Unit 26: The Beginning of the Reformation

Transcription

1 T h e A r t i o s H o m e C o m p a n i o n S e r i e s T e a c h e r O v e r v i e w It was a Christian philosopher, a theologian a doctor of divinity, working out in his cell and study, through terrible internal storm and anguish, and against the whole teaching of monks and bishops and popes and universities, from the time of Charlemagne, the same truth which Augustine learned in his wonderful experiences who started the Reformation in the right direction; who became the greatest benefactor of these modern times. John Lord Fictitious dispute between leading Protestant reformers (sitting at the left side of the table: Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and Oecolampadius) and representatives of the Catholic Church Reading and Assignments In this unit, students will: Complete two lessons in which they will learn about the beginning of the Reformation and Martin Luther, journaling and answering discussion questions as they read. Define vocabulary words. Complete a 1,200 word essay on the life of Martin Luther. Visit for additional resources.

2 Leading Ideas God orders all things for the ultimate good of His people. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 The diligence to keeping faith is a revelation of an individual s character. Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace. Zechariah 8:16 Be wary so that you are not deceived by the lies of the world. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. Colossians 2:8 Key People, Places, and Events Desiderius Erasmus Pope Leo X Martin Luther Diet at Worms Diet of Augsburg Peasant War The Augsburg Confession Vocabulary Lesson 1: none Lesson 2: flagrant convivial audacious malediction asceticism propitiate thralldom despotism annats Luther at the Diet of Worms, by Anton von Werner

3 L e s s o n O n e H i s t o r y O v e r v i e w a n d A s s i g n m e n t s The Beginning of the Reformation ALTHOUGH MANY THINK of Martin Luther s nailing of his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel as the start of the Reformation, the root issues and causes actually began much earlier. Discontent with procedures, doctrines, and power held by the Church set the stage long beforehand for this revolution in faith and religious practice. Reading and Assignments Review the discussion questions, then read the article: Martin Luther and the Revolt of Germany Against the Papacy. Narrate about today s reading using the appropriate notebook page. Be sure to answer the discussion questions and include key people, events, and dates within the narration. Visit for additional resources. Key People, Places, and Events Execution of Jan Hus, an important Reformation precursor, in 1415, by Kamil Vladislav Muttich Desiderius Erasmus Pope Leo X Martin Luther Diet at Worms Diet of Augsburg Peasant War The Augsburg Confession Discussion Questions 1. What dissatisfactions with the Church grew up among the German Catholics? Contrast Erasmus s ideas of reform with those of Luther. 2. Tell something of Luther s early life. How did Luther s theory of salvation differ from the orthodox view? What were the famous theses of Luther? How did they differ in their appeal from this Address to the German Nobility?

4 On what grounds was Luther excommunicated? What was Luther s defense at Worms? 3. Describe some of the ways in which the revolt began. What was the Peasants War? How was it put down? 4. What is the origin of the term Protestants? How was Germany divided on the religious question? What was the Augsburg Confession? 5. What were the provisions of the Peace of Augsburg? What were its limitations? Adapted for High School from the book: A General History of Europe by James Harvey Robinson Martin Luther and the Revolt of Germany Against the Papacy By far the most important event during the reign of Charles V was the revolt of a considerable portion of Western Europe against the popes. The Medieval Church was in this way broken up, and Protestant churches appeared in various European countries which declared themselves entirely independent of the Pope and rejected a number of the religious beliefs which the Medieval Church had taught. With the exception of England, all those countries that lay within the ancient bounds of the Roman Empire Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, as well as southern Germany and Austria continued to be faithful to the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, the rulers of the northern German states of England, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden sooner or later became Protestants. In this way Europe was divided into two great religious parties, and this led to terrible wars and cruel persecutions, which fill the annals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Sources of Discontentment With the Church While protests had been launched against the Church in England, revolt began in Germany. The Germans were at this time still good Catholics and accepted all the beliefs of the Church, but they were seriously troubled by the fact that the popes were so frequently Italians and that the amount of church contributions collected in Germany were so large. Great German prelates, like the archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, contributed generously to the papal treasury upon having their election confirmed by the Church authorities at Rome. The Pope enjoyed the right to fill the important church offices in Germany and sometimes appointed Italians, who received the revenue without going to Germany or performing the duties attached to the office. One person often held several church offices. At first, however, no one thought of

5 withdrawing from the Church or of attempting to destroy the power of the Pope. All that the Germans wanted was that the contributions which flowed toward Rome should be lessened, and that the clergy should be upright, earnest men who should conscientiously perform their religious duties. Erasmus Among the critics of the Church in the early days of Charles V s reign, the most famous and influential was Erasmus. He was a Dutchman by birth, but spent his life in various other countries France, England, Italy, and Germany. He was a citizen of the world and in correspondence with literary men everywhere, so that his letters give us an excellent idea of the feeling of the times. He was greatly interested in the Greek and Latin authors, but his main purpose in life was to make people more intelligent, especially in religious matters. One of his best-known books was his Praise of Folly, in which he held up to ridicule many of the practices and popular beliefs which Luther later attacked. He believed that superstition would certainly disappear as people became better educated. It seemed to Erasmus that if everybody could read the Bible, especially the New Testament, for himself, it would be a great advantage. Erasmus believed, moreover, that the time was favorable for reform. As he looked about him, he beheld intelligent rulers on the thrones of Europe, men interested in books and art, and ready to help scholars and writers. There were Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France. Then the Pope himself, Pope Leo X, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was a friend and admirer of Erasmus and doubtless sympathized with many of his views. The youthful Charles V was a devout Catholic, but he, too, agreed that there were many evils to be remedied. So it seemed to Erasmus that the prospects were excellent for a peaceful reform; but, instead of its coming, his latter years were embittered by Luther s revolt and all the ill-feelings and dissensions that it created. Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus, engraved in Nuremberg, Germany by Albrecht Dürer Martin Luther and His Teachings Martin Luther was born in He was the son of a poor miner. His father, however, was determined that his son should be a lawyer, and so Martin was sent to the University of Erfurt. After he finished his college course and was about to take up the study of the law, he suddenly decided to become a monk. He was much worried about his soul and feared that nothing he could do would save him from hell. He finally found comfort in the thought that in order to be saved, he had only to believe sincerely that God would

6 save him, and that he could not possibly save himself by trying to be good. He gained the respect of the head of the monastery, and when Frederick the Wise of Saxony was looking about for teachers for his new university at Wittenberg, Luther was recommended as a good person to teach Aristotle; so he became a professor. As time went on, Luther began to be suspicious of some of the things that were taught in the university. He finally decided that Aristotle was, after all, only an ancient heathen who knew nothing about Christianity, and that the students had no business to study his works. He urged them to rely instead upon the Bible. Dawn: Luther at Erfurt which depicts Martin Luther discovering the doctrine of Justification by Faith, by Joseph Noel Paton Justification by Faith Luther s main point was that man was so corrupt that he could do nothing pleasing to God. He could only repent his sins and have faith in God s promises. It was this faith that justified the repentant sinner in God s sight. So Luther came to regard the good works recommended by the Church such as the frequent attendance at Mass, the repetition of prayers, pilgrimages, and the veneration of relics as unnecessary for salvation and sometimes misleading. Luther s teachings did not attract much attention until the year 1517, when he was thirty-four years old. Then something occurred to give him considerable prominence. Luther s Theses on Indulgences The fact has already been mentioned that the popes had undertaken the rebuilding of St. Peter s, the great central church of Christendom. The cost of the enterprise was very great, and in order to collect contributions for the purpose, Pope Leo X arranged for an extensive distribution of indulgences (the promise of divine forgiveness in exchange for money) in Germany. In October, 1517, Tetzel, a Dominican monk, began preaching indulgences in the neighborhood of Wittenberg and making claims for them which appeared to Luther irreconcilable with Christianity as he understood it. He therefore, in accordance with the custom of the time, wrote out a series of ninety-five statements in regard to indulgences. These theses, as they were called, he posted on the church door and invited anyone interested in the matter to enter into a discussion with him on the subject. Luther did not intend to attack the Church and had no expectation of creating a sensation. The theses were in Latin and addressed, therefore, only to learned men.

7 Luther s Address to the German Nobility Of Luther s popular pamphlets, the first really famous one was his Address to the German Nobility, in which he calls upon the rulers of Germany, especially the knights, to carry out a reform of the Church, since he believed that it was vain to wait for the popes and bishops to do so. Luther denied that there was anything so sacred about a clergyman that he could not be dismissed by a ruler if he did not properly perform his holy duties. Luther claimed, moreover, that it was the right and duty of the rulers to punish a churchman who did wrong, just as if he were the humblest layman. The Address to the German Nobility closed with a long list of evils which must be done away with before Germany could become prosperous. Luther saw that his view of religion really implied a social revolution. He advocated reducing the monasteries to a tenth of their number and permitting those monks, who were disappointed in the good they got from living in them, freely to leave. He pointed out the evils of pilgrimages and of the numerous church holidays, which interfered with daily work. The clergy, he urged, should be permitted to marry and have families like other citizens. The universities should be reformed and the accursed heathen, Aristotle, should be cast out from them. Luther Excommunicated; Burning of the Papal Bull Luther had long expected to be excommunicated for his criticisms of the beliefs of the Church. But it was not until the autumn of 1520 that a papal bull or decree arrived condemning many of Luther s assertions as heretical and giving him sixty days to recant. The bull irritated many of the German rulers, who were quite willing to have a reformer bold enough to denounce evils, which they themselves realized well enough. Some of the princes and universities published it, but in many cases it was ignored, and Luther s own ruler, the elector of Saxony, continued to protect his professor. Luther decided that he must make a public protest, and so he summoned his students to witness what he called a pious religious spectacle. He had a fire built outside the walls of Wittenberg and cast into it Pope Leo X s bull condemning him, and a copy of the Laws of the Church, together with a volume of scholastic theology which he specially disliked. Yet, Luther dreaded disorder. He was certainly sometimes reckless and violent in his writings and often said that bloodshed could not be avoided. Yet, he always opposed hasty reform. He was reluctant to make changes, except in belief. He held that so long as an institution did not actually mislead, it did no harm. Luther Summoned to the Diet at Worms When Charles V arrived in Germany to hold his first diet (or council) in 1520, the case of Luther was called to his attention by the papal representative, who exhorted him to outlaw the heretic without further delay. While Charles seemed convinced of Luther s guilt, he could not proceed against him without serious danger. The monk had become a sort of national hero and had the support of the powerful elector of Saxony. Other princes, who had ordinarily no wish to protect a heretic, felt that Luther s

8 denunciation of the evils in the Church was very gratifying. After much discussion it was finally arranged that Luther should be summoned to Worms and be given an opportunity to face the representatives of the German nation and the Emperor and to declare plainly whether he was the author of the heretical books ascribed to him and whether he still clung to the views the Pope had condemned. Luther s Defense It was not proposed to give Luther any opportunity to defend his beliefs before the diet. He was simply asked whether a pile of Latin and German books and pamphlets placed before him were really his work and whether he would recant what he had written. He confessed that the volumes were his and admitted that his attacks had been over-violent at times. He said, however, that he believed no one could deny that decrees issued in the name of the Pope had sometimes gone against the conscience of good Christians and that the German people in particular had been plundered by church officials. If arguments from the Bible could be found to refute his statements, he would gladly recant, but as things stood he could not do otherwise than he was doing. The Edict of Worms There was now nothing for the Emperor to do but to outlaw Luther, who had denied the binding character of the commands of the head of the Church. The Edict of Worms declared Luther an outlaw on the following grounds: that he scorned and vilified the Pope, despised the priesthood and stirred up the laity to dip their hands in the blood of the clergy, denied free will, taught licentiousness, despised authority, advocated a brutish existence, and was a menace to Church and State alike. Everyone was forbidden to read or publish Luther s works or to give the heretic food, drink, or shelter. Moreover, he was to be seized and delivered to the Emperor. So great was the disapproval of the edict that few were willing to pay any attention to it. Charles V immediately left Germany and for nearly ten years was occupied with the government of Spain and a succession of wars. THE REVOLT AGAINST THE PAPACY BEGINS IN GERMANY Luther Begins a New Translation of the Bible As Luther neared Eisenach upon his way home from Worms, he was kidnapped by his friends and conducted to the Wartburg, a castle belonging to the Elector of Saxony. Here he was concealed until any danger from the action of the Emperor or diet should pass by. His chief occupation during several months of hiding was to begin a new translation of the Bible into German. The Revolt Begins Hitherto, there had been a great deal of talk of reform, but as yet nothing had actually been done. There was no sharp line drawn between the different classes of reformers. All agreed that something should be done to better the Church; few realized how divergent the real ends in view were. The rulers listened to Luther because they were glad of an excuse to get control of the church property and its revenues. The peasants listened because he put the Bible

