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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Bought with the income
of the
PRESIDENT NAPHTALI DAGGETT
FUND

London :
Printed by Spottiswoode & Co.,
New-street-Square.

THE

LIFE OF LUTHER,
IN FORTY-EIGHT HISTORICAL
ENGRAVINGS.

BY GTTSTAV K (E N I G,

EXPLANATIONS BY ARCHDEACON HARE:

CONTINUED

BY SUSANNA WINKWORTH.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
1856.

M e f S
£ 5 5 A

PREFACE.

It seems necessary to explain that this Work,
which was announced to appear some time ago,
was interrupted by the lamented death of Arch
deacon Hare, when he had written only the first
fourteen sections. Under these circumstances, his
family, having kindly placed at my disposal the
books set apart for reference by the Archdeacon,
requested me to continue the work.
The principal authorities for these notes have
been the biographies of Luther written by Me-
lanchthon, Mathesius, Meurer, and Jiirgens;
Luther's Briefe, edited by De Wette (Berlin,
1825-28) ; his Tischreden, edited by Forstemann
(Leipsig, 1844-48) ; and Sammtliche Werke (Er-
langen, 1826-55).
I beg also to acknowledge my obligations to the
histories of the Reformation, by Ranke, Merle

vi Preface.
D'Aubigne, and above all to Dean Waddington's
admirable work.
The extracts from Luther's writings and letters,
though in some cases borrowed from Meurer, have
always been verified by comparison with the
original, except in the case of one or two tracts
that will appear in the last few volumes not yet
published of the Erlangen edition of Luther's
works, to which alone I have bad access.
Not having been able to find in the works
within my reach, any reference to the circumstance
which forms the subject of Plate XLV., I have
translated that section from Professor Gelzer's
notes to the German edition of the Plates.
S. WINKWORTH.
Manchester, July 31st, 1855.

LIST OF THE ENGRAVINGS.

Plate Page
I. Birth of Luther ..... l
II. Luther is taken to School - - 3
III. Luther, in his school-days, sings before the house of
Dame Ursula Cotta, at Eisenach - - 5
IV. Luther finds a Latin Bible in the University Library at
Erfurt ... 7
V. Luther's Friend Alexis is killed by a Flash of Lightning
close beside him, on a Journey, when they were
travelling together - - 9
VI. Luther enters the Augustinian Convent, 1505 - 11
VII. Luther is ordained Priest - - 15
VIII. Luther's Troubles and Penances in the Convent - - 19
IX. Luther restored by Music - - 23
X. Luther comforted by an aged Monk \ - 25
XI. Luther gives Lectures at Wittenberg - - - 27
XII. Luther preaches in the Convent Chapel - - 29
XHI. Luther at Rome - 31
XIV. Luther created a Doctor - - - - 35
XV. Luther acting as Vicar-general of the Augustinian Order 37
XVI. Below, Luther is seen refusing Absolution to Penitents
producing their Indulgences ; and in the Centre he is
affixing his ninety-five Theses to the Church-door of
Wittenberg. On the Left, Tetzel is dispensing his
Indulgences and burning Luther's Theses ; while on
the Eight, the Students of Wittenberg are burning
Tetzel's Counter-Theses - - - 41
XVU. Luther before the Legate Gaetan - 47
XVIII. Luther's Disputation with Eck - - - - 51
XTX. Luther burning the Pope's Bull - - - - 55
XX. Luther's Entrance into Worms - - 59
XXI. Above, Luther is seen preparing himself by Prayer to
appear before the Emperor and Diet. Below, he is
standing with Erundsberg at the Entrance of the Hall 63
XXII. Luther before the Diet of Worms 65

viii

List of Engravings.

Plate

Page

XXIII.

Luther taken Prisoner on his Eeturn

67

XXIV.

Luther translating the Bible at Wartburg

69

XXV.

Below, Luther is riding away from Wartburg. Above,
to the Left, Luther and the Swiss Students in the
Black Bear at Jena; to the Eight, Luther, amidst
his Friends at Wittenberg, recognized by the same

Students
71
XXVI.
Luther allaying the Fury of the Iconoclasts. 1522.
75
XXVII.
Luther continues his Translation of the Bible with ^the
help of Melanchthon. 1523-^4. -
77
XXVIII.
Luther preaching at Seeburg against the Peasants' War
in 1525 ...
79
XXIX.
Luther's Marriage ....
83
XXX.
Luther's Conference with Zwingle concerning the Sacra
ment. 1529. - - - - -
85
XXXI.
The Presenting of the Augsburg Confession of Faith
89
XXXII.
The Translation of the Bible - -
93
XXXIII.
The Improvement of the Schools and Introduction of the
Catechism ... . .
95
XXXIV.
The Sermon - -
99
XXXV.
The Administration of the Lord's Supper in both Kinds
103
XXXVL Luther reading the Bible to the Elector John
107
XXXVII.
Luther visited in^Sickness by the Elector John Frede
rick - - -
111
xxxvin.
Luther's Portrait taken by Lucas Cranach
113
XXXIX.
Luther in Prayer at the Bedside of Melanchthon -
115
XL.
Luther's Singing School in the House ; and the Introduc
tion of the German Hymn - - -
117
XLI.
Luther's Summer Pleasures in the Midst of his Family
119
XLH.
Luther's Winter Pleasures in the Midst of his Family
123
XLUJ.
Luther beside the Coffin of his Daughter Magdalene
127
XLIV.
Luther and Hans Kohlhase -
129
XLV.
Luther ministering to the Sick and Dying in Time of
Pestilence - ¦
131
XL VI.
Luther goes to Eisleben. His Danger by the Way.
His Arrival - -
133
XLVII.
Luther's Death
135
XLVUI.
Luther's Burial -
139
LIFE OF LUTHER.

i.
Birth of Luthee.

Luthee. was born at Eisleben, the capital of the Counts
of Mansfeld, in Thuringia, between eleven and twelve
o'clock on the night of the 10th of November, 1483. It
was the eve of St. Martin's, by whose name he was
baptized the next day, in St. Peter's Church in that town.
In allusion to this, the artist has placed a picture of
St. Martin on the right.
His father, Hans Luther, is kneeling, presenting his
new-born child to God. Schliisselburg says he had heard
from Luther's relations that his father would often pray
aloud and fervently, by the cradle of his boy, that God
would grant him His grace, so that, bearing in mind his
name (lauter, pure), he might labour for the propagation
of pure doctrine. This bears the mark of a story modified
at least by subsequent events, but agrees well with what
we know of Hans Luther's character. He was an honest,
straightforward, simple-hearted German peasant, a miner
in the Hartz mountains.

Birth of Luther.

Luther himself indulged in the same play upon his
name, when he begged that his godchild, Ratzeberger's
daughter, should be called Clara, so that people might
be reminded that Luther was her godfather; for lauter
and clear, he said, are sisters' children. In the early
stages of his contest with Rome, he often signed himself
Eleutherius, and later in life, with the ever-deepening
consciousness of his sinfulness, Christi Lutum.
In his mother Margaret, Melanchthon says, were the
other virtues becoming an honourable matron, and, above
all, modesty, the fear of God, and prayer ; so that other
good women looked up to her as a model of virtues.
When Luther had to draw up a Form of Marriage, he
commemorated the names of his parents in the expression,
Hans, wilt thou have Greta to thy wedded wife ?
Among Luther's letters are two long ones, one written
to his sick father, in February, 1530, a couple of months
before his death ; the other in May, 1531, to his mother,
on her death-bed : both are full of Christian faith and
hope and love.
The house in Eisleben in which Luther was born was
several times preserved from fire by the pious reverence
of the townsfolk, who pulled down the adjoining houses
to keep off the flames ; but in 1689 all except the ground-
story was burnt down. It was built up again, however ;
and the room in which he was said to have been born was
turned into a free school for poor orphans.

II.
Luther is taken to school.

" Hans Luther (says Mathesius), having been blessed
by our kind and bountiful God in his labours, so that he
had two furnaces or smelting ovens at Mansfeld, brought
up his baptized son in the fear of God, from the well-
earned produce of his mine, and, when the boy came to
years of understanding, sent him, with a hearty prayer, to
the Latin School, where Martin learnt his Ten Command
ments, Child's Creed, and Lord's Prayer, diligently and
quickly, along" with Donatus, the Child's Grammar, Cisio
Janus, and Christian hymns. For although the truth
was obscured under Antichrist, God yet wonderfully
preserved the sacred catechism in schools, along with
infant Baptism in the parish Churches, for which we old
people have to give thanks to our God, and to the ancient
schools." Nearly half a century afterwards, Luther wrote in a
Bible, which he gave to his brother-in-law, " To my dear
old friend, Nicholas Omeler, who carried me more than
once in his arms, when I was a little child, to and back
from school ; when we neither of us knew that a brother-
in-law was carrying a brother-in-law."
The rod in the schoolmaster's hand, and the boy crying
behind his chair, are significant of the severity which
B 2

Luther is taken to School.

prevailed in the schools of that age. Luther himself, in
the Table-talk, c. xliii. § 155., says, " It is a sad thing
when children look with dread on their parents, or scholars
on their teachers, by reason of their harsh punishments.
For many unwise schoolmasters spoil fine dispositions
with their scolding, raging, beating, and flogging ; treating
the children much as a gaoler or scourger would a thief.
The lupus tables, .the repetitions, legor, legeris, legire,
legitur, — cujus partis orationis, — these put children to the
torture. I was beaten once at school, fifteen times in one
forenoon. Every government ought to attend to the
differences of character. Children must be punished and
flogged ; but, nevertheless, one ought to love them, as
St. Paul commands the Colossians : Fathers provoke not
your children, lest they be discouraged."
In other places, Luther speaks of the great improve
ment which had taken place in these respects since his
boyhood, as in the Table-talk, c. lxvii. § 1. In the year
1539 Luther said, " What pleasant time and conveniences
the young have nowadays for studying ; for all the arts
are now taught in good order and rightly, so that any one
can easily catch them, unless he is a blockhead. Nor are
the boys treated so harshly. Of yore, the young were
brought up with too much severity, so that at school they
were called martyrs. Especially were they plagued with
their lupus, and cases, and tenses, which yet were of no
use, very irksome, and wearisome, a mere waste of time,
and whereby many a good wit was spoilt."

III.
Luther, in his school-days, sings before the
house of Dame Ursula Cotta, at Eisenach.

Mathesius relates that " when Martin was in his four
teenth year, his father sent him to a school at Magdeburg.
There the boy, like the children of many respectable and
even wealthy men, went about begging for bread, and
cried out his Panem propter Deum. That which is to be
great must begin by being little : and if children are bred
up too tenderly and grandly, it harms them all their life
long. The next year he went to the school at Eisenach.
Here, also, he sang awhile at doors for his bread, until
a godly matron, Cotta by name, took him to her table ;
because she bore a strong affection to the boy for his
singing and earnest prayers." This practice obtained a
sanction in common opinion from that of the Mendicant
Orders. In his excellent sermon on the duty of sending children
to school, Luther, after quoting those verses from the
113th Psalm, He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, fyc.,
adds, " They say, and it is the truth, that the Pope him
self was a schoolboy. Therefore, despise not the lads
who come to your doors, and cry Panem propter Deum,
and sing the bread-rimes, seeing that the Psalm tells us,
you hear great princes and lords singing. I was such a

Luther in his School-days.

morsel-craver once, and begged bread from door to door,
especially at my dear town of Eisenach, although my good
father kept me afterwards with all love and honesty at
the High School at Erfurt, and, by the sweat of his brow,
helped me to become what I am ; yet I was a morsel-
craver, and, according to this Psalm, by my pen have
come to this, that I would not change now with the
Turkish Emperor, so that I should have his riches and
lose my knowledge. Yea, I would not take the riches of
the whole world in exchange, piled up many times over ;
yet, without doubt, I should never have come to this, had
I not gone to school, and learnt how to write. Therefore,
let thy son go and study, even though he should have
now and then to beg his bread : for thus thou wilt give
our Lord God a fine piece of wood, out of which He may
carve you a lord. It must continue to be as it has been,
that thy son and mine — that is, the children of common
folks — will have to govern the world, both in a spiritual
and temporal sense, as this Psalm declares."
In Dame Cotta's house Luther received instructions in
music, as is represented in the lower engraving.

13*

IV.
Luther finds a Latin Bible in the University
Library at Erfuet.

" In the year 1501 (says Mathesius), the young lad was
sent by his parents to the High School at Erfurt. At
this University he began to study his logic and other
scholastic arts with great diligence and earnestness ; and
although by nature he was a hasty and merry fellow, he
began his studies every morning with a hearty prayer and
churchgoing ; for this was his maxim, He who prays
diligently has learnt more than half his lesson. At the
same time he never missed a lecture, often questioned his
teacher, and talked reverently with him, and, when there
was no public lecture, he spent his time in the University
Library. There, one day, when looking carefully over
the books to discover the good ones, he lighted on a
Latin Bible, which he had never in his life seen before.
Here he observed, with great surprise, that there were
many more texts, epistles, and gospels in it, than were
commonly expounded in ordinary postils, and in church
from the pulpits. As he was turning over the Old Testa
ment, he met with the history of Samuel, and his mother
Hannah; this he read through hurriedly, with great
pleasure and joy. And because all this was new to him,
he began to wish from the bottom of his heart, that the
good God would some time or other give him such a

Luther finds a Latin Bible.

book for his own ; which wish and prayer was richly
granted to him."
The exaggerated inferences which have been drawn
from this story, concerning the scarcity of Bibles at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, have been refuted by
Mr. Maitland, in his Essays on the Dark Ages (p. 469.).
When we think of the bulk and the cost of a Bible at that
time, it is not very surprising that the son of a Thu-
ringian miner, whom his father seems to have intended
for the law, should have reached his seventeenth year
without ever having had one in his hands.
Jiirgens, in his Life of Luther (i. p. 487.), cites some
passages from a Latin manuscript of the Table-talk, con
firming the statement of Mathesius. The main interest
and value of the fact is rather biographical than historical.
The engraving represents how the schoolmen, with their
head, Aquinas, and even Aristotle himself, are pushed
aside under the delight of the new discovery.
In 1527, Luther wrote a letter to the people of Erfurt,
which he prefixed to a work by his friend Menius. In
this he tells them, " You have had a High School among
you for very many years, in which I myself spent several
years ; but this I will swear, that in all that time there
was not a single true Christian lecture or sermon delivered
by any one, such as you may now hear in every corner.
0 how happy should I have thought myself then, if I
could have heard a Gospel, or even a Psalm; whereas
now you may hear the whole Scripture."

3.

V.
Luther's Friend Alexis is killed by a Flash of
Lightning close beside him, on a Journey,
when they were travelling together.

"At the end of the year 1505 (says Mathesius), a dear
friend of Luther's having been killed, and he himself having
been much frightened by a tremendous thunderstorm,
which terrified him with the thought of God's anger, and
of the Last Judgment, he resolved in his own mind, and
made a vow, that he would go into a convent, where he
would serve God, and appease Him by saying masses, and
gain eternal happiness by monastic sanctity."
Melanchthon too, in speaking of the terrors of conscience
by which Luther was driven into a convent, says that he
felt them for the first time, and with the greatest violence,
in the year in which he lost a friend, killed by some
accident. (" Hos terrores seu primum seu aurrimos sensit
eo anno, cum sodalem nescio quo casu interfectum ami-
sisset.") The artist, for his purpose, has combined the two in
cidents, as though the friend had been killed by a
thunderbolt. Jiirgens (i. p. 318.) suggests that he more
C

10 Luther's Friend Alexis is killed by a Flash of Lightning.
probably met his death in one of those duels which have
for centuries been a main scandal of the German Uni
versities; and this agrees best with the expression used
by Mathesius, erstochen.

VI.
Luther enters the Augustinian Convent, 1505.

Melanchthon relates that, in Luther's twenty-first year,
suddenly, contrary to the expectation of his parents and
kindred, he came to the convent of Augustinian monks at
Erfurt, and asked to be received into it. " The reason of
his entering on this mode of life, which he conceived to be
the best suited for piety and religious studies, was this,
as he was wont to tell, and as many know. Often, when
he was meditating attentively on the wrath of God, or on
wonderful examples of punishments, he was suddenly
assailed by such terror that he almost fainted away. I
myself once saw him, exhausted by his exertions in a
doctrinal disputation, throw himself on a bed in the next
chamber, where he repeated these words, intermixed with
gesticulations, He concluded all under sin that He might
have mercy upon all." Then follows the statement already
quoted, that these terrors became more violent in con
sequence of the death of one of his friends. This is said
to have taken place on St. Alexis' day (the 17th of July),
1505, whether Luther chose that day in memory of his
lost friend, or whether the traditional name of his friend
owed its origin, as is not improbable, to that of the saint's
day. Jiirgens, on the authority of a manuscript, says
(i. 521.) that on the eve of that day he invited a party of
c 2

12 Luther enters the Augustinian Convent, 1505.
his friends to supper, enjoyed himself with them singing
and playing, and when taking leave of them, said, To
day you see me, but henceforward no more.
In 1521, when Luther published his "Treatise on the
Invalidity of Monastic Vows," he dedicated it to his father,
and says to him : " It is now come well nigh to the
sixteenth year of my monkery, to which I betook myself
without your knowledge and will. You had much care
and fear for my weakness, for that I was only a young
fellow of twenty-two, and that you had learnt from many
examples that monkery turns out disastrously with
many ; you were also purposing to marry me richly and
honourably, and thus to settle me in life. And this your
fear and anxiety, and your displeasure with me, were for
a time quite implacable ; and the advice of all your
friends was in vain, who said that if you wanted to offer
a sacrifice to God, you should give Him what you held
best and dearest. Yet at length you yielded your own will
to God, but nevertheless did not lay aside your fear and
anxiety; for I remember still too well when you were
reconciled to me and spoke to me, and I said that I was
called by a terrible apparition from Heaven. For I did
not willingly become a monk, much less for the sake of
feeding my belly ; but when I was suddenly surrounded
with terror and the anguish of death, I vowed a com
pulsory and extorted vow. And immediately you said to
me, God grant that it be not an imposture and a diabolical
spectre. This word, even as though God himself had

Luther enters the Augustinian Convent, 1505. 13
spoken by your mouth, penetrated and sank to the bottom
of my soul ; but I stopped and blocked up my heart as
much as I could against you and your word. Besides,
there was yet another time, when I (as a son may with
a father) complained of your anger; you smote and
knocked me down in such wise, that in my whole life I
have hardly heard a word from any man that more
mightily entered into and seized me. For this was your
word : Have you not also heard that we are to obey our
parents? Wrapped up in my own piety, I heard and
looked down on you, but yet in my heart I never could
think lightly of that word."

VII.
Luther is ordained Priest.

Luther's ordination took place on the Sunday Cantate,
the fourth after Easter, in 1507. His earliest remaining
letter is one inviting his friend Braun, the vicar of Eisenach,
to come to him on that occasion. In it he says, " Since
our glorious God, who is holy in all His works, has
vouchsafed so magnificently to exalt me, an unhappy and
utterly unworthy sinner, and to call me by His pure and
most bountiful mercy into His sublime ministry, it
behoves me to show such gratitude to the infinitude of
His divine bounty as a grain of dust can, by undertaking
the office with which I am entrusted."
In his after life he often spoke of this day, and of his
feelings on the occasion. Thus in the Table-talk (cxxxv.
§ 9.) he says, " A man's first mass used to be highly
esteemed, and brought in much money : it quite snowed
with presents and offerings. The canonical hours were set
out with torches. The dear young gentleman, if his
mother was living, had to dance with her, so that the
spectators stood and wept for joy ; but if she was dead, he
placed her under the cup, and released her out of pur
gatory. When I celebrated my first mass at Erfurt, I
could almost have died ; for I had no faith [in Christ],
but I thought solely how worthy I myself was, that I

16 Luther is ordained Priest.
might avoid sinning, and omit nothing in the performance
of the mass."
Again, in the commentary on Genesis, xxv. 21., when
speaking on the difficulty and awfulness of prayer, he says,
" That a man when praying should tremble and shrink, is
not surprising, as formerly, when I was a monk, and first
read in the canon of the mass, Te igitur clementissime Pater,
and Offerimvs tibi vivo, vero et ceterno, I was utterly con
founded and terrified by these words ; for I considered,
who am I that I should address such majesty, when all
are dismayed at the sight and conversation of any earthly
king or prince." Again, in his exhortation to the clergy
assembled at Augsburg in 1530, he says, " The Bishop who
consecrated me, when he put the cup into my hand, said
Accipe potestatem sacrificandi pro vivis et mortuis. That the
earth did not swallow us both up, was too great a mark of
God's patience."
Of the true dignity of the priesthood, Luther always
retained the highest conception, as it is expressed in his
sermon on the duty of sending children to school. " I hope
that believers, and all who call themselves Christians, are
aware that the spiritual class was founded and instituted by
God, not with gold and silver, but with the precious blood
and bitter death of His only-begotten Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ. For out of His wounds the sacraments, as
was represented of yore on paintings, do verily flow ; and
He has dearly earned that there should be such an office
in the whole world, to preach, to baptize, to loose, to

Luther is ordained Priest. 17
bind, to minister the sacraments, to comfort, to warn, to
admonish, with the Word of God, and whatever else
belongs to the office of the cure of souls. For this office
not only furthers and helps our temporal life, and all
secular states of men, but gives eternal life, and releases
from death and sins, which is its main business : indeed, the
world stands and endures solely for the sake of this class ;
else it would have perished long ago.
" I do not mean our present spiritual class, in convents
and abbeys, with their prohibition of marriage : I mean
that class which has the office of preaching, and the
ministry of the Word and sacraments, which gives the
Spirit and all blessedness, which one cannot obtain by any
singing or processions ; such as the office of pastor, teacher,
preacher, reader, priest, clerk, schoolmaster, and whatever
else pertains to similar offices."

D

VIII.
Luther's Troubles and Penances in the Con
vent.

All the accounts of Luther's monastic life concur in re
presenting him as tormented by the terrors of conscience,
and as endeavouring to allay them by the severest pen
ances and mortifications. Melanchthon's words have been
quoted already.
Thus in bis commentary on Genesis, one of his latest
works, ch. xxix. v. 1., he says, " I too, formerly, when a
monk, was much holier than I now am, as to outward
forms, repeated more prayers, watched more, fasted more,
vexed my flesh ; in short, my whole life was very godly
in the eyes of others, though not so in my own ; for I was
much troubled and afflicted. Now, on the other hand, I
eat and clothe myself as others do, nothing marked or
singular appears in my life. Then, when I was a monk, I
did nothing else than waste my time, wear out my health,
and wound my conscience with seeking justification by
works ; so that even now it can scarcely be healed. For,
in addition to nature, in which the boasting of works is
inwrought, I acquired the habit and custom of looking at
my own works and dignity. Now, however, I know for
certain, that one lesson, one Lord's prayer, is more effica
cious and more approved by God than all those liturgies
D 2

20 I^uther's Troubles and Penances in the Convent.
which I mumbled over through those fifteen years ; because
I know that I am heard. Nor is there need of any watch
ing or special fasting and abstinence, because God has
given me this messenger of Satan, with other difficulties
and crosses of this world, which try me far more than all
those things."
Again, in ch. xxvii. v. 38., " We, too, when we were
monks, profited nothing by our self-tormenting, because
we would not recognise our sin and impiety ; nay, we were
ignorant of our original sin, and did not feel that incredu
lity was a sin, and inculcated and taught doubt concerning
God's mercy. Therefore the more I ran and desired to
come to Christ, the further He receded from me. After
confession and saying mass, I never could be at peace in
my mind ; because the conscience cannot gain any firm
consolation from works."
Again, in his Postil on the Epistle for the Eighteenth
Sunday after Trinity, " I, too, wished to be a holy and
pious monk, and prepared myself with great devotion for
mass and prayer. But when I was most devout, I went a
doubter to the altar ; a doubter I came back from it : if I
had made my confession, I doubted ; if I had not made
it, I was in despair. For we were under the notion that
we could not pray, and should not be heard, unless we
were quite pure and sinless, like the saints in Heaven : so
that it would be much better to give up praying, and do
something else, than thus vainly to repeat the name of
God."

Luther's Troubles and Penances in the Convent. 21
Again, in his short answer to Duke George, in 1533,
he says : " That the monks compared their monkery to
Christ's baptism, they cannot deny. I, when I took the
vows, was congratulated by the prior, the convent, and
the confessor, that I was now like an innocent child,
coming pure from its baptism. And verily I would gladly
have rejoiced at such a noble act, that I had become such
an excellent man, as to have made myself so grand and
holy by my own deed, without Christ's blood, so easily
and quietly. But though I loved to hear such sweet
praises and fine words about my own doings, and let my
self be esteemed a conjuror who could make himself holy
in such a paltry way, and could devour death and the
devil, yet it would not hold. When any petty assault of
death or sin came against me, I fell, and found no help
either in baptism or monkery : I had so long lost both
Christ and His baptism. Then I became the most miser
able man upon earth ; day and night I howled and was in
despair, and no man could help me. In such way was I
bathed and baptized in my monkery, and had the true
sweating sickness : God be praised that I did not sicken
unto death, or I should long ago have been at the bottom
of hell with my monkery. For I knew Christ no more,
except as a severe judge, from whom I desired to fly, and
yet could not escape."

IX.
Luther restored by Music.

Luther had a very strong love for music, and its power
over him was great. When he was afflicted with a fit of
melancholy, he used to seek comfort therein. Seckendorf
(p. 21.) says, that " once, when he had shut himself up in
his cell for a couple of days without admitting any one,
Edensberg, with some young musicians, knocked at the
door, and, obtaining no answer, broke it open. There they
found him lying in a fainting fit, and brought him back to
life, not so much by medicine or food, as by a ' consort of
music' "
In the Table-talk (c. lxviii.) Luther speaks of this
power of music. " One of the most beautiful and noblest of
God's gifts is music. Satan is a great enemy to it, so that
one can drive away many temptations and evil thoughts
by means of it. The devil cannot abide it. It drives
away the spirit of melancholy, as we see in King Saul.
Music is the best solace to a man in sorrow; it quiets,
quickens, and refreshes the heart. He who despises
music, as all fanatics do, will never be my friend. For
music is a gift of God, not a human gift. Hence it drives
away the devil, and makes folks cheerful ; at the sound of
it, one forgets all anger, lust, pride, and other vices. I

24 Luther restored by Music.
give music the next place, and the highest honour, after
theology. We see how David and all the saints clothed
their godly thoughts in verses and songs, quia pads tempore
regnat Musica.

X.
Luther comforted by an aged Monk.

Melanchthon says that in his theological studies, Luther
was much stimulated by his pangs and terrors of con
science ; and " he often related that he was greatly com
forted by the discourse of an old man in the college at
Erfurt, who, when he talked to him about his internal con
flicts, spoke much to him of faith, and referred him to the
Creed, in which we. declare our belief in the remission of
sins. This article he interpreted as not merely declaring
the bebef that some persons will attain forgiveness, as the
devils believe that David and Peter are forgiven, but as a
Divine commandment that we should each of us believe
our own sins to be forgiven. And this interpretation he
confirmed by the saying of Bernard, in his sermon on the
Annunciation. ' Moreover, then, you must believe this,
that for His sake your sins are pardoned. This is the
testimony which the Holy Spirit declares in your heart,
saying, "thy sins are forgiven to thee."' By these words,
Luther said, he was not only comforted, but enlightened
concerning the opinions of St. Paul, who so often incul
cates that we are justified by faith."
Mathesius tells the same story. " While he studied
and prayed in the convent day and night, chastening. and
wasting his body by fasting and watching, he was very

26

Luther comforted by an aged Monk.

uneasy and sorrowful, and even his masses gave him no
comfort. Then God sent him an old brother in the con
vent for a confessor, who comforted him heartily, and
directed him to the gracious forgiveness of sins, as it is
proclaimed in the Apostles' Creed, and taught him, out of
St. Bernard's sermons, that he was to believe, with
regard to himself, that our merciful God and Father, by
the one sacrifice and blood of His Son, had obtained the
forgiveness of all sins, and caused this to be declared by
the Holy Spirit in the Apostolic Church by the words of
the Absolution. This was a living and mighty comfort to
his heart ; and he often spoke of his confessor with great
honour and hearty thankfulness."
There are many observations and anecdotes of the
deepest interest connected with this matter in the Table-
talk, c. xxvii.

XI.
LUTHEE GIVES LECTUEES AT WlTTENBEEG.

The University of Wittenberg was founded by the
Elector Frederic of Saxony, in 1502, with the advice of
Dr. Martin Pollich, of Metrichstadt, and of Staupitz, who
was vicar or superintendent over forty Augustinian con
vents in Thuringia. " Staupitz," Mathesius says, " having
been charged to look out for learned men for the new
University, and having perceived a peculiar aptitude and
an earnest piety in Luther, removed Brother Martin, in
the year 1508, to the convent at Wittenberg." Here,
Melanchthon tells us, he lectured at first on Aristotle's
Dialectics and Physics, meanwhile pursuing his favourite
study of theological books.
Writing to his friend Braun, in March, 1509, Luther
says, "If you wish to know my condition, I am well,
through God's grace, except that I have to study violently,
mainly in philosophy, which I would most gladly have ex
changed from the beginning for theology, — that theology,
I mean, which seeks out the kernel from the nut, and the
flour from the wheat, and the marrow from the bones.
But God is God : man is often, nay always, deceived in
his judgment. He is our God ; He will direct us with
His loving-kindness, and for ever."
E 2

28 Luther gives Lectures at Wittenberg.
Among the hearers, in the engraving, we see Metrich-
stadt, who was Rector of the University, and who, accord
ing to Mathesius, used to say, " This monk will puzzle all
our doctors, and will bring in a new doctrine, and reform
the whole Roman Church ; for he takes his stand on the
writings of the prophets and the apostles, and on the word
of Jesus Christ."
By his side sits Staupitz, to whom Luther said, in 1523,
" Through you the light of the Gospel first dawned out
of the darkness on my heart."

XII.
LUTHEE PEEACHES IN THE CONVENT CHAPEL.

Luthee was so strongly impressed with the awful re
sponsibility of preaching,— " of speaking to the"people in
God's stead," — that Staupitz had great difficulty in per
suading him to mount the pulpit. The chapel "is de
scribed by Myconius as very rude and mean, much like
the representation which painters give of the stable at
Bethlehem, where Christ was born. " In this poor chapel,"
he says, "God willed that His holy Gospel, and His dear
child Jesus, should be honoured and manifested to the
world. It was no minster, or grand high church, such as
were to be found by thousands, that God chose for this
purpose. Soon, however, this church became too small,
and Luther was commanded to preach in the parish
church, and thus the child Jesus, also, was carried to the
Temple." Staupitz is represented sitting among the hearers.
Of the matter of his early sermons, Luther says in
his postil for the fourth Sunday in Advent : " This testi
mony of Christ the Devil will not hear, sets himself with all
his might against it, and will not stop till he overthrows
and extinguishes it. We men, too, are weak and perverse,
and readier to draw nigh to any saint than to Christ.
Under the papacy they preached about the worship of the

30 Luther preaches in the Convent Chapel.
saints, and that one should trust in their merits ; so, too,
I myself believed and preached. St. Anne was my idol,
and St. Thomas (Aquinas) my apostle, on whom I built
my assurance. Others ran to St. James, and had a strong
belief and firm confidence that, if they did so, they would
attain everything they wished and hoped for ; so strongly
disposed is man by nature to fall away from the testimony
of John the Baptist concerning Christ."
Luther's conviction of the paramount dignity and im
portance of preaching he expresses perpetually ; for in
stance, at the end of the Tract, On the Right of the Con
gregation to call and dismiss the Teachers, " He who is
entrusted with the office of preaching, has the highest office
in Christendom. He may also baptize, say mass, and
perform all pastoral functions ; or, if he does not choose
this, he may confine himself to preaching alone, and leave
baptizing and other minor offices to others, as Christ did,
and Paul, and all the Apostles" (Acts vi.).

""Tlffl

XIII.
Luther at Rome.

In the year 1510, Luther went, partly in consequence of
a vow, partly on some conventual business, to Rome.
He went as an enthusiastic devotee; but was greatly
shocked by what he saw there, though the effects of it
were not visible till some time after.
In his Tabletalk, c. lxxvii., he says : " I would not take
100,000 florins not to have seen Rome ; although I do
not yet thoroughly know its great and scandalous abomi
nations. When I first saw it, I fell on the ground, lifted
up my hands, and said, c Hail, thou holy Rome ; yea, truly
holy, through the holy martyrs, and their blood that has
been shed there ! ' Had I not seen it, I should always
have to fear that I was doing the Pope a wrong ; but that
which we have seen, that we speak."
In 1530, when dedicating his Exposition of the 117th
Psalm to Hans von Sternberg, who had been a pilgrim
age to Jerusalem, Luther says to him : " Not that I de
spise such pilgrimages, — for I would gladly take such a
journey myself, and now that I cannot, I am fond of
hearing and reading about them, — but that we do not
make such pilgrimages with a right purpose. As was my
case at Rome, where I, too, was a mad saint, ran the
round of all the churches and vaults, and believed every

32 Luther at Rome.

lie that was invented there. I have also said mass there
half a score of times, and in those days was quite sad that
my father and mother were still alive ; for I should have
liked to have set them free from purgatory with my
masses and other excellent works and prayers. There is
at Rome a saying, ' Blessed is the mother whose son says
mass on a Saturday at St. John's ; ' how glad I should
have been to have made my mother happy ! But there
was too great a throng, and I could not get to it, and ate
a red-herring instead. Well, then we did and knew no
better, and the Romish See did not punish these current
lies ; but now, God be praised, we have the Gospels, the
Psalms, and other Holy Scriptures, in which we may
make pilgrimages with profit and blessedness, and may
visit and explore the true Promised Land, the true Jeru
salem, yea, the true paradise and kingdom of heaven ; and
walk about, not among the graves and bodily resting-
places of the saints, but through their hearts, thoughts,
and spirits."
The state of Luther's mind at Rome is indicated by
the story that when he was mounting the Santa Scala on
his knees for the sake of obtaining the indulgence granted
to those who did so, he seemed to hear a voice of thunder
shouting in his ears, " The just shall live by faith."
What most shocked Luther at Rome was the infidelity
of the priests. " I have been at Rome," he says, in his
Treatise against Private Masses, " have said many masses
there, and saw many said, so that I shudder when I

Luther at Rome. 33

think of it. There T heard, among other coarse jests,
courtiers laughing at table, and bragging that some said
mass and repeated these words over the bread and wine:
' Panis es, panis manebis, vinum es, vinum manebis,' and
so elevated it. Now, I was a young and right grave,
pious monk, whom such words wounded, what could I
think ? What could occur to me but such thoughts — if
people here at Rome talk thus openly at table, what must
it be if the Pope, cardinals, along with the courtiers, say
mass in this way ? how must I have been cheated, who
have heard them say mass so often? And it disgusted me
at the same time that they could say their mass so boldly
and glibly and helter-skelter, as if it were a trick of
juggling. For, before I got to the Gospel, my fellow
priest had finished his mass, and they cried to me, c Passa,
passa — get on, come away.' "

J4.

