It will be said perhaps, that the doctrine and constitution of the church are no longer such as we find them in the sacred oracles.
Undoubtedly, but this change is only in appearance ; it extends only to the form, and not to the substance.
: this change is progression.
The Tivifyiug power of the divine Sjpirit has given a reality to what in Scripture was merely an idea ; it has filled up the outline of the word
; it has put a finishing touch to its rude sketches; it has completed the work of which .the Bible only gave the first rough draft.
"We must therefore understand the sense of the holy Scriptures, as settled by the church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
"From this point the paths of the Eoman doctors diverge.
General councils were afiirmed by some to be the representatives of the church, while others asserted that the pope alone was the depository of the spirit of interpretation, and no one has a right to understand the Scriptures otherwise than as decreed by the Roman pontiff.
This was the assumption of Prierias, and of most of the papal theologians of that age."* Prierias laid down this proposition
" Whoever relies not on the teaching of the Eoman church, and of the Eoman pontiff, as the infallible rule of faith, from which the holy Scrij^tures themselves derive their strength and their authority, is a heretic."
" The Bible," observes D'Aubigu6, " liad moulded the reformer and begun the Reformation, Luther needed not the testimony of the church in order to believe.
His faith had come from the Bible itself ; from within, not from without.
Avas so intimately convinced that the evangelical doctrine was immovably founded on the word of God, that in his eyes all external authority was useless.
Thus by a bold movement Luther changed the resting-place of the sublimest hopes of the human heart, and with a hand of power transported them from the Avails of the Vatican to the rock of the word of God.
And this was the work which he had in view in his reply to Prierias."-'
Luther passed lightly over the principles which his adversary had laid down in the commencement of his pamphlet.
"But,'^ he said, "following your example, I will also lay down certain fundamental principles " The first is the expression of St. Paul:
' Though ice, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that ivhich we have p)reached unto you, let him he accursed.''
"The second is this passage from St. Augustine 'I have learned to render to the canonical books alone the honor of believing most firmly that none of them has erred
; as for the others, I do not believe in what they teach, simply because it is they who teach them.'
" If you clearly understand these points," con- " you will perceive that your dialogue is completely answered by tliem ; for you have only cited the opinion^ of Aquinas."
Luther next assaulted Prierias' axioms, boldlv declaring his dissent from the doctrine that popes and councils cannot err, and ridiculing the flatteries of the Koman courtiers who ascribed both temporal and spiritual power to the pontiff, and fed his pride by their gross and adulatory phrases.
Noticing the sleek churchman's insinuation that his discontent was bred by his lack of high ecclesiastical office and honors, he said, "Tou judge me by yourself; but if I aspired to an episcopal station, of a surety I should not use the language that is so grating to your ears.
"Do you imagine that I am ignorant of how bishoprics and the priesthood are obtained at Eome ?
Do not the very children sing in the streets these well known words " 'Of all fotil spots the world around, The foulest spot in Home is found.' "
Luther closed his annihilating reply with this reference to the threats of the haughty Dominican Finally, you say that the pontiff is at once pope and emperor, and that he is mighty to compel obedience by the secular arm.
Do you thirst for blood?
I protest that you will not frighten me either by your rhodomontades, or by the threatening noise of your words.
"If I am put to death, Christ lives—Christ, my Lord, and the Lord of all, blessed for evermore.
" Thus," observes an able ecclesiastical historian, " Luther erected with a firm hand, against the infidel altar of the Papacy, the altar of the only infallible and holy word of God, before which he would have every knee to bow, and on which he declares himself ready to off'er up his hfe."
* L. 0pp. Lat., p. 186.
The preceding detail of facts and observations unavoidably leads the mind to this conclusion:
Luther was far advanced in evangelical knowledge, and he appears to have been an experienced Christian some time ere he became known to the world, though of course the proofs of his rapid growth in independence of thought, and in a certain familiarity with the essential doctrines of the Bible, are clearly perceptible since the commencement of his healthful controversy with the Bomish hierarchy.
But though Luther even thus early laid down the essential principle of the A\ord of God, the whole word of God, and nothing but the word of God, he still remained strongly wedded to the outward badges of superstition; he as yet made no effort to abandon the establislied formulas of Bome, and he was slow to admit the conviction of the antichristian character of the hierarchy.*
He dreaded the sin of schism ; and the impetuous fire of his temper was perpetually checked by the admonitions of his timid conscience.
In this singular character there was certainly united an assemblage of cjualities rarely found in the same person—the greatest caution in conduct, with a temper of remarkable ardor, and even choler.
« Milner'sChurch History, Vol. H., p. 227.
