CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIIITHE COUNCIL OF TRENT IS CONVOKED, 1542. LUTHER’S POLEMICS AT THEIR HIGHEST TENSION1. Steps taken and Tracts Published subsequent to 1537 against the Council of the ChurchAtthe meeting held in 1537 by the protesting Princes and Estates at Schmalkalden the General Council, which had been suggested as a means of bringing about a settlement and of establishing religious peace, was most outspokenly rejected, and that in a way very insulting to Rome.[1514]In its blunt refusal the assembly was more logical than Luther and his theologians, who as yet were averse to an absolute repudiation of the Council. The hatred of the Pope which Luther himself had been so earnest in inculcating at Schmalkalden caused those with whom the decision rested to overlook certain considerations of prudence and diplomacy.If Luther opposed a thoroughgoing rejection of the Council it was not because he had the slightest intention of accepting any Council that did not at once declare in his favour. He knew very well that under the conditions on which he insisted there could be no question of a real Council as the Church had always understood it. The real motive for his hesitation was that, for him and his followers, it was a delicate matter, in view of the attitude they had previously adopted on this question, to oppose too abruptly the idea of a Council. He foresaw that the Catholic Imperialists would overwhelm the Protestants with most righteous and bitter reproaches for now turning their backs upon the Council after having at one time been loudest in their demands for it, and outdone themselves in complaints and murmurs on account of its postponement. What impression would the attitude of the protesting Princes make on the Emperor, who was now full of plans for the Council? Andwould not many be scared away who were still halting at the parting of the ways and were inclined to delay their decision until the looked-for Council? “The Papists assert that we are so reprobate,” wrote Luther, “that we refuse to listen to anybody, whether Pope, Church, Emperor, or Empire, or even the Council which we had so often called for.”[1515]Such considerations, however, were not strong enough to prevent him at once lending the whole weight of his voice in support of the resolution arrived at by the Schmalkalden Leaguers.After so offensive a rejection of any further attempts at reunion, the armed conflict with the Emperor which had so long been threatening now seemed bound to come. Luther, putting all subterfuge aside, looked this contingency boldly in the face. In a memorandum to his Elector dating from the end of January, 1539, he expressed himself even more strongly than before in favour of the right of armed resistance to the Emperor and the Empire; should the former have recourse to violent measures against the Evangel, then there would be no difference between the Emperor and a hired assassin; if the overlord attempts to impose on his subjects blasphemy and idolatry, he must expect to meet with bloody resistance on the part of those attacked.[1516]While negotiations on which hung war or peace were in progress at Frankfurt, and while, in consequence of this, the question of the Council receded once more into the background, Luther was putting the finishing touch to his “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen,” which appeared in the spring of 1539.[1517]In spite of being weak and unwell his powers of work seemed inexhaustible; his own troubles and worries were all forgotten when it was a question of entering the lists as the leader of the movement. The work was intended to forestall the Œcumenical Council should it ever become an accomplished fact, and to frustrate as far as possible its harmful effects on himself. In it with the utmost audacity the author pits his own authority against that of the highest secular and ecclesiastical powers; his tone is at once so self-confident and so coarse that here again it provides the psychologist with an enigma.With his projected Council, so he says at the commencement, the Pope in reality only wanted to deal the Emperor and all Christians “a blow on the snout.” He held out the Council to them just as, in playing with a dog, we offer him a morsel on the point of a knife, and, when he snaps at it, we hit him with the handle. He declares roundly that, “the Papists would not and could not hold a Council unless indeed they first took captive the Emperor, the kings and all the princes.”[1518]If the Emperor and the Princes wished “reprobates to slap their cheeks,” then let them continue to debate about the Council. The alleged impossibility of the Council he proclaims still more rudely, asserting that, the Papists being what they are, the whole world must despair of any amelioration of the Church: “They would rather leave Christendom to perish, and have the devil himself for their God and Lord, than accept Christ and give up even one jot of their idolatry.” Hence we must look for reformation from Christ our Lord, “and let them fare devilwards as they are bent on doing.”