The announcement of the retractation required from Luther by the bull, was to have been sent to Rome within 120 days. Luther had given his answer. The Pope declared that the time of grace had expired; and on the 3rd of January Leo X. finally pronounced the ban against Luther and his followers, and an interdict on the places where they were harboured.
CHAPTER IX.
THE DIET OF WORMS.
If we consider the powerful influences then at work to further the ecclesiastical movement in Germany, it seems reasonable to suppose that they would succeed in accomplishing its ends through the power of the Word alone, without any such bloodshed and political convulsions as were feared; and that Germany, therefore, though vexed with spiritual tempests—the 'tumult and uproar' whose outburst Luther already discerned—must inevitably rid herself of the forms and fetters of Romish Churchdom, by the sheer force of her new religious convictions. And, indeed, even in the short interval since Luther had commenced, and only with slow steps had advanced further in the contest, a success had been attained which no one at the beginning could have ventured to expect, or even hope for. Frederick the Wise, the Nestor among the great German Princes of the Empire, had plainly freed himself inwardly from those fetters, and though, as yet, he did not feel himself called upon to express his sentiments by decisive action, his conduct, nevertheless, could not fail to make an impression on those about him. The nobility and burgher class, among whom the new doctrines had made most progress, were, politically speaking, powerfully represented at the Diets. The most important of the spiritual lords, the Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence, who had most cause to resent Luther's onslaught on indulgences, had hitherto adopted a cautious and expectant attitude, which left him free to join at some future time a national revolt against his Romish sovereign. The Diets, indeed, had hitherto submitted to their old ecclesiastical grievances without any fear of the wrath or scolding of the Pope. But, as soon as the conviction prevailed among the Estates, that the pretensions of the Roman see had no eternal, Divine foundation, they could take in hand at once, on their own account, the reformation of the Church. As for the episcopacy, in particular, Luther had never desired, as his Address to the Nobility sufficiently showed, to interfere with or disturb it in any way, provided only the bishops would feed their flocks according to God's Word. An independent German episcopate would then have been well able to undertake the reforms necessary in the system of worship. Luther himself, as we shall see, wished and continued to wish that those reforms should be as few and simple as possible.
In the various German states which afterwards became Protestant, the work of reform was in fact accomplished, without any serious agitation, by the Princes themselves, in concert with their Estates; and in the free towns by the magistrates and representatives of the burghers, notwithstanding the fact that its opponents were supported by the majority of the Empire and by the Emperor himself, who was a staunch adherent of the Romish system. How much easier, in comparison, must the work of Evangelical reformation have been, had it been resolved on by the power of the Empire itself, in accord with the overwhelming voice of the whole nation.
Reference was made, and in significant terms, to the savage and cruel war of the Hussites. But no one could deny to Luther's teaching, a clearness, a religious depth, and a freedom from fanaticism, peculiar to itself, and utterly wanting in the preaching of the followers of Huss. Again, the wild Hussite wars, which were still fresh in the sorrowful memory of the Germans, had in the first instance been provoked by the use of force, on the part of the Church, against the Bohemians. When Germany revolted, Rome found no such means of force at her command.
It might fairly be questioned, if the thought were worth pursuing, whether Luther at that time had sufficient ground for looking for the triumph of his cause, not indeed to the power of the Word and the influences then active in his favour, but to the Day of the Lord, which he believed was near.
It is true that in such great crises of history as this, the final issue never depends alone on the character and conduct of particular personages, however eminent they may be. In this antichristian system of the Papacy, Luther saw Satanic powers at work, which blinded the human heart, and might indeed succeed, by dint of suffering and oppression, in overcoming for the moment the Word of God, but which could never finally extirpate or extinguish it. And we Protestants must confess that not only did a great mass of the German people remain bound by the spell of tradition, but that even to honest and independent-minded adherents of the old system, the interests of religion and morality might in reality have seemed to be seriously endangered by the new teaching and by the breach with the past. But never did the most momentous issue in the fortunes of the German nation and Church rest so entirely with one man as they did now with the German Emperor. Everything depended on this, whether he, as head of the Empire, should take the great work in hand, or should fling his authority and might into the opposite scale.
Charles had been welcomed in Germany as one whose youthful heart seemed likely to respond to the newly-awakened life and aspirations; as the son of an old German princely family, who by his election as Emperor had won a triumph over the foreign king Francis, supported though the latter was by the Pope. Rumour now alleged that he was in the hands of the Mendicant Friars: the Franciscan Glapio was his confessor and influential adviser, the very man who had instigated the burning of Luther's works.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.—CHARLES V. (From an engraving by B. Beham, in 1531.)]