If the pestilence spreads, I shall disperse the brothers in every direction; but as for me, my place is here ; duty does not permit me to desert my post until He who has called me shall summon me away.
Not that I have no fear of death—for I am not St. Paul, I am only his commentator—but I hope that the Lord will deliver me from fear.""
Luther's courage on this occasion is above all earthly praise.
It gave a very significant indication of what his course would be when he was convinced that duty with her finger pointed out the way.
Leipsic, informing him of the return of Staupitz from the Netherlands,where he had been successful in reaping a rich harvest of relics.
Spalatin further affirmed that Frederick was much pleased with Stauj)itz, and thought that a bishopric was the only recompense worthy of his services.
Ul)on the receipt of this letter, Luther speedily dispatched a missive to his friend couched in language strongly condemnatory of this scheme.
" There are," he wrote, " many things which please your prince, and Avhich nevertheless are displeasing to God.
I do not deny that he is skilful in the matters of this world, but in what concerns God and the salvation of souls I account him, as well as his counsellor Pfeffinger, sevenfold blind.
I do not say this behind their backs, like a slanderer; do * Letter to Jolin Lange, Epp, THE LIFE AND TIMES not conceal it from them, for I am ready myself, and on all occasions, to tell it tliem both to their faces.
Why would yon surronnd this jDOor Staupitz with all the whirlwinds and tempests of episcopal cares?"* We are assured that Frederick Avas not offended by Luther's frank rebuke, but on the contrary often spoke of him in high and honorable terms, and shortly after sent him some fine cloth for a gown.
Luther informed Spalatiu that he should think it " too fine, if it were not a prince's gift."
" I am not worthy that any man should think of me, much less a prince, and so great a prince as Those are my best friends who think worst of me.
Thank our j)rince for his kindness to me, but I cannot allow myseK to be praised either by you or by any man ; for all praise of man is vain, and only that which comes from God is true."t
In Jul}^ 1517, George, duke of Saxony, uncle of the elector Frederick, and afterwards a determined opponent of the Reformation, requested Staupitz to recommend to him some learned and eloquent preacher.
Avas instantly' suggested, and he shortly received from the prince an invitation to visit Dresden, and to preach in the oastle chapel on the feast of St. James the Elder.
Luther accordingly repaired to Dresden, and preached there before a crowded auditory and with great effect, though his boldness and reformatory doctrines displeased the haughty Saxon prince, who muttered angrily at dinner, "I would give a large sum not to have heard this monk, for such discourses are only calculated to make people sin Avith assurance."*
Jerome Emser, then a licentiate in canon law, counsellor, and secretary to the duke, who was shortly after to break so many intellectual lances witli Luther, had hstened to the young monk's sermon with deep attention, and it fell to his duty to do the honors of the Dresden palace to his master's guest.
This subtle and intriguing lawyer, hoping to entra^p the Saxon monk into some expression of heretical sentiment, brought in a number of schoolmen to argue with him, and then stationing a Dominican at the door to overhear the conversation, went with a smiling face but a treacherous heart, and invited Luther to walk into his trap by accejoting an invitation to sup with him.
Luther, feeling somewhat indisposed, at first refused, but as Emser pressed him, he went, and was surprised to find such a company collected.
It was not long ere the cunning secretary managed to make the conversation drift into a theological current.
Luther, who was instant in season and out of season in his Lord's service, determined to seize this opj)ortuinity to stab scholasticism in the very house of its friends.
A perfect master of the cavilling dialectics of the schoolmen, singularly gifted in conversation, familiar with every weapon in the intellectual armory, this champion of the Bible speedTHE LIFE AND TIMES ily discomfited the upstart pedants who had been imported from Leipsic by Emser, and by his brilliancy of repartee, his wealth of illustration, and his pungency of satire, soon actually drove his adversaries from the table in a rage.
Emser, with hatred gnawing at his heart on account of his defeat, dissembled to Luther, and was profuse in his apologies for the manner in which the evening had passed,* while the young professor returned to Wittemberg praising
Avho had given him the victory.
Luther's religious state at this time has been ah-eady carefully traced.
He had received the grace of Christ, and well knew the only true way of salvation, though in his own eyes he was weak in the He both felt and preached those fundamental principles of the gospel upon which the Reformation was based, some years before he was launched into ojDen conflict with the Roman see.
Nay, more, he had not yet perceived the irreconcilable difference between the doctrines he taught and the papal formulas.
Although he proclaimed that " sin is freely pardoned on account of the Son of God, and that man receives this blessing through faith," he made no change in the ceremonies of the church.
" On the contrary,'" says Melancthon, " the established discipline had not in his order a more faithful observer and defender.
But he endeavored more and more to make all understand those grand and essential truths of conversion, of the remission of sins, of faith, and of the consolation that is to be found in the cross.
Pious minds were struck and jjenetrated by the sweetness of this doctrine ; the learned received it with joy.