[1519]He then goes on to explain that amendment was impossible on the olden principles of the Fathers and canons, but could come about only by means of Holy Scripture; the Fathers and canons were not at one; even the first four Œcumenical Councils—the history of which he treats summarily though with little real historical knowledge—had only been able to ratify the belief laid down in Scripture; for faith a surer and more stable foundation was necessary than that of ecclesiastical Councils ever subject to make mistakes. At the same time he has nothing but scorn for the claims of the ancient and universal Church to be the permanent infallible teacher on matters of faith; he has no eye for her divinely guaranteed power as it had been exemplified in the General Councils, so solemnly representing the Churches of the whole world. On the other hand, his own pretensions are far above question. He knows, so he asserts, much more about the ancient Councils than all the Papists in a lump. He could instruct the Council, should one actually be summoned, on its procedure and its standards. It has, according to him, no power in the Church save to reject new errors which do not agree with Scripture (as though a Council had ever adopted any other course). Even the office of a clergyman or schoolmaster may, he says, be compared with that of the Councils in so far as, within their own small sphere, they judge human opinions and human rules by the standard of the Word of God, and seek to oppose the devil. But just as, in the case of these, he cannot guarantee that they will always read Holy Scripture aright, so also in the case of the Councils.If, however, such a solemn Council was convened—and such a thing might conceivably be of some use—then the first requirement, so he declares with surprising frankness, was “that, in the Council, the Pope should not merely lay aside his tyranny of human law, but also hold with us.... The Emperor and thekings must also help in this and compel the Pope should he refuse.”[1520]This he wrote for the disabusal of the infatuated, for at that time, strange to say, some Germans of the greatest influence still fancied it possible to pave the way for a reconciliation by means of negotiations and religious conferences, and were anxious to leave the Lutheran question in suspense until a General Council should meet. Luther further demands, that “the thoroughly learned in Holy Scripture ... and a few prudent and well-disposed laymen ... should also be invited to the Council. Then the abominations of the Pope would speedily be condemned.”He adds: “Yes, you will say, but of such a Council there is no hope. That is what I think too.”[1521]He is ready, however, to be content with a Provincial Council of the same sort held in Germany, and expresses the strange hope, that “the other monarchs would in time approve and accept the decisions of such a Council.” With this reference to the Provincial Council he is dallying with a proposal made by some short-sighted imperial advisers, viz. that a “free, German Council” should attempt to settle the controversy.The author then proceeds to set forth his jumbled theories on the “Church” and finally brings the lengthy work to a conclusion with a protestation that his doctrine forms the very pillars on which the Church rests: “Whoever teaches differently, even were he an angel from heaven, let him be anathema” (Gal. i. 8). “We are determined to be the Pope’s master and to tread him under foot, as Psalm xci.[13] says: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.”[1522]In many parts of the “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen” Luther is inclined to repeat himself, whilst the style exhibits a certain dreariness and monotony often met with in this class of Luther’s productions, at least when the ardour of his polemics begins to fail, or when his object in view is not popular instruction and edification. He himself on its completion wrote of it to Melanchthon who was attending the meeting at Frankfurt: “The book sadly vexes me, I find it weak and wordy.”[1523]At any rate with many who lacked any real discernment it no doubt served to cover Luther’s and his friends’ retreat from a position they had so long and persistently defended, viz. that a Council was the chief thing called for.The fruitless meetings of Frankfurt and Hagenau and the equally fruitless conferences of Worms and Ratisbon werefollowed, in 1541, by the Ratisbon Interim. This, as might have been foreseen, satisfied neither party. As for the Council it had been repeatedly postponed by Paul III on account of the embroilments between the Emperor and France and the opposition of the Protestants.At last, on May 22, 1542, the Pope convened a General Synod to begin in the town of Trent on Nov. 1 of that same year. The head on earth of the Catholic Church, in the Bull summoning the Council, spoke of the political obstacles now at last happily removed. The aim of the assembly was to be to debate, and by the light of divine wisdom and truth, settle on such steps “as might appear effective for the safeguarding of the purity and truth of the Christian religion, for the restoration of good morals and the amendment of the bad, for the establishing of peace, harmony and concord among Christians, both rulers and ruled, and lastly for opposing the inroads of the unbelievers [the Turks].” The Pope most earnestly implores the Emperor and the other Christian monarchs “by the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose faith and religion are being most violently assailed both from within and from without,” not to forsake God’s cause but by active co-operation to support it in every way.The grand project of a Council was, however, further delayed by the war which suddenly broke out between Charles V and France. Only on Dec. 13, 1545, could the first session be held at Trent. It was then indeed high time, for the Emperor Charles V, in the hope of securing a united front against the French, had shown himself much too disposed to yield to the German Protestants, as is evident from the Reichsabschied of Spires in 1544.As to Luther: up to the very last moment he scoffed at the efforts of Rome, as though her proposals for reform were all mere sham. Under this cloak of contempt he concealed his real annoyance at the opening of the Council.As soon as the new Bull of Convocation for 1545 appeared he wrote to his old friend, Wenceslaus Link: “I have seen the Pope’s writing and the Bull convening the Council to Trent for Lætare Sunday. May Christ laugh last at the reprobates who laugh at Him. Amen.”