This bold witness for Christ was burned at the stake July 6, 1415, by order of the General Council of Constance. When the fagots were piled up around him ready for the torch, he said to the executioner, "You are now going to burn a goose [Huss signifying goose in the Bohemian language]; but in a century you will have a swan whom you can neither roast nor boil." Fox's Book of Martyrs. This was fulfilled in Martin Luther.
Henry Institorus, an inquisitor, uttered these remarkable words: "'All the world cries out and demands a council, but there is no human power that can reform the church by a council. The Most High will find other means, which are at present unknown to us, although they may be at our very doors, to bring back the church to its pristine condition.' This remarkable prophecy, delivered by an inquisitor at the very period of Luther's birth, is the best apology for the reformation."
Andrew Proles, provincial of the Augustines, used often to say: "Whence, then, proceeds so much darkness and such horrible superstitions? O my brethren! Christianity needs a bold and a great reform, and methinks I see it already approaching.... I am bent with the weight of years, and weak in body, and I have not the learning, the ability, and eloquence, that so great an undertaking requires. But God will raise up a hero, who by his age, strength, talents, learning, genius and eloquence, shall hold the foremost place. He will begin the reformation; he will oppose error, and God will give him boldness to resist the mighty ones of the earth."
John Hilten censured the most flagrant abuses of the monastic life, and the exasperated monks threw him into prison and treated him shamefully. "The Franciscan, forgetting his malady and groaning heavily, replied: 'I bear your insults calmly for the love of Christ; for I have said nothing that can injure the monastic state: I have only censured its most crying abuses.' 'But,' continued he (according to what Melancthon records in his Apology for the Augsburg Confession of Faith), 'another man will rise in the year of our Lord 1516: he will destroy you, and you shall not be able to resist him.'"
In 1516 Luther held a public discussion with Feld-kirchen, in which he upheld certain doctrines of truth that made a great stir among the Romanists. Says D'Aubigne: "The disputation took place in 1516. This was Luther's first attack upon the dominion of the sophists and upon the Papacy, as he himself characterizes it." And again, "This disputation made a great noise, and it has been considered as the beginning of the reformation." Book I, Chap. 9. The next year, however, he entered publicly upon the actual work of reformation.
Frederick of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, was the most powerful elector of the German empire at the period of the reformation. A dream he had and related just before the world was startled by the first great act of reformation is so striking that I feel justified in repeating it in this connection. It was as follows:
"Having gone to bed last night, tired and dispirited, I soon fell asleep after saying my prayers, and slept calmly for about two hours and a half. I then awoke, and all kinds of thoughts occupied me until midnight.... I then fell asleep again, and dreamed the Almighty sent me a monk, who was a true son of Paul the apostle. He was accompanied by all the saints, in obedience to God's command, to bear him testimony, and to assure me that he did not come with any fraudulent design, but that all he should do was conformable to the will of God. They asked my gracious permission to let him write something on the doors of the palace-chapel at Wittemberg, which I conceded through my chancellor. Upon this, the monk retired thither and began to write; so large were the characters that I could read from Schweinitz what he was writing [about 18 miles]. The pen he used was so long that its extremity reached as far as Rome, where it pierced the ears of a lion which lay there, and shook the triple crown on the Pope's head. All the cardinals and princes ran up hastily and endeavored to support it.... I stretched out my arm: that moment I awoke with my arm extended, in great alarm and very angry with this monk, who could not guide his pen better. I recovered myself a little.... It was only a dream. I was still half asleep, and once more closed my eyes. The dream came again. The lion, still disturbed by the pen, began to roar with all his might, until the whole city of Rome, and all the States of the holy empire, ran up to know what was the matter. The Pope called upon us to oppose this monk, and addressed himself particularly to me, because the friar was living in my dominions. I again awoke, repeated the Lord's prayer, entreated God to preserve his Holiness, and fell asleep.... I then dreamt that all the princes of the empire, and we along with them, hastened to Rome, and endeavored one after another to break this pen; but the greater our exertions the stronger it became: it crackled as if it had been made of iron: we gave it up as hopeless. I then asked the monk (for I was now at Rome, now at Wittemberg) where he had got that pen, and how it came to be so strong. [In those days they used goosequills for pens.] 'This pen,' replied he, 'belonged to a Bohemian goose [Huss] a hundred years old. I had it from one of my old schoolmasters. It is so strong because no one can take the pith out of it, and I am myself quite astonished at it.' On a sudden I heard a loud cry; from the monk's long pen had issued a host of other pens. I awoke a third time; it was day light." History of the Reformation, Book III, Chap. 4.
Frederick related the foregoing to his brother John, the Duke of York, on the morning of Oct. 31, 1517, stating that he had dreamed it during the previous night. The same day at noon Martin Luther advanced boldly to the chapel at Wittemberg and posted upon the door ninety-five theses, or propositions, against the Papal doctrine of indulgences. This was his public entrance upon the great work of reformation. The importance of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century is incalculable. It gave the deathblow to the universal spiritual supremacy of Rome. As we have already seen, the Papacy had for centuries held despotic sway over the minds and the consciences of men. One potent cause of the Reformation was the great Revival of Learning that marked the close of the medieval and the beginning of the modern period of history. This great mental awakening contrasted sharply with the blind ignorance and superstition of the Middle Ages, and caused many men to doubt the Scriptural authority of many of the doctrines and ceremonies of the Church of Rome; such as invocation of saints, auricular confession, use of images, worship of the Virgin Mary, etc.
Scandals and abuses in the Church of Rome also hastened the Reformation. During the fifteenth century the morals of that church had sunk to the greatest depths of iniquity. The Popes themselves were, in some cases, monsters of impurity and iniquity, insomuch that historians are obliged to draw the vail over many of their dark deeds.
But the real occasion of the revolt of the northern nations of Europe against the jurisdiction of Rome was the controversy regarding indulgences. "These in the Catholic church, are remissions, to penitents of punishment due for sin, upon the performances of some work of mercy or piety, or the payment of a sum of money." When Leo X. was elected to the Papal dignity (1513), he found the church in great need of money for the building of Saint Peter's and other undertakings, and he had recourse to a grant of indulgences to fill the coffers of the church. The power of dispensing these indulgences in Saxony in Germany was given to a Dominican friar named Tetzel. This fanatic enthusiast entertained the most exaggerated opinion of the efficacy of indulgences. In his harrangues he uttered such expressions as the following: