Life of Luther Part 11

He next announced and justified his act in a short treatise ent.i.tled 'Why the Books of the Pope and his disciples were burnt by Dr.

Martin Luther.' 'I, Martin Luther,' he says, 'doctor of Holy Scripture, an Augustinian of Wittenberg, make known hereby to everyone, that by my wish, advice, and act, on Monday after St.

Nicholas' day, in the year 1520, the books of the Pope of Rome, and of some of his disciples, were burnt. If anyone wonders, as I fully expect they will, and asks for what reason and by whose command I did it, let this be his answer.' Luther considers it his bounden duty, as a baptized Christian, a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, and a daily preacher, to root out, on account of his office, all unchristian doctrines. The example of others, on whom the same duty devolved, but who shrank from doing as he did, would not deter him.

'I should not,' he says, 'be excused in my own sight; of that my conscience is a.s.sured, and my spirit, by G.o.d's grace, has been roused to the necessary courage.' He then proceeds to cite from the law-books thirty erroneous doctrines, in glorification of the Papacy, which deserved to be burnt. The sum total of this Canon law was as follows: 'The Pope is a G.o.d on earth, above all things, heavenly and earthly, spiritual and temporal, and everything is his, since no one durst say, What doest thou?' This, says Luther, is the abomination of desolation (St: Matth. xxiv. 15), or in other words Antichrist (2 Thess. ii. 4).

Simultaneously with this, he set out in a longer and exhaustive work the 'ground and reason' of all his own articles which had been condemned by the bull. He takes his stand upon G.o.d's word in Scripture against the dogmas of the earthly G.o.d;--upon the revelation by G.o.d Himself, which, to everyone who studies it deeply and with devotion, will lighten his understanding, and make clear its substance and meaning. What though, as he is reminded, he is only a solitary, humble man, he is sure of this, that G.o.d's Word is with him.

To Staupitz, who felt faint-hearted and desponding about the bull, Luther wrote, saying that, when burning it, he trembled at first and prayed; but now he felt more rejoiced than at any other act in all his life. He now released himself finally from the restraints of those monastic rules, with which, as we have remarked before, he had always tormented himself, besides performing the higher duties of his calling. He was freed now, as he wrote to his friend Lange, by the authority of the bull, from the commands of his Order and of the Pope, being now an excommunicated man. Of this he was glad; he retained merely the garb and lodging of a monk: he had more than enough of real duties to perform with his daily lectures and sermons, with his constant writings, educational, edifying, and polemical, and with his letters, discourses, and the a.s.sistance he was able to give his brethren.

By this bold act, Luther consummated his final rupture with the Papal system, which for centuries had dominated the Christian world, and had identified itself with Christianity. The news of it must also have made the fire which his words had kindled throughout Germany, blaze out in all its violence. He saw now, as he wrote to Staupitz, a storm raging, such as only the Last Day could allay; so fiercely were pa.s.sions aroused on both sides.

Germany was then, in fact, in a state of excitement and tension more critical than at any other period of her history. Side by side with Luther stood Hutten, in the forefront of the battle with Rome. The bull he published with sarcastic comments: the burning of Luther's works of devotion he denounced in Latin and German verses. Eberlin von Gunzburg, who shortly after began to wield his pen as a popular writer on reform, called these two men 'two chosen messengers of G.o.d.' A German Litany, which appeared early in 1521, implored G.o.d's grace and help for Martin Luther, the unshaken pillar of the Christian faith, and for the brave German knight Ulrich Hutten, his Pylades.

Hutten also wrote now in German for the German people, both in prose and verse. During his stay with Sickingen in the winter at his Castle of Ebernburg, he read to him Luther's works, which roused in this powerful warrior an active sympathy with the doctrines of the Reformation, and stirred up projects in his mind, of what his own strong arm could accomplish for the good cause.

Pamphlets, both anonymous and pseudonymous, were circulated in increasing numbers among the people. They took the form chiefly of dialogues, in which laymen, in a simple Christian spirit, and with their natural understanding, complain of the needs of Christendom, ask questions and are enlightened. The outward evils of the Papal system are put clearly before the people:--the scandals among the priesthood and in the convents, the iniquities of the Romish courtiers and creatures of the Pope, who pandered with menial subservience to the magnates at Rome, in order to fatten on German benefices, and reap their harvest of taxes and extortions of every kind. The simple Word of G.o.d, with its sublime evangelical truths, must be freed from the sophistries woven round it by man, and be made accessible to all without distinction. Luther is represented as its foremost champion, and a true man of the people, whose testimony penetrated to the heart. His portrait, as painted by Cranach, was circulated together with his small tracts. In later editions the Holy Ghost appears in the form of a dove hovering above his head; his enemies spread the calumny, that Luther intended this emblem to represent himself.