[1524]A few days later he said in a letter to his confidant, Justus Jonas: “To believe the Pope’s promises would be like placing faith in the father of lies whose own darlingson he is.”[1525]—“The Pope is mad and foolish from top to toe,” so he informs his Elector.[1526]A “Feast of Fools”[1527]is the only fit word with which he can describe the assembly of the ablest and most learned men in the Church, who came from every land, honourably intent on bringing peace to Christians and gaining a victory for truth. Luther had not the slightest doubt where the real well-spring of truth undefiled was to be found; on the same day that he wrote to his Elector the words just quoted, in a letter to Nicholas Amsdorf, the “true and genuine bishop of the Church of Naumburg,” as he styles him, he says: “I glory in the fact that this at least is certain: The Son of God is seated at the right hand of the Father and by His Spirit speaks most sweetly to us here below, just as He spoke to the Apostles; we, however, are His disciples and hear the Word from His lips. Praise be to God Who has chosen us unworthy sinners to be thus honoured by His Son and has permitted us to hearken to His Majesty through the Word of the Evangel. The angels and the whole of God’s creation wish us luck; but the Pope, Satan’s own monster, grieves and is affrighted, and all the gates of hell shake. Let us rejoice in the Lord. For them the Day approaches and the end. I have in mind another book against Popery, but the state of my head and my endless correspondence hinders me. Yet with God’s help I shall set about it shortly.”[1528]What he is thinking of is a continuation—which death prevented him from carrying out—of a new book with which we must now deal.2. “Wider das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel Gestifft.” The Papacy renews its StrengthLuther’s anger against the Papacy had been kindled into a glowing flame by the sight of the unity displayed by the Catholic Church in view of the Council. It seemed incredible to him that the old body which he had pronounced dead should again sit in Council and prepare to infuse new life into itself, to revive ecclesiastical discipline and to condemn the Church he himself had founded. His soreness at such a consolidation of Catholicism he relieved by a sort of last effort in his book “Against the Roman Papacy founded by the devil.”[1529]It was only his broken health, a foretoken of approaching death, and his many cares that prevented his following it up as he had threatened in his letter to Amsdorf just quoted. As he says there, he only hopes that God will give him“bodily strength and ghostly energy enough” to enable him, “like Samson of old, to wreak one act of vengeance on these Philistines.” The simile is truly a horrible one; the unhappy man, broken down from the effects of a life of tireless labour and endless excitement, still burns with the desire once more to shake the pillars of the ancient Church so as to bury all faithful Catholics beneath her ruins. As to what would be his, the blind Samson’s, fate beneath the ruins he does not consider as seriously as the true members of the ancient Church would have wished him to do.The occasion of the book was the following. Pope Paul III had sent to the Emperor two briefs in quick succession to dissuade him from making perilous concessions to the Protestants, and, in particular, in the interests of the Œcumenical Council, to oppose the project of holding a German National Council. Luther received from two different quarters an invitation to write against the supposed interference of the Pope. His Elector, through Chancellor Brück, requested, “that the said Martin may deal with the Pope’s writing, particularly as the formal announcement of the Council is now to hand; for we have no doubt that he is well able to do this. The same might then be printed and launched into the public.”[1530]Another invitation to the same effect, supported by information to be used against the Pope, reached Luther indirectly from the Imperial chancery itself through the intermediary of Nicholas Perrenoti, a councillor; some of the officials seem to have been anxious to avenge themselves on Paul III for crossing their plans.