It was impossible that Tausen should escape. The bishop of Viborg, George Friis, was determined to extirpate the Reformation. The young reformer was apprehended, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment. He was confined in the underground part of a tower in the town, a doleful abode to which a little air and daylight found access only through an opening contrived in the lower part of the building. Of this air-hole, which sustained the life of the poor prisoner, he was to avail himself to give life to others, and thus alleviate the misery of his captivity. Those persons, at least, who were beginning to love the Gospel, filled with compassion for his misfortune, furtively approached the aperture, which seems to have looked on an isolated piece of waste ground. They called to him in low tones; he answered these friendly voices, and the conversations of the cloisters began again at the foot of the isolated tower. Some of the burgesses of the town, who had taken a liking to the Gospel, having heard of these secluded conferences, crept likewise noiselessly and secretly to the foot of the tower. The pious Johannite approached the aperture and joyfully proclaimed the Gospel to this modest audience. A prisoner, in distress, deprived of every thing, liable to the penalty imposed by the royal capitulation on all the disciples of Luther, Tausen declared from the depths of his dungeon that it was nevertheless true that a living faith in the Saviour alone justifies the sinner. His hearers increased in number from day to day; and this dungeon, in which it was intended to bury Tausen’s discourse as in a tomb, was transformed into a pulpit, a strange pulpit indeed, but one which became more precious to him than that of Antwerskow, from which he was banished. He was no longer alone in propagating the divine word. Tœger and the Minorite Erasmus, to whom the young man had made it known, were zealously diffusing it. They went about from house to house, and repeated to the families to which they had access, the instructions which the humble prisoner imparted to them through the vent-hole.[[261]] The magistrates shut their eyes to what was going on; and many nobles who were on terms of friendship with the evangelical lords of Schleswig declared for the Reformation. They encouraged one another by saying that the king would not allow the reformers to be put down. The prince was about, ere long, to go further still.
When Frederick went in the autumn into Jutland he heard of the imprisonment and the preaching of Tausen. He had made up his mind not to put the Roman Catholics in prison, but at the same time he did not intend that the Catholics should imprison the reformed Christians. He therefore addressed a rescript on the subject to the council and to the townsmen of Viborg; in consequence of which the bolts were drawn and the gates opened to the pious reformer. Frederick went further. After drawing the poor prisoner from the tower, from his low abode he lifted him up beside the throne and named him his chaplain. God raiseth up the poor from the dunghill and maketh him to sit among princes. Desirous still further of marking the decision of his faith, he conferred the same honor on Tast of Husum. Frederick did not however intend, for the present at least, to deprive Viborg of the lights which shone there. Tausen, Tœger, and Erasmus had preached there the kingdom of God. It was the king’s intention that the Gospel, which was here and there springing forth as from living fountains in Jutland, should have in this town a fortress. He, therefore, allowed its inhabitants to retain Tausen as their pastor; but he set him free from all monastic subordination.[[262]] Although the reformer continued for a year or two longer to wear the dress and to reside in the house of the Johannites, he enjoyed full liberty; and of this he availed himself to diffuse everywhere the doctrine which the heads of his order hated. Others came to his aid. |Sadolin.| A young man of Viborg, named Sadolin, sometimes called after his native place Viburgius, had studied, in 1522, under Luther; and after his return to his own country he had professed the principles of sound doctrine. The bishop having immediately checked his endeavors, Sadolin had appealed to the king, and had asked permission to establish in the town an evangelical school. The prince, perceiving that such an institution would furnish a solid basis for the religious movement, readily consented and founded at Viborg a great free school, in which Sadolin was the first professor. The youth and the adults of the town and of other parts of the country were there instructed in the principles of the Gospel. In Jutland, which thus received the light at the same time from Viborg on the one hand and from Schleswig on the other (Schleswig had embraced the Reformation as early as 1526), the number of those who desired no other Saviour than Jesus Christ was daily increasing.[[263]]
Progress Of Reform At Malmoe.
