Luther and the Reformation Part 4

"My advice is, Let indulgences alone; leave them to dead and sleepy Christians; but see to it that ye be not of that kind.

"Indulgences are neither commanded nor approved of G.o.d. They excite no one to sanctification. They work nothing toward salvation.

"That indulgences have virtue to deliver souls from Purgatory I do not believe, nor can it be proven by them that teach it; the Church says nothing to that effect.

"What I preach to you is based on the certainty of the Holy Scriptures, which no one ought to doubt."

So Luther preached, and his word went out to the ends of the earth. It was no jest, like Ulric von Hutten's _Epistles of Obscure Men_, or like the ridicule which Reuchlin and Erasmus heaped upon the stupid monks. It raised no laugh, but penetrated, like a rifle-shot, into the very heart of things.

Those who listened were deeply affected by the serious boldness of the preacher. The audience was with him in conviction, but many trembled for the result. "Dear doctor, you have been very rash; what trouble may come of this!" said a venerable father as he pulled the sleeve of Luther's gown and shook his head with misgivings. "If this is not rightly done in G.o.d's name," said Luther, "it will come to nothing; if it is, let come what will."

It was honest duty to G.o.d, truth, and the salvation of men that moved him. Cowardly policy or timid expediency in such a matter was totally foreign to his soul.

In a few days, the substance of the sermon was in print. Tetzel raved over it. Melanchthon says he burnt it in the market-place of Juterbock. In the name of G.o.d and the pope he bade defiance to its author, and challenged him by fire and water. Luther laughed at him for braying so loud at a distance, yet declining to come to Wittenberg to argue out the matter in close lists.

APPEAL TO THE BISHOPS.

Anxious to vindicate the Church from what he believed to be an unwarranted liberty in the use of her name, Luther wrote to the bishop of Brandenburg and the archbishop of Mayence. He made his points, and appealed to these his superiors to put down the scandalous falsities advanced by Tetzel. They failed to answer in any decisive way. The one timidly advised silence, and the other had too much pecuniary interest in the business to notice the letter.

Thus, as a pastor, Luther had taken his ground before his paris.h.i.+oners in the confessional. As a preacher he had uttered himself in earnest admonition from the pulpit. As a loyal son he had made his presentation and appeal to those in authority over him. Was he right?

or was he wrong? No commanding answer came, and there remained one other way of testing the question. As a doctor of divinity he could lawfully, as custom had been, demand an open and fair discussion of the matter with teachers and theologians. And upon this he now resolved.

THE NINETY-FIVE THESES.

He framed a list of propositions on the points in question. They were in Latin, for his appeal was to theologians, and not yet to the common heart and mind of Germany. To make them public, he took advantage of a great festival at Wittenberg, when the town was full of visitors and strangers, and nailed them to the door of the new castle church, October 31, 1517.

These were the famous _Ninety-five Theses_. They were plainly-worded statements of the same points he had made in the confessional and in his sermon. They contained no a.s.sault upon the Church, no arraignment of the pope, no personal attack on any one. Neither were they given as necessarily true, but as what Luther believed to be true, and the real truth or falsity of which he desired to have decided in the only way questions of faith and salvation can be rightly decided.

The whole matter was fairly, humbly, and legitimately put. "I, Martin Luther, Augustinian at Wittenberg," he added at the end, "hereby declare that I have written these propositions against indulgences. I understand that some, not knowing what they affirm, are of opinion that I am a heretic, though our renowned university has not condemned me, nor any temporal or spiritual authority. Therefore, now again, as often heretofore, I beg of one and all, for the sake of the true Christian faith, to show me the better way, if peradventure they have learned it from above, or at least to submit their opinion to the decision of G.o.d and the Church; for I am not so insane as to set up my views above everything and everybody, nor so silly as to accept the fables invented by men in preference to the Word of G.o.d."

It is from the nailing up of these _Theses_ that the history of the Great Reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed that parchment started the Alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride of Rome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned supreme for a thousand years.

EFFECT OF THE THESES.

As no one came forward to discuss his Theses, Luther resolved to publish them to the world.

In fourteen days they overspread Germany. In a month they ran through all Christendom. One historian says it seemed as if the angels of G.o.d were engaged in spreading them.

At a single stroke, made in modesty and faith, Luther had become the most noted person in Germany--the man most talked of in all the world--the mouthpiece of the best people in Christendom--the leader of a mighty revolution.

Reuchlin read, and thanked G.o.d.

Erasmus read, and rejoiced, only counseling moderation and prudence.

The Emperor Maximilian read, and wrote to the Saxon Elector: "Take care of the monk Luther, for the time may come when we will need him."

The bishop of Wurzburg read, and was filled with gladness, and wrote to the Elector Frederick to hold on to Luther as a preacher of the truth of G.o.d.

The prior of Steinlausitz read, and could not suppress his joy. "See here," said he to his monks: "the long-waited-for has come; he tells the truth. _Berg_ means mountain, and _Wittenberg_ is the mountain whither all the world will come to seek wisdom, and will find it."