Satirical pictures also were used as weapons on both sides in this contest. Cranach pourtrayed the meek and suffering Saviour on one side, and on the other the arrogant Roman Antichrist, in the twenty-six woodcuts of his 'Pa.s.sion of Christ and Antichrist:' Luther added short texts to these pictures.

Luther's enemies now began, on their side, to write in German and for the people. The most talented among them, as regards vigorous, popular German and coa.r.s.e satire, was the Franciscan Thomas Murner; but his theology seemed to Luther so weak, that he only favoured him once with a brief allusion. He entered now into a longer literary duel with the Dresden theologian Emser, who had challenged him after the disputation at Leipzig, and who now published a work 'Against the Unchristian Address of Martin Luther to the German n.o.bility.'

Luther replied with a tract 'To the Goat at Leipzig,' Emser with another 'To the Bull at Wittenberg,' Luther with another 'On the Answer of the Goat at Leipzig,' and Emser with a third, 'On the furious Answer of the Bull at Wittenberg.' Luther, whose reply to Emser's original work had been directed to the first sheets that appeared, met the work, when published in its complete form, with his 'Answer to the over-Christian, over-priestly, over-artful Book of the Goat Emser.' Emser followed up with a 'Quadruplica,' to which Luther rejoined with another treatise ent.i.tled 'A Refutation by Doctor Luther of Emser's error, extorted by the most learned priest of G.o.d, H. Emser.' When later, during Luther's residence at the Wartburg, Emser published a reply, Luther let him have the last word. Nothing new was contributed to the great struggle by this interchange of polemics. The most effective point made by Emser and the other defenders of the old Church system, was the old charge that Luther, one man, presumed to oppose the whole of Christendom as. .h.i.therto const.i.tuted, and by the overthrow of all foundations and authorities of the Church, to bring unbelief, distraction, and disturbance upon Church and State. Thus Emser says once in German doggrel, that Luther imagined that

What Church and Fathers teach was nought; None lived but Luther;--so he thought.

In threatening Luther with the consequences of his heresy, he never failed to hold up Huss as a bugbear.

In Germany, as Emser complains, there was already 'such quarrelling, noise, and uproar, that not a district, town, village, or house was free from partisans, and one man was against another.' Aleander wrote to Rome saying that everywhere exasperation and excitement prevailed, and the Papal bull was laughed at. Among the adherents of the old Church system one heard rumours of strange and terrible import. A letter written shortly after the burning of the bull, gave out that Luther reckoned on thirty-five thousand Bohemians, and as many Saxons and other North Germans, who were ready, like the Goths and Vandals of old, to march on Italy and Rome. But it was evident, even at this stage, that from rancorous words to energetic and self-sacrificing action was a long step to take. Even in central Germany the bull was executed without any disturbance breaking out; and that in the bishoprics of Meissen and Merseburg, which were adjacent to Wittenberg.

Pirkheimer and Spengler at Nuremberg, whose names Eck had included in the bull, now bowed to the authority of the Pope, represented though it was by their personal enemy.

Hutten, who saw his hopes in the Emperor's brother deceived, and believed his own liberty and even his life was menaced by the Papal bull, burned with impatient ardour to strike a blow. He was anxious also to see whether a resort to force, after his own meaning of the term, would meet with any support from the Elector Frederick. He ventured even, when speaking of Sickingen's lofty mission, to refer to the precedent of Ziska, the powerful champion of the Hussites, who had once been the terror and abomination of the Germans. He, a member of the proud Equestrian order, was willing now to join hands with the towns and the burghers to do battle with Rome for the liberty of Germany. But, pa.s.sionate as were his words, it was by no means clear what particular end under present circ.u.mstances he sought to achieve by means of arms. Sickingen, who had grasped the situation in a practical spirit, advised him to moderate his impatience, and sought, for his own part, to keep on good terms with the Emperor, in whom Hutten accordingly renewed his hopes. Each, in short, had overrated the influence which Sickingen really possessed with the Emperor.