[1531]The work was published on March 26, 1545. As early as April 13, Marsupino, Secretary to King Ferdinand, was able to present a copy to the Papal Legates at the Council of Trent. Justice Jonas at once brought out a Latin translation entitled “Contra papatum romanum a diabolo inventum.” Thus at the very time the General Council made its bow before the world, Luther’s attack was brought to the notice of educated readers of all nations. No great harm was done to Catholic interests by Luther’s hanging up the drastic picture of himself, depicted in this scurrilous writing, as a warningto the whole world; humanistic culture and the grand classic idiom had, however, scarcely ever before suffered such degradation as in the Latin rendering of this foul book.The first and chief part of the work was to prove, that it was both wrong and presumptuous for the Popes to style themselves heads of Christendom, and that it was the devil alone who had put such a notion into their heads. In the second part it is demonstrated that in particular the claim made by the Popes that no one had the right to judge or to depose them was of fiendish origin. Finally, in the third, it is shown that the alleged handing over of the Roman Empire by the Greeks to the Germans through the instrumentality of the Popes was also a mere hellish lie.Sincere admirers of Luther read with amazement this book, which, for all its ferocity, is so reminiscent of the gutter. Some, even of his followers, again openly expressed the opinion that by it he had harmed himself more than any foe could have done—so unmeasured are his words and so utterly crazy the things he propounds. At times the pages seem to have been written in nothing short of a paroxysm of hate, and can only be understood by bearing in mind the author’s frightful state of inward turmoil.The very first words give us a glimpse of what is to come: “The most hellish Father, St. Paulus Tertius, as though he were Bishop of the Roman Churches, has written two briefs to Carolus Quintus, our Lord Emperor.... He has also, to speak by permission, issued a Bull almost for the fifth time, and now once more the Council is to meet at Trent; no one, however, may attend it but only his own brew, the Epicureans and those who please him.” Luther proceeds to ask whether this can really be a Council, which is ruled by the “gruesome abomination at Rome, who styles himself Pope,” and not rather some “puppet-show got up during the Carnival to tickle the Pope’s fancy.”The fury of the writer increases as he proceeds and he goes on to make the following demands: “Now let Emperor, kings, princes, lords and whoever can, set the axe to the root, and may God give no luck to hands that hang idle. First of all let them take from the Pope, Rome, Romandiol, Urbino, Bononia and all that he holds as Pope.... He won them by blasphemy and idolatry, and has laid waste the kingdom of Christ, wherefore he is termed the abomination of desolation [Mt. xxiv. 15]. After this the Pope himself, the Cardinals and the whole scoundrely train of his idolatrous Popish Holiness should be seized, and, as blasphemers, have their tongues torn from their throats and nailed in a row on the gallows-tree, in like manner as they affix their seals in a row to their Bulls; though even this would be but slight punishmentfor all their blasphemy and idolatry. After this let them hold as many Councils as they please on the gallows, or in hell with all the demons.... They are criminal, shameless, obstinate creatures.”[1532]The gloomy fancy that inspires his furious pen has, however, another kind of death in readiness for such opponents. “Were I Emperor I know full well what I should do: I would couple together all the blasphemous knaves, Pope, Cardinals and all the Popish crew, bind them and take them down to Ostia where there is a little stretch of water called in Latin the Mare Tyrrhenum.... Into it I would drop the lot and give them a good bath, along with the keys with which they bind and loose everything.... They might also take their pastoral staves so as to be able to smite the face of the waters.... And, lastly, as refreshing fodder and drink, they might have all the decrees, decretals, bulls, indulgences, etc. What do you wager that after half an hour in this healing bath all their diseases would cease?... On it I would risk Christ our Lord.”[1533]“The Pope,” so he exclaims on the same page, “is the head of the accursed Churches of all the worst knaves upon earth, a Vicar of the devil, a foe of God, an adversary of Christ and a destroyer of His Churches, a teacher of all lies, blasphemy and idolatry, an arch-church-thief and robber of the Church’s keys, a murderer of kings and an inciter to all kinds of bloodshed, a whoremonger above all whoremongers and the author of every kind of immorality, even of that which may not be mentioned, an antichrist, a man of sin, a child of destruction, a real werewolf. Whoever refuses to believe this, let him fare away with his God, the Pope.”[1534]“As an elect teacher and preacher to the Churches of Christ bound to speak the truth, I have herewith done my part. He who is set on stinking may go on stinking.... Let a Church be where it may throughout the world it can have no other Gospel ... than we have here in our Churches at Wittenberg.”[1535]As to how high Luther as a preacher and man of learning set himself and his Church above the Pope and his, we can see from what follows: “The whole Roman mob is nothing else but a stable full of great, rude, loutish, shameless donkeys, who know nothing of Holy Scripture, or of God, or of Christ, or what a bishop is, what God’s Word, or the Spirit, or baptism is, or what are sacraments, the keys and good works.... I, Dr. Martin, am still living, and having been brought up in the Pope’s school and donkey’s stable became a Doctor of Theology, and was even accounted a good and learned Doctor, which I assuredly was, so that I can truly testify how deep, and high, and broad, and long is their skill in Holy Scripture.”[1536]—And lest someone should object: “Have you any right to judge?” he replies lightheartedly: “It is enough for us to know that the Pope-Ass has been condemned by God Himself and all the angels.” “Wecannot be heretics, for we have believed and confessed the Scriptures.”