History of the Reformation, vol. 3

Chapter 4

Persecution—Exertions of Duke George—The Convent at Antwerp—Miltenberg—The Three Monks of Antwerp—The Scaffold—The Martyrs of Brussels

The torrent of fire poured forth by the humble and meek Adrian kindled a conflagration; and its flickering flames communicated an immense agitation to the whole of Christendom. The persecution, which had been for some time relaxed, broke out afresh. Luther trembled for Germany, and endeavoured to appease the storm. “If the princes,” said he, “oppose the truth, the result will be a confusion that will destroy princes and magistrates, priests and people. I fear to see all Germany erelong deluged with blood. Let us rise up as a wall and preserve our people from the wrath of our God. Nations are not such now as they have hitherto been. The sword of civil war is impending over the heads of our kings. They are resolved to destroy Luther; but Luther is resolved to save them. Christ lives and reigns; and I shall live and reign with him.” HRSCV3 360.6

These words produced no effect; Rome was hastening onward to scaffolds and bloodshed. The Reformation, like Jesus Christ, did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Persecution was necessary in God’s purposes. As certain objects are hardened in the fire, to protect them from the influence of the atmosphere, so the fiery trial was intended to protect the evangelical truth from the influence of the world. But the fire did still more than this: it served, as in the primitive times of Christianity, to kindle in men’s hearts a universal enthusiasm for a cause so furiously persecuted. When man begins to know the truth, he feels a holy indignation against injustice and violence. A heaven-descended instinct impels him to the side of the oppressed; and at the same time the faith of the martyrs exalts, wins, and leads him to that doctrine which imparts such courage and tranquillity. HRSCV3 360.7

Duke George took the lead in the persecution. But it was a little thing to carry it on in his own states only; he desired, above all, that it should devastate electoral Saxony, that focus of heresy, and spared no labor to move the Elector Frederick and Duke John. “Merchants from Saxony,” he wrote to them from Nuremberg, “relate strange things about that country, and such as are opposed to the honor of God and of the saints: they take the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper with their hands! The bread and wine are consecrated in the language of the people; Christ’s blood is put into common vessels; and at Eulenburg, a man to insult the priest entered the church riding on an ass! Accordingly, what is the consequence? The mines with which God has enriched Saxony have failed since the innovating sermons of Luther. Would to God that those who boast of having uplifted the Gospel in the electorate had rather carried it to Constantinople. Luther’s strain is sweet and pleasing, but there is a poisoned tail, that stings like that of the scorpion. Let us now prepare for the conflict! Let us imprison these apostate monks and impious priests; and that too without delay, for our hair is turning gray as well as our beards, and shows us that we have but a short time left for action.” HRSCV3 360.8

Thus wrote Duke George to the elector. The latter replied firmly but mildly, that any one who committed a crime in his states would meet with due punishment; but that for what concerned the conscience, such things must be left to God. HRSCV3 361.1

George, unable to persuade Frederick, hastened to persecute the followers of the work he detested. He imprisoned the monks and priests who followed Luther; he recalled the students belonging to his states from the universities which the Reformation had reached; and ordered that all the copies of the New Testament in the vulgar tongue should be given up to the magistrates. The same measures were enforced in Austria, Wurtemberg, and the duchy of Brunswick. HRSCV3 361.2

But it was in the Low Countries, under the immediate authority of Charles V, that the persecution broke out with greatest violence. The Augustine convent at Antwerp was filled with monks who had welcomed the truths of the Gospel. Many of the brethren had passed some time at Wittenberg, and since 1519, salvation by grace had been preached in their church with great energy. The prior, James Probst, a man of ardent temperament, and Melchior Mirisch, who was remarkable, on the other hand, for his ability and prudence, were arrested and taken to Brussels about the close of the year 1521. They were brought before Aleander, Glapio, and several other prelates. Taken by surprise, confounded, and alarmed, Probst retracted. Melchior Mirisch found means to pacify his judges; he escaped both from recantation and condemnation. HRSCV3 361.3

