Life of Luther Part 23

Erasmus, he said, only strengthened the Papists, who cared nothing about a safe truth for their consciences, but only kept on crying out 'Church, Church, Church.' For he too kept on simply repeating that he wished to follow the Church, whilst leaving everything doubtful and undetermined until the Church had settled it. 'What,'

asks Luther, 'is to be done with those good souls, who, bound in conscience by the word of Divine truth, cannot believe doctrines evidently contrary to Scripture? Shall we tell them that the Pope must be obeyed so that peace and unity may be preserved?' When, therefore, Erasmus sought to obtain unity of faith by mutual concession and compromise, Luther answered by declaring such unity to be impossible, for the simple reason that the Catholics, by their very boasting of the authority of the Church, absolutely refused on their part to make any concession at all. But so far as 'unity of charity' was concerned, he held that on that point the Evangelicals needed no admonishment, for they were ready to do and suffer all things, provided nothing was imposed upon them contrary to the faith. They had never thirsted for the blood of their enemies, though the latter would gladly persecute them with fire and sword.

As for Erasmus himself, Luther, as already stated, simply regarded him as a sceptic, who with his att.i.tude of subjection to the Church, sought only for peace and safety for himself and his studies and intellectual enjoyments. Acting on this view, Luther, in a letter to Amsdorf, written in 1534, and intended for publication, heaped reproaches on Erasmus which undoubtedly he uttered in honest zeal, but in which his zeal did not allow him to form an impartial estimate of his opponent or his writings. He saw the bad spirit of Erasmus reflected in other men, who, like him, had seen the true character of the Romish Church, but, like him also, rejoined her communion. Instances of this were found in his old friend Crotus, who had now entered the service of Cardinal Albert, and as his 'plate-licker,' as Luther called him, abused the Reformation; and in the theologian George Witzel, a pupil of Erasmus and student at Wittenberg, who formerly had been suspected even of sympathising with the peasants in their rebellion, and of rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, but who now wished for a Reformation after Erasmus'

ideas, and was one of the foremost literary opponents of the Lutheran Reformation. Luther, however, deemed it superfluous, after all that he had said against the master, to turn also against his subordinates, and the mere mouthpieces of his teaching.

In addition to Luther's polemics against Catholicism in general, must be mentioned a fresh quarrel with Duke George. The latter, in 1532, had expelled from Saxony some evangelically disposed inhabitants of Leipzig and Oschatz, decreed that everyone should appear once a year at church for confession, and ordered some seventy or eighty families of Leipzig, who had refused to do so, to quit his dominions. Luther sent letters, which were afterwards published, of comfort to the exiled, and of exhortation and advice to those who were threatened. Duke George thereupon complained to the Elector that Luther was exciting his subjects to sedition.

Luther, in reply, spoke out again with double vehemence in a public vindication, whilst George made Cochlaeus write against him. Further quarrelling was ended by the two princes agreeing, in November 1533, to settle certain matters in dispute, and their theologians also were commanded to keep at peace. With regard to the future, however, Luther had spoken words of significance and weight to his persecuted brethren at Leipzig, when he reminded them what great and unexpected things G.o.d had done since the Diet of Worms, and how many bloodthirsty persecutors He had since then s.n.a.t.c.hed away. 'Let us wait a little while,' he said, 'and see what G.o.d will bring to pa.s.s.

Who knows what G.o.d will do after the Diet of Augsburg, even before ten years have gone by?'

Firmly, however, as Luther refused to listen to any surrender in matters of faith, or to any subjection to a Catholic Council of the old sort, he desired no less to adhere loyally to the 'political concord.' His whole heart and sympathies, as a fellow-Christian and a good German, went out with the German troops in their march against the Turks, who he hoped might be well routed by the Emperor.

He never reflected how perilous the consequences of a decisive victory by Charles V. over his foreign enemies would be for the Protestants of Germany, and how divided, therefore, these must feel, at least in their hopes and wishes, during the progress of the war.

He only saw in him again the 'dear good Emperor.' He wished him like success against his evil-minded French enemy. The Pope especially he reproached for his persistent ill-will to the Emperor. The Popes, he said, had always been hostile to the Emperors, and had betrayed the best of them and wantonly thwarted their desires.

