The first martyrs for evangelical truth were two young Augustinian monks of Antwerp, Henry Voes and John Esch, who died at the stake in A.D. 1523, and their heroism was celebrated by Luther in a beautiful hymn. They were succeeded by the prior of the cloister, Lampert Thorn, who was strangled in prison. The Swabian League, which was renewed after the rising of the Diet of Spires, with the avowed purpose of rooting out the Anabaptists, directed its cruel measures against all evangelicals. The Bishop of Constance in A.D. 1527 had John Hüglin burnt as an opposer of the holy mother church. The Elector of Mainz cited the court preacher, George Winkler, of Halle, for dispensing the sacrament in both kinds at Ascheffenburg [Aschaffenburg]. Winkler defended himself, and was acquitted, but was murdered on the way. Luther then wrote his tract, “Comfort to the Christians of Halle on the Death of their Pastor.” In North Germany there was no bloodshedding, but Duke George had those who confessed their faith scourged by the gaoler and driven from the country. The Elector Joachim of Brandenburg with his nobles resolved in A.D. 1527 to give vigorous support to the old religion. But the gospel took deep root in his land, and his own wife Elizabeth read Luther’s writings, and had the sacrament administered after the Lutheran form. But the secret was revealed, and the elector stormed and threatened. She then escaped, dressed as a peasant woman, to her cousin the Elector of Saxony.
§ 129. Luther’s Private and Public Life, A.D. 1523-1529.
Only in December, A.D. 1524, did Luther leave the cloister, the last of its inhabitants but the prior, and on 13th June, A.D. 1525, married Catherine Bora, of the convent of Nimptschen, of whom he afterwards boasted that he prized her more highly than the kingdom of France and the governorship of Venice. Though often depressed with sickness, almost crushed under the weight of business, and harassed even to the end by the threats of his enemies against his life, he maintained a bright, joyous temper, enjoyed himself during leisure hours among his friends with simple entertainments of song, music, intellectual conversation, and harmless, though often sharp and pungent, interchange of wit. Thus he proved a genuine comfort and help in all kinds of trouble. By constant writing, by personal intercourse with students and foreigners who crowded into Wittenberg, by an extensive correspondence, he won and maintained a mighty influence in spreading and establishing the Reformation. By Scripture translation and Scripture exposition, by sermons and doctrinal treatises, he impressed upon the people his own evangelical views. A peculiarly powerful factor in the Reformation was that treasury of sacred song (§ [142, 3]) which Luther gave his people, partly in translations of old, partly in the composition of new hymns, which he set to bright and pleasing melodies. He was also most diligent in promoting education in churches and schools, in securing the erection of new elementary and secondary schools, and laid special stress on the importance of linguistic studies in a church that prized the pure word of God.
§ 129.1. Luther’s Literary Works.—In A.D. 1524 appeared the first collection of spiritual songs and psalms, eight in number, with a preface by Luther. His reforms of worship were extremely moderate. In A.D. 1523 he published little tracts on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, repudiating the idea of a sacrifice in the mass, and insisting on communion in both kinds. In A.D. 1527 he wrote his “German Mass and Order of Public Worship” (§ [127, 1]) which was introduced generally throughout the elector’s dominions. He wrote an address to burgomasters and councillors about the improvement of education in the cities. Besides his polemic against Erasmus and Carlstadt, against Münzer and the rebellious peasants, as well as against the Sacramentarians (§ [131]), he engaged at this time in controversy with Cochlæus. A papal bull for the canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen (§ [93, 9]) called forth in A.D. 1524 Luther’s tract, “Against the new God and the old Devil being set up at Meissen.” He was persuaded by Christian II. of Denmark to write, in A.D. 1526, a very humble letter to Henry VIII. of England (§ [125, 3]), which was answered in an extremely venomous and bitter style. When his enemies triumphantly declared that he had retracted, Luther answered, in A.D. 1527, with his book, “Against the Abusive Writing of the King of England,” in which he resumed the bold and confident tone of his earlier polemic. A humble, conciliatory epistle sent in A.D. 1526 to Duke George was no more successful. He now unweariedly continued his Bible translation. The first edition of the whole Bible was published by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, in A.D. 1534. A collection of sayings of Luther collected by Lauterbach, a deacon of Wittenberg, in A.D. 1538, formed the basis of later and fuller editions of “Luther’s Table Talk.” A chronologically arranged collection was made ten years later, and was published in A.D. 1872 from a MS. in the Royal Library at Dresden. Aurifaber in his collection did not follow the chronological order, but grouped the utterances according to their subjects, but with many arbitrary alterations and modifications. The saying falsely attributed to Luther, “Who loves not wine, women, and song?” etc., is assigned by Luther himself to his Erfurt landlady, but has been recently traced to an Italian source.