Too often tliis last quality displayed itseK by betraying liini into a blamable asperity of language, thougli even tliat is extenuated by a remembrance of the vile epithets which were showered ujjon him by his intemperate and unscrupulous o^oponents, and by the further recollection that the polemical writings of that age were habitually couched in the language of invective
; but to whatever rhetorical excesses his enthusiastic nature impelled him, it seldom influenced his measures or plans of action.*
The poet's simj)le, but sublime description of one of his dramatic heroes, " He feared God, and he feared none besides," is eminently true of the Although Luther's response to Prierias had, by the acknowledgment of later Koman historians,:]: annihilated his arguments—although Luther had made the hand of St. Paul choke the sophistries of Aquinas—the censor, after the custom of defeated champions, attempted to extricate himself from his embarrassments by the publication of a second, and then a third book, in which he indulged in more extravagant expressions than those of Tetzel himself, even announcing that " though the pope should make the world go with him to hell, he could neither be condemned nor deposed."§
« Milner's Chixrcli History, Vol. t Muimbourg, quoted iu Seek, at p. 28.
X Varillas, Bossu6t, etc.
Irrcfragabili veritate At length Leo liimseH was startled by these blaspliemies, and he placed in the mouth of Prierias one of those gags which the Dominican priorgeneral was so fond of applying to others.*
Another opponent now took the field against the infant Hochstraaten, who had already clamored for the blood of Keuchlin, who subsequently declaimed with equal violence against Erasmus, and who now, in the true spirit of his order, told the pope that, in his opinion, it would be best to conyince Luther by chains and fire.f
Hochstraaten was obliged, in this case, to postpone his auto ciafe.
Luther condescended to employ against this bigoted inquisitor but few words ; these, however, were daggers " go, thou raving murderer, who criest for the blood of thy brethren
; it is my earnest desire that thou forbear to call me Christian and faithful, and that thou continue, on the contrary, to decry me as a heretic,
Understandest thou these things, thou bloodthirsty man, enemy of truth ?
And if thy mad rage should hurry thee to undertake any thing against me, take care to act with circumspection, and to choose thy time well: God knows what my purpose is, if he grant me life.
My hoj)e and my expectation, God_jvi]ling, will not deceive me.":j:
Luther appears to have cowed the inquisitorial temper of Hochstraaten, o D'Aubigne, Erasmus' Epis.
(Leipsic,") XVII., p. 140.
THE LIFE AND TIMES for the fierce I>ominican relapsed into unbroken silence.
Luther came from an unexpected quarter, and deeply gi'ieved him.
Dr. Eck, of the Ingolstadt university, a recent and warm fi'iend of the Wittemberg professor, but as enthusiastic an admirer and advocate of the scholastic theology as Luther was of the evangelical, feeling that those haughty tenets which had domineered over Europe unquestioned for so many centuries, were fatally assaulted by his friend's theses, threw the recollections of their intimacy to the winds, and published, without warning, a bitter personal invective which he intended should crush the man who had poured out upon his beloved schoolmen the floods of his contempt, and which went out into the world wdth the imprimatur of the schools.""
This was the most formidable assault which Luther had as yet sustained.
Eck was a man of genius and of erudition.
His book, which with the pedantry pecuHar to his class he styled the OheUsJ:s, was written in an eloquent, learned, and dogmatic manner, and in subtlety far surpassed the wi'itings of " a tone of compassion towards his
'feeble adversary,' being well aware that pity inflicts more harm than anger.
"He insinuated that Luther's propositions cirCiliated the Boliemiau poison, that they savored of Bohemia; and by these malicious allusions he drew upon Luther the unpopularity and hatred attached in Germany to the name of Huss, and to the schismatics of his country."
After reading a copy of this work, Luther wrote a letter to a friend in which he thus refers to it ObelisJcs I am styled a venomous person, a Bohemian, a heretic, a seditious, insolent, rash man.
I pass by the milder insults, such as drowsyheaded, stupid, ignorant, contemner of the sovereign pontiff, and others.
" This book is brimful of the blackest outrages.
Yet he who penned it is a distinguished man, with a spirit full of learning, and a learning full of spirit; and what causes me the deepest vexation, he is a man who was united to me by a great and recently contracted friendship
: it is John Eck, doctor of divinity, chancellor of Ingolstadt, a man celebrated and illustrious by his writings.
"If I did not know Satan's thoughts, I should be astonished at the fury which has led this man to break off so sweet and so new a friendship, and that too without warning me, without writing to me, without saying a word."*
We append D'Aubign6's account of " Eck was sensible of how disgraceful his conduct had been, and endeavored to vindicate himself in a letter to In it he styled Luther
• Letter to Egranus, pastor at Zwickau.
THE LIFE AND TIMES their ' common friend,' and cast all the blame on the bishop of Eichstadt, at whose solicitation he pretended to have written his work.