[1537]An earlier saying of his to the effect that: “I am carried away and know not by what spirit” (“rapior nescio quo spiritu”), comes before the mind of the reader when Luther describes yet a third form of death for the Pope and his courtiers. He would fain see him, the Cardinals and the whole court, dealt with according “to fox-law, their hides being dragged over their heads, that they may thus be taught to pay with their skins; after this the hides may be thrown into the healing bath of Ostia, or into the fire.” “See and behold,” he exclaims, “how my blood boils! How it longs to see the Papacy punished though my spirit is well aware that no temporal penalty can make amends, even for one single Bull or decree!”[1538]Luther’s defenders have, strange to say, thought it necessary to lay stress on the fact that these three proposals cannot have been seriously meant.[1539]Everyone will admit that they are not a settled plan, for the carrying out of one would have rendered the others difficult or unfeasible. But does this fact modify in any way the revolting character of these words or cancel the invitation to make use of violence? It would be better to argue, that, owing to his fanatism about which only a pathologist can judge, he was not fully aware of what he was doing.—Some Catholics have suggested that the abnormal virulence of many pages of this book was due to the excitement caused by intoxicating liquors. Of this unfortunately there is no proof. That the reason for his horrible language must be sought rather in mental overstrain, in the preponderance just then of an abnormal side of his spiritual life, seems fairly clear also from the other quotations from this work which we were obliged to adduce elsewhere.[1540]Some time before the work in question was written, Brück, the Chancellor, had written to the Elector that, if the Council convened by the Pope “were to resume and continue its knavery” it would be necessary for Luther “to put the axe to the root of the tree, which by the Grace of God he is better able to do than other men”; this he wrote on Jan. 20, 1545.[1541]At that same time a calmer scene was being enacted in Saxony. On Jan. 14, the Wittenberg theologians, headed by Luther, presented to the Elector the so-called Wittenberg Reformation, drawn up at the sovereign’s request. This work had a close connection with the Œcumenical Council. It is true it was merely written in view of the approaching negotiations at the Diet, to facilitate one of those “religiouscompromises” which had now become so common. It was, however, at the same time, so to speak, a theological manifesto of the Protestants called forth by the Council. Hence it had been drawn up by Melanchthon (and not by Luther) in terms cautious and moderate. “The theologians,” wrote Brück, “have drawn up their ‘Reformation’ very courteously, nor is there any trace of Dr. Martin’s boisterousness” in it.[1542]The “Reformation” treats successively of “doctrine true and undefiled,” which it asserts is to be found in the Confession of Augsburg, “of the right use of the sacraments,” of the preaching office and episcopal government, of the ecclesiastical courts and spiritual jurisdiction, of learning and the schools, and of the defence and support of the churches. Many useful elements which meet the actual needs of the time are found scattered through the document. Stress is laid on the need of some direction and supervision of the preachers in such a way as to suggest the recognition of episcopal authority; the German episcopate is to be retained ... provided it accepts Luther’s doctrine![1543]It would in many respects be instructive to draw a parallel between the “Wittenberg Reformation” and the Catholic reformation proclaimed by the Council of Trent in the course of its successive sessions. We shall emphasise only one point. In the case of proceedings against “false doctrine” the Wittenbergers go much further than the Council in their demands for submission on the part of the individual. According to them the ecclesiastical courts (Consistories) were to lend their firm support to Luther’s own doctrine and interpretation of the Bible—for which, as a matter of fact, his name offered the sole guarantee—these courts were moreover to comprise “God-fearing men, chosen from among the laity of high standing in the Church.” The question of any deviation from the faith, was, with their assistance, “first to be examined into and then judgment pronounced in the ordinary way.” So painful a subordination of the individual to private opinions concerning faith, and so uncalled-for an introduction of the lay elementinto the spiritual courts, never entered the mind of any member of the Council.Conscious of its divine right the Council of Trent, even during Luther’s lifetime, solemnly laid the foundations of those decisions on doctrine which are now, and for ever will be, binding on the Catholic Church. It rose far above the quarrels of the day and the personal attacks on the successor of Peter and the venerable hierarchy; in what it laid down it was careful ever to preserve intact the great bond with the past.It was but a few days before Luther departed this life that the “Holy Œcumenical and General Synod legitimately called together in the Holy Ghost,” as in accordance with ancient usage it styles itself, declared in its third session, that its highest task was to oppose the heresies of the day and to reform the morals of the people. During this session, on Feb. 4, 1546, the Council renewed the creed of the Roman Church as the “basis on which all who confess the faith of Christ are agreed and as the one firm