In this posture of affairs, Luther reverted, with increased conviction, to his original opinion, that the future must be left with G.o.d alone, without trusting to the help of man. Hutten himself had written to him, during the Diet of Worms, as follows: 'I will fight manfully with you for Christ; but our counsels differ in this respect, that mine are human, while you, more perfect than I am, trust solely in those of G.o.d.' And when Hutten seemed really bent on taking the sword, Luther declared to him and to others, with all decision of purpose: 'I would not have man fight with force and bloodshed for the Gospel. By the Word has the world been subdued, by the Word has the Church been preserved, by the Word will she be restored. As Antichrist has begun without a blow, so without a blow will Antichrist be crushed by the Word.' Even against the Romish hirelings among the German clergy, he would have no acts of violence committed, such as were committed in Bohemia. He had not laboured with the German n.o.bility to have such men restrained by the sword, but by advice and command. He was only afraid that their own rage would not allow of peaceful means to check them, but would bring misery and disaster upon their heads.

His expectation--not indeed ungrounded--of the approaching end of the world, to which, as we have seen, he alluded in a letter to Spalatin on January 16, 1521, Luther now announced more fully in a book, written in answer to an attack by the Romish theologian Ambrosius Catharinus. He based his opinion on the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, on which Christian men and Christian communities, sore pressed in the battle with the powers of darkness, had been wont ere then to rely, in the sure hope of the approaching victory of G.o.d. Luther referred in particular to the vision of Daniel (chap. viii.), where he states that after the four great Kingdoms of the World, the last of which Luther takes to be the Roman Empire, a bold and crafty ruler should rise up, and 'by his policy should cause craft to prosper in his hand, and should stand up against the Prince of princes, but should be broken without hand.' He saw this vision fulfilled in the Popedom; which must, therefore, be destroyed 'without hand,' or outward force. St. Paul, in his view, said the same in the pa.s.sage in which (2 Thess. ii.) he foreshadowed long before the Roman Antichrist. That 'man of sin' who set himself up as G.o.d in the temple of G.o.d, 'the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.' So, said Luther, the Pope and his kingdom would not be destroyed by the laity, but would be reserved for a heavier punishment until the coming of Christ. He must fall, as he had raised himself, not 'with the hand,' but with the spirit of Satan.

The Spirit must kill the spirit; the truth must reveal deceit.

Luther, as we shall see, had all his life held firmly to this belief that the end was near. As his glowing zeal pictured the loftiest images and contrasts to his mind, so also this a.s.surance of victory was already before his eyes. In his hope of the near completion of the earthly history of Christianity and mankind, he became the instrument of carving out a new grand chapter in its career.

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 p.r.o.nounced 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 accomplis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.bility and burgher cla.s.s, 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 att.i.tude, 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 n.o.bility sufficiently showed, to interfere with or disturb it in any way, provided only the bishops would feed their flocks according to G.o.d's Word. An independent German episcopate would then have been well able to undertake the reforms necessary in the system of wors.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d, but which could never finally extirpate or extinguish it. And we Protestants must confess that not only did a great ma.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 24.--CHARLES V. (From an engraving by B. Beham, in 1531.)]

He was, however, by no means so dependent on those about him as might have been supposed. His counsellors, in the general interests of his government, pursued an independent line of policy, and Charles himself, even in these his youthful days, knew to a.s.sert his independence as a monarch and display his cleverness as a statesman.

But a German he was not, in spite of his grandfather Maximilian; he had not even an ordinary knowledge of the German language. First and foremost, he was King of Spain and Naples; in his Spanish kingdom he retained, even after his accession to the imperial dignity, the chief basis of his power. His religious training and education had familiarised him only with the strict orthodoxy of the Church and his duties in respect to her traditional ordinances. To these his conscience also constrained him to adhere. He never showed any inclination to investigate the opposite opinions of his German subjects, at least with any independent or critical exercise of judgment. A strict regard to his rights and duties as a sovereign was his sole guide, next to his religious principles, in dictating his conduct towards the Church. In Spain some reforms were being then introduced, based essentially on the doctrines and hierarchical const.i.tution of the mediaeval Church. Stricter discipline, in particular, was observed with regard to the clergy and monks, who were admonished to attend more faithfully to their duties of promoting the moral and religious welfare of the people; and the result was seen in a revival of popular interest in the forms and ordinances of religion. Furthermore, the crown enjoyed certain rights independently of the Roman Curia: an absolute monarchy was here ingeniously united with Papal absolutism. Such a union, however, sufficed in itself to make any severance of the German Church from the Papacy impossible under Charles V. The unity of his dominions was bound up with the unity of the Catholic Church, to which his subjects, alike in Spain and Germany, belonged. Added to this, he had to consider his foreign policy. Provoked as he had been by Leo X., who had leagued with France to prevent his election, still, with menaces of war from France, he saw the prudence of cultivating friends.h.i.+p, and contracting, if possible, an alliance with the Pope. The pressure desirable for this purpose could now be supplied by means of the very danger with which the Papacy was threatened by the great German heresy, and against which Rome so sorely needed the aid of a temporal power. At the same time, Charles was far too astute to allow his regard for the Pope, and his desire for the unity of the Church, to entangle his policy in measures for which his own power was inadequate, or by which his authority might be shaken, and possibly destroyed. Strengthened as was his monarchical power in Spain, in Germany he found it hemmed in and fettered by the Estates of the Empire and the whole contexture of political relations.