9 into their hands, and they found nothing there that proved that they ought to go on paying the old dues to their lords. While Luther was quietly living in the Wartburg, translating the Bible, people began to put his teachings into practice. Some of the monks and nuns left their monasteries in his own town of Wittenberg. Some of them married, which seemed in view of the pledges they had voluntarily taken a very wicked thing to all those who held to the old beliefs. The students and citizens tore down the images of the saints in the churches and even went so far as to oppose the celebration of the Mass, the chief Catholic sacrament. Luther was greatly troubled by news of this disorderly reform. He did not approve of sudden and violent changes and left his hiding place to protest. He preached a series of sermons in Wittenberg in which he urged that all alterations in religious services and practices should be introduced by the government and not by the people. But his advice was not heeded. The Peasants War In 1525 the serfs rose, in the name of God s justice, to avenge their wrongs. Luther was not responsible for the civil war which followed, though he had certainly helped to stir up discontent. Some of the demands of the peasants were perfectly reasonable. The most popular expression of their needs was the dignified Twelve Articles. In these they claimed that the Bible did not sanction any of the dues which the lords demanded of them, and that, since they were Christians like their lords, they should no longer be held as serfs. There were, however, leaders who were more violent and who proposed to kill the godless priests and nobles. Hundreds of castles and monasteries were destroyed by the frantic peasantry, and some of the nobility were murdered with shocking cruelty. Luther tried to induce the peasants, with whom, as the son of a peasant, he was at first inclined to sympathize, to remain quiet; but when his warnings proved vain, he turned against them. He declared that they were guilty of the most fearful crimes and urged the government to put down the insurrection without pity. Cruel Suppression of the Peasants Revolt Luther s advice was followed with terrible exactness by the German rulers, and the nobility took fearful revenge on the peasants. In the summer of 1525, their chief leader was defeated and killed, and it is estimated that ten thousand peasants were put to death, many with the utmost cruelty. Few of the rulers or landlords introduced any reforms, and the misfortunes due to the destruction of property and to the despair of the peasants cannot be imagined. The old exactions of the lords of the manors were in no way lightened, and the situation of the serfs for centuries following the great revolt was worse rather than better. DIVISION OF GERMANY INTO CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT COUNTRIES Religious Division of North and South Germany Charles V was occupied at this time by his quarrels with Francis I, and was in no position to return to Germany and undertake to enforce the Edict of Worms against Luther and his followers. Germany,

10 as we have seen, was divided into hundreds of practically independent countries, and the various electors, princes, towns, and knights naturally could not agree as to what could best be done in the matter of reforming the Church. Southern Germany decided for the Pope and remains Catholic down to the present day. Many of the Northern rulers, on the other hand, adopted the new teachings, and finally all of them fell away from the papacy and became Protestant. Since there was no one powerful enough to decide the great question for the whole of Germany, the diet which met at Speyer in 1526 determined that, pending the summoning of a church council, each ruler should so live, reign, and conduct himself as he would be willing to answer before God and His Imperial Majesty. For the moment, then, the various German governments were left to determine the religion of their subjects. The Memorial Church in Speyer, Germany Origin of the Term Protestants The Emperor, Charles V, commanded the diet, which again met at Speyer in 1529, to order the enforcement of the Edict of Worms against the heretics. The princes and towns, that had accepted Luther s ideas, drew up a protest, in which they claimed that the majority had no right to abrogate the edict of the former diet of Speyer, which had been passed unanimously and which all had solemnly pledged themselves to observe. Those who signed this appeal were called from their action Protestants. Thus originated the name, which came to be generally applied to those who do not accept the rule and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Diet at Augsburg and the Augsburg Confession Ever since the diet at Worms, the Emperor had resided in Spain, busied with a succession of wars carried on with the King of France. But in 1530 he found himself at peace for the moment, and came to Germany to hold a brilliant, diet of his German subjects at Augsburg, in the hope of settling the religious problem, which, however, he understood very imperfectly. He ordered the Protestants to draw up a statement of exactly what they believed, which should serve as a basis for discussion. Melanchthon, Luther s most famous friend and colleague, was entrusted with this delicate task. The Augsburg Confession, as his declaration was called, is an historical document of great importance. Melanchthon s gentle disposition led him to make the differences between his belief and that of the old Church seem as few and slight as possible. He showed that both

11 parties held the same fundamental views of Christianity. But he defended the rejection on the part of the Protestants of a number of the practices of the Roman Catholics, such as the celibacy of the clergy and the observance of fast days. Charles V s Attempt at Pacification Certain theologians who had been loud in their denunciations of Luther were ordered by the Emperor to prepare a refutation of the Protestant views. Charles V declared the Catholic statement to be Christian and judicious and commanded the Protestants to accept it. They were to cease troubling the Catholics and were to give back all the monasteries and Church property, which they had seized. The Emperor agreed, however, to urge the Pope to call a council to meet within a year. This, he hoped, would be able to settle all differences and reform the Church according to the views of the more liberal Catholics. The Peace of Augsburg For ten years after the Emperor left Augsburg, he was kept busy in Southern Europe by new wars. In order to secure the assistance of the Protestants, he was forced to let them go their own way. Meanwhile, the number of rulers who accepted Luther s teachings gradually increased. Finally, there was a brief war between Charles and the Protestant princes, but there was little fighting. The Religious Peace of Augsburg Arranged Its provisions are memorable. Each German prince and each town and knight directly under the Emperor was to be at liberty to make a choice between the beliefs of the venerable Catholic Church and those embodied in the Augsburg Confession. If, however, an ecclesiastical prince an archbishop, bishop, or abbot declared himself a Protestant, he must surrender his possessions to the Church. Every German was either to conform to the religious practices of his particular state or emigrate from it. Everyone was supposed to be either a Catholic or a Lutheran, and no provision was made for any other belief. Representatives of the German estates at the Augsburg conference discuss the possibilities of a religious peace. No Freedom of Conscience It is noteworthy that this religious peace in no way established freedom of conscience in religious matters, except for the rulers. The arrangement which permitted the various princes, to determine the religion of their subjects, was far more natural in those days than it would be in ours, for the Church and the State had been closely associated since the last centuries of the Roman Empire. No one, as yet, dreamed that it was possible to leave people to make up their own minds on religious matters without interference on the part of the government.

12 L e s s o n Two H i s t o r y O v e r v i e w a n d A s s i g n m e n t s Martin Luther It was a Christian philosopher, a theologian a doctor of divinity, working out in his cell and study, through terrible internal storm and anguish, and against the whole teaching of monks and bishops and popes and universities, from the time of Charlemagne, the same truth which Augustine learned in his wonderful experiences who started the Reformation in the right direction; who became the greatest benefactor of these modern times. John Lord Monument in Worms, by Ernst Rietschel Reading and Assignments Review the vocabulary, then read and take notes on the article: Martin Luther. Write a 1,200 word essay on today s article. Choose two of the Leading Ideas from this unit, and illustrate them throughout your essay. Define each vocabulary word in the context of the reading and put the word and its definition in the vocabulary section of your history notebook. Be sure to visit for additional resources, websites, and videos.

13 Key People, Places, and Events Martin Luther Vocabulary flagrant convivial audacious malediction asceticism propitiate thralldom despotism annats Adapted for High School from the book: Beacon Lights of History by John Lord Martin Luther Among great benefactors, Martin Luther is one of the most illustrious. He headed the Protestant Reformation. This movement is so completely interlinked with the literature, the religion, the education, the prosperity, even the political history of Europe, that it is the most important and interesting of all modern historical changes. It is a subject of such amazing magnitude that no one can claim to be well informed who does not know its leading issues and developments, as it spread from Germany to Switzerland, France, Holland, Sweden, England, and Scotland. The central and prominent figure in the movement is Luther; but the way was prepared for him by a host of illustrious men, in different countries by Savonarola in Italy, by Huss and Jerome in Bohemia, by Erasmus in Holland, by Wycliffe in England, and by sundry others, who detested the corruptions they ridiculed and lamented, but could not remove. How flagrant those evils! Who can deny them? The papal despotism, and the frauds on which it was based; monastic corruptions; penance, and indulgences for sin, and the sale of them, more shameful still; the secular character of the clergy; the pomp, wealth, and arrogance of bishops; auricular confession; celibacy of the clergy, their idle and dissolute lives, their ignorance and superstition; the worship of the images of saints, and masses for the dead; the gorgeous ritualism of the mass; the substitution of legends for the Scriptures, which were not translated, or read by the people; pilgrimages, processions, idle pomps, and above all, the grinding spiritual despotism exercised by priests, with their inquisitions and excommunications, all centering in the terrible usurpation of the popes, keeping the human mind in bondage, and suppressing all intellectual independence these evils prevailed everywhere. I say nothing here of the massacres, the poisonings, the assassinations, the fornications, the abominations of which history accuses many of the pontiffs who sat on papal thrones. Such evils did not stare the German and English in the face, as they did the Italians in the fifteenth century. In Germany the vices were Medieval and monkish, not the unblushing infidelity and levities of the Renaissance, which made a radical reformation in Italy impossible. In Germany and England there was left among the people the power of conscience, a rough earnestness of character, the sense of moral

14 accountability, and a fear of divine judgment. Luther was just the man for his work. Sprung from the people, poor, popular, fervent; educated amid privations, religious by nature, yet with exuberant animal spirits; dogmatic, boisterous, intrepid, with a great insight into realities; practical, untiring, learned, generally cheerful and hopeful; emancipated from the terrors of the Middle Ages, scorning the Middle Ages; progressive in his spirit, lofty in his character, earnest in his piety, believing in the future and in God such was the great leader of this emancipating movement. He was not as learned as Erasmus, nor as logical as Calvin, nor as scholarly as Melancthon, nor as broad as Cranmer. He was not a polished man; he was often offensively rude and brusque, and lavish of epithets, nor was he what we call a modest and humble man; he was intellectually proud, disdainful, and sometimes, when irritated, abusive. None of his pictures represent him as a refinedlooking man, scarcely intellectual, but coarse and sensual rather, as Socrates seemed to the Athenians. But with these defects and drawbacks he had just such traits and gifts as fitted him to lead a great popular movement bold, audacious, with deep convictions and rapid intellectual processes; prompt, decided, kind-hearted, generous, brave; in sympathy with the people, eloquent, Herculean in energies, with an amazing power of work; electrical in his smile and in his words, and always ready for contingencies. Had he been more polished, more of a gentleman, more fastidious, more scrupulous, more ascetic, and more modest, he would have shrunk from his tasks; he would have lost the elasticity of his mind he would have been discouraged. He loved the storms of battle; he impersonated revolutionary ideas. But he was a man of thought, as well as of action. Luther s origin was of the humblest. Born in Eisleben on Nov. 10, 1483, the son of a poor peasant, his childhood was spent in penury. He was religious from a boy. He was religious when he sang hymns for a living, from house to house, before the people of Mansfield while at school there, and also at the schools of Magdeburg and Eisenach, where he still earned his bread by his voice. His devotional character and his music gained for him a friend who helped him through his studies, till at the age of eighteen he entered the University at Erfurt, where he distinguished himself in the classics and the Medieval philosophy. And here his religious meditations led him to enter the Augustinian monastery: he entered that strict retreat, as others did, to lead a religious life. The great question of all time pressed upon his mind with peculiar force, What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? And it shows that religious life in Germany still burned in many a heart, in spite of the corruptions of the Church, that a young man like Luther should seek the shades of monastic seclusion, for meditation and study. He was a monk, like other monks; but it seems he had religious doubts and fears more than ordinary monks. At first he conformed to the customary ways of men seeking salvation. He walked in the beaten road, like Saint Dominic and Saint Francis; he accepted the great ideas of the Middle Ages, which he was afterwards to repudiate he was not beyond them, or greater than they were, at first; he fasted like monks, and tormented his body with austerities, as they did from the time of Benedict; he sang in the

