jurist, Medicus, noch
   Koenig oder Kaiser. Denn es ist die hoechste Hure die der Teufel hat!'
   And again:" Derohalben wie ein junger Gesell muss der boesen Lust
   wehren, ein Alter dem Geiz: also ist die Vernunft von Art und Natur
   eine, schaedliche Hure."... " Die Vernunft ist und soll in der Taufe
   ersaeuft sein."" Hoere auf, du verfluchte Hure; willst du Meisterin
   sein ueber den Glauben, welcher sagt, dass im Abendmahl des Herrn sei
   der wahre Leib und das wahre Blut; item dass die Taufe nicht schlecht
   Wasser ist ... Diesem Glauben muss die Vernunft unterthan und gehorsam
   sein."And much of the same sort, with vehement denunciations of the
   Schwaermergeister and Sacramentirer (the sectaries and Zwinglians). See
   Werke, ed. Walch XII. col. 1530 sqq. It is noteworthy that Luther first
   abused reason in his book on the Slavery of the Human Will against the
   semi-Pelagianism of Erasmus. But his assaults on Aristotle and the
   scholastic theology began several years earlier, before 1517.

   [20] Luther felt this when he told him at Marburg: "You have a
   different spirit."

   [21] Comp. here the Critical Introductions to the Bible, and especially
   Reuss, Histoire du Canon des Saintes Ecritures, Strasbourg, 1863. Ch.
   XVI. p. 308 sqq.; Hunter's Engl. transl. (1884) p. 290 sqq.

   [22] Sess. IV. (April 8th, 1546): "Si quis autem libros ipsos integros
   cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ecclesia catholica legi
   consueverunt, et in veteri Vulgata Latina editione habentur, pro sacris
   et canonicis non susceperit et traditiones praedictas sciens et prudens
   contempserit, anathema sit." Schaff, Creeds II. 82. There were,
   however, protesting voices in the council: some desired to recognize
   the old distinction between Homologumena and Antilegomena; others
   simply an enumeration of the sacred books used in the Catholic church,
   without a dogmatic definition. Sarpi censures the council for its
   decision, and there are Catholic divines (as Sixtus Senensis, Du Pin,
   Jahn), who, in spite of the decision, make a distinction between
   protocanonical and deuterocanonical books.

   [23] "This," he says in the Preface to the Epistle of James, " is the
   true touchstone (der rechte Pruefstein) of all books, whether they make
   Christ their sole topic and aim" [literally " drive Christ,"Christum
   treiben], " or not; since all Scripture shows Christ (Rom. 3), and St.
   Paul wishes to know nothing but Christ (1 Cor. 2). That which does not
   teach Christ is not apostolic, though St. Peter and Paul should teach
   it; again, that which preaches Christ is apostolic, though Judas,
   Annas, Pilate and Herod should say it."The devil himself can quote
   Scripture.

   [24] In this distinction Carlstadt had preceded him in his book, De
   Canon. Scripturis (Wittenb. 1520, reprinted in Credner's Zur Gesch. des
   Kanons, 1847, p. 291-412). Carlstadt divided the books of the canon
   into three ordines: (1) libri summae dignitatis (the Pentateuch, though
   not written by Moses, and the Gospels); (2) secundae dignitatis (the
   Prophets and 15 Epistles); (3) tertiae dignitatis (the Jewish
   Hagiographa and the seven Antilegomena of the New Testament).

   [25] He rejects the epistle first of all, "because it gives
   righteousness to works in flat contradiction to Paul and all other
   Scriptures;" secondly, "because, while undertaking to teach Christian
   people, it does not once mention the passion, the resurrection, the
   Spirit of Christ; it names Christ twice, but teaches nothing about him;
   it calls the law a law of liberty, while Paul calls it a law of
   bondage, of wrath, of death and of sin." He offered his doctor's cap to
   any who could harmonize James and Paul on the subject of justification,
   and jests about the trouble Melanchthon took to do it. He made the
   contradiction unnecessarily stronger by inserting his allein (sola)
   before durch den Glauben in Rom. 3:28. He first attacked the Epistle of
   James in his book De Captivitate Babylonica, in 1520, where he calls it
   an epistle unworthy of the apostolical spirit. Carlstadt seems to have
   fallen out with Luther in the same year on this question; for he
   defended the Epistle against the frivola argumenta of a bonus sacerdos
   amicitiae nostrae (who can be no other than Luther), in his book De
   canonicis Scripturis, Wittenbergae, 1520.

   [26] The comparison must not be overlooked. He says: gegen sie, i.e.,
   as compared with the Epistles of Paul, Peter and John, previously
   mentioned. See the passage in full below. He could not be blind to the
   merits of James as a fresh, vigorous teacher of practical Christianity.

   [27] Bleek, de Wette, Tholuck, Luenemann, Kendrick (in Lange),
   Hilgenfeld, de Pressense, Davidson, Alford, Farrar, and others.

   [28] See note at the end of this section. His Table Talk contains bold
   and original utterances on Esther, Ecclesiastes and other books of the
   Old Testament; see Reuss on the Canon, 330 sqq. While Luther on the one
   hand limited the canon, he seemed disposed on the other hand to extend
   it, when he declared Melanchthon's Loci Theologici to be worthy of a
   place in the canon. But this was merely an extravagant compliment.

   [29] Comp. his comments on the allegory of Sarah and Hagar in his Latin
   Com. on Gal. 3:25 (Erl. ed. II. 252).

   [30] Brentius, Flacius, Urbanus Regius, the authors of the Magdeburg
   Centuries, and Chemnitz.

   [31] None of the symbolical books of the Lutheran church gives a list
   of the canon, but the Formula of Concord (p. 570) declares that the
   "prophetica et apostolica scripta V. et N. T. " are the "unica regula
   et norma secundum quam omnia dogmata omnesque doctores aestimari et
   judicari opporteat."

   [32] "Us Apocalypsi nehmend wir kein Kundschafft an, denn es nit ein
   biblisch Buch ist." Werke, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, II. 1. p. 169.
   In another place he says: "Apocal. liber non sapit os et ingenium
   Joannis." De clar. Verbi Dei, p. 310.

   [33] See Reuss, p. 315 sq. Eng. ed.

   [34] In the introduction to his Com. on Hebrews: "Ego ut Paulum
   auctorem agnoscam adduci nequeo." His reasons are, the difference of
   style and of the docendi ratio, and because the writer counts himself
   with the disciples of the Apostles (Heb. 2:3); but nevertheless he
   accepts the book as inspired and canonical, because it more clearly
   than any other book treats of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ.

   [35] In Argum. Ep. Sec. Petri, he notes "manifestum discrimen" between
   the first and second Epistle, and adds: "Sunt et aliae probabiles
   conjecturae ex quibus colligere licet alterius esse potius quam Petri,"
   but he sees in it, "nihil Petro indignum"

   [36] The Second Helvetic confession, c. 1 and 2, and the Belgic
   Confession, art. 5, combine the testimony of tradition and that of the
   Holy Spirit, but lay chief stress upon the latter. So the Gallican
   Conf., art. 4: "We know these books to be canonical and the sure rule
   of our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the
   church (non tant par le, commun a ord et consentement de l'eglise), as
   by the testimony and inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, which
   enables us to distinguish them from other ecclesiastical books, upon
   which, however useful, we cannot found any articles of faith." The
   Westminster Confession, ch. I. 4, sets aside the testimony of
   tradition, saying: "The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it
   ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of
   any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the
   Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the
   Word of God." The Scripture proofs given are, 2 Pet. 1:19, 21; 2 Tim.
   3:16; 1 John 5:9; 1 Thess. 2:13; but they have no bearing upon the
   question of canonicity.

   [37] "Ego evangelio non crederem, nisi me moveret ecclesiae
   auctoritas," Contra Ep. Fundam., c. 5. A thoroughly Roman catholic
   principle in opposition to the Manichaen heresy. But the testimony of
   the church is indispensable only in the history of the origin of the
   several books, and the formation of the canon.

   [38] Thus Mark is regarded by many Rationalists as the primitive Gospel
   based on Peter's sermons. Matthew has received valuable testimonies
   from the discovery of the Greek Barnabas who quotes him twice, and from
   the discovery of the Didache of the Apostles, which contains about
   twenty reminiscences from the first Gospel. On the Johannean question
   the Tuebingen critics have been forced to retreat from 170 to 140, 120,
   110, almost to the life time of John. The Acts have received new
   confirmation of their historical credibility from the excavations in
   Cyprus and Ephesus, and the minute test of the nautical vocabulary of
   chapter 27 by an experienced seaman. On all these points see the
   respective sections in the first volume of this History, ch. XII. p.
   569 sqq.; 715 sqq.; 731 sqq; and 853 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 10. Protestantism and Denominationalism. [39]

   The Greek Church exists as a patriarchal hierarchy based on the first
   seven oecumenical Councils with four ancient local centres: Jerusalem,
   Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople; to which must be added, since
   1725, St. Petersburg where the Holy Synod of orthodox Russia resides.
   The patriarch of Constantinople claims a primacy of honor, but no
   supremacy of jurisdiction over his fellow-patriarchs.

   The Roman Church is an absolute monarchy, headed by an infallible pope
   who claims to be vicar of Christ over all Christendom and unchurches
   the Greek and the Protestant churches as schismatical and heretical.

   The Reformation came out of the bosom of the Latin Church and broke up
   the visible unity of Western Christendom, but prepared the way for a
   higher spiritual unity on the basis of freedom and the full development
   of every phase of truth.

   Instead of one organization, we have in Protestantism a number of
   distinct national churches and confessions or denominations. Rome, the
   local centre of unity, was replaced by Wittenberg, Zurich, Geneva,
   Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh. The one great pope had to surrender to
   many little popes of smaller pretensions, yet each claiming and
   exercising sovereign power in his domain. The hierarchical rule gave
   way to the caesaropapal or Erastian principle, that the owner of the
   territory is also the owner of its religion (cujus regio, ejus
   religio), a principle first maintained by the Byzantine Emperors, and
   held also by the Czar of Russia, but in subjection to the supreme
   authority of the oecumenical Councils. Every king, prince, and
   magistrate, who adopted the Reformation, assumed the ecclesiastical
   supremacy or summepiscopate, and established a national church to the
   exclusion of Dissenters or Nonconformists who were either expelled, or
   simply tolerated under various restrictions and disabilities.

   Hence there are as many national or state churches as there are
   independent Protestant governments; but all acknowledge the supremacy
   of the Scriptures as a rule of faith and practice, and most of them
   also the evangelical confessions as a correct summary of Scripture
   doctrines. Every little principality in monarchical Germany and every
   canton in republican Switzerland has its own church establishment, and
   claims sovereign power to regulate its creed worship, and discipline.
   And this power culminates not in the clergy, but in the secular ruler
   who appoints the ministers of religion and the professors of theology.
   The property of the church which had accumulated by the pious
   foundations of the Middle Ages, was secularized during the Reformation
   period and placed under the control of the state, which in turn assumed
   the temporal support of the church.

   This is the state of things in Europe to this day, except in the
   independent or free churches of more recent growth, which manage their
   own affairs on the voluntary principle.

   The transfer of the episcopal and papal power to the head of the state
   was not contemplated by the Reformers, but was the inevitable
   consequence of the determined opposition of the whole Roman hierarchy
   to the Reformation. The many and crying abuses which followed this
   change in the hands of selfish and rapacious princes, were deeply
   deplored by Melanchthon, who would have consented to the restoration of
   the episcopal hierarchy on condition of the freedom of gospel preaching
   and gospel teaching.

   The Reformed church in Switzerland secured at first a greater degree of
   independence than the Lutheran; for Zwingli controlled the magistrate
   of Zurich, and Calvin ruled supreme in Geneva under institutions of his
   own founding; but both closely united the civil and ecclesiastical
   power, and the former gradually assumed the supremacy.

   Scandinavia and England adopted, together with the Reformation, a
   Protestant episcopate which divides the ecclesiastical supremacy with
   the head of the state; yet even there the civil ruler is legally the
   supreme governor of the church.

   The greatest Protestant church-establisbments or national churches are
   the Church of England, much weakened by dissent, but still the richest
   and most powerful of all; the United Evangelical Church of Prussia
   which, since 1817, includes the formerly separated Lutheran and
   Reformed confessions; the Lutheran Church of Saxony (with a Roman
   Catholic king); the Lutheran Churches of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway;
   the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, and Holland; and the Reformed or
   Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

   Originally, all evangelical Protestant churches were embraced under two
   confessions or denominations, the Lutheran which prevailed and still
   prevails in Germany and Scandinavia, and the Reformed which took root
   in Switzerland, France, Holland, England and Scotland, and to a limited
   extent also in Germany, Bohemia and Hungary. The Lutheran church
   follows the larger portion of German and Scandinavian emigrants to
   America and other countries, the Reformed church in its various
   branches is found in all the Dutch and British colonies, and in the
   United States.

   From these two confessions should be distinguished the Anglican Church,
   which the continental historians from defective information usually
   count with the Reformed Church, but which stands midway between
   evangelical Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, and may therefore be
   called Anglo-Catholic. She is indeed moderately Reformed in her
   doctrinal articles, [40] but in polity and ritual she is much more
   conservative than the Calvinistic and even the Lutheran confession,
   pays greater deference to the testimony of the ancient fathers, and
   lays stress upon her unbroken episcopal succession.

   The confessional division in the Protestant camp arose very early. It
   was at first confined to a difference of opinion on the eucharistic
   presence, which the Marburg Conference of 1529 could not remove,
   although Luther and Zwingli agreed in fourteen and a half out of
   fifteen articles of faith. Luther refused any compromise. Other
   differences gradually developed themselves, on the ubiquity of Christ's
   body, predestination, and baptismal regeneration, which tended to widen
   and perpetuate the split. The union of the two Confessions in Prussia
   and other German states, since 1817, has not really healed it, but
   added a third Church, the United Evangelical, to the two older
   Confessions which, still continue separate in other countries.

   The controversies among the Protestants in the sixteenth century roused
   all the religious and political passions and cast a gloom over the
   bright picture of the Reformation. Melanchthon declared that with tears
   as abundant as the waters of the river Elbe he could not express his
   grief over the distractions of Christendom and the "fury of
   theologians." Calvin also, when invited, with Melanchthon, Bullinger
   and Buzer, in 1552, by Archbishop Cranmer to Lambeth Palace for the
   purpose of framing a concensus-creed of the Reformed churches, was
   willing to cross ten seas for the cause of Christian union. [41] But
   the noble scheme was frustrated by the stormy times, and still remains
   a pium desiderium.

   Much as we must deplore and condemn sectarian strife and bitterness, it
   would be as unjust to charge them on Protestantism, as to charge upon
   Catholicism the violent passions of the trinitarian, christological and
   other controversies of the Nicene age, or the fierce animosity between
   the Greek and Latin Churches, or the envy and jealousy of the monastic
   orders of the Middle Ages, or the unholy rivalries between Jansenists
   and Jesuits, Gallicans and Ultramontanists in modern Romanism. The
   religious passions grow out of the selfishness of depraved human nature
   in spite of Christianity, whether Greek, Roman, or Protestant., and may
   arise in any denomination or in any congregation. Paul had to rebuke
   the party spirit in the church at Corinth. The rancor of theological
   schools and parties under one and the same government is as great and
   often greater than among separate rival denominations. Providence
   overrules these human weaknesses for the clearer development of
   doctrine and discipline, and thus brings good out of evil.

   The tendency of Protestantism towards individualism did not stop with
   the three Reformation Churches, but produced other divisions wherever
   it was left free to formulate and organize the differences of
   theological parties and schools. This was the case in England, in
   consequence of what may be called a second Reformation, which agitated
   that country during the seventeenth century, while Germany was passing
   through the horrors of the Thirty Years' War.

   The Toleration Act of 1689, after the final overthrow of the
   semi-popish and treacherous dynasty of the Stuarts, gave the Dissenters
   who were formerly included in the Church of England, the liberty to
   organize themselves into independent denominations under the names of
   Presbyterians, Independents or Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers;
   all professing the principles of the Reformation, but differing in
   minor points of doctrine, and especially in discipline, and the mode of
   worship.

   The Methodist revival of religion which shook England and the American
   colonies during the eighteenth century, gave rise to a new denomination
   which spread with the enthusiasm of an army of conquest and grew into
   one of the largest and most influential communions in English-speaking
   Christendom.

   In Scotland, the original unity of the Reformed Kirk was likewise
   broken up, mostly on the question of patronage and the sole headship of
   Christ, so that the Scotch population is now divided chiefly into three
   branches, the Established Church, the United Presbyterian Church, and
   the Free Church of Scotland; all holding, however, to the Westminster
   standards.

   In Germany, the Moravian brotherhood acquired a legal existence, and
   fully earned it by its missionary zeal among the heathen, its
   educational institutions, its pure discipline and stimulating influence
   upon the older churches.

   All these Churches of Great Britain and the Continent were transplanted
   by emigration to the virgin soil of North America, where they mingle on
   a basis of equality before the law and in the enjoyment of perfect
   religious freedom. But few communions are of native growth. In America,
   the distinction between church and sect, churchmen and dissenters, has
   lost its legal meaning. And even in Europe it is weakened in the same
   proportion in which under the influence of modern ideas of toleration
   and freedom the bond of union of church and state is relaxed, and the
   sects or theological parties are allowed to organize themselves into
   distinct communities.

   Thus Protestantism in the nineteenth century is divided into half a
   dozen or more large denominations, without counting the minor divisions
   which are even far more numerous. The Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the
   Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Methodists, and the
   Baptists, are distinct and separate families. Nor is the centrifugal
   tendency of Protestantism exhausted, and may produce new denominations,
   especially in America, where no political power can check its progress.

   To an outside spectator, especially to a Romanist and to an infidel,
   Protestantism presents the aspect of a religious chaos or anarchy which
   must end in dissolution.

   But a calm review of the history of the last three centuries and the
   present condition of Christendom leads to a very different conclusion.
   It is an undeniable fact that Christianity has the strongest hold upon
   the people and displays the greatest vitality and energy at home and
   abroad, in English-speaking countries, where it is most divided into
   denominations and sects. A comparison of England with Spain, or
   Scotland with Portugal, or the United States with Mexico and Peru or
   Brazil, proves the advantages of living variety over dead uniformity.
   Division is an element of weakness in attacking a consolidated foe, but
   it also multiplies the missionary, educational, and converting
   agencies. Every Protestant denomination has its own field of
   usefulness, and the cause of Christianity itself would be seriously
   weakened and contracted by the extinction of any one of them.

   Nor should we overlook the important fact, that the differences which
   divide the various Protestant denominations are not fundamental, and
   that the articles of faith in which they agree are more numerous than
   those in which they disagree. All accept the inspired Scriptures as the
   supreme rule of faith and practice, salvation by grace, and we may say
   every article of the Apostles' Creed; while in their views of practical
   Christianity they unanimously teach that our duties are comprehended in
   the royal law of love to God and to our fellow-men, and that true piety
   and virtue consist in the imitation of the example of Christ, the Lord
   and Saviour of all.

   There is then unity in diversity as well as diversity in unity.

   And the tendency to separation and division is counteracted by the
   opposite tendency to Christian union and denominational intercommunion
   which manifests itself in a rising degree and in various forms among
   Protestants of the present day, especially in England and America, and
   on missionary fields, and which is sure to triumph in the end. The
   spirit of narrowness, bigotry and exclusiveness must give way at last
   to a spirit of evangelical catholicity, which leaves each denomination
   free to work out its own mission according to its special charisma, and
   equally free to co-operate in a noble rivalry with all other
   denominations for the glory of the common Master and the building up of
   His Kingdom.

   The great problem of Christian union cannot be solved by returning to a
   uniformity of belief and outward organization. Diversity in unity and
   unity in diversity is the law of God in history as well as in nature.
   Every aspect of truth must be allowed room for free development. Every
   possibility of Christian life must be realized. The past cannot be
   undone; history moves zig-zag, like a sailing vessel, but never
   backwards. The work of church history, whether Greek, Roman, or
   Protestant, cannot be in vain. Every denomination and sect has to
   furnish some stones for the building of the temple of God.

   And out of the greatest human discord God will bring the richest
   concord.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [39] Denominationalism is, I believe, an American term of recent
   origin, but useful and necessary to express the fact, without praise or
   blame, that Protestant Christianity exists in various ecclesiastical
   organizations, some of which are large, others small, some differing in
   doctrine, others only in polity and worship, some liberal and catholic,
   others contracted and exclusive. I use it in this neutral sense, in
   preference to Confessionalism which implies confessional or doctrinal
   difference, and Sectarianism which implies bigotry and is a term of
   reproach.

   [40] The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, as revised under Elizabeth
   (1563 and 1571), are borrowed in part, verbatim, from the Augsburg
   Confession of 1530 and the Wuertemberg Confession of 1552, but are
   moderately Calvinistic in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and on
   predestination; the five Lambeth Articles of 1595, and the Irish
   Articles of Archbishop Ussher (1615) are strongly Calvinistic, and the
   latter furnished the basis of the Westminster Confession. But the
   Lambeth Articles and the Irish Articles were gradually forgotten, and
   the Book of Common Prayer which is based on the office of Sarum, has
   practically much greater influence than even the Thirty-nine Articles.
   See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom vol. I. 624 sqq., 630 sqq., 658 sqq.,
   662 sqq.

   [41] See the correspondence in Cranmer's Works publ. by the Parker
   Society, Vol.II. 430-433.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 11. Protestantism and Religious Liberty.

   Comp. Ph. Schaff: The Progress of Religious Freedom as shown in the
   History of Toleration Acts, N. York, 1889. (126 pages.)

   The Reformation was a grand act of emancipation from spiritual tyranny,
   and a vindication of the sacred rights of conscience in matters of
   religious belief. Luther's bold stand at the Diet of Worms, in the face
   of the pope and the emperor, is one of the sublimest events in the
   history of liberty, and the eloquence of his testimony rings through
   the centuries. [42] To break the force of the pope, who called himself
   and was believed to be, the visible vicar of God on earth, and who held
   in his hands the keys of the kingdom of heaven, required more moral
   courage than to fight a hundred battles, and it was done by an humble
   monk in the might of faith.

   If liberty, both civil and religious, has since made progress, it is
   due in large measure to the inspiration of that heroic act. But the
   progress was slow and passed through many obstructions and reactions.
   "The mills of God grind slowly, but wonderfully fine."

   It seems one of the strangest inconsistencies that the very men who
   claimed and exercised the right of protest in essentials, should have
   denied the same right to others, who differed from them in
   nonessentials. After having secured liberty from the yoke of popery,
   they acted on the persecuting principles in which they had been brought
   up. They had no idea of toleration or liberty in our modern sense. They
   fought for liberty in Christ, not from Christ, for liberty to preach
   and teach the gospel, not to oppose or pervert it. They were as
   intensely convinced of their views as their Roman opponents of theirs.
   They abhorred popery and heresy as dangerous errors which should not be
   tolerated in a Christian society. John Knox feared one Romish mass in
   Scotland more than an army of ten thousand French invaders. The
   Protestant divines and princes of the sixteenth century felt it to be
   their duty to God and to themselves to suppress and punish heresy as
   well as civil crimes. They confounded the law with the gospel. In many
   cases they acted in retaliation, and in self-defense. They were
   surrounded by a swarm of sects and errorists who claimed to be the
   legitimate children of the Reformation, exposed it to the reproach of
   the enemies and threatened to turn it into confusion and anarchy. The
   world and the church were not ripe for a universal reign of liberty,
   nor are they even now.

   Religious persecution arises not only from bigotry and fanaticism, and
   the base passions of malice, hatred and uncharitableness, but also from
   mistaken zeal for truth and orthodoxy, from the intensity of religious
   conviction, and from the alliance of religion with politics or the
   union of church and state, whereby an offence against the one becomes
   an offence against the other. Persecution is found in all religions,
   churches and sects which had the power; while on the other hand all
   persecuted religions, sects, and parties are advocates of toleration
   and freedom, at least for themselves. Some of the best as well as the
   worst men have been persecutors, believing that they served the cause
   of God by fighting his enemies. Saul of Tarsus, and Marcus Aurelius,
   the Stoic saint and philosopher on the throne of the Caesars, have in
   ignorance persecuted Christianity, the one from zeal for the law of
   Moses, the other from devotion to the laws and gods of Rome.
   Charlemagne thought he could best promote Christianity among the
   heathen Saxons by chasing them through the river for wholesale baptism.
   St. Augustin, Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin were equally convinced of the
   right and duty of the civil magistrate to punish heresy. A religion or
   church established by law must be protected by law against its enemies.
   The only sure guarantee against persecution is to put all churches on
   an equal footing before the law, and either to support all or none.

   Church history is lurid with the infernal fires of persecutions, not
   only of Christians by heathens and Mohammedans, but of Christians by
   Christians.

   But there is a silver lining to every cloud, and an overruling
   Providence in all human wickedness. The persecutions test character,
   develop moral heroism, bring out the glories of martyrdom, and sow the
   bloody seed of religious liberty. They fail of their object when the
   persecuted party has the truth on its side, and ultimately result in
   its victory. This was the case with Christianity in the Roman empire,
   and to a large extent with Protestantism. They suffered the cross, and
   reaped the crown.

   Let us now briefly survey the chief stages in the history of
   persecution, which is at the same time a history of religious liberty.

   1. The New Testament furnishes not a single passage in favor of
   persecution. The teaching and example of Christ and the Apostles are
   against it. He came to save the world, not to destroy it. He declared
   that His kingdom is not of this world. He rebuked the hasty Peter for
   drawing the sword, though it was in defense of his Master; and he
   preferred to suffer and to die rather than to call the angels of God to
   aid against his enemies. The Apostles spread the gospel by spiritual
   means and condemned the use of carnal weapons.

   For three hundred years the church followed their example and advocated
   freedom of conscience. She suffered persecution from Jews and Gentiles,
   but never retaliated, and made her way to triumph through the power of
   truth and a holy life sealed by a heroic death. [43]

   2. The change began with the union of church and state under
   Constantine the Great, in the East, and Charles the Great, in the West.
   Both these emperors represent the continuation of the old Roman empire
   under the dominion of the sword and the cross.

   The mediaeval theory of the Catholic Church assumes a close alliance of
   Caesar and Pope, or the civil and ecclesiastical power, in Christian
   countries, and the exclusiveness of the Catholic communion out of which
   there can be no salvation. The Athanasian Creed has no less than three
   damning clauses against all who dissent from the orthodox doctrine of
   the Trinity and the Incarnation. From this point of view every heresy,
   i.e., every departure from catholic orthodoxy, is a sin and a crime
   against society, and punishable both by the church and the state,
   though in different ways. "The church does not thirst for blood " [44]
   but excommunicates the obstinate heretic and hands him over to the
   civil magistrate to be dealt with according to law. And the laws of
   pagan Rome and Christian Rome were alike severe against every open
   dissent from the state religion. The Mosaic legislation against
   idolatry and blasphemy, which were punished by death, as a crime
   against the theocracy and as treason against Jehovah, [45] seemed to
   afford divine authority for similar enactments under the Christian
   dispensation, in spite of the teaching and example of Christ and his
   Apostles. The Christian emperors after Constantine persecuted the
   heathen religion and heretical sects, as their heathen predecessors had
   persecuted the Christians as enemies of the national gods. The
   Justinian code, which extended its influence over the whole Continent
   of Europe, declares Christian heretics and schismatics, as well as
   Pagans and Jews, incapable of holding civil or military offices,
   forbids their public assemblies and ecclesiastical acts, and orders
   their books to be burned.

   The leading divines of the church gave sanction to this theory. St.
   Augustin, who had himself been a heretic for nine years, was at first
   in favor of toleration. [46] But during the Donatist controversy, he
   came to the conclusion that the correction and coercion of heretics and
   schismatics was in some cases necessary and wholesome. His tract on the
   Correction of the Donatists was written about 417, to show that the
   schismatical and fanatical Donatists should be subjected to the
   punishment of the imperial laws. He admits that it is better that men
   should be led to worship God by teaching than be driven to it by fear
   of punishment or pain; but he reasons that more men are corrected by
   fear. He derives the proof from the Old Testament. The only passages
   from the New Testament which he is able to quote, would teach a
   compulsory salvation rather than punishment, but are really not to the
   point. He refers to Paul's conversion as a case of compulsion by Christ
   himself, and misapplies the word of our Lord in the parable of the
   Supper: "Constrain them to come in." [47] Yet he professed, on the
   other hand, the correct principle that "no man can believe against his
   will." [48] And he expressly discouraged the infliction of the
   death-penalty on heretics. [49]

   Thomas Aquinas, next to Augustin, the highest authority among the
   canonized doctors of the Latin church, went a step further. He proved,
   to the satisfaction of the Middle Ages, that the rites of idolaters,
   Jews, and infidels ought not to be tolerated, [50] and that heretics or
   corruptors of the Christian faith, being worse criminals than debasers
   of money, ought (after due admonition) not only to be excommunicated by
   the church, but also be put to death by the state. [51] He does not
   quote a Bible passage in favor of the death-penalty of heretics; on the
   contrary he mentions three passages which favor toleration of heretics,
   2 Tim. 2:24; 1 Cor. 11:19; Matt. 13:29, 30, and then tries to deprive
   them of their force by his argument drawn from the guilt of heresy.

   The persecution of heretics reached its height in the papal crusades
   against the Albigenses under Innocent III., one of the best of popes;
   in the dark deeds of the Spanish Inquisition; and in the unspeakable
   atrocities of the Duke of Alva against the Protestants in the
   Netherlands during his short reign (1567-1573). [52]

   The horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew (Aug. 24, 1572) was sanctioned
   by Pope Gregory XIII., who celebrated it by public thanksgivings, and
   with a medal bearing his image, an avenging angel and the inscription,
   Ugonottorum strages. [53]

   The infamous dragonnades of Louis XIV. were a continuation of the same
   politico-ecclesiastical policy on a larger scale, aiming at the
   complete destruction of Protestantism in France, in violation of the
   solemn edict of his grandfather (1598, revoked 1685), and met the full
   approval of the Roman clergy, including Bishop Bossuet, the advocate of
   Gallican liberties. [54]

   The most cruel of the many persecutions of the innocent Waldenses in
   the valleys of Piedmont took place in 1655, and shocked by its
   boundless violence the whole Protestant world, calling forth the
   vigorous protest of Cromwell and inspiring the famous sonnet of Milton,
   his foreign secretary:


   "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

   Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,

   Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

   When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones."

   These persecutions form the darkest, we may say, the satanic chapters
   in church history, and are a greater crime against humanity and
   Christianity than all the heresies which they in vain tried to
   eradicate.

   The Roman church has never repented of her complicity with these
   unchristian acts. On the contrary, she still holds the principle of
   persecution in connection with her doctrine that there is no salvation
   outside of her bosom. The papal Syllabus of 1864 expressly condemns,
   among the errors of modern times, the doctrine of religious toleration.
   [55] Leo XIII., a great admirer of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas,
   in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885, "concerning the Christian
   constitution of states," wisely moderates, but reaffirms, in substance,
   the political principles of his predecessor. [56] A revocation would be
   fatal to the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility. The practice of
   persecution is a question of power and expediency; and although
   isolated cases still occur from time to time, [57] the revival of
   mediaeval intolerance is an impossibility, and would be condemned by
   intelligent and liberal Roman Catholics as a folly and a crime.

   3. The Protestant theory and practice of persecution and toleration.

   (a) The Lutheran Reformers and Churches.

   Luther was the most advanced among the Reformers in the ideas of
   toleration and liberty. He clearly saw the far-reaching effect of his
   own protest against Rome, and during his storm- and pressure-period,
   from 1517 to 1521, he was a fearless champion of liberty. He has left
   some of the noblest utterances against coercion in matters of
   conscience, which contain almost every essential feature of the modern
   theory on the subject. He draws a sharp line between the temporal power
   which is confined to the body and worldly goods, and the spiritual
   government which belongs to God. He says that "no one can command or
   ought to command the soul, except God, who alone can show it the way to
   heaven;" that "the thoughts and mind of man are known only to God;"
   that "it is futile and impossible to command, or by force to compel any
   man's belief;" that "heresy is a spiritual thing which no iron can hew
   down, no fire burn, no water drown;" that "belief is a free thing which
   cannot be enforced." [58] He opposed the doctrine of the Anabaptists
   with every argument at his command, but disapproved the cruel
   persecution to which they were subjected in Protestant as well as
   Catholic countries. "It is not right," he said in a book against them
   (1528), "and I deeply regret that such wretched people should be so
   miserably murdered, burned, and cruelly put to death; every one should
   be allowed to believe what he pleases. If he believes wrongly, he will
   have punishment enough in the eternal fire of hell. Why should they be
   tortured in this life also?" [59] If heretics were to be punished by
   death, the hangman would be the best (the most orthodox) theologian. "I
   can in no way admit," he wrote to his friend Link in 1528, "that false
   teachers should be put to death: it is enough that they should be
   banished ." [60]

   To this extent, then, he favored punishment of heretics, but no
   further. He wanted them to be silenced or banished by the government.
   He spent his violence in words, in which he far outstripped friends and
   foes, and spared neither papists, nor Zwinglians, nor Anabaptists, nor
   even temporal princes like Henry VIII., Duke George of Saxony, and Duke
   Henry of Brunswick. [61] But his acts of intolerance are few. He
   refused the hand of fellowship to Zwingli, and would not have tolerated
   him at Wittenberg. He begged the elector, John, to prevent a certain
   Hans Mohr from spreading Zwinglian opinions in Coburg. He regretted the
   toleration of the Zwinglians in Switzerland after their defeat, which
   he uncharitably interpreted as a righteous judgment of God. [62]

   A few words on his views concerning the toleration of the Jews who had
   to suffer every indignity from Christians, as if they were personally
   responsible for the crime of the crucifixion. Luther was at first in
   advance of public opinion. In 1523 he protested against the cruel
   treatment of the Jews, as if they were dogs, and not human beings, and
   counseled kindness and charity as the best means of converting them. If
   the apostles, he says, who were Jews, had dealt with the heathen, as we
   heathen Christians deal with the Jews, no heathen would ever have been
   converted, and I myself, if I were a Jew, would rather become anything
   else than a Christian. [63] But in 1543 he wrote two violent books
   against the Jews. [64] His intercourse with several Rabbis filled him
   with disgust and indignation against their pride, obstinacy and
   blasphemies. He came to the conclusion that it was useless to dispute
   with them and impossible to convert them. Moses could do nothing with
   Pharaoh by warnings, plagues and miracles, but had to let him drown in
   the Red Sea. The Jews would crucify their expected Messiah, if he ever
   should come, even worse than they crucified the Christian Messiah. They
   are a blind, hard, incorrigible race. [65] He went so far as to advise
   their expulsion from Christian lands, the prohibition of their books,
   and the burning of their synagogues and even their houses in which they
   blaspheme our Saviour and the Holy Virgin. In the last of his sermons,
   preached shortly before his death at Eisleben, where many Jews were
   allowed to trade, he concluded with a severe warning against the Jews
   as dangerous public enemies who ought not to be tolerated, but left the
   alternative of conversion or expulsion. [66]

   Melanchthon, the mildest of the Reformers, went--strange to say--a step
   further than Luther, not during his lifetime, but eight years after his
   death, and expressly sanctioned the execution of Servetus for blasphemy
   in the following astounding letter to Calvin, dated Oct. 14, 1554:
   "Reverend sir and dearest brother: I have read your work in which you
   have lucidly refuted the horrible blasphemies of Servetus, and I thank
   the Son of God, who has been the arbiter (brabeuthv") of this your
   contest. The church, both now and in all generations, owes and will owe
   you a debt of gratitude. I entirely assent to your judgment. (Tuo
   judicio prorsus adsentior.) And I say, too, that your magistrates did
   right in that, after solemn trial, they put the blasphemer (hominem
   blasphemum) to death." [67] He expressed here his deliberate conviction
   to which he adhered. Three years later, in a warning against the errors
   of Theobald Thammer, he called the execution of Servetus "a pious and
   memorable example to all posterity." [68] We cannot tell what Luther
   might have said in this case had he lived at that time. It is good for
   his reputation that he was spared the trial. [69]

   The other Lutheran Reformers agreed essentially with the leaders. They
   conceded to the civil ruler the control over the religious as well as
   political opinions of their subjects. Martin Bucer went furthest in
   this direction and taught in his "Dialogues" (1535) the right and the
   duty of Christian magistrates to reform the church, to forbid and
   punish popish idolatry, and all false religions, according to the full
   rigor of the Mosaic law. [70]

   In accordance with these views of the Lutheran Reformers the Roman
   Catholics in Lutheran countries were persecuted, not, indeed, by
   shedding their blood as the blood of Protestants was shed in Roman
   Catholic countries, but by the confiscation of their church property,
   the prohibition of their worship, and, if it seemed necessary, by
   exile. In the reorganization of the church in Electoral Saxony in 1528,
   under the direction of the Wittenberg Reformers, the popish priests
   were deprived of their benefices, and even obstinate laymen were forced
   to sell their property and to leave their country. "For," said the
   Elector, "although it is not our intention to bind any one to what he
   is to believe and hold, yet will we, for the prevention of mischievous
   tumult and other inconveniences, suffer neither sect nor separation in
   our territory." [71]

   The Protestant dissenters fared no better in Lutheran Saxony. The
   Philippists (Melanchthonians) or Crypto-Calvinists were outlawed, and
   all clergymen, professors and school teachers who would not subscribe
   the Formula of Concord, were deposed (1580). Dr. Caspar Peucer,
   Melanchthon's son-in-law, professor of medicine at Wittenberg and
   physician to the Elector Augustus of Saxony, was imprisoned for ten
   years (1576-1586) for no other crime than "Philippism" (i.e.
   Melanchthonianism), and Nicolas Crell, the chancellor of Saxony, was,
   after ten years' confinement, beheaded at Dresden for favoring
   Crypto-Calvinism at home and supporting the Huguenots abroad, which was
   construed as high treason (1601). [72] Since that time the name of
   Calvin was as much hated in Saxony as the name of the Pope and the
   Turk. [73]

   In other Lutheran countries, Zwinglians and Calvinists fared no better.
   John a Lasco, the Reformer of Poland and minister of a Protestant
   congregation in London, when fleeing with his followers, including many
   women and children, from the persecution of the bloody Mary, was not
   allowed a resting place at Copenhagen, or Rostock, or Luebeck, or
   Hamburg, because he could not accept the Lutheran doctrine of the real
   presence, and the poor fugitives were driven from port to port in cold
   winter, till at last they found a temporary home at Emden (1553). [74]

   In Scandinavia every religion except the Lutheran was forbidden on pain
   of confiscation and exile, and these laws were in force till the middle
   of the nineteenth century. Queen Christina lost her Swedish crown by
   her apostasy from Lutheranism, which her father had so heroically
   defended in the Thirty Years' War.

   (b) The Swiss Reformers, though republicans, were not behind the
   Germans in intolerance against Romanists and heretics.

   Zwingli extended the hand of brotherhood to Luther, and hoped to meet
   even the nobler heathen in heaven, but had no mercy on the Anabaptists,
   who threatened to overthrow his work in Zuerich. After trying in vain
   to convince them by successive disputations, the magistrate under his
   control resorted to the Cruel irony of drowning their leaders (six in
   all) in the Limmat near the lake of Zuerich (between 1527 and 1532).
   [75]

   Zwingli counselled, at the risk of his own life, the forcible
   introduction of the Reformed religion into the territory of the
   Catholic Forest Cantons (1531); forgetting the warning of Christ to
   Peter, that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword. [76]

   Calvin has the misfortune rather than the guilt of pre-eminence for
   intolerance among the Reformers. He and Servetus are the best abused
   men of the sixteenth century; and the depreciation of the good name of
   the one and the exculpation of the bad name of the other have been
   carried far beyond the limits of historic truth and justice. Both must
   be judged from the standpoint of the sixteenth, not of the nineteenth,
   century.

   The fatal encounter of the champion of orthodoxy and the champion of
   heresy, men of equal age, rare genius, and fervent zeal for the
   restoration of Christianity, but direct antipodes in doctrine, spirit
   and aim, forms the most thrilling tragedy in the history of the
   Reformation. The contrast between the two is almost as great as that
   between Simon Peter and Simon Magus. [77] Their contest will never lose
   its interest. The fires of the funeral pile which were kindled at
   Champel on the 27th of October, 1553, are still burning and cast their
   lurid sparks into the nineteenth century.

   Leaving the historical details and the doctrinal aspect for another
   chapter, [78] we confine ourselves here to the bearing of the case on
   the question of toleration.

   Impartial history must condemn alike the intolerance of the victor and
   the error of the victim, but honor in both the strength of conviction.
   Calvin should have contented himself with banishing his fugitive rival
   from the territory of Geneva, or allowing him quietly to proceed on his
   contemplated journey to Italy, where he might have resumed his practice
   of medicine in which he excelled. But he sacrificed his future
   reputation to a mistaken sense of duty to the truth and the cause of
   the Reformation in Switzerland and his beloved France, where his
   followers were denounced and persecuted as heretics. He is responsible,
   on his own frank confession, for the arrest and trial of Servetus, and
   he fully assented to his condemnation and death "for heresy and
   blasphemy," except that he counselled the magistrate, though in vain,
   to mitigate the legal penalty by substituting the sword for the fire.
   [79]

   But the punishment was in accordance with the mediaeval laws and
   wellnigh universal sentiment of Catholic and Protestant Christendom; it
   was unconditionally counselled by four Swiss magistrates which had been
   consulted before the execution (Zurich, Berne, Basel, and
   Schaffhausen), and was expressly approved by all the surviving
   reformers: Bullinger, Farel, Beza, Peter Martyr, and (as we have
   already seen) even by the mild and gentle Melanchthon. And strange to
   say, Servetus himself held, in part at least, the theory under which he
   suffered: for he admitted that incorrigible obstinacy and malice
   deserved death, [80] referring to the case of Ananias and Sapphira;
   while schism and heresy should be punished only by excommunication and
   exile.

   Nor should we overlook the peculiar aggravation of the case. We may now
   put a more favorable construction on Servetus' mystic and pantheistic
   or panchristic Unitarianism than his contemporaries, who seemed to have
   misunderstood him, friends as well as foes; but he was certainly a
   furious fanatic and radical heretic, and in the opinion of all the
   churches of his age a reckless blasphemer, aiming at the destruction of
   historic Christianity. He was thus judged from his first book (1531),
   [81] as well as his last (1553), [82] and escaped earlier death only by
   concealment, practicing medicine under a fictitious name and the
   protection of a Catholic archbishop. He had abused all trinitarian
   Christians, as tritheists and atheists; he had denounced the orthodox
   doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as a dream of St. Augustin, a fiction of
   popery, an invention of the devil, and a three-headed Cerberus. [83] He
   had attacked with equal fury infant-baptism, as a detestable
   abomination, a killing of the Holy Spirit, an abolition of
   regeneration, and overthrow of the entire kingdom of Christ, and
   pronounced a woe on all baptizers of infancy who close the kingdom of
   heaven against mankind. He had been previously condemned to the stake
   by the Roman Catholic tribunal of the inquisition, after a regular
   trial, in the archiepiscopal city of Vienne in France, partly on the
   ground of his letters to Calvin procured from Geneva, and burned in
   effigy with his last book after his escape. He then rushed blindly into
   the hands of Calvin, whom he denounced, during the trial, as a liar, a
   hypocrite, and a Simon Magus, with a view, apparently, to overthrow his
   power, in league with his enemies, the party of the Libertines, which
   had then the majority in the council of Geneva. [84]

   Considering all these circumstances Calvin's conduct is not only
   explained, but even justified in part. He acted in harmony with the
   public law and orthodox sentiment of his age, and should therefore not
   be condemned more than his contemporaries, who would have done the same
   in his position. [85]

   But all the humane sentiments are shocked again by the atrocity, of the
   execution; while sympathy is roused for the unfortunate sufferer who
   died true to his conviction, reconciled to his enemies, and with the
   repeated prayer in the midst of the flames: "Jesus, thou Son of the
   eternal God, have mercy upon me!"

   The enemies of Calvin raised, in anonymous and pseudonymous pamphlets,
   a loud protest against the new tribunal of popery and inquisition in
   Geneva, which had boasted to be an asylum of all the persecuted. The
   execution of Servetus was condemned by his anti-trinitarian
   sympathizers, especially the Italian refugees in Switzerland, and also
   by some orthodox Christians in Basel and elsewhere, who feared that it
   would afford a powerful argument to the Romanists for their persecution
   of Protestants.

   Calvin felt it necessary, therefore, to come out with a public defense
   of the death-penalty for heresy, in the spring of 1554. [86] He
   appealed to the Mosaic law against idolatry and blasphemy, to the
   expulsion of the profane traffickers from the temple-court (Matt.
   21:12), and he tries to refute the arguments for toleration which were
   derived from the wise counsel of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34), the parable of
   the tares among the wheat (Matt. 13:29), and Christ's rebuke of Peter
   for drawing the sword (Matt. 26:52). The last argument he disposes of
   by making a distinction between private vengeance and public
   punishment.

   Beza also defended, with his usual ability, in a special treatise, the
   punishment of heretics, chiefly as a measure of self-defense of the
   state which had a right to give laws and a duty to protect religion. He
   derived the doctrine of toleration from scepticism and infidelity and
   called it a diabolical dogma. [87]

   The burning of the body of Servetus did not destroy his soul. His blood
   was the fruitful seed of the doctrine of toleration and the Unitarian
   heresy, which assumed an organized form in the Socinian sect, and
   afterward spread in many orthodox churches, including Geneva.

   Fortunately the tragedy of 1553 was the last spectacle of burning a
   heretic in Switzerland, though several years later the
   Anti-trinitarian, Valentine Gentile, was beheaded in Berne (1566).

   (c) In France the Reformed church, being in the minority, was violently
   and systematically persecuted by the civil rulers in league with the
   Roman church, and it is well for her that she never had a chance to
   retaliate. She is emphatically a church of martyrs.

   (d) The Reformed church in Holland, after passing through terrible
   trials and persecutions under Spanish rule, showed its intolerance
   toward the Protestant Arminians who were defeated by the Synod of Dort
   (1619). Their pastors and teachers were deposed and banished. The
   Arminian controversy was, however, mixed up with politics; the
   Calvinists were the national and popular party under the military lead
   of Prince Maurice; while the political leaders of Arminianism, John Van
   Olden Barneveldt and Hugo Grotius, were suspected of disloyalty for
   concluding a truce with Spain (1609), and condemned, the one to death,
   the other to perpetual banishment. With a change of administration the
   Arminians were allowed to return (1625), and disseminated, with a
   liberal theology, principles of religious toleration.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [42] Froude says (Luther, p. 38): "The appearance of Luther before the
   Diet on this occasion, is one of the finest, perhaps it is the very
   finest, scene in human history."

   [43] Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Lactantius made some of the
   strongest pleas in favor of religious liberty. See vol. II. 35 and 825.

   [44] Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem,"a maxim held by the Catholic church
   even in the darkest days of persecution. When the first blood of
   heretics was shed by order of the Emperor Maximus who punished some
   Priscillianists in Spain by the sword in 388, St. Ambrose of Milan and
   St. Martin of Tours loudly protested against the cruelty and broke off
   communion with the bishops who had approved it.

   [45] Ex. 22:20; Num. 25:2-8; Deut. 13:1-14; 17:2-5; Lev. 24:14-16;
   comp. 1 Kings 21:10, 13. The law was executed against Stephen, the
   protomartyr, Acts 6:11, 13; 7:58.

   [46] He begins his anti-Manichaean work, Adv. Epistolam Manichaei quam
   vocant fundamenti, written in 397, with these noble Christian
   sentiments: "My prayer to the one true, almighty God, of whom and by
   whom and in whom are all things, has been and is now, that in opposing
   and refuting the heresy of you Manichaeans, as you may after all be
   heretics more from thoughtlessness than from malice, He would give me a
   calm and composed mind, aiming at your recovery rather than your
   discomfiture. For, while the Lord by his servants overthrows the
   kingdoms of error, his will concerning erring men, as far as they are
   men, is that they should be restored rather than destroyed. And in
   every case where, previous to the final judgment, God inflicts
   punishment ... we must believe that the designed effect is the recovery
   of men, and not their ruin; while there is a preparation for the final
   doom in the case of those who reject the means of recovery," And in ch.
   3 he says to the Manichaeeans, remembering his own former connection
   with them: I can on no account treat you angrily; for I must bear with
   you now as formerly I had to bear with myself, and I must be as patient
   with you as my associates were with me, when I went madly and blindly
   astray in your beliefs."

   [47] De Correct. Donatist, c. 6, S: 24: "The Lord himself (Luke 14:23)
   bids the guests in the first instance to be invited to His great
   supper, and afterwards to be compelled." He understands the highways
   and hedges of the parable to mean heresies and schisms, and the Supper
   of the Lord to mean the unity of the body of Christ in the sacrament of
   the altar and the bond of peace. He says (ch. 7, S: 25) that when the
   imperial laws against heresy first were sent to Africa he with certain
   brethren opposed their execution, but afterwards justified them as a
   measure of catholic self-defense against the fanatical violence of the
   Donatists. The result was, that both Catholics and Donatists were
   overwhelmed in ruin by the Vandal conquerors, who were Arian heretics.

   [48] "Credere non potest homo nisi volens." See his Tract. XXVI. in
   Joan. c. 2, where he says: "A man can come to church unwillingly, can
   approach the altar unwillingly, partake of the sacrament unwillingly;
   but he can not believe unless he is willing. If we believed with the
   body, men might be made to believe against their will. But believing is
   not a thing done with the body." I am pleased to find an approving
   reference to this sentence in the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. of Nov.
   1, 1885.

   [49] In a letter to Proconsul Donatus (Ep. C.) he adjured him by Jesus
   Christ, not to repay the Donatists in kind, and says: "Corrigi eos
   cupimus, non necari."

   [50] Summa Theol. Secunda Secundae, Quaest. x., Art. 11.

   [51] Ibid. Quaest. xi., Art. 3, where he says of heretics: "Meruerunt
   non solum ab ecclesia per excommunicationem seperari, sed etiam per
   mortem a mundo excludi ... Si falsarii pecuniae vel alii malefactores
   statim per saeculares principes juste morti traduntur, multo magis
   haeretici statim ex quo de haerisi convincuntur, possunt non solum
   excommunicari, sed et juste occidi."

   [52] Gibbon asserts that "the number of Protestants who were executed
   [by the Spaniards] in a single province and a single reign, far
   exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries,
   and in the Roman empire?" Decline and Fall, Ch. xvi., towards the
   close. Grotius, to whom he refers, states that the number of Dutch
   martyrs exceeded 100,000; Sarpi reduces the number to 50,000. Alva
   himself boasted that during his six years' rule as the agent of Philip
   II., he had caused 18,000 persons to be executed, but this does not
   include the much larger number of those who perished by siege, battle,
   and in prisons. At the sack of Haarlem, 300 citizens, tied two and two
   and back to back, were thrown into the lake, and at Zutphen 500 more,
   in the same manner, were drowned in the Yssel. See Motley', Rise of the
   Dutch Republic, vol. II. 504: "The barbarities committed amid the sack
   and ruin of those blazing and starving cities are almost beyond belief;
   unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their mothers; women
   and children were violated by the thousands; and whole populations
   burned and hacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which cruelty, in
   its wanton ingenuity, could devise."

   [53] See De Thou, Hist. lib. LXIII.; Gieseler, IV. 304 (Am. ed,);
   Wachler, Die Pariser Bluthochzeit., 2d ed., Leipzig, 1828; Henry White,
   Massacre of St. Bartholomew, N. Y., 1868; Henry M. Baird, History of
   the Rise of the Huguenots, New York, 1879; Henri Bordier, La
   Saint-Barthelemy et la Critique moderne, Paris, 1879; H. Baumgarten,
   Vor der Bartholomaeusnacht, Strassburg, 1882. The number of victims of
   that massacre in Paris and throughout France, is variously stated from
   10,000 to 100,000; De Thou and Ranke give 20,000 as the most moderate
   estimate (2,000 in Paris). Roman Catholic writers defend the pope on
   the ground of ignorance; but he had abundant time to secure full
   information from his nuncio and others before the medals were struck.
   It is said that Philip II. of Spain, for the first time in his life,
   laughed aloud when he heard of the massacre.

   [54] See the French histories of Martin, Benoit, Michelet, De Felice,
   Ranke, Soldan, Von Polenz, and other works quoted by H. M. Baird in
   Schaff-Herzog II., 1037. The number of French refugees is estimated as
   high as 800,000; Baird reduces it to 400,000. Martin thinks, that
   taking all in all, "France lost the activity of more than a million of
   men, and of the men that produced most." Many of the descendants of the
   refugees whom the Elector Frederic William of Prussia so hospitably
   invited to Berlin, fought against France in the Napoleonic wars, and
   aided in the terrible retribution of 1870.

   [55] Among the errors condemned are these, S: X., 78 and 79: "In the
   present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion shall
   be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all
   other modes of worship.""Whence it has been wisely provided by law,
   that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise
   of their own worship." The condemnation of toleration implies the
   approval of intolerance. See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II., 232.
   Janssen, while he condemns the Protestant persecutions of Catholics,
   approves the Catholic persecutions of Protestants in the time of the
   Reformation. He says: "Fuer die katholische Geistlichkeit, die
   katholischen Fuersten und Magistrate und das katholsche Volk war es ein
   Kampf der Sebsterhaltung, wenn sie Alles aufboten, um dem
   Protestantismus den Eingang in ihre Gebiete zu wehren und ihn, wenn er
   eingedrungen war, daraus wieder zu entfernen." -Geschichte des
   deutschen Volkes, III., 193.

   [56] After glorifying the Middle Ages and the hierarchical rule of the
   church over the state, Leo XIII. in that Encyclical proceeds to say:
   "No doubt the same excellent state of things would have continued, if
   the agreement of the two powers had continued, and greater things might
   rightfully have been expected, if men had obeyed the authority, the
   teaching office, and the counsels of the church with more fidelity and
   perseverance. For that is to be regarded as a perpetual law which Ivo,
   of Chartres, wrote to Pope Paschal II.: 'When kingship and priesthood
   are agreed, the world is well ruled, the church flourishes and bears
   fruit. But when they are at variance, not only do little things not
   grow, but even great things fall into miserable ruin and decay.' " Then
   the pope rejects among the evil consequences of the "revolution" of the
   sixteenth century (meaning, of course, the Reformation) the erroneous
   opinion that "no religion should be publicly professed [by the state];
   nor ought one to be preferred to the rest; nor ought there to be any
   inquiry which of many is alone true; nor ought one to be specially
   favored, but to each alike equal rights ought to be assigned, provided
   only, that the social order incurs no injury from them." This is
   probably aimed at Italy and France, but implies also a condemnation of
   the separation of church and state as it exists in the United States.
   Further on, the pope approvingly refers to the Encyclical Mirari Vos of
   Gregory XVI. (Aug. 15, 1832), which condemns the separation of church
   and state, and to the Syllabus of Pius IX., who "noted many false
   opinions and ordered them to be collected together in order that in so
   great a conflux of errors Catholics might have something which they
   might follow without stumbling."

   [57] Thus, in 1852, the Madiai family were imprisoned in Florence for
   holding prayer meetings and reading the Bible, and in 1853, Matamoras,
   Carrasco and their friends were imprisoned and condemned to the galleys
   at Madrid for the same offense, and were only released after a powerful
   protest of an international deputation of the Evangelical Alliance. No
   public worship except the Roman Catholic was tolerated in the city of
   Rome before 1870.

   [58] See his tract, written in 1523, Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit
   man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei? In Walch X. 426-479, especially the
   second part, col. 451 sqq. "Der Seelen kann und soll niemand gebieten,
   er wisse denn ihr den Weg zu weisen gen Himmel. Das kann aber kein
   Mensch thun, sondern Gott allein. Darum in den Sachen, die der Seelen
   Seligkeit betreffen, soll nichts denn Gottes Wort gelehret und
   angenommenwerden" (453). Es ist ein frei Werk um den Glauben, dazu man
   niemand kann zwingen ... Zum Glauben kann und soll man niemand zwingen"
   (455 sq.). He justly confines the duty of obedience taught in Rom.
   13:1, and 1 Pet. 2:13, to secular matters, and qualifies them by Matt.
   22:21.

   [59] Von der Wiedertaufe, an zwei Pfarrherrn, written in Dec., 1527 or
   Jan., 1528, and addressed to two pastors in a Roman Catholic country
   (probably under the rule of Duke George of Saxony). See Walch XVII.,
   2644, and the Erl. Frankf. ed. xxvi., or of the
   Reformations-historische Schriften III. (2d ed. 1885), p. 283, from
   which I quote the whole passage: "Doch ist's nicht recht, und ist mir
   wahrlich leid, dass man solche elende Lente so jaemmerlich ermordet,
   verbrennet und greulich umbringt; man sollte, ja einen jeglichen lassen
   glaeuben, was er wollt. Glaeubet er unrecht, so hat er gnug Strafen an
   dem ewigen Feur in der Hoellen. Warumb will man sie denn auch noch
   zeitlich martern, so ferne sie allein im Glauben irren, und nicht auch
   daneben aufruhrisch oder sonst der Oeberkeit widerstreben? Lieber Gott,
   wie bald ists geschehen, dass einer irre wird und dem Teufel in Strick
   faellet! Mit der Schrift und Gottes Wort sollt man ihn wehren und
   widerstehen; mit Feuer wird man wenig ausrichten."

   [60] Briefe, de Wette III., 347 sq.: "Quod quaeris, an liceat
   magistratui accidere pseudoprophetas? Ego ad judiciam sanguinis tardus
   sum, etiam ubi meritum abundat ... Nullo modo possum admittere, falsos
   doctores occidi; satis est eos relegari." He gives as a reason that the
   law of the death penalty among the Jews and Papists was made a pretext
   for killing true prophets and saints.

   [61] His coarse attack on Henry VIII., "by God's disfavor (or disgrace,
   Ungnade) king of England," is well known. In his book, Von weltlicher
   Obrigkeit, which is dedicated to his own prince, Duke John, he ventures
   the opinion that wise and pious rulers have from the beginning of the
   world been rare birds, and that princes are usually the greatest fools
   or worst boobies on earth (sie sind gemeiniglich die groessten Narren
   oder die aergsten Buben auf Erden). Walch X., 460 and 464."Es sind gar
   wenig Fuersten, die man nicht fuer Narren und Buben haelt. Das macht,
   sie bewiesen sich auch also, und der gemeine Mann wird
   verstaendig."Ibid., 464.

   [62] In a letter to Albrecht of Brandenburg, a. 1532, after he heard of
   Zwingli's death. De Wette IV., 349-355. In the same letter he speaks of
   Zwingli's salvation only problematically, as having possibly occurred
   in the last moment! He lays there the greatest stress on the real
   presence as a fundamental article of faith.

   [63] See his tract entitled Dass Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sei,
   in the Erl. Frkf. ed. Bd. XIX., p. 45-75. He says that if I were a Jew
   and suffered what the Jews had to suffer from popes, bishops and monks,
   "so waere ich eher eine Sau worden denn ein Christ. Denn sie haben mit
   den Juden gehandelt, als waeren es Hunde, und nicht Menschen" (p. 47).

   [64] Von den Jueden und ihren Luegen, Wittenb., 1543, and Vom Schem
   Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi, Wittenb., 1543. In the Erl. Frkf.
   ed. Bd. XXXII., 99-274, and 275-358.

   [65] "Ein Juede oder juedisch Herz ist so
   stock-stein-eisen-teufel-hart, dass es mit keiner Weise zu bewegen ist
   ... Summa, es sind junge Teufel, zur Hoellen verdammt" (l.c. p. 276).
   He had no hope of the future conversion of the Jews, which some justly
   derived from Rom. 11, but "St. Paulus meinet gar viel ein Anderes"
   (277).

   [66] "Vermahnung wider die Jueden," 1546, Erl. ed. LXV., 186-188. He
   concludes: Wollen sich die Jueden zu uns bekehren und von ihrer
   Laesterung und was sie uns sonst gethan haben, aufhoeren, so wollen wir
   es ihnen gerne vergeben: wo aber nicht, so sollen wir sie auch bei uns
   nicht dulden noch leiden."This reminds one of the way in which Prince
   Bismarck in the year 1886 proposed to deal with the Poles in Posen as
   enemies of Prussia and Germany: to buy them out, and expel them from
   the land of their birth. In several other respects, both favorable and
   unfavorable, that great statesman may be called the political Luther of
   the nineteenth century.

   [67] Corpus Reform. Opera Mel. VIII., 362. Comp. H. Tollin, Ph.
   Melanchthon und M. Servet. Eine Quellen-Studie. Berlin, 1876 (198
   pages). Tollin wrote several monographs on Servetus in his various
   relations.

   [68] Ibid., IX., 133: "Dedit vero et Genevensis Reipubl. Magistratus
   ante annos quatuor punitae insanabilis blasphemiae adversus Filium Dei,
   sublato Serveto Arragone, pium et memorabile ad omnem posteritatem
   exemplum."

   [69] Luther knew only the Servetus of 1531, and once refers to him in
   his Table-Talk, as a fanatic who mastered theology by false philosophy.
   See Tollin, Luther und Servet, Berlin, 1875 (61 pages).

   [70] See Tollin, Butzer's Confutatio der Libri VII. De Trinitatis
   Erroribus, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1875; and Michael Servet
   und Martin Butzer, Berlin, 1880; Baum, Capito und Butzer (1860), pp.
   489 sq., 478, and 495 sq.; also Janssen, Gesch. des deutschen Volkes,
   vol. III., 194.

   [71] "Denn wiewohl unsere Meinung nicht ist, jemand zu verbinden, was
   er glauben und halten soll, so wollen wir doch zur Verhuetung
   schaedlicher Aufruhre und anderer Unrichtigkeiten keine Sekten noch
   Trennung in unseren Landen dulden." Koestlin II., 29. What a difference
   between this restriction and the declaration of Frederick the Great,
   that in his dominions every body may be saved after his own fashion
   (nach seiner eigenen Fac,on).

   [72] Fr. Koch, De Vita Caspar. Peuceri Marburg, 1856. Richard, Der
   churfuerstl. saechs. Kanzler Dr. Nic. Krell. Dresden, 1859, 2 vols.
   Henke, Kaspar Peucer und Nik. Krell, Marburg, 1865. Calinich, Kampf und
   Untergang des Melathonismus in Kursachsen, Leipzig, 1866; Zwei
   saechsische Kanzler, Chemnitz, 1868.

   [73] The following lines were familiar during the seventeenth century:
   "Gottes Wort und Lutheri Schrift Sind des Papst's und Calvini Gift."

   [74] Hermann Dalton (of St. Petersburg), in his Johannes a Laasco
   (Gotha, 1881), pp. 427-438, gives a graphic description of what he
   calls Laski's "martyrdom in Denmark and North Germany." Calvin raised
   his indignant protest against this cruel treatment of his brethren, but
   in the same year Servetus was made to suffer death for heresy and
   blasphemy under Calvin's eye!

   [75] Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, I., 382. Comp. his Von der
   Wiedertaeufer Ursprung, etc., 1560. Hagenbach, Kirchengesch., III. 350
   sqq. Emil Egli, Die Zuericher Wiedertaeufer zur Reformatiosszeit,
   Zuerich, 1884. Nitsche, Gesch. der Wiedertaeufer in der Schweiz,
   Einsiedeln, 1885.

   [76] The statue erected to his memory at Zuerich, August 25th, 1885,
   represents him as holding the Bible in his right hand and the sword
   with his left. Dr. Alex. Schweizer protested (as he informed me)
   against the sword, and took no part in the festivities of the
   dedication of the monument.

   [77] Servetus probably imagined himself to represent the Apostle when
   he called Calvin "Simon Magus." He did identify himself with the
   archangel Michael fighting against the dragon, i.e. the Pope of Rome,
   Apoc. 12:7.

   [78] Together with the extensive literature.

   [79] Servetus appeared on a Sunday morning, August 13th, 1553, in one
   of the churches at Geneva and was recognized by one of the worshippers,
   who at once informed Calvin of the fact, whereupon he was thrown into
   prison. "Nec sane dissimulo," says Calvin (Opera, vol. VIII., col. 461,
   ed. Baum, Reuss, etc.), "mea opera consilioque jure in carcerem fuisse
   conjectum." Beza, in his Vita Calv., reports the fact as providential
   that Servetus, "a quodam agnitus, Calvino Magistratum admonente," was
   arrested. Servetus had previously applied for a safe-conduct from
   Vienne to Geneva, but Calvin refused it, and wrote to Farel, February
   13th, 1546: "Si venerit, modo valeat mea auctoritas, vivum exire
   numquam patiar." During the process, he expressed the hope, in a letter
   to Farel (August 2nd, 1553), that Servetus might be condemned to death,
   but that the sentence be executed in a milder form (Opera xiv., col.
   590): "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium, poenae vero atrocitatem
   [ignem] remitti cupio." In the same letter he gives a sketch of the
   system of Servetus as teaching a pantheistic diffusion of the deity in
   wood, stone, and even in devils.

   [80] "Hoc crimen," he says in the 27th of his letters to Calvin (Opera
   VIII., 708), "est morte simpliciter dignum." Calvin refers to this
   admission of Servetus (VIII., 462) and charges him with inconsistency.

   [81] De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri Sept. Per michaelem Serveto, ali`as
   Reves ab Aragonia Hispanum. Anno M. D. XXXI. No place of publication is
   given in the copy before me, but it was printed at Hagenau in the
   Alsace, as appears from the trial at Geneva. The book excited the
   greatest indignation in Oecolampadius and Bucer. Luther called it an
   awfully wicked book (ein graeulich boes Buch). Bucer thought the author
   ought to be torn to pieces.

   [82] Christianismi Restitutio ... MDLIII., secretly printed at Vienne
   in France, with his initials on the last page, M. S. V. (i e.:
   Villanovanus).

   [83] Such blasphemy of the Trinity appeared to be blasphemy of the
   Deity itself. Hence Beza calls Servetus "ille sacrae Triadis, id est
   omnis verae Deitatis hostis, adeoque monstrum ex omnibus quantumvis
   rancidis et portentosis haeresibus conflatum."Calv. Vita, ad a. 1553.
   He charges his book with being "full of blasphemies." Servetus called
   Jesus "the Son of the eternal God," but obstinately refused to call him
   "the eternal Son of God," in other words, to admit his eternal
   divinity.

   [84] "The year 1553," says Beza in Calvini Vita, ad a. 1553, "by the
   impatience and malice of the factious [the Libertines] was a year so
   full of trouble that not only the church, but the republic of Geneva,
   came within a hair's breadth of ruin ... All power had fallen into
   their hands, that nothing seemed to hinder them from attaining the ends
   for which they had so long been striving." Then he mentions the trial
   of Servetus as the other danger, which was aggravated by the first.

   [85] H. Tollin, a Reformed clergyman of Magdeburg, the most
   enthusiastic and voluminous advocate of Servetus and his system, admits
   this, saying (Charakterbild M. Servet's, Berlin, 1876, p. 6): "Nicht
   Calvin ist schuldig der That, sondern der Protestantismus seiner Zeit."
   Another apologist, Dardier (in Lichtenberger's "Encyclopedie " XI.
   581), says the same: C'est la Reforme tout entiere qui est
   coupable."The famous Christian philosopher, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
   went further. In one of his last utterances, in his Table-Talk, sub
   Jan. 3, 1834 (to which a friend directed my attention), he expressed
   his views as follows: " I have known books written on tolerance, the
   proper title of which would be--intolerant or intolerable books on
   tolerance. Should not a man who writes a book expressly to inculcate
   tolerance learn to treat with respect, or at least with indulgence,
   articles of faith which tens of thousands ten times told of his
   fellow-subjects or his fellow-creatures believe with all their souls,
   and upon the truth of which they rest their tranquillity in this world,
   and their hopes of salvation in the next,--those articles being at
   least maintainable against his arguments, and most certainly innocent
   in themselves?--Is it fitting to run Jesus Christ in a silly parallel
   with Socrates--the Being whom thousand millions of intellectual
   creatures, of whom I am an humble unit, take to be their Redeemer, with
   an Athenian philosopher, of whom we should know nothing except through
   his glorification in Plato and Xenophon?--And then to hitch Latimer and
   Servetus together! To be sure, there was a stake and a fire in each
   case, but where the rest of the resemblance is I cannot see. What
   ground is there for throwing the odium of Servetus's death upon Calvin
   alone?--Why, the mild Melanchthon wrote to Calvin, expressly to testify
   his concurrence in the act, and no doubt he spoke the sense of the
   German Reformers; the Swiss churches advised the punishment in formal
   letters, and I rather think there are letters from the English divines,
   approving Calvin's conduct!--Before a man deals out the slang of the
   day about the great leaders of the Reformation, he should learn to
   throw himself back to the age of the Reformation, when the two great
   parties in the church were eagerly on the watch to fasten a charge of
   heresy on the other. Besides, if ever a poor fanatic thrust himself
   into the fire, it was Michael Servetus. He was a rabid enthusiast, and
   did everything he could in the way of insult and ribaldry to provoke
   the feeling of the Christian church. He called the Trinitytriceps
   monstrum et Cerberum quemdam tri-partitum, and so on!'

   [86] Defensio orthodoxae fidei de sacra trinitate contra prodigiosos
   errores Michaelis Serveti Hispani ubi ostenditur haereticos jure gladii
   oercendos esse. In Calvin's Opera, ed. Reuss, etc., vol. VIII. 483-644.
   Bullinger urged him to the task in a letter of December 12th, 1553
   (Opera, XIV. 698): "Vide, me Calvine, ut diligenter et, pie omnibus
   piis describas Servetum cum suo exitu, ut omnes abhorreant a bestia."

   [87] De haeriticis a civili magistratu puniendis, adversus Martini
   Bellii (an unknown person) farraginem et novorum academicorum sectam.
   Geneva (Oliva Rob. Stephani), 1554; second ed. 1592; French translation
   by Nic. Colladon, 1560. See Heppe's Beza, p. 38 sq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 12. Religious Intolerance and Liberty in England and America.

   The history of the Reformation in England and Scotland is even more
   disfigured by acts of intolerance and persecution than that of the
   Continent, but resulted at last in greater gain for religious freedom.
   The modern ideas of well regulated, constitutional liberty, both civil
   and religious, have grown chiefly on English soil.

   At first it was a battle between persecution and mere toleration, but
   toleration once legally secured prepared the way for full religious
   liberty.

   All parties when persecuted, advocated liberty of conscience, and all
   parties when in power, exercised intolerance, but in different degrees.
   The Episcopalians before 1689 were less intolerant than the Romanists
   under Queen Mary; the Presbyterians before 1660 were less intolerant
   than the Episcopalians; the Independents less intolerant (in England)
   than the Presbyterians (but more intolerant in New England); the
   Baptists, Quakers, Socinians and Unitarians consistently taught freedom
   of conscience, and were never tempted to exercise intolerance. Finally
   all became tolerant in consequence of a legal settlement in 1689, but
   even that was restricted by disabling clauses. The Romanists used fire
   and sword; the Episcopalians fines, prisons, pillories, nose-slittings,
   ear-croppings, and cheek-burnings; the Presbyterians tried depositions
   and disabilities; the Independents in New England exiled Roger
   Williams, the Baptist (1636), and hanged four Quakers (two men and two
   women, 1659, 1660 and 1661) in Boston, and nineteen witches in Salem
   (1692). But all these measures of repression proved as many failures
   and made persecution more hateful and at last impossible.

   1. The first act of the English Reformation, under Henry VIII., was
   simply the substitution of a domestic for a foreign popery and tyranny;
   and it was a change for the worse. No one was safe who dared to dissent
   from the creed of the despotic monarch who proclaimed himself "the
   supreme head of the Church of England." At his death (1547), the six
   bloody articles were still in force; but they contained some of the
   chief dogmas of Romanism which he held in spite of his revolt against
   the pope.

   2. Under the brief reign of Edward VI. (1547-1553), the Reformation
   made decided progress, but Anabaptists were not tolerated; two of them,
   who held some curious views on the incarnation, were burnt as obstinate
   heretics, Joan Bocher, commonly called Joan of Kent, May 2, 1550, and
   George Van Pare, a Dutchman April 6, 1551. The. young king refused at
   first to sign the death-warrant of the woman, correctly thinking that
   the sentence was "a piece of cruelty too like that which they had
   condemned in papists;" at last he yielded to Cranmer's authority, who
   argued with him from the law of Moses against blasphemy, but he put his
   hand to the warrant with tears in his eyes and charged the archbishop
   with the responsibility for the act if it should be wrong.

   3. The reign of the bloody Queen Mary (1553-1558) was a fearful
   retaliation, but sealed the doom of popery by the blood of Protestant
   martyrs, including the Reformers, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who
   were burnt in the market place at Oxford.

   4. Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603), by virtue of her office, as "Defender
   of the Faith, and supreme governor of the Church" in her dominions,
   permanently established the Reformed religion, but to the exclusion of
   all dissent. Her penal code may have been a political necessity, as a
   protection against domestic treason and foreign invasion, but it aimed
   systematically at the annihilation of both Popery and Puritanism. It
   acted most severely upon Roman Catholic priests, who could only save
   their lives by concealment or exile. Conformity to the Thirty-nine
   Articles and the Book of Common Prayer was rigidly enforced; attendance
   upon the Episcopal service was commanded, while the mass and every
   other kind of public worship were forbidden under severe penalties. The
   rack in the tower was freely employed against noblemen suspected of
   disloyalty to the queen-pope. The statute de haereticis comburendis
   from the reign of Henry IV. (1401) remained in force, and two
   Anabaptists were burnt alive under Elizabeth, and two Arians under her
   successor. The statute was not formally abolished till 1677. Ireland
   was treated ecclesiastically as well as politically as a conquered
   province, and England is still suffering from that cruel polity, which
   nursed a hereditary hatred of the Catholic people against their
   Protestant rulers, and made the removal of the Irish grievances the
   most difficult problem of English statesmanship.

   Popery disappeared for a while from British soil, and the Spanish
   Armada was utterly defeated. But Puritanism, which fought in the front
   rank against the big pope at Rome, could not be defeated by the little
   popes at home. It broke out at last in open revolt against the tyranny
   of the Stuarts, and the cruelties of the Star Chamber and
   High-Commission Court, which were not far behind the Spanish
   Inquisition, and punished freedom of speech and of the press as a crime
   against society.

   5. Puritanism ruled England for about twenty years (1640 to 1660),
   which form the most intensely earnest and excited period in her
   history. It saved the rights of the people against the oppression of
   their rulers, but it punished intolerance with intolerance, and fell
   into the opposite error of enforcing Puritan, in the place of
   Episcopal, uniformity, though with far less severity. The Long
   Parliament abolished the Episcopal hierarchy and liturgy (Sept. 10,
   1642), expelled about two thousand royalist clergymen from their
   benefices, and executed on the block Archbishop Laud (1644) and King
   Charles I. (1649), as traitors; thus crowning them with the glory of
   martyrdom and preparing the way for the Restoration. Episcopalians now
   became champions of toleration, and Jeremy Taylor, the Shakespeare of
   the English pulpit, raised his eloquent voice for the Liberty of
   Prophesying (1647), which, however, he afterward recalled in part when
   he was made a bishop by Charles II. (1661). [88]

   The Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-1652), which numbered one
   hundred and twenty-one divines and several lay-deputies and is one of
   the most important ecclesiastical meetings ever held, was intrusted by
   Parliament with the impossible task of framing a uniform creed,
   discipline and ritual for three kingdoms. The extraordinary religious
   commotion of the times gave rise to all sorts of religious opinions
   from the most rigid orthodoxy to deism and atheism, and called forth a
   lively pamphlet war on the subject of toleration, which became an apple
   of discord in the Assembly. Thomas Edwards, in his Gangraena (1645),
   enumerated, with uncritical exaggeration, no less than sixteen sects
   and one hundred and seventy-six miscellaneous "errors, heresies and
   blasphemies," exclusive of popery and deism. [89]

   There were three theories on toleration, which may be best stated in
   the words of George Gillespie, one of the Scottish commissioners of the
   Assembly. [90]

   (a) The theory of the "Papists who hold it to be not only no sin, but
   good service to God to extirpate by fire and sword all that are
   adversaries to, or opposers of, the Church and Catholic religion."
   Under this theory John Hus and Jerome of Prague were burnt at the
   Council of Constance. Gillespie calls it., in the Preface, "the black
   devil of idolatry and tyranny."

   (b) "The second opinion doth fall short as far as the former doth
   exceed: that is, that the magistrate ought not to inflict any
   punishment, nor put forth any coercive power upon heretics and
   sectaries, but on the contrary grant them liberty and toleration." This
   theory is called "the white devil of heresy and schism," and ascribed
   to the Donatists (?), Socinians, Arminians and Independents. But the
   chief advocate was Roger Williams, the Baptist, who became the founder
   of Rhode Island. [91] He went to the root of the question, and demanded
   complete separation of politics from religion. Long before him, the
   Puritan Bishop Hooper, and Robert Browne, the renegade founder of
   Congregationalism had taught the primitive Christian principle that the
   magistrates had no authority over the church and the conscience, but
   only over civil matters. Luther expressed the same view in 1523. [92]

   (c) "The third opinion is that the magistrate may and ought to exercise
   his coercive power in suppressing and punishing heretics and sectaries
   less or more, according as the nature and degree of the error, schism,
   obstinacy, and danger of seducing others may require." For this theory
   Gillespie quotes Moses, St. Augustin, Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Voetius,
   John Gerhard, and other Calvinistic and Lutheran divines. It was held
   by the Presbyterians in England and Scotland, including the Scottish
   commissioners in the Assembly, and vigorously advocated by Dr. Samuel
   Rutherford, Professor of Divinity in St. Andrews, [93] and most
   zealously by Thomas Edwards, a Presbyterian minister in London. [94] It
   had a strong basis in the national endorsement of the Solemn League and
   Covenant, and triumphed in the Westminster Assembly. It may therefore
   be called the Presbyterian theory of the seventeenth century. But it
   was never put into practice by Presbyterians, at least not to the
   extent of physical violence, against heretics and schismatics either in
   England or Scotland. [95]

   The Westminster Confession of Faith, in its original shape, declares,
   on the one hand, the great principle of religious liberty, that "God
   alone is Lord of the conscience," but also, on the other hand, that
   dangerous heretics "may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded
   against by the censures of the church, and by the power of the civil
   magistrate." [96] And it assigns to the civil magistrate the power and
   duty to preserve "unity and peace in the church," to suppress "all
   blasphemies and heresies," to prevent or reform "all corruptions and
   abuses in worship and discipline," and for this purpose "to call synods
   and be present at them." [97]

   6. The five Independent members of the Assembly under the lead of Dr.
   Goodwin protested against the power given to the civil magistrate and
   to synods. [98] The obnoxious clauses of the Confession were therefore
   omitted or changed in the Congregational recension called "the Savoy
   Declaration" (1658). [99]

   But the toleration of the Independents, especially after they obtained
   the ascendancy under Cromwell's protectorate differed very little from
   that of the Presbyterians. They were spoiled by success. [100] They
   excluded from their program Popery, Prelacy, and Socinianism. Dr. Owen,
   their most distinguished divine, who preached by command a sermon
   before Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I.,
   entitled "Righteous Zeal encouraged by Divine Protection" (Jer. 15:19,
   20), and accepted the appointment as Dean of Christ Church and
   Vice-Chancellor of the University at Oxford, laid down no less than
   sixteen fundamentals as conditions of toleration. [101] He and Dr.
   Goodwin served on the Commission of the forty-three Triers which, under
   Cromwell's protectorate, took the place of the Westminster Assembly.
   Cromwell himself, though the most liberal among the English rulers and
   the boldest protector of Protestantism abroad, limited toleration to
   Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists and Quakers, all of whom
   recognized the sacred Scriptures and the fundamental articles of
   Christianity; but he had no toleration for Romanists and Episcopal
   Royalists, who endangered his reign and who were suspected of
   tolerating none but themselves. His great foreign secretary, John
   Milton, the most eloquent advocate of liberty in the English language,
   defended the execution of the king, and was intolerant to popery and
   prelacy.

   Had Cromwell reigned longer, the Triers and the Savoy Conference which
   he reluctantly appointed, would probably have repeated the vain attempt
   of the Westminster Assembly to impose a uniform creed upon the nation,
   only with a little more liberal "accommodation" for orthodox dissenters
   except "papists" and "prelatists"). Their brethren in New England where
   they had full sway, established a Congregational theocracy which had no
   room even for Baptists and Quakers.

   7. Cromwell's reign was a brief experiment. His son was incompetent to
   continue it. Puritanism had not won the heart of England, but prepared
   its own tomb by its excesses and blunders. Royalty and Episcopacy,
   which struck their roots deep in the past, were restored with the
   powerful aid of the Presbyterians. And now followed a reaction in favor
   of political and ecclesiastical despotism, and public and private
   immorality, which for a time ruined all the good which Puritanism had
   done.

   Charles II., who "never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one,"
   broke his solemn pledges and took the lead in intolerance and
   licentiousness. The Act of Uniformity was re-enacted May 19, 1662, and
   went into operation on St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1662, made
   hideous by the St. Bartholomew Massacre, nearly a hundred years before.
   "And now came in," says Baxter, one of the most moderate as well as
   most learned and pious of the Nonconformists, "the great inundation of
   calamities, which in many streams overwhelmed thousands of godly
   Christians, together with their pastors." All Puritan ministers were
   expelled from their livings and exposed to starvation, their assemblies
   forbidden, and absolute obedience to the king and conformity to
   episcopacy were enforced, even in Scotland. The faithful Presbyterians
   in that country (the Covenanters) were subjected by the royal
   dragonnades to all manner of indignities and atrocities. "They were
   hunted"--says an English historian [102] -- like criminals over the
   mountains; their ears were torn from their roots; they were branded
   with hot irons; their fingers were wrenched asunder by the thumbkins;
   the bones of their legs were shattered in the boots; women were
   scourged publicly through the streets; multitudes were transported to
   the Barbadoes; an infuriated soldiery was let loose upon them, and
   encouraged to exercise all their ingenuity in torturing them."

   The period of the Restoration is, perhaps, the most immoral and
   disgraceful in English history. But it led at last to the final
   overthrow of the treacherous and semi-popish dynasty of the Stuarts,
   and inaugurated a new era in the history of religious liberty.
   Puritanism was not dead, but produced some of its best and most lasting
   works--Milton's Paradise Lost, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress--in this
   period of its deepest humiliation and suffering.

   8. The act of Toleration under the reign of William and Mary, 1689,
   made an end to violent persecutions in England. And yet it is far from
   what we now understand by religious liberty. Toleration is negative,
   liberty positive; toleration is a favor, liberty a right; toleration
   may be withdrawn by the power which grants it, liberty is as
   inalienable as conscience itself; toleration is extended to what cannot
   be helped and what may be in itself objectionable, liberty is a
   priceless gift of the Creator.

   The Toleration of 1689 was an accommodation to a limited number of
   Dissenters--Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists and Quakers, who were
   allowed liberty of separate organization and public worship on
   condition of subscribing thirty-six out of the Thirty-Nine Articles of
   the Church of England. Roman Catholics and Unitarians were excluded,
   and did not acquire toleration in England till the nineteenth century,
   the former by the Act of Emancipation passed April 13, 1829. Even now
   the Dissenters in England labor under minor disabilities and social
   disadvantages, which will continue as long as the government patronizes
   an established church. They have to support the establishment, in
   addition to their own denomination. Practically, however, there is more
   religious liberty in England than anywhere on the Continent, and as
   much as in the United States.

   9. The last and most important step in the progress of religious
   liberty was taken by the United States of America in the provision of
   the Federal Constitution of 1787, which excludes all religious tests
   from the qualifications to any office or public trust. The first
   amendment to the Constitution (1789) enacts that "Congress shall make
   no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
   exercise thereof." [103]

   Thus the United States government is by its own free act prevented from
   ever establishing a state-church, and on the other hand it is bound to
   protect freedom of religion, not only as a matter of opinion, but also
   in its public exercise, as one of the inalienable rights of an American
   citizen, like the freedom of speech and of the press. History had
   taught the framers of the Constitution that persecution is useless as
   well as hateful, and that it has its root in the unholy alliance of
   religion with politics. Providence had made America a hospitable home
   for all fugitives from persecution,--Puritans, Presbyterians,
   Huguenots, Baptists, Quakers, Reformed, Lutherans, Roman Catholics,
   etc.--and foreordained it for the largest development of civil and
   religious freedom consistent with order and the well-being of society.
   When the colonies, after a successful struggle for independence,
   coalesced into one nation they could not grant liberty to one church or
   sect without granting it to all. They were thus naturally driven to
   this result. It was the inevitable destiny of America. And it involved
   no injustice or injury to any church or sect.

   The modern German empire forms in some measure a parallel. When it was
   formed in 1870 by the free action of the twenty or more German
   sovereignties, it had to take them in with their religion, and abstain
   from all religious and ecclesiastical legislation which might interfere
   with the religion of any separate state.

   The constitutional provision of the United States in regard to religion
   is the last outcome of the Reformation in its effect upon toleration
   and freedom, not foreseen or dreamed of by the Reformers, but
   inevitably resulting from their revolt against papal tyranny. It has
   grown on Protestant soil with the hearty support of all sects and
   parties. It cuts the chief root of papal and any other persecution, and
   makes it legally impossible. It separates church and state, and thus
   prevents the civil punishment of heresy as a crime against the state.
   It renders to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and renders to God
   the things that are God's. It marks a new epoch in the history of
   legislation and civilization. It is the American contribution to church
   history. No part of the federal constitution is so generally accepted
   and so heartily approved as that which guarantees religious liberty,
   the most sacred and most important of all liberties. It is regarded
   almost as an axiom which needs no argument.

   Religious liberty has thus far been fully justified by its effects. It
   has stimulated the fullest development of the voluntary principle. The
   various Christian churches can live in peace and harmony together, and
   are fully able to support and to govern themselves without the aid of
   the secular power. This has been proven by the experience of a century,
   and this experience is the strongest argument in favor of the
   separation of church and state. Christianity flourishes best without a
   state-church.

   The separation, however, is peaceful, not hostile, as it was in the
   Ante-Nicene age, when the pagan state persecuted the church. Nor is it
   a separation of the nation from Christianity. The government is bound
   to protect all forms of Christianity with its day of rest, its
   churches, its educational and charitable institutions. [104] Even
   irreligion and infidelity are tolerated within the limits of the law of
   self-preservation. Religious liberty may, of course, be abused like any
   other liberty. It has its necessary boundary in the liberty of others
   and the essential interests of society. The United States government
   would not tolerate, much less protect, a religion which requires human
   sacrifices, or sanctions licentious rites, or polygamy, or any other
   institution inconsistent with the laws and customs of the land, and
   subversive of the foundation of the state and the order of Christian
   civilization. Hence the recent prohibition of polygamy in the
   Territories, and the unwillingness of Congress to admit Utah into the
   family of States unless polygamy is abolished by the Mormons. The
   majority of the population decides the religion of a country, and,
   judged by this test, the American people are as Christian as any other
   on earth, only in a broader sense which recognizes all forms of
   Christianity. While Jews and infidels are not excluded from the
   enjoyment of any civil or political right on account of their religion
   or irreligion, they cannot alter the essentially Christian character of
   the sentiments, habits and institutions of the nation.

   There are three important institutions in which church and state touch
   each other even in the United States, and where a collision of
   interests may take place: education in the public schools, marriage,
   and Sunday as a day of civil and sacred rest. The Roman Catholics are
   opposed to public schools unless they can teach in them their religion
   which allows no compromise with any other; the Mormons are opposed to
   monogamy, which is the law of the land and the basis of the Christian
   family; the Jews may demand the protection of their Sabbath on
   Saturday, while infidels want no Sabbath at all except perhaps for
   amusement and dissipation. But all these questions admit of a peaceful
   settlement and equitable adjustment, without a relapse into the
   barbarous measures of persecution.

   The law of the United States is supreme in the Territories and the
   District of Columbia, but does not forbid any of the States to
   establish a particular church, or to continue a previous establishment.
   The Colonies began with the European system of state-churchism, only in
   a milder form, and varying according to the preferences of the first
   settlers. In the New England Colonies--except Rhode Island founded by
   the Baptist Roger Williams--orthodox Congregationalism was the
   established church which all citizens were required to support; in
   Virginia and the Southern States, as also in New York, the Episcopal
   Church was legally established and supported by the government. [105]
   Even those Colonies which were professedly founded on the basis of
   religious toleration, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, enacted afterwards
   disabling clauses against Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Jews and
   infidels. In Pennsylvania, the Quaker Colony of William Penn, no one
   could hold office, from 1693 to 1775, without subscribing a solemn
   declaration of belief in the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity and
   condemning the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and the
   mass as idolatrous. [106]

   The great revolution of legislation began in the Colony of Virginia in
   1776, when Episcopacy was disestablished, and all other churches freed
   from their disabilities. [107] The change was brought about by the
   combined efforts of Thomas Jefferson (the leading statesman of
   Virginia, and a firm believer in absolute religious freedom on the
   ground of philosophic neutrality), and of all dissenting denominations,
   especially the Presbyterians, Baptists and Quakers. The other Colonies
   or States gradually followed the example, and now there is no State in
   which religious freedom is not fully recognized and protected.

   The example of the United States exerts a silent, but steady and mighty
   influence upon Europe in raising the idea of mere toleration to the
   higher plane of freedom, in emancipating religion from the control of
   civil government, and in proving the advantages of the primitive
   practice of ecclesiastical self-support and self-government.

   The best legal remedy against persecution and the best guarantee of
   religious freedom is a peaceful separation of church and state; the
   best moral remedy and guarantee is a liberal culture, a comprehensive
   view of the many-sidedness of truth, a profound regard for the
   sacredness of conscientious conviction, and a broad and deep Christian
   love as described by the Apostle Paul.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [88] Coleridge regards this revocation as the only blot on Taylor's
   character. His second wife was a natural daughter of Charles I.

   [89] For the extensive literature on the subject see the list of Dr.
   Dexter, The Congregationalism of the last three hundred years as seen
   in its Literature (N. York, 1880), Appendix, pp. 49-82. The Hansard
   Knollys (Baptist) Society has published, in 1846 at London, a series of
   Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, written from
   1614-1661. I mention only those which I have myself examined in the
   rich McAlpin Collection of the Union Theol. Seminary, N. York.

   [90] Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty, or the true
   Resolution of a present Controversie concerning Liberty of Conscience.
   Here you have the question stated, the middle way between Popish
   tyrannie and Schismatizing Liberty approved, and also confirmed from
   Scripture, and the testimonies of Divines, yea, of whole churches ...
   And in conclusion a Paraenetick to the five Apologists for choosing
   Accommodation rather than Toleration. London, 1645 (40 pages). Dexter
   (p. 56) assigns the pamphlet, which is anonymous, to Gillespie, and its
   sentiments agree with those he expressed in a sermon he preached before
   the House of Lords, August 27, 1645.

   [91] He wrote "The Bloody Tenent of Persecution," etc., 1644 (248 pp.),
   and "The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody," etc., 1652 (373 pp.). Among
   the anonymous pamphlets on the same side, we mention The Compassionate
   Samaritane, Unbinding the Conscience, and pouring oyle into the wounds
   which have been made upon the Separation, etc., 1644 (84 pp.).

   [92] Dr. Dexter asserts (p. 101) that "Robert Browne is entitled to the
   proud pre-eminence of having been the first writer clearly to state and
   defend in the English tongue the true and now accepted doctrine of the
   relation of the magistrate to the church," in his Treatise of
   Reformation, published in 1582. Comp. Dexter, p. 703 sq., and Append.
   p. 8. But this is an error. Bishop John Hooper of Gloucester, who
   suffered martyrdom under Queen Mary (1555), says in one of his earliest
   treatises: "As touching the superior powers of the earth, it is well
   known to all that have readen and marked the Scripture that it
   appertaineth nothing unto their office to make any law to govern the
   conscience of their subjects in religion."Early Writings of Bishop
   Hooper, p. 280, quoted by Dr. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, p.
   16, where may be found a still stronger passage in, Latin to the same
   effect: "Profecto Christus non ignem non carceres, non vincula, non
   violentiam, non bonorum confiscationem, non regineae majestatis
   terrorem media organa constituit quibus veritas verbi sui mundo
   promulgaretur; sed miti ac diligenti praedicatione evangelii sui mundum
   ab errore et idolatria converti praecepit."Later Writings of Bp.
   Hooper, p. 386. The same principle found expression among Mennonites
   and Anabaptists of the Reformation period, and may be traced back to
   the Apostolic and the Ante-Nicene period, when Christianity had no
   connection whatever with politics and secular government.

   [93] He wrote A Free Disputation against pretended Liberty of
   Conscience tending to resolve Doubts moved by Mr. John Goodwin, John
   Baptist, Dr. Jer. Taylor, the Belgick Arminians, Socinians, and other
   authors contending for lawless Liberty, or licentious Toleration of
   sects and Heresies. London, 1649. 410 pages. He calls the advocates of
   toleration "Libertines."

