Luther and the Reformation Part 1

Luther and the Reformation.

by Joseph A. Seiss.

PREFACE.

The first part of this book presents the studies of the Author in preparing a Memorial Oration delivered in the city of New York, November 10, 1883, on the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. The second part presents his studies in a like preparation for certain Discourses delivered in the city of Philadelphia at the Bi-Centennial of the founding of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. There was no intention, in either case, to make a book, however small in size. But the utterances given on these occasions having been solicited for publication in permanent shape for common use, and the two parts being intimately related in the exhibition of the most vital springs of our religious and civil freedom, it has been concluded to print these studies entire and together in this form, in hope that the same may satisfy all such desires and serve to promote truth and righteousness.

Throughout the wide earth there has been an unexampled stir with regard to the life and work of the great Reformer, and these presentations may help to show it no wild craze, but a just and rational recognition of G.o.d's wondrous providence in the const.i.tution of our modern world.

And to Him who was, and who is, and who is to come, the G.o.d of all history and grace, be the praise, the honor, and the glory, world without end!

THANKSGIVING DAY, 1883.

LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION.

A rare spectacle has been spreading itself before the face of heaven during these last months.

Millions of people, of many nations and languages, on both sides of the ocean, simultaneously engaged in celebrating the birth of a mere man, four hundred years after he was born, is an unwonted scene in our world.

Unprompted by any voice of authority, unconstrained by any command of power, we join in the wide-ranging demonstration.

In the happy freedom which has come to us among the fruits of that man's labors we bring our humble chaplet to grace the memory of one whose worth and services there is scarce capacity to tell.

HUMAN GREATNESS.

Some men are colossal. Their characters are so ma.s.sive, and their position in history is so towering, that other men can hardly get high enough to take their measure. An overruling Providence so endows and places them that they affect the world, turn its course into new channels, impart to it a new spirit, and leave their impress on all the ages after them. Even humble individuals, without t.i.tles, crowns, or physical armaments, have wrought themselves into the very life of the race and built their memorials in the characteristics of epochs.

History tells of a certain Saul of Tarsus, a lone and friendless man, stripped of all earthly possessions, forced into battle with a universe of enthroned superst.i.tion, encompa.s.sed by perils which threatened every hour to dissolve him, who, pressing his way over mountains of difficulty and through seas of suffering, and dying a martyr to his cause, gave to Europe a living G.o.d and to the nations another and an everlasting King.

We likewise read of a certain Christopher Columbus, brooding in lowly retirement upon the structure of the physical universe, ridiculed, frowned on by the learned, repulsed by court after court, yet launching out into the unknown seas to find an undiscovered hemisphere, and opening the way for persecuted Liberty to cradle the grand empire of popular rule amid the golden hills of a new and independent continent.

And in this category stands the name of MARTIN LUTHER.

He was a poor, plain man, only a doctor of divinity, without place except as a teacher in a university, without power or authority except in the convictions and qualities of his own soul, and with no implements save his Bible, tongue, and pen; but with him the ages divided and human history took a new departure.

Two pre-eminent revolutions have pa.s.sed over Europe since the beginning of the Christian era. The one struck the Rome and rule of emperors; the other struck the Rome and rule of popes. The one brought the Dark Ages; the other ended them. The one overwhelmed the dominion of the Caesars; the other humiliated a more than imperial dominion reared in Caesar's place. Alaric, Rhadagaisus, Genseric, and Attila were the chief instruments and embodiment of the first; _Martin Luther_ was the chief instrument and embodiment of the second. The one wrought b.l.o.o.d.y desolation; the other brought blessed renovation, under which humanity has bloomed its happiest and its best.

THE PAPACY.