These persecutions did not alarm the monks who remained in the convent at Antwerp. They continued to preach the Gospel with power. The people crowded to hear them, and the church of the Augustines in that city was found too small, as had been the case with the one at Wittenberg. In October 1522, the storm that was muttering over their heads burst forth; the convent was closed, and the monks thrown into prison and condemned to death. A few of them managed to escape. Some women, forgetting the timidity of their sex, dragged one of them (Henry Zuphten) from the hands of the executioners. Three young monks, Henry Voes, John Esch, and Lambert Thorn, escaped for a time the search of the inquisitors. All the sacred vessels of the convent were sold; the gates were barricaded; the holy sacrament was removed, as if from a polluted spot; Margaret, the governor of the Low Countries, solemnly received it into the church of the Holy Virgin; orders were given that not one stone should be left upon another of that heretical monastery; and many citizens and women who had joyfully listened to the Gospel were thrown into prison. HRSCV3 361.4

Luther was filled with sorrow on hearing this news. “The cause that we defend,” said he, “is no longer a mere game; it will have blood, it calls for our lives.” HRSCV3 361.5

Mirisch and Probst were to meet with very different fates. The prudent Mirisch soon became the docile instrument of Rome, and the agent of the imperial decrees against the partisans of the Reformation. Probst, on the contrary, having escaped from the hands of the inquisitors, wept over his backsliding; he retracted his retraction, and boldly preached at Bruges in Flanders the doctrines he had abjured. Being again arrested and thrown into prison at Brussels, his death seemed inevitable. A Franciscan took pity on him, and assisted his escape; and Probst, “preserved by a miracle of God,” says Luther, reached Wittenberg, where his twofold deliverance filled the hearts of the friends to the Reformation with joy. HRSCV3 361.6

On all sides the Roman priests were under arms. The city of Miltenberg on the Maine, which belonged to the Archbishop of Mentz, was one of the German towns that had received the Word of God with the greatest eagerness. The inhabitants were much attached to their pastor John Draco, one of the most enlightened men of his times. He was compelled to leave the city; but the Roman ecclesiastics were frightened, and withdrew at the same time, fearing the vengeance of the people. One evangelical deacon alone remained to comfort their hearts. At the same time troops from Mentz marched into the city and they spread through the streets, uttering blasphemies, brandishing their swords, and giving themselves up to debauchery. HRSCV3 361.7

Some evangelical Christians fell beneath their blows; others were seized and thrown into dungeons; the Romish rites were restored; the reading of the Bible was prohibited; and the inhabitants were forbidden to speak of the Gospel, even in the most private meetings. On the entrance of the troops, the deacon had taken refuge in the house of a poor widow. He was denounced to their commanders, who sent a soldier to apprehend him. The humble deacon, hearing the hasty steps of the soldier who sought his life, quietly waited for him, and just as the door of the chamber was opened abruptly, he went forward meekly, and cordially embracing him, said: “I welcome thee, brother; here I am; plunge thy sword into my bosom.” The fierce soldier, in astonishment, let his sword fall from his hands, and protected the pious evangelist from any further harm. HRSCV3 362.1

Meantime, the inquisitors of the Low Countries, thirsting for blood, scoured the country, searching everywhere for the young Augustines who had escaped from the Antwerp persecution. Esch, Voes, and Lambert were at last discovered, put in chains, and led to Brussels. Egmondanus, Hochstraten, and several other inquisitors, summoned them into their presence. “Do you retract your assertion,” asked Hochstraten, “that the priest has not the power to forgive sins, and that it belongs to God alone?” He then proceeded to enumerate other evangelical doctrines which they were called upon to abjure. “No! we will retract nothing,” exclaimed Esch and Voes firmly; “we will not deny the Word of God; we will rather die for the faith.” HRSCV3 362.2