   [94] The author of Reasons against Independent Government of Particular
   Congregations: as also against the Toleration of such churches to be
   erected in this kingdom. Presented to the House of Commons. London,
   1641 (56 pp.). Antapologia; or, a Full Answer to the Apologetical
   Narration of Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr. Sympson, Mr. Burroughs, Mr.
   Bridge, Members of the Assembly of Divines. Wherein many of the
   controversies of these times are handled. London, 1646 (259 pp.). The
   First and Second Part of Gangraena; or, A Catalogue and Discovery of
   many of the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies and pernicious Practices of
   the Sectaries of this time, vented and acted in England in these four
   last years, etc. London, 1646. The first part has 116, the second part
   178 pages. They were followed by The Third Part of Gangraena; or, A New
   and Higher Discovery of Errors, etc. London, 1646 (295 pp.), and by The
   Casting down of the last and strongest hold of Satan; or, A Treatise
   against Toleration and pretended Liberty of Conscience. London, 1647
   (218 pp.).--"The ministers of Christ within the province of London,"
   December 14, 1647, sent out a Testimony of the Truth of Jesus Christ,
   and to our Solemn League, and Covenant; as also Against the Errors,
   Heresies and Blasphemies of these times, and the Toleration of them.
   London, 1648 (38 pp.).

   [95] Dr. M'Crie, in his Annals of English Presbytery (pp. 190, 191),
   says: "It admits of being shown that even the hypothetical intolerance
   of our Presbyterian fathers differed essentially from Romish and
   Prelatic tyranny .... In point of fact it never led them to persecute,
   it never applied the rack to the flesh, or slaked its vengeance in
   blood or the maiming of the body."

   [96] Chapter XX., 2, 4. The clause "and by the power of the civil
   magistrate," is omitted in the American recension of the Westminster
   Confession.

   [97] Ch. XXIII., 3; Comp. Ch. XXXI., 1, 2. These sections were changed
   and adapted to the separation of Church and State by the united Synod
   of Philadelphia and New York which met at Philadelphia, May 28, 1787.
   See the comparative statement in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom vol. I.,
   807 sq. and III., 607, 653 sq., 668 sq. The Presbyterian churches in
   Scotland, England and Ireland adhere to the original Confession, but
   with an express disavowal of persecuting sentiments. Schaff, I., 799
   sq.

   [98] Goodwin wrote several pamphlets in favor of toleration: An
   Apologeticall Narration, Humbly submitted to the Hon. Houses of
   Partiament (by, Goodwin, Nye, Bridge, Simpson, and Burroughes). London,
   1643 (32pp.). Theomachia; or the grand imprudence of men running the
   hazard of fighting against God in suppressing any way, doctrine or
   practice concerning which they know not certainly whether it be from
   God or no, 1644 (52 pp.). Innocencie's Triumph, 1644 (64 pp.).
   Cretensis; or, a brief Answer to Mr. T. Edwards, his Gangraena, 1646.
   Anapologesiates Antapologias; or, the Inexcusableness of that grand
   Accusation of the Brethren, called Antapologia ... proving the utter
   insufficiency of the Antapoloogist for his great undertaking in behalf
   of the Presbyterian cause: with answers to his arguments or reasons (so
   call'd) for the support thereof ... especially in the point of
   Non-toleration ... Publ. by Authoritie. London, 1646 (253 pp.); with a
   long Preface, dated "From my studie in Coleman street, July 17, 1646; "
   chiefly directed against Edwards. Hagiomastix; or, the Scourge of the
   Saints displayed in his colours of Ignorance and Blood, etc. London,
   1646 (134 pp.). A Postscript or Appendix to a treatise intituled,
   Hagiomastix. London, 1646 (28 pp.). The Apologist condemned; or, a
   Vindication of the Thirty Queries (with their author)concerning the
   power of the Civil Magistrate in Matters of Religion. London, 1653 (32
   pp.). Peace Protected and Discontent Disarmed, etc. London, 1654 (78
   pp.). Sunkretismos; or Dis-Satisfaction Satisfied. London, 1654 (24
   pp.).

   [99] See Schaff, vol. I., 829 sq. and III., 718-723.

   [100] Dexter (p. 660) says: "During the short protectorate of that
   wonderful man, these lowly Independents came into relations so close
   with the ruling religious power, that--in order to fill important
   places--some of them were led to do violence to their noblest
   fundamentals." Several leading Baptists were guilty of the same
   inconsistency.

   [101] See Alex. F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, its History and
   Standards. London, 1883, pp. 203 and 493. "Owen, Goodwin, Simpson, and
   Nye were chiefly concerned in drawing up a list of fundamentals which
   the parliament of 1654 wished to impose on all who claimed toleration.
   Neal gives sixteen of them. The Journal of the House of Commons speaks
   of twenty."

   [102] Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, II., 48 (N. Y. ed.).

   [103] Ph. Schaff, Church and State in the United States, New York,
   1888.

   [104] The government even indirectly supports it in part by exempting
   church buildings, hospitals, colleges and theological seminaries from
   public taxation, and by appointing chaplains for the army and navy and
   for Congress, in deference to the Christian sentiment of the people.

   [105] A Presbyterian minister, Francis Makemie, was arrested on a
   warrant of the Episcopal Governor Cornby of New York, Jan. 20, 1707,
   for preaching in a private house, without permission, and although he
   was ably defended in a public trial and acquitted on the ground that he
   had been licensed to preach under the Act of Toleration, he had to pay
   the costs of the prosecution as well as the defence to the large amount
   of -L-83 7s. 6d. See Briggs, American Presbyterianism, New York, 1885,
   pp. 152-154.

   [106] Comp. Dr. Charles J. Stille, Religious Tests in Provincial
   Pennsylvania. A paper read before the, Hist. Soc. of Penna., Nov. 9,
   1885. Philada., 1886. 58 pp. "It is hard to believe," he says, p. 57,
   "that a man like Franklin, for instance, would at any time have
   approved of religious tests for office; yet Franklin's name is attached
   over and over again in the Qualification Books to the Declaration of
   Faith, which he was forced to make when he entered upon the duties of
   the various offices which be held. He must have been literally forced
   to take such a test; for we find him on the first opportunity, when the
   people of this commonwealth determined to declare their independence
   alike of the Penn family and of the Crown of Great Britain, raising his
   voice against the imposition of such tests as had been taken during the
   Provincial period. Franklin was the president and the ruling spirit of
   the convention which framed the State Constitution of 1776, and to his
   influence has generally been ascribed the very mild form of test which
   by that instrument was substituted for the old one."

   [107] The act of 1776 was completed by an act of October, 1785. See
   Hening, Collection of the Laws of Virginia, vol. XII. 84.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 13. Chronological Limits.

   The Reformation period begins with Luther's Theses, a.d. 1517, and ends
   with the Peace of Westphalia, a.d. 1648. The last event brought to a
   close the terrible Thirty Years' War and secured a legal existence to
   the Protestant faith (the Lutheran and Reformed Confession) throughout
   Germany.

   The year 1648 marks also an important epoch in the history of English
   and Scotch Protestantism, namely, the ratification by the Long
   Parliament of the doctrinal standards of the Westminster Assembly of
   Divines (1643 to 1652), which are still in use among the Presbyterian
   Churches in England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States.

   Within this period of one hundred and thirty-one years there are
   several minor epochs, and the dates vary in different countries.

   The German Reformation, which is essentially Lutheran, divides itself
   naturally into four sub-periods:1. From 1517 to the Augsburg Diet and
   Augsburg Confession, 1530. 2. From 1530 to the so-called "Peace of
   Augsburg," 1555. 3. From 1555 to the "Formula of Concord," 1577, which
   completed the Lutheran system of doctrine, or 1580 (when the "Book of
   Concord" was published and enforced). 4. From 1580 to the conclusion of
   the Thirty Years' War, 1648.

   The Scandinavian Reformation followed closely in the path of the
   Lutheran Reformation of Germany, and extends, likewise, to the Thirty
   Years' War, in which Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, took a leading part
   as defender of Protestantism. The Reformation triumphed in Sweden in
   1527, in Denmark and Norway in 1537.

   The Swiss Reformation was begun by Zwingli and completed by Calvin, and
   is accordingly divided into two acts: 1. The Reformation of German
   Switzerland to the death of Zwingli, 1517 to 1531. 2. The Reformation
   of French Switzerland to the death of Calvin, 1564, or we may say, to
   the death of Beza, 1605.

   The introduction of the Reformed church into Germany, especially the
   Palatinate, falls within the second period.

   In the stormy history of French Protestantism, the years 1559, 1598 and
   1685, mark as many epochs. In 1559, the first national synod was held
   in Paris and gave the Reformed congregations a compact organization by
   the adoption of the Gallican Confession and the Presbyterian form of
   government. In 1598, the Reformed church secured a legal existence and
   a limited measure of freedom by the edict of Nantes, which King Henry
   IV. gave to his former fellow-religionists. But his bigoted grandson,
   Louis XIV., revoked the edict in 1685. Since that time the French
   Reformed church continued like a burning bush in the desert; while
   thousands of her sons reluctantly left their native land, and
   contributed, by their skill, industry and piety, to the prosperity of
   Switzerland, Holland, Germany, England, and North America.

   The Reformation in Holland includes the heroic war of emancipation from
   the Spanish yoke and passed through the bloody bath of martyrdom, until
   after unspeakable sufferings under Charles V. and Philip II., the
   Utrecht Union of the seven Northern Provinces (formed in 1579), was
   reluctantly acknowledged by Spain in 1609. Then followed the internal
   theological war between Arminianism and Calvinism, which ended in the
   victory of the latter at the National Synod of Dort, 1619.

   The progressive stages of the English Reformation, which followed a
   course of its own, were influenced by the changing policy of the
   rulers, and are marked by the reigns of Henry VIII., 1527-1547; of
   Edward VI., 1547-1553; the papal reaction and period of Protestant
   martyrdom under Queen Mary, 1553-1558; the re-establishment of
   Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth, 1558-1603. Then began the second
   Reformation, which was carried on by the people against their rulers.
   It was the struggle between Puritanism and the semi-popery of the
   Stuart dynasty. Puritanism achieved a temporary triumph, deposed and
   executed Charles I. and Archbishop Laud; but Puritanism as a national
   political power died with Cromwell, and in 1660 Episcopacy and the
   Prayer Book were restored under Charles II., till another revolution
   under William and Mary in 1688 made an end to the treacherous rule of
   the Stuarts and gave toleration to the Dissenters, who hereafter
   organized themselves in separate denominations, and represent the left
   wing of English Protestantism.

   The Reformation in Scotland, under the lead of John Knox (1505-1572),
   the Luther of the North, completed its first act in 1567 with the legal
   recognition and establishment by the Scotch Parliament. The second act
   was a struggle with the papal reaction under Queen Mary of Scots, till
   1590. The third act may be called the period of anti-Prelacy and union
   with English Puritanism, and ended in the final triumph of
   Presbyterianism in 1690. Since that time, the question of patronage and
   the relation of church and state have been the chief topics of
   agitation and irritation in the Church of Scotland and gave rise to a
   number of secessions; while the Westminster standards of faith and
   discipline have not undergone any essential alteration.

   The Reformed faith secured a partial success and toleration in Poland,
   Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia and Moravia, but suffered severely by
   the Jesuitical reaction, especially in Bohemia. In Italy and Spain the
   Reformation was completely suppressed; and it is only since the
   overthrow of the temporal rule of the Pope in 1871, that Protestants
   are allowed to hold public worship in Rome and to build churches or
   chapels.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 14. General Literature on the Reformation.

   SOURCES.

   I. On The Protestant Side: (1) The works of the Reformers, especially
   Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox. They will be
   quoted in the chapters relating to their history.

   (2) Contemporary Historians: Joh. Sleidan (Prof. of law in Strassburg,
   d. 1556): De Statu Religionis et Reipublicae Carolo V. Caesare
   commentarii. Libri XXVI. Argentor. 1555 fol., best ed. by Am Ende,
   Francof. ad M. 1785-86, 3 vols. Engl. transl. by Bohun, London, 1689, 3
   vols. fol. French transl. with the notes of Le Courayer, 1767. Embraces
   the German and Swiss Reformation.

   The Annales Reformationis of Spalatin, and the Historia Reformationis
   of Fr. Myconius, refer only to the Lutheran Reformation. So, also,
   Loescher's valuable collection of documents, 3 vols. See below S: 15.

   II. Roman Catholic: (1) Official documents. Leonis X. P. M. Regesta,
   ed. by Cardinal Hergenroether under the auspices of Pope Leo XIII.,
   from the Vatican archives. Freiburg i. B. 1884 sqq., 12 fascic. The
   first three parts contain 384 pages to a.d. 1514.--Monumenta
   Reformationis Lutheranae ex tabulariis secretioribus S. Sedis,
   1521-'25, ed. by Petrus Balan, Ratisbonae, 1884 (589 pages). Contains
   the acts relating to the Diet of Worms, with the reports of Aleander,
   the papal legate, and the letters of Clement VII. from 1523-'25. It
   includes a document of 1513, heretofore unknown, which disproves the
   illegitimate birth of Clement VII. and represents him as the son of
   Giuliano de Medici and his wife, Florets. Monumenta Saeculi XVI.
   Historiam illustrantia, ed. by Balan, vol. I. Oeniponte, 1885 (489
   pages).

   (2) Controversial writings: Joh. Eck (d. 1563): Contra Ludderum, 1530.
   2 Parts fol. Polemical treatises on the Primacy, Penance, the Mass,
   Purgatory etc. Jo. Cochlaeus (canon of Breslau, d. 1552): Commentaria
   de Actis et Scriptis Lutheri ab Anno Dom. 1517 ad A. 1547 fideliter
   conscripta. Mogunt. 1549 fol.; Par. 1565; Colon. 1568.--Laur. Surius (a
   learned Carthusian, d. at Cologne, 1578): Commentarius rerum in orbe
   gestarum ab a. 1500-1564. Colon. 1567. Against Sleidan.

   Historical Representations.

   I. Protestant Works.

   (1) The respective sections in the General Church Histories of
   Schroeckh (Kirchengesch. seit der Reformation, Leipzig, 1804-'12, 10
   vols.), Mosheim, Gieseler (Bd. III. Abth. I. and II., 1840 and 1852;
   Engl. transl. N. Y. vols. IV. and V., 1862 and 1880), Baur (Bd. IV.
   1863), Hagenbach (vol. III., also separately publ. 4th ed. 1870; Engl.
   transl. by Miss Eveline Moore, Edinburgh, 1878, 2 vols.; especially
   good on the Zwinglian Reformation). More briefly treated in the
   compends of Guericke, Neidner, Hase (11th ed. 1886), Ebrard, Herzog
   (vol. IIIrd), Kurtz (10th ed. 887, vol. IInd).

   All these works pay special attention to the Continental Reformation,
   but very little to that of England and Scotland.

   Neander comes down only to 1430; his lectures on modern church history
   (which I heard in 1840) were never published. Gieseler's work is most
   valuable for its literature down to 1852, and extracts from the
   sources, but needs an entire reconstruction, which is contemplated by
   Prof. Brieger at Leipzig.

   (2) Jean Henri Merle d'aubigne (usually miscalled D'Aubigne, which is
   simply an addition indicating the place of his ancestors, d. 1872):
   Histoire de la reformation du 16. siecle, Paris, 1835-'53, 5 vols., 4th
   ed. 1861 sqq.; and Histoire de la reformation en Europe au temps du
   Calvin, Par., 1863-'78, 8 vols. (including a posthumous vol.). Also in
   German by Runkel (Stuttgart, 1848 sqq.), and especially in English (in
   several editions, some of them mutilated). Best Engl. ed. by Longman,
   Green & Co., London, 1865 sqq.; best Am. ed. by Carter, New York,
   1870-'79, the first work in 5, the second in 8 vols. Merle's History,
   owing to its evangelical fervor, intense Protestantism and dramatic
   eloquence, has had an enormous circulation in England and America
   through means of the Tract Societies and private publishers.

   H. Stebbing: History of the Reformation, London, 1836, 2 vols.

   G. Waddington (Anglican, d. 1869): A History of the Reformation on the
   Continent. London, 1841, 3 vols. (Only to the death of Luther, 1546.)

   F. A. Holzhauzen: Der Protestantismus nach seiner geschichtl.
   Entstehung, Begruendung und Fortbildung. Leipzig, 1846-'59, 3 vols.
   Comes down to the Westphalian Treaty. The author expresses his
   standpoint thus (III. XV.): "Die christliche Kirche ist ihrer Natur
   nach wesentlich Eine, und der kirchliche Aufloesungs-process, welcher
   durch die Reformation herbeigefuehrt worden ist, kann keinen anderen
   Zweck haben, als ein neues hoehes positives Kirchenthum herzustellen."

   B. Ter Haar (of Utrecht) Die Reformationsgeschichte in Schilderungen.
   Transl. from the Dutch by C. Gross. Gotha, 5th ed. 1856, 2 vols.

   Dan. Schenkel (d. 1885): Die Refomatoren und die Reformation.
   Wiesbaden. 1856. Das Wesen des Protestantismus aus den Quellen des Ref.
   zeitalters. Schaffhausen, 1862, 3 vols.

   Charles Hardwick: (Anglican, d. 1859): A History of the Christian
   Church during the Reformation. Cambridge and London, 1856. Third ed.
   revised by W. Stubbs (bishop of Chester), 1873.

   J. Tulloch: (Scotch Presbyt., d. 1886): Leaders of the Reformation:
   Luther, Calvin, Latimer, Knox. Edinb., 1859; 3d ed. 1883.

   L. Haeusser (d. 1867): Geschichte des Zeitalters der Reformation,
   1517-1648. ed. by Oncken, Berlin, 1868 (867 pages). Abridged EngI.
   transl. by Mrs. Sturge, N. Y., 1874.

   E. L. Th. Henke (d. 1872): Neuere Kirgesch. ed. by Dr. Gass, Halle,
   1874, 2 vols. The first vol. treats of the Reformation.

   Fr. Seebohm: The Era of the Protestant Revolution. London and N. York,
   1874.

   J. A. Wylie: History of Protestantism. London, 1875-77, 3 vols.

   George P. Fisher (Prof. of Church History in Yale College): The
   Reformation. New York, 1873. A comprehensive work, clear, calm,
   judicial, with a useful bibliographical Appendix (p. 567-591).

   J. M. Lindsay (Presbyt.): The Reformation. Edinb., 1882. (A mere
   sketch.)

   Charles Beard (Unitarian): The Reformation in its relation to Modern
   Thought and Knowledge. Hibbert Lectures. London, 1883; 2d ed., 1885.
   Very able. German translation by F. Halverscheid. Berlin, 1884.

   John F. Hurst (Method. Bishop): Short History of the Reformation. New
   York, 1884 (125 pages).

   Ludwig Keller: Die Reformation und die aelteren Reformparteien. Leipz.,
   1885 (516 pages). In sympathy with the Waldenses and Anabaptists.

   Two series of biographies of the Reformers, by a number of German
   scholars the Lutheran series in 8 vols., Elberfeld, 1861-'75, and the
   Reformed (Calvinistic) series in 10 vols., Elberfeld, 1857-'63. The
   Lutheran series was introduced by Nitzsch, the Reformed by Hagenbach.
   The several biographies will be mentioned in the proper places.

   (3) For the general history of the world and the church during and
   after the period of the Reformation, the works of Leopold von Ranke (d.
   1886) are of great importance, namely: Fuersten und Voelker von
   Suedeuropa im 16. und 17. Jahrh. (Berlin 1827, 4th ed. enlarged 1877);
   Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Voelker von 1494-1514 (3d
   ed. 1885); Die roemischen Paepste, ihre Kirche und ihr Staat im 16. und
   17. Jahrh. (Berlin, 8th ed. 1885, 3 vols. Engl. trans. by Sarah Austin,
   Lond. 4th ed. 1867, 3 vols.); Franzoesische Geschichte im 16. und 17.
   Jahrh. (Stuttgart, 1852, 4th ed. 1877, 6 vols.); Englische Geschichte
   vornehmlich im 16. u. 17. Jahrh. (4th ed. 1877, 6 vols.; Engl. transl.
   publ. by the Clarendon Press); and especially his classical Deutsche
   Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Berlin, 1839-'43, 6th ed.
   1880-'82, in 6 vols.; transl. in part by S. Austin, 1845-'47, 3 vols.).
   Ranke is a master of objective historiography from the sources in
   artistic grouping of the salient points, and is in religious and
   patriotic sympathy with the German Reformation; while yet he does full
   justice to the Catholic church and the papacy as a great power in the
   history of religion and civilization. In his 85th year he began to
   dictate in manly vigor a Universal History down to the time of Emperor
   Henry IV. and Pope Gregory VII., 1881-86; to which were added 2
   posthumous vols. by Dove and Winter, 1888, 9 vols. in all. His library
   was bought for the University in Syracuse, N. Y.

   For the general literature see Henry Hallam: Introduction to the
   Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries. London,
   1842, etc. N. York ed., 1880, in 4 vols.

   II. Roman Catholic Works.

   (1) The respective sections in the General Church Histories of Moehler
   (d. 1838, ed. from lectures by Gams, Regensburg, 1867-1868, 3 vols.;
   the third vol. treats of the Reformation), Alzog (10th ed. 1882, 2
   vols.; Engl. transl. by Pabish and Byrne, Cincinnati, 1874 sqq., 3
   vols.), Kraus (2d ed. 1882), and Cardinal Hergenroether (third ed.
   1885). Comp. also, in part, the Histories of the Council of Trent by
   Sarpi (d. 1623), and Pallavicini (d. 1667).

   (2) Thuanus (De Thou, a moderate Catholic, d. 1617); Historiarum sui
   Temporis libri 138. Orleans (Geneva), 1620 sqq., 5 vols. fol. and
   London, 1733, 7 vols. fol.; French transl. London, 1734, 16 vols. 4to.
   Goes from 1546 to 1607.

   Louis Maimbourg (Jesuit, d. at Paris, 1686): Histoire du Lutheranisme
   Paris, 1680; Histoire du Calvinisme, 1682. Controversial, and inspired
   by partisan zeal; severely handled by R. Bayle in his Critique generale
   de l'histoire du Calvinisme de M., Amsterd., 1684.

   Bp. Bossuet (d. 1704): Histoire des variations des eglises
   protestantes. Paris, 1688, 2 vols. and later edd., also in his
   collected works, 1819 sqq. and 1836 sqq. English transl., Dublin, 1829,
   2 vols. German ed. by Mayer, Munich. 1825, 4 vols. A work of great
   ability, but likewise polemical rather than historical. It converted
   Gibbon to Romanism, but left him at last a skeptic, like Bayle, who
   was, also, first a Protestant, then a Romanist for a short season.

   Kaspar Riffel: Kirchengesch. Der Neusten Zeit. Mainz, 1844-47, 3 vols.

   Martin John Spalding (since 1864 Archbishop of Baltimore, d. 1872):
   History of the Protest. Reformation in Germany and Switzerland, and in
   England, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, France., and Northern
   Europe. Louisville, 1860; 8th ed., revised and enlarged. Baltimore,
   1875, 2 vols. No Index. Against Merle D'Aubigne. The Archbishop charges
   D'Aubigne (as he calls him) with being a "bitter partisan, wholly
   unreliable as an historian," and says of his work that it is "little
   better than a romance," as he "omits more than half the facts, and
   either perverts or draws on his imagination for the remainder." His own
   impartiality and reliableness as an historian may be estimated from the
   following judgments of the Reformers: "Luther, while under the
   influence of the Catholic Church, was probably a moderately good man;
   he was certainly a very bad one after he left its communion "(I.
   72)."Heu! quantum mutatus ab illo!" (77). "His violence often drove him
   to the very verge of insanity .... He occasionally inflicted on
   Melanchthon personal chastisement" (87). Spalding quotes from Audin,
   his chief authority (being apparently quite ignorant of German):
   "Luther was possessed not by one, but by a whole troop of devils" (89).
   Zwingli (or Zuingle, as he calls him) he charges with "downright
   paganism" (I. 175), and makes fun of his marriage and the marriages of
   the other Reformers, especially Bucer, who "became the husband of no
   less than three ladies in succession: and one of them had been already
   married three times--all too, by a singular run of good luck, in the
   reformation line" (176). And this is all that we learn of the Reformer
   of Strassburg. For Calvin the author seems to draw chiefly on the
   calumnies of Audin, as Audin drew on those of Bolsec. He describes him
   as "all head and no heart;" "he crushed the liberties of the people in
   the name of liberty;" "he combined the cruelty of Danton and
   Robespierre with the eloquence of Murat and Mirabeau, though he was
   much cooler, and therefore more successful than any one of them all; he
   was a very Nero." Spalding gives credit to Bolsec's absurd stories of
   the monstrous crimes and horrible death of Calvin, so fully
   contradicted by his whole life and writings and the testimonies of his
   nearest friends, as Beza, Knox, etc. (I. 375, 384, 386, 388, 391). And
   such a work by a prelate of high character and position seems to be the
   principal source from which American Roman Catholics draw their
   information of the Reformation and of Protestantism!

   The historico-polemical works of Doellinger and Janssen belong to the
   history of

   the German Reformation and will be noticed in the next section.

   BOOK 1.

   THE GERMAN REFORMATION TILL THE DIET OF

   AUGSBURG, a.d. 1530.

   ----------
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   CHAPTER II.

   LUTHER'S TRAINING FOR THE REFORMATION, A.D. L483-1517.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 15. Literature of the German Reformation.

   Sources.

   I. Protestant Sources:

   (1) The Works of the Reformers, especially Luther and Melanchthon. See
   S: S: 17, 32. The reformatory writings of Luther, from 1517-1524, are
   in vol. XV. of Walch's ed., those from 1525-1537 in vol. XVI., those
   from 1538-1546 in vol. XVII. See also the Erlangen ed., vols. 24-32
   (issued separately in a second ed. 1883 sqq.), and the Weimar ed., vol.
   I. sqq.

   (2) Contemporary writers:

   G. Spalatin (Chaplain of Frederick the Wise and Superintendent in
   Altenburg, d. 1545): Annales Reformationis oder Jahrbuecher von der
   Reform. Lutheri (to 1543). Ed. by Cyprian, Leipz., 1718.

   Frid. Myconius (or Mekum, Superintendent at Gotha, d. 1546): Historia
   Reformationis vom Jahr Christi 1518-1542. Ed. by Cyprian, Leipzig,
   1718.

   M. Ratzeberger (a physician, and friend of Luther, d. 1559): Luther und
   seine Zeit. Ed. from MS. in Gotha by Neudecker, Jena, 1850 (284 pp.).

   (3) Documentary collections:

   V. E. Loescher (d. 1749): Vollstaendige Reformations=Acta und Documenta
   (for the years 1517-'19). Leipzig, 1720-'29, 3 vols.

   Ch. G. Neudecker: Urkunden aus der Reformationszeit, Cassel, 1836;
   Actenstuecke aus der Zeit der Reform., Nuernberg, 1838; Neue Beitraege,
   Leipzig, 1841.

   C. E. Foerstemann: Archiv. f. d. Gesch. der Reform., Halle, 1831 sqq.;
   Neues Urkundenbuch, Hamburg, 1842.

   Th. Brieger: Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Reformation.
   Gotha, 1884 sqq. (Part I. Aleander und Luther, 1521.)

   II. Roman Catholic Sources . See S: 14, p. 89.

   Histories.

   I. Protestant Historians :

   Lud. A Seckendorf (a statesman of thorough education and exemplary
   integrity, d. 1692): Commentarius historicus et apologeticus de
   Lutheranismo. Francof. et Lips., 1688; Lipsiae, 1694, fol. Against the
   Jesuit Maimbourg.

   Chr. A. Salig (d. 1738): Vollstaendige Historie der Augsburger
   Confession (from 1517-1562). Halle, 1730-'35. 3 vols.

   G. J. Planck (d. 1833): Geschichte der Entstehung, der Veraenderungen
   und der Bildung unseres protest. Lehrbegriffs bis zur Einfuehrung der
   Concordienformel. Leipzig, 2d ed., 1791-1800, 6 vols. Important for the
   doctrinal controversies in the Luth. Church. Followed by the Geschichte
   der protest. Theologie von der Konkordienformel an his in die Mitte des
   achtzehnten Jahrh. Goettingen, 1831, 1 vol.

   H. G. Kreussler: D. Mart. Luthers Andenken in Muenzen nebst
   Lebensbeschreibungen merkwuerdiger Zeitgenossen desselben. Mit 47
   Kupfern und der Ansicht Wittenbergs und Eisenachs zu Luthers Zeit.
   Leipzig, 1818. Chiefly interesting for the numerous illustrations.

   Phil. Marheinecke (d. 1846): Geschichte der teutschen Reformation.
   Berlin, 2d ed., 1831, 4 vols. One of the best books, written in
   Luther-like popularity of style.

   K. Hagen: Deutschlands literar. und relig. Verhaeltnisse im
   Reformationszeitalter. Erlangen, 1841-'44, sqq., 3 vols.

   CH. G. Neudecker: Gesch. des evang. Protestantismus in Deutschland.
   Leipzig, 1844, sq., 2 vols.

   C. Hundeshagen (d. 1873): Der deutsche Protestantismus. Frankfurt,
   1846, 3d ed. 1850. Discusses the genius of the Reformation as well as
   modern church questions.

   H. Heppe (German Reformed, d. 1879): Gesch. des deutschen
   Protestantismus in den Jahren 1555-'85. Marburg, 1852 sqq., 4 vols., 2d
   ed., 1865 sq. He wrote, also, a number of other books on the
   Reformation, especially in Hesse.

   Merle d'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, see S: 14. The first
   division treats of the German Reformation and is translated into German
   by Runkel, Stuttgart, 1848-1854, 5 vols., republ. by the American Tract
   society. Several English editions; London and New York.

   Wilh. Gass: Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik. Berlin, 1854-'67,
   4 vols.

   G. Plitt: Geschichte der evang. Kirche bis 1530. Erlangen, 1867.

   Is. A. Dorner (d. 1884): Geschichte. der protestantischen Theologie,
   besonders in Deutschland. Muenchen, 1867. The first Book, pp. 1-420,
   treats of the Reformation period of Germany and Switzerland. English
   translation, Edinburgh, 1871, 2 vols.

   Ch. P. Krauth (d. 1882): The Conservative Reformation. Philadelphia,
   1872. A dogmatico-historical vindication of Lutheranism.

   K. F. A. Kahnis (d. 1888): Die deutsche Reformation. Leipzig, vol. I.
   1872 (till 1520, unfinished).

   G. Weber: Zur Geschichte des Reformationszeitalters. Leipzig, 1874.

   Fr. v. Bezold: Gesch. der deutschen Reformation. Berlin, 1886.

   The Elberfeld series of biographies of the Lutheran Reformers, with
   extracts from their writings, 1861-1875. It begins with C. Schmidt's
   Melanchthon, and ends with Koestlin's Luther (the large work in 2
   vols., revised 1883).

   Schriften des Vereins fuer Reformationsgeschichte. Halle, 1883 sqq. A
   series of monographs on special topics in the Reformation history,
   especially that of Germany, published by a Society formed in the year
   of the Luther celebration for the literary defence of Protestantism
   against Romanism. Kolde, Benrath, Holdewey, Bossert, Walther, are among
   the contributors. The series includes also an essay on Wiclif by
   Buddensieg (1885), one on the Revocation of the edict of Nantes by
   Theod. Schott (1885), and one on Ignatius of Loyola by E. Gothein
   (1885).

   Of Secular histories of Germany during the Reformation period, comp.
   especially, Leopold von Ranke: Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter der
   Reformation (6th ed., 1881, 6 vols.), a most important work, see S: 14.
   Also, Karl Ad. Menzel (d. 1855): Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen seit
   der Reformation. Berlin, 2d ed., 1854 sq., 6 vols. Wolfgang Menzel (d.
   1873): Geschichte der Deutschen, 6th ed., 1872 sq., 3 vols. L. Stacke:
   Deutsche Geschichte. Bielefeld u. Leipzig, 1881, 2 vols. (Vol. II. by
   W. Boehm, pp. 37-182.) Gottlob Egelhaaf (Dr. Phil., Prof. in the
   Karls-Gymnasium at Heilbronn): Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der
   Reformation. Gekroente Preisschrift des Allgemeinen Vereins fuer
   Deutsche Literatur. Berlin, 1885. In the spirit of Ranke's great work
   on the same topic, with polemic reference to Janssen. It extends from
   1517 to the Peace of Augsburg, 1555. (450 pages.)

   II. Roman Catholic Historians. See the Lit. in S: 14.

   Ignatius Doellinger (Prof. of Ch. Hist. in Munich, since 1870 Old
   Catholic): Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwicklung und ihre Wirkung im
   Umfange des Luther. Bekenntnisses. Regensburg, 1846-'48, 3 vols.; 2d
   ed., 1853. A learned collection of testimonies against the Reformation
   and its effects from contemporary apostates, humanists, and the
   Reformers themselves (Luther and Melanchthon), and those of their
   followers who complain bitterly of the decay of morals and the
   dissensions in the Lutheran church. The author has, nevertheless, after
   he seceded from the Roman communion, passed a striking judgment in
   favor of Luther's greatness.

   Karl Werner: Geschichte der kathol. Theologie in Deutschland. Muenchen,
   1866.

   Joh. Janssen: Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des
   Mittelalters. Freiburg, i. B. 1876-'88, 6 vols. (down to 1618). This
   masterpiece of Ultramontane historiography is written with great
   learning and ability from a variety of sources (especially the archives
   of Frankfurt, Mainz, Trier, Zuerich, and the Vatican), and soon passed
   through twelve editions. It called out able defences of the Reformation
   by Kawerau (five articles in Luthardt's "Zeitschrift fuer kirchliche
   Wissenschaft und Kirchl. Leben," 1882 and 1883), Koestlin, Lenz,
   Schweizer, Ebrard, Baumgarten, and others, to whom Janssen calmly
   replied in An meine Kritiker, Freiburg, i. B., tenth thousand, 1883
   (227 pp.), and Ein Wort an meine Kritiker, Freib. i. B., twelfth
   thousand, 1883 (144 pp.). He disclaims all "tendency," and professes to
   aim only at the historical truth. Admitted, but his standpoint is
   false, because he views the main current of modern history as an
   apostasy and failure; while it is an onward and progressive movement of
   Christianity under the guidance of Divine providence and the ever
   present spirit of its Founder. He reads history through the mirror of
   Vatican Romanism, and we need not wonder that Pope Leo XIII. has
   praised Janssen as "a light of historic science and a man of profound
   learning."

   Janssen gives in each volume, in alphabetical order, very full lists of
   books and pamphlets, Catholic and Protestant, on the different
   departments of the history of Germany from the close of the fifteenth
   to the close of the sixteenth century. See vol. I. xxvii.-xliv.; vol.
   II. xvii.-xxviii.; vol. III. xxv.-xxxix.; vol. IV. xviii.-xxxi.; vol.
   V. xxv.-xliii.

   For political history: Fr. v. Buchholz: Ferdinand I. Wien, 1832 sqq., 9
   vols. Hurter: Ferdinand II. Schaffhausen, 1850 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 16. Germany and the Reformation.

   Germany invented the art of printing and produced the Reformation.
   These are the two greatest levers of modern civilization. While other
   nations sent expeditions in quest of empires beyond the sea, the
   Germans, true to their genius of inwardness, descended into the depths
   of the human soul and brought to light new ideas and principles.
   Providence, it has been said, gave to France the dominion of the land,
   to England the dominion of the sea, to Germany the dominion of the air.
   The air is the region of speculation, but also the necessary condition
   of life on the land and the sea.

   The characteristic traits which Tacitus ascribes to the heathen
   Germans, contain already the germ of Protestantism. The love of
   personal freedom was as strong in them as the love of authority was in
   the Roman race. They considered it unworthy of the gods to confine them
   within walls, or to represent them by images; they preferred an inward
   spiritual worship which communes directly with the Deity, to an outward
   worship which appeals to the senses through forms and ceremonies, and
   throws visible media between the finite and the infinite mind. They
   resisted the aggression of heathen Rome, and they refused to submit to
   Christian Rome when it was forced upon them by Charlemagne.

   But Christianity as a religion was congenial to their instincts. They
   were finally Christianized, and even thoroughly Romanized by Boniface
   and his disciples. Yet they never felt quite at home under the rule of
   the papacy. The mediaeval conflict of the emperor with the pope kept up
   a political antagonism against foreign rule; the mysticism of the
   thirteenth and fourteenth centuries nursed the love for a piety of less
   form and more heart, and undermined the prevailing mechanical legalism;
   dissatisfaction with the pope increased with his exactions and abuses,
   until at last, under the lead of a Saxon monk and priest, all the
   national forces combined against the anti-christian tyranny and shook
   it of forever. He carried with him the heart of Germany. No less than
   one hundred grievances against Roman misrule were brought before the
   Diet of Nuernberg in 1522. [108] Erasmus says that when Luther
   published his Theses all the world applauded him. [109] It is not
   impossible that all Germany would have embraced the Reformation if its
   force had not been weakened and its progress arrested by excesses and
   internal dissensions, which gave mighty aid to the Romanist reaction.

   Next to Germany, little Switzerland, Holland, Scandinavia, England and
   Scotland, inhabited by kindred races, were most active in completing
   that great act of emancipation from popery and inaugurating an era of
   freedom and independence.

   Nationality has much to do with the type of Christianity. The Oriental
   church is identified with the Greek and Slavonic races, and was not
   affected by the Reformation of the sixteenth century; hence she is not
   directly committed for or against it, and is less hostile to
   evangelical Protestantism than to Romanism, although she agrees, in
   doctrine, discipline and worship, far more with the latter. The Roman
   Catholic Church retained her hold upon the Latin races, which were, it
   first superficially touched by the Reformation, but reacted, and have
   ever since been vacillating between popery and infidelity, or between
   despotism and revolution. Even the French, who under Henry IV. were on
   the very verge of becoming Protestant, are as a nation more inclined to
   swing from Bossuet to Voltaire than to Calvin; although they will
   always have a respectable minority of intelligent Protestants. The
   Celtic races are divided; the Welsh and Scotch became intensely
   Protestant, the Irish as intensely Romanist. The Teutonic or Germanic
   nations produced the Reformation chiefly, but not exclusively; for the
   French Calvin was the greatest theologian among the Reformers, and has
   exerted a stronger influence in shaping the doctrine and discipline of
   Protestantism outside of Germany than any of them.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [108] The famous "centum gravamina adversus sedem Romanam totumque
   ecclesiastcum ordinem."

   [109] "Totus illi magno consensu applausit." In a letter of Dec. 12,
   1524, to Duke George of Saxony who was opposed to the Reformation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 17. The Luther Literature.

   The Luther literature is immense and has received large additions since
   1883. The richest collections are in the Royal Library at Berlin
   (including Dr. Knaake's); in the public libraries of Dresden, Weimar,
   Wittenberg, Wolfenbuettel, Muenchen; in America, in the Theol. Seminary
   at Hartford (Congregationalist), which purchased the Beck collection of
   over 1,200 works, and in the Union Theol. Sem., New York, which has the
   oldest editions.

   For the Luther literature comp. J. A. Fabricius: Centifolium
   Lutheranum, Hamburg, 1728 and 1730, 2 Parts; Vogel: Bibliotheca
   biographica Lutherana, Halle, 1851, 145 pages; John Edmands: Reading
   Notes on Luther, Philada., 1883; Beck (publisher): Bibliotheca
   Lutherana, Noerdlingen, 1883; (185 pages, with titles of 1236 books,
   now at Hartford), 1884: Bibliographie der Luther-Literatur des J. 1883,
   Frankf. a. M. 1884, enlarged ed. 1887 (52 and 24 pages, incomplete).

   luther's works.

   Oldest editions: Wittenberg, 12 German vols., 1539-'59,and 7 Latin,
   1545-'58; Jena, 8 German and 4 Latin vols., 1555-'58, with 2
   supplements by Aurifaber, 1564-'65; Altenburg, 10 vols., 1661-'64;
   Leipzig, 22 vols., 1729-'40, fol.--The three best editions are:

   (1) The Halle edition by Johann Georg Walch, Halle, 1740-1750, in 24
   vols., 4to. Republished with corrections and additions by Dr. Walther,
   Stoeckhardt, Kaehler, etc., Concordia College, St. Louis, 1880 sqq., 25
   vols.

   (2) The Erlangen-Frankfurt ed. by Plochmann, Irmischer, and Enders,
   etc., Erlangen, and Frankfurt a. M., 1827 sqq., 2d ed., 1862-1883, 101
   vols. 8vo. (not yet finished). German writings, 67 vols.; Opera Latina,
   25 vols.; Com. in Ep. and Gal., 3 vols.; Opera Latina varii argumenti
   ad reformationis Hist. pertinentia, 7 vols. The most important for our
   purpose are the Reformations-historische Schriften (9 vols., second
   ed., 1883-'85), and the Briefwechsel (of which the first vol. appeared
   in 1884; 6 vols. are promised).

   (3) The Weimar edition (the fourth centennial memorial ed., patronized
   by the Emperor of Germany), by Drs. Knaake, Kawerau, Bertheau, and
   other Luther scholars, Weimar, 1883 sqq. This, when completed, will be
   the critical standard edition. It gives the works in chronological
   order and strict reproduction of the first prints, with the variations
   of later edd., even the antiquated and inconsistent spelling, which
   greatly embarrasses the reader not thoroughly familiar with German. The
   first volume contains Luther's writings from 1512-1518; the second
   (1884), the writings from 1518-1519; vols. III. and IV. (1885-'6), the
   Commentaries on the Psalms; vol. VI. (1888), the continuation of the
   reformatory writings till 1520; several other vols. are in press.

   I have usually indicated, from which of these three editions the
   quotations are made. The last was used most as far as it goes, and is
   quoted as the "Weimar ed."

   The first collected ed. of Luther's German works appeared in 1539 with
   a preface, in which he expresses a wish that all his books might be
   forgotten and perish, and the Bible read more instead. (See Erl. Frkf.
   ed. I., pp. 1-6.)

   Selections of Luther's Works by Pfizer (Frankf., 1837, sqq.);
   Zimmermann (Frankf., 1846 sq.); Otto von Gerlach (Berlin, 1848, 10
   vols., containing the Reformatorische Schriften).

   The Letters of Luther were separately edited by De Wette, Berlin, 1825,
   sqq., 5 vols.; vol. VI. by J. C. Seidemann, 1856 (716 pp., with an
   addition of Lutherbriefe, 1859); supplemented by C. A. H. Burkhardt,
   Leipz., 1866 (524 pp.); a revised ed. with comments by Dr. E. L. Enders
   (pastor at Oberrad near Frankfurt a. M.), 1884 sqq. (in the Erl. Frankf
   ed.). The first volume contains the letters from 1507 to March, 1519.
   For selection see C. Alfred Hase: Lutherbriefe in Auswahl und
   Uebersetzung, Leipzig, 1867 (420 pages). Th. Kolde: Analecta Lutherana,
   Briefe und Actenstuecke zur Geschichte Luther's. Gotha, 1883. Contains
   letters of Luther and to Luther, gathered with great industry from
   German and Swiss archives and libraries.

   Additional Works of Luther:

   The Table Talk of Luther is best edited by Aurifaber, 1566, etc.
   (reprinted in Walch's ed. vol. xxii.); by Foerstemann and Bindseil,
   Leipzig, 1844-'48, 4 vols. (the German Table Talk); by Bindseil:
   Martini Lutheri Colloquia, Latina, etc., Lemgoviae et Detmoldae,
   1863-'66, 3 vols.; and in the Frankf. Erl. ed., vols. 57-62. Dr. Conr.
   Cordatus: Tagebuch ueber Dr. Luther gefuehrt, 1537, first edited by Dr.
   Wrampelmeyer, Halle, 1885, 521 pages. Last and best edition by Hoppe,
   St. Louis, 1887 (vol. xxii. of Am. ed. of Walch).

   Georg Buchwald: Andreas Poach's handschriftl. Sammlung ungedruckter
   Predigten D. Martin Luthers aus den Jahren 1528 bis 1546. Aus dem
   Originale zum ersten Mal herausgegeben. Leipzig, 1884, to embrace 3
   vols. (Only the first half of the first vol., published 1884, and the
   first half of the third vol., 1885; very few copies sold.) The MS.
   collection of Andreas Poach in the public library at Zwickau embraces
   nine volumes of Luther's sermons from 1528-1546. They are based on
   stenographic reports of Diaconus Georg Roerer of Wittenberg (ordained
   by Luther 1525, d. at Halle, 1557), who took full Latin notes of
   Luther's German sermons, retaining, however, in strange medley a number
   of German words and phrases.

   P. Tschackert: Unbekannte Predigten u. Scholien Luthers, Berlin, 1888.
   MSS. of sermons from Oct. 23, 1519, to April 2, 1521, discovered in the
   University Library at Koenigsberg. They will be publ. in the Weimar
   edition.

   II. Biographies of Luther :

   (1) By contemporaries, who may be included in the sources.

   Melanchthon wrote Vita Lutheri, a brief but weighty sketch, 1546, often
   reprinted, translated into German by Matthias Ritter, 1555, with
   Melanchthon's account of Luther's death to the students in the lecture
   room, the funeral orations of Bugenhagen and Cruciger (157 pages); a
   new transl. by Zimmermann, with preface by G. J. Planck, Goettingen,
   1813; ed. of the original in Vitae quatuor Reformatorum., Lutheri a
   Melanchthone, Melanchthonis a Camerario, Zwinglii a Myconio, Calvini a
   Beza, prefaced by Neander, Berlin, 1841. Justus Jonas gives an account
   of Luther's last sickness and death as an eye-witness, 1546. Mathesius
   (Luther's pupil and friend, d. 1561) preached seventeen sermons on
   Luther's life, first published 1565, and very often since, though
   mostly abridged, e.g., an illustrated popular ed. with preface by G. H.
   v. Schubert, Stuttgart, 1846; jubilee edition, St. Louis and Dresden,
   1883. Joh. Cochlaeus, a Roman Cath. antagonist of Luther, wrote
   Commentaria de actis et scriptis Martini Lutheri Saxonis,
   chronographica, ex ordine ab anno Dom. 1517 usque ad annum 1546
   (inclusive), fideliter conscripta. Mayence, 1549 fol.