Early in 1534 Philip of Hesse set in earnest about his scheme, so momentous for Protestantism, of forcibly expelling King Ferdinand from Wurtemberg, and restoring it to the exiled Duke Ulrich. The latter, whom the Swabian League in 1519, upon a decision of the Emperor and Empire, had deprived of his territory, and transferred it to the House of Austria, was staying with the Landgrave in 1529, with whom he attended the conference at Marburg, and shared his views on Church matters. Since then the Swabian League was dissolved, and Philip seized this favourable opportunity to interfere on behalf of his friend. The King of France promised his aid, and in Germany, especially among the Catholic Bavarians, a strong desire prevailed to weaken the power of Austria. Luther's public judgment being of such weight, and his counsels so influential with the Elector Frederick, Philip informed him, through pastor Ottinger of Ca.s.sel, of his preparations for war, lest he might otherwise be wrongly given to understand that he was meditating a step against the Emperor. His intention, he declared, was merely to 'restore and reinstate Duke Ulrich to his rights in all fairness,' in the sight of G.o.d and of his Imperial Majesty. He 'belonged to no faction or sect:'--this, wrote Ottinger, he was 'instructed by his princely Highness not to conceal from Luther.'

The latter, however, at a conference with his Elector and the Landgrave at Weimar, protested against a breach of the public peace, as tending to bring disgrace upon the gospel; and the Elector, in consequence, kept aloof from the enterprise. Philip, however, persisted, and carried it through with rapidity and success.

Ferdinand, being helpless in the absence of the Emperor, consented, in the treaty of Cadan, to the restoration of Ulrich, who immediately set about a reformation of the Church in Wurtemberg.

Luther recognised in this result the evident hand of G.o.d, in that, contrary to all expectation, nothing was destroyed and peace was happily restored. G.o.d would bring the work to an end.

Meanwhile the Schmalkaldic allies clung tenaciously to their league, and were intent on still further strengthening their position and preparing themselves for all emergencies. No scruples as to whether, if the Emperor should break the peace, they could venture to turn their arms against him, any longer disturbed them. The terms extorted from King Ferdinand by the Landgrave's victorious campaign, were also in their favour. Ferdinand, in the treaty of Cadan, promised to secure them against the suits which the Imperial Chamber, notwithstanding the Religious Peace, still continued to inst.i.tute against them, in return for which John Frederick and his allies consented to recognise his election as King of the Romans.

And in the interests and for the objects represented by the league, namely, to oppose a sufficiently strong and compact power to Roman Catholicism and its menaces, those further attempts were now made to promote internal union among the Protestants, to which Butzer had so unremittingly devoted his labours, and which the Landgrave Philip among the princes considered of the utmost value.

Luther, although he admitted having formed a more favourable opinion of Zwingli as a man, since their personal interview at Marburg, in no way altered his opinion of Zwinglianism or of the general tendency of his doctrines. Thus in a letter of warning sent by him in December 1532 to the burgomaster and town-council of Munster, he cla.s.sed Zwingli with Munzer and other heads of the Anabaptists, as a band of fanatics whom G.o.d had judged, and pointed out that whoever once followed Zwingli, Munzer, or the Anabaptists, would very easily be seduced into rebellion and attacks on civil government. At the beginning of the next year he published a 'Letter to those at Frankfort-on-the-Main,' in order to counteract the Zwinglian doctrines and agitations there prevailing. He also warned the people of Augsburg against their preachers, inasmuch as they pretended to accept the Lutheran doctrine of the Sacrament, but in reality did nothing of the kind. He abstained from entering into any further controversy against the substance of doctrines opposed to his own.

He was concerned not so much about the victory of his own doctrine, which he left with confidence in G.o.d's hands, but lest, under the guise of agreement with him, error should creep in and deceit be practised in a matter so sacred and important. He always felt suspicious of Butzer on this point.

