[535] “Die scharf Metz wider die, die sich evangelisch nennen und doch dem Evangelium entgegen sind,” 1525, ed. W. Lucke, in “Flugschriften aus den ersten Jahren der Reformation,” vol. i., No. 3, Halle, 1906.
[536] W. Maurenbrecher, “Gesch. der kath. Reformation,” 1, Nördlingen, 1880, p. 257. Janssen, in his “Hist. of the German People,” has brought this point out clearly. See more particularly (Engl. trans.) volume iii.: “The populace inflamed by preaching and the press,” and volume iv.: “The social revolution,” where it is pointed out that even apart from Luther’s action and that of his followers, risings were imminent, but that the “social revolution first received the stamp of universal and inhuman ferocity from the conditions created or developed among the people by the religious disturbances.” Concerning the effect of the sermons and pamphlets on the people we read, in the original, vol. 218, p. 490, n. 5, in a letter of Archduke Ferdinand to the Pope, that the deluded people believed, “se Dei negotium agere in templis, cœnobiis, monasteriis diruendis,” etc. Johann Adam Möhler, in the Church History (ed. Gams), which appeared after his death, compares (3, p. 118) the effects of the preaching of the liberty of the children of God in the primitive Church, and describes the pure, virtuous life of self-renunciation which resulted, how the lower classes learnt to be content with their lot and the slaves became more faithful to their masters. “The contrast between the effects of the old gospel and the new evangel gave the most convincing proof of the difference between them.” “From the spirit of the flesh which combined with the religious in Luther’s writings to form one living whole, a tendency to revolt gradually spread over all Germany; ecclesiastical and secular, divine and human, spiritual and corporal, all ran riot together in the people’s minds; everywhere prevailed a fanatical, perverted longing for the liberty of the children of God” (p. 116). When Luther urged the Princes to severity in repressing the movement, his ruling idea was “to repress the opinion that elements dangerous to public order were embodied in his principles” (p. 118).
[537] W. Maurenbrecher, “Studien und Skizzen zur Gesch. der Reformationszeit,” 1874, p. 22.
[538] Cp. the writing, “Handlung, Ordnung und Instruktion,” in which the delegates to be chosen to negotiate with the Swabian League on the question of “divine law,” are referred, among others, to “Hertzog Friederich von Sachsen sampt D. Martin Luther, oder Philipp Melanchthon oder Pomeran [Bugenhagen].” In the introduction of the Weim. ed. (see above, p. 191, n. 2), p. 280. Luther refers to this passage in his “Ermanunge zum Fride auff die 12 Artikel” with the words: “particularly as they appeal to me by name in the other writing.”
[539] The pamphlet in “Werke,” Weim. ed., 18, 1908, p. 279 ff. Erl. ed., 24², p. 271 ff. For the date see ibid., Weim. ed., 18, p. 281, and Köstlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 793.
[540] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 18, p. 344 ff.; Erl. ed., 24², p. 303 ff.
[541] Ibid., p. 375 ff. = 310 ff.
[542] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 18, p. 293 f.=273 f.
[543] Ibid., p. 300=277.
[544] Ibid., p. 329 f.=296 f. In the Weim. ed., 18, p. 790, it is rightly remarked that Luther sees in the peasants of South Germany, to whom the “Ermanunge zum Fride” was principally addressed, persecuted men, and that from a distance he welcomes their rising with a certain sympathy.