§ 127.2. The Organization of the Hessian Churches, A.D. 1526-1528.—Philip of Hesse had assembled the peers temporal and spiritual of his dominions in Oct., A.D. 1526, at Homberg, to discuss the question of church reform. A reactionary attempt failed through the fervid eloquence of the Franciscan Lambert of Avignon, a notable man, who, awakened in his cloister at Avignon by Luther’s writings, but not thoroughly satisfied, set out for Wittenberg, engaged on the way at Zürich in public disputation against Zwingli’s reforms, but left converted by his opponent, and then passed through Luther’s school at Wittenberg. There he married in A.D. 1523, and after a long unofficial and laborious stay at Strassburg, found at last, in A.D. 1526, a permanent residence in Hesse. He died in A.D. 1530.—Lambert’s personality dominated the Homberg synod. He sketched an organization of the church according to his ideal as a communion of saints with a democratic basis, and a strict discipline administered by the community itself. But the impracticability of the scheme soon became evident, and in A.D. 1528 the Hessian church adopted the principles of the Saxon church visitation. Out of vacant church revenues the University of Marburg was founded in A.D. 1527 as a second training school in reformed theology. Lambert was one of its first teachers.
§ 127.3. Organization of other German Provincial Churches, A.D. 1528-1530.—George of Franconian-Brandenburg, after his brother Casimir’s death, organized his church at the assembly of Anspach after the Saxon model. Nuremberg, under the guidance of its able secretary of council, Lazarus Spengler, united in carrying out a joint organization. In Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duke Ernest, powerfully impressed by the preaching of Rhegius at Augsburg, introduced the evangelical church organization into his dominions. In East Friesland, where the reigning prince did not interest himself in the matter, the development of the church was attended to by the young nobleman Ulrich of Dornum. In Schleswig and Holstein the prelates offered no opposition to reorganization, and the civil authorities carried out the work. In Silesia the princes were favourable, Breslau had been long on the side of the Reformation, and even the grand-duke who, as king of Bohemia, was suzerain of Silesia, felt obliged to allow Silesian nobles the privileges provided by the Diet of Spires. In Prussia (§ [126, 4]), Albert of Brandenburg, hereditary duke of these parts, with the hearty assistance of his two bishops, provided for his subjects an evangelical constitution.
§ 127.4. The Reformation in the Cities of Northern Germany, A.D. 1524-1531.—In these cities the Reformation spread rapidly after their emancipation from episcopal control. It was organized in Magdeburg as early as A.D. 1524 by Nic. Amsdorf, sent for the purpose by Luther (§ [126, 5]). In Brunswick the church was organized in A.D. 1528 by Bugenhagen of Wittenberg. In Bremen in A.D. 1525 all churches except the cathedral were in the hands of the Lutherans; in A.D. 1527 the cloisters were turned into schools and hospitals, and then the cathedral was taken from the Catholics. At Lübeck, nobles, councillors, and clergy had oppressed and driven away the evangelical pastors; but the councillors in their financial straits became indebted to sixty-four citizens, who stipulated that the pastors must be restored, the Catholics expelled, the cloisters turned into hospitals and schools, and finally Bugenhagen was called in to prepare for their church a Lutheran constitution.
§ 128. Martyrs for Evangelical Truth, A.D. 1521-1529.
On the publication of the edict of Worms several Catholic princes, most conspicuously Duke George of Saxony, began the persecution. Luther’s followers were at first imprisoned, scourged, and banished, and in A.D. 1521 a bookseller who sold Luther’s books was beheaded. The persecution was most severe in the Netherlands, a heritage of the emperor independent of the empire. Also in Austria, Bavaria, and Swabia many evangelical confessors were put to death by the sword and at the stake. The peasant revolt of A.D. 1525 increased the violence of the persecution. On the pretence of punishing rebels, those who took part in the Regensburg Convention (§ [126, 3]) were expelled the country, thousands of them with no other fault than their attachment to the gospel. The conclusion of the Diet of Spires in A.D. 1526 (§ [126, 6]) added new fuel to the flames. While the evangelical nobles, taking advantage of that decision, proceeded vigorously to the planting and organizing of the reformed church, the enemies of the Reformation exercised the power given them in cruel persecutions of their evangelical subjects. The vagaries of Pack (§ [132, 1]) led to a revival and intensification of the spirit of persecution. In Austria, during A.D. 1527, 1528, a church visitation had been arranged very much in the style of that of Saxony, but with the object of tracking out and punishing heretics. In Bavaria the highways were watched, to prevent pilgrims going to preaching over the borders. Those caught were at first fined, but later on they were drowned or burned.
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.”