The Inquisitor.—“Confess that you have been seduced by Luther.” HRSCV3 362.3

The Young Augustines.—“As the apostles were seduced by Jesus Christ.” HRSCV3 362.4

The Inquisitors.—“We declare you to be heretics, worthy of being burnt alive, and we give you over to the secular arm.” HRSCV3 362.5

Lambert kept silence; the prospect of death terrified him; distress and doubt tormented his soul. “I beg four days,” said he with a stifled voice. He was led back to prison. As soon as this delay had expired, Esch and Voes were solemnly deprived of their sacerdotal character, and given over to the council of the governor of the Low Countries. The council delivered them, fettered, to the executioner. Hochstraten and three other inquisitors accompanied them to the stake. HRSCV3 362.6

When they came near the scaffold the youthful martyrs looked at it calmly; their firmness, their piety, their age, drew tears even from the inquisitors. When they were bound, the confessors approached them: “Once more we ask you if you will receive the christian faith.” HRSCV3 362.7

The Martyrs.—“We believe in the Christian Church, but not in your Church.” HRSCV3 362.8

Half an hour elapsed: the inquisitors hesitated, and hoped that the prospect of so terrible a death would intimidate these youths. But alone tranquil in the midst of the turbulent crowd in the square, they sang psalms, stopping from time to time to declare boldly: “We will die for the name of Jesus Christ.” HRSCV3 362.9

“Be converted—be converted,” cried the inquisitors, “or you will die in the name of the devil.”—“No,” replied the martyrs, “we will die like Christians, and for the truth of the Gospel.” HRSCV3 362.10

The pile was lighted. While the flames were ascending slowly, a heavenly peace filled their hearts, and one of them went so far as to say: “I seem to be lying on a bed of roses.” The solemn hour was come; death was near: the two martyrs cried with a loud voice: “O Domine Jesu! Fili David! miserere nostri! O Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” They began solemnly to repeat the Apostle’s Creed. At last the flames reached them, burning the cords that fastened them to the stake, before their breath was gone. One of them, taking advantage of this liberty fell on his knees in the midst of the fire, and thus worshipping his Master, exclaimed, clasping his hands: “Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” The flames now surrounded their bodies: they sang the Te Deum; soon their voices stifled, and nothing but their ashes remained. HRSCV3 362.11

This execution had lasted four hours. It was on the 1st of July 1523 that the first martyrs of the Reformation thus laid down their lives for the Gospel. HRSCV3 362.12

All good men shuddered when they heard of it. The future filled them with the keenest apprehension. “The executions have begun,” said Erasmus.—“At last,” exclaimed Luther, “Christ is gathering some fruits of our preaching, and has created new martyrs.” HRSCV3 362.13

But the joy Luther felt at the constancy of these two young Christians was troubled by the thought of Lambert. The latter was the most learned of the three; he had succeeded to Probst’s station as preacher at Antwerp. Agitated in his dungeon, and alarmed at the prospect of death, he was still more terrified by his conscience, which reproached him with cowardice, and urged him to confess the Gospel. He was soon delivered from his fears, and after boldly proclaiming the truth, died like his brethren. HRSCV3 363.1

A rich harvest sprang from the blood of these martyrs. Brussels turned towards the Gospel. “Wherever Aleander raises a pile,” said Erasmus, “there he seems to have been sowing heretics.” HRSCV3 363.2

“Your bonds are mine,” said Luther; “your dungeons and your burning piles are mine! We are all with you, and the Lord is at our head!” He then commemorated the death of these young monks in a beautiful hymn, and soon, in Germany and in the Netherlands, in city and country, these strains were heard communicating in every direction an enthusiasm for the faith of these martyrs. No! no! their ashes shall not die! But, borne to every land, Where’er their sainted dust shall fall Up springs a holy band. Though Satan by his might may kill, And stop their powerful voice, They triumph o’er him in their death, And still in Christ rejoice. HRSCV3 363.3