XIV.
Luther created a Doctor.

Mathesius writes, that " in the year 1512, his prior and
superior, along with the convent, resolved that Brother
Martin should become a Doctor in the Holy Scriptures.
This resolution Staupitz laid before him at Wittenberg,
under a tree in the convent which he himself once showed
to me and others. But as Brother Martin humbly
excused himself, and, among many other causes, finally
urged that he was a weak and sickly brother, who had not
long to live, and that they should look out some one
stouter and healthier, Staupitz answered playfully, ' It
seems as if our God would soon have a great deal to do in
heaven and upon earth, therefore He will need to have
many young and industrious doctors, through whom, He
may transact His affairs ; and whether you live or die,
God wants you in His counsel. Therefore do what your
convent imposes on you, as you are bound to obey it and
me, according to your vow.'
" Hereupon, Brother Martin was promoted to be a Doctor
of Holy Scripture on St. Luke's Day, and openly swore a
solemn oath on the Bible that he would study and preach
it all his life, and would maintain the Christian faith in
discourse and writing against all heretics, so help him
God. This regular and public call, which he received
F 2

36 Luther created a Doctor.
from a University in the name of the Imperial Majesty
and of the See of Rome, according to the counsel and
resolution of his teachers and spiritual superiors, and the
solemn oath which he made to God on the Holy Bible
and to the University of Wittenberg, was often a source
of comfort to him in times of great pressure and conflict,
when the devil and the world were terrifying him with
the thought who had given him command, and how he
would answer for it that he had excited such trouble in
the whole of Christendom. Then, I say, he called to
mind his ordained doctorship, and his public calling, and
his solemn oath, and was comforted ; whereupon he
dauntlessly carried on his own cause, or rather God's in
Christ's name, with honour, and with God's help nobly
accomplished it."
Carlstadt, as Dean of the Faculty, presides at the
ceremony.

XV.
Luther acting as Vicae-general of the
Augustinian Order in the Absence of Staupitz.

In the spring of 1515, Staupitz, being sent by the
Elector to collect relics in the Netherlands for the new
church of All Saints at Wittenberg, deputed Luther
to discharge his functions as vicar-general during his
absence, which seems to have lasted till late in the follow
ing year. In the first place, he enjoined Luther to make
a visitation among the convents of his province in Misnia
and Thuringia. " Therefore," says Mathesius, " Luther
journeyed from one convent to another, helping to im
prove the state of the schools, and admonishing the
brethren of his province to hold to the Bible, and withal
to live in holiness, concord, and chastity." His letters
show us the nature of his work and the spirit in which he
fulfilled it. In Erfurt (where, eleven years before, he
had put on the cowl and performed the meanest house
hold offices), he appointed as prior his friend and former
tutor John Lange, "seeing that he was a good Greek
and Latin scholar, but what is still more, an honest and
worthy man." He exhorts Lange to hold out a helping
hand to one of his monks who had fallen into sin, saying,
" Be not angry that we have to suffer such a scandal. * *
We are called, and baptized, and commanded to bear one

38 Luther as Vicar- General.
another's burdens ; * * and to cover the shame of our
brother because Christ has covered ours. Therefore take
heed to thyself, and be not so pure that thou wilt not touch
the impure, or refusest to bear with, and screen and wash
away their impurity." On the other hand, he advises the
Provost of Litzkau, notwithstanding the sense of his own
sinfulness, to enforce a merited punishment in the case of
a fallen brother : " Thus in thy heart be humble and
gentle towards him, but with thy hand and authority
thou art bound to exercise severity ; for the authority is
not thine, but God's, while the humility is not God's, but
thine." To the Prior of Neustadt, who could not agree
with his monks, he writes : " Thou art indeed seeking
and striving after peace, but on a false way, for thou
seekest such as the world gives and not Christ. He has
not peace whom none molest, but he has peace whom all
men and things disturb, and who yet bears it all calmly
and cheerfully." As the dissensions continued, Luther
saw it needful to remove the prior for peace' sake, but
writes to the monks : " If you do not receive those who
are set over you, as from God, with a spirit of prayer, I
tell you beforehand, you will have no peace and good
order, even though St. John the Baptist were your prior."
In an oration which he sent to the Provost of Litzkau,
and was probably intended to be delivered before the
Lateran Council, he thus describes the state of the
Church : " In these our days, the whole ground is covered,
nay, heaped up, with the rubbish of all manner of diverse

Luther as Vicar- General. 39
doctrines ; together with such a multitude of precepts,
human doctrines, and superstitious observances, that the
people are rather stupified than instructed, so that the
Word of Truth can barely shine through ; nay, in many
places, not a ray of it is visible." No wonder that we
n ext find him in the character of a Reformer.
In the autumn of 1516, the plague broke out in Wit
tenberg. Lange advised Luther to flee. He replied :
" Whither shall I flee ? I hope the world will not fall
to pieces if brother Martin fall. I will certainly, if the
plague gain ground, send the brethren abroad in all
directions ; but I have an office entrusted to me, and from
obedience may not flee until the same obedience com
mands me to do so. It is not that I do not fear death
(for I am not the Apostle Paul, but only his expounder) ;
but I hope God will save me out of all my fear." The
nature of his offices and occupations he thus describes in
the same letter : " I have almost work enough for two
secretaries. I do scarcely anything all day long but
write letters. * * * I am preacher to the convent, reader
at table; I am wanted every day as parish priest and
preacher; I am director of the studies; vicar-general,
that is, eleven times prior ; counsel for the Herzbergers
in Torgau ; lecturer on St. Paul ; commentator on the
Psalms ; besides that business of letter-writing which, as
I said, takes up the greater part of my time; and have,
moreover, my own temptations from the flesh, the world,
and the devil."

I  1  '[-

XVI.
Below, Luther is seen refusing Absolution to
Penitents producing their Indulgences; and
in the Centre he is affixing his ninety-five
Theses to the Church-door of Wittenberg.
On the Left, Tetzel is dispensing his Indul
gences AND BURNING LUTHER'S THESES ; WHILE
on the Right, the Students of Wittenberg
are burning tetzel's counter-theses.

While Luther was zealously fulfilling his pastoral and
professorial duties, he was suddenly met face to face by
an evil which struck at the root of all godliness in the
flock committed to his charge. Pope Leo X., ostensibly
to raise money for the building of St. Peter's, but really
in order to maintain his corrupt court, had instituted a
general sale of indulgences; which were, as their name
imports, a remission of the penances and good works
enjoined as conditions of forgiveness, or a licence to
receive absolution upon bare confession, unaccompanied
by satisfaction. The sale of these indulgences in Germany
was committed to the Dominican monk Tetzel ; a man of
loose life, reckless how religion and good morals might
suffer, so long as he scraped together money enough to
please his masters and gratify himself, and who scrupled
not at the most blasphemous inventions to exalt the value
G

42 Luther s Ninety-five Theses.

of his wares. When this man was preaching a few miles
from Wittenberg, as we learn from Myconius, some of
Luther's congregation came to him to confess, having
bought these letters of indulgence. "And when they
disclosed heinous crimes, and gave him to understand that
they would not cease from their adultery, usury, fraud,
and the like," the doctor would not absolve them; where
upon they pleaded their papal indulgence received from
Tetzel. But Luther was not to be moved by this,
appealing to that Scripture, " Except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish."
Luther thus relates the beginning of the contest in the
tract against Hans Wurst : " At that time I was a
preacher in the convent here, and a young doctor fresh
from the anvil, hot and ready in the Holy Scriptures.
Now, when much people of Wittenberg were running
after these indulgences to Jiiterbock, and I (as truly as I
hope to be redeemed) did not even know what the indul
gence was, I began to preach with great moderation that
they might do something better and more certain than
buying pardons. I had before preached such a sermon
against indulgences in the parish church, and earned little
favour thereby with Duke Frederick, who was very fond
of that church of his founding. ****** Meanwhile
it came to my ears how Tetzel had preached shocking,
frightful doctrines ; to wit, that the red cross of the in
dulgence, with the Pope's arms set up in the churches,
had as much virtue as the cross of Christ; that he would

Luther's Ninety-Jive Theses. 43
not change places with St. Peter in heaven, for he had
saved more souls with his indulgences than St. Peter with
his preaching ; that when one dropped a penny into the box
for a soul in purgatory, so soon as the money chinked in
the chest the soul flew up into heaven ; * * * that re
pentance or sorrow or atonement for sin was needless for
one who had bought an indulgence, which would hold
good equally for future sins."
Luther's first sermon against indulgences was preached
on the tenth Sunday after Trinity, 1517, in commencing
a course on the commandments, and was directed solely
against the abuses committed by the vendors thereof,
which brought discredit on the Holy See no less than
detriment to public morals; but he did not attempt to
impugn their efficacy when accompanied by sincere
repentance. Before these sermons were concluded,
Luther had seen enough of the iniquities of this traffic
in sin to stir up his deepest indignation, and show
him the duty of a public protest. Whereupon, seeing
that no man of greater weight was willing to step
forward and do battle for righteousness, he drew up
" Ninety-five Propositions concerning the Power of In
dulgences," and without consulting any of his friends,
affixed them to the door of the parish church of Witten
berg on the thirty-first of October. It was the eve of
All Saints, the festival of the dedication of the church,
on which its rich store of indulgences was distributed to
the crowds who poured into the town from all parts. In
G 2

44 Luther's Ninety-five Theses.
the superscription to the Theses, Luther invited all pre
sent, or absent, to dispute on them by word of mouth or in
writing. The same day he committed them to the press,
and sent off copies to the Elector- Archbishop of Mayence,
and his own diocesan, the Bishop of Brandenburg, with
letters entreating their interference in the matter. His
call to the scholars and people of Germany echoed more
widely than Luther expected or desired ; but his appeal
to the dignitaries of the church was fruitless. The Arch
bishop of Mayence was a partaker in the profits of the
indulgences; the Bishop of Brandenburg dispatched an
abbot to Luther to express sympathy with his views
while conjuring him to keep silence for peace' sake.
Luther promised to obey ; but within a fortnight from
their publication, says Myconius, " The Theses had tra
versed all Germany, and in a month were spread through
out Christendom, as if the angels themselves had borne
them unto the eyes of all men. No one would believe
what a talk they made. They were soon turned into
German, and found universal acceptance, save in the eyes
of the Dominicans and the Bishop of Halle, with some
others who enjoyed the fat pastures obtained by the pope's
exactions." Of his own feelings at this time Luther thus speaks,
when reprinting the Theses many years after : " I entered
on this affair with great fear and trembling. I was alone,
and had entangled myself in the contest without fore
thought; and on many and weighty points I gave way to

Luther's Ninety-Jive Theses. 45

the Pope, not only because I could not draw back, but
because I sincerely and earnestly worshipped him from
the bottom of my soul. * * For who was I, a mean,
despised monk, at that time, too, looking more like a
corpse than a man, that I should set myself against the
Pope's majesty, before whom not only kings and the
whole earth, but even heaven and hell bow down, and are
constrained to obey his nod. How and what my heart
suffered and underwent those first two years, and in what
a sense of unworthiness (not false and affected, but true
and sincere), nay, in what sheer despair I was plunged, is
little conceived by those who have since assailed the
Pope's majesty with great pride and arrogance. But I,
alone in the breach, was none so joyous and sure of my
cause." Tetzel answered the publication of the Theses by a set
of Counter-Theses, drawn up by Dr. Wimpina of Frank
fort, in which he rather sought to crush Luther by the
imputation of heresy than attempted to refute him. He,
moreover, had a bonfire lighted in one of the public places
of Frankfort, to which he walked in procession in the
robes of an inquisitor, and after preaching a furious sermon
against the heretic Luther, cast his Theses and Sermons
into the flames in default of the man himself. A mes
senger who had been sent by him with an edition of his
Counter- Theses to Wittenberg, was caught by the
students ; who having bought some, laid hands on the rest
and burnt them, after having sent a crier round the town to

46 Luther's Ninety-Jive Theses.
proclaim that all who wished to witness the burning of
Tetzel's Theses should assemble in the market-place at
two o'clock. This act was done without the knowledge
of any of the professors or authorities, and greatly displeased
Luther, who foresaw that though he had no hand in it,
the whole blame of lawless violence would be laid at his
door. These two conflagrations form the subject of the
engravings on either side of the principal picture before
us. The swan seen above is an allusion to the dying
prophecy of Huss : " To-day you burn a goose ; a hundred
years hence a swan shall arise whom you will not be able
to burn."

' gH^;

I MfltiB B

XVII.
Luther before the Legate Gaetan.

Luthee's Theses raised him up many adversaries, and
within a few months he had to write in his own defence
against Sylvester Prierias, the general of the Dominicans,
and censor of the press at Rome, who justified the most
revolting of Tetzel's assertions, and the most extravagant
of the papal pretensions ; against Hochstratten, a pro
fessor at Cologne, and head inquisitor for Germany, who
clamoured for the heretic to be committed to the flames ;
and against Eck, a theological professor at Ingolstadt and
an accomplished schoolman, between whom and Luther
there had recently sprung up a warm friendship. To
explain and defend his Theses from misconstruction,
Luther drew up a series of Solutions of them, which he
sent to Leo X., with a letter, not only expressing his evi
dently sincere personal veneration for the Pontiff, but
also declaring his readiness to submit implicitly to the
Pope's decree. Meanwhile, Leo had been induced by
the outcries of Luther's enemies to institute a tribunal,
under Sylvester Prierias, to try his doctrines ; and, two
days after Luther had dispatched his humble letter, he
was startled by receiving a summons to appear within
sixty days at Rome to answer for his Theses, before a
court presided over by his declared and virulent foe.

48 iMther before the Legate Gaetap,
Knowing that his fate was certain should he appear, the
University interceded with the Pope in his behalf, while
Luther besought the Elector to endeavour to get him
heard in Germany rather than in Rome. Under Frede
rick's influence, the Pope consented; and agreed that
Luther should appear before his Legate Gaetan, then
present at the Imperial Diet sitting at Augsburg. To
Gaetan, however, the Pope had secretly dispatched a
brief, in which, though the sixty days had not expired, he
treats Luther as a notorious heretic, whom Gaetan was
ordered to excommunicate, together with all who should
afford him protection, unless he should unconditionally
recant his errors. Though this letter was not made
known till afterwards, Luther's friends apprehended
danger, and earnestly besought him not to quit his secure
abode at Wittenberg ; but confident in the justice of his
cause, he determined to proceed to Augsburg, and
having accomplished his journey in spite of a severe
illness, arrived on the 7th of October, 1518.
With a real or apparent kindness, forming a strong con
trast to the commission which he bore, the Legate imme
diately sent his chaplain to Luther, who represented in
glowing terms the friendly sentiments with which Gaetan
was filled towards him, and counselled him to throw himself
at his feet without delay, trusting to his fatherly goodness.
Luther's friends, however, mistrusting the Italians, insisted
on his waiting till a safe-conduct should be procured from
the Emperor. It arrived in a few days, and Luther pre-

Luther before the Legate Gaetan. 49
sented himself. Yet the fate of Huss, when similarly
protected, could not be forgotten ; and Luther writes to
Melanchthon, " I am about to offer myself up for your
sake and for that of my countrymen." Gaetan, who
could see better on the spot than Leo at a distance, how
dangerous a flame would be enkindled in Germany if
Luther were touched, probably wished in all sincerity to
conciliate matters. At all events, he received Luther
with great courtesy and seeming friendliness, and summed
up that which he was required to retract in the two
articles, — 1. That the treasure of the indulgence did not
consist of the merits and sufferings of Christ. 2. That
faith in the partaker was needful to the efficacy of the
sacraments. Luther threw himself at the Legate's feet,
and declared himself ready to recant if he could be proved
to be in error from Scripture or the Fathers. Gaetan
demanded a simple recantation, refusing to dispute when
he came only to instruct, yet inadvertently suffered him
self to enter into an argument in which he proved no
match for his opponent, was foiled, and forgot his dignity
in his anger. The interview was three times resumed ;
but at last, when Luther confuted the Legate by the very
papal Constitutions on which he rested his case, and whose
authority Luther disputed, Gaetan bade him once more
to recant, or begone from his presence and never more
appear. Luther retired in silence. He, however, sent a very
humble letter to the Cardinal, begging to be convinced
H

50 Luther before the L,egate Gaetan.
of hi3 error by clear proof, acknowledging that he
had often expressed himself with undue vehemence, and
promising amendment, &c. No answer arriving within
three days, he and his friends became, with justice,
alarmed for his safety. He therefore drew up two
letters, one to Gaetan, the other to the Pope, indignantly
spurning the imputation of heresy, and appealing " from
Leo ill informed to Leo better informed ; " and then,
having procured a horse and guide, fled from Augsburg
by night, and travelled with all speed to Wittenberg.
Two days after, his appeal to the Pope was posted up on
the doors of Augsburg Cathedral by some of the authori
ties of the place. Having on his way back learnt the
contents of the Pope's letter to Gaetan, which were now
made public, as there was no longer any object in
concealing them, and fearing to involve his sovereign in
difficulties, he wrote to the Elector, intimating his purpose
of retiring into France. But the Elector, doubtless un
willing to lose so distinguished an ornament of his Uni
versity, begged him to wait awhile, and the University
opposed his project most earnestly ; and therefore for the
present he resumed his ordinary functions with redoubled
energy, writing to Link, " We are all as busy here as so
many ants."