Such were the main points of view which determined for Charles V.

his conduct towards Luther and his cause. Luther thus was at least a pa.s.sive sharer in the game of high policy, ecclesiastical and temporal, now being played, and had to pursue his own course accordingly.

The imperial court was quickly enough acquainted with the state of feeling in Germany. The Emperor showed himself prudent at this juncture, and accessible to opinions differing from his own, however small cause his proclamations gave to the friends of Luther to hope for any positive act of favour on his part.

Whilst Charles was on his way up the Rhine, to hold, at the beginning of the New Year, a Diet at Worms, the Elector Frederick approached him with the request that Luther should at least be heard before the Emperor took any proceedings against him. The Emperor informed him in reply that he might bring Luther for this purpose to Worms, promising that the monk should not be molested. The Elector, however, felt doubts on this point: possibly he thought of the danger to which Huss had been exposed at Constance. But Luther, to whom he announced through Spalatin the Emperor's offer, replied immediately, 'If I am summoned, I will, so far as I am concerned, come; even if I have to be carried there ill; for no man can doubt that, if the Emperor calls me, I am called by the Lord.' Violence, he said, would no doubt be offered him; but G.o.d still lived, who had delivered the three youths from the fiery furnace at Babylon, and if it was not His will that he should be saved, his head was of little value. There was one thing only to beseech of G.o.d, that the Emperor might not commence his reign by shedding innocent blood to s.h.i.+eld unG.o.dliness: he would far rather perish by the hands of the Romanists alone. Some time before, Luther had thought of a place to fly to, in case it were impossible to stay at Wittenberg; Bohemia was always open to him. But now he roundly declared, 'I will not fly, still less can I recant.'

Meanwhile the Emperor began to reflect whether Luther, who lay already under the ban and interdict, ought to be admitted to the place of the Diet. As to what proceedings should be taken against him, if he came, long, wavering, and anxious negotiations now took place between the Emperor, the Estates, and the legate Aleander, at Worms, where the Estates a.s.sembled in January, and the Diet was opened on the 28th.

A Papal brief demanded the Emperor to enforce the bull, by which Luther was now definitely condemned, by an imperial edict. In vain, he wrote, had G.o.d girded him with the sword of supreme earthly power, if he did not use it against heretics, who were even worse than infidels. His advisers, however, were agreed in the conviction that he could not move in this matter without the consent of his Estates. Aleander sought to gain them over in an elaborate harangue.

He, according to whose principles the appeal to a Council was a crime, cleverly diverted from himself the comparison and retort which his present arguments suggested, and insisted all the more on his complaint, that Luther always despised the authority of Councils and would take no correction from anyone. Glapio, then the Emperor's confessor and diplomatist, addressed himself, with expressions of wonderful friends.h.i.+p, to Frederick's chancellor, Bruck. Even he found much that was good in Luther's writings, but the contents of his book, the 'Babylonian Captivity,' were detestable. All that need be done was that Luther should disclaim or retract that offensive work, so that what was good in his writings might bear fruit for the Church, and Luther, together with the Emperor, might co-operate in the work of true reform. He might be invited to meet some learned, impartial men at a suitable place, and submit himself to their judgment. This, at all events, would be a happy means of preventing his having to appear before the Emperor and the Estates of the Empire, and if he persisted in refusing to recant, of deciding then and there his fate. We must leave it an open question, how far Glapio still seriously thought it possible, by dint of threats and entreaties, to utilise Luther for effecting a reform in the Spanish sense, and as an instrument against any Pope who should prove hostile to the Emperor. But the Elector Frederick would undertake no responsibility in this dark design: he refused flatly to grant to Glapio the private audience he desired.

The Emperor acceded so far to the urgency of the Pope as to cause a draft mandate to be laid before the Estates, proposing that Luther should be arrested, and his protectors punished for high treason.

The Frankfort deputy wrote home: 'The monk makes plenty of work.

