PROGRESS AND INTEENAL TROUBLES OF PROTESTANTISM. 1541-44.
The Reformation, against which the Emperor had so repeatedly to promise his interference, and with which he was compelled to seek for a peaceful understanding, continued meanwhile to gain ground in various parts of Germany.
[Illustration: Fig. 45.—JONAS. (From a portrait by Cranach, in his
Album at Berlin, 1543.)]
Luther hailed with especial joy its victory in the town of Halle, which had formerly been a favourite seat of the Cardinal Albert and the chief scene of his wanton extravagances, and where now one of Luther's most intimate and most learned friends from Wittenberg, Justus Jonas, was installed as reformer and Evangelical pastor. Here the final impetus was given to the movement, among the mass of the population, of whom the large majority had long espoused the cause of Luther, by those money difficulties which played such a serious and grievous part in the life of Albert. When, in the spring of 1541, the town was called on to pay taxes to the amount of 22,000 gulden, to defray the Cardinal's debts, the citizens made the payment conditional on their Council appointing an Evangelical preacher. Jonas was accordingly invited to the town, and received at once, on his arrival, a regular appointment through the magistracy and a committee of the congregation. In Passion Week, when Luther was recovering from his illness and Albert had to attend the Diet at Ratisbon, Jonas for the first time took his place in the principal church in the town, then recently rebuilt, in the pulpit which the Archbishop had had erected with elaborate carvings in stone. Soon after the two other churches in the town received Evangelical preachers. The general regulation of Church matters was entrusted to Jonas, and remained under his control. Luther, however, supported his friend with his advice, and continued on terms of trusted intimacy with him till his death. He did not conceal his joy that the 'wicked old rogue,' Albert, should have had to live to see this, and praised God for upholding His judgment upon earth. The collection of countless and wonderful relics with which the Cardinal, twenty years before, had sought to carry on the traffic in indulgences, so hateful to Luther, he now wished to exhibit in like manner at Mayence, his town of residence. Thereupon Luther, in 1542, published anonymously, but with the evident intention of being recognised as its author, a 'New Paper from the Rhine,' which announced to German Christendom a series of new, unheard-of relics, collected by his Highness the Elector, such as a piece of the left horn of Moses, three tongues of flame from his burning bush, &c., and lastly a whole drachm of his own true heart and half an ounce of his own truthful tongue, which his Highness had added as a legacy by his last will and testament. The Pope, said Luther, had promised to anyone who should give a gulden in honour of the relics, a remission for ten years of whatever sins he pleased. Contempt of this kind was all that Luther found the exhibition deserved. Albert remained silent.
About the same time the Elector John Frederick undertook a novel, important, though a dangerous, and to Luther an objectionable step, in connection with a bishopric then vacant. The Bishop of Naumburg had died. The Chapter of the Cathedral, with whom lay the election of his successor, were accustomed to guide their choice by the wish of the Elector, as their territorial sovereign. They now elected, without waiting to hear from John Frederick, who had seceded from Catholicism, the distinguished Julius von Pflug. The Elector, on the contrary, was anxious, as his privilege was hurt by this neglect, to nominate a bishop of his own choice, and, moreover, a member of the Augsburg Confession. His Chancellor, Brück, protested earnestly against this step, and Luther could not refrain from endorsing his remonstrance. If the common herd of Papists, he said, had been content to look on and see what had been done to priests and monks, they and the Emperor would not care to see the same things done with the Episcopate. The Elector thought this pusillanimous; he wished to be bolder and more spirited than Luther. It was a pity only that his pious zeal lacked the more circumspect judgment of his advisers, and that the interests of his own authority were also concerned. He declined even to accept the advice of the Wittenberg theologians, who suggested that, at all events, the bishopric should be given to the eminent prince of the Empire, George of Anhalt, but chose Nicholas von Amsdorf—a man of better promise, not, indeed, solely from his theological principles, but as being likely to be more dependent on his territorial sovereign, though perhaps, as an unmarried man and a member of the nobility, less repugnant than any other Protestant theologian to the Catholics. On January 18, 1542, the Elector brought him in solemn state to Naumburg before the chapter there assembled.
