History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume II Part 37

[585] "c.u.m Caesar in templo adesset ... processit illi obviam Aleander." (Pallavicini, i. p. 22.)

[586] "Festivissimo vultu." (Ibid.)

[587] "Et undique pervulgata." (Ibid.)

"We Charles Fifth," said the emperor, (then followed all his t.i.tles,) "to all the electors, princes, prelates, and others, whom it may concern,

"The Almighty having entrusted to us, for the defence of his holy faith, more kingdoms and power than he gave to any of our predecessors, we mean to exert ourselves to the utmost to prevent any heresy from arising to pollute our holy empire.

"The Augustin monk, Martin Luther, though exhorted by us, has rushed like a madman against the holy Church, and sought to destroy it by means of books filled with blasphemy. He has, in a shameful manner, insulted the imperishable law of holy wedlock. He has striven to excite the laity to wash their hands in the blood of priests;[588]

and, overturning all obedience, has never ceased to stir up revolt, division, war, murder, theft, and fire, and to labour completely to ruin the faith of Christians.... In a word, to pa.s.s over all his other iniquities in silence, this creature, who is not a man, but Satan himself under the form of a man, covered with the cowl of a monk,[589]

has collected into one stinking pool all the worst heresies of past times, and has added several new ones of his own....

[588] "Ihre Hande in der Priester Blut zu waschen." (L. Op. (L.) xvii, p. 598.)

[589] "Nicht ein Mensch, sondern als der bose Feind in Gestalt eines Menschen mit angennommener Monchshutten."... (Ibid.)

"We have, therefore, sent this Luther from before our face, that all pious and sensible men may regard him as a fool, or a man possessed of the devil; and we expect that, after the expiry of his safe-conduct, effectual means will be taken to arrest his furious rage.

[Sidenote: EDICT OF WORMS.]

"Wherefore, under pain of incurring the punishment due to the crime of treason, we forbid you to lodge the said Luther so soon as the fatal term shall be expired, to conceal him, give him meat or drink, and lend him, by word or deed, publicly or secretly, any kind of a.s.sistance. We enjoin you, moreover, to seize him, or cause him to be seized, wherever you find him, and bring him to us without any delay, or to keep him in all safety until you hear from us how you are to act with regard to him, and till you receive the recompence due to your exertions in so holy a work.

"As to his adherents you will seize them, suppress them, and confiscate their goods.

"As to his writings, if the best food becomes the terror of all mankind as soon as a drop of poison is mixed with it, how much more ought these books which contain a deadly poison to the soul to be not only rejected but also annihilated.

"You will therefore burn them, or in some other way destroy them entirely.

"As to authors, poets, printers, painters, sellers or buyers of placards, writings, or paintings, against the pope, or the Church, you will lay hold of their persons and their goods, and treat them according to your good pleasure.

"And if any one, whatever be his dignity, shall dare to act in contradiction to the decree of our imperial Majesty, we ordain that he shall be placed under the ban of the empire.

"Let every one conform hereto."

Such was the edict signed in the Cathedral of Worms. It was more than a Roman bull which, though published in Italy, might not be executed in Germany. The emperor himself had spoken, and the Diet had ratified his decree. All the partisans of Rome sent forth a shout of triumph.

"It is the end of the tragedy," exclaimed they. "For my part," said Alphonso Valdez, a Spaniard at the emperor's court, "I am persuaded it is not the end but the beginning."[590] Valdez perceived that the movement was in the Church, in the people, in the age, and that though Luther should fall, his cause would not fall with him. But no one disguised to himself the imminent, the inevitable danger to which the Reformer was exposed, while the whole tribe of the superst.i.tious were seized with horror at the thought of the incarnate Satan whom the emperor pointed out to the nation as disguised under a monk's frock.

[590] Non finem sed initium. (P. Martyris Ep. p. 412.)

[Sidenote: LUTHER WITH HIS PARENTS.]

The man against whom the mighty of the earth were thus forging their thunders had left the Church of Eisenach, and was preparing to separate from some of his dearest friends. He did not wish to follow the road of Gotha or Erfurt, but to repair to the village of Mora, his father's birth place, that he might there see his grandmother, who died four months after, his uncle, Henry Luther, and other relations.

Schurff, Jonas, and Suaven, set off for Wittemberg; Luther mounted his vehicle with Amsdorff who remained with him, and entered the forest of Thuringia.[591]

[591] Ad carnem meam trans sylvam profectus. (L Ep. i, p. 7.) Proceeding beyond the forest to my kindred.

The same evening he reached the village of his fathers. The poor old peasant clasped in her arms this grandson who had just been showing front to the emperor Charles and pope Leo. Luther spent the next day with his family, happy in subst.i.tuting this tranquil scene for the tumult at Worms. On the following day he resumed his journey, accompanied by Amsdorff and his brother James. In these lonely spots the Reformer's lot was to be decided. They were pa.s.sing along the forest of Thuringia, on the road to Wallershausen. As the carriage was in a hollow part of the road, near the old church of Glisbach, at some distance from the castle of Altenstein, a sudden noise was heard, and at that moment five hors.e.m.e.n, masked and in complete armour, rushed upon the travellers. Luther's brother, as soon as he perceived the a.s.sailants, lept from the vehicle, and ran off at full speed without uttering a word. The driver was for defending himself. "Stop!" cried one of the a.s.sailants in a stern voice, and rushing upon him threw him to the ground.[592] A second man in a mask seized Amsdorff, and prevented him from coming near. Meanwhile the three other hors.e.m.e.n laid hold of Luther, keeping the most profound silence. They pulled him violently from the carriage, threw a horseman's cloak upon his shoulders, and placed him on a led horse. Then the other two quitted Amsdorff and the driver, and the whole lept into their saddles. The hat of one of them fell off, but they did not even stop to lift it, and in a twinkling disappeared in the dark forest with their prisoner.