Some would gladly crucify him, and I fear he will hardly escape them; only they must take care that he does not rise again on the third day.' After seven days' excited debate in the Diet, in which the Elector took a prominent and lively part, an answer to the imperial mandate was at length agreed upon, offering for consideration 'whether, inasmuch as Luther's preaching, doctrines, and writings had awakened among the common people all kinds of thoughts, fancies, and desires, any good result or advantage would accrue from issuing the mandate alone in all its stringency, without first having cited Luther before them and heard him.' At the same time, his examination was to be so far restricted, that no discussion with him should be allowed, but simply the question put to him, 'whether or not he intended to insist upon the writings he had published against our holy Christian faith.' If he retracted them, he should be heard further on other points and matters, and dealt with in all equity upon them. If, on the contrary, he persisted in all or any of the articles at variance with the faith, then all the Estates of the Empire should, without further disputation, adhere to and help to maintain the faith handed down by their fathers, and the imperial edict should then go abroad throughout the land.

The Emperor, accordingly, on March 6, issued a citation to Luther, summoning him to Worms, to give 'information concerning his doctrines and books.' An imperial herald was sent to conduct him. In the event of his disobeying the citation, or refusing to retract, the Estates declared their consent to treat him as an open heretic.

Luther, therefore, had to renounce at once all hope of having the truth touching his articles of faith tested fairly at Worms by the standard of G.o.d's word in Scripture. Spalatin indicated to him the points on which, according to Glapio's statement, he would in any case be expected to make a public recantation.

It remained still doubtful, however, how far those articles would be extended, and how far the 'other points' might be stretched, or possibly be made the subject of further and profitable discussion, if he submitted in respect to the former. Glapio had made no reference to the question of the patristic belief in the infallibility of the Pope, or his absolute power over the Church collectively and her Councils: even the Papal nuncio himself had not ventured to touch on these subjects. There was room enough for the more liberal and independent principles entertained on these points by the members of the earlier reforming Councils, if only Luther had not disputed their authority with that of Councils altogether. The ecclesiastical abuses, against which the Diet had already remonstrated to the Pope, were just now at Worms the subject of general and bitter complaint. The imposts levied by Rome on ecclesiastical benefices and fiefs, mere outward symbols of supremacy it is true, but highly important to the Pope, swallowed up enormous sums; while the Empire hardly knew how to sc.r.a.pe together a miserable subsidy for the newly organised government and the expenses of justice, and men talked openly of retaining these Papal tributes, notwithstanding all protests from Rome, for these purposes. Even faithful adherents of the old Church system, like Duke George of Saxony, demanded a comprehensive reformation of the clergy, whose scandals were so destructive of religion, and, as the best means to effect this reformation, a General Council of the Church. Aleander had to report to Rome, that all parties were unanimous in this desire, so hateful to the Pope himself, and that the Germans wished to have the Council in their own country.

Luther formed his resolve at once on the two points required of him.

He determined to obey the summons to the Diet, and, if there unconvicted of error, to refuse the recantation demanded.

The Emperor's citation was delivered to him on March 26 by the imperial herald, Kaspar Sturm, who was to accompany him to Worms.

Within twenty-one days after its receipt, Luther was to appear before the Emperor; he was due therefore at Worms on April 16, at the latest.

Up till now he had continued uninterruptedly his arduous and multifarious labours, and, to use his own expression, like Nehemiah he carried on at once the work of peace and of war; he built with one hand, and wielded the sword with the other. His controversy with Catharinus he brought quickly to a conclusion. During March he finished the first part of his Exposition of the Gospel as read in church, which he had undertaken, as a peaceful and edifying work, at the request of the Elector, to whom he wrote a dedication; and he was now at work on a fervent and tender practical explanation of the _Magnificat_, which he had intended for his devoted friend, Prince John Frederick, the son of Duke John and nephew of the Elector Frederick. He addressed a short letter to him on March 31, enclosing the first printed sheets of this treatise; and the next day sent him the epilogue, addressed to his friend Link, to his reply to Catharinus, dedicated also to Link. 'I know,' he says here, 'and am certain, that our Lord Jesus Christ still lives and rules.

Upon this knowledge and a.s.surance I rely, and therefore I will not fear ten thousand Popes; for He Who is with us is greater than he who is in the world.'

On the following day, April 2, the Tuesday after Easter, he set out on his way to Worms. His friend Amsdorf and the Pomeranian n.o.bleman Peter Swaven, who was then studying at Wittenberg, accompanied him.