History of the Reformation, vol. 1

Chapter 11

Thoughts on Departure—Farewell to the Church—Critical Moment—Deliverance—Luther’s Courage—Dissatisfaction at Rome—Bull—Appeal to a Council

Luther, imagining he might soon be expelled from Germany, was engaged in publishing a report of the Augsburg conference. He desired that it should remain as a testimony of the struggle between him and Rome. He saw the storm ready to burst, but did not fear it. He waited from day to day for the anathemas that were to be sent from Italy; and he put everything in order, that he might be prepared when they arrived. “Having tucked up my robe and girt my loins,” said he, “I am ready to depart, like Abraham, without knowing whither I go; or rather well knowing, since God is everywhere.” He intended leaving a farewell letter behind him. “Be bold enough,” wrote he to Spalatin, “to read the letter of an accursed and excommunicated man.” HRSCV1 152.1

His friends felt great anxiety and fear on his account. They entreated him to deliver up himself as a prisoner into the elector’s hands, in order that this prince might keep him somewhere in security. HRSCV1 152.2

His enemies could not understand whence he derived his confidence. One day as the conversation turned upon him at the court of the Bishop of Brandenburg, and it was asked on what support he could rely: “On Erasmus,” said some; “on Capito, and other learned men who are in his confidence.”—“No, no,” replied the bishop, “the pope would care very little about those folks. It is in the university of Wittenberg and the Duke of Saxony that he trusts.” Thus both parties were ignorant of the stronghold in which the reformer had taken refuge. HRSCV1 152.3

Thoughts of departure passed through Luther’s mind. They did not originate in fear of danger, but in foresight of the continually increasing obstacles that a free confession of the truth would meet with in Germany. “If I remain here,” said he, “the liberty of speaking and writing many things will be torn from me. If I depart, I shall freely pour forth the thoughts of my heart, and devote my life to Christ.” HRSCV1 152.4

France was the country where Luther hoped to have the power of announcing the truth without opposition. The liberty enjoyed by the doctors and university of Paris, appeared to him worthy of envy. Besides, he agreed with them on many points. What would have happened had he been removed from Wittenberg to France? Would the Reformation have been established there, as in Germany? Would the power of Rome have been dethroned there; and would France, which was destined to see the hierarchical principles of Rome and the destructive principles of an irreligious philosophy long contend within her bosom, have become a great center of evangelical light? It is useless to indulge in vain conjectures on this subject; but perhaps Luther at Paris might have changed in some degree the destinies of Europe and of France. HRSCV1 152.5

Luther’s soul was deeply moved. He used to preach frequently in the city church, in the room of Simon Heyens Pontanus, pastor of Wittenberg, who was almost always sick. He thought it his duty, at all events, to take leave of that congregation to whom he had so frequently announced salvation. He said in the pulpit one day: “I am a very unstable and uncertain preacher. How often already have I not left you without bidding you farewell? If this case should happen again, and that I cannot return, accept my farewell now.” Then, after adding a few words, he concluded by saying with moderation and gentleness: “Finally, I warn you not to be alarmed, should the papal censures be discharged upon me. Do not blame the pope, or bear any ill-will, either to him or to any other man; but trust all to God.” HRSCV1 152.6

The moment seemed to have come at last. The prince informed Luther that he desired him to leave Wittenberg. The wishes of the elector were too sacred for him not to hasten to comply with them. He therefore made preparations for his departure, without well knowing whither he should direct his steps. He desired however to see his friends once more around him, and with this intent prepared a farewell repast. Seated at the same table with them, he still enjoys their sweet conversation, their tender and anxious friendship. A letter is brought to him....It comes from the court. He opens it and reads; his heart sinks; it contains a fresh order for his departure. The prince inquires, “why he delays so long.” His soul was overwhelmed with sadness. Yet he resumed his courage, and raising his head, said firmly and joyfully, as he turned his eyes on those about him: “Father and mother abandon me, but the Lord takes me up.” Leave he must. His friends were deeply moved. What would become of him? If Luther’s protector rejects him, who will receive him? And the Gospel, the truth, and this admirable work...all will doubtless perish with its illustrious witness. The Reformation seems to hang upon a thread, and at the moment Luther quits the walls of Wittenberg, will not this thread break? Luther and his friends said little. Struck with the blow that had fallen upon their brother, tears roll down their cheeks. But shortly after, a new messenger arrives. Luther opens the letter, not doubting that it contains a fresh order. But, O powerful hand of the Lord! for a time he is saved. Everything is changed. “Since the pope’s new envoy hopes that all may be arranged by a conference, remain for the present.” How important was this hour! and what would have happened if Luther, ever anxious to obey his sovereign’s will, had left Wittenberg immediately on receiving the first letter? Never were Luther and the cause of the Reformation lower than at this moment. It appeared that their fate was decided: an instant sufficed to change it. Having reached the lowest degree of his career, the Wittenberg doctor rose rapidly, and his influence from this time continued increasing. The Almighty commands (in the language of the prophet), and his servants go down to the depths, and mount up again to heaven. HRSCV1 152.7

