Life of Luther

had a good foundation. A new agent from there had now arri

by birth, and a friend of the Electoral court. He brought with him a high token of favour for the Elector. The latter had formerly expressed a wish to receive the golden rose; a symbol solemnly consecrated by the Pope himself, and bestow

er joy at the redemption of mankind by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and the rose was an appropriate symbol of the quickening and refreshing body of our Redeemer. These high-sounding and long-winded expressions showed very plainly the real object of the Pope. The divine fragrance of this flower was so to permeate the inmost heart of Frederick, the 'beloved son,' that he being filled with it, might with pious mind receive and cherish in his noble breast those matters which Miltitz would explain to him, and whereof the second brief made mention; and thus the more fervently comprehend the Pope's holy and pious lon

ible was the heretical audacity of this 'son of Satan,' and how he imperilled the good name of the Elector. In like manner the chief magistrate of Wittenberg was required by letter to give assistance to Miltitz, and enable him to execute freely and unhindered the Pope's commands against the h

was deposited first of all in the mercantile house of the Fuggers at Augsburg. This public precaution was taken, to prevent Miltitz from parting with the preciou

laid down the doctrine of indulgences in the sense directly combated by Luther, and, although not mentioning him by na

r compromise. And yet, as the event showed, room was left for Miltitz in his sec

noticing, both among learned men and the common people, signs of sympathy for the man against whom his mission was directed, and a feeling hostile to Rome, of which those at Rome neither knew nor cared to know. He was a young and clever man, full of the enjoyment of life, who knew how to mix and converse with people of every kind, and even to touch now and then on the situation and doings at Rome which were exciting suc

ten thousand ducats to prevent its going further. He described the state of popular feeling as he had found it on his journey; three were for Luther where only one was for the Pope. He would not venture, even with an escort of 25,000 men, to carry off Luther through Germany to Rome. 'Oh, Martin!' he exclaimed, 'I thought you were some old theologian,

what crocodile's tears they were. Indeed he was quite prepared, as he had been before under the menaces of a Papal ambassador, so now under his

on to German Christendom urging and admonishing reverence to the Romish Church. His cause, and the charges brought against him, might be tried before a German bishop, but he reserved to himself the rig

y partook of a friendly supper together, an

the matter by mutual silence might 'bleed itself to death,' but added his fear tha

e duty of holding fast in Christian love and unity, and notwithstanding her faults and sins, to the Romish Church, in which St. Peter and St. Paul and hundreds of martyrs had shed their blood, and of submitting to her authority, though with reference only to external matters. Propositions going beyond what was here conceded he wished to be regarded as in no way affecting the people or the c

They had already, through the opposition raised by his enemies, been propagated far and wide, beyond all his expectations, and had sunk into the hearts of the Germans, whose knowledge and judgment were now more matured. If he let himself be forced to retract them he would give occasion to accusation and revi

he speaks of himself and his imperial rule. 'God,' said he on one occasion, 'has well ordered the temporal and spiritual government; the former is ruled over by a chamois-hunter, and the latter by a drunken priest' (Pope Julius). He called himself a king of kings, because his German princes only acted like kings when it suited them. With the lofty ideas and projects which he cherished as sovereign, he stood before the people as a worthy representative of Imperialism, even though his eyes may have been fixed in reality more on his own family and the power of his dynasty, than on the general interests of the Empire. The ecclesiastical grievances of the German nation, which we heard of at the Diet of 1518, had long engaged his lively sympathy, though he deemed it wi

EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. (From hi

's grandson, King Charles of Spain, then nineteen years of age, was chosen Emperor. He was a stranger to German life and customs, as the German people and the Reformer must constantly have had to feel. For the Pope, however, these considerations were of further import, for in his dealings with the new E

ther's cause the Archbishop of Treves, and persuaded him to accept the office. Early in May he had an interview with Caiet

ithful sovereign, who himself evinced suspicion in the matter, and set forth in the dark, so to speak, on his long journey to the two ambassadors of the Pope? He would be held a fool, he wrote t

thus in abeyance, a serious occasion of strife had been prepared, which

Augsburg in October, arranged with him for a public disputation in which Eck and Carlstadt could fight the matter out. Luther hoped, as he told Eck and his friends, that there might be a worthy battle for the truth, and the world should then see that theologians could not only dispute but come to an agreement. T

