Life of Luther

by Julius Köstlin

These are the most powerful and comprehensive utterances which we possess from the mouth of the Reformer, about the demarcation of these provinces of authority, the independent operation of the Word and the Spirit, and liberty of conscience. It is doubtful, indeed, how far they are consonant with those measures which he afterwards found admissible and advisable for the protection of evangelical communities and evangelical truth against those who attempted to lead them astray.

Amidst such active labours the year of Luther's return to Wittenberg passed away.

CHAPTER IV.

LUTHER AND HIS ANTI-CATHOLIC WORK OF REFORMATION, UP TO 1525

Luther, as we have seen, was able to prosecute his labours at Wittenberg, undisturbed by the act of the Diet. In other parts of Germany as well, the imperial power left wide scope for the spread of his teaching. At the next approaching Diet at Nüremberg no majority could be looked for again, to give effect to the consequences demanded by the Edict of Worms. Any such expectation was the more futile, from the results, already experienced, of Luther's reappearance in public.

The new Pope, Hadrian VI., whilst adhering strictly to the doctrines of mediæval Scholasticism and of Church authority, nevertheless, by his honest avowal of ecclesiastical abuses, and the firmness and earnestness of his personal character, led men to expect a new era of energetic reform for the Romish Church, at least in regard to the discipline of the clergy and monks, and to a conscientious restraint of Church ordinances, so that even men like Erasmus might rest content. And yet, he was the very one who sought now to stamp out with all severity the Lutheran heresy and its innovations. With this object he broke out into low abuse and slander against Luther personally, as a drunkard and a debauchee. Libels of this kind were perpetually repeated by the Romanists, and no doubt Hadrian believed them, though Luther did not trouble himself much about such personal attacks, but in his letters to Spalatin, simply called the Pope an ass. Hadrian also, like so many Romish Churchmen after him, was extremely zealous to impress upon princes that he who despises the sacred decrees and the heads of the Church, would cease to respect a temporal throne.

But the Diet which assembled at Nüremberg in the winter of 1522-23, replied to the demands of the Pope by renewing the old grievances of the German nation, and insisting on a free Christian Council, to be held in Germany.

Nor did even an unfortunate military enterprise, undertaken at this time against the Archbishop of Treves by Sickingen, who, while fighting for his own power and the interests of the German nobles, announced his wish also to break road for the Gospel, produce those disastrous results for the evangelical cause in Germany which its enemies had anticipated and hoped for. Sickingen, indeed, after being defeated by the superior forces of the allied princes, died of the wounds he received, but it was as clear as noonday that Frederick the Wise and his evangelical theologians had had nothing to do with his act of violence. Luther, on hearing of Sickingen's enterprise, remarked that it would be 'a very bad business,' and added, on learning the issue, 'God is a just, but a marvellous judge.'

The next meeting of the Diet, from whom, after Hadrian's early death, his successor, Clement VII.—another modern Pope of Leo's way of thinking—demanded anew the execution of the Edict of Worms, resulted in the imperial decree of April 18, 1524. By this, the states of the Empire agreed to execute that edict 'as far as possible,' but stipulated that the Lutheran and the other new doctrines should first be 'examined with the utmost diligence,' and, together with the grievances presented by the princes against the Pope and the hierarchy, should be made the subject of a representation to the Council now demanded. But the inconsistency that lurked in this decree caught Luther's eye and aroused his suspicion. It was scandalous, he declared in a paper upon it, that the Emperor and the princes should issue 'contradictory orders.' They were going to deal with him according to the Edict of Worms, and proclaim him a condemned man, and persecute him, and at the same moment wait to decide what was good or bad in his doctrines. But the decree was, in fact, a subterfuge, by which they resigned the idea of executing that edict. The Lord's Supper could be celebrated at Nüremberg in the new way before the eyes of the whole Diet. Well might Frederick the Wise hope that men would still, at least in Germany, come gradually to agree in peace about the truth contained in Luther's preaching.

The absent Emperor, indeed, remained insensible to all such influences. In the Netherlands strict penal laws were in force. In a letter addressed to the German Empire he condemned the decree of Nüremberg, and, like Hadrian, compared Luther to Mahomet. Further, a minority of the German princes, including, in particular, Ferdinand of Austria, and the Dukes William and Louis of Bavaria, entered into a league at Ratisbon to execute the Edict of Worms, while agreeing to certain reforms in the Church, according to a Papal scheme proposed by his nuncio Campeggio. They too began to persecute and punish the heretics.