He now saw the evil and terrible fruits of that spirit which had possessed Munzer and the Anabaptists,--such fruits as he had always expected from it. In Munster, where his warning had pa.s.sed unregarded, the Anabaptists had been masters since February 1584. As the pretended possessors of Christianity in its intellectual and spiritual purity, they established there a kingdom of the saints, with a mad, sensual fanaticism, a coa.r.s.e wors.h.i.+p of the flesh, and a wild thirst for blood. This kingdom was demolished the next year by the combined forces of the Emperor and the bishop, but a further consequence of their defeat was the exclusion of Protestantism from the city, which submitted again to episcopal authority. About the Zwinglian 'Sacramentarianism' Luther wrote at that time, 'G.o.d will mercifully do away with this scandal, so that it may not, like that of Munster, have to be done away with by force.'

Butzer, however, did not allow himself to be deterred or wearied.

His wish was that the agreement in doctrine which had already been arrived at between Luther and the South Germans admitted to the Swabian League, should be publicly and emphatically acknowledged and expressed. He laboured and hoped to convince even the people of Zurich and the other Swiss that they attached--as, in fact, they did--too harsh a meaning to Luther's doctrines, and so to induce them to reconcile them as nearly as they could with their own. But they could not be persuaded further than to admit that Christ's Body was really present in the Sacrament, as food for the souls of those who partook in faith. They were as suspicious, from their standpoint, of his attempts at mediation, as Luther was from his.

Butzer represented to the Landgrave that the South German towns, his allies, were united in doctrine, and that the only objection raised by the Swiss was to the notion that Christ and His Body became actual 'food for the stomach,'--a notion which Luther also refused wholly to entertain. For when the latter said that Christ's Body was eaten with the mouth, he explained at the same time that the mouth indeed only touched the bread and did not reach this Body, and that his doctrine was simply a declaration of a sacramental unity, in so far as the mouth eats the bread which is united with the body in the Sacrament. The matter, said Butzer, was a mere dispute about words, and was only so difficult to settle because they had 'abused and sent each other to the devil too much.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIG. 43.--BUTZER. (From the old original woodcut of Reusner.)]

The Landgrave Philip wrote to Luther, and Luther now repeated with warmth his own desire for a 'well-established union,' which would enable the Protestants to oppose a common front to the immoderate arrogance of the Papists. He only warned him again lest the matter should remain 'rotten and unstable in its foundations.' The Landgrave then arranged, with Luther's approval, a conference between Melancthon and Butzer at Ca.s.sel for December 27, 1534.

Luther sent to them a 'Consideration, whether unity is possible or not.' He repeated in this tract, with studied precision and emphasis, those tenets of his doctrine to which Butzer had referred.

The matter, he said, ought not to remain uncertain or ambiguous. But when Butzer now agreed with Luther's own opinion, and sent to him at Wittenberg an explanation that Christ's Body was truly present, but not as food for the stomach, Luther, in January 1535, declared as his judgment, that, since the South German preachers were willing to teach in accordance with the Augsburg Confession, he, for his part, neither could nor would refuse such concord; and since they distinctly confessed that Christ's Body was really and substantially presented and eaten, he could not, if their hearts agreed with their words, find fault with these words. He would only prefer, as there was still too much mistrust among his own brethren, that the act of concord should not be concluded quite so suddenly, but that time should be allowed for a general quieting down. 'Thus,' he said, 'our people will be able to moderate their suspicion or ill-will, and finally let it drop; and if thus the troubled waters are calmed on both sides, a real and permanent union can be ultimately brought about.' Of the Swiss no notice was taken in these negotiations.

Meanwhile Butzer and Philip had to rest content with this; and was it not an important step forwards? This work of union, together with the Council which was to help in uniting the whole Church, took a prominent place during the next few years of Luther's life and labours.

CHAPTER II.

NEGOTIATIONS RESPECTING A COUNCIL AND UNION AMONG THE PROTESTANTS.--THE LEGATE VERGERIUS 1535.--THE WITTENBERG CONCORD 1536.

Pope Paul III., who succeeded Clement VII. in October 1534, seemed at once determined to bring about in reality the promised Council.

And in fact he was quite earnest in the matter. He was not so indifferent as his predecessor to the real interests of the Church and the need of certain reforms, and he hoped, like a clever politician, to turn the Council, which could now no longer be evaded, to the advantage of the Papacy. With this object, and with a view in particular of arranging the place where the Council should be held, which he proposed should be Mantua, he sent a nuncio, the Cardinal Vergerius, to Germany.

In August 1535 Luther was desired by his Elector to submit an opinion on the proposals of the Pope. He thought it sufficient to repeat the answer he had given two years before, namely, that the prince had then fully expressed his zeal for the restoration of Church unity by means of a Council, but at the same time had required that its decisions should be strictly according to G.o.d's Word, and declared that he could not give any definite consent without his allies. Luther still declined, moreover, to believe that the project of a Council was sincere.

The university of Wittenberg had been removed during the summer to Jena, on account of a fresh outbreak of the plague, or at all events an alarm of it, and there they remained till the following February.

Luther, however, would not listen to the idea of leaving Wittenberg.

This time he could stay there in all rest and cheerfulness with Bugenhagen, and make merry with the idle fears of others. To the Elector, who was full of anxiety about him, Luther wrote on July 9, saying that only one or two cases of the disease had appeared; the air was not yet poisoned. The dog-days being at hand, and the young people frightened, they might as well be allowed to walk about, to calm their thoughts, until it was seen what would happen. He noticed, however, that some had 'caught ulcers in their pockets, others colic in their books, and others gout in their papers;' some, too, had no doubt eaten their mother's letters, and hence got heart-ache and homesickness. The Christian authorities, he said, must provide some strong medicine against such a disease, lest mortality might arise in consequence,--a medicine that would defy Satan, the enemy of all arts and discipline. He was astonished to find how much more was known of the great plague at Wittenberg in other parts than in the town itself, where in truth it did not exist, and how much bigger and fatter lies grew the farther they travelled. He a.s.sured his friend Jonas, who had gone away with the university, that, thanks to G.o.d, he was living there in solitude, in perfect health and comfort; only there was a dearth of beer in the town, though he had enough in his own cellar. Nor did Luther afterwards give way to fear when compelled to acknowledge several fatal cases of the plague, and when his own coachman once seemed to be stricken with it. He himself was a sufferer, throughout the winter, from a cough and other catarrhic affections. 'But my greatest illness,' he wrote to a friend, 'is, that the sun has so long shone upon me,--a plague which, as you know well, is very common, and many die of it.'

The Papal nuncio now arrived at Wittenberg, and desired to speak to Luther in person. After an interview at Halle with the Archbishop Albert, he had taken the road through Wittenberg on his way to visit the Elector of Brandenburg at Berlin. On the afternoon of November 6, a Sat.u.r.day, he entered Wittenberg in state, with twenty-one horses and an a.s.s, intending to take up his quarters there for the night, and was received with all due honour at the Elector's castle by the governor Metzsch. Luther was invited, at the nuncio's request, to sup with him that evening, but as the former declined the invitation, he was asked with Bugenhagen to take breakfast with him the next morning. It was the first time, since his summons by Caietan at Augsburg in 1518, that Luther had to speak with a Papal legate--Luther, who had long since been condemned by the Pope as an abominable child of corruption, and who in turn had declared the Pope to be Antichrist. So important must Vergerius have thought it, to attempt to influence, if even only partially, the powerful adviser of the Protestant princes, and thereby to prevent him from check-mating his plans in regard to a Council. And in this respect Vergerius must have had considerable confidence in himself.

The next morning Luther ordered his barber to come at an unusually early hour. Upon the latter expressing his surprise, Luther said jokingly, 'I have to go to the Papal nuncio; if only I look young when he sees me, he may think "Fie, the devil, if Luther has played us such tricks before he is an old man, what won't he do when he is one?"' Then, in his best clothes and with a gold chain round his neck, he drove to the castle with the town-priest Bugenhagen (Pomera.n.u.s). 'Here go,' he said, as he stepped into the carriage, 'the Pope of Germany and Cardinal Pomera.n.u.s, the instruments of G.o.d!'

Before the legate he 'acted,' as he expressed it, 'the complete Luther.' He employed towards him only the most indispensable forms of civility, and made use of the most ill-humoured language. Thus he asked him whether he was looked upon in Italy as a drunken German.

When they came to speak about the settlement of the Church questions in dispute by a Council, Vergerius reminded him that one individual fallible man had no right to consider himself wiser than the Councils, the ancient Fathers, and other theologians of Christendom.

To this Luther replied that the Papists were not really in earnest about a Council, and, if it were held, they would only care to treat about such trifles as monks' cowls, priests' tonsures, rules of diet, and so forth; whereupon the legate turned to one of his attendants, who was sitting by, with the words 'he has. .h.i.t the right nail on the head.' Luther went on to a.s.sert that they, the Evangelicals, had no need of a Council, being already fully a.s.sured about their own doctrine, though other poor souls might need one, who were led astray by the tyranny of the Popedom. Nevertheless he promised to attend the proposed Council, even though he should be burned by it. It was the same to him, he said, whether it was held at Mantua, Padua, or Florence, or anywhere else. 'Would you come to Bologna?' said Vergerius. Luther asked, thereupon, to whom Bologna belonged, and on being told 'to the Pope,' 'Gracious heavens,' he exclaimed, 'has the Pope seized that town too?--Very well, I will come to you even there.' Vergerius politely hinted that the Pope himself, would not refuse to come to Wittenberg. 'Let him come,'

said Luther; 'we shall be very glad to see him.' 'But,' said Vergerius, 'would you have him come with arms or without?' 'As he pleases,' replied Luther; 'we shall be ready to receive him in either way.' When the legate, after their meal, was mounting his horse to depart, he said to Luther, 'Be sure to hold yourself in readiness for the Council.' 'Yes, sir,' was the reply, 'with this my very neck and head.'

Vergerius afterwards related that he had found Luther to be coa.r.s.e in conversation, and his Latin bad, and had answered him as far as possible in monosyllables. The excuse he urged for his interview was that Luther and Bugenhagen were the only men of learning at Wittenberg, with whom he could converse in Latin. He evidently felt himself unpleasantly deceived in the expectations and projects he had formed before the meeting. Ten years later, when his conflict with Evangelical doctrine had taught him thoroughly its real meaning and value, this high dignitary himself became a convert to it.

In the meantime, while the eyes of all were fixed upon the approaching Council, the state of affairs in Germany was eminently favourable to the Evangelicals.

The Emperor, during the summer of 1535, was detained abroad by his operations against the corsair Chaireddin Barbarossa in Tunis, and Luther rejoiced over the victory with which G.o.d blessed his arms.

The King of France was threatening with fresh claims on Italian territory. The jealousy between Austria and Bavaria still continued.

With regard to the Church, King Ferdinand learned to value Lutheranism at any rate as a barrier against the progress of the more dangerous doctrines of Zwingli. John Frederick journeyed in November 1535 to Vienna, to receive from him at length, in the name of the Emperor, the invest.i.ture of the Electors.h.i.+p, and met with a friendly reception.

Under these circ.u.mstances the Schmalkaldic League resolved, at a convention at Schmalkald in December 1535, to invite other States of the Empire, which were not yet recognised in the Religious Peace as members of the Augsburg Confession, to join them. The Dukes Barnim and Philip of Pomerania had now accepted this Confession. Philip also married a sister of John Frederick. Luther performed the marriage service on the evening of February 27 at Torgau, and Bugenhagen p.r.o.nounced, the next morning, the customary benediction on the young couple, Luther being prevented from doing so by a fresh attack of giddiness. The following spring a convention of the allies at Frankfort-on-the-Main received the Duke of Wurtemberg, the Dukes of Pomerania, the princes of Anhalt, and several towns into their league.

Outside Germany, the Kings of France and England sought fellows.h.i.+p with the allies. Ecclesiastical and religious questions, of course, had first to be considered; and Luther with others was called on for his advice.

King Francis, so many of whose Evangelical subjects were complaining of oppression and persecution, was anxious, as he was now meditating a new campaign in Italy, to secure an alliance with the German Protestants against the Emperor, and accordingly pretended with great solicitude that he had in view important reforms in the Church, and would be glad of their a.s.sistance. They were invited to send Melancthon and Luther to him for that purpose. With these he negotiated also in person. Melancthon felt himself much attracted by the prospect thus opened to him of rendering important and useful service. The Elector, however, refused him permission to go, and rebuked him for having already entangled himself so far in the affair. Melancthon's expectations were certainly very vain: the King only cared for his political interests, and in no case would he grant to any of his subjects the right to entertain or act upon religious convictions which ran counter to his own theory of the Church. Moreover, John Frederick's relations with King Ferdinand had by this time become so peaceful, that the Elector was anxious not to disturb them by an alliance with the enemy of the Emperor.