§ 129.2. The famous Catholic Church historian Döllinger, who in his history of the Reformation had with ultramontane bitterness defamed Luther and his work, twenty years later could not forbear celebrating Luther in a public lecture as “the most powerful patriot and the most popular character that Germany possessed.” In A.D. 1871 he wrote as follows: “It was Luther’s supreme intellectual ability and wonderful versatility that made him the man of his age and of his nation. There has never been a German who so thoroughly understood his fellow countrymen and was understood by them as this Augustinian monk of Wittenberg. The whole intellectual and spiritual making of the Germans was in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter. He has given more to his nation than any one man has ever done: language, popular education, Bible, sacred song; and all that his opponents could say against him and alongside of him seemed insipid, weak, and colourless compared with his overmastering eloquence. They stammered, he spoke. It was he who put a stamp upon the German language as well as upon the German character. And even those Germans who heartily abhor him as the great heretic and betrayer of religion cannot help speaking his words and thinking his thoughts.”
§ 130. The Reformation in German Switzerland, A.D. 1519-1531.
While Luther’s Reformation spread in Germany, a similar movement sprang up in the neighbouring provinces of German Switzerland. Its earliest beginnings date back as far as A.D. 1516. The personal characteristics of its first promoter, and the political democratic movement in which it had its rise, gave it a complexion entirely different from that of the Lutheran Reformation. The most conspicuous divergence occurred in the doctrine of the supper (§ [131]), and since the Swiss views on this point were generally accepted in the cities of the uplands, the controversy passed over into the German Reformed Church and hindered common action, notwithstanding common interests and common dangers.
§ 130.1. Ulrich Zwingli.—Zwingli, born at Wildhaus in Toggenburg on January 1st, A.D. 1484, a scholar of the famous humanist Thomas Wyttenbach at Basel, was, after ten years’ service as pastor at Glarus, made pastor of Maria-Einsiedeln in A.D. 1516. The crowding of pilgrims to the famous shrine of Mary at that place led him to preach against superstitious notions of meritorious performances. But far more decisive in determining his attitude toward the Reformation was his appointment on January 1st, A.D. 1519, as Lent priest at Zürich, where he first became acquainted with Luther’s works, and took sides with him against the Romish court party. Zwingli soon took up a distinctive position of his own. He would be not only a religious, but also a political reformer. For several years he had vigorously opposed the sending of Swiss youths as mercenaries into the armies of foreign princes. His political opponents, the oligarchs, whose incomes depended on this traffic, opposed also his religious reforms, so that his support was wholly from the democracy. Another important distinction between the Swiss and German movements was this, that Zwingli had grown into a reformer not through deep conviction of sin and spiritual conflicts, but through classical and biblical study. The writings of Pico of Mirandola (§ [120, 1]), too, were not without influence upon him. To him, therefore, justification by faith was not in the same degree as to Luther the guiding star of his life and action. He began the work of the Reformation not so much with purifying the doctrine, as with improving the worship, the constitution, the ecclesiastical and moral life. His theological standpoint is set forth in these works: Comment. de vera et falsa relig., A.D. 1525; Fidei ratio ad Car. Imp., A.D. 1530; Christian. fidei brevis at clara expos., ed. Bullinger, A.D. 1536; De providentia Dei; and Apologeticus. Of the two principles of the anti-Romish Reformation (§ [121]) the Wittenberg reformer placed the material, the Zürich reformer the formal, in the foreground. The former only rejected what was not reconcilable with Scripture; the latter repudiated all that was not expressly enjoined in Scripture. The former was cautious and moderate in dealing with forms of worship and mere externals; the latter was extreme, immoderate, and violent. Luther retained pictures, altars, the ornaments of churches, and the priestly character of the service, purifying it simply from unevangelical corruptions; Zwingli denounced all these things as idolatry, and burnt even organ pipes and clock bells. Luther recognised no action of the Holy Spirit apart from the word and sacrament; Zwingli separated it from these, and identified it with mere subjective feeling. The sacraments were with him mere memorial signs; justification solely by the merits of Christ as a joyous assurance of salvation had for him a negative rather than a positive significance, i.e. opposition to the Romish doctrine of merits; original sin was for him only hereditary moral sickness, a naturalis defectus, which is not itself sin, and virtuous heathens, like Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, and Cato were admitted as such into the society of the blessed, without apparently sharing in the redemption of Christ.His speculations, which led on one side almost to pantheism, favoured a theory of predestination, according to which the moral will has no freedom over against Providence.[365]