One would have^said that Christ, the ajoostles, and the prophets were o Milnei's Church History, Vol.
THE LIFE AND TIMES now issuing from the obscurity of some squalid dungeon."^ Excellent men liad proclaimed many of these truths before ; and yet, through inadvertency, or because they had remained unconscious of the manifold absurdities of Eomanism, died obedient children of the church.
Luther's modesty, love of peace, and attachment to order, might have held him fettered to the pontifical throne, had not God, who had decreed as a necessity the radical reformation of the corruptions of the Koman hierarchy, now ordered an event which drew the Wittemburg professor undesignedly into a contest so salutary to Christian liberty, so grandly beneficent to Christendom.
On its part, the papacy still slumbered in tranquil ignorance of the danger that menaced its omnipotence.
If it had ever heard of Luther and his doctrines, it had heard only to smile at all thought of danger from the new-fledged tenets of an obscure German monk, who expounded his creed to an ignorant rabble of barbarous students at an unknown university buried in the depths of the Thuringian forest.
Had not men, from the thirteenth centur}', been disputing with its theologians, and railing against its formulas to their own bloody destruction?
Had it not, indeed, been lulled to sleep by the dull and uniform clatter of the schools?
Surrounded by the satellites of his brilliant ' Quasi ex tenebris, carcere, squalore, educi Christum, prophetas, apostlos,"
Melan'cthon's Vita Luthori. court, supported by the sciences, tlie fine arts, and the letters of his age, Leo might gaze proudly from his ecclesiastical throne over the universe lassoed in servile submission at his feet, and say complacent!}',
" My mountain stands strong I shall never be moved."
Leo X. had, as we have seen," assumed the tiara in 1513.
Addicted to the most expensive personal habits, this luxurious pontifi", besides those fabulous amounts which he lavished upon his ecclesiastical establishment, yearly exi^ended immense sums in the collection and transcription of rare manuscripts, dispatching agents for that purpose to the four corners of the globe, scattering them throughout Europe, and through Egypt, Syria, Irak, and Persia.
"With so many avenues of expense already open and in active use, a new one had been created by the efforts to finish the magnificent cathedral of St.
Peter's at Kome, which had been designed by Michael Angelo in the preceding pontifical reign, and which Julius II. had dedicated, on his death, to his successor as a sacred legacy, urging that ever}' nerve should be strained for its early completion.
The heavy demands made upon the Koman treasury by these magnificent projects taxed to the utmost the financial skill of the pope and his advisers.
Cardinal Pucci, then minister of tli$. exchequer, was almost as ingenious in the art of amassing money as the pontiff was in that of expendmg it.
By liis advice, Leo had commenced liis pontificate by selling to Francis wliat did not belong to him, the rights of the church of France.*
13 til of June, 1517, the pope, as a means of raising money, created thirty-one cardinals at one stroke of the pen.
That same day it was noted b}^ the populace, as ominous of approaching evil, that a storm overthrew the angel that stood on the top of the castel di San Angelo, struck an infant Jesus in a church, and knocked the keys out of the hands of a statue of St. Peter.t
But these proceedings were peccadilloes compared with the impious usurpations of authority which followed.
" Leo," says Michelet, " had no Mexico to which he might have recourse.
His mines were the old faith of the nations, their easy credulity.
He had intrusted the workings of this mine in Germany to the Dominicans.":!:
The money raised from the French king, and from the creation of the mushroom cardinals, having leaked out of his treasur}^ Leo next had recourse to the sale of what Avere termed " indulgences," assuring the faithful in his bull that the sums thus realized should be applied to the erection of Augelo's temple of sacerdotal magnificence.
This papal doctrine of indulgences, which has always figured more or less prominently in the * Michclet's History of Lutlier, p. 20. records of the Koman see, was at tins time in the highest reputation.
The grounds upon which this doctrine rests are described substantially in these words, by one of the ablest thinkers and stoutest champions of the popish creed,
Bossuet, bishop of Meaux " The church imposes painful works upon offenders : these being undergone with humility are called, in the technical language of the theologians,
;' when, regarding the fervor of the penitents, or their other good works, she remits some part of the task, this is called an 'indulgence.'
For the infinite satisfaction of Christ may be applied by the church either in the entire remission of sins without any punishment, or in the substitution of a smaller punishment for a greater one."*
Bossuet supports this declaration by the authority of the council of Trent, one of whose articles of faith reads thus " The power to grant indulgences has been committed to the church by Jesus Christ, and the use of them is beneficial to salvation. "t
The celebrated churchman just quoted further observes, " Those who depart this life indebted to divine justice for offences not atoned for, must suffer for them in the future life in the state of purgatory."t
He then describes how reliefs are provided in this * Bossuet's " Exposition of the Doctrines of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversy." t Vide records of the council of Trent.
X Bossuet's Expositions, etc.