   (2) Later Biographies till 1875 (the best marked *) by

   *Walch (in his ed. of L.'s Works, vol. XXIV. pp. 3-875); Keil (4 parts
   in 1 vol., Leipz., 1764); Schroeckh (Leipz., 1778); Ukert (Gotha, 2
   vols., 1817); Pfizer (Stuttgart, 1836); Stang (with illustrations,
   Stuttg., 1836); Jaekel (Leipz., 1841, new ed. Elberfeld, 1871); *Meurer
   (Dresden, 1843-'46, 3 vols. with illustrations, abridged in 1 vol.,
   1850, 3d ed., 1870, mostly in Luther's own words); *Juergens (Leipz.,
   1846-'47, 3 vols., reaching to 1517, very thorough, but unfinished); J.
   M. Audin (Rom. Cath., Hist. de la vie, des ouvrages et des doctrines de
   M. Luth., Paris, 1839, 7th ed., revue et corrigee, 1856, 3 vols.--a
   storehouse of calumnies, also in German and English); [110] * M.
   Michelet (Memoirs de L., ecrits par lui-meme, traduits et mis en ordre,
   Paris, 1835, also Brussels, 1845, 2 vols.; the best biography in
   French; Eng. transl. by Hazlitt, London, 1846, and by G. H. Smith,
   London and N. Y., 1846); [111] Ledderhose (Karlsruh, 3d ed., 1883;
   French transl. of the first ed., Strassburg, 1837); Genthe (Leipz.,
   1842, with seventeen steel engravings); Westermann (Halle, 1845);
   Weydmann (Luther, ein Charakter--und Spiegelbild fuer unsere Zeit,
   Hamburg, 1850); B. Sears (English, publ. by the Am. Sunday School
   Union, Philada., 1850, with special reference to the youth of L.); Jgn.
   Doellinger (R. C., Luther, eine Skizze, Freiburg i. B., 1851); Koenig
   and Gelzer (with 48 fine illustrations, Hamb. u. Gotha, 1851; Engl. ed.
   with transl. of the text by Archdeacon Hare and Cath. Winkworth, Lond.
   and N. Y., 1856); * Jul. Hare (Vindication of Luther against his
   English Assailants, first publ. as a note in his The Mission of the
   Comforter, London, 1846, vol. II., 656-878, then separately, 2d ed.,
   1855, the best English appreciation of L.); II. Woersley (Life of
   Luther, London, 1856, 2 vols.); Wildenhahn (Leipz., 1861); Mueller
   (Nuernberg, 1867); Henke (Luther u. Melanchthon, Marburg, 1867); H. W.
   J. Thiersch (Luther, Gustav Adolf und Maximilian I. von Bayern,
   Noerdlingen, 1869, pp. 3-66); Vilmar (Luther, Melanchthon und Zwingli,
   Frankf. a. M., 1869); H. Lang (Berlin, 1870, rationalistic); Ackermann
   (Jena, 1871); Gasparin (Luther et la reforme ait XVe . siecle, Paris,
   1873); Schaff (a sketch in Appleton's "Cyclopaedia," 1858, revised
   1874); Rietschel (Martin Luther und Ignatius Loyola, Wittenberg, 1879).

   (3) Recent Biographies, published since 1875, by

   Jul. Koestlin (Elberfeld, 1875, 2 vols., 2d ed. revised 1883; 3d ed.
   unchanged; upon the whole the best German biography; also an abridged
   ed. for popular use with 64 illustrations, 3d ed., 1883. English
   transl. of the small ed. by an anonymous writer with the author's
   sanction, Lond. and N. Y., 1883; another by Morris, Philad., 1883;
   comp. also Koestlin's art. Luther in Herzog, 2d ed., vol. IX.; his
   Festschrift, 1883, in several edd., transl. by Eliz. P. Weir: Martin
   Luther the Reformer, London, 1883; and his polemic tract: Luther und
   Janssen, der Deutsche Reformator und ein ultramontaner Historiker,
   Halle, 3d ed., 1883); V. Hasak (R. Cath., Regensb., 1881); Rein
   (Leipz., 1883, English transl. by Behringer, N. Y., 1883); Rogge,
   (Leipz., 1883); *Plitt and Petersen (Leipzig, 1883); *MAx Lenz (2nd ed.
   Berlin, 1883); P. Kuhn (Luther, sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris, 3 vols.);
   C. Burk (4th ed., Stuttg., 1884); *Th. Kolde (M. Luther, Gotha, 1884, 2
   vols.); J. A. Froude (Luther, a Short Biography, Lond. and N. Y.,
   1883); John Rae (M. Luth.: Lond., 1884); Paul Martin, i.e., M. Rade of
   Schoenbach (Dr. M. Luther's Leben, etc., Neusalza, 1885-87, 3 vols.);
   Peter Bayne (M. Luth.: his Life and Times, Lond. and N. Y., 1887, 2
   vols.).

   On Luther's wife and his domestic life: W. Beste: Die Gesch.
   Catherina's von Bora. Halle, 1843 (131 pp.). G. Hofmann: Katharina von
   Bora, oder M. L. als Gatte, und Vater. Leipzig, 1846. John G. Morris:
   Life of Cath. von Bora, Baltimore, 1856. Mor. Meurer: Katherina Luther
   geborne von Bora. Dresden, 1854; 2d ed., Leipzig, 1873.

   III. Luther's Theology .

   W. Beste: Dr. M. Luther's Glaubenslehre. Halle, 1845 (286 pp.).
   Theodos. Harnack (senior): L.'s Theologie, Bd I. Erlang., 1862, Bd.
   II., 1886. *Jul. Koestlin: L.'s Theologie. Stuttg., 1863, 2d ed., 1883,
   2 vols. By the same: Luther's Lehre von der Kirche, 1853, new ed.,
   Gotha, 1868. Ch. H. Weisse; Die Christologie Luthers, Leipz., 1852 (253
   pp.). Luthardt: Die Ethik Luthers, Leipz., 1867, 2d ed., 1875.
   Lommatzsch: Luther's Lehre von ethisch-relig. Standpunkt aus, Berlin,
   1879). H. C. Moenckeberg: Luther's Lehre von der Kirche. Hamburg, 1870.
   Hering: Die Mystik Luther's. Leipz., 1879. Kattenbusch: Luther's
   Stellung z. den oekumenischen Symbolen. Giessen, 1883.

   IV. Luther as Bible Translator.

   G. W. Panzer: Entwurf einer vollstaendigen Gesch. der deutschen
   Bibeluebers. Dr. M. Luther's von 1517-1581. Nuernberg, 1783. H. Schott:
   Gesch. der teutschen Bibeluebers. Dr. M. Luther's. Leipz., 1835.
   Bindseil: Verzeichniss der Original-Ausgaben der Luther. Uebersetzung
   der Bibel. Halle, 1841. Moenckeberg and Frommann: Vorschlaege zur
   Revision von M. L.'s Bibeluebers. Halle, 1861-62. Theod. Schott: Martin
   Luther und die deutsche Bibel. Stuttgart, 1883. E. Riehm (Prof. in
   Halle and one of the Revisers of the Luther-Bible): Luther als
   Bibeluebersetzer. Gotta. 1884. Comp. the Probebibel of 1883 (an
   official revision of Luther's version), and the numerous pamphlets for
   and against it.

   V. Luther as a Preacher.

   E. Jonas: Die Kanzelberedtsamkeit Luther's. Berlin, 1852 (515 pp.).
   Best ed. of his sermons by G. Schlosser: Dr. Martin Luther's
   Evangelien-Predigten auf alle Sonn-und Festtage des Kirchenjahres aus
   seiner Haus-und Kirchenpostille, Frankfurt a. M., 1883; 4th ed., 1885.

   VI. Luther as Poet and Musician .

   A. J. Rambach: Luther's Verdienst um den Kirchengesang. Hamburg, 1813
   Aug. Gebauer: Martin Luther und seine Zeitgenossen als
   Kirchenliederdichter. Leipzig, 1828 (212 pp.). C. von Winterfeld: Dr.
   M. Luth. deutsche geistliche Lieder nebst den wahrend seines Lebens
   dazu gebraeuchlichen Stimmweisen. Leipzig, 1840 (132 pp., 4to). B.
   Pick: Luther as a Hymnist, Philad., 1875; Ein feste Burg (in 21
   languages), Chicago, 1883. Bacon and Allen: The Hymns of Martin Luther
   with his original Tunes. Germ. and Eng., N. Y., 1883. Dr. Danneil:
   Luther's Geistliche Lieder nach seinen drei Gesangbuechern von 1524,
   1529, 1545. Frankfurt a. M., 1883. E. Achelis: Die Entstehungszeit v.
   Luther's geistl. Liedern. Marburg, 1884.

   VII. Special Points in Luther's Life and Work.

   John G. Morris: Quaint Sayings and Doings concerning Luther.
   Philadelphia, 1857. Tuzschmann: Luther in Worms. Darmstadt, 1860.
   Koehler: Luther's Reisen. Eisenach, 1872. W. J. Mann and C. P. Krauth:
   The Great Reformation and the Ninety-five Theses. Philad., 1873.
   Zitzlaff. L. auf der Koburg. Wittenberg, 1882. Kolde. L. auf dem
   Reichstag zu Worms. Halle, 1883. Glock: Grundriss der Paedagogik
   Luther's. Karlsruh, 1883.

   VIII. Commemorative Addresses of 1883 and 1884.

   Festschriften zur 400 jaehrigen Jubelfeier der Geburt Dr. Martin
   Luther's, herausgegeben vom koenigl. Prediger-Seminar in Wittenberg.
   Wittenberg, 1883. (Addresses by Drs. Schmieder, Rietschel, and others.)
   P. Kleinert: L. im Verhaeltniss zur Wissenschaft (Academic oration).
   Berlin, 1883 (35 pp.). Ed. Reuss: Akad. Festrede zur Lutherfeier.
   Strassburg, 1883. Th. Brieger: Neue Mittheilungen ueber Luther in
   Worms. Marburg, 1883, and Luther und sein Werk. Marb., 1883. Ad.
   Harnack: M. Luther in seiner Bedeutung fuer die Gesch. der Wissenschaft
   und der Bildung. Giessen, 1883 (30 pp.). Vid Upsala Universitets
   Luthersfest, den 10 Nov., 1883, with an oration of K. H. Gez. von
   Scheele (Prof. of Theol. at Upsala, appointed Bishop of Visby in
   Gothland, 1885). Upsala, 1883. G. N. Bonwetsch: Unser Reformator Martin
   Luther. Dorpat, 1883. Appenzeller, Ruetschi, Oettli, and others: Die
   Lutherfeier in Bern. Bern, 1883. Prof. Salmond (of Aberdeen): Martin
   Luther. Edinburgh, 1883. J. M. Lindsay: M. Luther, in the 9th ed. of
   "Encyclop. Brit.," vol. XV. (1883), 71-84. Jean Monod: Luther j'usqu'en
   1520. Montauban, 1883. J. B. Bittinger: M. Luth. Cleveland, 1883. E. J.
   Wolf, and others: Addresses on the Reformation. Gettysburg, 1884. The
   Luther Document (No. XVII.) of the American Evang. Alliance, with
   addresses of Rev. Drs. Wm. M. Taylor and Phillips Brooks. N. Y., 1883.
   Symposiac on Luther, seven addresses of the seven Professors of the
   Union Theol. Seminary in New York, held Nov. 19, 1883. Jos. A. Seiss:
   Luther and the Reformation (an eloquent commemorative oration delivered
   in Philad., and New York). Philad. 1884. S. M. Deutsch: Luther's These
   vom Jahr 1519 ueber die paepstliche Gewalt. Berlin, 1884. H. Cremer:
   Reformation und Wissenschaft. Gotha, 1883

   IX. Roman Catholic Attacks .

   The Luther-celebration gave rise not only to innumerable Protestant
   glorifications, but also to many Roman Catholic defamations of Luther
   and the Reformation. The ablest works of this kind are by Janssen
   (tracts in defence of his famous History of Germany, noticed in S: 15),
   G. G. Evers, formerly a Lutheran pastor (Katholisch oder
   protestantisch? Hildesheim, 4th ed., 1883; Martin Luther's Anfaenge,
   Osnabrueck, 3d ed., 1884; Martin Luther, Mainz, 1883 sqq., in several
   vols.), Westermayer. (Luther's Werk im Jahr 1883), Germanus, Herrmann,
   Roettscher, Dasbach, Roem, Leogast, etc. See the "Historisch-politische
   Blaetter" of Munich, and the "Germania" of Berlin, for 1883 and 1884
   (the chief organs of Romanism in Germany), and the Protestant review of
   these writings by Wilh. Walther: Luther in neusten roemischen Gericht.
   Halle, 1884 (166 pages).
     __________________________________________________________________

   [110] Audin wrote also the Lives of Calvin, of Henry VIII., and of Leo
   X. (published between 1839 and 1847), with the same French vivacity and
   Roman Catholic hostility; yet, while he does not understand Luther as a
   Protestant Christian and a reformer, he tries to do justice to him as a
   man and a genius. He says (III., 380): "Luther est le grand predicateur
   de la reforme. Il eut presque tous les dons de l'orateur; une
   inepuisable fecondite de pensees, une imagination aussi prompte `a
   recevoir qu'`a produire ses impressions, une abondance et une suplesse
   de style inexprimables. Sa voix etait claire et retentissante, son oeil
   brillant de flamme, sa tete antique, sa poitrine large, ses mains
   d'unerare beaute, son geste ample et rich .... C'etait `a la fois
   Rabelais et Montaigne: Rabelais avec sa verve drolatique de style,
   Montaigne avec ses tournures qui burinent et cisetent." The editor of
   the 7th ed., in his introductory notice (p. xviii.), says that those
   biographies of Audin have given to the Reformation "le coup de grace,"
   and thus finished the work of Bossuet's Variations; but Protestantism
   still lives, even in Catholic and infidel France.

   [111] Michelet lets Luther tell his own story as far as possible, and
   compares this story with the Confessions of Augustin and of Rousseau,
   which it unites."Dans saint Augustin" (he says, I., 6), "la passion, la
   nature, l'individuate humaine, n'apparaissent que pour etre immolees `a
   la grace divine. C'est l'histoire d'une crise de l'ame, d'une
   renaissance, d'une Vita nuova; le saint eut rouqi de nous faire mieux
   connaitre l'autre vie qu'il avait quitte. Dans Rousseau, c'est tous le
   contraire; il ne s'agit plus de la grace; la nature regne sans partage,
   elle triomphe, elle s'etale; cela va quelquefois jusqu 'au degout.
   Luther a presente, non pas l'equilibre de la grace et de la nature,
   mais leur plus douloureux combat. Les luttes de la sensibilite, les
   tentations plus hautes du donte, bien d'autres hommes en eut suffert;
   Pascal les eut evidemment, il les etouffa et il en mourat. Luther n'a
   rien cache, il ne s'est pu contenir. Il a donne `a voir en lui `a
   sonder, la plaie profonde de notre nature. C'est le seul homme
   peut-atre ou l'on puisse etudier `a plaisircette terrible anatomie."
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 18. Luther's Youth and Training.

   In order to understand the genius and history of the German Reformation
   we must trace its origin in the personal experience of the monk who
   shook the world from his lonely study in Wittenberg, and made pope and
   emperor tremble at the power of his word.

   All the Reformers, like the Apostles and Evangelists, were men of
   humble origin, and gave proof that God's Spirit working through his
   chosen instruments is mightier than armies and navies. But they were
   endowed with extraordinary talents and energy, and providentially
   prepared for their work. They were also aided by a combination of
   favorable circumstances without which they could not have accomplished
   their work. They made the Reformation, and the Reformation made them.

   Of all the Reformers Luther is the first. He is so closely identified
   with the German Reformation that the one would have no meaning without
   the other. His own history is the formative history of the church which
   is justly called by his name, and which is the incarnation and
   perpetuation of his genius. No other Reformer has given his name to the
   church he reformed, and exercised the same controlling influence over
   its history. We need not discuss here the advantages and disadvantages
   of this characteristic difference; we are only concerned with the fact.

   Martin Luther was born Nov. 10, 1483, an hour before midnight, at
   Eisleben in Prussian Saxony, where he died, Feb. 18, 1546. [112]

   On the day following he was baptized and received the name of the saint
   of the day.

   His parents had recently removed to that town [113] from their original
   home at Mahra near Eisenach in Thuringia, where Boniface had first
   preached the gospel to the Germans. Six months after Luther's birth
   they settled at Mansfeld, the capital of a rich mining district in the
   Harz mountains, which thus shares with the Thuringian forest the honor
   of being the home of the Luther family. They were very poor, but
   honest, industrious and pious people from the lower and uncultivated
   ranks.

   Luther was never ashamed of his humble, rustic origin. "I am," he said
   with pride to Melanchthon, "a peasant's son; my father, grandfather,
   all my ancestors were genuine peasants." [114] His mother had to carry
   the wood from the forest, on her back, and father and mother, as he
   said, "worked their flesh off their bones," to bring up seven children
   (he had three younger brothers and three sisters). Afterward his
   father, as a miner, acquired some property, and left at his death 1250
   guilders, a guilder being worth at that time about sixteen marks, or
   four dollars. [115]

   Luther had a hard youth, without sunny memories, and was brought up
   under stern discipline. His mother chastised him, for stealing a paltry
   nut, till the blood came; and his father once flogged him so severely
   that he fled away and bore him a temporary grudge; [116] but Luther
   recognized their good intentions, and cherished filial affection,
   although they knew not, as he said, to distinguish the ingenia to which
   education should be adapted. He was taught at home to pray to God and
   the saints, to revere the church and the priests, and was told
   frightful stories about the devil and witches which haunted his
   imagination all his life.

   In the school the discipline was equally severe, and the rod took the
   place of kindly admonition. He remembered to have been chastised no
   less than fifteen times in one single morning. But he had also better
   things to say. He learned the Catechism, i.e.: the Creed, the Lord's
   Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and several Latin and German hymns.
   He treasured in his memory the proverbial wisdom of the people and the
   legendary lore of Dietrich von Bern, of Eulenspiegel and Markolf.

   He received his elementary education in the schools of Mansfeld,
   Magdeburg, and Eisenach. Already in his fourteenth year he had to
   support himself by singing in the street.

   Frau Ursula Cotta, the wife of the wealthiest merchant at Eisenach,
   immortalized herself by the benevolent interest she took in the poor
   student. She invited him to her table "on account of his hearty singing
   and praying," and gave him the first impression of a lady of some
   education and refinement. She died, 1511, but he kept up an
   acquaintance with her sons and entertained one of them who studied at
   Wittenberg. From her he learned the word: "There is nothing dearer in
   this world than the love of woman." [117]

   The hardships of Luther's youth and the want of refined breeding show
   their effects in his writings and actions. They limited his influence
   among the higher and cultivated classes, but increased his power over
   the middle and lower classes. He was a man of the people and for the
   people. He was of the earth earthy, but with his bold face lifted to
   heaven. He was not a polished diamond, but a rough block cut out from a
   granite mountain and well fitted for a solid base of a mighty
   structure. He laid the foundation, and others finished the upper
   stories.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [112] His name is differently spelled: Luder, Ludher, Lutter, Luttherr,
   Luther. The Reformer himself varied. In his first book, on the
   Penitential Psalms, 1517, he signed his name after the preface Martinus
   Luder, but soon afterward he adopted the spelling Luther. In the
   University records of Erfurt he was inscribed as Ludher in the
   Wittenberg records, first as Luder and Lueder. He derived his name from
   lauter, clear, afterward from Lothar, which means laut (hlut),
   renowned, according to others Leutherr, i.e.: Herr der Leute, lord of
   the people. See Erfurter Matrikel; Album Acad. Viteberg., and Lib.
   Decanorum facultatis theol. Acad. Viteb. ed. Foerstemann; Walch, L.'s
   Werke I., 46 sqq.; Juergens I., 11-13: Knaake, in "Zeitschr, f. hist.
   Theol.," 1872, p. 465; Koestlin, Mart. Luther, I. 21 (2d ed. 1883). The
   year of Luther's birth rests on the testimony of his brother James; his
   mother distinctly remembered the day and the hour, but not the year.
   Melanchthon's Vita Luth. 2; Koestlin, 1. 25 and 776.

   [113] The story that they went to the fair at Eisenach cannot be
   proven.

   [114] "Ich bin eines Bauern Sohn; mein Vater, Grossvater, Ahnherr sind
   rechte Bauern gewest. Darauf ist mein Vater gen Mansfeld gezogen und
   ein Berghauer worden: daher bin ich." Mathesius wisely remarks with
   reference to the small beginnings of Luther: "Wass gross soll werden,
   muss klein angehen; und wenn die Kinder zaertlich und herrlich erzogen
   werden, schadet es ihnen ihr Leben lang."

   [115] Koestlin, I., 26; II., 498. In his small biography, pp. 6 and 7
   (Engl. ed.), Koestlin gives the pictures of Hans and Margaret Luther.
   There is a striking resemblance between Luther and his mother, whom
   Melanchthon describes as a modest, God-fearing, and devout woman. Her
   maiden name was Ziegler (not Lindemann, as usually given). Luther's
   father is said to have escaped by flight trial for murdering a peasant
   at Moehra in a fit of anger; but this tradition rests only on the
   testimony of J. Wicel (Epist. libri quatuor, Lips., 1537), who fell
   away from Protestantism. It is discredited by Koestlin (I., 24).
   Janssen (II. 66) leaves it in doubt.

   [116] Table Talk (Erl. Frkf. ed. LXI. 213): "Man soll die Kinder nicht
   zu hart stauepen; denn mein Vater staeupet mich einmal so sehr, dass
   ich ihn flohe und ward ihm gram, bis er mich wieder zu ihm gewoehnete."

   [117] He says in his Table-Talk: "Darumb sagte meine Wirthin zu
   Eisenach recht, als ich daselbst in die Schule ging: 'Es ist kein
   lieber Ding auf Erden Als Frauenlieb', wem sie mag werden.' " See
   Works, Erl. Frkf. ed. LXI., 212; Juergens, I., 281 sqq.; Kolde, I., 36;
   Janssen, II., 67. The relation of Luther to this excellent lady has
   been made the subject of a useful religious novel by Mrs. Eliz.
   Charles, under the title: Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta Family. By
   two of themselves. London and New York (M. W. Dodd), 1864. The diary is
   fictitious.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 19. Luther in the University of Erfurt.

   At the age of eighteen, in the year 1501, he entered, as "Martinus
   Ludher ex Mansfeld," the University of Erfurt, which had been founded a
   hundred years before (1392) and was then one of the best in Germany.
   [118] By that time his father was able to assist him so that he was
   free of care and could acquire a little library.

   He studied chiefly scholastic philosophy, namely: logic, rhetoric,
   physics and metaphysics. His favorite teacher was Truttvetter, called
   "Doctor Erfordiensis." [119] The palmy days of scholasticism which
   reared those venerable cathedrals of thought in support of the
   traditional faith of the church in the thirteenth century, had passed
   away, and were succeeded by the times of barren disputes about Realism
   and Nominalism or the question whether the general ideas (the
   universalia) had an objective reality, or a merely nominal, subjective
   existence in the mind. Nominalism was then the prevailing system.

   On the other hand the humanistic studies were reviving all over Europe
   and opened a new avenue of intellectual culture and free thought. The
   first Greek book in Greek letters (a grammar) which was published in
   Germany, appeared in Erfurt. John Crotus Rubeanus (Jaeger) who studied
   there since 1498 and became rector of the University in 1520 and 1521,
   was one of the leaders of humanism and the principal author of the
   first part of the famous anti-monkish Epistolae obscurorum virorum
   (1515); he was at first an intimate friend of Hutten and Luther, and
   greeted the latter on his way to Worms (1521) as the man who "first
   after so many centuries dared to strangle the Roman license with the
   sword of the Scripture," but afterward he fell away from the
   Reformation (1531) and assailed it bitterly. [120]

   Luther did not neglect the study of the ancient classics, especially
   Cicero, Vergil, Plautus, and Livy. [121] He acquired sufficient mastery
   of Latin to write it with clearness and vigor, though not with elegance
   and refinement. The knowledge of Greek he acquired afterward as
   professor at Wittenberg. In classical culture he never attained the
   height of Erasmus and Melanchthon, of Calvin and Beza; but in original
   thought and in the mastery of his own mother tongue he was unrivalled.
   He always regarded the languages as the sheath for the sword of the
   Spirit.

   Beside his literary studies he cultivated his early love for music. He
   sang, and played the lute right merrily. He was a poet and musician as
   well as a theologian. He prized music as a noble gift of God, as a
   remedy against sadness and evil thoughts, and an effective weapon
   against the assaults of the devil. His poetic gift shines in his
   classical hymns. He had a rich font of mother wit and quaint humor.

   His moral conduct was unblemished; and the mouth of slander did not
   dare to blacken his reputation till after the theological passions were
   roused by the Reformation. He went regularly to mass and observed the
   daily devotions of a sincere Catholic. He chose for his motto: to pray
   well is half the study. He was a devout worshipper of the Virgin Mary.

   In his twentieth year he first saw a complete (Latin) Bible in the
   University Library, and was surprised and rejoiced to find that it
   contained so much more than was ever read or explained in the churches.
   [122] His eye fell upon the story of Samuel and his mother, and he read
   it with delight. But he did not begin a systematic study of the Bible
   till he entered the convent; nor did he find in it the God of love and
   mercy, but rather the God of righteousness and wrath. He was much
   concerned about his personal salvation and given to gloomy reflections
   over his sinful condition. Once he fell dangerously ill, and was seized
   with a fit of despair, but an old priest comforted him, saying: "My
   dear Baccalaureus, be of good cheer; you will not die in this sickness:
   God will yet make a great man out of you for the comfort of many."

   In 1502 he was graduated as Bachelor of Arts, in 1505 as Master of
   Arts. This degree, which corresponds to the modern Doctor of Philosophy
   in Germany, was bestowed with great solemnity. "What a moment of
   majesty and splendor," says Luther, "was that when one took the degree
   of Master, and torches were carried before him. I consider that no
   temporal or worldly joy can equal it." His talents and attainments were
   the wonder of the University.

   According to his father's ambitious wish, Luther began to prepare
   himself for the profession of law, and was presented by him with a copy
   of the Corpus juris. But he inclined to theology, when a remarkable
   providential occurrence opened a new path for his life.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [118] See the description by Juergens, I., 351 sqq.; and Kampschulte,
   Die Universitaet Erfurt in ihrem Verh. z. Humanismus u. Reformation,
   Trier, 1358. Two parts. The university was abolished in 1816.

   [119] See Kampschulte, l.c. I., 43 sqq., and G. Plitt, Jodocus
   Truttvetter, der Lehrer Luthers, 1876.

   [120] Juergens, I., 449; Kampschulte, De Johanne Croto Rubiano, 1862.

   [121] O. G. Schmidt, Luther's Bekanntschaft mit den alten Classikern,
   1883.

   [122] Da ich zwanzig Jahre alt war, hatte ich noch keine Bibel gesehen;
   ich meinte, es waeren keim Evangelien und Episteln mehr, denn die in
   den Postillen sind." Werke, Erl. ed., LX., 255. This was partly his own
   fault, for several editions of the Latin Vulgate and the German Bible
   were printed before 1500.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 20. Luther's Conversion.

   In the summer of 1505 Luther entered the Augustinian convent at Erfurt
   and became a monk, as he thought, for his life time. The circumstances
   which led to this sudden step we gather from his fragmentary utterances
   which have been embellished by legendary tradition.

   He was shocked by the sudden death of a friend (afterward called
   Alexius), who was either killed in a duel, [123] or struck dead by
   lightning at Luther's side. Shortly afterward, on the second of July,
   1505, two weeks before his momentous decision, he was overtaken by a
   violent thunderstorm near Erfurt, on his return from a visit to his
   parents, and was so frightened that he fell to the earth and
   tremblingly exclaimed: "Help, beloved Saint Anna! I will become a
   monk." His friend Crotus (who afterward became an enemy of the
   Reformation) inaptly compared this event to the conversion of St. Paul
   at the gates of Damascus. [124] But Luther was a Christian before he
   became a monk.

   On the sixteenth of July he assembled his friends who in vain tried to
   change his resolution, indulged once more in social song, and bade them
   farewell. On the next day they accompanied him, with tears, to the
   gates of the convent. The only books he took with him were the Latin
   poets Vergil and Plautus.

   His father almost went mad, when he heard the news. Luther himself
   declared in later years, that his monastic vow was forced from him by
   terror and the fear of death and the judgment to come; yet he never
   doubted that God's hand was in it. "I never thought of leaving the
   convent: I was entirely dead to the world, until God thought that the
   time had come."

   This great change has nothing to do with Luther's Protestantism. It was
   simply a transition from secular to religious life--such as St. Bernard
   and thousands of Catholic monks before and since passed through. He was
   never an infidel, nor a wicked man, but a pious Catholic from early
   youth; but he now became overwhelmed with a sense of the vanity of this
   world and the absorbing importance of saving his soul, which, according
   to the prevailing notion of his age, he could best secure in the quiet
   retreat of a cloister.

   He afterward underwent as it were a second conversion, from the
   monastic and legalistic piety of mediaeval Catholicism to the free
   evangelical piety of Protestantism, when he awoke to an experimental
   knowledge of justification by free grace through faith alone.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [123] Mathesius: "da ihm ein guter Gesell erstochen ward."

   [124] In a letter which Crotus wrote to Luther from Bologna, Nov.,
   1519: "Perge, ut coepisti, relinque exemplum posteris. Nam ista facis
   non sine numine divum. Ad haec respexit divina providentia, cum te
   redeuntem a parentibus coeleste fulmen veluti alterum Paulum ante
   oppidum Erfurdianum in terram prostravit, atque inter Augustiana septa
   compulit e nostro consortio." Doellinger I. 139.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 21. Luther as a Monk.

   The Augustinian convent at Erfurt became the cradle of the Lutheran
   Reformation. All honor to monasticism: it was, like the law of Israel,
   a wholesome school of discipline and a preparation for gospel freedom.
   Erasmus spent five years reluctantly in a convent, and after his
   release ridiculed monkery with the weapons of irony and sarcasm; Luther
   was a monk from choice and conviction, and therefore all the better
   qualified to refute it afterward from deep experience. He followed in
   the steps of St. Paul, who from a Pharisee of the Pharisees became the
   strongest opponent of Jewish legalism.

   If there ever was a sincere, earnest, conscientious monk, it was Martin
   Luther. His sole motive was concern for his salvation. To this supreme
   object he sacrificed the fairest prospects of life. He was dead to the
   world and was willing to be buried out of the sight of men that he
   might win eternal life. His latter opponents who knew him in convent,
   have no charge to bring against his moral character except a certain
   pride and combativeness, and he himself complained of his temptations
   to anger and envy. [125]

   It was not without significance that the order which he joined, bore
   the honored name of the greatest Latin father who, next to St. Paul,
   was to be Luther's chief teacher of theology and religion; but it is an
   error to suppose that this order represented the anti-Pelagian or
   evangelical views of the North African father; on the contrary it was
   intensely catholic in doctrine, and given to excessive worship of the
   Virgin Mary, and obedience to the papal see which conferred upon it
   many special privileges.

   St. Augustin, after his conversion, spent several weeks with some
   friends in quiet seclusion on a country-seat near Tagaste, and after
   his election to the priesthood, at Hippo in 391, he established in a
   garden a sort of convent where with like-minded brethren and students
   he led an ascetic life of prayer, meditation and earnest, study of the
   Scriptures, yet engaged at the same time in all the public duties of a
   preacher, pastor and leader in the theological controversies and
   ecclesiastical affairs of his age.

   His example served as an inspiration and furnished a sort of authority
   to several monastic associations which arose in the thirteenth century.
   Pope Alexander IV. (1256) gave them the so-called rule of St. Augustin.
   They belonged to the mendicant monks, like the Dominicans, Franciscans
   and Carmelites. They laid great stress on preaching. In other respects
   they differed little from other monastic orders. In the beginning of
   the sixteenth century they numbered more than a hundred settlements in
   Germany.

   The Augustinian congregation in Saxony was founded in 1493, and
   presided over since 1503 by John von Staupitz, the Vicar-General for
   Germany, and Luther's friend. The convent at Erfurt was the largest and
   most important next to that at Nuernberg. The monks were respected for
   their zeal in preaching, pastoral care, and theological study. They
   lived on alms, which they collected themselves in the town and
   surrounding country. Applicants were received as novices for a year of
   probation, during which they could reconsider their resolution;
   afterward they were bound by perpetual vows of celibacy, poverty and
   obedience to their superiors.

   Luther was welcomed by his brethren with hymns of joy and prayer. He
   was clothed with a white woollen shirt, in honor of the pure Virgin, a
   black cowl and frock, tied by a leathern girdle. He assumed the most
   menial offices to subdue his pride: he swept the floor, begged bread
   through the streets, and submitted without a murmur to the ascetic
   severities. He said twenty-five Paternosters with the Ave Maria in each
   of the seven appointed hours of prayer. He was devoted to the Holy
   Virgin and even believed, with the Augustinians and Franciscans, in her
   immaculate conception, or freedom from hereditary sin--a doctrine
   denied by the Dominicans and not made an article of faith till the year
   1854. He regularly confessed his sins to the priest at least once a
   week. At the same time a complete copy of the Latin Bible was put into
   his hands for study, as was enjoined by the new code of statutes drawn
   up by Staupitz.

   At the end of the year of probation Luther solemnly promised to live
   until death in poverty and chastity according to the rules of the holy
   father Augustin, to render obedience to Almighty God, to the Virgin
   Mary, and to the prior of the monastery. He was sprinkled with holy
   water, as he lay prostrate on the ground in the form of a cross. He was
   greeted as an innocent child fresh from baptism, and assigned to a
   separate cell with table, bedstead, and chair. [126]

   The two years which followed, he divided between pious exercises and
   theological studies. He read diligently the Scriptures, and the later
   schoolmen,--especially Gabriel Biel, whom he knew by heart, and William
   Occam, whom he esteemed on account of his subtle acuteness even above
   St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, without being affected by his sceptical
   tendency. He acknowledged the authority of Aristotle, whom he afterward
   denounced and disowned as "a damned heathen." [127] He excited the
   admiration of his brethren by his ability in disputation on scholastic
   questions.

   His heart was not satisfied with brain work. His chief concern was to
   become a saint and to earn a place in heaven. "If ever," he said
   afterward, "a monk got to heaven by monkery, I would have gotten
   there." He observed the minutest details of discipline. No one
   surpassed him in prayer, fasting, night watches, self-mortification. He
   was already held up as a model of sanctity.

   But he was sadly disappointed in his hope to escape sin and temptation
   behind the walls of the cloister. He found no peace and rest in all his
   pious exercises. The more he seemed to advance externally, the more he
   felt the burden of sin within. He had to contend with temptations of
   anger, envy, hatred and pride. He saw sin everywhere, even in the
   smallest trifles. The Scriptures impressed upon him the terrors of
   divine justice. He could not trust in God as a reconciled Father, as a
   God of love and mercy but trembled before him, as a God of wrath, as a
   consuming fire. He could not get over the words: "I, the Lord thy God,
   am a jealous God." His confessor once told him: "Thou art a fool, God
   is not angry with thee, but thou art angry with God." He remembered
   this afterward as "a great and glorious word," but at that time it made
   no impression on him. He could not point to any particular
   transgression; it was sin as an all-pervading power and vitiating
   principle, sin as a corruption of nature, sin as a state of alienation
   from God and hostility to God, that weighed on his mind like an incubus
   and brought him at times to the brink of despair.

   He passed through that conflict between the law of God and the law of
   sin which is described by Paul (Rom. vii.), and which; ends with the
   cry: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of
   this death?" He had not yet learned to add: "I thank God through Jesus
   Christ our Lord. There is now no condemnation to them that are in
   Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me
   free from the law of sin and of death."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [125] Koestlin, I., 88 sq., 780.

   [126] The cell and furniture were destroyed by fire, March 7, 1872. The
   cell was reconstructed, and the convent is now an orphan-asylum
   (Martinsstift).

   [127] "Der vermaladeite Heide Aristoteles." Luther's attitude to
   scholasticism and the great Greek philosopher changed again when, in
   support of the eucharistic presence, he had to resort to the scholastic
   distinctions between various kinds of presence. Comp. Fr. Aug. Berthold
   Nitzsch, Luther und Aristoteles . Kiel, 1883.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 22. Luther and Staupitz.

   The mystic writings of Staupitz have been republished in part by Knaake
   in Johannis Staupitii Opera. Potsdam, 1867, vol. I. His "Nachfolge
   Christi" was first published in 1515; his book "Von der Liebe Gottes"
   (especially esteemed by Luther) in 1518, and passed through several
   editions; republ. by Liesching, Stuttgart, 1862. His last work "Von,
   dem heiligen rechten christlichen Glauben," appeared after his death,
   1525, and is directed against Luther's doctrine of justification by
   faith without works. His twenty-four letters have been published by
   Kolde: Die Deutsche Augustiner Congregation und Johann von Staupitz.
   Gotha, 1879, p. 435 sqq.

   II. On Luther and Staupitz: Grimm: De Joh. Staupitio ejusque in sacr.
   instaur. meritis, in Illgen's "Zeitschrift fuer Hist. Theol.," 1837
   (VII, 74-79). Ullmann: Die Reformatoren vor der Reformation, vol. II.,
   256-284 (very good, see there the older literature). Doellinger: Die
   Reformation, I., 153-155. Kahnis: Deutsche Reformat., I., 150 sqq.
   Albr. Ritschl: Die Lehre v. der Rechtfertigung und Versoehnung, 2d ed.,
   I., 124-129 (on Staupitz's theology). Mallet: in Herzog,2 XIV.,
   648-653. Paul Zeller: Staupitz. Seine relig. dogmat. Anschauungen und
   dogmengesch. Stellung, in the "Theol. Studien und Kritiken," 1879.
   Ludwig Keller: Johann von Staupitz, und das Waldenserthum, in the
   "Historische Taschenbuch," ed. by W. Maurenbrecher, Leipzig, 1885, p.
   117-167; also his Johann von Staupitz und die Anfaenge der Reformation,
   Leipzig, 1888. Dr. Keller connects Staupitz with the Waldenses and
   Anabaptists, but without proof. Kolde: Joh. von Staup. ein Waldenser
   und Wiedertaeufer, in Brieger's "Zeitschrift fuer Kirchengesch." Gotha,
   1885, p. 426-447. Dieckhoff: Die Theol. des Joh. v. Staup., Leipz.,
   1887.

   In this state of mental and moral agony, Luther was comforted by an old
   monk of the convent (the teacher of the novices) who reminded him of
   the article on the forgiveness of sins in the Apostles' Creed, of
   Paul's word that the sinner is justified by grace through faith, and of
   an incidental remark of St. Bernard (in a Sermon on the Canticles) to
   the same effect.

   His best friend and wisest counsellor was Johann von Staupitz, Doctor
   of Divinity and Vicar-General of the Augustinian convents in Germany.
   Staupitz was a Saxon nobleman, of fine mind, generous heart,
   considerable biblical and scholastic learning, and deep piety, highly
   esteemed wherever known, and used in important missions by the Elector
   Frederick of Saxony. He belonged to the school of practical mysticism
   or Catholic pietism, which is best represented by Tauler and Thomas a
   Kempis. He cared more for the inner spiritual life than outward forms
   and observances, and trusted in the merits of Christ rather than in
   good works of his own, as the solid ground of comfort and peace. The
   love of God and the imitation of Christ were the ruling ideas of his
   theology and piety. In his most popular book, On the Love of God, [128]
   he describes that love as the inmost being of God, which makes
   everything lovely, and should make us love Him above all things; but
   this love man cannot learn from man, nor from the law which only brings
   us to a knowledge of sin, nor from the letter of the Scripture which
   kills, but from the Holy Spirit who reveals God's love in Christ to our
   hearts and fills it with the holy flame of gratitude and consecration.
   "The law," he says in substance, "makes known the disease, but cannot
   heal. But the spirit is hid beneath the letter; the old law is pregnant
   with Christ who gives us grace to love God above all things. To those
   who find the spirit and are led to Christ by the law, the Scriptures
   become a source of edification and comfort. The Jews saw and heard and
   handled Christ, but they had him not in their heart, and therefore they
   were doubly guilty. And so are those who carry Christ only on their
   lips. The chief thing is to have him in our heart. The knowledge of the
   Christian faith and the love to God are gifts of pure grace beyond our
   art and ability, and beyond our works and merits."

   Staupitz was Luther's spiritual father, and "first caused the light of
   the gospel to shine in the darkness of his heart." [129] He directed
   him from his sins to the merits of Christ, from the law to the cross,
   from works to faith, from scholasticism to the study of the Scriptures,
   of St. Augustin, and Tauler. He taught him that true repentance
   consists not in self-imposed penances and punishments, but in a change
   of heart and must proceed from the contemplation of Christ's sacrifice,
   in which the secret of God's eternal will was revealed. He also
   prophetically assured him that God would overrule these trials and
   temptations for his future usefulness in the church. [130]

   He encouraged Luther to enter the priesthood (1507), and brought him to
   Wittenberg; he induced him to take the degree of Doctor of Divinity,
   and to preach. He stirred him up against popery, [131] and protected
   him in the transactions with Cardinal Cajetan. He was greeted by
   Scheurl in 1518 as the one who would lead the people of Israel out of
   captivity.

   But when Luther broke with Rome, and Rome with Luther, the friendship
   cooled down. Staupitz held fast to the unity of the Catholic Church and
   was intimidated and repelled by the excesses of the Reformation. In a
   letter of April 1, 1524, [132] he begs Luther's pardon for his long
   silence and significantly says in conclusion: "May Christ help us to
   live according to his gospel which now resounds in our ears and which
   many carry on their lips; for I see that countless persons abuse the
   gospel for the freedom of the flesh. [133] Having been the precursor of
   the holy evangelical doctrine, I trust that my entreaties may have some
   effect upon thee." The sermons which he preached at Salzburg since 1522
   breathe the same spirit and urge Catholic orthodoxy and obedience.
   [134] His last book, published after his death (1525) under the title,
   "Of the holy true Christian Faith," is a virtual protest against
   Luther's doctrine of justification by faith alone and a plea for a
   practical Christianity which shows itself in good works. He contrasts
   the two doctrines in these words: "The fools say, he who believes in
   Christ., needs no works; the Truth says, whosoever will be my disciple,
   let him follow Me; and whosoever will follow Me, let him deny himself
   and carry my cross day by day; and whosoever loves Me, keeps my
   commandments .... The evil spirit suggests to carnal Christians the
   doctrine that man is justified without works, and appeals to Paul. But
   Paul only excluded works of the law which proceed from fear and
   selfishness, while in all his epistles he commends as necessary to
   salvation such works as are done in obedience to God's commandments, in
   faith and love. Christ fulfilled the taw, the fools would abolish the
   law; Paul praises the law as holy and good, the fools scold and abuse
   it as evil because they walk according to the flesh and have not the
   mind of the Spirit." [135]

   Staupitz withdrew from the conflict, resigned his position, 1520, left
   his order by papal dispensation, became abbot of the Benedictine
   Convent of St. Peter in Salzburg and died Dec. 28, 1524) in the bosom
   of the Catholic church which he never intended to leave. [136] He was
   evangelical, without being a Protestant. [137] He cared little for
   Romanism, less for Lutheranism, all for practical Christianity. His
   relation to the Reformation resembles that of Erasmus with this
   difference, that he helped to prepare the way for it in the sphere of
   discipline and piety, Erasmus in the sphere of scholarship and
   illumination. Both were men of mediation and transition; they beheld
   from afar the land of promise, but did not enter it.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [128] It passed through three editions between 1518 and 1520. See
   Knaake, I., 86 sq. Keller says that it was often republished by the
   Anabaptists, whom he regards as the successors of the mediaeval
   Waldenses, or "Brethren."

   [129] "Per quem primum coepit Evangelii lux de tenebris splendescere in
   cordibus nostris." So Luther says in his letter to Staupitz, Sept. 17,
   1518 (DeWette II., 408 sq.), where he addresses him as "reverendus in
   Christo pater," and signs himself "filius tuus Martinus Lutherus."

   [130] In a letter of comfort to Hieronymus Weller, Nov. 6, 1530
   (DeWette, IV., 187), Luther says, that in his sadness and distress in
   the convent he consulted Staupitz and opened to him his "horrendas et
   terrificas cogitationes," and that he was told by him: "Nescis Martine,
   quam tibi illa tenatio sit utilis et necessaria. Non enim temere te sic
   exercet Deus, videbis, quod ad res magnas gerendas te ministro utetur."

   [131] Luther: "D. Staupitius me incitabat contra papam (al. papatum)."
   In Colloquia, ed. Bindseil, III., 188.

   [132] First published by K. Krafft, in "Briefe und Documente aus der
   Zeit der Reformation," Elberfeld (1876), p. 54 sq.

   [133] "Ad liberatum carnis video innumeros abuti evangelio."

   [134] Extracts from these sermons were first published by Kolde.

   [135] Knaake, l.c., I., 130 sqq.; Keller, Reform., 346 sq. It must have
   been this book which Link sent to Luther in the year 1525, and which
   Luther returned with a very unfavorable judgment. Doellinger (l.c. I.,
   155) thinks that Luther looked upon the death of Staupitz as a sort of
   divine judgment, as he looked afterward upon the death of Zwingli.

   [136] Neverthless his books were put in the Index by the Council of
   Trent, 1563, and were burnt as heretical with all his correspondence by
   order of his successor, Abbot Martin of St. Peter, in the court of the
   convent at Salzburg in 1584. See Fr. Hein. Reusch (Old Cath.),Der Index
   der verbotenen Buecher, Bd. I. (Bonn, 1883), p. 279: "Staupitius ist in
   den Index gekommen, weil Cochlaeus bei dem Jahre 1517ihn neben Luther
   als Gegner Tetzels erwaehnt. Er ist in der 1. Classe geblieben bis auf
   diesen Tag, obschon man in Rom oder wenigstens in Trient, jedenfalls
   Benedict XIV. wohl haette wissen koennen, dass er als guter Katholik,
   als Abt von St. Peter zu Salzburg gestorben." This is only one of
   several hundred errors in this papal catalogue of heretical books.

   [137] Or, as Luther expressed it in his letter to Staupitz of Feb. 9,
   1521, he wavered between Christ and the Pope: "Ich fuercte, ihr
   moechtet zwischen Christo und dem Papste in der Mitte schwaben, die ihr
   doch in heftigem Streit sehet." He told him in the same letter that he
   was no more that preacher of grace and of the cross (ein solcher
   Gnaden-und Kreuzdiger) as formerly.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 23. The Victory of Justifying Faith.

   (Comp. S: 7.)

   The secret of Luther's power and influence lies in his heroic faith. It
   delivered him from the chaos and torment of ascetic self-mortification
   and self-condemnation, gave him rest and peace, and made him a lordly
   freeman in Christ, and yet an obedient servant of Christ. This faith
   breathes through all his writings, dominated his acts, sustained him in
   his conflicts and remained his shield and anchor till the hour of
   death. This faith was born in the convent at Erfurt, called into public
   action at Wittenberg, and made him a Reformer of the Church.

   By the aid of Staupitz and the old monk, but especially by the
   continued study of Paul's Epistles, be was gradually brought to the
   conviction that the sinner is justified by faith alone, without works
   of law. He experienced this truth in his heart long before he
   understood it in all its bearings. He found in it that peace of
   conscience which he had sought in vain by his monkish exercises. He
   pondered day and night over the meaning of "the righteousness of God
   "(Rom. 1:17), and thought that it is the righteous punishment of
   sinners; but toward the close of his convent life he came to the
   conclusion that it is the righteousness which God freely gives in
   Christ to those who believe in him. Righteousness is not to be acquired
   by man through his own exertions and merits; it is complete and perfect
   in Christ, and all the sinner has to do is to accept it from Him as a
   free gift. Justification is that judicial act of God whereby he acquits
   the sinner of guilt and clothes him with the righteousness of Christ on
   the sole condition of personal faith which apprehends and appropriates
   Christ and shows its life and power by good works, as a good tree
   bringing forth good fruits. For faith in Luther's system is far more
   than a mere assent of the mind to the authority of the church: it is a
   hearty trust and full surrender of the whole man to Christ; it lives
   and moves in Christ as its element, and is constantly obeying his will
   and following his example. It is only in connection with this deeper
   conception of faith that his doctrine of justification can be
   appreciated. Disconnected from it, it is a pernicious error.