Luther was glad, nevertheless, to see an Evangelical bishop. He took care to introduce him in Evangelical manner. According to the Catholic doctrine, as is well known, the Episcopate is transmitted from the Apostles by the act of consecration, with the laying on of hands and anointing, which can only be done by one bishop to another, and only a bishop can then consecrate priests or the clergy. The Reformers would easily have been able to continue this so-called Apostolical succession through the Prussian bishops who went over to them. But, as they never acknowledged the necessity of this with regard to the inferior clergy, neither did they with regard to the new bishop. Luther himself consecrated Amsdorf on January 20, together with two Evangelical superintendents of the neighbourhood, and the principal pastor and superintendent of the Evangelical congregation at Naumburg, with prayer and the laying on of hands, in the presence of the various orders and a multitude of people from the town and district assembled in the Cathedral. The congregation were first informed that an honest, upright bishop had now been nominated for them by their sovereign and his estates in concert with the clergy, and they were called upon to express their own approval by an Amen, which was thereupon given loudly in response. In this manner at least it was sought to comply with a rule especially enjoined by Cyprian: namely, that a bishop should be elected in an assembly of neighbouring bishops and with the consent of his own congregation. Luther gave an account of the ceremony in a tract, entitled 'Example of the way to consecrate a true Christian bishop.'
[Illustration: FIG. 4e.-AMSDORF. (From an old woodcut.)]
Brück's apprehensions meantime were only too well founded. The complaints raised against this consecration weighed heavily with even the more moderate opponents of the Reformation, and especially with the Emperor. It was at the same time very evident that, as we have elsewhere observed, the Elector, good Churchman as he was by disposition, frequently displayed too little energy in regard to the general relations and interests of his Church. Thus the arrangements required for the bishopric remained neglected, and the new bishop was furnished with a most inadequate maintenance. Luther complained that the Electoral Court undertook great things, and then left them sticking in the mire. Moreover, among many of the temporal lords, even on the Protestant side, there were signs of spiteful jealousy and suspicion against the honours and advantages enjoyed by their theologians. Luther himself proceeded therefore with the utmost possible caution. He even declined once a present of venison from his friend Amsdorf, in order not to give occasion for calumny by the 'Centaurs at Court;' though, as he said, they themselves had devoured everything, without any prickings of conscience. 'Let them,' he wrote to Amsdorf, 'guzzle in God's name or in any other.'
Scarcely had the Elector's instalment of the bishop (1542) awakened these bitter feelings of resentment, when a war threatened to break out between the Elector and his cousin and fellow-Protestant, Duke Maurice of Saxony, the successor of his late father Henry—a war which would have imperilled more than anything else the position of the Protestants in the Empire, and which stirred and disquieted Luther to his inmost soul.
Between the ducal, or Albertine, and the Electoral, or Ernestine lines of the princely house of Saxony, various rights were in dispute, and among them, in particular, those of supreme jurisdiction over the little town of Wurzen, belonging to the bishopric of Meissen. When now the Bishop of Meissen refused to let the subsidy, levied at Wurzen for the war against the Turks, be forwarded to the Elector, the latter, in March 1542, quickly sent thither his troops. Maurice at once called out his own troops against him. Both continued to arm, and prepared to fight. Luther thereupon, in a letter of April 7, intended for publication, appealed to them and their Estates in terms of heartfelt Christian fervour and perfect frankness. He reminded them of the Scriptural admonition to keep peace; of the close relationship of the two princes as the sons of two sisters; of their noble birth; of their subjects, the burghers and peasants, who were so closely intermingled by marriage that the war would be no war, but a mere family brawl; furthermore, of the petty ground of their fierce contention, just as if two drunken rustics were fighting in a tavern about a glass of beer, or two idiots about a bit of bread; of the shame and scandal for the Gospel; and of the triumph of their enemies and the devil, who would rejoice to see this little spark kindle into a conflagration. If either of the two, instead of using force, would declare himself content with what was just and right, whether it were his own Elector or the Duke, Luther for his part would assist him with his prayers, and he might then trust himself with confidence against aggression, and leave spear and musket to the children of discontent. He told the others that they had incurred the ban and the vengeance of God; nay, he advised all who had to fight under such an unpeaceful prince to run from the field as fast as they could.