THE LIFE AND TIMES case also, liow iiidulgeuces extend bej'ond the grave, and how the living friends of those deceased might effect their deliverance from the purgatorial pangs by a prescribed formula of commutation for their offences, which should be held to be valid in heaven.
The foundation of the whole sj'stem was this There was supposed to be an infinite treasure of merit in Christ and the saints, which was much more than sufficient for themselves.
Thus, what is true of the Saviour was asserted also of the saints, that they had done works of supererogation.
This supererogation was deposited with the church, with plenary power over it, and it might be disposetl of at the discretion of the see of Kome.
It may easily be conceived what a source of influence and profit the universal belief in this doctrine might become in the hands of a horde of rapacious and unscrupulous priests.
If the pope required money to satisfy the wants of his mistress, to complete the erection of a church, to squander upon parasite prelates, or to publish the books of Roman poets and historians,* he issued a bull announcing a general indulgence
: instantly the pontift' rolled in wealth ; for the pardon of God, hawked in the churches, the streets, the taverns, and the alehouses of Christendom by perambulating monks as a saleable commodity, found speedy purchase from ^ In November of 1517, Leo reqiiired of bis commissary of indulgences 147 gold ducats to purcbase a MS. of the 33d book of "It was a strange thing," remarks D'Aubigne, "to deliver eouls from jDurgatory, to procure the means of piircliasing a manuscript history of the Eoman wars!" those multitudes who are unwilling to undergo themselves, or to suffer their deceased friends to undergo, a course of severe jjenauce or of unj)leasant austerities, when they might indulge in any wickedness they chose, and still be sure of the lemission of their sins if they could commute for them by pecuniary payments.*
It was then to this system, at once so prolific and so scandalous, that Leo X. now applied for the purpose of replenishing his empty coflers.
Sometimes the popes themselves kept an oversight of the sale of their indulgences; but ordinarily they were "farmed out," as it was called, that is, taken charge of by the higher dignitaries of the church in various countries, who stipulated that they should receive a certain portion of the proceeds as a recompense for their trouble.
In this way it happened that Albert, Archbishop and Elector of Mentz and of Magdeburg, and brother of the Elector of Brandenburg, a youthful prince who was a kind of pocket edition of Leo, witty, handsome, vain, frivolous, extravagant, and sumptuous, having gotten deeply in debt to the Fuggers, wealthy bankers who were the Rothschilds of that age, being like the pontiff pressed for money, solicited from Leo the farming of "the sins of the Germans," as these indulgences were termed at "The pope and the archbishop," says D'Aubign6,
"having thus divided beforehand the spoils of the « Miluer's Ch. Hist., Vol. L. p. 207.
THE LIFE AND TIMES good souls of Germany, it was next a question wlio should be commissioned to realize the investment.
" It was at first offered to the Franciscans, and their superior was associated with But these monks wished to have no share in it, for it was already in bad odor among all good people.
The Augustines, who were more enlightened than the other religious orders, cared still less about it.
The Franciscans, however, feared to displease the pope, who had just sent a cardinal's hat to their general, Forli—a hat that had cost this poor mendicant order thirty thousand florins.
" The superior judged it more prudent not to refuse openly, but he made all kinds of objections to Albert.
They could never come to an understanding ; and accordingly the archbishop joyfully accepted the projiosition to take the whole matter to himself.
" The Dominicans, on their part, coveted a share in the general enterprise about to be set on foot.
John Tetzel, who had already acquired great reputation in this trade, hastened to Mentz, and offered his services to the elector.
They called to mind the ability he had shown in publishing the indulgences for the knights of the Teutonic order of ; his proposals were accepted, and thus the whole traffic passed into the hands of his order."*
Tetzel, the Dominican inquisitor to whom the Archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg had thus D'Aiibigiie's Hist, of the Ref., Vol. delegated the practical part of liis contract for the salvation of souls, was a man utterly devoid of even the semblance of principle, of singular impudence, but bold and enterprising, and also bringing to his congenial mission no small experience.
Although this shameless mountebank had been convicted of adultery, and of other infamous crimes,* the fact did not seem to unfit him for his ofiice—at least in the minds of Albert and of Leo.
Travelling through Germany with great pomp, and flourish, he sold his indulgences in vast numbers.
He paid over to his employers as little as possible, and pocketed the balance, although the most liberal provision had been made for him, as was afterwards proved by the pope's legate.
" The faith of the buyers diminishing," says Michel^t, "it became necessary to exaggerate to the fullest extent the merit of the specific
; the article had been so long in the market, and in such great supply, that the demand was falling off.
The intrepid Tetzel stretched his rhetoric to the very utmost bounds of amplification.
Daringly piling one lie upon another, he set forth in reckless display the long list of evils which his panacea could cure.
"He did not content himself with enumerating known sins : he set his foul imagination to work and invented crimes, infamous atrocities, strange, unheard of, unthought of ; and when he sawhis audience standing aghast at each horrible suggestion, he would calmly repeat the burden of his song,
* Milnei's Cli. Hist., Vol.