15 choir from early morn, and practiced the usual severities. But his doubts and fears remained. He did not, like other monks, find peace and consolation; he did not become seraphic, like Saint Francis, or Bonaventura, or Loyola. Perhaps his nature repelled asceticism; perhaps his inquiring and original mind wanted something better and surer to rest upon than the dreams and visions of a traditionary piety. Had he been satisfied with the ordinary mode of propitiating the Deity, he would never have emerged from his retreat. To a scholar, the monastery had great attractions, even in that age. It was still invested with poetic associations and consecrated usages; it was endorsed by the venerable Fathers of the Church; it was favorable to study, and free from the noisy turmoil of the world. But with all these advantages, Luther was miserable. He felt the agonies of an unforgiven soul in quest of peace with God; he could not get rid of them, and they pursued him into the immensity of an intolerable night. He was in despair. What could austerities do for him? He hungered and thirsted after the truth, like Saint Augustine in Milan. He had no taste for philosophy, but he wanted the repose that philosophers pretended to teach. He was then too narrow to read Plato or Boëthius. He was a self-tormented monk without relief; he suffered all that Saint Paul suffered at Tarsus. In some respects, this monastic pietism resembled the pharisaism of Saul, in the schools of Tarsus a technical, rigid, and painful adherence to rules, fastings, obtrusive prayers, and petty ritualisms, which form the essence and substance of all pharisaism and all monastic life; based on the enormous error that man deserves Heaven by external practices, in which, however, he can never perfect himself, though he were to live, like Simeon Stylites, on the top of a pillar for twenty years without once descending; an eternal unrest, because perfection cannot be attained; the most terrible slavery to which a man can be conscientiously doomed, verging into hypocrisy and fanaticism. It was then that a kind and enlightened friend visited him, and recommended him to read the Bible. The Bible never has been a sealed book to monks; it was ever highly prized; no convent was without it: but it was read with the spectacles of the Middle Ages. Repentance meant penance. In Saint Paul s Epistles, Luther discovers the true ground of justification not works, but faith; for Paul had passed through similar experiences. Works are good, but faith is the gift of God. Works are imperfect with the best of men, even the highest form of works, to a Medieval eye self-expiation and penance; but faith is infinite, radiating from divine love; faith is a boundless joy salvation by the grace of God, his everlasting and precious boon to people who cannot climb to Heaven on their hands and knees, the highest gift which God ever bestowed on men eternal life. Luther is thus emancipated from the ideas of the Middle Ages and of the old Syriac monks and of the Jewish Pharisees. In his deliverance, he has new hopes and aspirations; he becomes cheerful, and devotes himself to his studies. Nothing can make a man more cheerful and joyful than the cordial reception of a gift, which is infinite, a blessing which is too priceless to be bought. The pharisee, the monk, the ritualist, is gloomy, ascetic, severe, and intolerant; for he is not quite sure of his

16 salvation. A man who accepts Heaven as a gift is full of divine enthusiasm, like Saint Augustine. Luther now comprehends Augustine, the great doctor of the Church, embraces his philosophy and sees how much it has been misunderstood. The rare attainments and interesting character of Luther are at last recognized; he is made a professor of divinity in the new university, which the Elector of Saxony has endowed, at Wittenberg. He becomes a favorite with the students; he enters into the life of the people. He preaches with wonderful power, for he is popular, earnest, original, fresh, and electrical. He is a monk still, but the monk is merged in the learned doctor and eloquent preacher. He does not yet even dream of attacking monastic institutions, or the Pope; he is a good Catholic in his obedience to authorities; but he hates the Middle Ages, and all their ghostly, funereal, burdensome, and technical religious customs. He is human, almost convivial fond of music, of poetry, of society, of friends, and of the good cheer of the social circle. The people love Luther, for he has a broad humanity. They never did love monks, only feared their maledictions. About this time, the Pope was in great need of money: this was Pope Leo X. He not only squandered his vast revenues in pleasures and pomps, like any secular monarch; he not only collected pictures and statue but he wanted to complete St. Peter s Church. It was the crowning glory of papal magnificence. Where was he to get money except from the contributions of Christendom? But kings and princes and bishops and abbots were getting tired of this everlasting drain of money to Rome, in the shape of annats and taxes; so Leo revived an old custom of the Dark Ages he would sell indulgences for sin; and he sent his agents to peddle them in every country. The agent in Saxony was a very vulgar, boisterous, noisy, bullying Dominican, by the name of Tetzel. Luther abhorred him, not so much because he was vulgar and noisy, but because his infamous business derogated from the majesty of God and religion. In wrathful indignation he preached against Tetzel and his practices the abominable traffic of indulgences. Only God can forgive sins. It seemed to him to be an insult to the human understanding that any man, even a pope, should grant an absolution for crime. These indulgences were the very worst form of penance, since they made a mockery of virtue. And it was useless to preach against them so long as the principles on which they were based were not assailed. Everybody believed in penance; everybody believed that this, in some form, would ensure salvation. It consisted in a temporal penalty or punishment inflicted on the sinner after confession to the priest, as a condition of his receiving absolution or an authoritative pardon of his sin by the Church as God s representative. And the indulgence was originally an official remission of this penalty, to be gained by offerings of money to the Church for its sacred uses. However sincerely this theory originated from erroneous doctrine, the practice inevitably ran into corruption. The people who bought, the agents who sold, the popes who dispensed these indulgences used them for the vilest purposes. Fortunately, in those times in Germany, everybody felt he had a soul to save, and that the Church determined its salvation.

17 Neither the popes nor the Church had ever lost that idea. The clergy ruled by its force by stimulating man s fears of divine wrath, whereby the wretched sinner would be physically tormented forever, unless he escaped by a propitiation of the Deity. The means by which the Church administered this was through penance deeds of supererogation, donations to the Church, self-expiation, works of fear and penitence, which commended themselves to the piety of the age. This piety Luther now believed to be unenlightened, not the kind enjoined by Christ or Paul. So, to instruct his students and the people as to the true ground of justification, which he had worked out from the study of the Bible and Saint Augustine amid the agonies of a tormented conscience, Luther prepared his theses those celebrated ninety-five propositions, which he affixed to the gates of the church of Wittenberg, and which excited a great sensation throughout northern Germany, reaching even the eyes of the Pope himself, who did not comprehend their tendency, but was struck with their power. This Doctor Luther, said he, is a man of fine genius. The students of the university, and the people generally, were kindled as if by Pentecostal fires. The new invention of printing scattered those theses everywhere, far and near; they reached the humble hamlet as well as the palaces of bishops and princes. They excited immediate and immense enthusiasm: there was freshness in them, originality, and great ideas. We cannot wonder at the enthusiasm which those religious ideas excited all those hundreds of years ago when we reflect that they were not cant words then, not wornout platitudes, not dead dogmas, but full of life and exciting interest even as were the watchwords of Rousseau Liberty, Fraternity, Equality to Frenchmen, on the outbreak of their political revolution. And as those watchwords abstractly true roused the dormant energies of the French to a terrible conflict against feudalism and royalty, so those theses of Luther kindled Germany into a living flame. And why? Because they presented more cheerful and comforting grounds of justification than had been preached for one thousand years faith rather than works. The underlying principle of those propositions was grace divine grace to save the world the principle of Paul and Saint Augustine; therefore not new, but forgotten; a mighty comfort to miserable people, mocked and cheated and robbed by a venal and a gluttonous clergy. Even Taine admits that this doctrine of grace is the foundation stone of Protestantism as it spread over Europe in the sixteenth century. In those places where Protestantism is dead where rationalism or Pelagian speculations have taken its place this fact may be denied; but the history of Northern Europe blazes with it a fact which no historian of any honesty can deny. The genius of the Reformation in its early stages was a religious movement, not a political or a moral one, although it became both political and moral. Its strength and fervor were in the new ideas of salvation the same that gave power to the early preachers of Christianity not denunciations of imperialism and slavery, and ten thousand evils which disgraced the empire, but the proclamation of the ideas of Paul as to the grounds of hope when the soul should leave the body; the salvation of the Lord, declared to a world in bondage.