\ fT"

a

1 1 f - '

XVIII.
Luthee's Disputation with Eck.

We have seen Luther upholding the fundamental prin
ciples of Christian morals and spiritual religion in defiance
of the impersonation of hierarchical power in Gaetan ;
he was next called to maintain the groundwork of free
Christian thought against the representative of the
Schoolmen. Dr. John Mayer, of Eck, professor of theology in
the University of Ingolstadt, was one of the most
eminent scholars and disputants of Germany at this time.
His fame had spread into foreign countries, and he had
travelled into Italy to sustain scholastic theses, where his
success had earned him a brilliant reputation. Notwith
standing his former attack upon Luther, he had met him
as a friend at Augsburg, and, with Luther's concurrence,
proposed to hold a disputation with Carlstadt at Leipsic
on the freedom of the will. When, however, Eck pub
lished to the world the list of the theses which he pro
posed to defend, it was clear that they were directed
rather against Luther than Carlstadt, and therefore Luther
felt bound to take part in the contest. It commenced on
the 17th of June, 1519, in the presence of the sovereign,
Duke George of Saxony, who had insisted on the disputa
tion taking place, in spite of the opposition of the bishop
H 2

52 Luther's Disputation with Eck.
and the heads of the university. The disputation opened
between Carlstadt and Eck on the doctrines of grace, and
was carried on for some days with no signal results. The
dispute with Luther which followed, turned on the origin
of the Pope's supremacy, purgatory, indulgences, and the
nature of repentance, satisfaction, and absolution. Eck
rested the supremacy of the Pope on the famous passage
in Matt. xvi. 18., " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it." Luther, while by no means denying
the actual supremacy of the Pope, declared the doctrine
now propounded concerning its origin to be of modern in
vention, and never received by the whole of Christendom,
but only by the Latin Church. With regard to the pas
sage in Matt, xvi., he maintained the interpretation now
general among Protestants, and given long before his day
by some ecclesiastical authorities, justifying it by the
texts which speak of Christ as the sole Head of His
Church, and by the facts of church history. Thus the
Pope's headship became a mere question of ecclesiastical
organization, though, in that point of view, Luther at this
time still strenuously maintained its importance. It
proves how wide an influence Luther's doctrines must
have obtained, that on the question of indulgences, his
opponent conceded nearly all the important points for
which Luther contended.
Eck, finding himself likely to be outshone in learning
and worsted in debate, endeavoured to throw suspicion on

Luther's Disputation zoith Eck. 53
Luther, by showing his agreement on some points with
the abhorred Hussites, — an artifice which Luther indig
nantly exposed, while he, however, asserted that among
the articles of Huss some were undoubtedly true and
Christian, and the Council had not intended to condemn
such, but only those which were erroneous. Eck replied
that all were rejected and condemned, adding, " Reverend
father, if you believe that a council can err, you are to
me as a heathen man and a publican ! "
The victory in this contest was, as usual, claimed by
both sides. The questions were referred to the universities
of Wittenberg and Ingolstadt for decision, but the con
troversy was vigorously carried on in writing, and new
combatants joined in the strife. " But," says Mathesius,
" as the scholastic theology and philosophy had already
been overthrown by God's Word, so now the greatness of
the Pope, together with that of his decretals and bulls,
began to wane from the time of the Leipsic disputation."
Notwithstanding polemics, Luther found time to write
various works of edification during this and the following
year. Thus, immediately after his return to Wittenberg
in September, he published what is esteemed by many
the most profound and valuable of his works, the " Ex
position of the Epistle to the Galatians ; " and in the same
month wrote bis " Tessaradecas Consolatoria," or " Con
solations under all the Crosses that befall every Christian
Man," addressed to the Elector when suffering under a
severe illness. In the course of this year appeared also

54 Luther's Disputation with Eck.
his " Commentary on the first twenty-two Psalms," and a
number of tracts suited to the various emergencies of the
Christian life. In March, 1520, he published his " Essay
on Confession " and " Sermon on Good Works," and, a
little later, a " Devotional Manual of Meditations on the
Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments," besides
composing a number of his " Postils."

rr^JBSt Ml

XIX.
LUTHEE BURNING THE POPE'S BULL.

Up to this time, Luther had been engaged in combating
the abuses of the papal system, in the vain hope that the
heads of the Church might be brought to recognize the
necessity of a reform ; but his dispute with Eck had
forced him to set foot in a new field of thought, while the
obstinate persistence of the court of Rome in treating
questions of truth or error, on which hung the salvation
of men's souls, as a mere struggle for revenue and
worldly power, left him no choice but either to crush out
his conscience and reason, or else to follow them, and
them alone, to whatever unforeseen lengths this resolve
might lead him. The result Mathesius thus gives us :
" But Luther, who hitherto had only disputed and thrown
out questions touching the Pope's supremacy^ which he
would gladly have upheld and helped to fortify, now
came to a clear persuasion from the Word of God, that the
Pope of Rome, whom heretofore all men had taken to be
a god upon earth, and most holy, was surely the adversary
of God and Jesus Christ ; for that he lifted himself up
above our Lord Jesus Christ, corrupted the true worship
of God, and brought great error and harm on all
Christendom." t
Meantime, a last fruitless attempt at reconciliation had

56 Luther burning the Pope's Bull.
been made, rather by the Nuncio Miltitz himself, than by
those who sent him, armed with seventy briefs, to take
Luther prisoner and bring him to Rome. Miltitz was a
German, and saw that no less was at stake than the
Church's grasp of Germany, if Luther were dealt harshly
with. Both he and Luther would fain have averted such
a rending asunder of Christendom ; but neither could have
entertained much hope of success when they looked at the
spirit prevailing in Germany and in Rome. For, while
Miltitz was heaping disgrace on Tetzel and courtesy on
Luther, Eck was working busily at Rome to procure the
ruin of his hated rival ; and on the 15th of June, 1520, a
Bull of Excommunication against Luther and his adhe
rents was drawn up by the Pope and College of Cardinals,
with the publication of which Eck was entrusted.
The negotiations with Miltitz had not hindered the
course of Luther's thoughts or pen. In June, he put
forth his famous " Address to the Christian Nobles of
Germany, on the Improvement of the Christian Condition."
This was in truth an appeal to the laity against the whole
hierarchical system, in which, starting from the great
principle that " all baptized Christians are truly priests,
there is no difference but that of office between them," he
asserts the independence and divine origin of the secular
power, and the right of all Christians to interpret the
Scriptures or to convoke a council. This work was fol
lowed by his essay " On the Babylonish Captivity of the
Church," in which he attacked the doctrine of the seven

Luther burning the Pope's Bull. 57
sacraments ; and his " Sermon on the Liberty of a Christian
Man," proclaiming in its fullest form the doctrine of justi
fication by faith alone. These three books may be said
to contain the kernel of the whole Reformation, and the
enthusiasm with which they were received showed that
Germany was ripe for the approaching transition. The
famous Franz von Sickingen offered him an asylum if
violence should threaten ; and Sylvester von Schaumburg
writes to him in June not to flee into Bohemia if the
elector should forsake him, "for I and some hundred
more noblemen will stand by you faithfully, and protect
you from peril at the hand of your enemies, so long as
the righteousness of your cause has not been refuted in a
universal Christian assembly."
Eck chose Leipsic, where he had Duke George and
the university on his side, as the most favourable place
for the first promulgation of the Pope's Bull ; but it was
instantly torn down by the students, who insulted Eck so
much, that in fear of his life he fled to Erfurt. Here the
students, seizing the Bull, threw it into the river, saying,
" Bulla est, in aquam natet." — It is a bubble, let it swim.
To bring it to Wittenberg was felt to be so dangerous an
undertaking, that the Elector of Brandenburg, with the
Bishop and the Duke of Mecklenburgh, came in person to
proclaim it. Yet even they had to desist from the en
terprise, for the municipal authorities declared that they
would resist its publication by force if needful. When,
however, news reached Wittenberg that in virtue of it
I

58 Luther burning the Pope's Bull.
Luther's writings had been burnt at Mayence, Louvain,
Cologne, and other cities, Luther retaliated by convening
a meeting of the doctors, students, and citizens on the
10th of December, at the Elster Gate ; where, a fire of
wood having been kindled by a master of arts, Luther
cast into the flames the whole of the decretals and canon
law, with the writings of Eck and Emser, and last of all
the Bull, exclaiming, " Because thou hast troubled the
Holy One of the Lord, so be thou troubled and consumed
by the fire everlasting ; " and then returned in procession
into the town.
The next day, at the close of his ordinary college
lecture, he solemnly warned his hearers to beware of the
Pope's laws and statutes ; that the decretals had been burnt
was nothing, the real thing needful was, that they should
set themselves against the Pope's wicked and antichristian
domination with all their hearts, as they valued their
eternal salvation.
Shortly afterwards he published a justification of this
act, in which he extracted thirty propositions for con
demnation from the canon law and papal decrees : such
as, " The Pope is not subject to God's commandments, nor
bound to obey them ; " " It is not a precept, but a counsel,
when St. Peter tells Christians to be subject to kings ; "
" The Pope is not bound to obey the decrees of Christian
councils," &c.

XX
Luther's Entrance into Worms.

After a few months of unremitting labour at his writings,
carried on with the more energy because he " believed
that the Papists would never rest till they had his blood,
and the time left for him to work might be short," Luther
was called to answer for his doctrines before the highest
earthly tribunal, — the assembled Diet of the Emperor and
Estates. The youthful Emperor, Charles V., who had ascended
the throne in June, 1520, had been repeatedly besought
by the papal nuncio Aleander, to cause Luther's books to
be burnt throughout the empire ; but, on the other hand,
the Elector of Saxony, to whom Charles mainly owed his
crown, had begged that no steps might be taken against
Luther until he should have been heard publicly in his
own defence. Some correspondence ensued between the
Emperor and Elector as to whether or not Luther should
be cited before the Diet. Luther himself desired such an
opportunity of bearing witness to the truth before the
whole world, and writes to Spalatin, on first hearing of the
proposal: (No. 277.) " If I should be summoned, so far as
it depends on me, I will be carried thither sick if I cannot
go sound; for I cannot doubt that the Lord calls me, if
the Emperor does so. And then, if violence be used, as is
I 2

60 Luther's Entrance into Worms.
probable (for assuredly they will not summon me with the
idea of bringing me to a better mind), we must commend
the matter to the Lord. He liveth and reigneth yet, who
preserved the three men in the fiery furnace of the king
of Babylon. And if He do not choose to preserve my
head, what is that worth compared to Christ's, who was
slain with such great ignominy and shame, to the offence
of all and the destruction of many. * * * Expect every
thing from me but flight or recantation. I will not even
fly, much less recant. So help me the Lord Jesus!
Amen." But the papal party had no wish that Luther should
gain increased notoriety by appearing before the Diet;
their object was to get him condemned unheard. And to
this end, Aleander made a skilful and eloquent oration of
three hours before the Diet, recounting Luther's heresies
and acts of disobedience, and entreating for an immediate
sentence to be passed. The Emperor was moved so far as
to issue an edict for the destruction of Luther's books ;
but the Estates refused to publish it unless Luther were
first summoned under a safe-conduct to appear before
them, and then called upon to retract whatever he might
have written contrary to the holy Christian faith as re
ceived from the fathers. If he refused to do this, then
they would assist the Emperor to enforce the edict ; but
meanwhile they prayed that the abuses which had been
perpetrated in Germany by the papal court should be
duly and fully redressed. To this counsel the Emperor

Luther's Entrance into Worms. 6 1
acceded as far as regarded Luther, and ordered the nobles
to draw up a statement of the grievances complained of.
Luther began his journey on the 2nd of April, 1521,
his conveyance being provided by the town council of
Wittenberg. As he went along, his progress resembled
a triumph ; from some of the towns the people coming
out as far as two miles to meet him. But he also en
countered the imperial messengers sent to post up the
edict for the burning of his books, and on this the herald
sent to conduct him asked him if he would venture fur
ther. " Yes," he replied, " if they publish the ban in
every town, I will go on, trusting in the Emperor's safe-
conduct." In Erfurt, Gotha, and Eisenach he preached,
and in Heidelberg held a public discussion. From place
to place his friends and adherents warned him of the fate
of Huss at Constance ; but he only answered, " And
though they made a fire from Wittenberg to Worms, and
the flame thereof blazed up to heaven, inasmuch as I have
been cited, I will appear in the name of the Lord, and
step into the jaws of behemoth, between his great teeth,
and confess Christ, and let him judge."
When the popish party at Worms heard that Luther
had obeyed the call and was on his way, they began to
tremble, for they saw that it would greatly further his
cause if he were allowed a public hearing ; but they had
hoped that he would have been frightened into disobedience
by the example of Huss, and might then have been con
demned for contumacy. Glapio, the Emperor's confessor,

62 Luther's Entrance into Worms.
wrote in most friendly terms, offering to meet him a short
distance from Worms and negotiate with him secretly,
hoping in reality thus to delay him beyond the term
specified in the safe-conduct. Some argued the justifiable-
ness of breaking a safe-conduct in such a case ; but this
proposal was indignantly rejected, even by Luther's worst
enemies among the German Princes. His friends, in their
terror, joined with his foes in endeavouring to dissuade
him from proceeding ; on which he returned the memorable
speech, " If there were as many devils at Worms as there
are tiles upon the roofs, I would go nevertheless."
On the 16th of April he entered Worms, accompanied
by five of his friends, and numbers of the Saxon noblemen
who had gone out on horseback to meet him and escort
him into the city. The streets were so crowded in ex
pectation of his coming, that he had to be conducted
through back lanes to his inn ; yet here the people fol
lowed, filling the windows and standing on the roofs to
catch a glimpse of him. More than 2000 people followed
him in procession to his inn, the Deutscher Hof; and
his room was filled till late at night with the nobles,
and even clergy, who came to visit him. Among these
was the Landgrave, Philip of Hesse, from this time one
of his most faithful adherents, who, pressing his hand at
parting, said, " If you have right on your side, Doctor,
may God be with you ! "

XXI.
Above, Luther is seen preparing himself by
Prayer to appear before the Emperor and
Diet. Below, he is standing with Frundsberg
at the Entrance of the Hall.

When the tumult had ceased at last, and silence reigned
over the sleeping city, Luther began to collect his
thoughts and seek for strength for the morrow's crisis.
His friends have preserved for us snatches overheard from
the prayers poured forth in the struggle of that memor
able night.
" O almighty and everlasting God, how strong is the
world ; how little do men put their trust in Thee ! How
weak and shrinking is the flesh, and how mighty and busy
is the devil through his apostles and the wise of this
world ! * * * If I turn my eyes to the world, all is over
with me ; for the die is cast, and my condemnation is
pronounced. O God ! O God ! O Thou my God ! Thou
my God ! stand by me against all the world's reason and
wisdom. For Thou must do it, Thou alone ! It is not my
cause, but thine own. For I have no controversy to
maintain with these great ones of the earth. I could fain
live out my days in quietness, without struggle and per
plexity. But thine is the cause, O Lord, and it is right
eous and eternal. Therefore stand by me, Thou righteous

64 Luther and Frundsberg.
and eternal God. I put not my trust in any man. That
were indeed in vain ; for all that is of flesh faileth. * * *
" O God ! O God ! Dost thou not hear me, O my God !
Art Thou dead? No, Thou canst not die, Thou only
hidest thy face. O tell me, hast Thou not chosen me for
this work ? I know that Thou hast. Then see Thou to it,
O God ! * * * Be Thou upon my side, O God ! for the
name of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, who is my defence
and shield, yea, my strong fortress. * * * O Lord, why
dost Thou tarry ? My God, where art Thou ? Come !
come ! I am ready to yield up my life patient as a lamb.
* * * And though my body, which is the work of
thy hands, should perish, yea be torn in pieces (if I
have but thy Word and Spirit with me, and the body alone
is touched), my soul is thine, and belongs to Thee, and
shall abide with Thee for ever and ever ! Amen ! God
help me I Amen."
At four o'clock in the afternoon, Luther was summoned
by the herald, Caspar Sturm, to follow him to the Diet. As
he was about to enter the assembly, George von Frundsberg,
a soldier of distinction, laid his hand on Luther's shoulder,
saying : " My poor monk ! my poor monk ! thou art
marching to make a stand, the like of which I, and many
a general, in our gravest battles have never made. But
if thou hast right on thy side, and art sure of thy cause,
be of good courage. God will not forsake thee."

XXII.
Luther before the Diet of Worms.

The moment had arrived which was to decide not
Luther's fate alone, but the progressive revival or decay
of the Church of Christ ; and Luther entered the
assembly, consisting of the Emperor and six electors, the
sovereign princes of Germany, the knights of the empire,
and delegates from the cities. In the engraving,
Frederick of Saxony is seen on the Emperor's right hand
foremost among the electors ; opposite him, on the
prince's bench, sits the Landgrave Philip of Hesse ; in
the background, close to the Emperor, Aleander is sitting
with the Pope's Bull in his hand. Behind Luther, stands
his friend Jerome Schurffj who had accompanied him to
render him legal assistance.
The Emperor's orator then called upon Luther to
declare, first, whether he acknowledged the books, pub
lished in his name to be his ; secondly, whether, if
so , he were willing to retract them. To the first ques
tion Luther replied in the affirmative ; but asked for a
day's delay to consider and frame an answer to the second.
His request was granted, and he was reconducted to his
inn. ' Before the assembly his manner was so modest,
and his voice so low and hesitating, that his enemies
fancied him overawed at last and about to retract, or at
K

66 Luther before the Diet of Worms.
least to temporize. The next day, however, undeceived
them. All signs of timidity or hesitation were gone, and
he justified his refusal to retract any tittle, unless confuted
by Scripture, in a speech two hours long, which he after
wards, by the Emperor's desire, repeated in Latin ; con
cluding with an earnest appeal to the Emperor and
Estates to have regard to the evil plight of the Church,
and " take these weighty matters in hand, lest God should
pour out the vials of His wrath over the Roman empire
and German nation, if haply they should be found con
demning God's Word." Being again called on to give a
direct answer yea or no, whether he would retract, he
replied: " Unless I be convicted of error by the Holy Scrip
tures or by cogent and evident reasons * * * I neither can
nor dare retract anything ; for my conscience is held captive
by God's Word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against
conscience. Here I take my stand. I can do no otherwise.
So help me God!
On ,the following day the Emperor brought forward a
proposal for his immediate condemnation as an avowed
heretic; but the Estates desired time for deliberation.
Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Treves, who was to some
extent favourably disposed towards Luther, entered into
private negotiations with him ; which however came to
nothing, as Luther persisted in refusing to abide by the
decision of any tribunal whatsoever, except in so far as
it rested on Scripture. On this he received his safe-
conduct, and left Worms on the 26th of April.