foundation against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.”As the opposing camp had the habit of constantly appealing to Holy Writ so the Council, in its next session, held after Luther’s death on April 8, 1546, solemnly declared Holy Scripture to be the “Spring of wholesome truth and discipline of morals,” though at the same time, agreeably to the ancient and uninterrupted teaching of the Church, it also included tradition: “Which truth is contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which the Apostles received from the lips of Christ ... and which, having been as it were handed down, have survived to our own day”; it, on the one hand, declared the sacred books of both Old and New Testament, the Canon of which it fixed anew, to have God for their author (“Deus auctor”) and to be worthy of equal affection and reverence; on the other, it reasserted the rights of the teaching office of the Church and of the tradition handed down from ages past, both of which Protestantism had questioned. To prevent any abuse of the Word of God, it also enacted that no member of the Church, relying on his own prudence, should, in matters of faith and morals, twist Holy Writ so as to make it mean anything else “than Holy Mother Churchheld and holds, seeing that it is hers to interpret Scripture” in accordance “with the unanimous consensus of the Fathers.” The Council’s first reforming decree also seeks to safeguard the treasure of Holy Scripture by forbidding any profanation of it or its use for superstitious purposes.After long adjournments, necessitated by the state of public affairs and after the ground had been prepared by careful study of the Bible, the Fathers and the Schoolmen, there followed, in 1546 and 1547, the weighty discussions on original sin and justification. In the final Canon on the justification of the sinner by grace (vol. iii., p. 185), the point on which all the questions raised by the innovations turned, the Synod pronounces an anathema on any man who shall declare that the Catholic doctrine it has just laid down “detracts from the glory of God or the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord, and does not rather enhance the truth of our faith and the glory of God and of Jesus Christ.” There followed resolutions concerning the sacraments in general, then, in 1551, on the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance; and finally, to pass over other points, in 1562 and 1563, the decrees on Communion, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrament of priestly ordination, and on Marriage. The 25th and last session, on Dec. 4, 1563, was devoted to the doctrine of Purgatory, of the veneration of the saints and relics, indulgences, fast-days and festivals, and also to the drawing up of various far-reaching regulations on discipline.The Synod had striven throughout to make its disciplinary decrees keep pace with its doctrinal promulgations. Thereby it provided a lasting and effectual foundation for the reform of the Church. This, taken in connection with so clear a statement of the unanimity of the Church’s teaching throughout the ages, deprived the separatists of every pretext for remaining estranged from the unity of the faith. The main point was that the Church, purified from the many abuses to which human frailty had given rise, or at least earnestly resolved to remove those still remaining, stood forth again as the city on the hill, visible afar off in her splendour and calling all to her in order to make them sharers in the hope of life. She was confident that He Who had said: “I will be with you all days, even to the consummation of the world,” had extended His protecting Hand over the assembly, and had spoken through it for the instructionof the faithful and also of the erring brethren. The infallibility of such general Councils was never questioned by any Catholic.A fresh outburst of zeal was the result, and the ancient Church soon showed that she had within her unsuspected powers for self-improvement.3. Some Sayings of Luther’s on the Council and his own Authority“They now seek to get at us under cover of a nominal Council,” says Luther, “in order to be able to shriek at us.... This is Satan’s wisdom as against the foolishness of God. How will God extricate Himself from their cunning schemes? Still, he is the Lord Who will mock at His contemners. If we are to submit to this Council we might as well have submitted twenty-five years since to the lord of the Councils, viz. the Pope and his Bulls. We shall not consent to discuss the matter until the Pope admits that the Council stands above him, and until the Council takes sides [with us] against the Pope, for even the Pope’s own conscience already reproaches him. They are mad and crazy. ‘Deo gratias.’”[1544]A series of similar utterances may be quoted.“The Papists are ashamed of themselves and stand in fear of their own conscience. Us they do not fear because, like Virgil of old, they console themselves with having already survived worse things. The paroxysm will cease suddenly.... They put to death the pious John Hus, who never departed in the least from the Papacy but only reproved moral disorders.”[1545]“For it was then not yet the time to unmask the [Roman] beast” (this having been reserved for me). “I, however, have not attacked merely the abuses but even the doctrine, and have bitten off the [Pope’s] heart. I don’t think the Pope will grow again.... The article of Justification has practically taken the shine out of the Pope’s thunderbolts.”