18 Luther kindled the same religious life among the masses that the apostles did; the same that Wycliffe did, and by the same means the declaration of salvation by belief in the incarnate Son of God, shedding his blood in infinite love. Why, see how this idea spread through Germany, Switzerland, and France and took possession of the minds of the English and Scotch yeomanry, with all their stern and earnest ruggedness. See how it was elaborately expanded by Calvin, how it gave birth to a new and strong theology, how it entered into the very life of the people, especially among the Puritans into the souls of even Cromwell s soldiers. What made The Pilgrim s Progress the most popular book ever published in England? Because it reflected the theology of the age, the religion of the people, all based on Luther s theses the revival of those old doctrines which converted the Roman provinces from paganism. The glorious Reformation in which we all profess to rejoice, and which is the greatest movement, and the best, of our modern time susceptible of indefinite application, interlinked with the literature and the progress of England and America took its first great spiritual start from the ideas of Luther as to justification. This was the voice of Heaven s messenger proclaiming aloud, so that the heavens re-echoed to the glorious and triumphant annunciation, and the earth heard and rejoiced with exceeding joy, Behold, I send tidings of salvation: it is grace, divine grace, which shall undermine the throne of popes and pagans, and reconcile a fallen world to God! Yes, it was a Christian philosopher, a theologian a doctor of divinity, working out in his cell and study, through terrible internal storm and anguish, and against the whole teaching of monks and bishops and popes and universities, from the time of Charlemagne, the same truth which Augustine learned in his wonderful experiences who started the Reformation in the right direction; who became the greatest benefactor of these modern times, because he based his work on everlasting and positive ideas, which had life in them, and hope, and the sanction of divine authority; thus virtually invoking the aid of God Almighty to bring about and restore the true glory of his Church on earth a glory forever to be identified with the death of his Son. Thus was born the first great idea of the Reformation, out of Luther s brain, out of his agonized soul, and sent forth to conquer, and produce changes most marvelous to behold. It is not my object to discuss the truth or error of the Reformation s fundamental doctrine. I wish to make emphatic the statement that justification by faith was, as an historical fact, the great primal idea of Luther not new, but new to him and to his age. I have now to show how this idea led to others; how they became connected together; how they produced not only a spiritual movement, but political, moral, and intellectual forces, until all Europe was in a blaze. Thus far the agitation under Luther had been chiefly theological. It was not a movement against popes or institutions, it was not even the vehement denunciation against sin in high places, which inflamed the anger of the Pope against Savonarola (who had called for reform during the 15 th century). To some it doubtless seemed like the old controversy between Augustine and Pelagius, like the contentions between

19 Dominican and Franciscan monks. But it was too important to escape the attention of even Pope Leo X, although at first he gave it no thought. It was a dangerous agitation; it had become popular; there was no telling where it would end, or what it might not assail. It was deemed necessary to stop the mouth of this bold and intellectual Saxon theologian. Pope Leo X With Cardinals Giulio de Medici and Luigi de Rossi, by Raphael So the voluptuous, infidel, elegant Pope accomplished in manners and pagan arts and literature sent one of the most learned men of the Church which called him Father, to argue with Doctor Luther, confute him, conquer him deeming this an easy task. But the doctor could not be silenced. His convictions were grounded on the rock, not on Peter, but on the rock from which Peter derived his name. All the papal legates and cardinals in the world could neither convince nor frighten him. He courted argument; he challenged the whole Church to refute him. Then the schools took up the controversy. All that was imposing in names, in authority, in traditions, in associations, was arrayed against Luther. They came down upon him with the whole array of scholastic learning. The great Goliath of controversy in that day was Doctor Eck, who challenged the Saxon monk to a public disputation at Leipzig. All Germany was interested. The question at issue stirred the nation to its very depths. The disputants met in the great hall of the palace of the Elector. Never before was seen in Germany such an array of doctors and theologians and dignitaries. It rivaled in importance and dignity the Council of Nicaea, when the great Constantine presided, to settle the Trinitarian controversy. The combatants were as great as Athanasius and Arius as vehement, as earnest, though not so fierce. Doctor Eck was superior to Luther in reputation, in dialectical skill, and in scholastic learning. He was the pride of the universities. Luther, however, had deeper convictions, more genius, greater eloquence, and at that time he was modest. The champion of the schools, of sophistries and authorities, of dead-letter literature, of quibbles, refinements, and words, soon overwhelmed the Saxon monk with his citations, decrees of councils, opinions of eminent ecclesiastics, the literature of the Church, and its mighty authority. He was on the eve of triumph. But Luther s genius came to his aid and the consciousness of truth. He swept away the premises of the argument. He denied the supreme authority of popes and councils and universities. He appealed to the Scriptures, as the only ultimate ground of authority. He did not deny authority, but appealed to it in its highest form. This was unexpected ground. The Church was not prepared openly to deny the authority of Saint Paul or Saint Peter; and Luther, if he