XXIII.
Luther taken Prisoner on his return.

Luther's sovereign, the Elector Frederick, who desired
to protect him without coming into collision with the
Emperor, hit upon the plan of concealing him for a time,
and therefore wrote privately to two noblemen of his
subjects to take Luther prisoner on his way back, and
put him in security. Some hint of his intention seems to
have been given to Luther beforehand, for he writes to
his friend the artist Lucas Cranach at Wittenberg, under
date of Frankfort, 28th of April : " I am going to be
placed in concealment ; where, I know not myself. For
though I had rather have suffered death from the tyrants
(specially from the hand of the furious Duke George of
Saxony), I must not slight the counsel of good people.
* * * For awhile, then, we must be silent and endure.
Christ says, ' A little while and ye shall not see me, and
again a little while and ye shall see me.' I trust it will be
so with me now. But God's will, which is ever the best,
be done in this matter, as in heaven and on earth.
Amen." Luther thus relates the manner of his capture to Spala-
tin ( No. 319.). After saying how he had been received with
great honour at Hirschfield and Eisenach, and constrained
to preach, he continues, " When we entered Eisenach in
K 2

68 Luther taken Prisoner on his Return.
the evening, numbers came out on foot to meet us. At
daybreak next morning Jerome [Schurff] and my other
companions departed from me, and I went across the
forest to visit my relations who live in that neighbourhood.
After I had taken leave of them, and was on my way to
Waltershausen, just as we had passed the Castle of Alten-
stein, I was taken prisoner. Amsdorff knew, as was
necessary, that I was to be arrested somewhere, but did
not know the place of my captivity. My brother, seeing
the horsemen approaching, leaped from the carriage, and I
understand reached Waltershausen the same evening with
out hindrance. Here I am, therefore, having thrown off
my own garb and put on that of an equerry ; and I am
also allowing my hair and beard to grow, so that you
would hardly know me ; indeed I hardly know myself."
The castle of the Wartburg, where Luther was confined,
was situated on the top of a lofty hill near Eisenach,
overlooking the dense Thuringian forest and the scenes
where he had passed some of his childish years.
His sudden disappearance gave rise to all manner of
rumours. He says himself, in the letter already quoted,
" Various reports are current about me ; the prevailing
opinion seems to be that I have been carried off by friends
sent from France." It was at first feared that he had
been privately assassinated by the papal party ; a conjec
ture which, according to Pallavicini, put the legates at
Worms in danger of their lives.

XXIV.
Luther translating the Bible at Wartburg.

Mathesius tells us that " while Luther was kept in
great secrecy in the Wartburg he was noways idle, but
continued daily in study and prayer, and took in hand the
Greek and Hebrew Bible, and wrote many excellent and
consolatory letters to his loving friends * * * But seeing
that the power of the Word of God cannot be known
without the cross, * * God sends our hermit divers
crosses; * * for he is overtaken by a painful and
dangerous sickness, insomuch that he well nigh despaired
of life. Moreover, the devil torments him with heavy
thoughts, and tries to befool him with all manner of
strange sights and sounds."
Luther began his translation of the Bible without
any help, having no books with him but his Hebrew
and Greek Testaments. He completed the New Testa
ment during his nine months' sojourn on the Wart
burg, and also wrote within this period many of his
Postils on the Epistles ajad Gospels, together with his
Commentaries on the Magnificat and the 69th Psalm.
But he was again called away from these simple works of
piety, to contend for the truth of his doctrines against
Catharinus of Sienna on the Infallibility of the Church,
and Latomus of Louvaine (the first who grappled with

70 Luther translating the Bible at Wartburg.
him by Scriptural arguments) on Justification by Faith.
Besides these, he wrote three other treatises : the first,
" On Private Confession," which he maintained should be
left to the free choice of Christians, not imposed by the
Church ; the second, on " The Abuse of Private Masses,"
dedicated to his brother Augustinians of Wittenberg, who
had already ceased to celebrate them, in which he denied
the sacrificial character of the mass ; the third was on
Monastic Vows, in which he discusses " not, whether
vows must be kept, for that the Word of God declares,
but what vows are valid," and maintains that the vow
made in baptism, being necessarily the most binding,
releases from all subsequent vows which are inconsistent
with its own observance. " The book " (we are told by
Mathesius) " gave rest to many anguished consciences, who
were convinced of the sinfulness of their vows, but also
was taken advantage of by many, who, having entered a
convent for the sake of an easy and luxurious life, left it
again, and scandalously abused their Christian liberty."
This work Luther dedicated to his father, as an act of
atonement for the disobedience of which he had been
guilty in taking the cowl against his parent's will.

XXV.
Below, Luther is riding away from the Wart
burg. Above, to the Left, Luther and the
Swiss Students in the Black Bear at Jena;
to the Right, Luther, amidst his Friends at
Wittenberg, recognized by the same Students.

While thus working in his solitude at Wartburg, Luther
was deeply grieved to hear that disturbances had broken
out among his flock at Wittenberg. His friend Carlstadt,
with some fanatics from Zwickau, had begun to inveigh
against human learning, human titles of distinction, and
the use of images and other outward aids to devotion ; the
consequence of which was, that outrages were committed
on those who kept to the old forms of worship, churches
were desecrated, students forsook the university to learn
handicrafts, and illiterate men gave themselves out as
prophets raised above obedience to human authorities or
even to Scripture. The Reformation was in danger of
perishing through the excesses of those who belonged to
it in letter and not in spirit. Melanchthon was unable to
stem the torrent of innovation, yet the Elector refused to
permit Luther to be sent for, fearing that his life would
be claimed by the Papists. On this, Luther determined
to go back at all risks, and strive to put a stop to the
mischief, having first written to the Elector, publicly

Luther s return to Wittenberg.

declaring that he returned in spite of him, not under his
protection, in order that the Romanists might have no
pretext for attacking the prince on his account.
The engraving represents a scene which took place on
the way in an inn at Jena, where Luther met with two
Swiss students, who were travelling from their native land
to Wittenberg, to inquire into the new doctrines. One
of them, Kepler, thus describes the incident: "In the
parlour we found a man sitting alone by the table, with a
little book lying before him, who greeted us courteously,
bade us to seat ourselves at the table with him, and offered
us something to drink, to which we could not say him
nay. * * * * We supposed, however, nothing else but
that it was a knight who sat before us, dressed after the
fashion of that country, in a red bonnet, trunk-hose and
doublet, a sword by his side, with his right hand on the
pommel thereof, and his left clasping the hilt. * * * Then
we asked him, ' Honoured sir, could you perchance tell
us whether Martin Luther is now at Wittenberg, or
where he may be ? ' He answered, ' I have certain in
formation that Luther is not now at Wittenberg, but he
is to be there shortly. But Philip Melanchthon is there ;
he teaches the Greek language, and there are others who
teach Hebrew, both which I would in all faithfulness
counsel you to study, for they are before all things needful
to understand Scripture.' * * * Thus conversing we grew
quite friendly together, so that my companion ventured
to take up the book which lay beside him, and behold ! it

Luther's return to Wittenberg. 73
was a Hebrew psalter." On arriving at Wittenberg they
went to present letters of .introduction which they had
brought to Schurff; whereon Kepler continues, " When
we were called into the room, lo, there we find Martin,
dressed as at Jena, along with Philip Melanchthon, Justus
Jonas, Nicholas Amsdorf, and Dr. Schurff, who were tell
ing him all that had passed at Wittenberg in his absence.
He greeted us smiling, and said, pointing with his finger,
' This is Philip Melanchfchonj, of whom I told you.' "

XXVI.
Luther allaying the Fury of the Iconoclasts.
1522.

Luther thus gives in a letter the motives of his return :
" I have been compelled to plunge with my life in my
hand into the midst of the Emperor's and Pope's fury, if
so be I may drive the wolf out of my sheepfold. * * *
For I perceive that Satan is casting about how he may
not only quench the light of the Gospel, but bring great
bloodshed to pass in Germany." (No. 369.)
He arrived at Wittenberg on Friday the 6th of March.
On the following Sunday, he entered the pulpit and began
a course of eight sermons, continued during the succeeding
days of that week, on Charity, the Use and Abuse of
Christian Freedom, Image-worship, Fasting, the Holy
Communion, and Confession. In such expressions as
these he shows that forms and acts must be the fruit of
the right spirit, but can never produce it : " Dear friends,
the kingdom of God standeth not in speech or in words,
but in power and in deed. For God will not have mere
hearers and repeaters of the Word, but followers and
doers of it, who exercise themselves in that faith which
worketh by love. For faith without love is nothing
worth ; yea, it is not faith, but only a semblance thereof.
Just as a countenance seen in a mirror is not a real coun
tenance, but only a semblance thereof." " Those have
erred who have done away with the mass ; not that that
were not a good thing, but because they have not done it
L 2

76 Luther allaying the Fury of the Iconoclasts.
in a lawful manner. * * Hereby it is evident that though
ye may indeed be well read in the Scripture, ye do not
understand its spirit." * * * " See that ye turn not a may
be into a must be ; * * lest ye have to give account for
those who have been led into sin by your unloving
liberty." * * * " For since we have no power to pour
faith into the heart, we cannot and ought not to do any
thing by constraint or force. * * * We must first take
men's hearts captive, and that is brought about by preach
ing God's Word, declaring the Gospel, exposing error.
* * With uproar and violence ye will never do God's
work ; that you will see. And if you persevere therein,
I, at all events, will have nothing to do with you.
" If I had taken matters in hand with violence and
tumult, I should have begun a game that would have filled
Germany with bloodshed. And what should I have
effected ? A mere farce, bringing ruin to body and soul.
I sat still, and let the Word do its work."
" Do ye as the Apostles did." * * " When Paul was
at Athens he went into the temples and saw the idols
and images ; yet he did not break or insult them ; * *
but he went out on Mars Hill and rebuked the Athenians
for their superstition and idolatry."
So powerful was Luther's eloquence, that one of the
fanatical preachers against whom he was contending said,
on hearing him ; " It is as though I heard the voice of an
angel, not of a man." His counsels prevailed, and the
Reformation resumed a peaceable course.

XXVII.
Luther continues his Translation of the Bible
with the Help of Melanchthon. 1523 —
1524.

After the disturbances raised by the fanatics had been
quelled, Luther resumed his wonted labours at Witten
berg, and especially devoted himself to the perfecting of
his translation of the Bible, the whole of which was
completed in 1523. There had been previous translations
of the Scriptures ; but Luther's so far excelled them
both in correctness and beauty, that it was even made
the basis of the subsequent translations by the Roman
Catholics, and it has perhaps contributed more than any
other work to fix and purify the German language.
Luther was assisted in this work by Melanchthon, who
had come to Wittenberg as professor of Greek in 1518,
at the age of twenty-one, and who, from that time till death
parted them, was Luther's dearest and most intimate
friend, with whom he shared all his feehngs, thoughts, and
conflicts. As Mathesius says : " God having endowed
Melanchthon with special gifts, * * * gave him to our
doctor, as the Son of God gave the eloquent speaker
Aaron to his prophet Moses in Egypt." The letters
which Luther wrote soon after Melanchthon's arrival in
Wittenberg are full of praises of the boyish professor.

78 Luther continues his Translation of the Bible,
"Philip Melanchthon," he says (No. 76.), "has delivered
an extraordinarily learned and clever oration, to the
delight and astonishment of all. * * * We soon for
got his outward appearance, and congratulate ourselves
with wonder at what we have obtained in him." He
even says, in August, 1520 (No. 250.), "I know not
what to think of myself. Perhaps I am the forerunner of
Melanchthon, whose way I am preparing as an Elias in
spirit and in power ; and it is he who shall trouble Israel
and the house of Ahab."
Mathesius too tells us how Luther said to him and
other young students, when guests at his table : " Next to
the Bible, read Philip's Common-places. That is the best
of books, for in it pure theology is summed up correctly
and systematically. * * * Gerson, Proles, &c, * * have
preserved and handed down to us somewhat of pure
doctrine. But our Philip knows how to explain the
Scripture, to think over the matter, and then to put it with
admirable terseness. So, too, he has learnt how to pray
through crosses and temptations, and conversed with the
greatest and most learned adversaries, and is in earnest
with his theology. Therefore, my young friends, read
his Common-places and his Commentary on the Romans
with diligence."

XXVIII.
Luther preaching at Seeburg against the
Peasants' War in 1525.

The engraving before us exhibits Luther standing up on
behalf of the civil power against the spirit of anarchy.
During the latter half of the fifteenth and beginning of
the sixteenth centuries, there had been many risings among
the German peasantry, who were mostly held in serfdom,
and all grievously oppressed by the exactions, and some
times cruelty, of the nobles. They not only suffered from
the tyranny of their own lords, but from the lawless feuds
continually occurring between the nobles themselves, who
sacked and ravaged each other's castles and lands without
scruple in their own private quarrels ; nay, who were some
of them little better than brigands. The rich monasteries
of the luxurious and vicious clergy were generally the first
objects that attracted at once the hatred of the peasants
and their love of spoil. Outbreaks of this kind had
occurred in 1514, 1515, and 1524 in the southern and
more popish provinces of Germany. But in the begin
ning of 1525, a formidable insurrection broke out in
Saxony and Thuringia, led at first by a layman named
Pfeiffer, but soon joined and headed by Miinzer, one of
the fanatics of Zwickau before referred to, who, having
already formed a religious party, now turned it into a
political faction, aiming at nothing less than the over-

80 Luther preaching against the Peasants' War.
throw of the whole existing polity and the establishment
of a sort of communism under the sway of the saints ;
that is to say, Miinzer's own disciples and followers.
Mathesius tells us that Miinzer " inveighed alike against
the popes of Rome and of Wittenberg; derogated from
Scripture, appealing to his own revelations and spiritual
dreams; looked for signs from heaven; set up a new
fangled holiness, consisting in rising above sense and
mortifying the flesh ; burnt images ; plundered convents ;
gathered a band of followers ; raised a tumult ; deposed the
old senate [of Muhlhausen, where he lived] ; chose a fresh
one ; dispensed justice. Next he proves, as a prophet of
heaven, the duty of making war upon the ungodly ; and
having enlisted the Mansfield miners, prepares for the
onslaught." In the earlier part of the contest, Luther endeavoured
to be a peace-maker, exhorting the princes to redress the
well-founded complaints of their subjects, and the people
to abstain from violence and revolts.
Thus he says, in his " Exhortation to Peace " (1525) :
" In the first place, we have no one to thank for such
disorders but you princes and lords, specially you blind
bishops and insane priests, who even now * * cease not
to grind and flay the poor common man to keep up
your pomp and pride, till he neither can nor will bear it
longer. The sword is on your neck, while ye think to
sit so fast in the saddle that none can unhorse you. * *
Yet, unless God be moved by our repentance to avert it,

Luther preaching against the Peasants' War. 8 1
this conspiracy of the peasants must lead to the ruin,
wasting, and desolation of our German land by horrible
murder and bloodshed. For know, dear masters, it is
God's doing that men neither can nor will endure your
oppression any longer. You must change your ways, and
yield to God's voice; * * if not willingly, then by
force. * * If these peasants do not do the work, others
will. * * * * If ye will yet hearken to good counsel,
my masters, for God's sake give place a little to wrath.
A waggon load of hay should turn aside for a drunken
man, how much more should ye cease from your tyranny,
and treat the peasants gently as men drunk or led astray.
You know not what the end will be ; try kind means, lest
a spark be kindled that may light such a flame over all
Germany as none can quench."
Again to the peasants he says : " Dear friends, you
bear God's name, and call yourselves a Christian Society,
and profess you intend to carry out God's laws. * * *
You know God is mighty enough to chastise you, if you
bear his name in vain. * * * Yet if all your demands were
according to natural law and justice, still ye have quite
forgotten the law of Christ, which conquers by prayer
and patience, inasmuch as ye have undertaken to wrest
your wishes by violence from the authorities ; which is,
moreover, contrary both to the law of the land and to
natural justice."
At the request of the Elector, Luther undertook a
journey to the disturbed districts, preaching in Seeburg,
M

82 Luther preaching against the Peasants' War.
Jena, &c, in the hope of bringing the people to a better
mind. His efforts were not wholly fruitless upon those
who heard him, but the rebellion continued to make
head. " And when (says Mathesius) the peasants stopped
their ears, and, under the name and pretext of the Gospel,
behaved as devils, assailing not only convents and clergy,
but also their civil governors, and impaled a count and
burnt and pillaged the castles of the noblemen, Dr. Luther
was stirred up to defend God's order and the estate of
the rulers, and to condemn the bloodthirsty doings of the
peasants in a very severe book, and to admonish the
terrified authorities to destroy such a noxious brood with
the power of the sword." The authorities do not seem to
have stood in need of such an admonition, — the revolt was
soon put down, and Miinzer executed.
It cannot be denied that Luther, in his horror at the
atrocities committed by the peasants, seems to have for
gotten in this second book to give a due share of the
blame to those who, while they ought to have known how
to use power, drove ignorant, misguided wretches to mad
ness by their oppression. His temptation to this error
lay no doubt in the circumstance that the papal party
took advantage of these troubles to confound the Christian
liberty of conscience claimed by the Protestants with the
anarchical principles set forth by the fanatics ; and thus to
represent the crimes of the peasants as the mere conse
quence of the teaching at Wittenberg.

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XXIX.
Luthee's Maeeiage.