[1546]“Our Church by the grace of God comes quite near to that of the Apostles, because we have the pure doctrine, the catechism, the sacraments and the [right] use of government, both in the State and in the home. If the Word, which alone makes the Church, stands and flourishes, then all is well. The Papists, however, who seek to erect a Church on conciliar decrees and decretals will only arouse dissensions among themselves and ‘wash thetiles’—however much they may pride themselves on their reason and wisdom.”[1547]“I must for once boast, for it is a long while since I did so last. A Council whereby the Church might be reformed has long been clamoured for. I think I have summoned such a Council as will make the ears of the Papists tingle and their heart burst with malice: for I take it, that, even should the Pope hold a General Council, he will not be able to effect so much by it. First, I have driven the Papists to their books, particularly to Scripture, and deposed the heathen Aristotle and the ‘Summists.’ ... Secondly, I have made them to be more reserved about their indulgences. Thirdly, I have almost put an end to the pilgrimages and field-devilry.” Only look, he says, at the reduction of the monasteries and the many other things which no Council could ever have achieved but which have been brought about by “our people.” Everything had been lost, the “Our Father, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, Penance, Baptism, Prayer [etc., he enumerates twenty-one similar things].” “No institution, no monastery, university or presbytery” taught even one of these articles aright; now, however, “I have set all things in order.”[1548]I can “write books as well as the Fathers and the Councils,” and this I may say “without pride.”[1549]This is because I have “exercised myself” in the Word of God by “prayer, meditation and temptations” (“oratio, meditatio, tentatio”).[1550]In my “temptation” the devil raged against me in every way, but God in a wonderful manner “kept alight His torch so that it did not go out.”[1551]Persecution overtook me “like the Apostles,” who “fared no better than their Lord and Master.”[1552]But the devil has entered into His foes the Papists, to whom, “in spite of all our good and well-meant admonitions, prayers and entreaties,”[1553]they have surrendered themselves; and rightly so, for the Papists (as I know from my own youthful experience when I did the same myself) refuse even to recognise the Gospel as a mystery.[1554]They simply make an end of all religion.But, all this notwithstanding, as the Council shall learn “I am really a defender and prop of the Pope. After my death the Pope will suffer a blow which he will be unable to withstand. Then they will say: Would that we now had Luther to give some advice; but if anyone offers advice now they refuse it; when the hour is passed God will no longer be willing.”[1555]After “God had given me that splendid victory which enabled me to get the better of my monkish vocation, the vows, masses and all the other abominations ... Pope and Emperor werealike unable to stop me.” It is true that I still have temptations to humble me, “but we remain victorious and shall conquer.”[1556]“These Italians [at Trent they were present in large numbers] are profane men and Epicureans. No Pope or cardinal for the last six hundred years has read the Bible. They understand less of the catechism than does my little daughter. May God preserve us from such blindness and leave us His divine Word.”[1557]This was the frame of mind in which Luther confronted the Council.We shall be better able to appreciate the strangeness of his attitude if we imagine Luther, attended by a few theologians of his own circle, journeying to the Council at Trent and there holding converse with the foreign prelates, as he had done at Wittenberg with the Legate Vergerio.In his wonted fashion he would not have hesitated to express plainly his views concerning his own authority. Some examples of his opinions of himself have already been given.[1558]What impression would the Wittenberger’s novel claims have made on bishops and theologians from distant lands where the Church was still in perfect peace, and where the spiritual supremacy of the hierarchy was unquestioned? With what astonishment would they have listened to those strange replies, which the Saxon had always ready in plenty, to such objections as they might have raised on the score of his disturbance of the peace of both Church and State, of the disorders within his own fold and of his own private life and that of his followers?A number of other statements taken from his writings and conversations with his intimates may help to make the picture even more vivid.“I have the Word,” we can hear him saying to the bishops in his usual vein, “that is enough for me! Were even an angel to come to me now I should not believe him.”[1559]“Whoever obtrudes his doctrine on me and refuses to yield, must inevitably be lost; for I must be right, my cause being not mine, but God’s, Whose Word it also is. Hence those who are against it must go under. Hence my unfailing defiance.... I have risked my life on it and will die for it. Therefore whoever sets himself against me must be ruined if a God exists at all.”[1560]To friend and foe I can only say: “Take in faith what Christ says to you through me; for I am not deceived, so far as I know. It is not the words of Satan that I speak. Christ speaks through me.”[1561]“Though there are many who regard my cause as diabolical and condemn it, yet I know that my word and undertaking is not of me but of God, and neither death nor persecution will teach me otherwise.”