20 did not gain his case, was far from being beaten, and what was of vital importance to his success he had the Elector and the people with him. Thus was born the second great idea of the Reformation the supreme authority of the Scriptures, to which Protestants of every denomination have since professed to cling. They may differ in the interpretation of texts and thus sects and parties gradually arose, who quarreled about their meaning but none of them deny their supreme authority. All the issues of Protestants have been on the meaning of texts, on the interpretation of the Scriptures to be settled by learning and reason. It was not until rationalism arose, and rejected plain and obvious declarations of Scripture, as inconsistent with reason, as interpolations, as uninspired, that the authority of the Scriptures was weakened in European thought. The triumph of Luther at Leipzig was, however, incomplete. The Catholics rallied after their stunning blow. They said, in substance: We, too, accept the Scriptures; we even put them above Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and the councils. But who can interpret them? Can peasants, or women, or even merchants and nobles? The Bible, though inspired, is full of difficulties; there are contradictory texts. It is a sealed book, except to the learned; only the Church can reconcile its difficulties. And what we mean by the Church is the clergy the learned clergy, acknowledging allegiance to their spiritual head, who in matters of faith is also infallible. We can accept nothing which is not endorsed by popes and councils. Moreover, since the Scriptures are to be interpreted only by priests, it is not a safe book for the people. We, the priests, will keep it out of their hands. They will get notions from it fatal to our authority; they will become fanatics; they will, in their conceit, defy us. Then Luther rose, more powerful, more eloquent, more majestic than before; he rose superior to himself. What, said he, keep the light of life from the people; take away their guide to Heaven; keep them in ignorance of what is most precious and most exalting; deprive them of the blessed consolations which sustain the soul in trial and in death; deny the most palpable truths, because your dignitaries put on them a construction to bolster up their power! What an abomination! What treachery to Heaven! What peril to the souls of men! Besides, your authorities differ: Augustine takes different ground from Pelagius; Bernard from Abélard; Thomas Aquinas from Dun Scotus. Have not your grand councils given contradictory decisions? Whom shall we believe? Yea, the popes themselves, your infallible guides have they not at different times rendered different decisions? What would Gregory I say to the verdicts of Gregory VII? No, the Scriptures are the legacy of the early Church to universal humanity; they are the equal and treasured inheritance of all nations and tribes and kindreds upon the face of the earth, and will be till the day of judgment. It was intended that they should be diffused, and that everyone should read them, and interpret them each for himself; for he has a soul to save, and he dare not entrust such a precious thing as his soul into the keeping of selfish and ambitious priests. Take away the Bible from a peasant, or a woman, or any layman, and cannot the priest, armed with the terrors and the frauds of the Middle Ages, shut up his soul

21 in a gloomy dungeon, as noisome and funereal as your Medieval crypts? And will you, ye boasted intellectual guides of the people, extinguish reason in this world in reference to the most momentous interests? What other guide has a man but his reason? And you would prevent this very reason from being enlightened by the Gospel! You would obscure reason itself by your traditions, O ye blind leaders of the blind! O ye legal and technical men, obscuring the light of truth! O ye miserable Pharisees, ye bigots, ye selfish priests, tenacious of your power, your inventions, your traditions will ye withhold the free redemption, God s greatest boon, salvation by the blood of Christ, offered to all the world? Yea, will you suffer the people to perish, soul and body, because you fear that, instructed by God himself, they will rebel against your accursed despotism? Have you considered what a mighty crime you thus commit against God, against man? Ye rule by an infernal appeal to the superstitious fears of men; but how shall ye yourselves, for such crimes, escape the damnation of that hell into which you would push your victims unless they obey you? No, I say, let the Scriptures be put into the hands of everybody; let everyone interpret them for himself, according to the light he has; let there be private judgment; let spiritual liberty be revived, as in Apostolic days. Then only will the people be emancipated from the Middle Ages, and arise in their power and majesty, and obey the voice of enlightened conscience, and be true to their convictions, and practice the virtues which Christianity commands, and obey God rather than man, and defy all sorts of persecution and martyrdom, having a serene faith in those blessed promises which the Gospel unfolds. Then will the people become great, after the conflicts of generations, and put under their feet the mockeries and lies and despotisms which grind them to despair. Thus was born the third great idea of the Reformation, out of Luther s brain, a logical sequence from the first idea the right of private judgment, religious liberty, call it what you will; a great inspiration which in after times was destined to march triumphantly over battlefields, and give dignity and power to the people, and lead to the reception of great truths obscured by priests for one thousand years; the motive of an irresistible popular progress, planting England with Puritans, and Scotland with heroes, and France with martyrs, and North America with colonists; yea, kindling a fervid religious life; creating such men as Knox and Latimer and Taylor and Baxter and Howe, who owed their greatness to the study of the Scriptures at last put into every hand, and scattered far and wide, even to India and China. Can anybody doubt the marvelous progress of Protestant nations in consequence of the translation and circulation of the Scriptures? How these are bound up with their national life, and all their social habits, and all their religious aspirations; how they have elevated the people, ten hundred millions of times more than the boasted Renaissance which sprang from apostate and infidel and pagan Italy, when she dug up the buried statues of Greece and Rome, and revived the literature and arts which soften, but do not save! for private judgment and religious liberty mean nothing more and nothing less than the unrestricted perusal of the Scriptures as the guide of life. This right of private judgment, on which

22 Luther was among the first to insist, and of which certainly he was the first great champion in Europe, was in that age a very bold idea, as well as original. It flattered, as well as stimulated, the intellect of the people, and gave them dignity; it gave to the Reformation its popular character; it appealed to the mind and heart of Christendom. It gave consolation to the peasantry of Europe; for no family was too poor to possess a Bible, the greatest possible boon and treasure read and pondered in the evening, after hard labors and bitter insults; read aloud to the family circle, with its inexhaustible store of moral wealth, its beautiful and touching narratives, its glorious poetry, its awful prophecies, its supernal counsels, its consoling and emancipating truths so tender and yet so exalting, raising the soul above the grim trials of toil and poverty into the realms of seraphic peace and boundless joy. All sects and parties could take shelter under it; all could stand on the broad platform of religion, and survey from it the wonders and glories of God. At last men might even differ on important points of doctrine and worship, and yet be Protestants. Religious liberty became as wide in its application as the unity of the Church. It might create sects, but those sects would be all united as to the value of the Scriptures and their cardinal declarations. On this broad basis, John Milton could shake hands with John Knox, and John Locke with Richard Baxter, and Oliver Cromwell with Queen Elizabeth, and Lord Bacon with William Penn, and Bishop Butler with John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards with Doctor Channing. This idea of private judgment is what separates the Catholics from the Protestants, not most ostensibly, but most vitally. Many are the Catholics who would accept Luther s idea of grace, since it is the idea of Saint Augustine, and of the supreme authority of the Scriptures, since they were so highly valued by the Fathers: but few of the Catholic clergy have ever tolerated religious liberty that is, the interpretation of the Scriptures by the people for it is a vital blow to their supremacy, their hierarchy, and their institutions. They will no more readily accept it than William the Conqueror would have accepted the Magna Carta. The Satanic hatred of this right was the cause of most of the martyrdoms and persecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was the declaration of this right which emancipated Europe from the dogmas of the Middle Ages, the thralldom of Rome, and the reign of priests. Why should not Protestants of every shade cherish and defend this sacred right? This is what made Luther the idol and oracle of Germany, the admiration of half Europe, the pride and boast of succeeding ages, the eternal hatred of Rome not his religious experiences, not his doctrine of justification by faith, but the emancipation he gave to the mind of the world. This is what peculiarly stamps Luther as a man of genius, and of that surprising audacity and boldness which only great geniuses evince when they follow out the logical sequence of their ideas, and penetrate at a blow the hardened steel of vulcanic armor beneath which the adversary boasts. Luther courageously yet modestly comes forward as the champion of a new civilization, and declares, with trumpet tones, Let there be private judgment; liberty of conscience; the right to read and interpret Scripture, in spite of priests! so

