Disheartened by such an answer, the enemies of the Reformation fancied that they would meet with a better reception at the hands of Margaret of Austria, the governess of the Netherlands. The Nassau family were essentially Germans; but this princess, said the priests, is a good Catholic. She professed, indeed, to be so; but she was a clever diplomatist and very zealous in her administration. She was anxious to see great progress made in literature and the arts. The doctors of Louvain said to her, ‘Luther, by his writings, is overthrowing Christianity.’ The princess feigned ignorance, and replied, ‘Who is this Luther?’ ‘An ignorant monk,’ replied the priests. ‘Well, then,’[[728]] rejoined the aunt of Charles the Fifth, ‘there are many of you; write against this ignorant fellow, and the whole world will place more faith in many learned men than in one unlearned.’
Tirades Of The Monks.
A wind was now blowing that was favorable to the Gospel, and voices were raised in behalf of Luther, even at the court festivals. One day, when a great imperial banquet was held, the conversation turned upon the reformer. Some assailed him, but others boldly undertook his defence. De Ravestein exclaimed, ‘A single Christian man has arisen in the course of four centuries, and the Pope wants to kill him.’[[729]] The monks, restless and alarmed, asked one another whether the world had gone mad. Rejected by the learned, they endeavored to stir up the common people. A Minorite preaching at Bruges in the church of St. Donatianus, and speaking of Luther and Erasmus, exclaimed—‘They are simpletons, they are asses, beasts, blockheads, antichrists.’[[730]] In this style he ran on for an hour. His hearers, amazed at his stupid vociferations, in their turn wondered whether he had not himself lost his head. A magistrate sent for him, and requested him to inform him what errors there were in the writings of Erasmus. ‘I have not read them,’ said he; ‘I did indeed once open his Paraphrases, but I closed the book again immediately; from their excellent Latinity I was afraid that heresy lay beneath.’ Another Minorite friar, weary of continually hearing the people about him demanding to have the Gospel preached to them, said aloud, ‘If you want the Gospel, you must listen to it from the mouths of your priests;’ and he ventured to add, ‘even though you know that they are given up to licentiousness.’[[731]] The debauchery and the despotism of a great many of the priests brought discredit on the clergy. ‘I value the order of the Dominicans,’ said Erasmus, ‘and I do not hate the Carmelites; but I have known some of them who were of such a stamp that I would sooner obey the Turk than endure their tyranny.’[[732]]
The fanatical priests now set in motion more powerful engines of war. Aleander, the papal nuncio, obtained on the 8th of May, 1531, a special decree of persecution for the Netherlands;[[733]] and, misusing the name of the emperor, exerted all his influence to induce Margaret rigorously to execute the cruel edict. The princess, if left to herself, would have been more tolerant; but she felt bound to comply with the requirements of her powerful nephew. Placards were posted up in all the towns, which spread alarm everywhere. The middle classes in the Netherlands, sympathizing with progress of every kind, had looked upon Luther as a glorious champion of Gospel truth; and now they read at every street corner, that it was forbidden under pain of death to read his writings, and that his books would be burnt. This was the beginning of the persecution which was to devastate the Netherlands during the sixteenth century. During the single reign of Charles the Fifth more than fifty thousand persons, accused of having read the prohibited books, of having on a certain day eaten meat, or of having entered into the bonds of marriage in defiance of the canonical prohibition, were beheaded, drowned, hung, buried alive or burnt, or suffered death in other ways.[[734]] Erasmus therefore exclaimed, ‘What then is Aleander? A maniac, a fool, a bad man.’[[735]]
Jacob Spreng.
Fanaticism had not waited for the edict of Worms. The provost of Antwerp had been one of its first victims. Jacob Spreng, we have seen, as early as 1517 proclaimed with earnestness the salvation which Luther had found in Jesus Christ, and which he had also found himself. Luther’s courage increased his own, which was not great. He repeated that he had seen him and heard him, and that he was his disciple. He did not cease to preach, like his master, that man is saved by grace, through faith. One day, it was in 1519, the provost was arrested in his own convent, and, in spite of the commotion among his friars, was carried off prisoner to Brussels. There he appeared before the judge and was examined, was exceedingly worried, and appears even to have been put to the torture and condemned to death by burning.[[736]] Spreng, we have said, was not strong. They worried, threatened, and terrified him. He had not yet the steadfastness of a rock. The prospect of being burnt alive made him shudder. He was not what his master would have been; he yielded and, with bowed head and dim eye and a heart cast down and broken, he agreed to every thing that was required of him. What a triumph for his enemies! They determined to make a great display of it. In February, 1520, Aleander, Jerome van der Nood, chancellor of Brabant, Herbaut, suffragan of Cambray, Glapio, chaplain to the emperor, and several other dignitaries of the Church, met together in the presence of a large assembly; for the business in hand was to invest the recantation of the unhappy man with all possible solemnity. The president announced to him that thirty of Luther’s articles were going to be read, and that he must condemn them under pain of death.[[737]] These articles had been skilfully selected. The secretary read—‘Every work of the free will (of the natural will of man), however good it may be, is a sin, and is in need of the pardon and the mercy of God.’ ‘I condemn this doctrine,’ said Spreng, terrified at the thought of death. He did the same with respect to other points. ‘Ah!’ said Erasmus, who was acquainted with the unbelief of a great number of Roman priests, ‘many make a great hubbub against Luther on account of some assertions of little importance, while themselves do not even believe that the soul continues to exist after death.’[[738]]
Aleander and his colleagues were not satisfied with having forced Spreng, with the dagger at his throat, to retract the doctrines of the reformer. They also compelled him to assert the contrary doctrines.
The session had been a frightful one. The unhappy Spreng withdrew broken-hearted and filled with bitter sorrow. He had denied his faith; he had not, however, sinned with any desperate evil intent. He confessed his fault to God, gradually recovered himself from his fall, and became afterwards one of the heralds of the Gospel.
He went out of prison indignant with those who had compelled him to renounce his faith, but especially with himself. He now went to Bruges, and there began to speak boldly against his own unfaithfulness, and to spread abroad the knowledge of the Saviour. He was once more arrested and was taken to Brussels. As a relapsed heretic he had nothing to look for but death. A rumor was even current that he had been burnt alive.[[739]] But there were many who cried to God to obtain his deliverance. A Franciscan monk, affected by his fate, succeeded in procuring his escape. Without remaining longer in the Netherlands, he betook himself in 1522 to Wittenberg, his Alma Mater,[[740]] and from thence to Bremen. He became one of the pastors of this place, happy in being able to lead souls in peace in the sweet smiling pastures of the Gospel.
The Inquisition.