   The Pauline doctrine of justification as set forth in the Epistles to
   the Romans and Galatians, had never before been clearly and fully
   understood, not even by Augustin and Bernard, who confound
   justification with sanctification. [138] Herein lies the difference
   between the Catholic and the Protestant conception. In the Catholic
   system justification (dikaivwsi") is a gradual process conditioned by
   faith and good works; in the Protestant system it is a single act of
   God, followed by sanctification. It is based upon the merits of Christ,
   conditioned by faith, and manifested by good works. [139]

   This experience acted like a new revelation on Luther. It shed light
   upon the whole Bible and made it to him a book of life and comfort. He
   felt relieved of the terrible load of guilt by an act of free grace. He
   was led out of the dark prison house of self-inflicted penance into the
   daylight and fresh air of God's redeeming love. Justification broke the
   fetters of legalistic slavery, and filled him with the joy and peace of
   the state of adoption; it opened to him the very gates of heaven.

   Henceforth the doctrine of justification by faith alone was for him to
   the end of life the sum and substance of the gospel, the heart of
   theology, the central truth of Christianity, the article of the
   standing or falling church. By this standard he measured every other
   doctrine and the value of every book of the Bible. Hence his enthusiasm
   for Paul, and his dislike of James, whom he could not reconcile with
   his favorite apostle. He gave disproportion to solifidianism and
   presented it sometimes in most unguarded language, which seemed to
   justify antinomian conclusions; but he corrected himself, he expressly
   condemned antinomianism, and insisted on good works and a holy life as
   a necessary manifestation of faith. [140] And it must not be forgotten
   that the same charge of favoring antinomianism was made against Paul,
   who rejects it with pious horror: "Let it never be!"

   Thus the monastic and ascetic life of Luther was a preparatory school
   for his evangelical faith. It served the office of the Mosaic law
   which, by bringing the knowledge of sin and guilt, leads as a tutor to
   Christ (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 3:24). The law convicted, condemned, and killed
   him; the gospel comforted, justified, and made him alive. The law
   enslaved him, the gospel set him free. He had trembled like a slave;
   now he rejoiced as a son in his father's house. Through the discipline
   of the law he died to the law, that he might live unto God (Gal. 2:19).

   In one word, Luther passed through the experience of Paul. He
   understood him better than any mediaeval schoolman or ancient father.
   His commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians is still one of the
   best, for its sympathetic grasp of the contrast between law and gospel,
   between spiritual slavery and spiritual freedom.

   Luther held this conviction without dreaming that it conflicted with
   the traditional creed and piety of the church. He was brought to it
   step by step. The old views and practices ran along side with it, and
   for several years he continued to be a sincere and devout Catholic. It
   was only the war with Tetzel and its consequences that forced him into
   the position of a Reformer and emancipated him from his old
   connections.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [138] Luther himself felt how widely he differed in this doctrine from
   his favorite Augustin. He said afterward in his Table Talk: "Principio
   Augustinum vorabam, non legebam; aber da mir in Paulo die Thuer
   aufging, dass ich wusste was justificatio fidei waer, ward es aus mit
   ihm." Koestlin, I., 780. Yet if we reduce the doctrine of justification
   by faith to the more general term of salvation by free grace, it was
   held as clearly and strongly by Augustin and, we may say, is held by
   all true Christians. Janssen (II., 71) says: "Of all the books
   recognized and used by the (Catholic) Church, whether learned or
   popular, there is not one which does not contain the doctrine of
   justification by Christ alone (die Lehre von der Rechtfertigung durch
   Christus allein)." But the question between the Roman church and Luther
   turned on the subjective appropriation of the righteousness of Christ
   which is the objective ground of justification and salvation; while
   faith is the subjective condition.

   [139] Modern exegesis has justified this view of dikaioo and dikaiosis,
   according to Hellenistic usage, although etymologically the verb may
   mean to make just, i.e., to sanctify, in accordance with verbs in oo
   (e.g. deloo phanephoo, tuphloo, (i.to make manifest, etc.). See the
   Commentaries on Romans and Galatians.

   [140] The boldest and wildest utterance of Luther on justification
   occurs in a letter to Melanchthon (De Wette's ed. II. 37), dated Aug.
   1, 1521, where he gives his opinion on the vow of celibacy and says:
   "Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide (crede) et gaude in
   Christo, qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi." But it loses all its
   force as an argument against him and his doctrine, first by being
   addressed to Melanchthon, who was not likely to abuse it, and secondly
   by implying an impossibility; for the fortius crede and the concluding
   ora fortiter neutralize the fortiter pecca. Paul, of course, could
   never have written such a passage. He puts the antinomian inference:
   "Let us continue in sin that grace may abound" into the form of a
   question, and answers it by an indignant me genoito. Rom. 6:1. This is
   the difference between the wisdom of an apostle and the zeal of a
   reformer.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 24. Luther Ordained to the Priesthood.

   In the second year of his monastic life and when he was still in a
   state of perplexity, Luther was ordained to the priesthood, and on May
   2, 1507, he said his first mass. This was a great event in the life of
   a priest. He was so overwhelmed by the solemnity of offering the
   tremendous sacrifice for the living and the dead that he nearly fainted
   at the altar.

   His father had come with several friends to witness the solemnity and
   brought him a present of twenty guilders. He was not yet satisfied with
   the monastic vows. "Have you not read in Holy Writ," he said to the
   brethren at the entertainment given to the young priest, "that a man
   must honor father and mother?" And when he was reminded, that his son
   was called to the convent by a voice from heaven, he answered: "Would
   to God, it were no spirit of the devil." He was not fully reconciled to
   his son till after he had acquired fame and entered the married state.

   Luther performed the duties of the new dignity with conscientious
   fidelity. He read mass every morning, and invoked during the week
   twenty-one particular saints whom be had chosen as his helpers, three
   on each day.

   But he was soon to be called to a larger field of influence.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 25. Luther in Rome. [141]


   "Roma qua nihil possis visere majus."--(Horace.)


   "Vivere qui sancte vultis, discedite Roma.

   Omnia hic ecce licent, non licet esse probum."

   "Wer christlich leben will und Rein,

   Der zieh am Rom und bleib daheim.

   Hie mag man thun was man nur will,

   Allein fromm sein gilt hier nicht viel."

   (Old poetry quoted by Luther, in Walch, XXII., 2372.)


   "Praechtiger, als wir in unserum Norden,

   Wohnt der Bettler an der Engelspforten,
   Denn er sieht das ewig einz'ge Rom:

   Ihn umgibt der Schoenheit Glanzgewimmel,

   Und ein zweiter Himmel in den Himmel
   Steigt Sancte Peter's wundersamer Dom.

   Aber Rom in allem seinem Glanze
   Ist ein Grab nur der Vergangenheit,

   Leben duftet nur die frische Pflanze,
   Die die gruene Stunde streut."--(Schiller.)

   An interesting episode in the history of Luther's training for the
   Reformation was his visit to Rome. It made a deep impression on his
   mind, and became effective, not immediately, but several years
   afterward through the recollection of what he had seen and heard, as a
   good Catholic, in the metropolis of Christendom.

   In the autumn of the year 1510, [142] after his removal to Wittenberg,
   but before his graduation as doctor of divinity, Luther was sent to
   Rome in the interest of his order and at the suggestion of Staupitz,
   who wished to bring about a disciplinary reform and closer union of the
   Augustinian convents in Germany, but met with factious opposition.

   In company with another monk and a lay brother, as the custom was, he
   traveled on foot, from convent to convent, spent four weeks in Rome in
   the Augustinian convent of Maria del popolo, and returned to Wittenberg
   in the following spring. The whole journey must have occupied several
   months. It was the longest journey he ever made, and at the same time,
   his pilgrimage to the shrines of the holy apostles where he wished to
   make a general confession of all his sins and to secure the most
   efficient absolution.

   We do not know whether he accomplished the object of his mission. [143]
   He left no information about his route, whether be passed through
   Switzerland or through the Tyrol, nor about the sublime scenery of the
   Alps and the lovely scenery of Italy. [144] The beauties of nature made
   little or no impression upon the Reformers, and were not properly
   appreciated before the close of the eighteenth century. [145] Zwingli
   and Calvin lived on the banks of Swiss lakes and in view of the Swiss
   Alps, but never allude to them; they were absorbed in theology and
   religion.

   In his later writings and Table-Talk, Luther left some interesting
   reminiscences of his journey. He spoke of the fine climate and
   fertility of Italy, the temperance of the Italians contrasted with the
   intemperate Germans, also of their shrewdness, craftiness, and of the
   pride with which they looked down upon the "stupid Germans" and "German
   beasts," as semi-barbarians; he praised the hospitals and charitable
   institutions in Florence; but he was greatly disappointed with the
   state of religion in Rome, which he found just the reverse of what he
   had expected.

   Rome was at that time filled with enthusiasm for the renaissance of
   classical literature and art, but indifferent to religion. Julius II.,
   who sat in Peter's chair from 1503 to 1513, bent his energies on the
   aggrandizement of the secular dominion of the papacy by means of an
   unscrupulous diplomacy and bloody wars, founded the Vatican Museum, and
   liberally encouraged the great architects and painters of his age in
   their immortal works of art. The building of the new church of St.
   Peter with its colossal cupola had begun under the direction of
   Bramante; the pencil of Michael Angelo was adorning the Sixtine chapel
   in the adjoining Vatican Palace with the pictures of the Prophets,
   Sibyls, and the last judgment; and the youthful genius of Raphael
   conceived his inimitable Madonna, with the Christ-child in her arms,
   and was transforming the chambers of the Vatican into galleries of
   undying beauty. These were the wonders of the new Italian art; but they
   had as little interest for the German monk as the temples and statues
   of classical Athens had for the Apostle Paul.

   When Luther came in sight of the eternal city he fell upon the earth,
   raised his hands and exclaimed, "Hail to thee, holy, Rome! [146] Thrice
   holy for the blood of martyrs shed here." He passed the colossal ruins
   of heathen Rome and the gorgeous palaces of Christian Rome. But he ran,
   "like a crazy saint," through all the churches and crypts and catacombs
   with an unquestioning faith in the legendary traditions about the
   relics and miracles of martyrs. [147] He wished that his parents were
   dead that he might help them out of purgatory by reading mass in the
   most holy place, according to the saying: "Blessed is the mother whose
   son celebrates mass on Saturday in St. John of the Lateran." He
   ascended on bended knees the twenty-eight steps of the famous Scala
   Santa (said to have been transported from the Judgment Hall of Pontius
   Pilate in Jerusalem), that he might secure the indulgence attached to
   this ascetic performance since the days of Pope Leo IV. in 850, but at
   every step the word of the Scripture sounded as a significant protest
   in his ear: "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17). [148]

   Thus at the very height of his mediaeval devotion he doubted its
   efficacy in giving peace to the troubled conscience. This doubt was
   strengthened by what he saw around him. He was favorably struck,
   indeed, with the business administration and police regulations of the
   papal court, but shocked by the unbelief, levity and immorality of the
   clergy. Money and luxurious living seemed to have replaced apostolic
   poverty and self-denial. He saw nothing but worldly splendor at the
   court of Pope Julius II., who had just returned from the sanguinary
   siege of a town conducted by him in person. He afterward thundered
   against him as a man of blood. He heard of the fearful crimes of Pope
   Alexander VI. and his family, which were hardly known and believed in
   Germany, but freely spoken of as undoubted facts in the fresh
   remembrance of all Romans. While he was reading one mass, a Roman
   priest would finish seven. He was urged to hurry up (passa, passa!),
   and to "send her Son home to our Lady." He heard priests, when
   consecrating the elements, repeat in Latin the words: "Bread thou art,
   and bread thou shalt remain; wine thou art, and wine thou shalt
   remain." The term "a good Christian" (buon Christiano) meant "a fool."
   He was told that "if there was a hell, Rome was built on it," and that
   this state of things must soon end in a collapse.

   He received the impression that "Rome, once the holiest city, was now
   the worst." He compared it to Jerusalem as described by the prophets.
   [149] All these sad experiences did not shake his faith in the Roman
   church and hierarchy, so unworthily represented, as the Jewish
   hierarchy was at the time of Christ; but they returned to his mind
   afterward with double force and gave ease and comfort to his conscience
   when he attacked and abused popery as "an institution of the devil."
   [150]

   Hence be often declared that he would not have missed "seeing Rome for
   a hundred thousand florins; for I might have felt some apprehension
   that I had done injustice to the Pope; but as we see, so we speak."

   Six years after his visit the building of St. Peter's Dome by means of
   the proceeds from papal indulgences furnished the occasion for the
   outbreak of that war which ended with an irrevocable separation from
   Rome.

   In the Pitti Gallery of Florence there is a famous picture of Giorgione
   which represents an unknown monk with strongly Teutonic features and
   brilliant eyes, seated between two Italians, playing on a small organ
   and looking dreamily to one side. This central figure has recently been
   identified by some connoisseurs as a portrait of Luther taken at
   Florence a few months before the death of Giorgione in 1511. The
   identity is open to doubt, but the resemblance is striking. [151]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [141] Luther's dicta about Rome and his Roman journey are collected in
   Walch's ed., vol. XXII., 2372-2379; Koehler: Luther's Reisen (1872), p.
   2-20; Juergens, II., 266-358; Koestlin, I., 100-107; Lenz, 45-47;
   Kolde, I., 73-79; and in Brieger's "Zeitschrift fuer Kirchengesch,"
   II., 460 sqq. Comp. also, on the R. Cath. side, the brief account of
   Janssen, II., 72. Audin devotes his third chapter to the Roman journey
   (I., 52-65).

   [142] The chronology is not quite certain. The date 1511 is adopted by
   Koestlin and Kolde. Others date the Rome journey back to 1510
   (Mathesius, Seckendorf, Juergens, and Luther himself, in his tract
   Against Popery invented by the Devil, Erl. ed. XXVI., 125, though once
   he names the year 1511).

   [143] Kolde (I., 81) conjectures that the decision of Rome in the
   controversy among the Augustinians went against Staupitz, who soon
   after 1512 left Wittenberg.

   [144] He passed through Suabia and Bavaria, as we may judge from his
   description of the people (Walch, XXII., 2359): "Wenn ich viel reisen
   sollte, wollte ich nirgends lieber, denn durch Schwaben und Baierland
   ziehen; denn sie sind freundlich und gutwillig, herbergen gerne, gehen
   Freunden und Wandersleuten entgegen, und thun den Leuten guetlich, und
   gute Ausrichtung um ihr Geld." He seems to have seen Switzerland also
   of which he says (ib., p. 2360): "Schweiz ist ein duerr und bergig
   Land, darum sind sie endlich und hurtig, muessen ihre Nahrung underswo
   suchen."

   [145] We seek in vain for descriptions of natural scenery among the
   ancient classics, but several Hebrew Psalms celebrate the glory of the
   Creator in his works. The Parables of our Lord imply that nature is
   full of spiritual lessons. The first descriptions of the beauties of
   nature in Christian literature are found in the Epistles of St. Basil,
   Gregory of Nazianzum and Gregory of Nyssa. See this Ch. Hist., vol.
   III., 896 sqq. The incomparable beauties of Switzerland were first duly
   appreciated and made known to the world by Albrecht von Haller of Bern
   (in his poem, "Die Alpen"), Goethe Schweizereise), and Schiller (in
   Wilhelm Tell, where he gives the most charming picture of the Lake of
   the Four Cantons, though he never was there).

   [146] "Salve! Sancta Roma."

   [147] "Auch ich war ein so toller Heiliger," he said, "lief durch alle
   Kirchen und Kluften, glaubte alles was daselbst erlogen und erstunken
   ist."

   [148] This interesting incident rests on the authority of his son Paul,
   who heard it from the lips of his father in 1544. Modern Popes, Pius
   VII. and Pius IX., have granted additional indulgences to those who
   climb up the Scala Santa.

   [149] "Es gehet uns wie den Propheten, die klagen auch ueber Jerusalem,
   und sagen: Die feine glaeubige Stadt is zur Hure geworden. Denn aus dem
   Besten kommt allezeit das Aergste, wie die Exempel zeigen zu allen
   Zeiten." Walch, XXII., 2378.

   [150] This was the topic of one of his last and most abusive works:
   "Wider das Papstthum zu Rom vom Teufel gestiftet." March, 1545.

   [151] Comp."Revista Christiana," Firenze, 1883, p. 422. The picture on
   the opposite page (in the text) is from a photograph made in Florence.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 26. The University of Wittenberg.

   Grohmann: Annalen der Universitaet zu Wittenberg, 1802, 2 vols. Muther:
   Die Wittenberger Universitaets und Facultaetsstudien v. Jahr 1508.
   Halle, 1867. K. Schmidt: Wittenberg unter Kurfuerst Friedrich dem
   Weisen. Erlangen, 1877. Juergens: II, 151 sqq. and 182 sqq. (very
   thorough). Koestlin, I., 90 sqq. Kolde: Friedrich der Weise und die
   Anfaenge der Reformation, Erlangen, 1881; and his Leben Luther's, 1884,
   I., 67 sqq.

   In the year 1502 Frederick III., surnamed the Wise, Elector of Saxony (
   b. 1463, d. 1525), distinguished among the princes of the sixteenth
   century for his intelligence, wisdom, piety, and in cautious protection
   of the Reformation, founded from his limited means a new University at
   Wittenberg, under the patronage of the Virgin Mary and St. Augustin.
   The theological faculty was dedicated to the Apostle Paul, and on the
   anniversary of his conversion at Damascus a mass was to be celebrated
   and a sermon preached in the presence of the rector and the senate.

   Frederick was a devout Catholic, a zealous collector of relics, a
   believer in papal indulgences, a pilgrim to the holy land; but at the
   same time a friend of liberal learning, a protector of the person of
   Luther and of the new theology of the University of Wittenberg, which
   he called his daughter, and which be favored to the extent of his
   power. Shortly before his death he signified the acceptance of the
   evangelical faith by taking the communion in both kinds from Spalatin,
   his chaplain, counsellor and biographer, and mediator between him and
   Luther. He was unmarried and left no legitimate heir. His brother, John
   the Constant (1525-1532), and his nephew, John Frederick the
   Magnanimous (1532-1547), both firm Protestants, succeeded him; but the
   latter was deprived of the electoral dignity and part of his
   possessions by his victorious cousin Moritz, Duke of Saxony, after the
   battle of Muehlberg (1547). The successors of Moritz were the chief
   defenders of Lutheranism in Germany till Augustus I. (1694-1733) sold
   the faith of his ancestors for the royal crown of Poland and became a
   Roman Catholic.

   Wittenberg [152] was a poor and badly built town of about three
   thousand inhabitants in a dull, sandy, sterile plain on the banks of
   the Elbe, and owes its fame entirely to the fact that it became the
   nursery of the Reformation theology. Luther says that it lay at the
   extreme boundary of civilization, [153] a few steps from barbarism, and
   speaks of its citizens as wanting in culture, courtesy and kindness. He
   felt at times strongly tempted to leave it. Melanchthon who came from
   the fertile Palatinate, complained that he could get nothing fit to eat
   at Wittenberg. Myconius, Luther's friend, describes the houses as
   "small, old, ugly, low, wooden." Even the electoral castle is a very
   unsightly structure. The Elector laughed when Dr. Pollich first
   proposed the town as the seat of the new university. But Wittenberg was
   one of his two residences (the other being Torgau), had a new
   castle-church with considerable endowments and provision for ten
   thousand masses per annum and an Augustinian convent which could
   furnish a part of the teaching force, and thus cheapen the expenses of
   the institution.

   The university was opened October 18, 1502. The organization was
   intrusted to Dr. Pollich, the first rector, who on account of his
   extensive learning was called "lux mundi," and who had accompanied the
   Elector on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (1493), and to Staupitz, the first
   Dean of the theological faculty, who fixed his eye at once upon his
   friend Luther as a suitable professor of theology.

   Wittenberg had powerful rivals in the neighboring, older and better
   endowed Universities of Erfurt and Leipzig, but soon overshadowed them
   by the new theology. The principal professors were members of the
   Augustinian order, most of them from Tuebingen and Erfurt. The number
   of students was four hundred and sixteen in the first semester, then
   declined to fifty-five in 1505, partly in consequence of the
   pestilence, began to rise again in 1507, and when Luther and
   Melanchthon stood on the summit of their fame, they attracted thousands
   of pupils from all countries of Europe. Melanchthon heard at times
   eleven languages spoken at his hospitable table.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [152] Probably, Weissenberg, from the white sand hills on the Elbe. So
   Juergens II., 190. The original inhabitants of the region were Slavs
   (Wends), but expelled or absorbed by the Saxons. The town dates from
   the twelfth century.

   [153] "In termino civilitatis."
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 27. Luther as Professor till 1517.

   Luther was suddenly called by Staupitz from the Augustinian Convent of
   Erfurt to that of Wittenberg with the expectation of becoming at the
   same time a lecturer in the university. He arrived there in October,
   1508, was called back to Erfurt in autumn, 1509, was sent to Rome in
   behalf of his order, 1510, returned to Wittenberg, 1511, and continued
   there till a few days before his death, 1546.

   He lived in the convent, even after his marriage. His plain study,
   bed-room and lecture-hall are still shown in the "Lutherhaus." The
   lowliness of his work-shop forms a sublime contrast to the grandeur of
   his work. From their humble dwellings Luther and Melanchthon exerted a
   mightier influence than the contemporary popes and kings from their
   gorgeous palaces.

   Luther combined the threefold office of sub-prior, preacher and
   professor. He preached both in his convent and in the town-church,
   sometimes daily for a week, sometimes thrice in one day, during Lent in
   1517 twice everyday. He was supported by the convent. As professor he
   took no fees from the students and received only a salary of one
   hundred guilders, which after his marriage was raised by the Elector
   John to two hundred guilders. [154]

   He first lectured on scholastic philosophy and explained the
   Aristotelian dialectics and physics. But he soon passed through the
   three grades of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor of divinity (October
   18th and 19th, 1512), and henceforth devoted himself exclusively to the
   sacred science which was much more congenial to his taste. Staupitz
   urged him into these academic dignities, [155] and the Elector who had
   been favorably impressed with one of his sermons, offered to pay the
   expenses (fifty guilders) for the acquisition of the doctorate. [156]
   Afterward in seasons of trouble Luther often took comfort from the
   title and office of his doctorate of divinity and his solemn oath to
   defend with all his might the Holy Scriptures against all errors. [157]
   He justified the burning of the Pope's Bull in the same way. But the
   oath of ordination and of the doctor of theology implied also obedience
   to the Roman church (ecclesiae Romanae obedientiam) and her defence
   against all heresies condemned by her. [158]

   With the year 1512 his academic teaching began in earnest and continued
   till 1546, at first in outward harmony with the Roman church, but
   afterward in open opposition to it.

   He was well equipped for his position, according to the advantages of
   his age, but, very poorly, according to modern requirements, as far as
   technical knowledge is concerned.Although a doctor of divinity, he
   relied for several years almost exclusively on the Latin version of the
   Scriptures. Very few professors knew Greek, and still less, Hebrew.
   Luther had acquired a superficial idea of Hebrew at Erfurt from
   Reuchlin's Rudimenta Hebraica. [159] The Greek he learned at
   Wittenberg, we do not know exactly when, mostly from books and from his
   colleagues, Johann Lange and Melanchthon. As late as Feb. 18th, 1518,
   he asked Lange, "the Greek," a question about the difference between
   ajnavqhma and ajnavqema, and confessed that he could not draw the Greek
   letters. [160] His herculean labor in translating the Bible forced him
   into a closer familiarity with the original languages, though he never
   attained to mastery. As a scholar he remained inferior to Reuchlin or
   Erasmus or Melanchthon, but as a genius he was their superior, and as a
   master of his native German he had no equal in all Germany. Moreover,
   he turned his knowledge to the best advantage, and always seized the
   strong point in controversy. He studied with all his might and often
   neglected eating and sleeping.

   Luther opened his theological teaching with David and Paul, who became
   the pillars of his theology. The Psalms and the Epistles to the Romans
   and Galatians remained his favorite books. His academic labors as a
   commentator extended over thirty-three years, from 1513 to 1546, his
   labors as a reformer embraced only twenty-nine years, from 1517 to
   1546. Beginning with the Psalms, 1513, he ended with Genesis, November
   17th, 1545) three months before his death.

   His first lectures on the Psalms are still extant and have recently
   been published from the manuscript in Wolfenbuettel. [161] They are
   exegetically worthless, but theologically important as his first
   attempt to extract a deeper spiritual meaning from the Psalms. He took
   Jerome's Psalter as the textual basis; [162] the few Hebrew etymologies
   are all derived from Jerome, Augustin (who knew no Hebrew), and
   Reuchlin's Lexicon. He followed closely the mediaeval method of
   interpretation which distinguished four different senses, and neglected
   the grammatical and historical interpretation. Thus Jerusalem means
   literally or historically the city in Palestine, allegorically the
   good, tropologically virtue, anagogically reward; Babylon means
   literally the city or empire of Babylon, allegorically the evil,
   tropologically vice, anagogically punishment. Then again one word may
   have four bad and four good senses, according as it is understood
   literally or figuratively. [163] Sometimes he distinguished six senses.
   He emphasized the prophetic character of the Psalms, and found Christ
   and his work everywhere. [164] He had no sympathy with the method of
   Nicolaus Lyra to understand the Psalter from the times of the writer.
   Afterward he learned to appreciate him. [165] He followed Augustin, the
   Glossa ordinaria, and especially the Quincuplex Psalterium of Faber
   Stapulensis (Paris, 1508 and 1513). He far surpassed himself in his
   later comments on the Psalms. [166] It was only by degrees that he
   emancipated himself from the traditional exegesis, and approached the
   only sound and safe method of grammatico-historical interpretation of
   Scripture from the natural meaning of the words, the situation of the
   writer and the analogy of his teaching, viewed in the light of the
   Scriptures as a whole. He never gave up altogether the scholalistic and
   allegorizing method of utilizing exegesis for dogmatic and devotional
   purposes, but he assigned it a subordinate place. "Allegories," he
   said, "may be used to teach the ignorant common people, who need to
   have the same thing impressed in various forms." He measured the
   Scriptures by his favorite doctrine of justification by faith, and
   hence depreciated important books, especially the Epistle of James and
   the Apocalypse. But when his dogmatic conviction required it, he laid
   too much stress on the letter, as in the eucharistic controversy.

   From the Psalms he proceeded to the Epistles of Paul. Here be had an
   opportunity to expound his ideas of sin and grace, the difference
   between the letter and the spirit, between the law and the gospel, and
   to answer the great practical question, how a sinner may be justified
   before a holy God and obtain pardon and peace. He first lectured on
   Romans and explained the difference between the righteousness of faith
   and the righteousness of works. He never published a work on Romans
   except a preface which contains a masterly description of faith. His
   lectures on Galatians he began October 27th, 1516, and resumed them
   repeatedly. They appeared first in Latin, September, 1519, and in a
   revised edition, 1523, with a preface of Melanchthon. [167] They are
   the most popular and effective of his commentaries, and were often
   published in different languages. John Bunyan was greatly benefited by
   them. Their chief value is that they bring us into living contact with
   the central idea of the epistle, namely, evangelical freedom in Christ,
   which he reproduced and adapted in the very spirit of Paul. Luther
   always had a special preference for this anti-Judaic Epistle and called
   it his sweetheart or his wife. [168]

   These exegetical lectures made a deep impression. They were thoroughly
   evangelical, without being anti-catholic. They reached the heart and
   conscience as well as the head. They substituted a living theology
   clothed with flesh and blood for the skeleton theology of
   scholasticism. They were delivered with the energy of intense
   conviction and the freshness of personal experience. The genius of the
   lecturer flashed from his deep dark eyes which seem to have struck
   every observer. "This monk," said Dr. Pollich, "will revolutionize the
   whole scholastic teaching." Christopher Scheurl commended Luther to the
   friendship of Dr. Eck (his later opponent) in January, 1517, as "a
   divine who explained the epistles of the man of Tarsus with wonderful
   genius." Melanchthon afterward expressed a general judgment when he
   said that Christ and the Apostles were brought out again as from the
   darkness and filth of prison.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [154] "Waere es nicht geschehen," says Luther, "so hatte ich nach
   meiner Verheirathung mir vorgenommen, fuer Honorar zu lesen. Aber da
   mir Gott zuvorkam, so habe ich mein Leben lang kein Exemplar [he means,
   of his writings] verkauft noch gelesen um Lohn, will auch den Ruhm,
   will's Gott, mit mir ins Grab nehmen." Juergens, II., 248 sq.

   [155] Luther remembered the pear tree under which Staupitz overcame his
   objections to the labors and responsibilities of the doctorate. He
   thought himself unable to endure them with his frail body, but Staupitz
   replied playfully and in prophetic anticipation of the great work in
   store for him: "In Gottes Namen! Unser Herr Gott hat grosse Geschaefte;
   Er bedarf droben auch kluger Leute; wenn Ihr nun sterbet, so muesset
   Ihr dort sein Rathgeber sein."

   [156] See K. F. Th. Schneider, Luther's Promotion zum Doctor und
   Melanchthon's zum Baccalaureus der Theologie, Neuwied, 1860 (38 pp.).
   He gives Luther's Latin oration which he delivered in honor of theology
   on the text: "I will give you a mouth and wisdom" (Luke 21:15). The
   expenses of the promotion to the degree of the baccalaureate, Luther
   never paid. The records of the dean note this fact: "Adhuc non
   satisfecit facultati," and Luther afterward wrote on the margin: "Nec
   faciet, quia tunc pauper et sub obedientia nihil habuit." Schneider, p.
   6.

   [157] See his utterances on the importance of his doctorate in
   Mathesius (I. and XV.) and Juergens (II., 405-408). Juergens points out
   and explains (p. 424 sqq.) the inconsistency of Luther in his appeal to
   human authority and overestimate of the official title. Every step in
   his public career was accompanied by scruples of conscience which he
   had to solve the best way he could.

   [158] Koestlin says (Engl. transl. of the short biography, p. 65):
   "Obedience to the Pope was not required at Wittenberg, as it was at
   other universities." But it is implied in obedience to the Roman
   church. The university was chartered by the Emperor Maximilian, but the
   Elector had not neglected to secure the papal sanction. See Juergens
   II. 207.

   [159] This book, published at Pforzheim, 1506, at the author's expense,
   is the first Hebrew grammar written by a Christian, and broke the path
   for Hebrew learning in Germany. So far Reuchlin was right in calling it
   a monumentum aere perennius.

   [160] DeWette, I. 34: "Petimus a te, Graece, ut controversiam nostram
   dissolvas, quae sit distantia inter anathema per epsilon, et anathema
   per e ... Nescio figuras literarum pingere." In his Table Talk he says:
   "Ich kann weder griechisch noch hebraeisch; ich will aber dennoch einem
   Griechen und Hebraeer ziemlich begegnen." Comp. on his linguistic
   studies and accomplishments, Juergens, I. 470 sqq.; II. 428 sqq.

   [161] He had the Latin text of the Psalms printed, and wrote between
   the lines and on the margin his notes in very small and almost
   illegible letters. Koestlin gives a facsimile page in Luther's Leben,
   p. 72 (Engl. ed. p. 64). The whole was published with painstaking
   accuracy by Kawerau in the third volume of the Weimar ed. (1885).

   [162] The innumerable references to the Hebraeus are never intended for
   the original, but for Jerome's Psalterium juxta Hebraeos. Paul de
   Lagarde has published an edition, Lips., 1874.

   [163] Luther illustrates this double four-fold scheme of exegesis by
   the following table (Weimar ed. III. 11):
   Litera Occidens hystorice terra Canaan Mons Zion Allegorice Synagoga
   vel persona eminens in eadem tropologice Justitia phari- saica et
   legalis anagogice Gloria futura secundum carnem
   SpiritusVivificans de corpore hystorice populus in Zion exis- tens
   Babylonico Ecclesiastico Mons Zion Allegorice Ecclesia vel quilibit
   doctor Episcopus eminens Tropologice Justitia fidei vel alia excellen
   ... Anagogice gloria eterna in celis.
   Econtra Vallis Cedron per oppositum.

   [164] This fanciful allegorizing and spiritualizing method of
   interpreting the Psalms by which they are made to teach almost anything
   that is pious and edifying, is still popular even in some Protestant
   churches, especially the Church of England. Comp. e.g. Dr. Neale and
   Dr. Littledale's Commentary on the Psalms from primitive and mediaeval
   writers. London, fourth ed., 1884, 4 vols. The celebrated Baptist
   preacher, Spurgeon, has written a commentary on the Psalms, in seven
   volumes, which is likewise full of allegorizing interpretation, but
   mostly derived from older Protestant and Puritan sources.

   [165] Hence the saying: "Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset."

   [166] Ed. by Dr. Bertheau in the fourth vol. of the Weimar ed. (1886).

   [167] See the first ed. in the Weimar ed. of his works, vol. II.
   436-618. This commentary of 1519 must be distinguished from the larger
   work of 1535 which has the same title, but rests on different lectures.

   [168] In December, 1531: "Epistola ad Galatas ist meine Epistola, der
   ich mich vertraut habe, meine Kethe von Bora." Weimar ed. II. 437.
   Melanchthon called Luther's commentary the thread of Theseus in the
   labyrinth of N. T. exegesis.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 28. Luther and Mysticism. The Theologia Germanica.

   In 1516 Luther read the sermons of Tauler, the mystic revival preacher
   of Strassburg (who died in 1361), and discovered the remarkable book
   called "German Theology," which he ascribed to Tauler, but which is of
   a little later date from a priest and custos of the Deutsch-Herrn Haus
   of Frankfort, and a member of the association called "Friends of God."
   It resembles the famous work of Thomas a Kempis in exhibiting Christian
   piety as an humble imitation of the life of Christ on earth, but goes
   beyond it, almost to the very verge of pantheism, by teaching in the
   strongest terms the annihilation of self-will and the absorption of the
   soul in God. Without being polemical, it represents by its intense
   inwardness a striking contrast to the then prevailing practice of
   religion as a mechanical and monotonous round of outward acts and
   observances.

   Luther published a part of this book from an imperfect manuscript,
   December, 1516, and from a complete copy, in 1518, with a brief preface
   of his own. [169] He praises it as rich and overprecious in divine
   wisdom, though poor and unadorned in words and human wisdom. He places
   it next to the Bible and St. Augustin in its teaching about God,
   Christ, man, and all things, and says in conclusion that "the German
   divines are doubtless the best divines."

   There are various types of mysticism, orthodox and heretical,
   speculative and practical. [170] Luther came in contact with the
   practical and catholic type through Staupitz and the writings of St.
   Augustin, St. Bernard, and Tauler. It deepened and spiritualized his
   piety and left permanent traces on his theology. The Lutheran church,
   like the Catholic, always had room for mystic tendencies. But mysticism
   alone could not satisfy him, especially after the Reformation began in
   earnest. It was too passive and sentimental and shrunk from conflict.
   It was a theology of feeling rather than of action. Luther was a born
   fighter, and waxed stronger and stronger in battle. His theology is
   biblical, with such mystic elements as the Bible itself contains. [171]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [169] Both prefaces are printed in the Weimar ed. of his works I. 153
   and 378 sq. The book itself has gone through many editions; the best is
   by Franz Pfeiffer, Theologia deutsch, Stuttgart. 1851, third ed. 1855.
   There is a English translation by Susanna Winkworth, Theologia
   Germanica, with additions by Canon Kingsley and Chevalier Bunsen,
   (London, 1854, new ed. 1874; reprinted at Andover, 1846). Several
   characteristic mystic terms, as Entwerdung, Gelassenheit, Vergottung,
   are hardly translatable.

   [170] Ed. von Hartmann, the pessimist says (Die Philos. des
   Unbewussten, Berlin, 1869, p. 276): "Die Mystik ist eine
   Schlingpflanze, die an jedem Stabe emporwuchert und sich mit den
   extremsten Gegensaetzen gleichgut abzufinden weiss."

   [171] See Hermann Hering, Die Mystik Luthers im Zusammenhange seiner
   Theologieund in ihrem Verh. zur aelteren Mystik. Leipzig, 1879. He
   distinguishes three periods in Luther's relation to mysticism: (1)
   Romanisch-mystische Periode; (2) Germanisch-mystische Periode; (3)
   Conflict with the false mysticism of Muenzer, Carlstadt, the Zwickau
   Prophets, and Schwenkfeldt.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 29. The Penitential Psalms. The Eve of the Reformation.

   The first original work which Luther published was a German exposition
   of the seven Penitential Psalms, 1517. [172] It was a fit introduction
   to the reformatory Theses which enjoin the true evangelical repentance.
   In this exposition he sets forth the doctrines of sin and grace and the
   comfort of the gospel for the understanding of the common people. It
   shows him first in the light of a popular author, and had a wide
   circulation.

   Luther was now approaching the prime of manhood. He was the shining
   light of the young university, and his fame began to spread through
   Germany. But he stood not alone. He had valuable friends and co-workers
   such as Dr. Wenzeslaus Link, the prior of the convent, and John Lange,
   who had a rare knowledge of Greek. Carlstadt also, his senior
   colleague, was at that time in full sympathy with him. Nicolaus von
   Amsdorf, of the same age with Luther, was one of his most faithful
   adherents, but more influential in the pulpit than in the chair.
   Christoph Scheurl, Professor of jurisprudence, was likewise intimate
   with Luther. Nor must we forget Georg Spalatin, who did not belong to
   the university, but had great influence upon it as chaplain and
   secretary of the Elector Frederick, and acted as friendly mediator
   between him and Luther. The most effective aid the Reformer received,
   in 1518, in the person of Melanchthon. [173]

   The working forces of the Reformation were thus fully prepared and
   ready for action. The scholastic philosophy and theology were
   undermined, and a biblical, evangelical theology ruled in Wittenberg.
   It was a significant coincidence, that the first edition of the Greek
   Testament was published by Erasmus in 1516, just a year before the
   Reformation. [174]

   Luther had as yet no idea of reforming the Catholic church, and still
   less of separating from it. All the roots of his life and piety were in
   the historic church, and he considered himself a good Catholic even in
   1517, and was so in fact. He still devoutly prayed to the Virgin Mary
   from the pulpit; he did not doubt the intercession of saints in heaven
   for the sinners on earth; he celebrated mass with full belief in the
   repetition of the sacrifice on the cross and the miracle of
   transubstantiation; he regarded the Hussites as "sinful heretics" for
   breaking away from the unity of the church and the papacy which offered
   a bulwark against sectarian division.

   But by the leading of Providence he became innocently and reluctantly a
   Reformer. A series of events carried him irresistibly from step to
   step, and forced him far beyond his original intentions. Had he
   foreseen the separation, he would have shrunk from it in horror. He was
   as much the child of his age as its father, and the times molded him
   before he molded the times. This is the case with all men of
   Providence: they are led by a divine hand while they are leading their
   fellow-men.

   NOTES.

   The works of Luther written before the 95 Theses (reprinted in the
   Weimar ed., I. 1-238, III., IV.) are as follows: Commentary on the
   Psalms; a number of sermons; Tractatus de his, qui ad ecclesias
   confugiunt (an investigation of the right of asylum; first printed
   1517, anonymously, then under Luther's name, 1520, at Landshut; but of
   doubtful genuineness); Sermo praescriptus praeposito in Litzka, 1512 (a
   Latin sermon prepared for his friend, the Provost Georg Mascov of
   Leitzkau in Brandenburg); several Latin Sermons from 1514-1517;
   Quaestio de viribus et voluntate hominis sine gratia disputata, 1516;
   Preface to his first edition of "German Theology," 1516; The seven
   Penitential Psalms, 1517; Disputatio contra scholasticam theologiam,
   1517. The last are 97 theses against the philosophy of Aristotle, of
   whom he said, that he would hold him to be a devil if he had not had
   flesh. These theses were published in September, 1517, and were
   followed in October by the 95 Theses against the traffic in
   Indulgences.

   The earliest letters of Luther, from April 22, 1507, to Oct. 31, 1517,
   are addressed to Braun (vicar at Eisenach), Spalatin (chaplain of the
   Elector Frederick), Lohr (prior of the Augustinian Convent at Erfurt),
   John Lange, Scheurl, and others. They are printed in Latin in
   Loescher's Reformations-Acta, vol. . 795-846; in De Wette's edition of
   Luther's Briefe, I. 1-64; German translation in Walch, vol. XXI. The
   last of these ante-Reformation letters is directed to Archbishop
   Albrecht of Mainz, and dated from the day of the publication of the
   Theses, Oct. 31, 1517 (DeWette I. 67-70). The letters begin with the
   name of "Jesus."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [172] Weimar ed., vol. I. 154-220. A Latin copy had appeared already in
   1513 and is preserved in the library at Wolfenbuettel, from which Prof.
   E. Riehm of Halle published it: Initium theologiae Lutheri. S. exempla
   scholiorum quibus D. Lutherus Psalterium interpretari coepit. Part. I.
   Septem Psalms paenitentiales. Textum originalem nunc primum de Lutheri
   autographo exprimendum curavit. Halle, 1874. Luther's closing lectures
   of 1516 exist likewise in MS. at Dresden, from which they were
   published by J. C. Seidemann in: Doctoris M. Lutheri scholae ineditae
   de Psalmis annis 1513-1516. Dresden, 1876, in 2 vols.

   [173] On the early colleagues of Luther, see Juergens, II. 217-235.

   [174] Luther made good use of it for his translation, but was not
   pleased with the writings of Erasmus. As early as March 1, 1517, he
   wrote to John Lange: "I now read our Erasmus, but he pleases me less
   every day. It is well enough that he should constantly and learnedly
   refute the monks and priests, and charge them with a deep-rooted and
   sleepy ignorance. But I fear he does not sufficiently promote Christ
   and the grace of God, of which he knows very little. He thinks more of
   the human than the divine .... Not every one who is a good Greek and
   Hebrew, is also for this reason a good Christian. The blessed Jerome
   with his five tongues did not equal the one-tongued Augustin, although
   Erasmus thinks differently."--Briefe, ed. De Wette, I. 52.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   CHAPTER III.

   THE GERMAN REFORMATION FROM THE PUBLICATION OF LUTHER'S THESES TO THE
   DIET OF WORMS, a.d. 1517-1521.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 30. The Sale of Indulgences.

   St. Peter's Dome is at once the glory and the shame of papal Rome. It
   was built over the bones of the Galilaean fisherman, with the proceeds
   from the sale of indulgences which broke up the unity of Western
   Christendom. The magnificent structure was begun in 1506 under Pope
   Julius II., and completed in 1626 at a cost of forty-six millions
   scudi, and is kept up at an annual expense of thirty thousand scudi
   (dollars). [175]

   Jesus began his public ministry with the expulsion of the profane
   traffickers from the court of the temple. The Reformation began with a
   protest against the traffic in indulgences which profaned and degraded
   the Christian religion.

   The difficult and complicated doctrine of indulgences is peculiar to
   the Roman Church. It was unknown to the Greek and Latin fathers. It was
   developed by the mediaeval schoolmen, and sanctioned by the Council of
   Trent (Dec. 4, 1563), yet without a definition and with an express
   warning against abuses and evil gains. [176]

   In the legal language of Rome, indulgentia is a term for amnesty or
   remission of punishment. In ecclesiastical Latin, an indulgence means
   the remission of the temporal (not the eternal) punishment of sin (not
   of sin itself), on condition of penitence and the payment of money to
   the church or to some charitable object. It maybe granted by a bishop
   or archbishop within his diocese, while the Pope has the power to grant
   it to all Catholics. The practice of indulgences grew out of a custom
   of the Northern and Western barbarians to substitute pecuniary
   compensation for punishment of an offense. The church favored this
   custom in order to avoid bloodshed, but did wrong in applying it to
   religious offenses. Who touches money touches dirt; and the less
   religion has to do with it, the better. The first instances of such
   pecuniary compensations occurred in England under Archbishop Theodore
   of Canterbury (d. 690). The practice rapidly spread on the Continent,
   and was used by the Popes during and after the crusades as a means of
   increasing their power. It was justified and reduced to a theory by the
   schoolmen, especially by Thomas Aquinas, in close connection with the
   doctrine of the sacrament of penance and priestly absolution. [177]

   The sacrament of penance includes three elements,--contrition of the
   heart, confession by the mouth (to the priest), and satisfaction by
   good works, such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimages, all of
   which are supposed to have an atoning efficacy. God forgives only the
   eternal punishment of sin, and he alone can do that; but the sinner has
   to bear the temporal punishments, either in this life or in purgatory;
   and these punishments are under the control of the church or the
   priesthood, especially the Pope as its legitimate head. There are also
   works of supererogation, performed by Christ and by the saints, with
   corresponding extra-merits and extra-rewards; and these constitute a
   rich treasury from which the Pope, as the treasurer, can dispense
   indulgences for money. This papal power of dispensation extends even to
   the departed souls in purgatory, whose sufferings may thereby be
   abridged. This is the scholastic doctrine.

   The granting of indulgences degenerated, after the time of the
   crusades, into a regular traffic, and became a source of ecclesiastical
   and monastic wealth. A good portion of the profits went into the papal
   treasury. Boniface VIII. issued the first Bull of the jubilee
   indulgence to all visitors of St. Peter's in Rome (1300). It was to be
   confined to Rome, and to be repeated only once in a hundred years, but
   it was afterwards extended and multiplied as to place and time.

   The idea of selling and buying by money the remission of punishment and
   release from purgatory was acceptable to ignorant and superstitious
   people, but revolting to sound moral feeling. It roused, long before
   Luther, the indignant protest of earnest minds, such as Wiclif in
   England, Hus in Bohemia, John von Wesel in Germany, John Wessel in
   Holland, Thomas Wyttenbach in Switzerland, but without much effect.

   The Lateran Council of 1517 allowed the Pope to collect one-tenth of
   all the ecclesiastical property of Christendom, ostensibly for a war
   against the Turks; but the measure was carried only by a small majority
   of two or three votes, and the minority objected that there was no
   immediate prospect of such a war. The extortions of the Roman curia
   became an intolerable burden to Christendom, and produced at last a
   successful protest which cost the papacy the loss of its fairest
   possessions.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [175] On St. Peter's church, see the archaeological and historical
   works on Rome, and especially Heinr. von Geymueller, Die Entwuerfe fuer
   Sanct Peterin Rom, Wien (German and French); and Charles de Lorbac,
   Saint-Pierre de Rome, illustre de plus de 130 gravures sur bois, Rome,
   1879 (pp. 310).