Luther held views of matrimony singularly just and noble
for one trained in a cloister. Thus he says : " There is
no relationship so lovely, no communion so friendly, no
society so sweet, as a good married life, when husband
and wife dwell together in peace and unity." " Peace
and happiness in married life is, next to God Himself and
the knowledge of his Word, the highest blessing and gift
that God can bestow on us."
He seems early in life to have come to a just apprecia
tion of the moral evils resulting from the unworthy esteem
in which marriage is held by the Romish Church.
Several of his followers among the clergy married at the
very commencement of the Reformation, and he always
defended their conduct. Yet he thus replies, in November,
1524, to some who urged him to follow their example (No.
1137.) : " I am indeed in the hand of God, as His creature,
whose heart He may change and re-change every moment.
But as my heart has stood hitherto, and still stands, it will
never come to pass that I shall take a wife. Not that I
am * * made of wood or stone, but that my mind is bent
upon other things than marrying, seeing that I am in
daily expectation of death * * as a heretic. Therefore I
would not willingly hinder God from accomplishing all
His work in me, nor that my heart should struggle against
it." Butinthe following June hewrites (No. 1212.): "I am
M 2

84 Luther's Marriage.
minded, before I depart this life, to be found as a married
man, which I judge that God requires of me, should my
marriage be no more than a betrothal like Joseph's."
And in his Table-talk, referring to this, he says : " This I
had quite resolved within myself to do, before I took a
wife, to do honour to the estate of matrimony. If I had
been about to die unexpectedly, or were even already
lying on my deathbed, I would have had a pious maiden
brought to me and the marriage performed, and afterwards
given her two silver cups as keepsake and morning
gift " (xliii. § 3.).
His choice fell upon Catherine von Bora, one of nine
nuns who had together quitted the convent of Nimptsch
on religious grounds, about two years previously ; and its
wisdom was proved by twenty years of unbroken domestic
happiness. Thus he said of her, that he " prized her
more highly than the kingdom of France or the empire
of the Venetians ; for a pious wife had been given and
bestowed on him by God. * * * And everywhere among
married people he heard of much greater faults and
failings than were to be found in her." And writes:
" She is more to me than I had dared to hope, thanks be
to God ; so that I would not exchange my poverty for the
treasures of Croesus."
The engraving represents the ceremony as it was per
formed in the house of Catherine's guardian Reichenbach,
by Bugenhagen, with Lucas Cranach and Dr. Apel, pro
fessor of jurisprudence, for witnesses.

XXX.
Luther's Conference with Zwingle concerning
the Sacrament. 1529.

While Luther was the means of bringing about a
reform of the Church in Germany, the same work was
being independently carried on in Switzerland by
Zwingle, GScolampadius, and other divines of less note.
Their doctrinal views were in general similar to those of
Luther ; but they differed from him with regard to the
Lord's Supper, maintaining that Christ was present in
the sacrament only in a spiritual, not in a corporeal sense ;
while Luther taught that the body of Christ was truly
present and united with the bread and wine, as light and
heat penetrate through air, water, crystal, &c, and exist
therein without occupying any space or changing the sub
stance of these bodies. (See Confession concerning the
Lord's Supper. 1528.)
A controversy on this subject arose between the
German and Swiss Reformers, the chief points of which
are thus summed up by Mathesius : " The opponents "
(Zwingle, &c.) " leant on those words of St. John, ' The
flesh profiteth nothing ; ' moreover, argued that a material
body could not be in many places at once ; that sacra
ments were signs, consequently the elements only signi
fied the body of Christ ; and that therefore the true body

86 Luther's Conference with Zwingle.
and blood of Christ were not present with the bread, or
in the administering of the Holy Sacrament. The which
was thus confuted by Dr. Luther : the text ' The flesh
profiteth nothing ' does not refer to the flesh of Jesus
Christ, which bringeth and giveth life, but to man's
natural understanding. Further, we ought not to think
or speak of Christ's glorified body, which is united with
the Divine Nature in one indivisible Person, hath ascended
into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father,
governs and works everywhere, in the same manner as of
our natural and human body. For God has given to the
Lord Jesus a name and power which is above every name
or power. Therefore, although it may seem impossible
and absurd to reason, yet God can do all that He says.
Now, Christ's true words stand clearly there, ' This is my
body,' * * ' This is my blood.' With regard to which
we may not shorten God's hand ; for with Him, as the
angel says to Mary, nothing is impossible."
After the controversy had been carried on for nearly
five years, the Landgrave of Hesse, who ardently desired
to bring about a religious and political union between all
sections of Protestants, summoned the chiefs on both sides
to a friendly conference at Marburg, in October, 1529.
He also invited Bucer and Capito from Strasburg, who
had taken a middle course and endeavoured to mediate
between the German and Swiss Reformers. The latter
accepted the Landgrave's invitation with gladness ;
Zwingle without hesitation, though with little hope of a

Luther's Conference ivith Zwingle. 87

good result; but Luther was with great difficulty per
suaded to attend. The conference was held in a private
apartment of the palace, in the presence of the Landgrave
and his principal ministers ; but was as fruitless as was
to be expected from the circumstance that Luther had
declared beforehand that he would not yield, seeing that
he had " taken his stand upon the Word of God." When
the discussion had lasted three days, the Landgrave pro
posed that it should terminate by both sides signing a
declaration that while they each retained their own
opinion, they agreed on the essentials of faith, and recog
nized each other as Christian brethren. The Zwinglian
party at once assented, offering at the same time to prove
from Scripture that their differences were not fundamental.
The Lutherans, alas ! refused, and by this act not only
frustrated the noble and wise project of the Landgrave,
but divided the Protestant Church for centuries, and
consecrated afresh for succeeding generations that fatal
error of the Romish Church, that Christian brotherhood
cannot coexist with diversity of intellectual appre
hension. The engraving represents Luther and Zwingle standing
in ardent controversy, while the Landgrave of Hesse
and Ulrich of Wurtemberg are listening to them atten
tively. Melanchthon and GScolampadius are seated on
the left, engaged in quieter discussion.

XXXI.
The Presenting of the Augsburg Confession of
Faith.

In April, 1529, the majority of the Diet assembled at
Spires having passed a decree commanding the restoration
of the mass, and forbidding the introduction of fresh inno
vations, until the .meeting of a general or national council,
the minority protested against it, claiming the right of
worshippings according to the mode which their con
sciences prescribed, and thus in effect denying the
authority of the civil power to command in matters of
faith. Such at least was in substance the ground taken
by the subscribers to the memorable Appeal from which
Protestants have derived their name. It was signed by
six Princes, the Elector of Saxony, George of Branden
burg, Philip of Hesse, Wolfgang of Anhalt, and Ernest
and Francis of Lunenburg ; and by fourteen imperial
cities, of which the principal were Strasburg, Nuremberg,
Ulm, and Constance.
In the following January, Charles convoked the Estates
of the Empire to meet at Augsburg in April, 1530, to
settle the Lutheran controversy, and restore the unity of
the Church.
On receiving notice of the intended Diet, the Elector
called upon Luther to draw up a summary of the Pro-
N

90 The presenting of the Augsburg Confession of Faith.
testant articles of faith, which summary was afterwards
expanded by Melanchthon into the famous Augsburg
Confession of Faith. Luther, as having been condemned
at Worms, and peculiarly obnoxious to the papal party,
was left behind by the Elector in the Castle of Coburg,
half-way on the road to Augsburg, where he could be in
constant communication with his brethren, Melanchthon,
Spalatin and Jonas, who were selected to represent the
Protestant party in the approaching discussion. Me
lanchthon seems to have entertained some hope, that by
concession a union might be brought about between
Protestants and Romanists. Luther knew better, per
ceiving that the latter could not yield one point without
surrendering their very citadel, — the principle of the in
fallibility of the Church.
On arriving at Augsburg the Protestant princes placed
their preachers in some of the principal churches, and
refused to silence them till Protestants and Romanists
alike were forbidden to preach. They next refused to take
part in the procession on Corpus Christi day. The Elector
of Saxony consented to fulfil his office of Grand Marshal
of the Empire in accompanying the Emperor to mass at
the opening of the Diet, but stood, while all beside were
kneeling, at the elevation of the host. The papal party
wished the Protestants to send their apology in writing to
the Emperor, but they refused to present it in any other
manner than by reading it before the assembled Diet ;
and Bayer, the chancellor of the Elector, insisted on

The Presenting of the Augsburg Confession of Faith. 91
reading it in German as well as Latin. This document,
signed by the princes as well as the theologians, was pre
sented on the 25th of June ; which thus became the era
of the introduction of Protestant principles into political
organization. " Great is my joy," writes Luther to Cordatus (No.
1246.), "to have lived to this hour, in which Christ has
been publicly preached in so noble a confession, by such
confessors, before so great an assembly. Now is fulfilled
that saying, ' I will speak of thy testimonies also before
kings,' and that other shall also be fulfilled, ' and will
not be confounded,' for ' whosoever shall confess me before
men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in
heaven.' " " I am quite easy and of good cheer touching
our common cause," he writes to Melanchthon, "for I
know that it is the cause of Christ and of God. There
fore I care nought for the threats and rage of the Papists.
If we fall, Christ falls with us, He, the Ruler of the
world. But if He fall, I had rather fall with Christ than
stand with Caesar. * * You are not upholding the cause
alone. I stand by you with my sighs and prayers. O
that I were so in body too ! For the cause is mine, as
much as yours, nay more. * * * I beseech you, for
Christ's sake, throw not to the winds God's promises and
consolations when he says, ' Cast thy care upon God.'
* * # c jje 0j- g00(i cheer, I have overcome the world.'
Why should we fear the conquered world ? "
In the engraving the Protestants are represented on
N 2

92 The Presenting of the Augsburg Confession of Faith.
the right hand, the Catholics on the left. Before the
Emperor Christian Bayer, the chancellor of the Elector
of Saxony, is reading the confession of Faith. Behind
him are seated the Landgrave of Hesse resting on his
sword, John of Saxony with his hands folded in prayer,
and the Margrave John of Brandenburg. In the fore
ground stands Melanchthon, full of sorrow at the impend
ing division of the Church of Christ. Above, Luther is
seen in prayer, and below, the artist has' placed the arms
of Luther and Melanchthon, with Luther's chosen motto,
taken from his favourite 118th Psalm, "I shall not die,
but live."

XXXII.
The Translation of the Bible.

Luther throughout his whole course took his stand
upon the Bible. To that he refers every question that
arises, as to an ultimate authority ; and among the quali
fications which he requires for preachers, one of the first
is, that they should be diligent students of the Bible.
" The Bible," says he, " will make and fashion a theolo
gian, especially when he understands the original languages,
and humbly seeks Christ therein with earnest prayer."
Yet he was not for an unintelligent reverence for the
mere letter of Scripture. " Thou must," says he, " dis
criminate among the books of the Bible, and take note
which are the best." " In this all truly sacred books
concur, that they one and all preach Christ. And this is
the right test by which to pass judgment on books when
we see whether or no they treat of Christ." Again he
says, in the tract Against Hans Wurst, " That which does
not teach Christ is not apostolic, though Peter or Paul
taught it; and again, that which preaches Christ is
apostolic, though Judas, Pilate and Herod said it."
Mathesius tells us that, " when the whole Bible had
been published in German, Dr. Luther takes it up again
from the beginning, with much earnestness, diligence, and
prayer, and convokes as it were a Sanhedrim of the best

94 The Translation of the Bible.
men that could be found, who come together every week
at his house, viz. : Dr. Bugenhagen, Dr. Jonas, Dr.
Kreuziger, Master Melanchthon, M. Aurogallus, * *
with G. Rorer, the corrector, and often some foreign
doctors and scholars. * * Now when our doctor had
looked through the Bible already published, and besides
inquired among the Jews and foreign linguists, and
picked up good words by asking old Germans, * * he
came into the assembly with his old Latin and new
German Bible, and always brought a Hebrew text also ;
Melanchthon brought the Greek text, Dr. Kreuziger the
Hebrew and Chaldee, and the professors had their Rabbis
with them. * * * Each had prepared himself beforehand
for the passage on which they were to deliberate and
looked at * * the commentators thereon. * * * Wonder
fully beautiful and instructive things were said in the
course of this work, some of which Rorer afterwards
printed as marginal notes. * * After due exhortation,
each stated his opinion, which he proved to the best of his
ability by the grammar, or context, or testimony of the
learned, till at length, in the year 1542, this work was, by
God's grace, accomplished."
In the engraving, Luther is represented standing
between Melanchthon and Bugenhagen ; on the left Jonas
is looking up towards Luther, while on the right
Kreuziger is seen in conversation with the Rabbis.

XXXIII.
The Improvement of the Schools and Introduc
tion of the Catechism.

By the Reformation the people passed from nonage into
man's estate, and, loosed from the leading-strings of the
priests, were made to feel themselves accountable for
their belief and actions. Luther saw the necessity of
education to enable them to use their freedom aright.
The establishment of schools was one of his first cares,
and to him is Germany in great measure indebted for her
noble apparatus of popular education.
In 1524, Luther wrote an "Appeal to the Burgo
masters and Councillors of all German towns, to esta
blish and maintain Christian Schools," in which he says :
" I beg you all, dear masters and friends, for God's sake,
and our poor children's sake, do not deem this a small
matter. * * * For it is a grave and weighty matter of
great moment to Christ and the whole world, that we
help and guide the younger generation. * * Dear masters,
how much are you obliged to spend yearly on arms,
highways, dams, &c. * * for a town to enjoy temporal
peace and comfort ; how much rather should you spend
such a sum on the children of the poor and needy. * * *
What do we elder men live for, but to tend the rising
generation, to instruct and train them ? * * God has

96 The Improvement of the Schools.
committed them into our hands, and will call us to a
heavy reckoning on their account. * * Therefore it be
hoves all those in authority to devote the utmost care
and diligence to the young. * * * • As I have shown you,
the common man does nothing [towards the estabhshment
of schools] ; moreover, he is neither able nor willing,
nor knows how to do anything. The princes and nobles
ought, indeed, to take the thing in hand ; but they have
to ride, to drink, to joust, and are laden with high
affairs of the cellar, kitchen, and chamber. * * * There
fore, dear masters, it is left in your hands, and you have
more calling and opportunity thereunto than even princes
and nobles."
In 1527 the Elector of Saxony, by the advice and with
the assistance of Luther, set on foot a general visitation
of the churches throughout Saxony, to supply them with
suitable men for pastors, and also to establish good
German and Latin schools. Luther took an active part
in the work, often examining the poor peasants and children
himself, to learn their real mental condition and wants.
He afterwards compiled an admirable manual of popular
instruction in his Smaller Catechism, of which he says :
" I was compelled and driven to draw up this Catechism,
or Christian doctrine, in such a brief and simple form, by
the lamentable and wretched destitution of religious
knowledge which I had by experience found to exist
during the late visitation."
Neither did Luther wish to confine popular education

and Introduction of the Catechism. 97
within narrow limits. Thus he says, in the " Appeal "
already quoted : " But if there were neither soul, nor
heaven, nor hell, and we had no need of schools in
order to understand the Scriptures and God's will,
yet it were reason enough for establishing the best
schools for boys and girls in all places, that the world
needs well-educated men and women to keep up its
outward condition. * * •* I speak for myself, if I had
children, and could afford it, they should not only learn
the classical languages and history, but also music and
mathematics. * * * Yea, how I regret now that I have
not read more poets and historians ! " And again, in a
sermon on the same subject, preached in 1530, he says :
" And if I had to lay down my office as preacher, there
is none which I would sooner assume than that of school
master. For I know that this work is the most useful
and honourable of all offices next to that of the preacher ;
indeed, I scarcely know which of the two is the best.
* * * Is it not to be feared that may-be an idol-worshipper
(I mean of Mammon) will take his son away from school,
saying, ' It is enough if my son can read, and keep accounts,
as we have now books in German,' and thus set a bad
example to other honest citizens? * * * But a com
munity, especially such a city [Nuremberg], ought to
contain more men than merchants, and some who can do
more than read German books and keep accounts. For
preaching, governing, administering the law, all the arts
and languages in the world are too few. * * * But such
o

98 The Schools and the Catechism.
idolators never think how governing is to be carried on,
nor remember that without it they would not be able to
serve their god, Mammon, for an hour. * * *
" But I hold that it is the duty of the civil powers to con
strain their subjects to send their children to school. * * If
* they have a right to compel able-bodied men to bear arms
and man the defences in case of war, how much more may
they, and ought they, to oblige them to send their children
to school, seeing that a far deadlier warfare has to be waged
with Satan himself! * * Wherefore, let him who can
see to this ; and let the magistrates, when they see a
likely boy, keep him to school ; and if his father is poor,
let them assist him with the Church property, and let the
rich bequeath money in their wills for this purpose. * *
That were, indeed, to leave their money to the Church ! "

XXXIV
The Seemon.

The prominence assumed by the doctrine of justifi
cation by faith in the Lutheran system, led to the
exaltation of the office of the preacher, through whose
announcement of the Gospel faith was commonly pro
duced. Among the Lutherans the sermon had taken the
place of the mass, as the means of bringing the sinner into
reconciliation with God.
" Therefore," says Luther, " look to it, ye pastors and
preachers. Our office is become a very different thing
to what it was under the Pope ; it is an awful, but
a wholesome one. Hence now-a-days it brings much
more toil and labour, responsibility and vexations, and
withal little reward or thanks from the world ; but Christ
Himself will be our reward, if we faithfully labour for
Him." " No one filling the office of teacher and preacher
now-a-days is fit for his post unless he have joy and
delight in Him who has sent him. Moses prayed our
Lord God six times that he might be excused; yet he
was forced to go. And so, too, hath He forced me into
this office. * * * * O, my masters, it is no child's-play."
Hence Luther gives such counsels as these to young
preachers (Table-talk, xxii. § 100.) r "When you are
a 2

100 The Sermon.

going to preach, speak with God, saying, ' O Lord God,
I desire to preach to thy glory ; I will speak of Thee, exalt
Thee, praise thy Name, even though I cannot do it so well
as I ought.' And do not regard Melanchthon, or me, or
any other learned man, but think yourself the most learned
of all when you are speaking of God from the pulpit. I
have never suffered myself to be abashed with the notion
that I could not preach well enough; but I have often
been abashed and terrified at the thought that I had to
speak, and must speak, before God's face about His infi
nite majesty and divine essence."
Luther thus expresses his view of what preaching
should be : "I endeavour to set before my mind a text and
to keep to it, and so to explain it and fix it in the minds
of the people, that they may be able to say afterwards,
' he said this and that in the sermon ' " ( Table-talk, xx.
§ 25.). And again, " Woe and anathema to all those
preachers who love to handle lofty, difficult, and subtle
questions in the pulpit, and bring such before the common
people, and enlarge upon them, seeking their own honour
and glory. When I preach here in Wittenberg I let
myself down as much as possible, and do not think about
the doctors and learned men, of whom there may be some
forty present, butlook at the crowds of young men, children,
and servants, who are there by hundreds and thousands ; to
them I preach, and to them I adapt myself, for they need
it. And if the others do not like it, the door is open, let
them walk out." {Table-talk, xxii. § 143.)