They at first took the road to Broderode, but they soon retraced their steps by a different road, and without quitting the forest, made turnings and windings in all directions, in order to deceive those who might attempt to follow their track.[593]

[592] Dejectoque in solum auriga et verberato. (Pallavicini, i, p.

122.) Having thrown the driver to the ground and bound him with cords.

[593] Dejecto in solum auriga et verberato. (Ibid.)

[Sidenote: LUTHER ATTACKED AND CARRIED OFF.]

Luther, little accustomed to horseback, was soon overcome with fatigue. Being permitted to dismount for a few moments, he rested near a beech tree, and took a draught of fresh water from a spring, which is still called, _Luther's Spring_.[594] His brother James always continuing his flight arrived in the evening at Wallershausen. The driver in great alarm had got up on his vehicle, into which Amsdorff also mounted, and urging on his horses, which proceeded at a rapid pace, brought Luther's friend as far as Wittemberg. At Wallershausen, and Wittemberg, and the interjacent country, villages, and towns, all along the road, news of Luther's having been carried off were spread, news which, while it delighted some, filled the greater number with astonishment and indignation. A cry of grief soon resounded throughout Germany--"Luther has fallen into the hands of his enemies!"

[594] Longo itinere, novus eques, fessus. (L. Ep. ii, p. 3.)

After the violent combat which Luther had been obliged to maintain, G.o.d was pleased to conduct him to a peaceful resting place. After placing him on the brilliant theatre of Worms, where all the powers of the Reformer's soul had been so vigorously exerted, He gave him the obscure and humiliating retreat of a prison. From the deepest obscurity He brings forth the feeble instruments by which he proposes to accomplish great things, and then, after allowing them to shine for a short time with great l.u.s.tre on an elevated stage, sends them back again to deep obscurity. Violent struggles and pompous displays were not the means by which the Reformation was to be accomplished. That is not the way in which the leaven penetrates the ma.s.s of the population.

The Spirit of G.o.d requires more tranquil paths. The man of whom the champions of Rome were always in pitiless pursuit, behoved for a time to disappear from the world. It was necessary that personal achievements should be eclipsed in order that the revolution about to be accomplished might not bear the impress of an individual. It was necessary that man should retire and G.o.d alone remain, moving, by his Spirit, over the abyss in which the darkness of the middle age was engulphed, and saying,--"_Let there be light_."

Nightfall having made it impossible to follow their track, the party carrying off Luther took a new direction, and about an hour before midnight arrived at the foot of a mountain.[595] The horses climbed slowly to its summit on which stood an old fortress surrounded on all sides, except that of the entrance, by the black forests which cover the mountains of Thuringia.

[595] Hora ferme undecima ad mansionem noctis perveni in tenebris. (L.

Ep. i, p. 3.)

[Sidenote: LUTHER A CAPTIVE.]

To this elevated and isolated castle, named the Wartburg, where the Landgraves of old used to conceal themselves, was Luther conducted.

The bolts are drawn, the iron bars fall, the gates open, and the Reformer clearing the threshold, the bars again close behind him. He dismounts in the court. Burkard de Hund, Lord of Allenstein, one of the hors.e.m.e.n, withdraws; another, John of Berlepsch, Provost of Wartburg, conducts Luther to the chamber which was to be his prison, and where a knight's dress and a sword were lying. The three other hors.e.m.e.n, dependants of the provost, carry off his ecclesiastical dress, and put on the other which had been prepared for him, enjoining him to allow his hair and beard to grow,[596] in order that none even in the castle might know who he was. The inmates of the Wartburg were only to know the prisoner under the name of Chevalier Georges. Luther scarcely knew himself in the dress which was put upon him.[597] At length he is left alone, and can turn in his thoughts the strange events which had just taken place at Worms, the uncertain prospect which awaits him, and his new and strange abode. From the narrow windows of his keep he discovers the dark, solitary, and boundless forests around. "There," says Mathesins, the biographer and friend of Luther, "the doctor remained like St. Paul in his prison at Rome."

[596] Exutus vestibus meis et equestribus indutus, comam et barbam nutriens.... (L. Ep. i, p. 7.)

[597] c.u.m ipse me jam dudum non noverim. (Ibid., ii, p. 7)

Frederick de Thun, Philip Feilitsch, and Spalatin, had not concealed from Luther, in a confidential interview which they had with him at Worms by order of the Elector, that his liberty behoved to be sacrificed to the wrath of Charles and the pope.[598] Still there was so much mystery in the mode of his being carried off that Frederick was long ignorant of the place of his confinement. The grief of the friends of the Reformation was prolonged. Spring pa.s.sed away, succeeded by summer, autumn, and winter; the sun finished his annual course, and the walls of the Wartburg still confined their prisoner.

The truth is laid under interdict by the Diet; its defender, shut up within the walls of a strong castle, has disappeared from the stage of the world, none knowing what has become of him. Aleander triumphs, and the Reformation seems lost; ... but G.o.d reigns, and the blow which apparently threatened to annihilate the cause of the gospel will serve only to save its intrepid minister and extend the light of faith.

[598] Seckend., p. 265.

Let us leave Luther a captive in Germany on the heights of the Wartburg, and let us see what G.o.d was then doing in the other countries of Christendom.

BOOK EIGHTH.

THE SWISS.

1484-1522.

CHAP. I.