   [176] The Council incidentally admits that these evil gains have been
   the most prolific source of abuses,--"unde plurima in Christiano populo
   abusuum causa fluxit,"--and hence it ordained that they are to be
   wholly abolished: "omnino abolendos esse."(Schaff, Creeds of
   Christendom, II. 205 sq.) A strong proof of the effect of the
   Reformation upon the Church of Rome.

   [177] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Pars III. Quaest. LXXXIV., De
   Sacramento Poenitentiae; and in the supplement to the Third Part,
   Quaest. XXV.-XXVIL, De Indulgentia. Comp. literature in vol. IV. 381.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 31. Luther and Tetzel.

   I. On the Indulgence controversy: Luther's Works, Walch's ed., XV.
   3-462; Weim. ed. I. 229-324. Loescher: Reformations-Acta. Leipzig,
   1720. Vol. I. 355-539. J. Kapp: Schauplatz des Tetzelschen
   Ablass-krams. Leipzig, 1720. Juergens: Luther, Bd. III. Kahnis: Die d.
   Ref., I. 18 1 sqq. Koestlin I. 153 sqq. Kolde, I. 126 sqq. On the
   Roman-Catholic side, Janssen: Geschichte, etc., II. 64 sqq.; 77 sqq.;
   and An meine Kritiker, Freiburg-i.-B., 1883, pp. 66-81.--On the
   editions of the Theses, compare Knaake, in the Weimar ed. I. 229 sqq.

   Edw. Bratke: Luther's 95 Thesen und ihre dogmengesch. Voraussetzungen.
   Goettingen, 1884 (pp. 333). Gives an account of the scholastic doctrine
   of indulgences from Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas down to Prierias and
   Cajetan, an exposition of Luther's Theses, and a list of books on the
   subject. A. W. Dieckhoff (of Rostock): Der Ablassstreit.
   Dogmengeschichtlich dargestellt. Gotha, 1886 (pp. 260).

   II. On Tetzel in particular: (1) Protestant biographies and tracts, all
   very unfavorable. (a) Older works by G. Hecht: Vita Joh. Tetzeli.
   Wittenberg, 1717. Jac. Vogel: Leben des paepstlichen Gnadenpredigers
   und Ablasskraemers Tetzel. Leipzig, 1717, 2d ed., 1727. (b) Modern
   works: F. G. Hofmann: Lebensbeschreibung des Ablasspredigers Tetzel.
   Leipzig, 1844. Dr. Kayser: Geschichtsquellen ueber Den Ablasspred.
   Tetzel Kritisch Beleuchtet. Annaberg, 1877 (pp. 20). Dr. Ferd. Koerner:
   Tetzel, der Ablassprediger, etc. Frankenberg-i.-S. 1880 (pp. 153;
   chiefly against Groene). Compare also Bratke and Dieckhoff, quoted
   above.

   (2) Roman-Catholic vindications of Tetzel by Val. Groene (Dr. Th.):
   Tetzel und Luther, oder Lebensgesch. und Rechtfertigung des
   Ablasspredigers und Inquisitors Dr. Joh. Tetzel aus dem Predigerorden.
   Soest und Olpe, 1853, 2d ed. 1860 (pp. 237). E. Kolbe: P. Joh. Tetzel.
   Ein Lebensbild dem kathol. Volke gewidmet. Steyl, 1882 (pp. 98, based
   on Groene). K. W. Hermann: Joh. Tetzel, der paepstl. Ablassprediger.
   Frankf. -a.-M., 2te Aufl. 1883 (pp. 152). Janssen: An meine Kritiker,
   p. 73 sq. G. A. Meijer, Ord. Praed. (Dominican): Johann Tetzel,
   Aflaatprediker en inquisiteur. Eene geschiedkundige studie. Utrecht,
   1885 (pp. 150). A calm and moderate vindication of Tetzel, with the
   admission (p. 137) that the last word on the question has not yet been
   spoken, and that we must wait for the completion of the Regesta of Leo
   X. and other authentic publications now issuing from the Vatican
   archives by direction of Leo XIII. But the main facts are well
   established.

   The rebuilding of St. Peter's Church in Rome furnished an occasion for
   the periodical exercise of the papal power of granting indulgences.
   Julius II. and Leo X., two of the most worldly, avaricious, and
   extravagant Popes, had no scruple to raise funds for that object, and
   incidentally for their own aggrandizement, from the traffic in
   indulgences. Both issued several bulls to that effect. [178]

   Spain, England, and France ignored or resisted these bulls for
   financial reasons, refusing to be taxed for the benefit of Rome. But
   Germany, under the weak rule of Maximilian, yielded to the papal
   domination.

   Leo divided Germany into three districts, and committed in 1515 the
   sale for one district to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg,
   and brother of the Elector of Brandenburg. [179]

   This prelate (born June 28, 1490, died Sept. 24, 1545), though at that
   time only twenty-five years of age, stood at the head of the German
   clergy, and was chancellor of the German Empire. He received also the
   cardinal's hat in 1518. He was, like his Roman master, a friend of
   liberal learning and courtly splendor, worldly-minded, and ill fitted
   for the care of souls. He had the ambition to be the Maecenas of
   Germany. He was himself destitute of theological education, but called
   scholars, artists, poets, free-thinkers, to his court, and honored
   Erasmus and Ulrich von Hutten with presents and pensions. "He had a
   passionate love for music," says an Ultramontane historian, "and
   imported musicians from Italy to give luster to his feasts, in which
   ladies often participated. Finely wrought carpets, splendid mirrors
   adorned his halls and chambers; costly dishes and wines covered his
   table. He appeared in public with great pomp; he kept a body-guard of
   one hundred and fifty armed knights; numerous courtiers in splendid
   attire followed him when he rode out; he was surrounded by pages who
   were to learn in his presence the refinement of cavaliers." The same
   Roman-Catholic historian censures the extravagant court of Pope Leo X.,
   which set the example for the secularization and luxury of the prelates
   in Germany. [180]

   Albrecht was largely indebted to the rich banking-house of Fugger in
   Augsburg, from whom he had borrowed thirty thousand florins in gold to
   pay for the papal pallium. By an agreement with the Pope, he had
   permission to keep half of the proceeds arising from the sale of
   indulgences. The agents of that commercial house stood behind the
   preachers of indulgence, and collected their share for the repayment of
   the loan.

   The Archbishop appointed Johann Tetzel (Diez) of the Dominican order,
   his commissioner, who again employed his sub-agents.

   Tetzel was born between 1450 and 1460, at Leipzig, and began his career
   as a preacher of indulgences in 1501. He became famous as a popular
   orator and successful hawker of indulgences. He was prior of a
   Dominican convent, doctor of philosophy, and papal inquisitor
   (haereticae pravitatis inquisitor). At the end of 1517 he acquired in
   the University of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder the degree of Licentiate of
   Theology, and in January, 1518, the degree of Doctor of Theology, by
   defending, in two disputations, the doctrine of indulgences against
   Luther. [181] He died at Leipzig during the public debate between Eck
   and Luther, July, 1519. He is represented by Protestant writers as an
   ignorant, noisy, impudent, and immoral charlatan, who was not ashamed
   to boast that he saved more souls from purgatory by his letters of
   indulgence than St. Peter by his preaching. [182] On the other hand,
   Roman Catholic historians defend him as a learned and zealous servant
   of the church. He has only an incidental notoriety, and our estimate of
   his character need not affect our views on the merits of the
   Reformation. We must judge him from his published sermons and
   anti-theses against Luther. They teach neither more nor less than the
   usual scholastic doctrine of indulgences based on an extravagant theory
   of papal authority. He does not ignore, as is often asserted, the
   necessity of repentance as a condition of absolution. [183] But he
   probably did not emphasize it in practice, and gave rise by unguarded
   expressions to damaging stories. His private character was certainly
   tainted, if we are to credit such a witness as the papal nuncio, Carl
   von Miltitz, who had the best means of information, and charged him
   with avarice, dishonesty, and sexual immorality. [184]

   Tetzel traveled with great pomp and circumstance through Germany, and
   recommended with unscrupulous effrontery and declamatory eloquence the
   indulgences of the Pope to the large crowds who gathered from every
   quarter around him. He was received like a messenger from heaven.
   Priests, monks, and magistrates, men and women, old and young, marched
   in solemn procession with songs, flags, and candles, under the ringing
   of bells, to meet him and his fellow-monks, and followed them to the
   church; the papal Bull on a velvet cushion was placed on the high
   altar, a red cross with a silken banner bearing the papal arms was
   erected before it, and a large iron chest was put beneath the cross for
   the indulgence money. Such chests are still preserved in many places.
   The preachers, by daily sermons, hymns, and processions, urged the
   people, with extravagant laudations of the Pope's Bull, to purchase
   letters of indulgence for their own benefit, and at the same time
   played upon their sympathies for departed relatives and friends whom
   they might release from their sufferings in purgatory "as soon as the
   penny tinkles in the box." [185]

   The common people eagerly embraced this rare offer of salvation from
   punishment, and made no clear distinction between the guilt and
   punishment of sin; after the sermon they approached with burning
   candles the chest, confessed their sins, paid the money, and received
   the letter of indulgence which they cherished as a passport to heaven.
   But intelligent and pious men were shocked at such scandal. The
   question was asked, whether God loved money more than justice, and why
   the Pope, with his command over the boundless treasury of extra-merits,
   did not at once empty the whole purgatory for the rebuilding of St.
   Peter's, or build it with his own money.

   Tetzel approached the dominions of the Elector of Saxony, who was
   himself a devout worshiper of relics, and had great confidence in
   indulgences, but would not let him enter his territory from fear that
   he might take too much money from his subjects. So Tetzel set up his
   trade on the border of Saxony, at Jueterbog, a few hours from
   Wittenberg. [186]

   There he provoked the protest of the Reformer, who had already in the
   summer of 1516 preached a sermon of warning against trust in
   indulgences, and had incurred the Elector's displeasure by his aversion
   to the whole system, although he himself had doubts about some
   important questions connected with it.

   Luther had experienced the remission of sin as a free gift of grace to
   be apprehended by a living faith. This experience was diametrically
   opposed to a system of relief by means of payments in money. It was an
   irrepressible conflict of principle. He could not be silent when that
   barter was carried to the very threshold of his sphere of labor. As a
   preacher, a pastor, and a professor, he felt it to be his duty to
   protest against such measures: to be silent was to betray his theology
   and his conscience.

   The jealousy between the Augustinian order to which he belonged, and
   the Dominican order to which Tetzel belonged, may have exerted some
   influence, but it was certainly very subordinate. A laboring mountain
   may produce a ridiculous mouse, but no mouse can give birth to a
   mountain. The controversy with Tetzel (who is not even mentioned in
   Luther's Theses) was merely the occasion, but not the cause, of the
   Reformation: it was the spark which exploded the mine. The Reformation
   would have come to pass sooner or later, if no Tetzel had ever lived;
   and it actually did break out in different countries without any
   connection with the trade in indulgences, except in German Switzerland,
   where Bernhardin Samson acted the part of Tetzel, but after Zwingli had
   already begun his reforms.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [178] See the papal documents in Pallavicini, in Loescher (I. 369-383),
   and Walch, L.'s Werke, XV. 313 sqq. Compare Gieseler, IV. 21 sq. (New
   York ed.); Hergenroether's Regesta Leonis X. (1884 sqq.).

   [179] J. May: Der Kurfuerst Albrecht. II. von Mainz, Muenchen, 1875, 2
   vols.

   [180] Janssen, II. 60, 64: "Das Hofwesen so mancher geistlichen
   Fuersten Deutschlands, insbesondere das des Erzbischofs Albrecht von
   Mainz, stand in schreiendem Widerspruch mit dem eines kirchlichen
   Wuerdetraegers, aber der Hof Leo's X., mit seinem Aufwand fuer Spiel
   und Theater und allerlei weltliche Feste entsprach noch weniger der
   Bestimmung eines Oberhauptes der Kirche. Der Verweltlichung und
   Ueppigkeit geistlicher Fuerstenhoefe in Deutschland ging die des
   roemischen Hofes voraus, und erstere waere ohne diese kaum moeglich
   gewesen." He quotes (II. 76) Emser and Cardinal Sadolet against the
   abuses of indulgences in the reign of Leo X. Cardinal Hergenroether, in
   the dedicatory preface to the Regesta Leonis X. (Fasc. I. p. ix), while
   defending this Pope against the charge of religious indifference,
   censures the accumulation of ecclesiastical benefices by the same
   persons, as Albrecht, and the many abuses resulting therefrom.

   [181] Loescher (I. 505-523) gives both dissertations, the first
   consisting of 106, the second of 50 theses, and calls them "Proben von
   den stinkenden Schaeden des Papstthutms." He ascribes, however, the
   authorship to Conrad Wimpina, professor of theology at
   Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, who afterwards published them as his own,
   without mentioning Tetzel, in his Anacephalaiosis Sectarum errorum,
   etc., 1528 (Loescher, I. 506, II. 7). Gieseler, Koestlin, and Knaake
   are of the same opinion. Groene and Hergenroether assign them to
   Tetzel.

   [182] Mathesius, Myconius, and Luther (Wider Hans Wurst, 1541, in the
   Erl. ed. XXVI. 51) ascribe to him also the blasphemous boast that he
   had the power by letters of indulgence to forgive even a carnal sin
   against the Mother of God ("wenn einer gleich die heil. Jungfrau Maria,
   Gottes Mutter, haette geschaecht und geschwaengert"). Luther alludes to
   such a monstrous saying in Thes. 75, and calls it insane. But Tetzel
   denied, and disproved the charge as a slander, in his Disp. I. 99-101
   ("Subcommissariis ac praedicatoribus veniarum Imponere, ut si quis per
   impossibile Dei genetricem semper virginein violasset ... Odio Agitari
   Ac Fratrum Suorum Sanguinem Sitire"), and in his letter to Miltitz,
   Jan. 31, 1518. See Koestlin, I. 160 and 785, versus Koerner and Kahnis.
   Kayser also (l.c. p. 15) gives it up, although he comes to the
   conclusion that Tetzel was "ein unverschaemter und sittenloser
   Ablassprediger" (p. 20).

   [183] In Theses 55 and 56 of his first Disputation (1517), he says that
   the soul, after it is purified (anima purgata, ist eine Seele
   gereinigt), flies from purgatory to the vision of God without
   hinderance, and that it is an error to suppose that this cannot be done
   before the payment of money into the indulgence box. See the Latin text
   in Loescher, I. 509.

   [184] "Auch hatte er zwei Kinder." The letter of Miltitz is printed in
   Loescher, III. 20; in Walch, XV. 862; and in Kayser, l.c. 4 and 5.
   Tetzel's champions try to invalidate the testimony of the papal
   delegate by charging him with intemperance. But drunkards, like
   children and fools, usually tell the truth; and when he wrote that
   letter, he was sober. Besides, we have the independent testimony of
   Luther, who says in his book against Duke Henry of Brunswick (Wider
   Hans Wurst, p. 50), that in 1517 Tetzel was condemned by the Emperor
   Maximilian to be drowned in the Inn at Innsbruck ("for his great
   virtue's sake, you may well believe"), but saved by the Duke Frederick,
   and reminded of it afterwards in the Theses-controversy, and that he
   confessed the fact.

   [185] Sobald der Pfennig im Kasten klingt, Die Seel' aus dem Fegfeuer
   springt." Mathesius and Johann Hess, two contemporary witnesses,
   ascribe this sentence (with slight verbal modifications) to Tetzel
   himself. Luther mentions it in Theses 27 and 28, and in his book Wider
   Hans Wurst (Erl. ed. xxvi. 51).

   [186] Jueterbog is now a Prussian town of about seven thousand
   inhabitants, on the railroad between Berlin and Wittenberg. In the
   Nicolai church, Tetzel's chest of indulgences is preserved.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 32. The Ninety-five Theses. Oct. 31, 1517.

   Lit. in S: 31.

   After serious deliberation, without consulting any of his colleagues or
   friends, but following an irresistible impulse, Luther resolved upon a
   public act of unforeseen consequences. It may be compared to the stroke
   of the axe with which St. Boniface, seven hundred years before, had cut
   down the sacred oak, and decided the downfall of German heathenism. He
   wished to elicit the truth about the burning question of indulgences,
   which he himself professed not fully to understand at the time, and
   which yet was closely connected with the peace of conscience and
   eternal salvation. He chose the orderly and usual way of a learned
   academic disputation.

   Accordingly, on the memorable thirty-first day of October, 1517, which
   has ever since been celebrated in Protestant Germany as the birthday of
   the Reformation, at twelve o'clock he affixed (either himself or
   through another) to the doors of the castle-church at Wittenberg,
   ninety-five Latin Theses on the subject of indulgences, and invited a
   public discussion. At the same time he sent notice of the fact to
   Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, and to Bishop Hieronymus Scultetus, to
   whose diocese Wittenberg belonged. He chose the eve of All Saints' Day
   (Nov. 1), because this was one of the most frequented feasts, and
   attracted professors, students, and people from all directions to the
   church, which was filled with precious relics. [187]

   No one accepted the challenge, and no discussion took place. The
   professors and students of Wittenberg were of one mind on the subject.
   But history itself undertook the disputation and defence. The Theses
   were copied, translated, printed, and spread as on angels' wings
   throughout Germany and Europe in a few weeks. [188]

   The rapid circulation of the Reformation literature was promoted by the
   perfect freedom of the press. There was, as yet, no censorship, no
   copyright, no ordinary book-trade in the modern sense, and no
   newspapers; but colportors, students, and friends carried the books and
   tracts from house to house. The mass of the people could not read, but
   they listened attentively to readers. The questions of the Reformation
   were eminently practical, and interested all classes; and Luther
   handled the highest themes in the most popular style.

   The Theses bear the title, "Disputation to explain the Virtue of
   Indulgences." They sound very strange to a modern ear, and are more
   Catholic than Protestant. They are no protest against the Pope and the
   Roman Church, or any of her doctrines, not even against indulgences,
   but only against their abuse. They expressly condemn those who speak
   against indulgences (Th. 71), and assume that the Pope himself would
   rather see St. Peter's Church in ashes than have it built with the
   flesh and blood of his sheep (Th. 50). They imply belief in purgatory.
   They nowhere mention Tetzel. They are silent about faith and
   justification, which already formed the marrow of Luther's theology and
   piety. He wished to be moderate, and had not the most distant idea of a
   separation from the mother church. When the Theses were republished in
   his collected works (1545), he wrote in the preface: "I allow them to
   stand, that by them it may appear how weak I was, and in what a
   fluctuating state of mind, when I began this business. I was then a
   monk and a mad papist (papista insanissimus), and so submersed in the
   dogmas of the Pope that I would have readily murdered any person who
   denied obedience to the Pope."

   But after all, they contain the living germs of a new theology. The
   form only is Romish, the spirit and aim are Protestant. We must read
   between the lines, and supply the negations of the Theses by the
   affirmations from his preceding and succeeding books, especially his
   Resolutiones, in which he answers objections, and has much to say about
   faith and justification. The Theses represent a state of transition
   from twilight to daylight. They reveal the mighty working of an earnest
   mind and conscience intensely occupied with the problem of sin,
   repentance, and forgiveness, and struggling for emancipation from the
   fetters of tradition. They might more properly be called "a disputation
   to diminish the virtue of papal indulgences, and to magnify the full
   and free grace of the gospel of Christ." They bring the personal
   experience of justification by faith, and direct intercourse with
   Christ and the gospel, in opposition to an external system of churchly
   and priestly mediation and human merit. The papal opponents felt the
   logical drift of the Theses much better than Luther, and saw in them an
   attempt to undermine the whole fabric of popery. . The irresistible
   progress of the Reformation soon swept the indulgences away as an
   unscriptural, mediaeval tradition of men. [189]

   The first Thesis strikes the keynote: "Our Lord and Master when he
   says, 'Repent,' [190] desires that the whole life of believers should
   be a repentance." [191] The corresponding Greek noun means change of
   mind (metavnoia), and implies both a turning away from sin in sincere
   sorrow and grief, and a turning to God in hearty faith. Luther
   distinguishes, in the second Thesis, true repentance from the
   sacramental penance (i.e., the confession and satisfaction required by
   the priest), and understands it to be an internal state and exercise of
   the mind rather than isolated external acts; although he expressly
   affirms, in the third Thesis, that it must manifest itself in various
   mortifications of the flesh. Repentance is a continual conflict of the
   believing spirit with the sinful flesh, a daily renewal of the heart.
   As long as sin lasts, there is need of repentance. The Pope can not
   remit any sin except by declaring the remission of God; and he can not
   remit punishments except those which he or the canons impose (Thes.5
   and 6). Forgiveness presupposes true repentance, and can only be found
   in the merits of Christ. Here comes in the other fundamental Thesis
   (62): The true treasury of the church is the holy gospel of the glory
   and the grace of God." This sets aside the mediaeval notion about the
   overflowing treasury of extra-merits and rewards at the disposal of the
   Pope for the benefit of the living and the dead.

   We have thus set before us in this manifesto, on the one hand, human
   depravity which requires lifelong repentance, and on the other the full
   and free grace of God in Christ, which can only be appropriated by a
   living faith. This is, in substance, the evangelical doctrine of
   justification by faith (although not expressed in terms), and virtually
   destroys the whole scholastic theory and practice of indulgences. By
   attacking the abuses of indulgences, Luther unwittingly cut a vein of
   mediaeval Catholicism; and by a deeper conception of repentance which
   implies faith, and by referring the sinner to the grace of Christ as
   the true and only source of remission, he proclaimed the undeveloped
   principles of evangelical Protestantism, and kindled a flame which soon
   extended far beyond his original intentions.

   NOTES.

   THE NINETY-FIVE THESES.

   DISPUTATION OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER CONCERNING PENITENCE AND INDULGENCES.

   In the desire and with the purpose of elucidating the truth, a
   disputation will be held on the underwritten propositions at
   Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther,
   Monk of the Order of St. Augustin, Master of Arts and of Sacred
   Theology, and ordinary Reader of the same in that place. [192] He
   therefore asks those who cannot be present, and discuss the subject
   with us orally, to do so by letter in their absence. In the name of our
   Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

   1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying: "Repent ye" [lit.: Do
   penance, poenitentiam agite], etc., intended that the whole life of
   believers should be penitence [poenitentiam]. [193]

   2. This word poenitentia cannot be understood of sacramental penance,
   that is, of the confession and satisfaction which are performed under
   the ministry of priests.

   3. It does not, however, refer solely to inward penitence; nay, such
   inward penitence is naught, unless it outwardly produces various
   mortifications of the flesh [varias carnis mortificationes].

   4. The penalty [poena] thus continues as long as the hatred of
   self--that is, true inward penitence [poenitentia vera
   intus]--continues; namely, till our entrance into the kingdom of
   heaven.

   5. The Pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any penalties,
   except those which he has imposed by his own authority, or by that of
   the canons. [194]

   6. The Pope has no power to remit any guilt, except by declaring and
   warranting it to have been remitted by God; or at most by remitting
   cases reserved for himself: in which cases, if his power were despised,
   guilt would certainly remain.

   7. God never remits any man's guilt, without at the same time
   subjecting him, humbled in all things, to the authority of his
   representative the priest [sacernoti suo vicario].

   8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and no burden
   ought to be imposed on the dying, according to them.

   9. Hence the Holy Spirit acting in the Pope does well for us in that,
   in his decrees, he always makes exception of the article of death and
   of necessity.

   10. Those priests act unlearnedly and wrongly, who, in the case of the
   dying, reserve the canonical penances for purgatory.

   11. Those tares about changing of the canonical penalty into the
   penalty of purgatory seem surely to have been sown while the bishops
   were asleep.

   12. Formerly the canonical penalties were imposed not after, but before
   absolution, as tests of true contrition.

   13. The dying pay all penalties by death, and are already dead to the
   Canon laws, and are by right relieved from them.

   14. The imperfect soundness or charity of a dying person necessarily
   brings with it great fear, and the less it is, the greater the fear it
   brings.

   15. This fear and horror is sufficient by itself, to say nothing of
   other things, to constitute the pains of purgatory, since it is very
   near to the horror of despair.

   16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven appear to differ as despair, almost
   despair, and peace of mind [securitas] differ.

   17. With souls in purgatory it seems that it must needs be that, as
   horror diminishes, so charity increases.

   18. Nor does it seem to be proved by any reasoning or any scriptures,
   that they are outside of the state of merit or the increase of charity.

   19. Nor does this appear to be proved, that they are sure and confident
   of their own blessedness, at least all of them, though we may be very
   sure of it.

   20. Therefore the Pope, when he speaks of the plenary remission of all
   penalties, does not mean simply of all, but only of those imposed by
   himself.

   21. Thus those preachers of indulgences are in error who say that, by
   the indulgences of the Pope, a man is loosed and saved from all
   punishment.

   22. For, in fact, he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which they
   would have had to pay in this life according to the canons.

   23. If any entire remission of all the penalties can be granted to any
   one, it is certain that it is granted to none but the most perfect,
   that is, to very few.

   24. Hence the greater part of the people must needs be deceived by this
   indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalties.

   25. Such power as the Pope has over purgatory in general, such has
   every bishop in his own diocese, and every curate in his own parish, in
   particular.

   26. [In the Latin text, I.] The Pope acts most rightly in granting
   remission to souls, not by the power of the keys (which is of no avail
   in this case), but by the way of suffrage [per modum suffragii].

   27. They preach man, who say that the soul flies out of purgatory as
   soon as the money thrown into the chest rattles [ut jactus nummus in
   cistam tinnierit].

   28. It is certain, that, when the money rattles in the chest, avarice
   and gain may be increased, but the suffrage of the Church depends on
   the will of God alone.

   29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory desire to be redeemed
   from it, according to the story told of Saints Severinus and Paschal?
   [195]

   30. No man is sure of the reality of his own contrition, much less of
   the attainment of plenary remission.

   31. Rare as is a true penitent, so rare is one who truly buys
   indulgences--that is to say, most rare.

   32. Those who believe that, through letters of pardon, they are made
   sure of their own salvation, will be eternally damned along with their
   teachers.

   33. We must especially beware of those who say that these pardons from
   the Pope are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to
   God.

   34. For the grace conveyed by these pardons has respect only to the
   penalties of sacramental satisfaction, which are of human appointment.

   35. They preach no Christian doctrine, who teach that contrition is not
   necessary for those who buy souls out of purgatory, or buy confessional
   licenses.

   36. Every Christian who feels true compunction has of right plenary
   remission of pain and guilt, even without letters of pardon.

   37. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has a share in all
   the benefits of Christ and of the Church, given him by God, even
   without letters of pardon.

   38. The remission, however, imparted by the Pope, is by no means to be
   despised, since it is, as I have said, a declaration of the Divine
   remission.

   39. It is a most difficult thing, even for the most learned
   theologians, to exalt at the same time in the eyes of the people the
   ample effect of pardons, and the necessity of true contrition.

   40. True contrition seeks and loves punishment; while the ampleness of
   pardons relaxes it, and causes men to hate it, or at least gives
   occasion for them to do so.

   41. Apostolical pardons ought to be proclaimed with caution, lest the
   people should falsely suppose that they are placed before other good
   works of charity.

   42. Christians should be taught that it is not the mind of the Pope,
   that the buying of pardons is to be in any way compared to works of
   mercy.

   43. Christians should be taught, that he who gives to a poor man, or
   lends to a needy man, does better than if he bought pardons.

   44. Because, by a work of charity, charity increases, and the man
   becomes better; while, by means of pardons, he does not become better,
   but only freer from punishment.

   45. Christians should be taught that he who sees any one in need, and,
   passing him by, gives money for pardons, is not purchasing for himself
   the indulgence of the Pope, but the anger of God.

   46. Christians should be taught, that, unless they have superfluous
   wealth, they are bound to keep what is necessary for the use of their
   own households, and by no means to lavish it on pardons.

   47. Christians should be taught, that, while they are free to buy
   pardons, they are not commanded to do so.

   48. Christians should be taught that the Pope, in granting pardons, has
   both more need and more desire that devout prayer should be made for
   him, than that money should be readily paid.

   49. Christians should be taught that the Pope's pardons are useful if
   they do not put their trust in them, but most hurtful if through them
   they lose the fear of God.

   50. [Lat. text XXV.] Christians should be taught, that, if the Pope
   were acquainted with the exactions of the preachers of pardons, he
   would prefer that the Basilica of St. Peter should be burnt to ashes,
   than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his
   sheep.

   51. [I.] Christians should be taught, that as it would be the wish of
   the Pope, even to sell, if necessary, the Basilica of St. Peter, and to
   give of his own to very many of those from whom the preachers of
   pardons extract money.

   52. Vain is the hope of salvation through letters of pardon, even if a
   commissary--nay, the Pope himself--were to pledge his own soul for
   them.

   53. They are enemies of Christ and of the Pope, who, in order that
   pardons may be preached, condemn the word of God to utter silence in
   other churches.

   54. Wrong is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal
   or longer time is spent on pardons than on the words of the gospel
   [verbis evangelicis].

   55. The mind of the Pope necessarily is that if pardons, which are a
   very small matter [quod minimum est], are celebrated with single bells,
   single processions, and single ceremonies, the gospel, which is a very
   great matter [quod maximum est], should be preached with a hundred
   ceremonies.

   56. The treasures of the Church, whence the Pope grants indulgences,
   are neither sufficiently named nor known among the people of Christ.
   [196]

   57. It is clear that they are at least not temporal treasures; for
   these are not so readily lavished, but only accumulated, by many of the
   preachers.

   58. Nor are they the merits of Christ and of the saints; for these,
   independently of the Pope, are always working grace to the inner man,
   and the cross, death, and hell to the outer man.

   59. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church are the poor of
   the Church, but he spoke according to the use of the word in his time.

   60. We are not speaking rashly when we say that the keys of the Church,
   bestowed through the merits of Christ, are that treasure.

   61. For it is clear that the power of the Pope is alone sufficient for
   the remission of penalties and of reserved cases.

   62. The true treasure of the Church is the holy gospel of the glory and
   the grace of God [Verus thesaurus ecclesiae est sacrosanctum Evangelium
   gloriae et gratiae Dei].

   63. This treasure, however, is deservedly most hateful [merito
   odiosissimus; der allerfeindseligste und verhassteste], because it
   makes the first to be last.

   64. While the treasure of indulgences is deservedly most acceptable,
   because it makes the last to be first.

   65. Hence the treasures of the gospel are nets, wherewith of old they
   fished for the men of riches.

   66. The treasures of indulgences are nets, wherewith they now fish for
   the riches of men.

   67. Those indulgences, which the preachers loudly proclaim to be the
   greatest graces, are seen to be truly such as regards the promotion of
   gain [denn es grossen Gewinnst und Geniess traegt].

   68. Yet they are in reality the smallest graces when compared with the
   grace of God and the piety of the cross.

   69. Bishops and curates are bound to receive the commissaries of
   apostolical pardons with all reverence.

   70. But they are still more bound to see to it with all their eyes, and
   take heed with all their ears, that these men do not preach their own
   dreams in place of the Pope's commission.

   71. He who speaks against the truth of apostolical pardons, let him be
   the anathema and accursed (sit anathema et maledictus; der sei ein
   Fluch und vermaladeiet].

   72. But he, on the other hand, who exerts himself against the
   wantonness and license of speech of the preachers of pardons, let him
   be blessed.

   73. As the Pope justly thunders [Lat., fulminat; G. trs., mit Ungnade
   und dem Bann schlaegt] against those who use any kind of contrivance to
   the injury of the traffic in pardons;

   74. Much more is it his intention to thunder against those who, under
   the pretext of pardons, use contrivances to the injury of holy charity
   and of truth.

   75. [XXV.] To think that papal pardons have such power that they could
   absolve a man even if--by an impossibility--he had violated the Mother
   of God, is madness.

   76. [I.] We affirm, on the contrary, that papal pardons [veniae
   papales] can not take away even the least venial sins, as regards the
   guilt [quoad culpam].

   77. The saying that, even if St. Peter were now Pope, he could grant no
   greater graces, is blasphemy against St. Peter and the Pope.

   78. We affirm, on the contrary, that both he and any other Pope has
   greater graces to grant; namely, the gospel, powers, gifts of healing,
   etc. (1 Cor. xii. 9).

   69. To say that the cross set up among the insignia of the papal arms
   is of equal power with the cross of Christ, is blasphemy.

   80. Those bishops, curates, and theologians who allow such discourses
   to have currency among the people, will have to render an account.

   81. This license in the preaching of pardons makes it no easy thing,
   even for learned men, to protect the reverence due to the Pope against
   the calumnies, or, at all events, the keen questionings, of the laity;

   82. As, for instance: Why does not the Pope empty purgatory for the
   sake of most holy charity and of the supreme necessity of souls,--this
   being the most just of all reasons,--if he redeems an infinite number
   of souls for the sake of that most fatal thing, money, to be spent on
   building a basilica--this being a slight reason?

   83. Again: Why do funeral masses and anniversary masses for deceased
   continue, and why does not the Pope return, or permit the withdrawal
   of, the funds bequeathed for this purpose, since it is a wrong to pray
   for those who are already redeemed?

   84. Again: What is this new kindness of God and the Pope, in that, for
   money's sake, they permit an impious man and an enemy of God to redeem
   a pious soul which loves God, and yet do not redeem that same pious and
   beloved soul, out of free charity, on account of its own need?

   85. Again: Why is it that the penitential canons, long since abrogated
   and dead in themselves in very fact, and not only by usage, are yet
   still redeemed with money, through the granting of indulgences, as if
   they were full of life?

   86. Again: Why does not the Pope, whose riches are at this day more
   ample than those of the wealthiest of the wealthy, build the one
   Basilica of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with that of poor
   believers?

   87. Again: Why does the Pope remit or impart to those who, through
   perfect contrition, have a right to plenary remission and
   participation?

   88. Again: What greater good would the Church receive if the Pope,
   instead of once as he does now, were to bestow these remissions and
   participations a hundred times a day on any one of the faithful?

   89. Since it is the salvation of souls, rather than money, that the
   Pope seeks by his pardons, why does he annul the letters and pardons
   granted long ago, since they are equally efficacious?

   90. To repress these scruples and arguments of the laity by force
   alone, and not to solve them by giving reasons, is to expose the Church
   and the Pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Christian
   men unhappy.

   91. If, then, pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of
   the Pope, all these questions would be resolved with ease; nay, would
   not exist.

   92. Away then with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ,
   "Peace, peace," and there is no peace.

   93. Blessed be all those prophets, who say to the people of Christ,
   "The cross, the cross," and there is no cross.

   94. Christians should be exhorted to strive to follow Christ their head
   through pains, deaths, and hells;

   95. [Lat. Text, XX.] And thus trust to enter heaven through many
   tribulations, rather than in the security of peace [per securitatem
   pacis].

   PROTESTATION.

   I, Martin Luther, Doctor, of the Order of Monks at Wittenberg, desire
   to testify publicly that certain propositions against pontifical
   indulgences, as they call them, have been put forth by me. Now
   although, up to the present time, neither this most celebrated and
   renowned school of ours nor any civil or ecclesiastical power has
   condemned me, yet there are, as I hear, some men of headlong and
   audacious spirit, who dare to pronounce me a heretic, as though the
   matter had been thoroughly looked into and studied. But on my part, as
   I have often done before, so now too I implore all men, by the faith of
   Christ, either to point out to me a better way, if such a way has been
   divinely revealed to any, or at least to submit their opinion to the
   judgment of God and of the Church. For I am neither so rash as to wish
   that my sole opinion should be preferred to that of all other men, nor
   so senseless as to be willing that the word of God should be made to
   give place to fables devised by human reason.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [187] The wooden doors of the Schlosskirche were burnt in 1760, and
   replaced in 1858 by metal doors, bearing, the original Latin text of
   the Theses. The new doors are the gift of King Frederick William IV.,
   who fully sympathized with the evangelical Reformation. Above the
   doors, on a golden ground, is the Crucified, with Luther and
   Melanchthon at his feet, the work of Professor von Kloeber. In the
   interior of the church are the graves of Luther and Melanchthon, and of
   the Electors Frederick the Wise and John the Constant. The
   Schlosskirche was in a very dilapidated condition, and undergoing
   thorough repair, when I last visited it in July, 1886. It must not be
   confounded with the Stadtkirche of Wittenberg, where Luther preached so
   often, and where, in 1522, the communion was, for the first time,
   administered in both kinds.

   [188] Knaake (Weim. ed. I. 230) conjectures that the Theses, as
   affixed, were written either by Luther himself or some other hand, and
   that he had soon afterwards a few copies printed for his own use (for
   Agricola, who was in Wittenberg at that time, speaks of a copy printed
   on a half-sheet of paper): but that irresponsible publishers soon
   seized and multiplied them against his will. Juergens says (III. 480)
   that two editions were printed in Wittenberg in 1517, on four quarto
   leaves, and that the Berlin Library possesses two copies of the second
   edition. The Theses were written on two columns, in four divisions; the
   first three divisions consisted of twenty-five theses each, the fourth
   of twenty. The German translation is from Justus Jonas. The Latin text
   is printed in all the editions of Luther's works, in Loescher's Acts,
   and in Ranke's Deutsche Geschichte (6th ed., vol. VI. 83-89, literally
   copied from an original preserved in the Royal Library in Berlin). The
   semi-authoritative German translation by Justus Jonas is given in
   Loescher, Walch (vol. XVIII.), and O. v. Gerlach (vol. I.), and with a
   commentary by Juergens (Luther, III. 484 sqq.). An English translation
   in Wace and Buchheim, Principles of the Reformation, London, 1883, p. 6
   sqq. I have compared this translation with the Latin original as given
   by Ranke, and in the Weimar edition, and added it at the end of this
   section with some alterations, insertions, and notes.

   [189] Juergens (III. 481) compares the Theses to flashes of lightning,
   which suddenly issued from the thunder-clouds. Hundeshagen (in Piper's
   "Evangel. Kalender" for 1859, p. 157), says: "Notwithstanding the
   limits within which Luther kept himself at that time, the Theses
   express in many respects the whole Luther of later times: the frankness
   and honesty of his soul, his earnest zeal for practical Christianity,
   the sincere devotion to the truths of the Scriptures, the open sense
   for the religious wants of the people, the sound insight into the
   abuses and corruptions of the church, the profound yet liberal piety."
   Ranke's judgment of the Theses is brief, but pointed and weighty: "Wenn
   man diese Saetze liest, sieht man, welch ein kuehner, grossartiger und
   fester Geist in Luther arbeitet. Die Gedanken spruehen ihm hervor, wie
   unter dem Hammerschlag die Funken."--Deutsche Gesch., vol. I. p. 210.

   [190] Luther gives the Vulgate rendering of metanoeite, poenitentiam
   agite, do penance, which favors the Roman Catholic conception that
   repentance consists in certain outward acts. He first learned the true
   meaning of the Greek metanoia a year later from Melanchthon, and it was
   to him like a revelation.

   [191] "Dominus et magister noster Jesus Christus dicendo 'Poenitentiam
   agite,' etc. [Matt. 4:17), omnem vitam fidelium poenitentiam esse
   voluit." In characteristic contrast, Tetzel begins his fifty counter
   Theses with a glorification of the Pope as the supreme power in the
   church: "Docendi sunt Christiani, ex quo in Ecclesia potestas Papae est
   suprema et a solo Deo instituta, quod a nullo puro homine, nec a toto
   simul mundo potest restringi aut ampliari, sed a solo Deo."

   [192] The German translation inserts here the name of Tetzel (wider
   Bruder Johann Tetzel, Prediger Ordens), which does not occur in the
   Latin text.

   [193] The first four theses are directed against the scholastic view of
   sacramental penitence, which emphasized isolated, outward acts; while
   Luther put the stress on the inward change which should extend through
   life. As long as there is sin, so long is there need of repentance. St.
   Augustin and St. Bernard spent their last days in deep repentance and
   meditatation over the penitential Psalms. Luther retained the Vulgate
   rendering, and did not know yet the true meaning of the Greek original
   (matanoia, change of mind, conversion). The Theses vacillate between
   the Romish and the Evangelical view of repentance.

   [194] This thesis reduces the indulgence to a mere remission of the
   ecclesiastical punishments which refer only to this life. It destroys
   the effect on purgatory. Compare Thesis 8.

   [195] These saints were reported to have preferred to suffer longer in
   purgatory than was necessary for their salvation, in order that they
   might attain to the highest glory of the vision of God.

   [196] This and the following theses destroy the theoretical foundation
   of indulgences, namely, the scholastic fiction of a treasury of
   supererogatory merits of saints at the disposal of the Pope.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 33. The Theses-Controversy. 1518.

   Luther's Sermon vom Ablass und Gnade, printed in February, 1518 (Weimar
   ed. I. 239-246; and in Latin, 317-324); Kurze Erklaerung der Zehn
   Gebote, 1518 (I. 248-256, in Latin under the title Instructio pro
   Confessione peccatorum, p. 257-265); Asterisci adversus Obeliscos
   Eckii, March, 1518 (I. 278-316); Freiheit des Sermons paepstlichen
   Ablass und Gnade belangend, June, 1518, against Tetzel (I. 380-393);
   Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute, August, 1518,
   dedicated to the Pope (I. 522-628). Letters of Luther to Archbishop
   Albrecht, Spalatin, and others, in De Wette, I. 67 sqq.

   Tetzel's Anti-Theses, 2 series, one of 106, the other of 50 sentences,
   are printed in Loescher's Ref. Acta, I. 505-514, and 518-523. Eck's
   Obelisci, ibid. III. 333.

   On the details of the controversy, see Juergens (III. 479 sqq.),
   Koestlin (I. 175 sqq.), Kolde (I. 126 sqq.), Bratke, and Dieckhoff, as
   quoted in S: 31.

   The Theses of Luther were a tract for the times. They sounded the
   trumpet of the Reformation. They found a hearty response with liberal
   scholars and enemies of monastic obscurantism, with German patriots
   longing for emancipation from Italian control, and with thousands of
   plain Christians waiting for the man of Providence who should give
   utterance to their feelings of indignation against existing abuses, and
   to their desire for a pure, scriptural, and spiritual religion. "Ho,
   ho! "exclaimed Dr. Fleck, "the man has come who will do the thing."
   Reuchlin thanked God that "the monks have now found a man who will give
   them such full employment that they will be glad to let me spend my old
   age in peace." [197]

   But, on the other hand, the Theses were strongly assailed and condemned
   by the episcopal and clerical hierarchy, the monastic orders,
   especially the Dominicans, and the universities, in fact, by all the
   champions of scholastic theology and traditional orthodoxy. Luther
   himself, then a poor, emaciated monk, was at first frightened by the
   unexpected effect, and many of his friends trembled. One of them told
   him, "You tell the truth, good brother, but you will accomplish
   nothing; go to your cell, and say, God have mercy upon me." [198]

   The chief writers against Luther were Tetzel of Leipzig, Conrad Wimpina
   of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and the more learned and formidable John Eck
   of Ingolstadt, who was at first a friend of Luther, but now became his
   irreconcilable enemy. These opponents represented three universities
   and the ruling scholastic theology of the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas
   Aquinas. But they injured their cause in public estimation by the
   weakness of their defence. They could produce no arguments for the
   doctrine and practice of indulgences from the Word of God, or even from
   the Greek and Latin fathers, and had to resort to extravagant views on
   the authority of the Pope. They even advocated papal infallibility,
   although this was as yet an open question in the Roman Church, and
   remained so till the Vatican decree of 1870.

   Luther mustered courage. In all his weakness he was strong. He felt
   that he had begun this business in the name and for the glory of God,
   and was ready to sacrifice life itself for his honest conviction. He
   took comfort from the counsel of Gamaliel. In several letters of this
   period he subscribed himself Martinus Eleutherios (Freeman), but added,
   vielmehr Knecht (rather, Servant): he felt free of men, but bound in
   Christ. When his friend Schurf told him, "They will not bear it;" he
   replied, "But what, if they have to bear it?" He answered all his
   opponents, directly and indirectly, in Latin and German, from the
   pulpit and the chair, and through the press. He began now to develop
   his formidable polemical power, especially in his German writings. He
   had full command over the vocabulary of common sense, wit, irony,
   vituperation, and abuse. Unfortunately, he often resorted to coarse and
   vulgar expressions which, even in that semi-barbarous age, offended men
   of culture and taste, and which set a bad example for his admirers in
   the fierce theological wars within the Lutheran Church. [199]

   The discussion forced him into a conflict with the papal authority, on
   which the theory and traffic of indulgences were ultimately made to
   rest. The controversy resolved itself into the question whether that
   authority was infallible and final, or subject to correction by the
   Scriptures and a general Council. Luther defended the latter view; yet
   he protested that he was no heretic, and that he taught nothing
   contrary to the Scriptures, the ancient fathers, the oecumenical
   Councils, and the decrees of the Popes. He still hoped for a favorable
   hearing from Leo X., whom he personally respected. He even ventured to
   dedicate to him his Resolutiones, a defence of the Theses (May 30,
   1518), with a letter of abject humility, promising to obey his voice as
   the very voice of Christ. [200]

   Such an anomalous and contradictory position could not last long.

   In the midst of this controversy, in April, 1518, Luther was sent as a
   delegate to a meeting of the Augustinian monks at Heidelberg, and had
   an opportunity to defend, in public debate, forty conclusions, or,
   "theological paradoxes," drawn from St. Paul and St. Augustin,
   concerning natural depravity, the slavery of the will, regenerating
   grace, faith, and good works. He advocates the theologia crucis against
   the theologia gloriae, and contrasts the law and the gospel. "The law
   says, 'Do this,'  and never does it: the gospel says, 'Believe in
   Christ,' and all is done." The last twelve theses are directed against
   the Aristotelian philosophy. [201]

   He found considerable response, and sowed the seed of the Reformation
   in the Palatinate. Among his youthful hearers were Bucer (Butzer) and
   Brentz, who afterwards became distinguished reformers, the one in
   Strassburg and England, the other in the duchy (now kingdom) of
   Wuertemberg.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [197] The prophetic dream of the Elector, so often told, is a poetic
   fiction. Koestlin discredits it, I. 786 sq. The Elector Frederick
   dreamed, in the night before Luther affixed the Theses, that God sent
   him a monk, a true son of the Apostle Paul, and that this monk wrote
   something on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg with a pen
   which reached even to Rome, pierced the head and ears of a lion (Leo),
   and shook the triple crown of the Pope. Merle d'Aubigne relates the
   dream at great length as being, "beyond reasonable doubt, true in the
   essential parts." He appeals to an original MS., written from the
   dictation of Spalatin, in the archives of Weimar, which was published
   in 1817. But that MS., according to the testimony of Dr. Burkhardt, the
   librarian, is only a copy of the eighteenth century. No trace of such a
   dream can be found before 1591. Spalatin, in his own writings and his
   letters to Luther and Melanchthon, nowhere refers to it.

   [198] Albert Krantz of Hamburg, who died Dec. 7, 1517. Koestlin, I.
   177.

