History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 14

[203] Sentinas, cloacas, latrinas,......stercora. Ibid. p. 63.

[204] c.u.m suis......et stercoribus......relinquere. Ibid. p. 63.

Cochlus is delighted at quoting these pa.s.sages, selecting what according to his taste are the finest parts in More's reply. M.

Nisard, on the contrary, confesses in his article on More, whom he defends with great warmth and erudition, that in this writing "the impurities dictated by the anger of the Catholic are such that all attempt at translation is impossible." Revue des deux Mondes, v. 592.

[Sidenote: HENRY TO THE ELECTOR AND DUKES OF SAXONY.]

This writing still further increased Henry's attachment to More. He would often visit him in his humble dwelling at Chelsea. After dinner, the king, leaning on his favourite's shoulder, would walk in the garden, while Mistress More and her children, concealed behind a window, could not turn away their astonished eyes. After one of these walks, More, who knew his man well, said to his wife: "If my head could win him a single castle in France, he would not hesitate to cut it off."

The king, thus defended by the Bishop of Rochester and by his future chancellor, had no need to resume his pen. Confounded at finding himself treated in the face of Europe as a common writer, Henry VIII.

abandoned the dangerous position he had taken, and throwing away the pen of the theologian, had recourse to the more effectual means of diplomacy.

An amba.s.sador was despatched from the court of Greenwich with a letter for the elector and dukes of Saxony. "Luther, the real serpent fallen from heaven," wrote he, "is pouring out his floods of venom upon the earth. He is stirring up revolts in the Church of Jesus Christ, abolishing laws, insulting the powers that be, inflaming the laity against the priests, and laymen and priests against the pope, subjects against their sovereigns, and desires nothing better than to see Christians fighting and destroying one another, and the enemies of our faith hailing this scene of carnage with a frightful grin.[205]

[205] So ergiest er, gleich wie eine Schlang vom Himmel geworfen. L.

Opp. xviii. 212. The original is in Latin: Velut e clo dejectus serpens, virus effundit in terras.

"What is this doctrine which he calls evangelical, if it be not Wickliffe's? Now, most honoured uncles, I know what your ancestors have done to destroy it. In Bohemia they hunted it down like a wild beast, and driving it into a pit, they shut it up and kept it fast.

You will not allow it to escape through your negligence, lest, creeping into Saxony, and becoming master of the whole of Germany, its smoking nostrils should pour forth the flames of h.e.l.l, spreading that conflagration far and wide which your nation hath so often wished to extinguish in its blood.[206]

[206] Und durch sein schadlich Anblasen das hollische Feuer ausspruhe.

Ibid. 213.

[Sidenote: GENERAL MOVEMENT.]

"For this reason, most worthy princes, I feel obliged to exhort you and even to entreat you in the name of all that is most sacred, promptly to extinguish the cursed sect of Luther: put no one to death, if that can be avoided; but if this heretical obstinacy continues, then shed blood without hesitation, in order that the abominable heresy may disappear from under heaven."[207]

[207] Oder aber auch mit Blut vergiessen. L. Opp. xviii. 213.

The elector and his brother referred the king to the approaching council. Thus Henry VIII. was far from attaining his end. "So great a name mixed up in the dispute," said Paul Sarpi, "served to render it more curious, and to conciliate general favour towards Luther, as usually happens in combats and tournaments, where the spectators have always a leaning to the weaker party, and take delight in exaggerating the merit of his actions."[208]

[208] Hist. Council of Trent. pp. 15, 16.

CHAPTER XI

General Movement--The Monks--How the Reformation was carried on--Unlearned Believer--The Old and the New Doctors--Printing and Literature--Bookselling and Colportage.

A great movement was going on. The Reformation, which, after the Diet of Worms, had been thought to be confined with its first teacher in the narrow chamber of a strong castle, was breaking forth in every part of the empire, and, so to speak, throughout Christendom. The two cla.s.ses, hitherto mixed up together, were now beginning to separate; and the partisans of a monk, whose only defence was his tongue, now took their stand fearlessly in the face of the servants of Charles V.

and Leo X. Luther had scarcely left the walls of the Wartburg, the pope had excommunicated all his adherents, the imperial diet had just condemned his doctrine, the princes were endeavouring to crush it in most of the German states, the ministers of Rome were lowering it in the eyes of the people by their violent invectives, the other states of Christendom were calling upon Germany to sacrifice a man whose a.s.saults they feared even at a distance; and yet this new sect, few in numbers, and among whose members there was no organization, no bond of union, nothing in short that concentrated their common power, was already frightening the vast, ancient, and powerful sovereignty of Rome by the energy of its faith and the rapidity of its conquests. On all sides, as in the first warm days of spring, the seed was bursting from the earth spontaneously and without effort. Every day showed some new progress. Individuals, villages, towns, whole cities, joined in this new confession of the name of Jesus Christ. There was unpitying opposition, there were terrible persecutions, but the mysterious power that urged forward all these people was irresistible; and the persecuted, quickening their steps, going forward through exile, imprisonment, and the burning pile, everywhere prevailed over their persecutors.

[Sidenote: THE MONKS.]

The monastic orders that Rome had spread over Christendom, like a net intended to catch souls and keep them prisoners, were the first to break their bonds, and rapidly to propagate the new doctrine throughout the Church. The Augustines of Saxony had walked with Luther, and felt that inward experience of the Holy Word which, by putting them in possession of G.o.d himself, dethroned Rome and her lofty a.s.sumptions. But in the other convents of the order, evangelical light had dawned in like manner. Sometimes they were old men, who, like Staupitz, had preserved the sound doctrines of truth in the midst of deluded Christendom, and who now besought G.o.d to permit them to depart in peace, for their eyes had seen his salvation. At other times, they were young men, who had received Luther's teaching with the eagerness peculiar to their age. The Augustine convents at Nuremberg, Osnabruck, Dillingen, Ratisbon, Strasburg, and Antwerp, with those in Hesse and Wurtemberg, turned towards Jesus Christ, and by their courage excited the wrath of Rome.

[Sidenote: EMANc.i.p.aTION OF THE MONKS.]

But this movement was not confined to the Augustines only.

High-spirited men imitated them in the monasteries of other orders, and notwithstanding the clamours of the monks, who would not abandon their carnal observances, notwithstanding the anger, contempt, sentences, discipline, and imprisonments of the cloister, they fearlessly raised their voices in behalf of that holy and precious truth, which they had found at last after so many painful inquiries, such despair and doubt, and such inward struggle. In the majority of the cloisters, the most spiritual, pious, and learned monks declared for the Reformation. In the Franciscan convent at Ulm, Eberlin and Kettenbach attacked the slavish works of monasticism, and the superst.i.tious observances of the Church, with an eloquence capable of moving the whole nation; and they called for the immediate abolition of the monasteries and houses of ill-fame. Another Franciscan, Stephen Kempe, preached the Gospel at Hamburg, and, alone, presented a firm front to the hatred, envy, menaces, snares, and attacks of the priests, who were irritated at seeing the crowd abandon their altars, and flock with enthusiasm to hear his sermons.[209]

[209] Der ubrigen Prediger Feindschafft, Neid, Nachstellungen, Praticken, und Schrecken. Seckendorff, p. 559.

Frequently the superiors of the convents were the first led away in the path of reform. At Halberstadt, Neuenwerk, Halle, and Sagan, the priors set the example to their monks, or at least declared that if a monk felt his conscience burdened by the weight of monastic vows, far from detaining him in the convent, they would take him by the shoulders and thrust him out of doors.[210]

[210] Seckendorff, p. 811; Stentzel, Script. Rer. Siles. i. 457.

[Sidenote: HOW THE REFORMATION SPREAD AMONG THE PEOPLE.]

Indeed throughout all Germany the monks were seen laying down their frocks and cowls at the gates of the monasteries. Some were expelled by the violence of the brethren or the abbots; others, of mild and pacific character, could no longer endure the continual disputes, abuse, clamour, and hatred which pursued them even in their slumbers; the majority were convinced that the monastic life was opposed to the will of G.o.d and to a christian life; some had arrived at this conviction by degrees; others suddenly, by reading a pa.s.sage in the Bible. The sloth, grossness, ignorance, and degradation that const.i.tuted the very nature of the mendicant orders, inspired with indescribable disgust all men of elevated mind, who could no longer support the society of their vulgar a.s.sociates. One day, a Franciscan going his rounds, stopped with the box in his hand begging alms at a blacksmith's forge in Nuremberg: "Why," said the smith, "do you not gain your bread by the work of your own hands?" At these words the st.u.r.dy monk threw away his staff, and seizing the hammer plied it vigorously on the anvil. The useless mendicant had become an honest workman. His box and frock were sent back to the monastery.[211]

[211] Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 70.

The monks were not the only persons who rallied round the standard of the Gospel; priests in still greater number began to preach the new doctrines. But preachers were not required for its propagation; it frequently acted on men's minds, and aroused them from their deep slumber without any one having spoken.

[Sidenote: VARIOUS WAYS OF PROPAGATION.]

Luther's writings were read in cities, towns, and even villages; at night by the fireside the schoolmaster would often read them aloud to an attentive audience. Some of the hearers were affected by their perusal; they would take up the Bible to clear away their doubts, and were struck with surprise at the astonishing contrast between the Christianity of the Bible and their own. After oscillating between Rome and Scripture, they soon took refuge with that living Word which shed so new and sweet a radiance on their hearts. While they were in this state, some evangelical preacher, probably a priest or a monk, would arrive. He spoke eloquently and with conviction;[212] he announced that Christ had made full atonement for the sins of his people; he demonstrated by Holy Scripture the vanity of works and human penances. A terrible opposition would then break out; the clergy, and sometimes the magistrates, would strain every nerve to bring back the souls they were about to lose. But there was in the new preaching a harmony with Scripture and a hidden force that won all hearts, and subdued even the most rebellious. At the peril of their goods, and of their life if need be, they ranged themselves on the side of the Gospel, and forsook the lifeless and fanatical orators of the papacy.[213] Sometimes the people, incensed at being so long misled, compelled them to retire; more frequently the priests, deserted by their flocks, without t.i.thes or offerings, departed voluntarily and in sadness to seek a livelihood elsewhere.[214] And while the supporters of the ancient hierarchy returned from these places sorrowful and dejected, and sometimes bidding farewell to their old flocks in the language of anathema, the people, transported with joy by peace and liberty, surrounded the new preachers with their applause, and, thirsting for the Word of G.o.d, carried them in triumph into the church and into the pulpit.[215]

[212] Eaque omnia prompte, alacriter, eloquenter. Cochlus, p. 52.

[213] Populo odibiles catholici concionatores. Cochlus, p. 52.

[214] Ad extremam redacti inopiam, aliunde sibi victum quaerere cogerentur. Ibid. p. 53.

[215] Triumphantibus novis praedicatoribus qui sequacem populum verbo novi Evangelii sui ducebant. Ibid.

A word of power, proceeding from G.o.d, was at that time regenerating society. The people, or their leaders, would frequently invite some man celebrated for his faith to come and enlighten them; and instantly, for love of the Gospel, he abandoned his interests and his family, his country and friends.[216] The persecution often compelled the partisans of the Reformation to leave their homes: they reached some spot where it was as yet unknown; here they would enter a house that offered an asylum to poor travellers; there they would speak of the Gospel, read a chapter to the attentive hearers, and perhaps, at the request of their new friends, obtained permission to preach once publicly in the church......Upon this a vast uproar would break out in the city, and the greatest exertions were ineffectual to quench it.[217] If they could not preach in the church, they found some other spot. Every place became a temple. At Husum in Holstein, Hermann Tast, who was returning from Wittemberg, and against whom the clergy of the parish had closed the church doors, preached to an immense crowd in the cemetery, beneath the shade of two large trees, not far from the spot where, seven centuries before, Anschar had proclaimed the Gospel to the heathen. At Arnstadt, Gaspard Guttel, an Augustine monk, preached in the market-place. At Dantzic, the Gospel was announced on a little hill without the city. At Gosslar, a Wittemberg student taught the new doctrines in a meadow planted with lime-trees; whence the evangelical Christians were denominated the _Lime-tree Brethren_.

[216] Multi, omissa re domestica, in speciem veri Evangelii, parentes et amicos relinquebant. Ibid.

[217] Ubi vero aliquos nacti fuissent amicos in ea civitate......Ibid.

54.

[Sidenote: UNLEARNED BELIEVERS.]

While the priests were exhibiting a sordid covetousness before the eyes of the people, the new preachers said to them, "Freely we have received, freely do we give."[218] The idea often published by the new preachers from the pulpit, that Rome had formerly sent the Germans a corrupted Gospel, and that now for the first time Germany heard the Word of Christ in its heavenly and primal beauty, produced a deep impression on men's minds.[219] And the n.o.ble thought of the equality of all men, of a universal brotherhood in Jesus Christ, laid strong hold upon those souls which for so long a period had groaned beneath the yoke of feudalism and of the papacy of the Middle Ages.[220]

[218] Mira eis erat liberalitas. Cochlus, p. 53.

[219] Eam usque diem nunquam Germane praedicatam. Ibid.

[220] Omnes aequales et fratres in Christo. Ibid.

Often would unlearned Christians, with the New Testament in their hands, undertake to justify the doctrine of the Reformation. The catholics who remained faithful to Rome withdrew in affright; for to priests and monks alone had been a.s.signed the task of studying sacred literature. The latter were therefore compelled to come forward; the conference began; but erelong, overwhelmed by the declarations of Holy Scripture cited by these laymen, the priests and monks knew not how to reply.[221]......"Unhappily Luther had persuaded his followers," says Cochlus, "to put no faith in any other oracle than the Holy Scriptures." A shout was raised in the a.s.sembly, and proclaimed the scandalous ignorance of these old theologians, who had hitherto been reputed such great scholars by their own party.[222]

[221] A laicis Lutheranis, plures Scripturae locos, quam a monachis et presbyteris. Ibid. p. 54.