The Sermon. 101

Mathesius also tells us : "I have more than once
heard him say at table, how that in the schools it was
proper to dispute and bring forward acute arguments to
confute the adversaries ; but that in the pulpit those are
the best preachers who discourse in a childlike, ordinary,
simple style, intelligible to the common people ; who do
not propose difficult questions, nor confute the reasonings
of their adversaries, nor yet cast censure upon absent
magistrates, of monks, or priests, or give sideways blows
to those who oppose or dislike them. For in church we
had only to do with those present, but in the schools with
the absent as well."
These few sayings will perhaps be found to contain the
secret of the wonderful power exerted by Luther's
preaching over his contemporaries.

XXXV.
The Administeation of the Lord's Supper in
both Kinds.

"A Christian should know that there is nothing on
earth more sacred than God's Word ; for even the sacra
ment is made such, and blessed, and hallowed through
God's Word ; and thereby are we all born in the Spirit,
and dedicated as Christians." Thus speaks Luther in his
Tract, " On the receiving of the Sacrament in both Kinds,"
written in 1522, with immediate reference to the inno
vations introduced by Carlstadt. " A Christian," he says
further, " is holy in body and soul, whether he be layman
or priest, man or woman; and he who says otherwise
blasphemes holy baptism, Christ's word, and the Holy
Spirit's grace. * * The Christian is not made for the
sacrament, but the sacrament for the Christian. * *
Therefore we beg, nay, we command, in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, those who have received it under
both kinds not to be persuaded that they have committed
a sin thereby, but rather to yield up fife itself. * * *
For the text of the Gospel is so clear, that even the
Papists cannot deny that Christ instituted the Lord's
supper in both kinds, and gave it thus to all His disciples."
Yet he would not force the consciences of those who
thought it right to adhere to the old form. " In such a

104 The Administration of the Lord's Supper.
case," he says, " the command of love is to be preferred
far before the administration in both kinds. For Christ
lies more in love than in the forms of the sacrament."
The nature of the view embodied in the Church of the
Reformation is well expressed by Luther in his " Sermon
on the Sacrament," published in 1519: "Thus we hold
that there are two chief sacraments in the Churches,
baptism, and the Lord's supper. Baptism introduces us
into a new life on earth. The Lord's supper conducts
us through death into eternal life. * * And the fruit of
this sacrament is communion and love, whereby we are
strengthened against death and all evil. In such sort, that
the communion is of two kinds ; first, that we have part
in Christ and all the saints ; secondly, that we allow all
Christians to have part in us, so far as they and we are
able. So that the selfish love of oneself being rooted out
through this sacrament, may give place to the universal
love of all mankind ; and thus, through the transformation
wrought by love, there may be one bread, one cup, one
body, one communion, which is the true and Christian
brotherly unity,"
And again, in his " Sermon on the New Testament, that
is to say, on the Holy Mass " (1520) : " Hence we ought
to take good heed to the word sacrifice, that we may not
presumptuously think to give something to God in this
sacrament, in which it is He who gives us all things.
We ought, indeed, to offer up a spiritual sacrifice;
what then shall we offer? Ourselves, and all that we

The Administration of the Lord's Supper. 105
have, with diligent prayer, as we say, Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven. * * * It is true we are not to lay
these sacrifices before God's eyes in our own name, but to
lay them on Christ. * * * For to this end he is a priest,
as it is said : Thou art a priest for ever after the order of
Melchisedek. And He is ever at the right hand of God,
and maketh intercession for us. * * * From which words
we learn that we do not offer Christ, but Christ offers us.
And in this sense it is allowable, yea profitable, to call
the mass a sacrifice; not for its own sake, but that we
offer ourselves with Christ, with a firm belief in his
Testament." * * * *

M

XXXVI.
Luther reading the Bible to the Elector John.

This engraving, if not a portraiture of any given fact,
truthfully represents the relation in which Luther stood
both to this prince and his son and successor John Fre
derick, of which his letters afford many illustrations ; for
these princes undertook nothing of importance, especially
with regard to the Church or schools, without consulting
him ; and he on his side evinced the warmest attachment,
as well as respect for them. Thus he writes from Co-
burg to Prince John (No. 1215.) : " It is a great sign that
God loves your Grace, that having given you his Holy
Word in rich abundance, and made you worthy to receive
it, He further grants you to suffer obloquy and hatred for
the sake thereof, which is always a consolation to the con
science. * * * Moreover, the God of mercy shows His
favour, in that He makes His Word so mighty and fruitful
in your Grace's land, which truly possesses more and
better pastors and preachers than any other land in the
world. * * And hence the tender flock of boys and
girls are growing up so well instructed, that it warms. my
heart to see how youths and maidens know and believe
and can tell more about God and Christ than formerly
all the monasteries and convents and schools could do.
* * * It is as though God said : ' Behold, dear Duke John,
P 2

108 Luther reading the Bible to the Elector John.
I entrust to thee my noblest treasures, my pleasantest
paradise : thou shalt be father over it. For I will have
them to be under thy protection and rule, and do thee
the honour to make thee my gardener and steward.'
And this is assuredly true." * *
Luther's counsels to his sovereign appear to have been
always dictated rather by considerations of religion than
of policy. Thus, when his opinion was demanded as to
the formation of a league for mutual defence among the
Protestant states, and again with regard to the election
of Ferdinand to be King of the Romans, he repeatedly
dissuaded the Elector, on Scriptural grounds, from entering
into any alliance which might bring him into collision with
his lawful head, the Emperor (even in one letter declaring
that he should be constrained by conscience to leave the
country in such a case), while he advised his sovereign
to vote in favour of Ferdinand, although notoriously
hostile to the Protestants. In the latter case, the danger
of such a course appeared so clear to the Elector, that
Luther's advice was disregarded.
But Luther's political principles are most clearly
exhibited in a letter to the Elector John (No. 1191.),
written in answer to the question whether, in case the
Emperor should, as was expected, take violent measures
against the followers of the Gospel, it was lawful to resist
him by force of arms. Luther says : " After due con
sideration, we find that, perhaps, according to worldly
right, some might conclude it allowable in such a case to

Luther reading the Bible to the Elector John. 109
resort to self-defence, seeing that his majesty the Em
peror has engaged and bound himself by oath not to use
violence towards any, but to leave them in the enjoyment
of their former liberties. * * * But according to the
Scriptures, it is nowise befitting any who wishes to be a
Christian, to set himself against his governors, whether
they do justly or unjustly. * * For although the Em
peror should violate rights, and break his engagements
and oath, yet that does not annul his imperial authority,
nor absolve his subjects from their obedience. * * In
short, sin neither abrogates authority nor obedience, but
punishment does ; i. e., if the electors were unanimously
to depose the Emperor, so that he were no longer
Emperor. * * * If his imperial majesty choose to
molest us, no prince or lord ought to protect us against
him, but to leave his land and people open to the Em
peror, whose they are, and commit the matter to God ;
and no man ought to desire anything else of his prince,
but each should stand upon his own footing, and maintain
his faith by yielding up his life for it, and not bring his
prince into danger, or burden him with his defence, but
suffer the Emperor to do what he will with his own, so
long as he is Emperor."

XXXVII.
Luther visited in Sickness by the Elector
John Frederick.

A dangerous illness which befell Luther at Smalcald,
in 1537, presents another instance of the friendship sub
sisting between him and his Prince. Meurer, quoting
older authorities (p. 594.), tells us how Luther, despairing
of recovery, exclaimed : " I commend myself to Thee, O
Lord, thou faithful God ; I am ready to die when, where,
and how it pleases Thee, my God, for thy will is best ! "
" Scarcely had he uttered these words, when behold his
Highness John Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, came
to visit the sick Luther, who received the Prince with
a prayer for God's blessing on him. Afterwards his
electoral Grace comforted the patient with these words
among others : ' Our Lord God will have mercy on us for
the sake of his word and name, and prolong your life, dear
father.' Here he turned away, for his eyes overflowed.
A little while after, Luther begged those standing round
him, as Philip Melanchthon, Spalatin and Myconius,
with Hans von Dolzig, to pray with all their might against
the great prince of this world, the devil. * * * * After
this he thanked the Prince heartily for his gracious visit,
and for that he had with him endured steadfastly and
borne much for the sake of the Gospel ; which precious

112 Luther visited in Sickness.
treasure he commended for the future to his Grace's
hands. On which the Prince replied, ' I fear, dear doc
tor, that if God take you from us, He may take his pre
cious Word away with you.' ' Ah no, my gracious Master,
that He will not,' said Luther, 'for there are now many
learned and faithful men whose hearts are set to do right,
and who understand the matter well ; and I hope God will
give them grace to set their face as a rock and hold firm,
and so the truth may be preserved. God Almighty grant
it ! ' he concluded, clasping his hands together. But the
Elector said to the pastors present : ' Dear sirs, see to it
that you keep us close to the pure Word of God, that we may
stand before His face.' * * * When the Elector was about
to take his leave, he once more comforted the sick man
with many kind words, and at last ended by saying, that
if it should be, after all, God's will to take him, as he
trusted would not be the case, he begged him not to be
under any anxiety about his wife and children : ' For,'
said he, ' your wife shall be my wife, and your children my
children. ' "
In the engraving Melanchthon is seen in the foreground
struggling with his anguish ; behind him stands Myconius
listening to the Prince, while Spalatin is leaning over the
pillow of his sick friend.

XXXV11I.
Luther's Portrait taken by Lucas Cranach.

The engraving before us is a fitting commemoration of
the artist to whose affectionate industry we owe our
acquaintance with the outward aspect of the great Re
former. Cranach is here supposed to be sketching the
first of the numerous portraits which he made of his
"Freund und Gevatter," Luther. Melanchthon is criticizing
the resemblance of the features, while Spalatin is reading
aloud to Luther to pais away the time.
Truly may Cranach be called the painter of the
Reformation, the spirit of which inspired all the pro
ductions of his genius, and whose heroes he has im
mortalised in his noblest works. Thus, in the altar-piece
of the parish church of Wittenberg,' he has grouped
around the picture of the first institution of the Lord's
supper three paintings representing the chief rites of the
Protestant Church. In the centre, Luther is preaching,
while on the right, baptism is administered by Melanch
thon, the writer of the Augsburg Confession ; and on the
left, Bugenhagen, who was pre-eminently the pastor of his
fellow-citizens, is confessing and absolving penitents.
Various other altar-pieces by the same master contain
similar symbolical embodiments of Protestant thought
and feeling.

1 14 Luther's Portrait taken by Lucas Cranach.
From Luther's letters, as well as other sources, we
gather that Lucas Cranach lived in habits of intimate
intercourse with himself and his brethren ; and the artist
had also a principal share in setting up the first printing-
press in Wittenberg, which became the fountain-head
whence the publications of the Reformed party were
diffused over Germany.

H

XXXIX.
Luther in prayer at the Bedside of Melanch
thon.

The engraving before us represents an event which took
place in 1540, when Melanchthon, on his way to the
Conference in Hagenau, was taken dangerously ill in
Weimar, with a disorder which seems to have been prin
cipally brought on by his distress of mind at having
consented to the bigamy of the Landgrave of Hesse.
The Elector sent in all haste for Luther, who found his
friend already speechless and insensible, with his coun
tenance apparently fixed in death. Shocked at the sight,
Luther exclaimed, "God forefend, how has the devil
defaced this Organon ! " Then turning to the window,
he poured out fervent prayers. " Our Lord God," said
Luther afterwards, " must needs hear me ; for * * * I
brought to His remembrance ah the promises about
hearing prayer that I could repeat from the Scriptures ;
so that He must needs hear me, if I were to trust His
promises." Thereupon he took Melanchthon by the hand,
and said, "Be of good courage, Philip, thou shalt not
die. Although God had cause to slay, yet He willeth
not the death of the sinner, but rather that he should be
converted and live. * * * Has He not received again to
Himself the greatest sinners on earth ? * * much less will
q 2

116 Luther at the Bedside of Melanchthon.
He reject thee, my Philip, or suffer thee to perish in sin
and sorrow. * * * Therefore trust in the Lord, who
can kill and make alive again." Melanchthon having
revived enough to express his wish not to be called back
to earth, Luther replied, "No, my Philip, thou must
serve our Lord yet longer here ;" and, fetching some food,
forced the unwilling Melanchthon to take it with the
threat : " Thou must swallow it, or I will speak the ban
over thee." Melanchthon, after his recovery, declared
that he could truly say that he had been called back from
death to life, and if Luther had not come, he must have
died. This is one instance out of many of Luther's strong
faith in the power of prayer. He said once, as Mathe
sius tells us, " I have prayed our Philip, and my Kate,
and Master Myconius out of the jaws of death." And
in the Table-talk (xv. § 1.) he says, "No one believes
how effectual and mighty is prayer, and how much
it can bring to pass, but he who has learned it by
experience, and proved it himself. * * This I know, that
so often as I have prayed fervently, with utter earnest
ness, I have been richly heard, and have received more
than I asked. God has, indeed, sometimes tarried, but
He has come notwithstanding."

XL.
Luther's Singing School in the House; and
the Introduction of the German Hymn.

In framing the services of the Reformed Church, Luther
recognised the great importance of music as an element of
public worship. He himself composed the music for the
first German mas? that was sung at Wittenberg, and his
beautiful chorales for many of the hymns which he wrote
are well known. When about to engage in. this work, he
invited Walther and Rupff, as the best musicians of his
time, to come to Wittenberg, and studied thorough-bass
under them. Walther says that, having remarked with
wonder the admirable manner in which Luther adapted
the notes, both to the accent and spirit of the words, in his
German Sanctus, he asked him one day where he had
obtained instruction in this art ; on which Luther smiled,
and answered, " The poet Virgil has taught it to me, who
knows how to adapt his words and rhythm so skilfully to
the story which he relates. So, too, in music, every note
and phrase should be regulated by the text."
So early as 1525 he published his first collection of
hymns and psalms, in the preface to which he says,
" And I have had them set to music, arranged for four
voices, because I desire that the young, who must and
ought to be instructed in music and other liberal arts,

118 Luther's Singing School.
should have somewhat to take the place of wanton and
carnal songs, and in their stead learn something whole
some, and thus imbibe what is good along with what is
pleasant, as is fitting for youth. Also, because I am not
of opinion that the arts should be felled to the earth and
die out through the Gospel, as some superstitious persons
pretend ; but I would fain see all arts, specially music, in
the service of Him who has given and created them."
Again, in the Table-talk (lxviii. § 1.) he says, " It is ab
solutely necessary to retain music in the schools. A
schoolmaster must be able to sing, or I would not look at
him. Neither should young men be ordained to the
ministry, unless they have been well trained and practised
beforehand in the schools." And Meurer tells us that, in
his preface to the " Harmonies for the Passion of Christ,"
he wrote a special eulogy of music, saying how "it has
been implanted in all and every creature since the found
ation of the world. For even the air, which in itself is
invisible, and not perceptible by any of our senses, and
least of all musical, but quite dumb, yet is turned into a
mere motion, which we first hear, and then also feel, by
which the Holy Spirit hints to us wonderful mysteries."

XLI.
Luther's Summer Pleasures in the Midst of
his Family.

The love of nature was a striking feature in Luther's
character no less than the warmth of his domestic affec
tion. " Ah," said he once, looking at his children, " how
great, how rich, and how noble are the blessings God gives
in marriage ! what a joy is bestowed on man through his
progeny ! * * * the fairest and sweetest of all joys."
{Table-talk, xliii. § 47.) " Children are the loveliest fruit
and bond of marriage ; they knit together and preserve
the bond of love. They are the finest wool on the sheep's
back." After his marriage Luther planted a garden, and writes,
in December, 1525, to Link : " I thank you kindly for
promising to send ine seeds against next spring ; pray send
as many as you can. * * * For while Satan with his
members is raging, I will laugh him to scOrn, beholding
my gardens, i. e. the Creator's blessings, and enjoying their
fruits to his praise." And the following summer he writes
to Spalatin : " If you will come to me, you shall see
some monuments of our old love and friendship. I have
planted a garden, and constructed a fountain, both with
great success. Come, and you shall be crowned with lilies
and roses." Meurer tells us that, in the year 1541, when

120 Luther's Summer Pleasures,
there was a very beautiful spring, and all around was bud
and blossom, Luther said to Dr. Jonas, " If only sin
and death were away, we could well content ourselves
with such a paradise. But it will be far more beautiful
when the old world is renewed, and an eternal spring shall
begin, to endure for ever." And as one day his children
were standing round the table, looking eagerly at the
grapes and peaches on it, he said, " He who would know
what it is to rejoice in hope, may see a perfect counter
part of it here. O that we could look forward to the last
day with such a joyful hope ! "
A similar scene is that represented by the engraving,
including, as it does, the table-companions of Luther, to
whom we owe the preservation of numberless discourses
of his, and anecdotes of his household life. The child
with the dog reminds us of that passage in the Table-talk
(iii. § 92.) : " Dr. Martin's little son was playing with his
dog. As his father looked at him he said, ' This boy is
preaching God's Word with his act and work, for God
says, Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and every
living thing that moveth upon the earth, and the dog will
bear everything from the child.' "
Every little thing in nature furnished Luther with food
for pious thoughts. Thus, " one day when two birds kept
flying into his garden, where they had made a nest, but
were repeatedly scared away by the steps of passers-by,
he exclaimed, ' O you dear little birds, do not fly away ; I
mean you well from the bottom of my heart, if you could

Luther's Summer Pleasures. 121
but believe it. Just so do we refuse to trust and believe
in our Lord God, who yet means us and shows us all
kindness ; He will assuredly not strike us dead, who has
given his Son for us.' " Meurer tells us, that, " in the
summer time he was frequently invited to dine by the
pastors or mayors of the neighbouring villages. When
his health allowed he gladly accepted such invitations,
generally preaching in the village ; but always caused his
dinner to be cooked for him beforehand at home, that he
might not give occasion for any to put themselves to in
convenient expense by preparing for him. Thus, taking
his meat and drink with him, he would allow any of his
table-companions who wished it to accompany him ; but
his lute was never left behind, and, so soon as the meal
was over and grace said, he would play for half an hour
or longer, as time permitted."