   [199] He said of Tetzel, that he dealt with the Bible "wie die Sau mit
   dem Habersack" (as the hog with the meal-bag); of the learned Cardinal
   Cajetan, that he knew as little of spiritual theology as "the donkey of
   the harp;" he called Alveld, professor of theology at Leipzig, "a most
   asinine ass," and Dr. Eck "Dreck:" for which he was in turn styled
   luteus, lutra, etc. Such vulgarities were common in that age, but
   Luther was the roughest of the rough, as he was the strongest of the
   strong. His bark, however, was much worse than his bite, and beneath
   his abusive tongue and temper dwelt a kind and generous heart. His most
   violent writings are those against Emser (An den Emserschen Steinbock),
   King Henry VIII., Duke Henry of Brunswick (Wider Hans Wurst), and his
   last attack upon popery as "instituted by the Devil" (1545), of which
   Doellinger says (Luther, p. 48), that it must have been written "im
   Zustande der Erhitzung durch berauschende Getraenke."

   [200] "Beatissime Pater," he says in the dedication, "prostratum me
   pedibus tuae Beatitudinis offero cum omnibus, quae sum et habeo.
   Vivifica, occide, roca, revoca, approba, reproba, ut placuerit: vocem
   tuam vocem Christi in te praesidentis et loquentis agnoscam. Si mortem
   merui, mori non recusabo. Dominienim est terra et plenitudo ejus, qui
   est benedictus in saecula, Amen, qui et te servet in aceternum, Amen.
   Anno MDXVIII."Works (Weimar ed.), I. 529; also in De Wette, Briefe, I.
   119-122.

   [201] Weim. ed., I. 350-376. Comp. Koestlin, I. 185 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 34. Rome's Interposition. Luther and Prierias. 1518.

   R. P. Silvestri Prieratis ordinis praedicatorum et s. theol.
   professoris celeberrimi, s. palatii apostolici magistri, in
   praesumptuosas Martini Lutheri conclusiones de potestate papae
   dialogus. In Loescher, II. 13-39. Knaake (Werke, I. 644) assigns the
   first edition to the second half of June, 1518, which is more likely
   than the earlier date of December, 1517, given by Loescher (II. 12) and
   the Erlangen ed. He mentions five separate editions, two of which were
   published by Luther without notes; afterwards he published an edition
   with his refutation.

   Ad Dialogum Silvestri Prierati de potestate papae responsio. In
   Loescher, II. 3; Weim. ed. I., 647-686, II. 48-56. German translation
   in Walch, XVIII. l20-200.

   Pope Leo X. was disposed to ignore the Wittenberg movement as a
   contemptible monkish quarrel; but when it threatened to become
   dangerous, he tried to make the German monk harmless by the exercise of
   his power. He is reported to have said first, "Brother Martin is a man
   of fine genius, and this outbreak is a mere squabble of envious monks;"
   but afterwards, "It is a drunken German who wrote the Theses; when
   sober he will change his mind."

   Three months after the appearance of the Theses, he directed the
   vicar-general of the Augustinian Order to quiet down the restless monk.
   In March, 1518, he found it necessary to appoint a commission of
   inquiry under the direction of the learned Dominican Silvester
   Mazzolini, called from his birthplace Prierio or Prierias (also
   Prieras), who was master of the sacred palace and professor of
   theology.

   Prierias came to the conclusion that Luther was an ignorant and
   blasphemous arch-heretic, and hastily wrote a Latin dialogue against
   his Theses, hoping to crush him by subtile scholastic distinctions, and
   the weight of papal authority (June, 1518). He identified the Pope with
   the Church of Rome, and the Church of Rome with the Church universal,
   and denounced every departure from it as a heresy. He said of Luther's
   Theses, that they bite like a cur.

   Luther republished the Dialogue with a reply, in which he called it
   "sufficiently supercilious, and thoroughly Italian and Thomistic
   "(August, 1518).

   Prierias answered with a Replica (November, 1518). Luther republished
   it likewise, with a brief preface, and sent it to Prierias with the
   advice not to make himself any more ridiculous by writing books.

   The effect of this controversy was to widen the breach.

   In the mean time Luther's fate had already been decided. The Roman
   hierarchy could no more tolerate such a dangerous man than the Jewish
   hierarchy could tolerate Christ and the apostles. On the 7th of August,
   1518, he was cited to appear in Rome within sixty days to recant his
   heresies. On the 23d of the same month, the Pope demanded of the
   Elector Frederick the Wise, that he should deliver up this "child of
   the Devil" to the papal legate.

   But the Elector, who was one of the most powerful and esteemed princes
   of Germany, felt unwilling to sacrifice the shining light of his
   beloved university, and arranged a peaceful interview with the papal
   legate at the Diet of Augsburg on promise of kind treatment and safe
   return.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 35. Luther and Cajetan. October, 1518.

   The transactions at Augsburg were published by Luther in December,
   1518, and are printed in Loescher, II. 435-492; 527-551; in Walch, XV.
   636 sqq.; in the Weim. ed., II. 1-40. Luther's Letters in De Wette, I.
   147-167. Comp. Kahnis, I. 215-235; Koestlin, I. 204-238 (and his
   shorter biogr., Eng. trans., p. 108).

   Luther accordingly proceeded to Augsburg in humble garb, and on foot,
   till illness forced him within a short distance from the city to take a
   carriage. He was accompanied by a young monk and pupil, Leonard Baier,
   and his friend Link. He arrived Oct. 7, 1518, and was kindly received
   by Dr. Conrad Peutinger and two counselors of the Elector, who advised
   him to behave with prudence, and to observe the customary rules of
   etiquette. Everybody was anxious to see the man who, like a second
   Herostratus, had kindled such a flame.

   On Oct. 11, he received the letter of safe-conduct; and on the next day
   he appeared before the papal legate, Cardinal Cajetan (Thomas de Vio of
   Gaeta), who represented the Pope at the German Diet, and was to obtain
   its consent to the imposition of a heavy tax for the war against the
   Turks.

   Cajetan was, like Prierias, a Dominican and zealous Thomist, a man of
   great learning and moral integrity, but fond of pomp and ostentation.
   He wrote a standard commentary on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas (which is
   frequently appended to the Summa); but in his later years, till his
   death (1534),--perhaps in consequence of his interview with Luther,--he
   devoted himself chiefly to the study of the Scriptures, and urged it
   upon his friends. He labored with the aid of Hebrew and Greek scholars
   to correct the Vulgate by a more faithful version, and advocated
   Jerome's liberal views on questions of criticism and the Canon, and a
   sober grammatical exegesis against allegorical fancies, without,
   however, surrendering the Catholic principle of tradition.

   There was a great contrast between the Italian cardinal and the German
   monk, the shrewd diplomat and the frank scholar; the expounder and
   defender of mediaeval scholasticism, and the champion of modern
   biblical theology; the man of church authority, and the advocate of
   personal freedom.

   They had three interviews (Oct. 12, 13, 14). Cajetan treated Luther
   with condescending courtesy, and assured him of his friendship. [202]
   But he demanded retraction of his errors, and absolute submission to
   the Pope. Luther resolutely refused, and declared that he could do
   nothing against his conscience ; that one must obey God rather than man
   ; that he had the Scripture on his side; that even Peter was once
   reproved by Paul for misconduct (Gal. 2:11), and that surely his
   successor was not infallible. Still be asked the cardinal to intercede
   with Leo X., that he might not harshly condemn him. Cajetan threatened
   him with excommunication, having already the papal mandate in his hand,
   and dismissed him with the words: "Revoke, or do not come again into my
   presence." He urged Staupitz to do his best to convert Luther, and said
   he was unwilling to dispute any further with that deep-eyed German
   beast filled with strange speculations." [203]

   Under these circumstances, Luther, with the aid of friends who provided
   him with an escort, made his escape from Augsburg, through a small gate
   in the city-Wall, in the night of the 20th of October, on a
   hard-trotting hack, without pantaloons, boots, or spurs. He rode on the
   first day as far as the town of Monheim [204] without stopping, and
   fell utterly exhausted upon the straw in a stable. [205]

   He reached Wittenberg, in good spirits, on the first anniversary of his
   Ninety-five Theses. He forthwith published a report of his conference
   with a justification of his conduct. He also wrote (Nov. 19) a long and
   very eloquent letter to the Elector, exposing the unfairness of
   Cajetan, who had misrepresented the proceedings, and demanded from the
   Elector the delivery of Luther to Rome or his expulsion from Saxony.

   Before leaving Augsburg, be left an appeal from Cajetan to the Pope,
   and "from the Pope ill informed to the Pope to be better informed "(a
   papa male informato ad papam melius informandum). Soon afterwards, Nov.
   28, he formally and solemnly appealed from the Pope to a general
   council, and thus anticipated the papal sentence of excommunication. He
   expected every day maledictions from Rome, and was prepared for exile
   or any other fate. [206] He was already tormented with the thought that
   the Pope might be the Anti-Christ spoken of by St. Paul in the Second
   Epistle to the Thessalonians, and asked his friend Link (Dec. 11) to
   give him his opinion on the subject. [207] Ultimately he lost faith
   also in a general council, and appealed solely to the Scriptures and
   his conscience. The Elector urged him to moderation through Spalatin,
   but Luther declared: "The more those Romish grandees rage, and meditate
   the use of force, the less do I fear them, and shall feel all the more
   free to fight against the serpents of Rome. I am prepared for all, and
   await the judgment of God."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [202] Luther received at first a favorable impression, and wrote in a
   letter to Carlstadt, Oct. 14 (De Wette, I. 161): "The cardinal calls me
   constantly his dear son, and assures Staupitz that I had no better
   friend than himself. ... I would be the most welcome person here if I
   but spoke this one word, revoco. But I will not turn a heretic by
   revoking the opinion which made me a Christian: I will rather die, be
   burnt, be exiled, be cursed." Afterwards he wrote in a different tone
   about Cajetan, e.g., in the letter to the Elector Frederick, Nov. 19
   (I. 175 sqq.), and to Staupitz, Dec. 13 (De Wette, I. 194).

   [203] "Ego nolo amplius cum hac bestia loqui. Habet enim profundos
   oculos et mirabiles speculationes in capite suo." This characteristic
   dictum is not reported by Luther, but by Myconius, Hist. Ref. p. 73.
   Comp. Loescher, II. 477. The national antipathy between the Germans and
   the Italians often appears in the transactions with Rome, and continues
   to this day. Monsignor Eugenio Cecconi, Archbishop of Florence, in his
   tract Martino Lutero, Firenze, 1883, says: "Lutero non amava gi'
   italiani, e gl' italiani non hanno mai avuto ne stima ne amore per
   quest' uomo. Il nostro popolo, col suo naturale criterio, lo ha
   giudicato da un pezzo." He declared the proposal to celebrate Luther's
   fourth centennial at Florence to be an act of insanity.

   [204] In Bavaria; not Mannheim, as Kahnis (I. 228) has it.

   [205] "Dr. Staupitz" (says Luther, In his Table-Talk) "hatte mir ein
   Pferd verschafft und gab mir den Rath, einen alten Ausreuter zu nehmen,
   der die Wege wuesste, und half mir Langemantel (Rathsherr) des Nachts
   durch ein klein Pfoertlein der Stadt. Da eilte ich ohne Hosen, Stiefel,
   Sporn, und Schwert, und kam his gen Wittenberg. Den ersten Tag ritt ich
   acht (German) Meilen und wie ich des Abends in die Herberge kam, war
   ich so muede, stieg, im Stalle ab, konnte nicht stehen, fiel stracks in
   die Streu."

   [206] Letter to Spalatin, Nov. 25 and Dec. 2. De Wette, 1. 188 sqq.

   [207] "Mittam ad te nugas meas, ut videas, an recte divinem
   Antichristum illum verum juxta Paulum in Romana curia regnare: pejorem
   Turcis esse hodie, puto me demonstrare posse." DeWette, I. 193.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 36. Luther and Miltitz. January, 1519.

   Loescher, II. 552-569; III. 6-21, 820-847. Luther's Werke, Walch, XV.
   308 sqq.; Weimar ed., II. 66 sqq. Letters in De Wette: I. 207 sqq., 233
   sqq.

   Joh. K. Seidemann: Karl Von Miltitz .... Eine chronol. Untersuchung.
   Dresden, 1844 (pp. 37). The respective sections in Marheineke, Kahnis
   (I. 235 sqq.), and Koestlin (I. 238 sqq. and 281 sqq.).

   Before the final decision, another attempt was made to silence Luther
   by inducing him to revoke his heresies. Diplomacy sometimes interrupts
   the natural development of principles and the irresistible logic of
   events, but only for a short season. It usually resorts to compromises
   which satisfy neither party, and are cast aside. Principles must work
   themselves out.

   Pope Leo sent his nuncio and chamberlain, Karl von Miltitz, a noble
   Saxon by birth, and a plausible, convivial gentleman, [208] to the
   Elector Frederick with the rare present of a golden rose, and
   authorized him to negotiate with Luther. He provided him with a number
   of the highest recommendations to civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries.

   Miltitz discovered on his journey a wide-spread and growing sympathy
   with Luther. He found three Germans on his side, especially in the
   North, to one against him. He heard bad reports about Tetzel, and
   summoned him; but Tetzel was afraid to travel, and died a few months
   afterwards (Aug. 7, 1519), partly, perhaps, in consequence of the
   severe censure from the papal delegate. Luther wrote to his opponent a
   letter of comfort, which is no more extant. Unmeasured as he could be
   in personal abuse, he harbored no malice or revenge in his heart. [209]

   Miltitz held a conference with Luther in the house of Spalatin at
   Altenburg, Jan. 6, 1519. He was exceedingly polite and friendly; he
   deplored the offence and scandal of the Theses-controversy, and threw a
   great part of the blame on poor Tetzel; he used all his powers of
   persuasion, and entreated him with tears not to divide the unity of the
   holy Catholic Church.

   They agreed that the matter should be settled by a German bishop
   instead of going to Rome, and that in the mean time both parties were
   to keep silence. Luther promised to ask the pardon of the Pope, and to
   warn the people against the sin of separating from the holy
   mother-church. After this agreement they partook of a social supper,
   and parted with a kiss. Miltitz must have felt very proud of his
   masterpiece of ecclesiastical diplomacy.

   Luther complied with his promises in a way which seems irreconcilable
   with his honest convictions and subse-quent conduct. But we must
   remember the deep conflicts of his mind, the awful responsibility of
   his undertaking, the critical character of the situation. Well might he
   pause for a while, and shrink back from the idea of a separation from
   the church of his fathers, so intimately connected with his religious
   life as well as with the whole history of Christianity for fifteen
   hundred years. He had to break a new path which became so easy for
   others. We must all the more admire his conscientiousness.

   In his letter to the Pope, dated March 3, 1519, he expressed the
   deepest personal humility, and denied that he ever intended to injure
   the Roman Church, which was over every other power in heaven and on
   earth, save only Jesus Christ the Lord over all. Yet he repudiated the
   idea of retracting his conscientious convictions.

   In his address to the people, he allowed the value of indulgences, but
   only as a recompense for the "satisfaction" given by, the sinner, and
   urged the duty of adhering, notwithstanding her faults and sins, to the
   holy Roman Church, where St. Peter and St. Paul, and many Popes and
   thousands of martyrs, had shed their blood.

   At the same time, Luther continued the careful study of history, and
   could find no trace of popery and its extraordinary claims in the first
   centuries before the Council of Nicaea. He discovered that the Papal
   Decretals, and the Donation of Constantine, were a forgery. He wrote to
   Spalatin, March 13, 1519, "I know not whether tho Pope is anti-christ
   himself, or his apostle; so wretchedly is Christ, that is the truth,
   corrupted and crucified by him in the Decretals." [210]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [208] He was charged with intemperance, and is reported to have fallen
   from the boat in crossing the Rhine or the Main near Mainz in a state
   of intoxication, a. 1529. See the reports in Seidemann, l.c. p. 33 sqq.

   [209] He speaks generously of Tetzel in a letter to Spalatin, Feb. 12,
   1519 (De Wette, I. 223): "Doleo Tetzelium et salutem suam in eam
   necessitatem venisse ... multo mallem, si posset, servari cum honore,"
   etc.

   [210] De Wette, I. 239.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 37. The Leipzig Disputation. June 27-July 15, 1519.

   I. Loescher, III. 203-819. Luther's Works, Walch, XV. 954 sqq.; Weim.
   ed. II. 153-435 (see the literary notices of Knaake, p. 156). Luther's
   letters to Spalatin and the Elector, in De Wette:, I. 284-324.

   II. Joh. K. Seidemann: Die Leipziger Disputation im Jahre 1519. Dresden
   and Leipzig, 1843 (pp. 161). With important documents (pp. 93 sqq.) The
   best book on the subject. Monographs on Carlstadt by Jaeger (Stuttgart,
   1856), on Eck by Wiedemann (Regensburg, 1865), and the relevant
   sections in Marheineke, Kahnis (I. 251-285), Koestlin, Kolde, and the
   general histories of the Reformation. The account by Ranke (I. 277-285)
   is very good. On the Roman side, see Janssen, II. 83-88 (incomplete).

   The agreement between Miltitz and Luther was only a short truce. The
   Reformation was too deeply rooted in the wants of the age to be
   suppressed by the diplomacy of ecclesiastical politicians. Even if the
   movement had been arrested in one place, it would have broken out in
   another; indeed, it had already begun independently in Switzerland.
   Luther was no more his own master, but the organ of a higher power.
   "Man proposes, God disposes."

   Before the controversy could be settled by a German bishop, it was
   revived, not without a violation of promise on both sides, [211] in the
   disputation held in the large hall of the Castle of Pleissenburg at
   Leipzig, under the sanction of Duke George of Saxony, between Eck,
   Carlstadt, and Luther, on the doctrines of the papal primacy,
   free-will, good works, purgatory, and indulgences. It was one of the
   great intellectual battles; it lasted nearly three weeks, and excited
   universal attention in that deeply religious and theological age. The
   vital doctrines of salvation were at stake. The debate was in Latin,
   but Luther broke out occasionally in his more vigorous German.

   The disputation began with the solemnities of a mass, a procession, an
   oration of Peter Mosellanus, De ratione disputandi, and the singing of
   Veni, Creator Spiritus. It ended with a eulogistic oration by the
   Leipzig professor John Lange, and the Te Deum.

   The first act was the disputation between Eck and Carlstadt, on the
   freedom of the human will, which the former maintained, and the latter
   denied. The second and more important act began July 4, between Eck and
   Luther, chiefly on the subject of the papacy.

   Dr. Eck (Johann Mair), professor of theology at Ingolstadt in Bavaria,
   was the champion of Romanism, a man of great learning, well-stored
   memory, dialectical skill, ready speech, and stentorian voice, but
   overconfident, conceited, and boisterous. He looked more like a butcher
   or soldier than a theologian. Many regarded him as a mere charlatan,
   and expressed their contempt for his audacity and vanity by the
   nicknames Keck (pert) and Geck (fop), which date from this dispute.
   [212]

   Carlstadt (Andreas von Bodenstein), Luther's impetuous and ill-balanced
   friend and colleague, was an unfortunate debater. [213] He had a poor
   memory, depended on his notes, got embarrassed and confused, and
   furnished an easy victory to Eck. It was ominous, that, on entering
   Leipzig, his wagon broke down, and he fell into the mud.

   Luther was inferior to Eck in historical learning and flowing Latinity,
   but surpassed him in knowledge of the Bible, independent judgment,
   originality, and depth of thought, and had the law of progress on his
   side. While Eck looked to the fathers, Luther went back to the
   grandfathers; he ascended from the stream of church history to the
   fountain of God's Word; yet from the normative beginning of the
   apostolic age he looked hopefully into the future. Though pale and
   emaciated, he was cheerful, wore a little silver ring, and carried a
   bunch of flowers in his hand. Peter Mosellanus, a famous Latinist, who
   presided over the disputation, thus describes his personal appearance
   at that time: [214] --

   "Luther is of middle stature; his body thin, and so wasted by care and
   study that nearly all his bones may be counted. [215] He is in the
   prime of life. His voice is clear and melodious. His learning, and his
   knowledge of Scripture are so extraordinary that he has nearly every
   thing at his fingers' ends. Greek and Hebrew he understands
   sufficiently well to give his judgment on interpretations. For
   conversation, he has a rich store of subjects at his command; a vast
   forest (silva ingens) of thoughts and words is at his disposal. He is
   polite and clever. There is nothing stoical, nothing supercilious,
   about him; and he understands how to adapt himself to different persons
   and times. In society he is lively and agreeable. He is always fresh,
   cheerful, and at his ease, and has a pleasant countenance, however hard
   his enemies may threaten him, so that one cannot but believe that
   Heaven is with him in his great undertaking. [216] Most people,
   however, reproach him with want of moderation in polemics, and with
   being rather imprudent and more cutting than befits a theologian and a
   reformer."

   The chief interest in the disputation turned on the subject of the
   authority of the Pope and the infallibility of the Church. Eck
   maintained that the Pope is the successor of Peter, and the vicar of
   Christ by divine right; Luther, that this claim is contrary to the
   Scriptures, to the ancient church, to the Council of Nicaea,--the most
   sacred of all Councils,--and rests only on the frigid decrees of the
   Roman pontiffs.

   But during the debate he changed his opinion on the authority of
   Councils, and thereby injured his cause in the estimation of the
   audience. Being charged by Eck with holding the heresy of Hus, he at
   first repudiated him and all schismatic tendencies; but on mature
   reflection he declared that Hus held some scriptural truths, and was
   unjustly condemned and burnt by the Council of Constance; that a
   general council as well as a Pope may err, and had no right to impose
   any article of faith not founded in the Scriptures. When Duke George, a
   sturdy upholder of the Catholic creed, heard Luther express sympathy
   with the Bohemian heresy, he shook his head, and, putting both arms in
   his sides, exclaimed, so that it could be heard throughout the hall, "A
   plague upon it!" [217]

   From this time dates Luther's connection with the Bohemian Brethren.

   Luther concluded his argument with these words: "I am sorry that the
   learned doctor only dips into the Scripture as the water-spider into
   the water-nay, that he seems to flee from it as the Devil from the
   Cross. I prefer, with all deference to the Fathers, the authority of
   the Scripture, which I herewith recommend to the arbiters of our
   cause."

   Both parties, as usual, claimed the victory. Eck was rewarded with
   honors and favors by Duke George, and followed up his fancied triumph
   by efforts to ruin Luther, and to gain a cardinal's hat; but he was
   also severely attacked and ridiculed, especially by Willibald
   Pirkheimer, the famous humanist and patrician of Nuernberg, in his
   stinging satire, "The Polished Corner." [218] The theological faculties
   of Cologne, Louvain, and afterwards (1521) also that of Paris,
   condemned the Reformer.

   Luther himself was greatly dissatisfied, and regarded the disputation
   as a mere waste of time. He made, however, a deep impression upon
   younger men, and many students left Leipzig for Wittenberg. After all,
   he was more benefited by the disputation and the controversies growing
   out of it, than his opponents.

   The importance of this theological tournament lies in this: that it
   marks a progress in Luther's emancipation from the papal system. Here
   for the first time he denied the divine right and origin of the papacy,
   and the infallibility of a general council. Henceforward he had nothing
   left but the divine Scriptures, his private judgment, and his faith in
   God who guides the course of history by his own Spirit, through all
   obstructions by human errors, to a glorious end. The ship of the
   Reformation was cut from its moorings, and had to fight with the winds
   and waves of the open sea.

   From this time Luther entered upon a revolutionary crusade against the
   Roman Church until the anarchical dissensions in his own party drove
   him back into a conservative and even reactionary position.

   Before we proceed with the development of the Reformation, we must make
   the acquaintance of Melanchthon, who had accompanied Luther to the
   Leipzig disputation as a spectator, suggesting to him and Carlstadt
   occasional arguments, [219] and hereafter stood by him as his faithful
   colleague and friend.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [211] Eck was the chief originator of the disputation, and not Luther
   (as Janssen endeavors to show). Seidemann, who gives a full and
   authentic account of the preliminary correspondence, says (p. 21): "Es
   ist entschieden, dass Eck die Disputation antrug, und zwar zunaechst
   nur mit Karlstadt. Aber auch Luther's Absehen war auf eine Disputation
   gerichtet."

   [212] As he complained twenty years later: see Seidemann, p. 80.

   [213] Luther calls him an infelicissimus disputator.

   [214] In a letter to Julius Pflug, a young Saxon nobleman. Mosellanus
   describes also Carlstadt and Eck, and the whole disputation. See
   Loescher, III. 242-251 (especially p. 247); Walch, XV. 1422; Seidemann,
   51 and 56. I find the description also in an appendix to Melanchthon's
   Vita Lutheri, Goettingen, 1741, pp. 32-44.

   [215] "Ut omnia pene ossa liceat dinumerare." But in later years Luther
   grew stout and fleshy.

   [216] "Ut haud facile credas, hominem tam ardua sine numine Divum
   moliri."

   [217] "Das walt' die Sucht!"

   [218] "Der algehobelte Eck." The book appeared first anonymously in
   Latin, Eccius dedolatus, at Erfurt, March, 1520. Hagen, in his Der
   Geist der Reformation (Erlangen, 1843), I. p. 60 sqq., gives a good
   summary of this witty book. Luther sent it to Spalatin, March 2, 1520
   (De Wette, I. 426), but expressed his dissatisfaction with this "mode
   of raging against Eck," and preferred an open attack to a "bite from
   behind the fence."

   [219] This excited the anger of Eck, who broke out, "Tace tu, Philippe,
   ac tua studia cura, ne me perturba."
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 38. Philip Melanchthon. Literature (Portrait).

   The best Melanchthon collection is in the Royal Library of Berlin,
   which I have consulted for this list (July, 1886). The third centenary
   of Mel.'s death in 1860, and the erection of his monument in
   Wittenberg, called forth a large number of pamphlets and articles in
   periodicals.

   I. Works of Melanchthon. The first ed. appeared at Basel, 1541, 5 vols.
   fol.; another by Peucer (his son-in-law), Wittenberg, 1562-64, 4 vols.
   fol.; again 1601. Selection of his German works by Koethe. Leipzig,
   1829-30, 6 vols. *Best ed. of Opera omnia (in the "Corpus
   Reformatorum") by Bretschneider and Bindseil. Halle, 1834-60, 28 vols.
   4DEG. The most important vols. for church history are vols. i.-xi. and
   xxi.-xxviii. The last vol. (second part) contains Annates Vitae (pp.
   1-143), and very ample Indices (145-378).

   Add to these: Epistolae, Judicia, Consilia, Testimonia, etc., ed. H. E.
   Bindseil. Halle, 1874. 8DEG. A supplement to the "Corpus Reform."
   Compare also Bindseil's Bibliotheca Melanthoniana. Halis 1868 pp. 28).
   Carl Krause: Melanthoniana, Regesten und Briefe ueber die Beziehungen
   Philipp Mel. zu Anhalt und dessen Fuersten. Zerbst, 1885. pp. 185.

   II. Biographies of Mel. An account of his last days by the Wittenberg
   professors: Brevis narratio exponens quo fine vitam in terris suam
   clauserit D. Phil. Mel. conscripta a professoribus academiae
   Vitebergensis, qui omnibus quae exponuntur interfuerunt. Viteb. 1560.
   4DEG. The same in German. A funeral oration by Heerbrand: Oratio in
   obitum Mel. habita in Academia Tubingensi die decima quinta Maji.
   Vitebergae, 1560. *Joachim Camerarius: Vita Mel. Lips. 1566; and other
   edd., one with notes by Strobel. Halle, 1777; one with preface by
   Neander in the Vitae quatuor Reformatorum. Berlin, 1841.

   Strobel: Melanchthoniana. Altdorf, 1771: Die Ehre Mel. gerettet, 1773;
   and other works. A. H. Niemeyer: Phil. Mel. als Praeceptor Germaniae.
   Halle, 1817. Fr. Aug. Cox: Life of Mel., comprising an account of the
   Reform. Lond. 1815, 2d ed. 1817. G. L. Fr. Delbrueck: Ph. Mel. der
   Glaubenslehrer. Bonn, 1826. Heyd: Mel. und Tuebingen, 1512-18. Tueb.
   1839. *Fr. Galle: Characteristik Melanchth. als Theol. und Entw. seines
   Lehrbegr. Halle, 1840. *Fr. Matthes: Ph. Mel. Sein Leben u. Wirken aus
   den Quellen. Altenb. 1841. 2d ed. 1846. Ledderhose: Phil. Mel. nach
   seinem auesseren u. inneren Leben dargestellt. Heidelberg, 1847
   (English translation by Dr. Krotel. Phila. 1855). By the same: Das
   Leben des Phil. Mel. fuer das Volk. Barmen, 1858. *Mor. Meurer: Phil.
   Mel.'s Leben. Leipzig u. Dresden, 1860. 2d ed. 1869. Heppe: Phil. Mel.
   der Lehrer Deutschlands. Marburg, 1860. *Carl Schmidt: Philipp
   Melanchthons Leben und ausgewaehlte Schriften. Elberfeld, 1861 (in the
   "Reformatoren der Luth. Kirche"). * Herrlinger: Die Theologie Mel.'s in
   ihrer geschichtl. Entwicklung. Gotha, 1879.

   III. Brief sketches, by Neander, in Piper's "Evang.-Kalender" for 1851.
   By Nitzsch, in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer christl. Wissenschaft,"
   1855. Is. Aug. Dorner: Zum dreihundertjaehrigen Gedaechtniss des Todes
   Melanchthons, 1860. Volbeding: Mel. wie er liebte und lebte (Leipz.
   1860.). Kahnis: Rede zum Gedaechtniss Mel.'s (Leipz. 1860). Wohlfahrt:
   Phil. Mel. (Leipzig, 1860). W. Thilo: Mel. im Dienste der heil. Schrift
   (Berlin, 1860). Paul Pressel: Phil. Mel. Ein evang. Lebensbild (Stuttg.
   1860). Festreden zur Erinnerung an den 300 jaehrigen Todestag Phil.
   Mel.'s und bei der Grundsteinlegung zu dessen Denkmal zu Wittenberg,
   herausgeg. von Lommatzch (Wittenb. 1860). Henke: Das Verhaeltniss
   Luthers und Mel. zu einander (Marburg, 1860), and Memoria B. Phil. Mel.
   (Marburg, 1860). Ad. Planck: Mel. Praeceptor Germ. (Noerdlingen, 1860).
   Tollin: Ph. Mel. und Mich. Servet. Eine Quellenstudie (Berlin, 1876).
   Landerer: Mel., in Herzog1 and Herzog2 ix. 471-525, revised by
   Herrlinger. Thiersch: Mel. (Augsburg, 1877, and New York, Am. Tract
   Soc. 1880). Luthardt: Melanchthon's Arbeiten im Gebiete der Moral
   (Leipz. 1884). Wagenmann: Ph. Mel. (in the "Allgem. Deutsche
   Biographie"). Paulsen in "Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts "(Leipz.
   1885. pp. 34 sqq.). Schaff in St. Augustin, Melanchthon, Neander (New
   York and London, 1886. pp. 107-127).

   IV. On Mel.'s Loci, see Strobel: Literaergesch. von Ph. Mel.'s locis
   theologicis. Altdorf and Nuernberg, 1776. Plitt: Melanchthons Loci in
   ihrer Urgestalt. Erlangen, 1864.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 40. Melanchthon's Early Labors.

   Although yet a youth of twenty-one years of age, Melanchthon at once
   gained the esteem and admiration of his colleagues and hearers in
   Wittenberg. He was small of stature, unprepossessing in his outward
   appearance, diffident and timid. But his high and noble forehead, his
   fine blue eyes, full of fire, the intellectual expression of his
   countenance, the courtesy and modesty of his behavior, revealed the
   beauty and strength of his inner man. His learning was undoubted, his
   moral and religious character above suspicion. His introductory
   address, which he delivered four days after his arrival (Aug. 29), on
   "The Improvement of the Studies of Youth," [220] dispelled all fears:
   it contained the programme of his academic teaching, and marks an epoch
   in the history of liberal education in Germany. He desired to lead the
   youth to the sources of knowledge, and by a careful study of the
   languages to furnish the key for the proper understanding of the
   Scriptures, that they might become living members of Christ, and enjoy
   the fruits of His heavenly wisdom. He studied and taught theology, not
   merely for the enrichment of the mind, but also and chiefly for the
   promotion of virtue and piety. [221]

   He at first devoted himself to philological pursuits, and did more than
   any of his contemporaries to revive the study of Greek for the
   promotion of biblical learning and the cause of the Reformation. He
   called the ancient languages the swaddling-clothes of the Christ-child:
   Luther compared them to the sheath of the sword of the Spirit.
   Melanchthon was master of the ancient languages; Luther, master of the
   German. The former, by his co-operation, secured accuracy to the German
   Bible; the latter, idiomatic force and poetic beauty.

   In the year 1519 Melanchthon graduated as Bachelor of Divinity; the
   degree of Doctor he modestly declined. From that time on, he was a
   member of the theological faculty, and delivered also theological
   lectures, especially on exegesis. He taught two or three hours every
   day a variety of topics, including ethics, logic, Greek and Hebrew
   grammar; he explained Homer, Plato, Plutarch, Titus, Matthew, Romans,
   the Psalms. In the latter period of his life he devoted himself
   exclusively to sacred learning. He was never ordained, and never
   ascended the pulpit; but for the benefit of foreign students who were
   ignorant of German, he delivered every Sunday in his lecture-room a
   Latin sermon on the Gospels. He became at once, and continued to be,
   the most popular teacher at Wittenberg. He drew up the statutes of the
   University, which are regarded as a model. By his advice and example
   the higher education in Germany was regulated.

   His fame attracted students from all parts of Christendom, including
   princes, counts, and barons. His lecture-room was crowded to
   overflowing, and he heard occasionally as many as eleven languages at
   his frugal but hospitable table. He received calls to Tuebingen,
   Nuernberg, and Heidelberg, and was also invited to Denmark, France, and
   England; but he preferred remaining in Wittenberg till his death.

   At the urgent request of Luther, who wished to hold him fast, and to
   promote his health and comfort, he married (having no vow of celibacy
   to prevent him) as early as August, 1520, Catharina Krapp, the worthy
   daughter of the burgomaster of Wittenberg, who faithfully shared with
   him the joys and trials of domestic life. He had from her four
   children, and was often seen rocking the cradle with one hand, while
   holding a book in the other. He used to repeat the Apostles' Creed in
   his family three times a day. He esteemed his wife higher than himself.
   She died in 1557 while he was on a journey to the colloquy at Worms:
   when he heard the sad news at Heidelberg, he looked up to heaven, and
   exclaimed, "Farewell! I shall soon follow thee."

   Next to the "Lutherhaus" with the "Luthermuseum," the most interesting
   dwelling in the quaint old town of Wittenberg on the banks of the Elbe
   is the house of Melanchthon in the Collegienstrasse. It is a
   three-story building, and belongs to the Prussian government, King
   Friedrich Wilhelm IV. having bought it from its former owner.
   Melanchthon's study is on the first story; there he died. Behind the
   house is a little garden which was connected with Luther's garden.
   Here, under the shade of the tree, the two Reformers may often have
   exchanged views on the stirring events of the times, and encouraged
   each other in the great conflict. The house bears in German the
   inscription on the outer wall: --


   "Here lived, taught, and died

   Philipp Melanchthon."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [220] De Corrigendis Adolescentium Studiis, in the "Corpus
   Reformatorum," XI. 15 sqq. See Schmidt, l.c. 29 sq.

   [221] He wrote to his friend Camerarius, Jan. 22, 1525 (" Corp. Ref."
   I. 722): "Ego mihi ita conscius sum, non aliam ob causam unquam
   tetheologekenai, nisi ut vitam emendarem."
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 41. Luther and Melanchthon.

   P. Schaff: Luther und Melanchthon, In his "Der Deutsche Kirchenfreund,"
   Mercersburg, Pa., vol. III. (1850), pp. 58-64. E. L. Henke: Das
   Verhaeltniss Luthers und Melanchthons zu einander. Festrede am 19
   April, 1860. Marburg (28 pages). Compare also Doellinger: Die
   Reformation, vol. i. 349 sqq.


   "Wo sich das strenge mit dem Zarten,

   Wo Starkes sich und Mildes paarten,

   Da giebt es einen guten Klang." (Schiller.)

   In great creative epochs of the Church, God associates congenial
   leaders for mutual help and comfort. In the Reformation of the
   sixteenth century, we find Luther and Melanchthon in Germany, Zwingli
   and Oecolampadius, Farel and Viret, Calvin and Beza in Switzerland,
   Craniner, Latimer, and Ridley in England, Knox and Melville in
   Scotland, working together with different gifts, but in the same spirit
   and for the same end. The Methodist revival of the eighteenth century
   was carried on by the co-operation of the two Wesleys and Whitefield;
   and the Anglo-Catholic movement of the nineteenth, by the association
   of Pusey, Newman, and Keble.

   Immediately after his arrival at the Saxon University, on the Elbe,
   Melanchthon entered into an intimate relation with Luther, and became
   his most useful and influential co-laborer. He looked up to his elder
   colleague with the veneration of a son, and was carried away and
   controlled (sometimes against his better judgment) by the fiery genius
   of the Protestant Elijah; while Luther regarded him as his superior in
   learning, and was not ashamed to sit humbly at his feet. He attended
   his exegetical lectures, and published them, without the author's wish
   and knowledge, for the benefit of the Church. Melanchthon declared in
   April, 1520, that "he would rather die than be separated from Luther;"
   and in November of the same year, "Martin's welfare is dearer to me
   than my own life." Luther was captivated by Melanchthon's first
   lecture; he admired his scholarship, loved his character, and wrote
   most enthusiastically about him in confidential letters to Spalatin,
   Reuchlin, Lange, Scheurl, and others, lauding him as a prodigy of
   learning and piety. [222]

   The friendship of these two great and good men is one of the most
   delightful chapters in the religious drama of the sixteenth century. It
   rested on mutual personal esteem and hearty German affection, but
   especially on the consciousness of a providential mission intrusted to
   their united labors. Although somewhat disturbed, at a later period, by
   slight doctrinal differences and occasional ill-humor, [223] it lasted
   to the end; and as they worked together for the same cause, so they now
   rest under the same roof in the castle church at Wittenberg, at whose
   doors Luther had nailed the war-cry of the Reformation.

   Melanchthon descended from South Germany, Luther from North Germany;
   the one from the well-to-do middle classes of citizens and artisans,
   the other from the rough but sturdy peasantry. Melanchthon had a quiet,
   literary preparation for his work: Luther experienced much hardship and
   severe moral conflicts. The former passed to his Protestant conviction
   through the door of classical studies, the latter through the door of
   monastic asceticism; the one was fore-ordained to a professor's chair,
   the other to the leadership of an army of conquest.

   Luther best understood and expressed the difference of temper and
   character; and it is one of his noble traits, that he did not allow it
   to interfere with the esteem and admiration for his younger friend and
   colleague. "I prefer the books of Master Philippus to my own," he wrote
   in 1529. [224] "I am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike.
   I am born to fight against innumerable monsters and devils. I must
   remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles and thorns, and clear the
   wild forests; but Master Philippus comes along softly and gently,
   sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has
   abundantly bestowed upon him."

   Luther was incomparably the stronger man of the two, and differed from
   Melanchthon as the wild mountain torrent differs from the quiet stream
   of the meadow, or as the rushing tempest from the gentle breeze, or, to
   use a scriptural illustration, as the fiery Paul from the contemplative
   John. Luther was a man of war, Melanchthon a man of peace. Luther's
   writings smell of powder; his words are battles; he overwhelms his
   opponents with a roaring cannonade of argument, eloquence, passion, and
   abuse. Melanchthon excels in moderation and amiability, and often
   exercised a happy restraint upon the unmeasured violence of his
   colleague. Once when Luther in his wrath burst out like a thunderstorm,
   Melanchthon quieted him by the line, --


   "Vince animos iramque tuam qui caetera vincis."

   Luther was a creative genius, and pioneer of new paths; Melanchthon, a
   profound scholar of untiring industry. The one was emphatically the man
   for the people, abounding in strong and clear sense, popular eloquence,
   natural wit, genial humor, intrepid courage, and straightforward
   honesty. The other was a quiet, considerate, systematic thinker; a man
   of order, method, and taste, and gained the literary circles for the
   cause of the Reformation. He is the principal founder of a Protestant
   theology, and the author of the Augsburg Confession, the chief symbol
   of the Lutheran Church. He very properly represented the evangelical
   cause in all the theological conferences with the Roman-Catholic party
   at Augsburg, Speier, Worms, Frankfort, Ratisbon, where Luther's
   presence would only have increased the heat of controversy, and widened
   the breach. Luther was unyielding and uncompromising against Romanism
   and Zwinglianism: Melanchthon was always ready for compromise and
   peace, as far as his honest convictions would allow, and sincerely
   labored to restore the broken unity of the Church. He was even willing,
   as his qualified subscription to the Articles of Smalcald shows, to
   admit a certain supremacy of the Pope (jure humano), provided he would
   tolerate the free preaching of the gospel. But Popery and evangelical
   freedom will never agree.

   Luther was the boldest, the most heroic and commanding; Melanchthon,
   the most gentle, pious, and conscientious, of the Reformers.
   Melanchthon had a sensitive and irritable temperament, though under
   good control, and lacked courage; he felt, more keenly and painfully
   than any other, the tremendous responsibility of the great religious
   movement in which he was engaged. He would have made any personal
   sacrifice if he could have removed the confusion and divisions
   attendant upon it. [225] On several occasions he showed, no doubt, too
   much timidity and weakness; but his concessions to the enemy, and his
   disposition to compromise for the sake of peace and unity, proceeded
   always from pure and conscientious motives.

   The two Wittenberg Reformers were brought together by the hand of
   Providence, to supply and complete each other, and by their united
   talents and energies to carry forward the German Reformation, which
   would have assumed a very different character if it had been
   exclusively left in the hands of either of them.

   Without Luther the Reformation would never have taken hold of the
   common people: without Melanchthon it would never have succeeded among
   the scholars of Germany. Without Luther, Melanchthon would have become
   a second Erasmus, though with a profounder interest in religion; and
   the Reformation would have resulted in a liberal theological school,
   instead of giving birth to a Church. However much the humble and
   unostentatious labors and merits of Melanchthon are overshadowed by the
   more striking and brilliant deeds of the heroic Luther, they were, in
   their own way, quite as useful and indispensable. The "still small
   voice" often made friends to Protestantism where the earthquake and
   thunder-storm produced only terror and convulsion.

   Luther is greatest as a Reformer, Melanchthon as a Christian scholar.
   He represents in a rare degree the harmony of humanistic culture with
   biblical theology and piety. In this respect he surpassed all his
   contemporaries, even Erasmus and Reuchlin. He is, moreover, the
   connecting link between contending churches, and a forerunner of
   Christian union and catholicity which will ultimately heal the
   divisions and strifes of Christendom. To him applies the beatitude:
   "Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of
   God."

   The friendship of Luther and Melanchthon drew into its charming circle
   also some other worthy and remarkable residents of Wittenberg,--Lucas
   Cranach the painter, who lent his art to the service of the
   Reformation; Justus Jonas, who came to Wittenberg in 1521 as professor
   and provost of the castle church, translated several writings of Luther
   and Melanchthon into German, and accompanied the former to Worms
   (1521), and on his last journey to Eisleben (1546); and Johann
   Bugenhagen, called Doctor Pomeranus, who moved from Pomerania to
   Wittenberg in 1521 as professor and preacher, and lent the Reformers
   most effective aid in translating the Bible, and organized the
   Reformation in several cities of North Germany and in Denmark.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [222] Lutherus ad Reuchlinum, Dec. 14, 1518: "Philippus noster
   Melanchthon, homo admirabilis, imo pene nihil habens, quod non supra
   hominem sit, familiarissimus tamen et amicissimus mihi." To Billikan he
   wrote in 1523 (De Wette, II. 407): "Den Philippus achte ich nicht
   anders als mich selbst, ausgenomnen in Hinsicht auf seine Gelehrsamkeit
   und die Unbescholtenheit seines Lebens, wodurch er mich, dass ich nicht
   blos sage, uebertrifft." In his humorous way he once invited him (Oct.
   18, 1518) to supper under the address: "Philippo Melanchthoni,
   Schwarzerd, Graeco, Latino, Hebraeo, Germano, nunquam Barbaro." The
   testimonies of Luther on Mel. are collected in the first and last vols.
   of the "Corp. Reform." (especially XXViiib. 9 and 10).

   [223] Melanchthon hints also, in one of his confidential letters, at
   female influence, the gunaikoturannis, as an incidental element in the
   disturbance. Corp. Ref.," III. 398.

   [224] In his preface to Melanchthon's Commentary on Colossians.

   [225] Der Schmerz der Kirchenspaltung ist tief durch seine schuldlose
   Seele gegangen."Hase, Kirchengesch., 11th ed. (1886), p. 372.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 42. Ulrich von Hutten and Luther.

   Boecking's edition of Ulrichi Hutteni equitis Germani Opera. Lips,
   185-1861. 5 vols. with three supplements, 1864-1870. Davie, Friedrich
   Strauss (the author of the Leben Jesu): Gespraeche von Ulrich von
   Hutten, uebersetzt und erlaeutert, Leipz. 1860, and his biography of
   Ulrich von Hutten, 4th ed., Bonn, 1878 (pp. 567). A masterly work by a
   congenial spirit. Compare K. Hagen, Deutschlands liter. und Rel. Verh.
   in Reformationszeitalter, II. 47-60; Ranke, D. Gesch. I. 289-294;
   Janssen, II. 53 sqq. Werckshagen: Luther u. Hutten, 1888.

   While Luther acquired in Melanchthon, the head of the Christian and
   theological wing of the humanists, a permanent and invaluable ally, he
   received also temporary aid and comfort from the pagan and political
   wing of the humanists, and its ablest leader, Ulrich von Hutten.

   This literary Knight and German patriot was descended from an ancient
   but impoverished noble family of Franconia. He was born April 21, 1488,
   and began life, like Erasmus, as an involuntary monk; but he escaped
   from Fulda in his sixteenth year, studied humanities in the
   universities of Erfurt, Cologne, and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, law at
   Pavia and Bologna, traveled extensively, corresponded with the most
   prominent men of letters, was crowned as poet by the Emperor Maximilian
   at Augsburg (1517), and occupied an influential position at the court
   of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz (1517-1520), who had charge of the sale
   of indulgences in Germany.