He said that it had not been his intention to publish the OhelisJcs; that he would have felt more regard to the bonds of friendship that united him to ; and demanded, in conclusion, that Luther, instead of disputing with him, should turn his weapons against the Frankfort divines.
Avho had not feared to strike the first blow, began to be alarmed when he reflected on the strength of that adversary whom he had so imprudently attacked.
Willingly would he have eluded the struggle ; but it was too late.
" All these fine phrases did not persuade Luther, who was yet inclined to remain silent.
' I will swallow patiently,' said he, ' this sop, worthy of ;' but his friends differed from him : they solicited, they even constrained him to answer.
" He therefore replied to the OhelisJcs by his AstcrisJtS ; opposing, as he said, i)laying on the words, to the rust and livid hue of the Ingolstadt doctor's
OhelisJcs, the light and dazzling brightness of the stars of hea\T3n.
" In this work he treated his adversary with less severity than he had shown his previous antagonists, but his indignation pierced through his words.
" He showed that in these chaotic OhelisJcs, there was nothing from the holy Scriptures, nothing from the fathers of the church, nothing from tlie eeclesiOF MAETIN LUTHEK. astical canons ; that tliej -were filled with scholastic glosses, opinions, mere opinions and empty dreams; in a word, the yevy thing that Luther had attacked.
Asterisks are full of life and animation.
The author is indignant at the errors of his friend's book, but he pities the man.
He proposes anew the fundamental principle which he laid down in his answer to Prierias ' The supreme f)ontiff is a man, and may be led into error; but God is truth, and cannot err.'
" Further on, employing the argumcntum ad hominem against the scholastic doctor, he says to him, ' It would be great impudence assuredly for any one to teach in the philosophy of Aristotle what he cannot prove by the authority of that ancient author.
It is, a fortiori, the most impudent of all imj^udence to affirm in the church and among Christians what Christ himself has not taught.
' Now where is it found in the Bible that the treasure of Christ's merits is in the hands of the pope?'
"He adds further, 'As for the mahcious rejDroach of Bohemian heresy, I bear this calumny with patience through love of Christ.
I live in a celebrated university, in a well-famed city, in aTrespectable bishopric, in a powerful duchy where all are orthodox, and where iindoubtedly so wicked a heretic would not be tolerated.'
" Luther did not publish the Asterisks ; he communicated them solely to his friends, through whom THE LIFE AND TIMES tliej had as wide a circulation as the manuscript copies of Eck's pamphlet.
" This rupture between the two doctors of Ingolstadt and Wittemberg made a great sensation in Thej had many friends in common.
A person named Scheurl especially, who appears to have been the man by whom the two doctors had been connected, was alarmed.
He was one of those who desired to see a thorough reform in the German church by means of its most distmguished organs.
But if, at the very outset, the most eminent theologians of the day should fall to blows— if, while Luther came forward with novelties, Eck became the representative of antiquity, Avhat disruption might not be feared?
Would not numerous partisans rail}' round each of these chiefs? and would not two hostile camps be formed in the bosom of the empire ?
" Scheurl endeavored, therefore, to reconcile Eck and Luther.
The latter declared his willingness to forget every thing; that he loved the genius, that he admired the learning of Dr. Eck
; and that what his old friend had done had caused him more pain than anger.
' I am ready,' said he to * for peace and for war ; but I prefer peace.
Apply yourself to the task ; grieve with us that the devil has thrown among us this beginning of discord, and afterwards rejoice that Christ in his mercy has crushed it.'
" About the same time he wrote Eck a letter full of affection ; but Eck made no reply even send liim any message.
It was no longer a season for reconciliation.
The contest daily grew warmer, and Eck's pride and implacable spirit soon broke entirely the last ties of that friendship which every day grew weaker."*
In the meantime Luther, in addition to the severe labor necessitated by his controversial writings, attended conscientiously to the minutest duties of his professorship and of his parish, lecturing daily to the students, and preaching regularly on the Sabbath.
Besides all this, he employed his pen in the production of a number of popular works for the instruction and edification of the people.
It is one of the highest glories of Martin Luther, that he, first since apostolic days, recognized the inestimable value of the humblest human soul.
He saw instinctively that it was upon the common people, upon the average common-sense and conscience of the masses, that the Reformation must rely for its success.
If he was not actively opposed by those haughty men who masqueraded in the garb of authority, civil and ecclesiastical, his tenets at best received but their cold acquiescence.
It was the people who saluted his teachings with enthusiasm.
He thus early learned to ally himself Avith them.
Himself one of them, he knew their Arants and their mainsprings of action.
Convinced of the essential democracy of Christianity, and perceiving the tendency of the ecclesiasticism of his age to gravitate towards caste and privilege, he set himo P'Aubigne, Vol.