hat Carlstadt was expressly designated the 'champion of Luther.' Only one of these theses related to a doctrine specially defended by Carlstadt, namely, that of the subjection of the will in sinful man. Among the other points noticed was the

was a stranger; he would not complain of being drawn himself again into the contest by a piece of base flattery on Eck's part towards the Pope; he would merely show that his crafty wiles were well understood, and he wished to exhort him in a friendly spirit, for the future, if only for his own reputation, to be a little more sensible i

which he was called a heretic; he had made this proposal in vain to the legate at Augsburg. He now demanded to be admitted

much. Herein he found his own conclusions fully confirmed. Nay, he found that the tyrannical pretensions of the Pope, even if more than a thousand years old, derived their sole and ultimate authority from the Papal decretals of the last four centu

re not his subjects, and who are therefore condemned by the Pope as schismatics, are all, as Luther now distinctly declares, none the less members of Christendom, of the Church, of the Body of Christ. Participation in salvation does not exist only in the community of the Church of Rome. For Christendom collectively, or the Universal Church, there is no other Head but Christ. Luther now also discovered and declared that the bishops did not receive their posts over individual dioceses and flocks until after the Apostolic period; the episcopate therefore ceases to be an essential and necessary element of

erversion of the true conditions of salvation, as established by Christ and testified in Scripture. Here he saw a human potentate and tyrant, setting himself up in the place of Christ and God. He shuddered, so he wrote to his friends, when, in reading the Papal decretals, he looked further into the doings of the Popes, with their demands and edicts, into this smithy of human laws, this fresh crucifixion of Christ, this ill-treatment and contempt of His people. As previously he had said that Antichrist ruled at the Papal court, so now, in a letter of March

-DUKE GEORGE OF SAXONY.

no obstacle, since the silence required as a condition on the part of his opponents, had never been observed, nor indeed had ever been enjoined or recommended either by Miltitz or any other authorities of the Church. His application, nevertheless, to the Duke was referred to Eck for h

ject must have been inadmissible in his eyes from the mere fact that Eck's theses revived the controversy about indulgences, which was supposed to have been settled once and for ever by the Papal bull.

earning might have a good scuffle in the lists for the truth's sake. On hearing of the objections of the Leipzig theologians to the disputation, his remark was, 'They are evidently afraid to be disturbed in their idleness and guzzling, and think that whenever they hear a shot fired, it has hit them.' An unusually large audienc

him, Dr. Martin and Philip (Melancthon) in a light basket carriage with solid wooden wheels (Rollwagen); none of the wagons were either curtained or covered. Just as they had passed the town-gate and had reached the churchyard of St. Paul, Dr. Carlstadt's carriage broke down, and the doctor fell out into the dir

t liking to have all his utterances in debate so exactly defined. The protocols, however, were to be submitted to umpires charged to decide the result of the disputation, and were to be published after their verdic

Thomas, whither the assembly repaired in a procession of state; then a still grander procession to the Pleissenburg, where a division of armed citizens was stationed as a guard of honour; then a long speech on the right way of disputing, delivered in the Castle hall by the famous Peter S

ng Leipzig student, and afterwards a friend of Luther, was there. Duke George of Saxony frequently attended the proceedings, and listened attentively. His court jester is said to have appeared wi

eachers of the Church, but without any of the lively and free animation of moral and religious spirit, which, in Luther's treatment of such questions, carried his hearers with him. In power of memory, as in readiness of speech, Eck proved him

t. Peter. In opposition to him, Eck delivered four sermons in various churches of the town (none of which Luther would have been allowed to preach in), and speaking of them afterwards he said, 'I simply stirred up the people to be disgusted with the Lutheran errors.' The members of the Leipzig university kept peevishly aloof from their brethren of Wittenberg throughout the disputation, while paying all possible homage to Eck. When L

princely fashion. The Duke, however, told him at that audience, that the Bohemians entertained great expectations of him; and yet George, who on his mother's side was grand-son to Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, was anxious to have all taint of the hateful Bohemian heresy most carefully avoide

he maintained the right of appeal to a Council, and would not accept the Papal curia as his judge. The protocol on this point ran as follows: 'Nevertheless Dr. Martin has stipulated for his appeal, which he has already announce