   He took a lively part in Reuchlin's conflict with the obscurantism of
   the Dominicans of Cologne. [226] He is, next to his friend Crotus of
   Erfurt, the chief author of the Epistolae obscurorum Virorum, that
   barbarous ridicule of barbarism, in which the ignorance, stupidity,
   bigotry, and vulgarity of the monks are exposed by factitious letters
   in their own wretched Latin with such success that they accepted them
   at first as genuine, and bought a number of copies for distribution.
   [227] He vigorously attacked the abuses and corruptions of the Church,
   in Latin and German pamphlets, in poetry and prose, with all the
   weapons of learning, common-sense, wit, and satire. He was, next to
   Luther, the boldest and most effective polemical writer of that period,
   and was called the German Demosthenes on account of his philippics
   against Rome. His Latin is better than Luther's, but his German far
   inferior. In wit and power of ridicule he resembles Lucian; at times he
   reminds one of Voltaire and Heine. He had a burning love of German
   liberty and independence. This was his chief motive for attacking Rome.
   He laid the axe at the root of the tree of tyranny. His motto was,
   "Iacta est alea. Ich hab's gewagt." [228]

   He republished in 1518 the tract of Laurentius Valla on the Donation of
   Constantine, with an embarrassing dedication to Pope Leo X., and
   exposed on German soil that gigantic fraud on which the temporal power
   of the papacy over all Christian Europe was made to rest. But his chief
   and most violent manifesto against Rome is a dialogue which he
   published under the name "Vadiscus, or the Roman Trinity," in April,
   1520, a few months before Luther's "Address to the German Nobility"
   (July) and his "Babylonian Captivity" (October). He here groups his
   experiences in Rome under several triads of what abounds in Rome, of
   what is lacking in Rome, of what is forbidden in Rome, of what one
   brings home from Rome, etc. He puts them into the mouth of a Roman
   consul, Vadiscus, and makes variations on them. Here are some
   specimens: [229] --

   "Three things keep Rome in power: the authority of the Pope, the bones
   of the saints, and the traffic in indulgences.

   "Three things are in Rome without number: strumpets, priests, and
   scribes.

   "Three things abound in Rome: antiquities, poison, and ruins.

   "Three things are banished from Rome: simplicity, temperance, and piety
   (or, in another place: poverty, the ancient discipline, and the
   preaching of the truth).

   "Three things the Romans trade in: Christ, ecclesiastical benefices,
   and women.

   "Three things everybody desires in Rome: short masses, good gold, and a
   luxurious life.

   "Three things are disliked in Rome: a general council, a reformation of
   the clergy, and the fact that the Germans begin to open their eyes.

   "Three things displease the Romans most: the unity of the Christian
   princes, the education of the people, and the discovery of their
   frauds.

   "Three things are most valued in Rome: handsome women, fine horses, and
   papal bulls.

   "Three things are in general use in Rome: luxury of the flesh, splendor
   in dress, and pride of the heart.

   "Three things Rome can never get enough of: money for the episcopal
   pallium, monthly, and annual incomes from vacant benefices. [230]

   "Three things are most praised and yet most rare in Rome. devotion,
   faith and innocence.

   "Three things Rome brings to naught: a good conscience, devotion, and
   the oath.

   "Three things are necessary in Rome to gain a lawsuit: money, letters
   of recommendation, and lies.

   "Three things pilgrims usually bring back from Rome: a soiled
   conscience, a sick stomach, and an empty purse.

   "Three things have kept Germany from getting wisdom: the stupidity of
   the princes, the decay of learning, and the superstition of the people.

   "Three things are feared most in Rome: that the princes get united,
   that the people begin to open their eyes, and that Rome's frauds are
   coming to light.

   "Three things only could set Rome right: the determination of the
   princes, the impatience of the people, and an army of Turks at her
   doors."

   This epigrammatic and pithy form made the dialogue popular and
   effective. Even Luther imitated it when, in his "Babylonian Captivity,"
   he speaks of three walls, and three rods of the Papists. Hutten calls
   the Roman court a sink of iniquity, and says that for centuries no
   genuine successor of Peter had sat on his chair in Rome, but successors
   and imitators of Simon Magus, Nero, Domitian, and Heliogabalus.

   As a remedy for these evils, he advises, not indeed the abolition of
   the papacy, but the withdrawal of all financial support from Germany, a
   reduction of the clerical force, and the permission of clerical
   marriage; by these means, luxury and immorality would at least be
   checked.

   It is characteristic of the church of that age, that Hutten was on
   terms of intimacy with the first prelate of Germany, even while he
   wrote his violent attacks on Rome, and received a salary, and
   afterwards a pension, from him. But he lauded Albrecht to the skies for
   his support of liberal learning. He knew little of, and cared less for,
   doctrinal differences. His policy was to fight the big Pope of Rome
   with the little Pope of Germany, and to make the German emperor,
   princes, and nobles, his allies in shaking off the degrading yoke of
   foreign tyranny. Possibly Albrecht may have indulged in the dream of
   becoming the primate of an independent Catholic Church of Germany.

   Unfortunately, Hutten lacked moral purity, depth, and weight. He was
   Frank, brave, and bold, but full of conceit, a restless adventurer, and
   wild stormer; able to destroy, but unable to build up. In his twentieth
   year he had contracted a disgusting disease which ruined him
   physically, and was used by his Roman opponents to ruin him morally. He
   suffered incredibly from it and from all sorts of quack remedies, for
   ten years, was attacked by it again after his cure, and yet maintained
   the vigor and freshness of his spirit. [231]

   Hutten hailed the Wittenberg movement, though at first only as "a
   quarrel between two hot-headed monks who are shouting and screaming
   against each other" and hoped "that they would eat each other up."
   After the Leipzig disputation, he offered to Luther (first through
   Melanchthon) the aid of his pen and sword, and, in the name of his
   noble friend the Knight Franz von Sickingen, a safe retreat at
   Ebernburg near Kreuznach, where Martin Bucer, Johann Oecolampadius, and
   other fugitives from convents, and sympathizers with reform, found a
   hospitable home. He sent him his books with notes, that he might
   republish them.

   But Luther was cautious. He availed himself of the literary and
   political sympathy, but only as far as his theological and religious
   position allowed. He respected Reuchlin, Erasmus, Crotus, Mutian,
   Pirkheimer, Hutten, and the other humanists, for their learning and
   opposition to monkery and priestcraft; be fully shared the patriotic
   indignation against Romish tyranny: but he missed in them moral
   earnestness, religious depth, and that enthusiasm for the pure gospel
   which was his controlling passion. He aimed at reformation, they at
   illumination. He did not relish the frivolous satire of the Epistolae
   obscurorum virorum; he called them silly, and the author a Hans Wurst
   (Jack Sausage); he would grow indignant, and weep rather than laugh,
   over the obscurantism and secret vices of the monks, though he had as
   keen a sense of the ridiculous as Crotus and Hutten. He deprecated,
   moreover, the resort to physical force in a spiritual warfare, and
   relied on the power of the Word of God, which had founded the Church,
   and which must reform the Church. His letters to Hutten are lost, but
   he wrote to Spalatin (Jan. 16, 1521): "You see what Hutten wants. I
   would not have the gospel defended by violence and murder. In this
   sense I wrote to him. By the Word the world was conquered; by the Word
   the Church was preserved; by the Word she will be restored. Antichrist,
   as he began without violence, will be crushed without violence, by the
   Word."

   Hutten was impatient. He urged matters to a crisis. Sickingen attacked
   the Archbishop and Elector of Trier (Treves) to force the Reformation
   into his territory; but he was defeated, and died of his wounds in the
   hands of his enemies, May 7, 1522. Within one month all his castles
   were captured and mostly burnt by the allied princes; two of his sons
   were banished, a third was made prisoner. Luther saw in this disaster a
   judgment of God, and was confirmed in his aversion to the use of force.
   [232]

   Hutten fled, a poor and sick exile, from Germany to Basel, and hoped to
   find a hospitable reception by Erasmus, his former friend and admirer;
   but he was coldly refused by the cautious scholar, and took bitter
   revenge in an unsparing attack on his character. He then went to
   Zuerich, and was kindly and generously treated by Zwingli, who provided
   him with books and money, and sent him first to the hot bath of
   Pfeffers, and then to a quiet retreat on the island of Ufnau in the
   Lake of Zuerich, under medical care. But he soon died there, of the
   incurable disease of his youth, in August, 1523, in the Prime of life
   (thirty-five years and four months of age), leaving nothing but his pen
   and sword, and the lesson: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my
   Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).

   With Hutten and Sickingen the hope of a political reconstruction of
   Germany through means of the Reformation and physical force was
   destroyed. What the knights failed to accomplish, the peasants could
   still less secure by the general revolt two years later. But
   notwithstanding these checks, the Reformation was bound to succeed with
   spiritual weapons.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [226] Triumphus Capnionis (kapnios = Reuchlin), a poem written in 1514,
   but not published till 1518 under the pseudo-name of Eleutherius
   Byzenus. Works, III. 413-447; Strauss, U. v. H., 155 sq.

   [227] First published 1515 [at Hagenau], and 1517 at Basel; best ed. by
   Boecking, in Hutten's Opera, Suppl. i. Lips. (1864), and commentary in
   Suppl. ii. (1869); an excellent critical analysis by Strauss, l.c. 165
   sqq. He compares them with Don Quixote. The first book of the Epist. is
   chiefly from Crotus, the second chiefly from Hutten. The comic
   impression arises in great part from the barbarous Latinity, and is
   lost in a translation. There is, however, a good German translation by
   Dr. Wilhelm Binder: Briefe von Dunkelmaennern. Stuttgart, 1876. The
   translator says he knew twenty-seven Latin editions, but no
   translation.

   [228] "The die is cast. I have ventured it." An allusion to the
   exclamation of Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon, and marched to Rome.

   [229] Strauss, U. v. H., p. 285 sqq., 289; and his translation, in
   Hutten's Gespr. p. 94 sqq., 114 sqq. I have omitted the interlocutories
   in the dialogue. Vadiscus is Hutten's friend Crotus of Erfurt (also
   Luther's friend); and Ernhold is his friend Arnold Glauberger, with
   whom he had been in Rome.

   [230] Allusion to the papal claims to fill the ecclesiastical vacancies
   which occurred during the long months (January, March, etc.), and to
   receive the annates,i.e, the first year's income from every spiritual
   living worth more than twenty-four ducats per annum. Luther, in his
   Address to the German Nobility, characterizes this papal avarice as
   downright robbery.

   [231] He himself speaks very frankly of his Morbus Gallicus, or Malum
   Franciaeand its horrible effects, without asserting his innocence.
   Strauss discusses it fully with a belief in his guilt, yet pity for his
   sufferings and admiration for his endurance. "Er hatte," he says(U. v.
   H., p. 241),"den Jugendfehler, dessen wir ihn schuldig achten, in einem
   Grade zu buessen, welcher selbst des unerbittlichsten Sittenrichters
   Strenge in Mitleid verwandeln muss .... Man weiss nicht was
   schrecklicher ist, die Beschreibung die uns Hutten von seinem Zustande,
   oder die er uns von den Quaelereien macht, welche von unverstaendigen
   Aerzten als Curen ueber ihn verhaengt wurden."

   [232] E. Muench, Fr. v. Sickingen. Stuttgart, 1827 sqq. 3 vols.
   Strauss, l.c. p. 488. Ullmann, Franz v. Sickingen, Leipzig, 1872.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 43. Luther's Crusade against Popery. 1520.

   After the disputation at Leipzig, Luther lost all hope of a reformation
   from Rome, which was preparing a bull of excommunication.

   Here begins his storm and pressure period, [233] which culminated in
   the burning of the Pope's bull, and the protest at the Diet of Worms.

   Under severe mental anguish he was driven to the conviction that the
   papacy, as it existed in his day, was an anti-christian power, and the
   chief source and support of abuses in the Church. Prierias, Eck, Emser,
   and Alveld defended the most extravagant claims of the papacy with much
   learning, but without any discrimination between fact and fiction.
   Luther learned from the book of Laurentius Valla, as republished by
   Ulrich von Hutten, that the Donation of Constantine, by which this
   emperor conferred on Pope Sylvester and his successors the temporal
   sovereignty not only over the Lateran Palace, but also over Rome,
   Italy, and all the West, was a baseless forgery of the dark ages. He
   saw through the "devilish lies," as he called them, of the Canon law
   and the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. "It must have been a plague sent by
   God," he says (in his "Address to the German Nobility"), "that induced
   so many people to accept such lies, though they are so gross and clumsy
   that one would think a drunken boor could lie more skillfully." Genuine
   Catholic scholars of a later period have exposed with irrefragable
   arguments this falsification of history. His view of the Church
   expanded beyond the limits of the papacy, and took in the Oriental
   Christians, and even such men as Hus, who was burned by an oecumenical
   council for doctrines derived from St. Paul and St. Augustin. Instead
   of confining the Church, like the Romanists, to an external visible
   communion under the Pope, he regarded it now as a spiritual communion
   of all believers under Christ the only Head. All the powers of
   indignation and hatred of Roman oppression and corruption gathered in
   his breast. "I can hardly doubt," he wrote to Spalatin, Feb. 23, 1520,
   "that the Pope is the Antichrist." In the same year, Oct. 11, he went
   so far as to write to Leo X. that the papal dignity was fit only for
   traitors like Judas Iscariot whom God had cast out. [234]

   Luther was much confirmed in his new convictions by Melanchthon, who
   had independently by calm study arrived at the same conclusion. In the
   controversy with Eck, August, 1519, Melanchthon laid down the
   far-reaching principle that the Scriptures are the supreme rule of
   faith, and that we must not explain the Scriptures by the Fathers, but
   explain and judge the Fathers by the Scriptures. He discovered that
   even Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin had often erred in their exegesis. A
   little later (September, 1519), he raised the same charge against the
   Councils, and maintained that a Catholic Christian could not be
   required to believe any thing that was not warranted by the Scriptures.
   He expressed doubts about transubstantiation and the whole fabric of
   the mass. His estimate of the supreme value of the Scriptures,
   especially of Paul, rose higher and higher, and made him stronger and
   bolder in the conflict with mediaeval tradition.

   Thus fortified by the learning of Melanchthon, encouraged by the
   patriotic zeal of Hutten and Sickingen, goaded by the fury of his
   enemies, and impelled, as it were, by a preternatural impulse, Luther
   attacked the papal power as the very stronghold of Satan. Without
   personal ill-will against anybody, he had a burning indignation against
   the system, and transcended all bounds of moderation. [235] He felt the
   inspiration of a prophet, and had the courage of a martyr ready to die
   at any moment for his conviction.

   He issued in rapid succession from July till October, 1520, his three
   most effective reformatory works: the, "Address to the German
   Nobility," the "Babylonian Captivity of the Church," and the, "Freedom
   of a Christian Man." [236] The first two are trumpets of war, and the
   hardest blows ever dealt by human pen to the system of popery; while
   the third is peaceful, and shines like a rainbow above the
   thunderclouds. A strange contrast! Luther was the most conservative of
   radicals, and the most radical of conservatives. He had all the
   violence of a revolutionary orator, and at the same time the pious
   spirit of a contemplative mystic.

   The sixteenth century was the age of practical soteriology. It had to
   settle the relation of man to God, to bring the believer into direct
   communion with Christ, and to secure to him the personal benefits of
   the gospel salvation. What was heretofore regarded as the exclusive
   privilege of the priest was to become the common privilege of every
   Christian. To this end, it was necessary to break down the walls which
   separated the clergy from the laity, and obstructed the approach to
   God. This was most effectually done by Luther's anti-papal writings. On
   the relation of man to God rests the relation of man to his fellow-men;
   this is the sociological problem which forms one of the great tasks of
   the nineteenth century.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [233] Sturm- und Drangperiode is an expressive German phrase.

   [234] In the midst of a Latin letter to Spalatin, from the beginning of
   June, 1520 (De Wette, I. 453), he gives vent to his wrath against
   popery in these German words:"Ich meine, sie sind zu Rom alle toll,
   thoericht, wuethend, unsinnig, Narren, Stock, Stein, Hoelle, und Teufel
   geworden." In the same letter he mentions his intention to publish a
   book"ad Carolum et totius Germaniae nobilitatem adversus Romanae
   curiaetyrannidem et nequitiam."

   [235] See the remarkable passage in his letter to Conrad Pellicanus,
   January or February, 1521 (De Wette, I. 555): "Recte mones modestiae
   me: sentio et ipse, sed compos mei non sum; rapior nescio quo spiritu,
   cum nemini me male velle conscius sim: verum urgent etiam illi
   furiosissime, ut Satanam non satis observem."

   [236] L. Lemme: Die drei grossen Reformationsschriften Luthers vom
   Jahre 1520. Gotha, 1875, 2d ed., 1884. Wace and Bucheim: First
   Principles of the Reformation, London, 1883.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 44. Address to the German Nobility.

   An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation: von des christlichen Standes
   Besserung. In Walch's ed., X. 296 sqq.; Erl. ed., XXI. 274-360; Weimar
   ed., VI. 404. Koestlin (in his shorter biography of Luther, p. 197 New
   York ed.) gives a facsimile of the title-page of the second edition.
   Dr. Karl Benrath of Bonn published a separate ed., with introduction
   and notes, as No. 4 of the "Schriften des Vereins fuer
   Reformationsgeschichte." Halle, 1886 (114 pages).

   "The time for silence is gone, and the time for speaking has come."
   With these words (based on Eccles. 3:7) of the dedicatory preface to
   Amsdorf, Luther introduces his address, to his most Serene and Mighty
   Imperial Majesty, and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,
   respecting a Reformation of the Christian Estate." The preface is dated
   on the Eve of St. John the Baptist (June 23), 1520; the book was
   hastily completed July 20, [237] and before Aug. 18 no less than four
   thousand copies--an enormous number for those days--were published, and
   a new edition called for, besides reprints which soon appeared in
   Leipzig and Strassburg.

   The book is a most stirring appeal to the German nobles, who, through
   Hutten and Sickingen, had recently offered their armed assistance to
   Luther. He calls upon them to take the much-needed Reformation of the
   Church into their own hands; not, indeed, by force of arms, but by
   legal means, in the fear of God, and in reliance upon his strength. The
   bishops and clergy refused to do their duty; hence the laity must come
   to the front of the battle for the purity and liberty of the Church.

   Luther exposes without mercy the tyranny of the Pope, whose government,
   he says, "agrees with the government of the apostles as well as Lucifer
   with Christ, hell with heaven, night with day; and yet he calls himself
   Christ's Vicar, and the Successor of Peter."

   The book is divided into three parts: --

   1. In the first part, Luther pulls down what he calls the three walls
   of Jericho, which the papacy had erected in self-defense against any
   reformation; namely, the exclusion of the laity from all control, the
   exclusive claim to interpret the Scriptures, and the exclusive claim to
   call a Council.

   Under the first head, he brings out clearly and strongly, in opposition
   to priestcraft, the fundamental Protestant principle of the general
   priesthood of all baptized Christians. He attacks the distinction of
   two estates, one spiritual, consisting of Pope, bishops, priests, and
   monks; and one temporal, consisting of princes, lords, artificers, and
   peasants. There is only one body, under Christ the Head. All Christians
   belong to the spiritual estate. Baptism, gospel and faith,--these alone
   make spiritual and Christian people. [238] We are consecrated priests
   by baptism; we are a royal priesthood, kings and priests before God (1
   Pet. 2:9; Rev. 5:10). The only difference, then, between clergy and
   laity, is one of office and function, not of estate.

   Luther represents here the ministerial office as the creature of the
   congregation; while at a later period, warned by democratic excesses,
   and the unfitness of most of the congregations of that age for a
   popular form of government, he laid greater stress upon the importance
   of the ministry as an institution of Christ. This idea of the general
   priesthood necessarily led to the emancipation of the laity from
   priestly control, and their participation in the affairs of the Church,
   although this has been but very imperfectly carried out in Protestant
   state churches. It destroyed the distinction between higher (clerical
   and monastic), and lower morality; it gave sanctity to the natural
   relations, duties, and virtues; it elevated the family as equal in
   dignity to virginity; it promoted general intelligence, and sharpened
   the sense of individual responsibility to the Church. But to the same
   source may be traced also the undue interference of kings, princes, and
   magistrates in ecclesiastical matters, and that degrading dependence of
   many Protestant establishments upon the secular power. Kingcraft and
   priestcraft are two opposite extremes, equally opposed to the spirit of
   Christianity. Luther, and especially Melanchthon, bitterly complained,
   in their later years, of the abuse of the episcopal power assumed by
   the magistrate, and the avarice of princes in the misappropriation of
   ecclesiastical property.

   The principle of the general priesthood of the laity found its
   political and civil counterpart in the American principle of the
   general kingship of men, as expressed in the Declaration of
   Independence, that "all men are born free and equal."

   2. In the second part, Luther chastises the worldly pomp of the Pope
   and the cardinals, their insatiable greed, and exactions under false
   pretenses.

   3. In the third part, he deals with practical suggestions. He urges
   sweeping reforms in twenty-seven articles, to be effected either by the
   civil magistrate, or by a general council of ministers and laymen.

   He recommends the abolition of the annates, of the worldly pomp and
   idolatrous homage paid to the Pope (as kissing his feet), and of his
   whole temporal power, so that he should be hereafter merely a spiritual
   ruler, with no power over the emperor except to anoint and crown him,
   as a bishop crowns a king, as Samuel crowned Saul and David.

   He strongly demands the abrogation of enforced clerical celibacy, which
   destroys instead of promoting chastity, and is the cause of untold
   misery. Clergymen should be allowed to marry, or not to marry,
   according to their gift and sense of duty.

   Masses for the dead should be abolished, since they have become a
   solemn mockery, and devices for getting money, thus exciting the anger
   of God.

   Processions, saints' days, and most of the public festivals, except
   Sunday, should be abrogated, since holy days have become most unholy by
   drinking, gambling, and idling.

   Monasteries should be reduced in number, and converted into schools,
   with freedom to enter and to leave without binding vows.

   Certain punishments of the Canon law should cease, especially the
   interdict which silences God's word and service,--a greater sin than to
   kill twenty Popes at once.

   Fasts should be voluntary and optional; for whilst at Rome they laugh
   at fasts, they let us abroad eat oil which they would not think fit for
   greasing their boots, and then sell us the liberty of eating butter and
   other things; whereas the apostle says that the gospel has given us
   liberty in all such matters (1 Cor. 10:25 sq.).

   He also would forbid all begging in Christendom; each town should
   support its own poor, and not allow strange beggars to come in, whether
   pilgrims or mendicant monks; it is not right that one should work that
   another may be idle, and live ill that another may live well, but "if
   any would not work, neither should he eat" (2 Thess. 3:10).

   He counsels a reduction of the clerical force, and the prohibition of
   pluralities. "As for the fraternities, together with indulgences,
   letters of indulgence, dispensations, masses, and all such things, let
   them all be drowned and abolished."

   He recommends (Art. 24) to do justice to, and make peace with, the
   Bohemians; for Hus and Jerome of Prague were unjustly burnt, in
   violation of the safe-conduct promised by the Pope and the Emperor.
   Heretics should be overcome with books, not with fire; else, the
   hangmen would be the most learned doctors in the world, and there would
   be no need of study."

   In Art. 25, Luther urges a sound reformation of the universities, which
   had become "schools of Greek fashion" and "heathenish manners" (2 Macc.
   4:12, 13), and are, full of dissolute living." He is unjustly severe
   upon Aristotle, whom he calls a "dead, blind, accursed, proud, knavish
   heathen teacher." His logic, rhetoric, and poetic might be, retained;
   but his physics, metaphysics, ethics, and the book "Of the Soul" (which
   teaches that the soul dies with the body) ought to be banished, and the
   study of the languages, mathematics, history, and especially of the
   Holy Scriptures, cultivated instead. "Nothing is more devilishly
   mischievous," he says, "than an unreformed university." He would also
   have the Canon law banished, of which there is "nothing good but the
   name," and which is no better than "waste paper."

   He does not spare national vices. He justly rebukes the extravagance in
   dress, the usury, and especially the intemperance in eating and
   drinking, for which, he says, "we Germans have an ill reputation in
   foreign countries, as our special vice, and which has become so common,
   and gained so much the upper hand, that sermons avail nothing." (His
   frequent protest against the "Saufteufel" of the Germans, as he calls
   their love of drink, is still unheeded. In temperance the Southern
   nations of Europe are far ahead of those of the North.)

   In conclusion, he expresses the expectation that he will be condemned
   upon earth. "My greatest care and fear is, lest my cause be not
   condemned by men; by which I should know for certain that it does not
   please God. Therefore let them freely go to work, Pope, bishop, priest,
   monk, or doctor: they are the true people to persecute the truth, as
   they have always done. May God grant us all a Christian understanding,
   and especially to the Christian nobility of the German nation true
   spiritual courage, to do what is best for our unhappy Church. Amen."

   The book was a firebrand thrown into the headquarters of the papal
   church. It anticipated a reply to the papal bull, and prepared the
   public mind for it. It went right to the heart of the Germans, in their
   own language wielded with a force as never before, and gave increased
   weight to the hundred grievances of long standing against Rome. But it
   alarmed some of his best friends. They condemned or regretted his
   biting severity. [239] Staupitz tried at the eleventh hour to prevent
   the publication, and soon afterwards (Aug. 23, 1520) resigned his
   position as general vicar of the Angustinians, and retired to Salzburg,
   feeling himself unequal to the conflict. John Lange called the book a
   "blast for assault, atrocious and ferocious." Some feared that it might
   lead to a religious war. Melanchthon could not approve the violence,
   but dared not to check the spirit of the new Elijah. Luther defended
   himself by referring to the example of Paul and the prophets: it was
   necessary to be severe in order to get a hearing; he felt sure that he
   was not moved by desire for glory or money or pleasure, and disclaimed
   the intention of stirring up sedition and war; he only wished to clear
   the way for a free general council; he was perhaps the forerunner of
   Master Philippus in fighting Ahab and the prophets of Baal after the
   example of Elijah (1 Kings 18). [240]

   NOTES.

   The following extracts give a fair idea of Luther's polemic against the
   Pope in this remarkable book: --

   "The custom of kissing the Pope's feet must cease. It is an
   un-Christian, or rather an anti-Christian example, that a poor sinful
   man should suffer his feet to be kissed by one who is a hundred times
   better than he. If it is done in honor of his power, why does he not do
   it to others in honor of their holiness? Compare them together: Christ
   and the Pope. Christ washed his disciples' feet, and dried them, and
   the disciples never washed his. The Pope, pretending to be higher than
   Christ, inverts this, and considers it a great favor to let us kiss his
   feet: whereas if any one wished to do so, he ought to do his utmost to
   prevent them, as St. Paul and Barnabas would not suffer themselves to
   be worshiped as gods by the men at Lystra, saying, 'We also are men of
   like passions with you' (Acts 14:14 seq.). But our flatterers have
   brought things to such a pitch, that they have set up an idol for us,
   until no one regards God with such fear, or honors him with such
   reverence, as they do the Pope. This they can suffer, but not that the
   Pope's glory should be diminished a single hairsbreadth. Now, if they
   were Christians, and preferred God's honor to their own, the Pope would
   never be willing to have God's honor despised, and his own exalted; nor
   would he allow any to honor him, until he found that God's honor was
   again exalted above his own.

   "It is of a piece with this revolting pride, that the Pope is not
   satisfied with riding on horseback or in a carriage, but, though he be
   hale and strong, is carried by men like an idol in unheard-of pomp. I
   ask you, how does this Lucifer-like pride agree with the example of
   Christ, who went on foot, as did also all his apostles? Where has there
   been a king who lived in such worldly pomp as he does, who professes to
   be the head of all whose duty it is to despise and flee from all
   worldly pomp--I mean, of all Christians? Not that this need concern us
   for his own sake, but that we have good reason to fear God's wrath, if
   we flatter such pride, and do not show our discontent. It is enough
   that the Pope should be so mad and foolish, but it is too much that we
   should sanction and approve it."

   After enumerating all the abuses to which the Pope and his Canon law
   give sanction, and which he upholds with his usurped authority, Luther
   addresses him in this impassioned style: --

   "Dost thou hear this, O Pope! not the most holy, but the most sinful?
   Would that God would hurl thy chair headlong from heaven, and cast it
   down into the abyss of hell! Who gave you the power to exalt yourself
   above God? to break and to loose what he has commanded? to teach
   Christians, more especially Germans, who are of noble nature, and are
   famed in all histories for uprightness and truth, to be false,
   unfaithful, perjured, treacherous, and wicked? God has commanded to
   keep faith and observe oaths even with enemies: you dare to cancel his
   command, laying it down in your heretical, antichristian decretals,
   that you have power to do so; and through your mouth and your pen Satan
   lies as he never lied before, teaching you to twist and pervert the
   Scriptures according to your own arbitrary will. O Lord Christ! look
   down upon this, let thy day of judgment come and destroy the Devil's
   lair at Rome. Behold him of whom St. Paul spoke (2 Thess. 2:3, 4), that
   he should exalt himself above thee, and sit in thy Church, showing
   himself as God--the man of sin and the child of damnation .... The Pope
   treads God's commandments under foot, and exalts his own: if this is
   not Antichrist, I do not know what it is."

   Janssen (II. 100) calls Luther's "Address to the German Nobility" "das
   eigentliche Kriegsmanifest der Lutherisch-Huttenschen
   Revolutionspartei," and "ein Signal zum gewaltsamen Angriff." But the
   book nowhere counsels war; and in the letter to Link he says expressly:
   "nec hoc a me agitur, ut seditionem moveam, sed ut concilio generali
   libertatem asseram"(De Wette, I. 479). Janssen quotes (p. 103) a very
   vehement passage from Luther's contemporaneous postscript to a book of
   Prierias which he republished (De juridica et irrefragabili veritate
   Romanae Ecclesiae Romanique Pontificis), expressing a wish that the
   Emperor, kings, and princes would make a bloody end to Pope and
   cardinals and the whole rabble of the Romish Sodom. But this extreme
   and isolated passage is set aside by his repeated declarations against
   carnal warfare, and was provoked by the astounding assertions of
   Prierias, the master of the papal palace, that the Pope was the
   infallible judge of all controversies, the head of all spiritual, the
   father of all secular princes, the head of the Church and of the whole
   universe (caput totius orbis universi). Against such blasphemy Luther
   breaks out in these words: "Mihi vero videtur, si sic pergat furor
   Romanistarum, nullum reliquum esse remedium, quam ut imperator, reges
   et principes vi et armis accincti aggrediantur has pestes orbis
   terrarum, remque non jam verbis, sed ferro decernant .... Si fures
   furca, si latrones gladio, si haereticos igne plectimus, cur non magis
   hos magistros perditionis, hos cardinales, hos papas et totam istam
   romanae Sodomae colluviem, quae ecclesiam Dei sine fine corrumpit,
   omnibus armis impetimus, et manus nostras in sanguine eorum lavamus?
   tanquam a communi et omnium periculosissimo incendio nos nostrosque
   liberaturi." Erl. ed., Opera Latina, II. 107. He means a national
   resistance under the guidance of the Emperor and rightful rulers.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [237] On that date he informed Wencislaus Link: "Editur noster libellus
   in Papam de reformanda ecclesia vernaculus, ad universam nobilitatem
   Germaniae, qui summe offensurus est Romam .... Vale, et ora pro me." De
   Wette, I. 470.

   [238] "Was aus der Taufe gekrochen ist, das mag sich ruehmen, dass es
   schon Priester, Bischof, und Papst geweihet sei."

   [239] "Omnes ferme [fere] in me damnant mordacitatem," he says in
   letter to Link, Aug. 19, 1520.

   [240] See his letters to John Lange (Aug. 18, 1520) and to Wenceslaus
   Link (Aug. 19) in De Wette, I. 477-479.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 45. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. October, 1520.

   De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae Praeludium D. Martini Lutheri.
   Wittenb. 1520. Erl. ed. Opera Lat., vol. V. 13-118; German translation
   (Von der Babylonischen Gefaengniss, etc.) by an unknown author, 1520,
   reprinted in Walch, XIX. 5-153, and in 0. v. Gerlach, IV. 65-199; the
   Lat. original again in the Weimar ed., vol. V. An English translation
   by Buchheim in First Principles of the Reformation (London, 1883), pp.
   141-245.

   In closing the "Address to the Nobility," Luther announces: "I have
   another song still to sing concerning Rome. If they wish to hear it, I
   will sing it to them, and sing with all my might. Do you understand, my
   friend Rome, what I mean?"

   This new song, or second war-trumpet, was the book on the, "Babylonian
   Captivity of the Church," published in the beginning of October, 1520.
   [241] He calls it a "prelude," as if the real battle were yet to come.
   He intended it for scholars and the clergy, and therefore wrote in
   Latin. It is a polemical, theological work of far-reaching
   consequences, cutting one of the roots of Romanism, and looking towards
   a new type of Christian life and worship. He attacks the sacramental
   system of the Roman Church, by which she accompanies and controls the
   life of the Christian from the cradle to the grave, and brings every
   important act and event under the power of the priest. This system he
   represents as a captivity, and Rome as the modern Babylon. Yet he was
   very far from undervaluing the importance and benefit of the sacrament;
   and as far as the doctrine of baptism and the eucharist is concerned,
   he agreed better with the Catholic than with the Zwinglian view.

   Luther begins by thanking his Romish opponents for promoting his
   theological education. "Two years ago," he says, "I wrote about
   indulgences when I was still involved in superstitious respect for the
   tyranny of Rome; but now I have learned, by the kind aid of Prierias
   and the friars, that indulgences are nothing but wicked devices of the
   flatterers of Rome. Afterwards Eck and Emser instructed me concerning
   the primacy of the Pope. While I denied the divine right, I still
   admitted the human right; but after reading the super-subtle subtilties
   of those coxcombs in defense of their idol, I became convinced that the
   papacy is the kingdom of Babylon and the power of Nimrod the mighty
   hunter. Now a learned professor of Leipzig writes against me on the
   sacrament in both kinds, and is about to do still greater wonders.
   [242] He says that it was neither commanded nor decreed, whether by
   Christ or the apostles, that both kinds should be administered to the
   laity."

   1. Luther first discusses the sacrament of the Holy Communion, and
   opposes three errors as a threefold bondage; namely, the withdrawal of
   the cup from the laity, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the
   sacrifice of the mass.

   (a) As regards the withdrawal of the cup, he refutes the flimsy
   arguments of Alveld, and proves from the accounts of Matthew, Mark,
   Luke, and Paul, that the whole sacrament was intended for the laity as
   well as the clergy, according to the command, "Drink ye all of this."
   Each writer attaches the mark of universality to the cup, not to the
   bread, as if the Spirit foresaw the (Bohemian) schism. The blood of
   Christ was shed for all for the remission of sins. If the laymen have
   the thing, why should they be refused the sign which is much less than
   the thing itself? The Church has no more right to take away the cup
   from the laity than the bread. The Romanists are the heretics and
   schismatics in this case, and not the Bohemians and the Greeks who take
   their stand on the manifest teaching of the Word of God. "I conclude,
   then, that to deny reception in both kinds to the laity is an act of
   impiety and tyranny, and one not in the power of any angel, much less
   of any Pope or council whatsoever." ... "The sacrament does not belong
   to the priests, but to all; nor are the priests lords, but servants,
   whose duty it is to give both kinds to those who seek them, as often as
   they seek them." ... "Since the Bishop of Rome has ceased to be a
   bishop, and has become a tyrant, I fear absolutely none of his decrees;
   for I know that neither he, nor even a general council, has authority
   to establish new articles of faith."

   (b) The doctrine of transubstantiation is a milder bondage, and might
   be held alongside with the other and more natural view of the real
   presence, which leaves the elements unchanged. It is well known that
   Luther was to the end of life a firm believer in the real presence, and
   oral manducation of the very body and blood of Christ by unworthy as
   well as worthy communicants (of course, with opposite effects). He
   denied a miraculous change of the substance of the elements, but
   maintained the co-existence of the body and blood in, with, and under
   bread and wine, both being real, the one invisible and the other
   visible. [243] In this book he claims toleration for both theories,
   with a personal preference for the latter. "Christians are at liberty,
   without peril to their salvation, to imagine, think, or believe in
   either of the two ways, since here there is no necessity of faith." ...
   "I will not listen to those, or make the slightest account of them, who
   will cry out that this doctrine is Wiclifite, Hussite, heretical, and
   opposed to the decisions of the Church." The Scripture does not say
   that the elements are transubstantiated: Paul calls them real bread and
   real wine, just as the cup was real. Moreover, Christ speaks
   (figuratively), "This cup is the new covenant in my blood," meaning his
   blood contained in the cup. Transubstantiation is a scholastic or
   Aristotelian figment of the twelfth century. [244] "Why should Christ
   not be able to include his body within the substance of bread, as well
   as within the accidents? Fire and iron, two different substances, are
   so mingled in red-hot iron, that in every part of it are both fire and
   iron. Why may not the glorious body of Christ much more be in every
   part of the substance of the bread?" Common people do not understand
   the difference between substance and accidents, nor argue about it, but
   "believe with simple faith that the body and blood of Christ are truly
   contained in the elements." So also the incarnation does not require a
   transubstantiation of the human nature, that so the Godhead may be
   contained beneath the accidents of the human nature; "but each nature
   is entire, and we can say with truth, This man is God; this God is
   man."

   (c) The sacrifice of the mass: that is, the offering to God of the very
   body and blood of Christ by the hands of the priest when he pronounces
   the words of institution; in other words, an actual repetition of the
   atoning sacrifice of the cross, only in an unbloody manner. This
   institution is the very heart of Roman-Catholic (and Greek-Catholic)
   worship. Luther attacks it as the third bondage, and the most impious
   of all. He feels the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of a task
   which involves an entire revolution of public worship. "At this day,"
   he says, "there is no belief in the Church more generally received, or
   more firmly held, than that the mass is a good work and a sacrifice.
   This abuse has brought in an infinite flood of other abuses, until
   faith in the sacrament has been utterly lost, and they have made this
   divine sacrament a mere subject of traffic, huckstering, and
   money-getting contracts; and the entire maintenance of priests and
   monks depends upon these things." He goes back to the simplicity of the
   primitive institution of the Lord's Supper, which is a thankful
   commemoration of the atoning death of Christ, with a blessing attached
   to it, namely, the forgiveness of sins, to be appropriated by faith.
   The substance of this sacrament is promise and faith. It is a gift of
   God to man, not a gift of man to God. It is, like baptism, to be
   received, and not to be given. The Romanists have changed it into a
   good work of man and an opus operatum, by which they imagine to please
   God; and have surrounded it with so many prayers, signs, vestments,
   gestures, and ceremonies, that the original meaning is obscured. "They
   make God no longer the bestower of good gifts on us, but the receiver
   of ours. Alas for such impiety!" He proves from the ancient Church that
   the offering of the eucharist, as the name indicates, was originally a
   thank-offering of the gifts of the communicants for the benefit of the
   poor. The true sacrifice which we are to offer to God is our thanks,
   our possessions, and our whole person. He also objects to the use of
   the Latin language in the mass, and demands the vernacular.

   2. The sacrament of Baptism. Luther thanks God that this sacrament has
   been preserved uninjured, and kept from "the foul and impious
   monstrosities of avarice and superstition." He agrees essentially with
   the Roman doctrine, and considers baptism as a means of regeneration;
   while Zwingli and Calvin regarded it merely as a sign and seal of
   preceding regeneration and church-membership. He even makes more of it
   than the Romanists, and opposes the prevailing view of St. Jerome, that
   penitence is a second plank of refuge after shipwreck. Instead of
   relying on priestly absolution, it is better to go back to the
   remission of sins secured in baptism. "When we rise out of our sins,
   and exercise penitence, we are simply reverting to the efficacy of
   baptism and to faith in it, whence we had fallen; and we return to the
   promise then made to us, but which we had abandoned through our sin.
   For the truth of the promise once made always abides, and is ready to
   stretch out the hand and receive us when we return."

   As to the mode of baptism, he gives here, as elsewhere, his preference
   to immersion, which then still prevailed in England and in some parts
   of the Continent, and which was not a point of dispute either between
   Romanists and Protestants, or between Protestants and Anabaptists;
   while on the question of infant-baptism the Anabaptists differed from
   both. "Baptism," he says, "is that dipping into water whence it takes
   its name. For, in Greek to baptize signifies to dip, and baptism is a
   dipping." "Baptism signifies two things,--death and resurrection; that
   is, full and complete justification. When the minister dips the child
   into the water, this signifies death; when he draws him out again, this
   signifies life. Thus Paul explains the matter (Rom. 6:4) .... I could
   wish that the baptized should be totally immersed, according to the
   meaning of the word and the signification of the mystery; not that I
   think it necessary to do so, but that it would be well that so complete
   and perfect a thing as baptism should also be completely and perfectly
   expressed in the sign."

   Luther's view of baptismal regeneration seems to be inconsistent with
   his chief doctrine of justification by faith alone. He says, "It is not
   baptism which justifies any man, or is of any advantage; but faith in
   that word of promise to which baptism is added: for this justifies and
   fulfills the meaning of baptism. For faith is the submerging of the old
   man, and the emerging of the new man." But how does this apply to
   baptized infants, who can not be said to have faith in any proper sense
   of the term, though they have undoubtedly the capacity of faith? Luther
   here brings in the vicarious faith of the parents or the Church. But he
   suggests also the idea that faith is produced in the children, through
   baptism, on the ground of their religious receptivity.

   3. Lastly, Luther attacks the traditional number of the sacraments. He
   allows "only two sacraments in the Church of God, Baptism and Bread;
   since it is in these alone that we see both a sign divinely instituted,
   and a promise of remission of sins." In some sense he retains also the
   sacrament of Penance, as a way and means of return to baptism.

   The rest of the seven Roman sacraments--confirmation, marriage,
   ordination, and extreme unction--he rejects because they can not be
   proved from Scripture, and are not commanded by Christ.

   Matrimony has existed from the beginning of the world, and belongs to
   all mankind. Why, then, should it be called a sacrament? Paul calls it
   a "mystery," but not a sacrament, as translated in the Vulgate (Ep.
   5:32); or rather he speaks there of the union of Christ and the Church,
   which is reflected in matrimony as in a sort of allegory. But the Pope
   has restricted this universal human institution by rigorous impediments
   derived from spiritual affinity and legal relationship. He forbids it
   to the clergy, and claims the power to annull rightful marriages, even
   against the will of one of the parties. "Learn, then, in this one
   matter of matrimony, into what an unhappy and hopeless state of
   confusion, hindrance, entanglement, and peril all things that are done
   in the Church have been brought by the pestilent and impious traditions
   of men! There is no hope of a remedy, unless we do away with all the
   laws of men, call back the gospel of liberty, and judge and rule all
   things according to it alone."

   Luther closes with these words: "I hear a report that fresh bulls and
   papal curses are being, prepared against me, by which I am urged to
   recant, or else to be declared a heretic. If this is true, I wish this
   little book to be a part of my future recantation, that they may not
   complain that their tyranny has puffed itself up in vain. I shall also
   shortly publish, Christ being my helper, such a recantation as the See
   of Rome has never yet seen or heard, thus abundantly testifying my
   obedience in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. [245] Amen.


   " 'Hostis Herodes impie,

   Christum venire quid times?

   Non arripit mortalia

   Qui regna dat coelestia.' "
     __________________________________________________________________

   [241] On Oct. 3, 1520, Luther wrote to Spalatin: "Liber de captivitate
   Ecclesiae sabbato exibit, et ad te mittetur." (De Wette, I 491.)

   [242] He means Alveld's Tractatus de communione sub utraque specie
   quantum ad laicos, 1520. He contemptuously omits his name.

   [243] This view is usually called consubstantiation; but Lutherans
   object to the term in the sense ofimpanation, or local inclusion,
   mixture, and circumscription. They mean an illocal presence of a
   ubiquitous body.

   [244] This is not strictly historical. Transubstantiation was clearly
   taught by Paschasius Radbertus in the ninth century, though not without
   contradiction from Ratramnus. See Schaff,Ch. Hist., vol. IV. 544 sqq.

   [245] Perhaps he means the burning of the Pope's bull, rather than, as
   O. v. Gerlach conjectures, the appendix to his later book against
   Ambrosius Catharinus, in which he tries to prove that the Pope is the
   Antichrist predicted by Dan. viii. 23-25.
     __________________________________________________________________

   S: 46. Christian Freedom.--Luther's Last Letter to the Pope. October,
   1520.

   Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, Wittenberg, 1520; often
   reprinted separately, and in the collected works of Luther. See Walch,
   XIX. 1206 sqq.; Erl. ed., XXVII. 173-200 (from the first ed.);
   Gerlach's ed. V. 5-46. The Latin edition, De Libertate Christiana, was
   finished a little later, and has some additions; see Erl. ed. Opera
   Lat., IV. 206-255. Luther's letter to the Pope in Latin and German is
   printed also in De Wette, I. 497-515. English version of the tract and
   the letter by Buchheim, l.c. 95-137.

   Although Rome had already condemned Luther, the papal delegate Miltitz
   still entertained the hope of a peaceful settlement. He had extracted
   from Luther the promise to write to the Pope. He had a final interview
   with him and Melanchthon at Lichtenberg (now Lichtenburg, in the
   district of Torgau), in the convent of St. Antony, Oct. 11, 1520, a few
   days after Luther had seen the bull of excommunication. It was agreed
   that Luther should write a book, and a letter in Latin and German to
   Leo X., and assure him that he had never attacked his person, and that
   Dr. Eck was responsible for the whole trouble. The book was to be
   finished in twelve days, but. dated back to Sept. 6 in order to avoid
   the appearance of being occasioned by the Pope's bull.

   This is the origin of two of the most remarkable productions of
   Luther,--his little book on "Christian Freedom," and a dedicatory
   letter to Leo X.

   The beautiful tract on "Christian Freedom" is a pearl among Luther's
   writings. It presents a striking contrast to his polemic treatises
   against Rome, which were intended to break down the tyranny of popery.
   And yet it is a positive complement to them, and quite as necessary for
   a full understanding of his position. While opposing the Pope's
   tyranny, Luther was far from advocating the opposite extreme of
   license. He was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Epistle to the
   Galatians, which protests against both extremes, and inspired the
   keynote to Luther's Tract. He shows wherein true liberty consists. He
   means liberty according to the gospel; liberty in Christ, not from
   Christ; and offers this as a basis for reconciliation. He presents here
   a popular summary of Christian life. He keeps free from all polemics,
   and writes in the best spirit of that practical mysticism which
   connected him with Staupitz and Tauler.

   The leading idea is: The Christian is the lord of all, and subject to
   none, by virtue of faith; he is the servant of all, and subject to
   every one, by virtue of love. Faith and love constitute the Christian:
   the one binds him to God, the other to his fellow-man. The idea is
   derived from St. Paul, who says, "Though I was free from all men, I
   brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more" (1
   Cor. 9:19); and "Owe no man any thing, save to love one another" (Rom.
   13:8). It was carried out by Christ, who was Lord of all things, yet
   born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem them who were
   under the law (Gal. 4:4); who was at once in the form of God, and in
   the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6, 7). The Christian life is an
   imitation of the' life of Christ,--a favorite idea of the mediaeval
   mystics.

   Man is made free by faith, which alone justifies; but it manifests
   itself in love, and all good works. The person must first be good
   before good works can be done, and good works proceed from a good
   person; as Christ says, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
   neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Matt. 7:18). The
   fruit does not bear the tree, nor does the tr