It was the revolt of his conscience, which made him seek in the Bible fresh weapons against the church of Rome. It is the same moral revolt, which will gather around him thousands, and soon millions of disciples. Luther has placed himself at the head of all the irritated people of worth.
To the dogma of justification by works, which has produced so many extravagant practices and shameful excesses, he opposes justification through faith in the redemption of Jesus Christ. All his doctrine is summed up in these words of the apostle Paul: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”[3] This doctrine had the double advantage of resting for support upon Biblical texts, and of overthrowing by the same blow indulgences, supererogatory works of saints, pilgrimages, flagellations, penances, artificial merits. It thus accorded with the highest ideas, with the best religions, the intellectual and moral aspirations of the era.
Luther had taken a first step. He again appealed, nevertheless, from the pope ill-informed, to the pope better advised. But instead of an ordinance of reformation, Rome sent a bull of excommunication. The doctor of Wittenberg solemnly burnt it, with the Decretals of the Holy See, on the 10th of December, 1520, in the presence of innumerable spectators. The issuing flame lighted up all Europe, and cast a sinister glare upon the walls of the Vatican.
On the 17th of April, 1521, Luther appeared before the diet of Worms. He had against him the emperor and the pope, the two greatest powers of the universe; but he had for him the living forces of his age. When he was summoned to retract, he invoked the testimony of the Bible. If he were convicted of error by that, he would recant; if not, no! The envoy of Rome refused to open the book which condemned the papacy, and Charles V. began to perceive that there is here below something superior to the power of the sword.
The work advanced. It is interesting to observe that Luther did not arrive with a system complete and defined. He came with a first grievance against the abuses of the Romish church, then with a second; with one hand upsetting by degrees the old edifice of Catholicism, whilst with the other he constructed the new edifice; he did not himself apprehend the extent of his mission but as he gradually fulfilled it.
After the upraising of his conscience, came the reordering of doctrine; after doctrine, the reform of worship; after worship, the establishment of new ecclesiastical institutions. Luther never went beyond his convictions, or outstepped the movement of public opinion. It was thus that he retained under his standard those who had gathered around it, and that he was aided in his labour by the public thought. Luther gave much to the contemporaneous generation, and perhaps received yet more than he gave.
One of his most laborious and useful works was the translation of the Bible into German. It fixed the language of his country, and made stable its faith.
Eight years after the publication of the ninety-five theses, in 1525, Luther espoused Catherine de Bora, being persuaded, with Æneas Sylvius, who became pope under the name of Pius II., that if there are many strong reasons for interdicting priests from marrying, there are some much stronger for permitting it. In the performance of this solemn act, the Reformer equally avoided a precipitation which might have compromised his character, and a delay which might have degenerated or weakened his maxims. He was then forty-two years of age, and on the avowal of his opponents themselves, “he had spent all his youth without reproach, in continence.”[4]
In 1530, Melancthon, the fellow-labourer of Luther, presented to the diet of Augsburg, with his accord, the Confession of Faith, which, during ages, has served as a rallying-point to the Lutheran reformation. The Protestants showed in this way, that they had shaken off the yoke of Rome only to accept, without reservation, the injunctions of the Bible, such at least as they understood them according to the measure of the intelligence of their time.
There were manifest and sore trials in the life of Luther: the excesses of the Anabaptists, the insurrection of the peasants, the passions of the princes, who mingled with religious questions political calculations; the over-zeal of some of his followers, the weakness and timidity of many others. He was often grieved, never cast down; for the same spirit of faith which had opened to him the road, led him along it with unswerving constancy.