LUTHER. (From an engravi

and Hebrew he understands sufficiently well to give his judgment on the interpretation of the Scriptures. In speaking, he has a vast store of subjects and words at his command; he is moreover refined and sociable in his life and manners; he has no rough Stoicism or pride about him, and he understands how to adapt himself to different persons and times. In society he is lively and witty. He is always fresh, cheerful, and at his ease, and has a pleasant countenance, however hard his enemies may thr

ssed even Luther; but in solidity and real breadth of learning, impartial men like Pistoris gave the palm to Luther. Eck is said to have imitated the Italians in his great animation of speech, his declamation, and gesticulations with his arms and his whole body. Melancthon even said in a letter after the disputation, 'Mo

s the chief object of debate, and about which Luther had advanced

6.-DR. JOHN ECK. (Fr

mian Huss, who had denied this right, and had therefore been justly condemned. He was bound to notice them, he said, since, in his own frail and humble judgment, Luther's thesis favoured in the highest degree the errors of the Bohemians, who, it was reported, wished him well for his opinions. Luther answered him as he had done in each case before. He condemned the separation of the Bohemians from the Catholic Church, on the ground that the highest right derived from God was that of love and the Spirit, and he repudiated the reproach which Eck sought to cast upon him. But he declared at the same time that the Bohemians on that point had never

irly astounded. Luther, it was true, had already stated in writing that a Council could err. But now he declared himself for principles which a Council, namely that of Constance, solemnly appointed and unanimously recognised by the whole of Western Christendom, had condemned, and thus openly accused that Council of error in a decision of the most momentous importance. Nay more, that decision had been concurred in by the very men who, while recognising the Papal primacy, strenuously defended a

ich it placed him to the Council of Constance. When Eck declared it 'horrible' that the 'reverend father' had not shrunk from contradicting that holy Council, assembled by consent of all Christendom, Luther interrupted him with th

cil in matters of faith must at all times be accepted. And in order to guard himself against any misunderstanding and misconstruction, he once broke off from the Latin, in which the whole disputation had been conducted, and declared in German that he in no way desired to see allegiance renounced to the Romish Church, but that the only question in dispute was whether its supremacy rested on Divine right-that is to say, on direct Divine institution in the New Testament, or whether its origin and character were simply such as the Imperial Crown, for example, possessed in relation to the German nation

his main point of the disputation, w

and important declaration by Luther as to the power of the Church in relation to Scripture. Eck quoted as Biblical proof a passage from the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament, which although not originally included in the records of the Old Covenant, had bee

doctor only dips into Scripture as deep as the water-spider into the water-nay, that he seems to fly from it as the devil from the Cr

d to receive the Elector of Brandenburg on a visit to the Pleissenburg. With regard to the universities, to whom the report of the d

r, and pointing out to them in particular the sympathy between him and Huss. He wrote even to the Elector Frederick from Leipzig, proposing that he should have Luther's books burnt. The two men hen

ll charm with the devil inside. It was even remarked on and wondered at that he carried a bunch of flowers in his hand, which he would look at and smell. From that time probably originated the saying of a

of printed matter. We allude not only to the educated laity and men of learning, but to the mass of the people who shared in the excitement caused by this controversy. A few months later we hear an opponent complain that Lu

, did not refer, as people perhaps might have imagined, to the treatment his thesis on the Papal primacy had met with, or to any embarrassment occasioned him on that account. On the contrary, while complaining of the unworthy character of the disputation, he excepted that particular thesis. He alluded rather to the superficiality and want of interest with which such important questions as justification by faith, and the sin

that the latter, on the contrary, had eagerly repudiated at Leipzig any fellowship with them, and had denounced their apostasy from Rome. Luther detected in all this, mere trickery and malice, and we also can only recognise in it a crafty attempt to ruin Luther's position all round. If, says Luther, he were to accept in silence the praise here meted out to him, he would seem to have retracted his whole teaching, and laid down his arms before Eck; if, on the other hand, he were to disclaim it, he would be cried down at once as a patron of the Bohemians, and charged with base ingratitude to Emser. Accordingly, in a small pamphlet, h

ed Luther of their joyful and prayerful sympathy with him in his struggle. One of them sent him a present of knives of Bohemian workmanship, the other a writing of Huss upon the Church. Luther accepted the presents with cordiality, and sent them

tpone it till the Diet, then about to be held. Miltitz, however, notwithstanding the result of the disputation and the further declarations of Luther, still clung to his plan of mediation. He arranged once more an interview with Luther on October 9 at Liebenwerda, when the latter renewed his pro