Since Phocas decreed the bishop of Rome the supreme head of the Church on earth there had grown up strange power which claimed to decide beyond appeal respecting everybody and everything--from affairs of empire to the burial of the dead, from the thoughts of men here to the estate of their souls hereafter--and to command the anathemas of G.o.d upon any who dared to question its authority. It held itself divinely ordained to give crowns and to take them away. Kings and potentates were its va.s.sals, and nations had to defer to it and serve it, on pain of _interdicts_ which smote whole realms with gloom and desolation, prostrated all the industries of life, locked up the very graveyards against decent sepulture, and consigned peoples and generations to an irresistible d.a.m.nation. It was omnipresent and omnipotent in civilized Europe. Its clergy and orders swarmed in every place, all sworn to guard it at every point on peril of their souls, and themselves held sacred in person and retreat from all reach of law for any crime save lack of fealty to the great autocracy.[1] The money, the armies, the lands, the legislatures, the judges, the executives, the police, the schools, with the whole ecclesiastical administration, reaching even to the most private affairs of life, were under its control. And at its centre sat its absolute dictator, unanswerable and supreme, the alleged Vicar of G.o.d on earth, for whom to err was deemed impossible.

Think of a power which could force King Henry IV., the heir of a long line of emperors, to strip himself of every mark of his station, put on the linen dress of a penitent, walk barefooted through the winter's snow to the pope's castle at Canossa, and there to wait three days at its gates, unbefriended, unfed, and half peris.h.i.+ng with cold and hunger, till all but the alleged Vicar of Jesus Christ were moved with pity for his miseries as he stood imploring the tardy clemency of Hildebrand, which was almost as humiliating in its bestowal as in its reservation.

Think of a power which could force the English king, Henry II., to walk three miles of a flinty road, with bare and bleeding feet, to Canterbury, to be flogged from one end of the church to the other by the beastly monks, and then forced to spend the whole night in supplications to the spirit of an obstinate, perjured, and defiant archbishop, whom four of his over-zealous knights, without his orders, had murdered, and whose inner garments, when he was stripped to receive his shroud, were found alive with vermin!

Think of a power which, in defiance of the sealed safe-conduct of the empire, could seize John Huss, one of the worthiest and most learned men of his time, and burn him alive in the presence of the emperor!

Think of a power which, by a single edict, caused the deliberate murder of more than fifty thousand men in the Netherlands alone!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Many a.s.sumed the clerical character for no other reason than that it might screen them from the punishment which their actions deserved, and the monasteries were full of people who entered them to be secure against the consequences of their crimes and atrocities.--Rymer's _Foedera_, vol. xiii. p. 532.

EFFORTS AT REFORM.

To restrain and humble this gigantic power was the desideratum of ages. For two hundred years had men been laboring to curb and tame it.

From theologians and universities, from kings and emperors, from provinces and synods, from general councils, and even the College of Cardinals--in every name of right, virtue, and religion--appeal after appeal and solemn effort after effort were made to reform the Roman court and free the world from the terrible oppression. Wars on wars were waged; provinces on provinces were deluged with blood; coalitions, bound by sacred oaths, were formed against the giant tyranny. And yet the hierarchy managed to maintain its a.s.sumptions and to overwhelm all remedial attempts. Whether made by individuals or secular powers, by councils or governments, the result was the same.

The Pontificate still triumphed, with its claims unabridged, its dominion unbroken, its scandals uncured.

A general council sat at Constance to reform the clergy in head and members. It managed to rid itself of three popes between whom Christendom was divided, when the emperor moved that the work of reform proceed. But the cardinals said, How can the Church reform itself without a head? So they elected a pope who was to lead reform.

Yet a day had hardly pa.s.sed before they found themselves in a traitor's power, who reaffirmed all the acts of the iniquitous John XXIII., who had just been deposed for his crimes, and presently endowed him with a cardinal's hat!

When this pope, Martin V., died, the cardinals thought to remedy their previous mistake. They would secure their reforms before electing a pope. So they erected themselves into a standing senate, without which no future pope could act. And they each took solemn oath, before G.o.d and all angels, by St. Peter and all apostles, by the holy sacrament of Christ's body and blood, and by all the powers that be, if elected, to conform to these arrangements and to use all the rights and prerogatives of the sublime position to put in force the reforms conceded to be necessary.

But what are oaths and fore-pledges to candidates greedy for office?

The tickets which elected the new pope had hardly been counted when he absolved himself from all previous obligations, disowned the senate of cardinals he had helped to erect, began his career with violence and robbery, plundered the cities and states of Italy, religiously violated all compacts but those which favored his absolute supremacy, brought to none effect the reform Council of Basle, deceived Germany with his specious and hollow concessions, averted the improvements he had sworn to make, and by his perfidy and cunning managed to retain in subordination to the old regime nearly the whole of that Christendom which he had outraged!