While the Reformation had thus one basis of action at Viborg in Jutland, it found a second in quite a different quarter, at Malmoe, opposite to Copenhagen, on the other shore of the Sound. At Viborg the reformation was of a more inward and more spiritual character; at Malmoe it was more polemical. The ex-burgomaster, Michelsen, who published at this time in Saxony the Danish New Testament, had already labored in this town to dispel the abuses of the Roman hierarchy. A priest endowed with a handsome person, a powerful voice, great eloquence and decision of character, and whom his enemies accused of a certain overbearing spirit, was boldly preaching there the doctrines of the Reformation. His audience steadily increased in numbers, and included some influential men; among others Jacob Nielsen and George Kok, the latter of whom had succeeded Michelsen, as burgomaster. Alarmed at the progress which the Reformation was making, its adversaries denounced the heretical preacher, who was usually called by his Christian name, Claus.[[264]] The burgomaster remained firm. In front of the town was a piece of pasture ground which belonged to the magistrate. ‘You will preach there,’ said he to the eloquent Tondebinder; ‘but be cautious; preach evangelical truth, but do not baptize it with the name of Luther.’ It was now the month of June. It soon became known all over the town that there would be preaching in the open air. Sincere Christians impelled by the desire to hear the Gospel, adversaries of the priests by reason of the very prohibition by the archbishop, and neutrals attracted by the novelty of the circumstances, flocked in a crowd to the place. They remained standing, pressed close together and piled up in a heap, for they did not dare to pass beyond the free soil. One step beyond, and the rash intruder might be delivered into the hands of the archbishop and his court. The townsmen demanded a church; and they gave them, not undesignedly, the chapel of the Holy Cross, which was the smallest in Malmoe. It was instantly crowded, and many people who had to remain at the door began complaining again. The king then interposed and assigned to the eloquent preacher the church of St. Simon and St. Jude. But even this was not large enough. The audience wished for the largest church, that of St. Peter; and the rector granted this for Sunday afternoons.[[265]]
Instead of one orator, there were now two. Spandemayer, a priest of the order of the Holy Ghost, a learned man, encouraged by the favorable reception of the Gospel, began to lift up his voice; and these two men, strengthening one another, said boldly—‘The true Christian doctrine has not been preached since the days of the Apostles. All those whom the church has decried as heretics were true Christians. All the popes of Rome have been antichrists; and those who trust in their own works are hypocrites, who thereby close to themselves the way of salvation.’ The two ministers rejected fasts, distinction of meats, monastic vows, and the mass. The churches were cleared of the vain ornaments which had till this time been exhibited in them; a plain table took the place of the high altar; and the Lord’s Supper was observed there in a simple manner. All the inhabitants of this important town soon professed the evangelical faith.
The monks, however, had still their own churches, from which, as from fortresses, they stoutly contended against Reform. The Franciscans especially were unwearied in the contest. Claus determined to attack them in their own entrenchments. He went one day into their church at the time of vespers; entered the pulpit, and there proclaimed the truth, and fought against monachism. Is not this system the sink in which the most crying abuses come together? Are not the compulsory vows, idleness, sensuality and, above all, scandalous licentiousness, the impure waters which run into this reservoir? A Franciscan who heard him entered the pulpit immediately afterwards and endeavored to refute him. Hardly had he concluded when Claus began again. This singular contest lasted through the rest of the day, nor was the mouth of either of the champions closed by the blows which they struck at each other.[[266]]
The two ministers preached, with ever-increasing earnestness, that it is neither masses, nor vows, nor fast-days, nor the administration of the Romish sacrament, nor meritorious works, that save the sinner; but faith alone in the Saviour who takes away our sins and changes our hearts. The archbishop of Lund, Aage Sparre, being much incensed, summoned the two preachers before him to give account of their proceedings. He awaited them day after day, but in vain. At length, his patience was exhausted, and he betook himself to Malmoe, determined to reduce to silence these insolent priests who did not submit to his orders. ‘These heretics,’ he said to the magistrates, ‘allege that man is saved by faith alone; that there is a universal priesthood which belongs to all Christians, women included. They celebrate the mass in both kinds, and cannot fail to draw down on themselves the vengeance of the Almighty.’[[267]]
The complaints and the menaces of the archbishop were ineffectual. The two ministers, on the other hand, received further assistance. A Carmelite monk, named Francis Wormorsen, a native of Amsterdam, inflamed with love for the truth, joined them, and became afterwards the first evangelical bishop of Lund.[[268]]
The evangelicals took a further step. They adopted, both at the Lord’s Supper and in the general service, Danish hymns instead of the Latin, which the people could not understand. For this purpose they translated some German hymns, especially those of Luther; and in 1528 they published the first evangelical hymns in Danish.[[269]] Editions rapidly succeeded each other. Every one wished to sing the hymns, not only at church but in their homes. In a short time the whole town was gathered around the Word of God. Some of the monks who behaved ill were expelled by the townsmen. Convents given by the king were transformed into hospitals. The people now heard nothing in the churches but the preaching of Jesus Christ. A school of theology was founded in 1529; and the priests, indignant, exclaimed—‘Malmoe is become a den of thieves, a refuge for apostates and desperadoes.’[[270]] On the contrary, it was a city set on a hill whose light could not be hid.
It was not only at Malmoe and at Viborg that the Reformation was making progress. Everywhere the pillars of the papacy were giving way, and the temple was threatening to fall to the ground. The Word of God and the writings of Luther and other reformers were sought after and read. Many Christians who had hitherto contented themselves with paying the priests for taking care of their souls, began to be concerned about them themselves. They perceived that what is essential in Christianity is not the pope, nor the bishops, nor the priests, as they had hitherto been accustomed to believe; but the Father who is in heaven, the Son who died and rose again to save his people, and the Holy Spirit who changes the heart and leads into all truth. When the begging friars presented themselves at the people’s houses, with their wallets on their backs, they heard in educated families, instead of the idle tittle-tattle of other days, discussions carried on which greatly perplexed them. From the common people too they got, instead of eggs and butter, only rude attacks. When they attempted to meddle as formerly in family affairs, people shut their doors against them; and when agents of the wealthy bishops of Jutland made their appearance for the purpose of receiving their tithes, the peasants turned their backs on them. From all these matters the king held himself aloof and did not interfere. In some cases, it is true, he confirmed the privileges of the clergy; but the people had taken the business in hand, and it was the people and not the king who reformed Denmark.[[271]]