23 that men may think for themselves, not only on the doctrines of eternal salvation but on all the questions to be deduced from them, or interlinked with the past or present or future institutions of the world. Then shall arise a new creation from dreaded destruction, and emancipated millions shall be filled with an unknown enthusiasm, and advance with the new weapons of reason and truth from conquering to conquer, until all the strongholds of sin and Satan shall be subdued, and laid triumphantly at the foot of His throne whose right it is to reign. Thus far Luther has appeared as a theologian, a philosopher, a man of ideas, a man of study and reflection, whom the Catholic Church distrusts and fears, as she always has distrusted genius and manly independence; but he is henceforth to appear as a reformer, a warrior, to carry out his idea, and also to defend himself against the wrath he has provoked. As a combatant, a warrior, a reformer, his person and character begin to change. He becomes coarser, he drinks more beer, he tells more stories, he uses harder names; he becomes arrogant, dogmatic; he dictates and commands; he quarrels with his friends; he is imperious; he fears nobody; he marries a nun; he feels that he is a great leader and general, and wields new powers; he is an executive and administrative man, for which his courage and insight and will and Herculean physical strength wonderfully fit him the man for the times, the man to head a new movement, the forces of an age of protest and rebellion and conquest. How can I compress into a few sentences the demolitions and destructions which this indignant and irritated reformer now makes in Germany, where he is protected by the Elector from papal vengeance? Before the reconstruction, the old rubbish must be cleared away, and Augean stables must be cleansed. He is now at issue with the whole Catholic regime, and the whole Catholic world abuse him. They call him a glutton, a wine-bibber, an adulterer, a scoffer, an atheist, an imp of Satan; and he calls the Pope the scarlet mother of abominations, Antichrist, Babylon. That age is prodigal in offensive epithets; kings and prelates and doctors alike use hard words. They are like angry children; their vocabulary of abuse is amusing and inexhaustible. See how prodigal Shakespeare and Ben Jonson are in the language of vituperation. But they were all defiant and fierce, for the age was rough and earnest. In defiance of the most sacred of the institutions of the Middle Ages, Luther openly marries Catherine Bora and sets up a hilarious household, and yet a household of prayer and singing. He abolishes the old Gregorian service; and for Medieval chants, monotonous and gloomy, he prepares hymns and songs not for boys and priests to intone in the distant choir, but for the whole congregation to sing, inspired by the melodies of David and the exulting praises of a Savior who redeems from darkness into light. How grand that hymn of his: A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing He makes worship more heartfelt, and revives apostolic usages: preaching and exhortation and instruction from the pulpit a forgotten power. He appeals to reason rather than sense; denounces superstitions, while he rebukes sins; and kindles a profound fervor, based on the recognition of new truths. He is not fully emancipated

24 from the traditions of the past; for he retains the doctrine of transubstantiation, and keeps up the holidays of the Church, and allows recreation on the Sabbath. But what he thinks the most of is the circulation of the Scriptures among plain people. So he translates them into German a gigantic task; and this work, almost single-handed, is done so well that it becomes the standard of the German language, as the Bible of Tyndale helped to form the English tongue; and not only so, but it has remained the common version in use throughout Germany. Moreover, he finds time to make liturgies and creeds and hymns, and to write letters to all parts of Christendom a Jerome, a Chrysostom, and an Augustine united; a kind of Protestant pope, to whom everybody looks for advice and consolation. What a wonderful man! Sheet music of Luther s Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott At last, this great theologian, this daring innovator, is summoned by imperial, not papal, authority before the Diet of the empire at Worms, where the Emperor, the great Charles V, presides, amid bishops, princes, cardinals, legates, generals, and dignitaries. There Luther must go yet under imperial safe conduct and consummate his protests, and perhaps offer up his life. Painters, poets, historians, have made that scene familiar the most memorable in the life of Luther, as well as one of the grandest spectacles of the age. I need not dwell on that exciting scene, where, in the presence of all that was illustrious and powerful in Germany, this defenseless doctor dares to say to supremest temporal and spiritual authority, Since Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth, he said. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen. 1 How superior to Galileo and other scientific martyrs! He is not afraid of those who can kill only the body; he is afraid only of Him who hath power to cast both soul and body into hell. So he stands as firm as the eternal pillars of justice, and his cause is gained. What if he did not live long enough to accomplish all he designed! What if he made mistakes, and showed in his career many of the infirmities of human nature! What if he cared very little for pictures and statues the revived arts of Greece and Rome, the Pagan Renaissance in which he only sees infidelity, levities, and luxuries, and other abominations which excited his disgust and abhorrence when he visited Italy! He seeks, not to amuse and adorn the Papal empire, but to reform it; as Paul before him sought to plant new

25 sentiments and ideas in the Roman world, indifferent to the arts of Greece, and even the beauties of nature, in his absorbing desire to convert men to Christ. And who, since Paul, has rendered greater service to humanity than Luther? The whole race should be proud that such a man has lived. We will not follow the great reformer to the decline of his years; we will not dwell on his subsequent struggles and dangers, his marvelous preservation, his personal habits, his friendships and his hatreds, his joys and sorrows, his bitter alienations, his vexations, his disappointments, his gloomy anticipations of approaching strife, his sickened yet exultant soul, his last days of honor and of victory, his final illness, and his triumphant death in the town where he was born. It is his legacy that we are concerned in, the inheritance he left to succeeding generations the perpetuated ideas of the Reformation, which he worked out in anguish and in study, and which we will not let die, but will cherish in our memories and our hearts, as among the most precious of the heirlooms of genius, susceptible of boundless application. And it is destined to grow brighter and richer, in spite of counter-reformation and Jesuitism, of pagan levities and pagan lies, of boastful science and Epicurean pleasures, of material glories, of dissensions and sects and parties, as the might and majesty of ages coursing round the world regenerates institutions and nations, and proclaims the sovereignty of intelligence, the glory and the power of God. 1. From The Wartburg room where Luther translated the New Testament into German. An original first edition is kept in the case on the desk.