By Frederick’s order Spalatin summoned Luther to Lichtemberg, to have an interview with him. They conversed a long time on the situation of affairs. “If the censures arrive from Rome,” said Luther, “certainly I shall not stay at Wittenberg.”—“Beware,” said Spalatin, “of being too precipitate in going to France!” He left him, telling him to wait for further orders. “Only commend my soul to Christ,” said Luther to his friends. “I see that my adversaries are still more determined in their designs to ruin me; but meanwhile Christ strengthens me in my resolution to concede nothing.” HRSCV1 153.1

Luther now published his Report of the Conference at Augsburg. Spalatin had written to him, on the part of the elector, not to do so; but the letter came too late. As soon as the publication had taken place, the prince gave his sanction: “Great God!” said Luther in his preface, “what a new, what an amazing crime to seek for light and truth!....and above all in the Church, that is to say, in the kingdom of truth.”—”I send you my Report,” wrote he to Link: “it is keener no doubt than the legate expects; but my pen is ready to produce much greater things. I do not know myself whence these thoughts arise. In my opinion, the work is not yet begun, so far are the great ones at Rome mistaken in looking for the end. I will send you what I have written, in order that you may judge whether I have guessed rightly that the Antichrist of whom St. Paul speaks now reigns in the court of Rome. I think I shall be able to show that he is worse now-a-days than the Turks themselves.” HRSCV1 153.2

Sinister reports reached Luther from every side. One of his friends wrote to him that the new envoy from Rome had received an order to lay hold of him and deliver him up to the pope. Another related, that while travelling he had met with a courtier, and that the conversation turning on the matters that were now occupying all Germany, the latter declared that he had undertaken to deliver Luther into the hands of the sovereign pontiff. “But the more their fury and their violence increase,” wrote the reformer, “the less I tremble.” HRSCV1 153.3

At Rome they were much displeased with Cajetan. The vexation felt at the ill-success of this business was at first vented on him. The Roman courtiers thought they had reason to reproach him for having been deficient in that prudence and address which, if we must believe them were the chief qualities in a legate, and for not having relaxed, on so important an occasion, the strictness of his scholastic theology. It is all his fault, said they. His clumsy pedantry spoiled all. Why did he exasperate Luther by insults and threats, instead of alluring him by the promise of a rich bishopric, or even of a cardinal’s hat? These mercenaries judged of the reformer by themselves. Still the failure must be retrieved. On the one hand, Rome must declare herself; on the other, she must conciliate the elector, who might be very serviceable to her in the choice they would soon have to make of an emperor. As it was impossible for Roman ecclesiastics to suspect whence Luther derived his courage and his strength, they imagined that the elector was implicated more deeply in the affair than he really was. The pope therefore resolved to pursue another course. He caused a bull to be published in Germany by his legate, in which he confirmed the doctrine of indulgences, precisely in the points attacked, but in which he made no mention either of Luther or of the elector. As the reformer had always declared that he would submit to the decision of the Roman church, the pope imagined that he would now either keep his word, or exhibit himself openly as a disturber of the peace of the Church, and a contemner of the holy apostolic see. In either case the pope could not but gain; no advantage however is derived by obstinately opposing the truth. In vain had the pope threatened with excommunication whoever should teach otherwise than he ordained; the light is not stopped by such orders. It would have been wiser to moderate by certain restrictions the pretensions of the sellers of indulgences. This decree from Rome was therefore a new fault. By legalizing crying abuses, it irritated all wise men, and rendered Luther’s reconciliation impossible. “It was thought,” says a Roman-catholic historian, a great enemy to the Reformation, “that this bull had been issued solely for the benefit of the pope and the begging friars, who began to find that no one would purchase their indulgences.” HRSCV1 153.4

Cardinal De Vio published the decree at Lintz, in Austria, on the 13th December 1518; but Luther had already placed himself beyond its reach. On the 28th November, he had appealed, in the chapel of Corpus Christi, at Wittenberg, from the pope to a general council of the Church. He foresaw the storm that was about to burst upon him; he knew that God alone could disperse it; but he did what it was his duty to do. He must, no doubt, quit Wittenberg, if only on the elector’s account, as soon as the Roman anathemas arrive: he would not, however, leave Saxony and Germany without a striking protest. He therefore drew one up, and that it might be ready for circulation as soon as the Roman thunders reached him, as he expresses it, he had it printed under the express condition that the bookseller should deposit all the copies with him. But this man, covetous of gain, sold almost every one, while Luther was calmly waiting to receive them. The doctor was vexed, but the thing was done. This bold protest was soon circulated everywhere. In it Luther declared anew that he had no intention of saying any thing against the holy Church or the authority of the apostolic see, and of the pope when well-advised. “But,” continues he, “seeing that the pope, who is God’s vicar upon earth, may, like any other man, err, sin, and lie, and that an appeal to a general council is the only means of safety against that injustice which it is impossible to resist, I am obliged to have recourse to this step.” HRSCV1 154.1

Here we see the Reformation launched on a new career. It is no longer made dependent of the pope and on his resolutions, but on a general council. Luther addresses the whole Church, and the voice that proceeds from the chapel of Corpus Christi must be heard throughout all the Lord’s fold. The reformer is not wanting in courage; of this he has just given a new proof. Will God be wanting to him? This we shall learn from the different periods of the Reformation that still remain to be displayed before our eyes. HRSCV1 154.2