In spite of the efforts of centuries, this super-imperial power held by the throat a struggling world.

To break that gnarled and bony hand, which locked up everything in its grasp; to bring down the towering alt.i.tude of that olden tyranny, whose head was lifted to the clouds; to strike from the soul its clanking chains and set the suffering nations free; to champion the inborn rights of afflicted humanity, and conquer the ignorance and imposture which had governed for a thousand years,--const.i.tuted the work and office of the man the four hundredth anniversary of whose birth half the civilized world is celebrating to-day.

TIME OF THE REFORMATION.

It has been said that when this tonsured Augustinian came upon the stage almost any brave man might have brought about the impending changes. The Reformers before the Reformation, though vanquished, had indeed not lived in vain. The European peoples were outgrowing feudal va.s.salage, and moving toward nationalization and separation between the secular and ecclesiastical powers. Travel, exploration, and discovery had introduced new subjects of human interest and contemplation. Schools of law, medicine, and liberal education were being established and largely attended. The common mind was losing faith in the professions and teachings of the old hierarchy. Free inquiry was overturning the dominion of authority in matters of thought and opinion. The intellect of man was beginning to recover from the nightmare of centuries. A mightier power than the sword had sprung up in the art of printing. In a word, the world was gravid with a new era. But it was not so clear who would be able to bring it safely to the birth.

There were living at the time many eminent men who might be thought of for this office had it not been a.s.signed to Luther. Reuchlin, Erasmus, Hutten, Sickingen, and others have been named, but the list might be extended, and yet no one be found endowed with the qualities to accomplish the work that was needed and that was accomplished.

FREDERICK THE WISE.

The Saxon Elector, Frederick the Wise, was the worthiest, most popular, and most influential ruler then in Europe. He could have been emperor in place of Charles V. had he consented to be. The history of the world since his time might have been greatly different had he yielded to the general desire. His principles, his attainments, his wisdom, and his spirit were everything to commend him. He founded the University of Wittenberg in hope that it would produce preachers who would leave off the cold subtleties of Scholasticism and the uncertainties of tradition, and give discourses that would possess the nerve and power of the Gospel of G.o.d. He sought out the best and most pious men for his advisers. He was the devoted friend of learning, truth, and virtue. By his prudence and foresight in Church and State he helped the Reformation more than any other man then in power. Had it not been for him perhaps Luther could not have succeeded. But it was not in the nature of things for the n.o.ble Elector to give us such a Reformation as that led by his humble subject. It is useless to speculate as to what the Reformation might have become in his hands; but it certainly could never have become what we rejoice to know it was, while the probabilities are that we would now be fighting the battles which Luther fought for us three and a half centuries ago.

REUCHLIN.

Reuchlin was a learned and able man, and deeply conscious of the need of reform. When the Greek Argyrophylos heard him read and explain Thucydides, he exclaimed, "Greece has retired beyond the Alps." He was the first Hebrew scholar of Germany, and served to restore the Hebrew Scriptures to the knowledge of the Church. He held that popes could err and be deceived. He had no faith in human abnegations for reconciliation with G.o.d. He saw no need for hierarchical mediations, and discredited the doctrine of Purgatory and ma.s.ses for the dead. He bravely defended the cause of learning against the ignorant monks, whom he hated and held up to merciless ridicule. He was a brilliant and persuasive orator. He was an a.s.sociate and counselor of kings. He gave Melanchthon to the Reformation, and did much to promote it.

Luther recognized in him a great light, of vast service to the Gospel in Germany. But Reuchlin could never have accomplished the Reformation. The vital principles of it were not sufficiently rooted in him. He was a humanist, whose sympathies went with the republic of letters, not with the wants of the soul and the needs of the people.

When he got into trouble he appealed to the pope. And though he lived to see Luther in agonizing conflict with the hierarchy of Rome, he refrained from making common cause with him, and died in connection with the unreformed Church, whose doctrines he had questioned and whose orders he had so unsparingly ridiculed.