A student of Annaberg read, and said, "This Luther is the reaper in my dream, whom the voice bade me follow and gather in the bread of life;"

and from that hour he was a fast friend of Luther and his cause, and became the distinguished Myconius.

The pope himself read the Theses, and did not think unfavorably of their author. He saw in Luther a man of learning and brilliant genius, and that pleased him. The questions mooted he referred to a mere monkish jealousy--an unsober gust of pa.s.sion which would soon blow over. He did not then realize the seriousness which was in the matter.

His sphere was heathen art and worldly magnificence, not searching into the ways of G.o.d's salvation.

The great German heart was moved, and the brave daring of him whose voice was thus lifted up against the abominations which were draining the country to fill the pope's coffers was hailed with enthusiasm.

Had Luther been a smaller man he would have been swept away by his vast and sudden fame.

But not all was suns.h.i.+ne. Erasmus wittily said, Luther committed two unpardonable sins: he touched the pope's crown and the monks' bellies.

Such effrontery would needs raise a mighty outcry.

Prierias, the master of the sacred palace, p.r.o.nounced Luther a heretic. Hochstrat of Cologne, Reuchlin's enemy, clamored for fire to burn him. The indulgence-venders thundered their anathemas, promising a speedy holocaust of Luther's body. The monasteries took on the form of so many kennels of enraged hounds howling to each other across the spiritual waste. And even some who p.r.o.nounced the Theses scriptural and orthodox shook their heads and sought to quash such dangerous proceedings.

But Luther remained firm at his post. He honestly believed what he had written, and he was not afraid of the truth. If the powers of the world should come down upon him and kill him, he was prepared for the slaughter. In all the mighty controversy he was ever ready to serve the Gospel with his life or with his death.

TETZEL'S END.

Tetzel continued to bray and fume against him from pulpit and press, denouncing him as a heresiarch, heretic, and schismatic. By Wimpina's aid he issued a reply to Luther's sermon, and also counter-theses on Luther's propositions. But the tide was turning in the sea of human thinking. Luther's utterances had turned it. The people were ready to tear the mountebank to pieces. Two years later he imploringly complained to the pope's nuncio, Milt.i.tz, that such fury pursued him in Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland that he was nowhere safe.

Even the representative of the pope gave the wretch no sympathy. When Luther heard of his illness he sent him a letter to tell him that he had forgiven him all. He died in Leipsic, neglected, smitten in soul, and full of misery, July 14, 1519.

LUTHER'S GROWING INFLUENCE.

Six months after the nailing up of the Theses, Luther was the hero of a general convention of the Augustinians in Heidelberg. He there submitted a series of propositions on philosophy and theology, which he defended with such convincing clearness and tact that he won for himself and his university great honor and renown. Better still, four learned young men who there heard him saw the truth of his positions, and afterward became distinguished defenders of the Reformation.

His cause, meanwhile, was rapidly gaining friends. His replies to Tetzel, Prierias, Hochstrat, and Eck had gone forth to deepen the favorable impression made by the Ninety-five Theses. Truth had once more lifted up its head in Europe, and Rome would find it no child's play to put it down. The skirmish-lines of the hierarchy had been met and driven in. The tug of serious battle was now to come.

HIS APPEAL TO THE POPE.

Luther made the advance. He wrote out explanations (or "_Resolutions_") of his Theses, and sent them, with a letter, to the pope. With great confidence, point, and elegance, but with equal submissiveness and humility, he spoke of the completeness of Christ for the salvation of every true believer, without room or need for penances and other satisfactions; of the evilness of the times, and the pressing necessity for a general reform; of the damaging complaints everywhere resounding against the traffic in indulgences; of his unsuccessful appeals to the ecclesiastical princes; and of the unjust censures being heaped upon him for what he had done, entreating His Holiness to instruct his humble pet.i.tioner, and condemn or approve, kill or preserve, as the voice of Christ through him might be. He then believed that G.o.d's sanction had to come through the high clergy and heads of the Church. Many good Christians had approved his Theses, but he did not recognize in that the divine answer to his testimony. He said afterward: "I looked only to the pope, the cardinals, the bishops, the theologians, the jurisconsults, the monks, the priests, from whom I expected the breathing of the Spirit." He had not yet learned what a b.l.o.o.d.y dragon claimed to impersonate the Lamb of G.o.d.

CITATION TO ANSWER FOR HERESY.

While, in open frankness, Luther was thus meekly committing himself to the powers at Rome, _they_ were meditating his destruction.

Insidiously they sought to deprive him of the Elector's protection, and answered his humble and confiding appeal with a citation to appear before them to answer for heresy.

Things now were ominous of evil. Wittenberg was filled with consternation. If Luther obeyed, it was evident he would perish like so many faithful men before him; if he refused, he would be charged with contumacy and involve his prince. One and another expedient were proposed to meet the perplexity; but to secure a hearing in Germany was all Luther asked.

To this the pope proved more willing than was thought. He was not sure of gaining by the public trial and execution of a man so deeply planted in the esteem of his countrymen, and by bringing him before a prudent legate he might induce him to retract and the trouble be ended; if not, it would be a less disturbing way of getting possession of the accused man. Orders were therefore issued for Luther to appear before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg.