History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 30

[420] O mors amara! L. Epp. ii. 659.

Luther, who was then travelling through Thuringia to allay the excitement, had never seen the elector, except at a distance, at Worms at the side of Charles the Fifth. But these two men had met in spirit from the very moment the reformer appeared. Frederick laboured for nationality and independence, as Luther did for truth and reformation.

Unquestionably the Reformation was above all things a spiritual work; but it was perhaps necessary for its early success that it should be linked with some national interest. Accordingly Luther had no sooner risen up against indulgences than the alliance between the prince and the monk was tacitly concluded:--an alliance that was purely moral, without contract or writing, or even words, and in which the strong man lent no aid to the weak, but only allowed him to act. But now that the vigorous oak was cut down under whose shelter the Reformation had gradually grown up,--now that the enemies of the Gospel were everywhere manifesting fresh force and hatred, and that its supporters were compelled to hide themselves or remain silent, nothing seemed able to defend them any longer against the sword of those who were pursuing it with such violence.

The confederates of Ratisbon, who had conquered the peasants in the south and west of the empire, were in all parts attacking the Reformation and the revolt alike. At Wurtzburg and at Bamberg they put to death many of the most peaceable citizens, and even some of those who had resisted the peasants. "What matters it?" said they openly; "these people were attached to the Gospel." This was enough to make their heads fall on the scaffold.[421]

[421] Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. ii. 226.

[Sidenote: ROMANIST ALLIANCE--CHARLES'S PLANS.]

Duke George hoped to impart his hatred and his affections to the landgrave and Duke John. "See," said he to them after the defeat of the peasants, as he pointed to the field of battle, "see what miseries Luther has occasioned!" John and Philip appeared to give him hopes that they would adopt his ideas. "Duke George," said the reformer, "imagines he shall triumph, now that Frederick is dead; but Christ reigns in the midst of His enemies: in vain do they gnash their teeth,......their desire shall perish."[422]

[422] Dux Georgius, mortuo Frederico, putat se omnia posse. L. Epp.

iii. 22.

George lost no time in forming a confederation in the north of Germany, similar to that of Ratisbon. The Electors of Mentz and Brandenburg, Dukes Henry and Erick of Brunswick, and Duke George, met at Dessau and concluded a Romish alliance in the month of July.[423]

George urged the new elector and his son-in-law the landgrave to join it. And then, as if to intimate what might be expected of it, he beheaded two citizens of Leipsic in whose house some of the reformer's writings had been found.

[423] Habito conciliabulo conjuraverunt rest.i.turos sese esse omnia......Ibid.

At the same time letters from Charles V., dated from Toledo, arrived in Germany, by which another diet was convoked at Augsburg. Charles wished to give the empire a const.i.tution that would enable him to dispose of the forces of Germany at his good pleasure. Religious differences offered him the means; he had only to let loose the Catholics against the followers of the Gospel, and when they had exhausted their strength, he would easily triumph over both. Down with the Lutherans! was therefore the cry of the emperor.[424]

[424] Sleidan. Hist. de la Ref. i. 214.

[Sidenote: DANGERS.]

Thus all things combined against the Reformation. Never had Luther's spirit been overwhelmed by so many fears. The remnants of Munzer's party had sworn to take his life; his sole protector was no more; Duke George, he was informed, intended to have him arrested in Wittemberg itself;[425] the princes who might have defended him bowed their heads, and seemed to have forsaken the Gospel; it was rumoured that the university, the number of whose students was already diminished by these troubles, was about to be suppressed by the new elector; and Charles, victorious at Pavia, was a.s.sembling a new diet with the end of giving a deathblow to the Reformation. What dangers must not Luther have foreboded!......This anguish, these inward struggles, that had so often tortured him to groans, now wrung his soul. How can he resist so many enemies? In the midst of these agitations, in the face of so many dangers, beside the corpse of Frederick that was scarcely cold, and the dead bodies of the peasants that yet strewed the plains of Germany, Luther--none could certainly have imagined such a thing--Luther married.

[425] Keil, Luther's Leben, p. 160.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Nuns of Nimptsch--Luther's Sentiments--The Convent dissolved--Luther's Marriage--Domestic Happiness.

[Sidenote: THE NUNS OF NIMPTSCH.]

In the monastery of Nimptsch, near Grimma in Saxony, dwelt in the year 1523 nine nuns, who were diligent in reading the Word of G.o.d, and who had discovered the contrast that exists between a christian and a cloistered life. Their names were Magdalen Staupitz, Eliza Canitz, Ava Grossen, Ava and Margaret Schonfeldt, Laneta Golis, Margaret and Catherine Zeschau, and Catherine Bora. The first impulse of these young women, after they were delivered from the superst.i.tions of the monastery, was to write to their parents. "The salvation of our souls," said they, "will not permit us to remain any longer in a cloister."[426] Their parents, fearing the trouble likely to arise from such a resolution, harshly rejected their prayers. The poor nuns were dismayed. How can they leave the monastery? Their timidity was alarmed at so desperate a step. At last, the horror caused by the papal services prevailed, and they promised not to leave one another, but to repair in a body to some respectable place, with order and decency.[427] Two worthy and pious citizens of Torgau, Leonard Koppe and Wolff Tomitzsch, offered their a.s.sistance,[428] which they accepted as coming from G.o.d himself, and left the convent of Nimptsch without any opposition, and as if the hand of the Lord had opened the doors to them.[429] Koppe and Tomitzsch received them in their waggon; and on the 7th of April 1523, the nine nuns, amazed at their own boldness, stopped in great emotion before the gate of the old Augustine convent in which Luther resided.

[426] Der Seelen Seligkeit halber. L. Epp. ii. 323.