Melancthon, however, was much excited by his refusal and reproof; he suspected that others had maliciously intrigued against him with his prince. Luther, at first moved by Melancthon's wish and the entreaties of French Evangelicals, had earnestly begged the Elector to permit Melancthon 'in the name of G.o.d to go to France.' 'Who knows,' he said, 'what G.o.d may wish to do?' He was afterwards startled on his friend's account by the severe letter of the Elector, but was obliged to acknowledge that the latter was right in his distrust of the affair.

An alliance with England would have promised greater security, inasmuch as with Henry VIII. there was no longer any fear of his return to the Papacy, and with regard to the proceedings about his marriage, a reconciliation with the Emperor was scarcely to be expected. Envoys from him appeared in 1535 in Saxony and at the meeting at Schmalkald. Henry also wished for Melancthon, in order to discuss with him matters of orthodoxy and Church government, and Luther again begged permission of the Elector for him to go. But it was clearly seen from the negotiations conducted with the English envoys in Germany, how slender were the hopes of effecting any agreement with Henry VIII. on the chief points, such as the doctrine of Justification or of the ma.s.s, since the English monarch insisted every whit as strictly upon that Catholic orthodoxy, to which he still adhered, as he did upon his opposition to Papal power. Luther had already in January grown sick to loathing of the futile negotiations with England: 'professing themselves to be wise, they became fools' (Rom. i. 22). He advised therefore, in his opinion submitted to the Elector, that they should have patience with respect to England and the proper reforms in that quarter, but guarded himself against deviating on that account from the fundamental doctrines of belief, or conceding more to the King of England than they would to the Emperor and the Pope. As to contracting a political alliance with Henry, he left that question, as a temporal matter, for the prince and his advisers to decide; but it seemed to him dangerous, where no real sympathy prevailed. How hazardous it was to have anything to do with Henry VIII. was shown immediately after by his conduct towards his second wife Anna Boleyn, whom he had executed on May 19, 1536. Luther called this act a monstrous tragedy.

Among the German Protestants, however, the negotiations respecting the Sacramental doctrine were happily brought to maturity in a duly formulated 'Concord.' Peace also was secured with the Swiss, and therewith the possibility of an eventual alliance.

Now that Luther had once felt confidence in these attempts at union, he took the work in hand himself and proceeded steadily with it. In the autumn of 1535 he sent letters to a number of South German towns, addressed to preachers and magistrates--to Augsburg, Strasburg, Ulm, and Esslingen. He proposed a meeting or conference, at which they might learn to know each other better, and see what was to be borne with, what complied with, and what winked at. He wished nothing more ardently than to be permitted to end his life, now near its close, in peace, charity, and unity of spirit with his brethren in the faith. They also should 'continue thus, helping, praying, and striving that such unity might be firm and lasting, and that the devil's jaws might be stopped, who had gloried hugely in their want of unity, crying out "Ha! ha! I have won."' These letters plainly show how glad was Luther now to see the good cause so advanced, and to be able to further it yet more. Both in them and in his correspondence with the Elector about the proposed meeting, he advised not to enlist too many a.s.sociates, that there might be no restless, obstinate heads among them, to spoil the affair. He knew of such among his own adherents--men who went too far for him in the zeal of dogma.

The conference was appointed to be held at Eisenach in the following spring, on May 14, the fourth Sunday after Easter. Luther's state of health would not permit him to undertake a journey to any distant place or in the winter. Just at this time, moreover, in March 1536, he had been tormented for weeks by a new malady, an intolerable pain in the left hip. Later on, he told one of his friends that he had with Christ risen from the dead at Easter (April 16), for he had been so ill at that time, that he firmly believed that his time had come to depart and be with Christ, for which he longed.