XLIL
Luther's Winter Pleasures in the Midst of
his Family.

The engraving shows us Luther enjoying with his
family the festival of Christmas eve, so dear to all German
households. In the figure of the eldest son, whom
Melanchthon is teaching to aim with his new crossbow
at the apple hanging in the tree, we detect an allusion to
the well-known letter addressed to this child by Luther
when at Coburg, assisting to deliberate on the Augsburg
Confession (No. 1228.) :
" Mercy and peace in Christ, my dear little son.
I am glad to hear that you learn your lessons well and
pray diligently. Go on doing so, my child. When I
come home I will bring you a pretty fairing. I know
a very pretty, pleasant garden ; and in it there are a
great many children, all dressed in little golden coats,
picking up nice apples, and pears, and cherries, and plums,
under the trees. And they sing and jump about, and are
very merry. And besides that, they have got beautiful
little horses, with golden bridles and silver saddles.
Then I asked the man to whom the garden belonged
whose children they were ; and he said, ' These are
children who love to pray and learn their lessons, and do
as they are bid.' Then I said, ' Dear sir, I have a little
B 2

124 Luther's Winter Pleasures.
son called Johnny Luther ; may he come into this garden
too ? ' * * And the man said, ' If he loves to pray and
learn his lessons, and is good, he may ; and Philip and
Jos too ; and when they all come together, they shall
have besides, little fifes and drums, and all sorts of musical
instruments to play with, and they shall dance, and shoot
with little bows and arrows.' And he showed me a smooth
lawn in the garden, all made ready for dancing, and there
were hanging up golden fifes and drums, and beautiful
silver crossbows. But it was early in the morning, and
the children had not had their breakfast yet, so I could not
stay to see the dancing ; but I said to the man, ' O sir, I
will go home directly, and write all about it to my dear
little son Johnny, and tell him * * * to be good, that
he may come into this garden. But he has a cousin Lena,
and he must bring her with him.' Then he said, ' Yes,
he may ; go away, and write him word so.' * * * "
Of Luther's kindliness and thoughtful care for all
around him numberless instances occur in his letters and
the records preserved by his friends. Thus, on occa
sion of the departure of an old servant, he writes to his
Avife, telling her to make him a considerable present ; and,
after suggesting various means of raising the money to do
so, orders her, if these expedients fail, to sell some of
their plate. For another servant, who from an injury to
his arm was no longer able to work, he wishes to purchase
a cottage, that the old man might be sure of a home after
his master's death. Yet he was so poor himself, that we

Luther's Winter Pleasures. 125
find, on occasion of his journeys, that his travelling
expenses had to be defrayed by the prince or university,
and that the Elector appears to have been in the habit of
presenting him with a gown when he saw that it was
needed. Indeed, he seems often to have brought himself
to the verge of distress by his Hberality, while he con
stantly refused presents, or even to receive any remunera
tion for his writings, or for his lectures as a professor of
the University.

4-X

XL11I.
Luther beside the Coffin of his Daughter
Magdalene.

Luther was called to learn a father's sorrows as well as
joys. When his infant daughter was suddenly snatched
away by death, in 1528, he thus writes to Hausmann:
" I have lost my little daughter Elizabeth. I cannot but
wonder what a sick, yea, almost womanish heart she has
left me, so greatly do I grieve over her. I had never
imagined beforehand how tender a father's heart grows
towards his children." But a far heavier trial befell him
in 1542, when his eldest and favourite daughter Magda
lene died, at the age of fourteen; of whom he says
(Letters, No. 2096.), " I loved her indeed, and not even
because she was my own flesh so much as because of her
gentleness and docility and perfectly dutiful conduct.
* * I have, indeed, loved her most ardently." We
learn from the Table-talk (xlviii. § 9.), that when
she was lying dangerously ill Luther said : " I love
her very dearly ; but, dear Lord, since it is thy will to
take her from me, I shall gladly know her to be with
Thee." And going up to his daughter's bedside, he said
to her, " Magdalene, my child, you would gladly stay
here with your father, would you not ? and yet be willing
to depart to your other Father ? " She replied, " Yes,

128 Luther beside the Coffin of his Daughter.
dearest father, as God will." " My darling child, the
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak ; " then turning
aside, he said, " I love her very, very dearly ; if the flesh
is so strong, how strong will the spirit be ? "
As he saw her lying in her coffin, he exclaimed, " Thou
darhng Lena, how happy art thou now ! thou wilt arise
again, and shine as a star, yea, as the sun. * * * I am
joyful in the spirit, yet after the flesh I am very sad ; the
flesh will have its way ; parting is more painful than can
be expressed. How strange it is to know so surely that
she is at peace and happy, and yet to be so sad." So, too,
as some were expressing sorrow for his loss, he replied,
" You ought to rejoice rather, for I have sent a saint to
heaven, yea, a living saint. 0 that we all might have
such a death ! Such a death I could fain die this hour ! "

fL

XLIV.
Luther and Hans Kohlhase.

In his notes to these plates Professor Gelzer says:
" To illustrate at once Luther's moral courage and the
power of his name, the artist has availed himself of the
story of a secret interview held by the Reformer with the
unhappy Hans Kohlhase, who, once a man of respectable
character and position, at last from resentment and
exasperation at injustice for which he was unable to
obtain redress, became a robber and highwayman, and
in 1540 ended his life upon the wheel. Originally no
doubt a robust and energetic nature, his outraged sense of
justice and wildly passionate temper had driven him into
a career of crime and ruin. His was certainly a character
which must have inspired the Reformer with the liveliest
sympathy; for Luther's soul, too, concealed abysses of
passion, from which, however, his better spirit and his
faith saved him.
" According to the account given in the Chronicle of
Peter Haffitt, the misguided man was induced to repair
to Luther in secret by a warning letter which he re
ceived from Luther, calling upon him with all earnest
ness to change his ways. Without giving his name, he
supplicated Luther to grant him an interview. Then it
occurred to the Doctor that it might perhaps be Kohlhase,

130 Luther and Hans Kohlhase. *
so he went himself down to the gate and said to him :
' Numquid tu es Hans Kohlhase ? ' and Kohlhase an
swered, 'Jam Domine Doctor.' On this the Doctor let
him in, conducted him privately into his own chamber,
and sent for Melanchthon, Cruciger, and other theolo
gians. After they had come, Kohlhase related the whole
affair to them, and they stayed listening till late in the
night. Early in the morning Kohlhase confessed to the
Doctor and received the sacrament, and promised him to
desist from his evil ways, and henceforth to do no more
harm in the land of Saxony ; which promise he also kept.
After this he departed, unknown and unremarked, from
the place ; for they had consoled him by saying that they
would use their endeavours to get him righted, so that
his affairs might come to a good end.
" As their efforts, however, were not successful, Kohl
hase went back to club-law and violence.
" In the engraving Kohlhase is represented as in a state
of despair, throwing himself before Luther as the only
one in whom he still believes, whom he still respects ;
Luther, on the other hand, receives him with a look of the
deepest sadness and compassion, seeing in his benighted
soul the traces of a great and holy energy, over whose
decay and ruin he mourns."

XLV.
Luther ministering to the Sick and Dying in
Time of Pestilence.

Three times during Luther's ministry did the plague
break out at Wittenberg, in 1516, 1527, and 1537, and
on each occasion he remained faithful at his post, in spite
of the earnest entreaties of his friends to avoid the
danger. The first of these pestilences has been alluded
to in Section XV. On the second occasion the University
was removed to Jena, and Luther and Bugenhagen
alone remained behind to fulfil the pastoral office among
the sick and dying of their flock. Thus Luther practised
what he was teaching in the tract he wrote at this time,
entitled "An Answer to the Question, Whether One
may flee from Pestilence. " " We may not lay the same
burden on all [strong and weak], but no one has a right
to flee, contrary to God's express Word and command ;
preachers and pastors are bound to stand firm and remain
in time of great mortality ; for then there is the greatest
need of the spiritual office. * * So likewise it is the
duty of those who hold civil offices to remain, and not to
leave the people without a head or government. And the
same holds good of all persons who have to render service
or duties to each other. Yea, no neighbour ought to
forsake his fellows unless others be at hand to tend the
S 2

132 Luther ministering to the Sick and Dying.
sick; for in such cases the sentence of Christ is to be
feared, — I was sick and ye visited me not." We find from
Luther's letters, that in 1539 he even took into his house
the four orphan children of a friend, who with his wife
had died of the plague. In November, 1527, Luther
writes : " My house has begun to be a hospital. * * * *
May the Lord Jesus stand by us in mercy. Thus
without there are fightings and within there are fears, and
truly vehement enough ; Christ is visiting us. The only
consolation with which we can repel the rage of Satan is,
that we have God's Word to save souls, even if he devour
the body. Therefore commend us to the prayers of the
brethren, that we may steadfastly endure the Lord's hand
upon us, and prevail against Satan's might and cunning,
whether by life or death." At the close of this year he
writes again : " I can say with the Apostle, as dying and
behold I live. * * * God has had mercy on us in a
wonderful manner."

XLVI.
Luther goes to Eisleben. His Danger by the
Way. His Arrival.

Luther's last work on earth was that of a peacemaker.
The Counts of Mansfeld, his native province, had long
been at variance with each other; and their subjects,
among whom were Luther's relatives, suffered greatly
from the effects of their continual strife and litigation.
They at length declared themselves ready to abide by
Luther's decision, and, therefore, notwithstanding great
infirmity, he had twice in October, and again in December,
1545, fruitlessly undertaken the long journey to Eisleben,
to mediate between them. On the 23rd of January, 1546,
having received a fresh invitation, he again set out in
mid-winter on the same errand, accompanied by his three
sons. For some months previously his mind had been
filled with thoughts of death, and a short time before he
started on his journey he said: "When I come back
from Eisleben I will lay me in my coffin; the world is
weary of me, and I of the world ; pray God that He will
mercifully grant me a peaceful death." At Halle Luther
was detained some days by storms and floods, and when at
last he, with his sons and Dr. Jonas, ventured to cross the
swollen river in a boat, the passage was not accomplished

1 34 Luther goes to Eisleben.
without considerable danger from the currents and floating
blocks of ice; so that he said to his friend Dr. Jonas,
" What a triumph it would be for the devil if I, with my
three sons and you, should be drowned in this flood ! "
At the borders of the province he was met by the
Counts with a large retinue, and conducted into his native
city with all honours ; but so exhausted by the journey,
that his attendants were in fear for his life as he entered
Eisleben. Through care, however, he recovered suffi
ciently to transact the business on which he had come, and
even preached four times within a fortnight, his last sermon
being on the 14th of February, from Matt. xi. 25. 30., on
which day he also received the communion and held an
ordination. On this day he writes to his wife for the
last time : " Dear Ketha, we hope to come home this
week, if God will. God has shown us great mercy here ;
for the Counts have adjusted all their differences, with the
exception of two or three points ; one of which is, that the
two brothers. Count Gerhard and Count Albert, shall
become as brethren again ; the which I mean to take in
hand to-day, by inviting them to dine with me, and thus
bringing them to speech with each other."

I i wi

i

XLVII.
Luther's Death.

Luther's work was ended, and he was called to his
reward. On Tuesday, the 16th of February, his friends
overheard him praying thus, while standing, as he was
wont to do, in the window : " O God, heavenly Father, I
beseech Thee in the name of thy dear Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ, whom I through thy grace have confessed
and preached, that Thou wilt, according to thy promise,
for the glory of thy name, mercifully hear me in this
also, * * * and graciously preserve the Church of
my beloved country unto the end ; that it fall not away,
but remain in the pure truth, constant in the confession
of thy Word, so- that the whole world may be convinced
that Thou hast sent me. So be it, blessed Lord. Amen !
Amen!" The next morning, feeling unwell, he remarked to
Jonas : " I was born and baptized here in Eisleben,
what if I am likewise to die here ? " Yet he was able
to dine and sup with his friends, and many of his
sayings, playful and serious, during this last meal have
been recorded. Among other things he remarked,
" Twenty years is a short time ; yet in that time the
world would become a desert if matrimony were to cease.
How completely is this world an ever-fresh creation !

136 Luther's Death.

God gathers him a Church for the most part out of little
children. * * * In the next life we shall be renewed
in the image and knowledge of God ; but in such sort, that
we, fathers, mothers, and friends, shall know each other
again better than Adam knew Eve when she was brought
unto him."
A few hours later he himself , had entered into rest.
After supper he complained of an oppression on his chest,
which gradually increased, in spite of the remedies em
ployed, till at three o'clock, on the morning of the 18th, he
fell asleep without struggle or pain, surrounded by his
sons and friends, and the Counts his hosts, with their
families. About an hour before his death he prayed, saying: " O
my heavenly Father, the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, Thou God of all consolation, I thank Thee
that Thou hast revealed in me thy dear Son Jesus
Christ, on whom I believe, whom I have preached and
confessed, whom I have loved and praised, whom the
Pope and all the ungodly dishonour, persecute, and blas
pheme ; I beseech Thee by our Lord Jesus Christ, suffer
me to commend my soul to Thee. O heavenly Father,
though I must put off this body, and be snatched away
from this life, yet I know and am sure that I shall abide
for ever with Thee, and that none can take me out of thy
hands." After a pause he repeated the text, " God so loved
the world," &c. (John iii. 16.) And again, "He that is

Luther's Death. 13"

our God is the God of salvation ; and unto God the Lord
belong the issues from death " (Ps. lxviii. 20.). Some time
after he repeated quickly three times over the words,
" Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum, redemisti
me, Deus veritatis."
As consciousness seemed to be departing, Dr. Jonas
called to him with a loud voice, " Reverend Father, do
you die in the faith of Christ and the doctrine that you
have preached ? " when he answered distinctly, " Yes."
Upon this he closed his eyes, and fell into a natural sleep,
which soon changed to the sleep of death.
Thus in his death were fulfilled the last words which he
ever wrote, probably, indeed, written on the day before he
died. They were an autograph in the Bible of the Count's
steward : "John viii. 51. ' Verily I say unto you, if a
man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.'
Never see death ! How incredible is this saying, and con
trary to universal and daily experience ! Yet it is the
truth, that when a man is earnestly meditating on God's
word in his heart, believes it, and thereupon falls asleep
or dies, he sinks and passes away before he perceives or
is conscious of the approach of death ; and without doubt
departs hence, happy in the Word which he has thus
believed and meditated on."

XLVIII.
Luther's Burial.

Once more we stand before Luther in Wittenberg ; but
those eloquent lips are silent, and the eye is closed at last
that had never quailed in life before Emperor and Estates,
before Pope or Cardinal.
By command of the Elector his body had been brought
in solemn procession from Eisleben, to be interred in the
church on whose gates he had, thirty years before, set
the handwriting of doom against the mighty spiritual
empire, which had been " weighed in the balance and
found wanting." Behind the bier stands his old friend,
Melanchthon, who, during . a long life, had unfalteringly
laboured and fought by his side, endeavouring, in such
words as. these, to express the true significance of Luther's
work, and the worth of his character :
" * * * 'His teachings consisted not in opinions pro
mulgated with seditious eagerness, but in setting forth
the Divine Will and the true worship of God, interpreting
Holy Scripture, and preaching the Divine Word, that is to
say, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. * * * But if it were
my design. to pass a eulogy, what a. noble oration .could I
not make on such a life? more than sixty years spent in
the most constant and strenuous endeavour to serve God
and practise all virtue! No irregular desires pr seditious
T 2

140 Luther's Burial.

tendencies were ever seen in him; much more, has he
many times dissuaded from the use of arms. In his manage
ment of the affairs of the Church, he never employed any
expedients to increase his own power or that of his fol
lowers. This I hold to be a proof of wisdom and virtue
above the scope of mere human effort ; for. it would need
nothing less than God's power and grace to curb and
govern a spirit so vehement, so lofty, so ardent as Luther's
had proved itself to be. And what shall I say of his other
virtues ? How often have I surprised him praying with
tears for the whole Church ? * * * And hence it was
that, in weighty deliberations on great public emergencies,
he was, as we have seen, endowed with such wonderful
energy of soul, that he was not to be daunted or turned
aside from his course by any sort of terror. * * *
Again, he possessed such acuteness of mind, that in cases
of difficulty he alone discerned the right path to take.
* * * Of his eloquence we possess imperishable mo
numents: it was such that, without doubt, he is to be
reckoned among the greatest of orators. * * * And
now he is united to the prophets of whom he loved to
speak; now, they welcome him among them as their
fellow-labourer, and with him give thanks unto the Lord,
who gathers together and preserves His Church ! "
When the oration was ended, the corpse was lowered
into the vault prepared for it beside the pulpit whence the
great Reformer had for four-and-thirty years proclaimed
the Gospel ; and thus was this precious instrument of the

Luther's Burial. 141

Holy Spirit laid in the earth and sown in weakness, to be
raised in the last day incorruptible and full of glory.
Well might the Church say with Melanchthon (on
hearing of his death), " Not through human sagacity hath
the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins and faith in the
Son of God been discovered, but it hath been revealed to
us by God through this man whom He hath raised up ! "

the end.

London :
Printed by Spottiswoode & Co.,
New-street-Square.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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