§ 130.2. The Reformation in Zürich, A.D. 1519-1525.—In A.D. 1518 a trafficker in indulgences, the Franciscan Bernard Samson, of Milan, carried on his disreputable business in Switzerland. At Zwingli’s desire Zürich’s gates were closed against him. In A.D. 1520 the council gave permission to priests and preachers in the city and canton to preach only from the O. and N.T. All this happened under the eyes of the two papal nuncios staying in Zürich; but they did not interfere, because the curia was extremely anxious to get auxiliaries for the papal army for an attack on Milan. Zwingli was promised a rich living if he would no more preach against the pope. He refused the bait, and went on his way as a reformer. The continued indulgence of the curia allowed the Reformation to take even firmer root. Zwingli published, in A.D. 1522, his first work, “Of Election, and Freedom in Use of Food,” and the Zürichers ate flesh and eggs during Lent of A.D. 1522. He also claimed liberty to marry for the clergy. At this time Lambert came from Avignon to Zürich (§ [127, 2]). He preached against the new views, disputed in July with Zwingli, and confessed himself defeated and convinced. Zwingli’s opponents had placed great hopes in Lambert’s eloquence and dialectic skill. All the greater was the effect of the unexpected result of the disputation. The council, now impressed, commanded that the word of God should be preached without human additions. But when the adherents of the Romish party protested, it arranged a public disputation on 29th Jan., A.D. 1523, on sixty-seven theses or conclusiones drawn up by Zwingli: “All who say, The gospel is nothing without the guarantee of the Church, blaspheme God;—Christ is the one way to salvation;—Our righteousness and our works are good so far as they are Christ’s, neither right nor good so far as they are our own,” etc. A former friend of Zwingli, John Faber, but quite changed since he had made a visit to Rome, and now vicar-general of the Bishop of Constance, undertook to support the old doctrines and customs against Zwingli. Being restricted to Scripture proof he was forced to yield. The cloisters were forsaken, violent polemics were published against the canon of the mass and the worship of saints and images. The council resolved to decide the question of the mass and images by a second disputation in October, A.D. 1523. Leo Judä, Lent priest at St. Peter’s in Zürich, contended against image worship, Zwingli against the mass. Scarcely any opposition was offered to either of them. At Pentecost, A.D. 1524, the council had all images withdrawn from the churches, the frescoes cut down, and the walls whitewashed. Organ playing and bell ringing were forbidden as superstitious. A new simple biblical formula of baptism was introduced, and the abolition of the mass, in A.D. 1525, completed the work. At Easter of this year Zwingli celebrated a lovefeast, at which bread was carried in wooden trenchers, and wine drunk from wooden cups. Thus he thought the genuine Christian apostolic rite was restored. In A.D. 1522 he had married a widow of forty-three years of age, but he publicly acknowledged it only in A.D. 1524. He penitently confesses that his pre-Reformation celibate life, like that of most priests of his age, had not been blameless; but the moral purity of his later life is beyond suspicion.
§ 130.3. Reformation in Basel, A.D. 1520-1525.—In Basel, at an early period, Capito and Hedio wrought as biblical preachers. But so soon as they had laid a good foundation they accepted a call to Mainz, in A.D. 1520, which they soon again quitted for Strassburg, where they carried on the work of the Reformation along with Bucer. Their work at Basel was zealously and successfully continued by Röublin. He preached against the mass, purgatory, and saint worship, often to 4,000 hearers. On the day of Corpus Christi he produced a Bible instead of the usual relics, which he scornfully called dead bones. He was banished, and afterwards joined the Anabaptists. A new epoch began in Basel in A.D. 1523. Œcolampadius or John Hausschein, born at Weinsberg in A.D. 1482, Zwingli’s Melanchthon, was preacher in Basel in A.D. 1516, and was on intimate terms there with Erasmus. He accepted a call in A.D. 1518 to the cathedral of Augsburg, but a year after withdrew into an Augsburg convent of St. Bridget. There he studied Luther’s writings, and, in A.D. 1522, found shelter from persecution in Sickingen’s castle, where he officiated for some months as chaplain. He then returned to Basel, became preacher at St. Martin’s, and was soon made, along with Conrad Pellican (§ [120, 4 footnote]), professor in the university. Around these two a group of younger men soon gathered, who energetically supported the evangelical movement. They dispensed baptism in the German language, administered the communion in both kinds, and were indefatigable in preaching. In A.D. 1524 the council allowed monks and nuns, if they so wished, to leave their cloisters. Of special importance for the progress of the Reformation in Basel was the arrival in A.D. 1524 of William Farel from Dauphiné (§ [138, 1]). He had been obliged to fly from France, and was kindly received by Œcolampadius, with whom he stayed for some months. In February he had a public disputation with the opponents of the Reformation. University and bishop had interdicted it, but all the more decided was the council that it should come off.Its result was a great impulse to the Reformation, though Farel in this same year, probably at the suggestion of Erasmus, whom he had described as a new Balaam, was banished by the council (§ [138, 1]).[366]