[427] Mit aller Zucht und Ehre an redliche Statte und Orte kommen. L.

Epp. ii. 322.

[428] Per honestos cives Torgavienses adductae. Ibid. 319.

[429] Mirabiliter evaserunt. Ibid.

"This is not my doing," said Luther, as he received them; "but would to G.o.d that I could thus rescue all captive consciences and empty all the cloisters![430]--the breach is made!" Many persons offered to receive these nuns into their houses, and Catherine Bora found a welcome in the family of the burgomaster of Wittemberg.

[430] Und alle Kloster ledig machen. Ibid. 322.

If Luther at that time thought of preparing for any solemn event, it was to ascend the scaffold, and not to approach the altar. Many months after this, he still replied to those who spoke to him of marriage: "G.o.d may change my heart, if it be his pleasure; but now at least I have no thought of taking a wife; not that I do not feel any attractions in that estate; I am neither a stock nor a stone; but every day I expect the death and the punishment of a heretic."[431]

[431] c.u.m expectem quotidie mortem et meritum haeretici supplicium. L.

Epp. ii. 570. Letter to Spalatin, 30th November 1524.

[Sidenote: END OF THE CONVENT.]

Yet everything in the Church was advancing. The habits of a monastic life, the invention of man, were giving way in every quarter to those of domestic life, appointed by G.o.d. On Sunday the 9th of October 1524, Luther, having risen as usual, laid aside the frock of the Augustine monk, and put on the dress of a secular priest; he then made his appearance in the church, where this change caused a lively satisfaction. Renovated Christendom hailed with transport everything that announced that the old things were pa.s.sed away.

Shortly after this, the last monk quitted the convent; but Luther remained; his footsteps alone re-echoed through the long galleries; he sat silent and solitary in the refectory that had so lately resounded with the babbling of the monks. An eloquent silence, attesting the triumphs of the Word of G.o.d! The convent had ceased to exist. About the end of December 1524, Luther sent the keys of the monastery to the elector, informing him that he should see where it might please G.o.d to feed him.[432] The elector gave the convent to the university, and invited Luther to continue his residence in it. The abode of the monks was destined erelong to be the sanctuary of a christian family.

[432] Muss und will Ich sehen wo mich Gott ernahret. L. Epp. ii. 582.

Luther, whose heart was formed to taste the sweets of domestic life, honoured and loved the marriage state; it is even probable that he had some liking for Catherine Bora. For a long while his scruples and the thought of the calumnies which such a step would occasion had prevented his thinking of her; and he had offered the poor Catherine, first to Baumgartner of Nuremberg,[433] and then to Dr. Glatz of Orlamund. But when he saw Baumgartner refuse to take her, and when she had declined to accept Glatz, he asked himself seriously whether he ought not to think of marrying her himself.

[433] Si vis Ketam tuam a Bora tenere. Ibid. 553.

[Sidenote: LUTHER'S MOTIVES.]

His aged father, who had been so grieved when he embraced a monastic life, was urging him to enter the conjugal state.[434] But one idea above all was daily present before Luther's conscience, and with greater energy: marriage is an inst.i.tution of G.o.d,--celibacy an inst.i.tution of man. He had a horror of every thing that emanated from Rome. He would say to his friends, "I desire to retain nothing of my papistical life."[435] Day and night he prayed and entreated the Lord to deliver him from his uncertainty. At last a single thought broke the last links that still held him captive. To all the motives of propriety and personal obedience which led him to apply to himself this declaration of G.o.d, _It is not good that man should be alone_,[436] was added a motive of a higher and more powerful nature.

He saw that if he was called to the marriage-state as a man, he was also called to it as a reformer: this decided him.

[434] Aus Begehren meines lieben Vaters. Ibid. iii. 2.

[435] Ibid. 1.

[436] Genesis ii. 18.

"If this monk should marry," said his friend Schurff the lawyer, "he will make all the world and the devil himself burst with laughter, and will destroy the work that he has begun."[437] This remark made a very different impression on Luther from what might have been supposed. To brave the world, the devil, and his enemies, and, by an action which they thought calculated to ruin the cause of the Reformation, prevent its success being in any measure ascribed to him--this was all he desired. Accordingly, boldly raising his head, he replied, "Well, then, I will do it; I will play the devil and the world this trick; I will content my father, and marry Catherine!" Luther, by his marriage, broke off still more completely from the inst.i.tutions of the Papacy; he confirmed the doctrine he had preached, by his own example, and encouraged timid men to an entire renunciation of their errors.[438]

Rome appeared to be recovering here and there the ground she had lost; she flattered herself with the hope of victory; and now a loud explosion scattered terror and surprise through her ranks, and still more fully disclosed to her the courage of the enemy she fancied she had crushed. "I will bear witness to the Gospel," said Luther, "not by my words only, but also by my works. I am determined, in the face of my enemies who already exult and raise the shout of victory, to marry a nun, that they may see and know that they have not conquered me.[439] I do not take a wife that I may live long with her; but seeing the nations and the princes letting loose their fury against me, foreseeing that my end is near, and that after my death they will again trample my doctrine under foot, I am resolved for the edification of the weak to bear a striking testimony to what I teach here below."[440]

[437] Risuros mundum universum et diabolum ipsum. M. Adami Vita Luth.

p. 130.

[438] Ut confirmem facto quae docui, tam multos invenio pusillanimes in tanta luce Evangelii. L. Epp. iii. 13.

[439] Nonna ducta uxore in despectum triumphantium et clamantium Jo!

Jo! hostium. Ibid. 21.

[440] Non duxi uxorem ut diu viverem, sed quod nunc propiorem finem meum suspicarer. L. Epp. iii. 32.

[Sidenote: LUTHER'S MARRIAGE--SENSATION.]