The South Germans readily accepted the invitation. The Strasburgers pa.s.sed it on to the Swiss, and specially desired that Bullinger from Zurich might take part in the conference. The Swiss, however, who had received no direct invitation from Wittenberg, declined the proposal; they wished to adhere simply to their own articles of faith, which they had just formulated anew in the so-called 'First Helvetian Confession,' and which had expressly acknowledged at least a spiritual nutriment to be offered in the Sacramental symbols. They could not see anything to be gained by personal discussion. But they requested that their Confession might be kindly shown to Luther, and Bullinger sent him special greetings from himself and the Evangelical Churches of Switzerland. The preachers who were sent as deputies to Eisenach from the various South German towns, journeyed by way of Frankfort-on-the-Main, where just then the Schmalkaldic allies were a.s.sembled. On May 10 they went on, eleven in number, to Eisenach; they represented the communities of Strasburg, Augsburg, Memmingen, Ulm, Esslingen, Reutlingen, Furfeld, and Frankfort.

At the last moment the whole success, nay even the very plan of the conference, was imperilled. Melancthon had already been anxious and despondent, fearing a fresh and violent outburst of the controversy as a consequence of the impending discussion. Luther had just been freshly excited against the Zwinglians by a writing found among the papers Zwingli left behind him, and which Bullinger had published with high eulogiums upon the author, and also by a correspondence that had just appeared between Zwingli and Oecolampadius. Butzer, however, and his friends still wished to maintain their intimacy with these Zwinglians, and this correspondence was prefaced by an introduction 'from his own pen. Furthermore, letters had reached Luther, representing that the people in the South German towns were not really taught the true Bodily Presence in the Sacrament. In addition to this, severe after-effects of his old illness again attacked him, rendering him unfit to travel to Eisenach.

Accordingly, on May 12 he wrote to the deputies begging them to journey as far as Grimma, where he would either appear in person, or, if too weak, could at all events more easily communicate by writing to them and his friends.

The deputies, however, came straight to him at Wittenberg. In Thuringia they were joined by the pastors Menius of Eisenach and Myconius of Gotha, two of Luther's friends who with him were honestly desirous of unity. The constant personal intercourse kept up during the journey served greatly to promote a mutual understanding.

Thus on Sunday, May 21, they arrived at length at Wittenberg.

The next day, the two Strasburgers, Capito and Butzer, held a preliminary interview with Luther, whose physical weakness made any lengthy negotiations very difficult. He expressed to them candidly and emphatically his desire, repeated again and again, that they should declare themselves at one with him. He would rather, however, leave matters as they had been, than enter into a union which might be only feigned or artificial, and must make bad worse. With regard to the Zwinglian publications, Butzer answered that he and his friends were in no way responsible for them, and that the preface, which consisted of a letter from himself, had been printed without his knowledge and consent. With regard to the doctrine of the Sacrament, the only question now left to decide was whether the unworthy and G.o.dless communicants verily partook of the Lord's Body.

Luther maintained that they did: it was to him the necessary consequence of a Bodily Presence, such as took place simply by virtue of the inst.i.tution and sure promise of Christ, by which faith must abide in full trust and belief. Butzer expressed his decided a.s.sent to the doctrine of objective Presence and presentation; but the actual reception of the Lord's Body, as offered from above, he could only concede to those communicants who, at least through some faith, placed themselves in an inward spiritual relation to that Body and accepted the inst.i.tution of Christ, not to those who were simply there with their bodies and bodily mouths. To enable one to speak of a partaking of the Body, he was satisfied with that faith which was not exactly the right faith of the heart, and was connected with moral unworthiness, so that such guests ate to their own condemnation. He thus acknowledged that the unworthy, but not the man wholly devoid of faith, could partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. Luther, therefore, could feel a.s.sured that Butzer agreed with him in rejecting every view which held that, in the Sacrament, the Body of Christ was present only in the subjective representation and the imagination, or that faith there rose up out of itself, so to speak, to the Lord, instead of merely grasping at what was offered, and thereby being quickened and made strong. But it is unmistakable, that Luther and Butzer conceived in different ways both the manner of the Presence and the manner of partaking,--each of these, indeed, in a mysterious sense and one very difficult to be defined. Luther could scarcely have failed to observe the difference, which still remained between them, and the defect from which, according to his own convictions, the doctrine of the South Germans still suffered. The question was, whether he could look beyond this, and whether in the doctrine for which he had fought so keenly, he should be able and willing to distinguish between what was essential on the one hand, and what was non-essential or less essential on the other.