[1562]And before anyone can slip in a word of rejoinder he, again, as his way was, appeals to his personal knowledge. “I know that God together with all His angels bears me witness that I have not falsified His Word, baptism or sacrament, but have preached rightly and truthfully.”[1563]This doctrine I learnt in my “temptations,” during which “I had to ponder ever more and more deeply.” “What is lacking to the fanatics and the mob is that they have not that real foeman who is the devil; he certainly teaches a man thoroughly.”[1564]The hostility met with, particularly from false brethren, is also “God’s sure seal upon us”; by such “we have become like St. Paul, nay, like the whole Church.”[1565]The chief thing for me, however, so he continues, is conscience and conviction. “Take heed,” such is my axiom, “not to make mere play of it. If you wish to begin it, then begin it with such a clear conscience that you may defy the devil.... Be a man and do everything that goes against and vexes them [the opponents] and omit everything that might please them.”[1566]To those who ask whether his conscience did not upbraid him for breaking the peace and for overthrowing all order, he replies: It is quite true “Satan makes my conscience to prick me for having by false doctrine thrown the world into confusion and caused revolts.... But I meet him with this: The doctrine is not mine, but the Son of God’s; whole worlds are nothing to God, even should ten of them be rent by rebellion and go headlong to destruction. It is written in Holy Scripture [Mt. xvii. 5], ‘Hear ye Him’ (Christ), or everything will fall into ruins, and again [Ps. ii. 10], ‘Hearken, ye kings,’ or else ye shall perish. It was thus that Paul too had to console himself, when, in the Acts, he was accused of treason against God and Cæsar. God wills that the article of Justification shall stand, and if men accept it then no State or government will perish, but, if not, then they alone are the cause of their misfortune.”[1567]With no less confidence is he prepared to counter the otherobjections. My doctrine breeds evil? “After the proclamation of the Evangel it is true we see in the world great wickedness, ingratitude and profanation; this followed on the overthrow of Antichrist [which I brought about]; but in reality it is only, that, formerly, before the dawn of the Evangel, we did not see so plainly these sins which all were already there, but now that the morning star has risen the whole world awakens, as though from a drunken sleep, and perceives the sins which previously, while all men were asleep and sunk in the gloom of night, they had failed to recognise. But [in view of all the wickedness] I set my hopes on the Last Day being not far distant; things cannot go on for more than a hundred years; for the Word of God will again grow weaker; owing to lack of ministers of the Word darkness will arise. Then the whole world will grow savage and so lull itself into a state of security. After this the voice will resound (Mt. xxv. 6): ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ Then God will not be able to endure it any longer.”[1568]Is our own life any objection? It is no question of life but of doctrine, “and, as to the doctrine, it is indubitable that it is the Word of God. ‘The words that I speak,’ saith the Lord [John xiv. 10], ‘are not mine but the Father’s.’” Certainly “I should not like God to judge me by my life.”[1569]—“My doctrine is true and includes the forgiveness of sins, because my doctrine is not mine; Christ also says, ‘My doctrine is not Mine.’ My doctrine stands fast, be my life what it may.”[1570]“True enough, it is hard when Satan comes and upbraids us saying: You have laid violent hands on this marvellous edifice of the Papacy,” you, “a man full of error and sin.” “But Paul also, according to Rom. ix., had at times to endure similar reproaches.” “We answer: We do not attack the Pope on account of his personal errors and trespasses; we must indeed condemn them, but we will overlook them and forgive them as we ourselves wish to be forgiven. Thus it is not a question for us of the Pope’s personal faults and sins, but of his doctrine and of submission to the Word. The Pope and his followers, quite apart from their own sins, offend against the glory and the grace of God, nay, against Christ Himself, of whom the Father says: Hear ye Him. But the Pope would have men’s ears attentive only to what he says!”[1571]But, because my doctrine is true, so he concludes, this had to come about, “as I had long ago foreseen; in spite of the purity of my theology I [like Paul] was alleged to have preached ‘scandal’ to the holy Jews and ‘foolishness’ to the sapient heathen.”[1572]—Nevertheless, “whoever teaches otherwise than I have taught, or condemns me, condemns God and must remain a child of hell.”[1573]—“For the future I will not do the Papists thehonour,” of permitting them, “or even an angel from heaven, to judge of my doctrine, for we have had too much already of foolish humility.”[1574]With what wonder and perplexity at so unaccountable an attitude would the foreign bishops have listened to words such as these!4. Notable Movements of the Times accompanied by Luther with “Abuse and Defiance down to the very Grave.” The CaricaturesBrunswick, Cleves, the Schmalkalden LeaguersLuther followed with great sympathy and perturbation the warlike proceedings instituted by the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse against Duke Henry of Brunswick, whom he had himself already attacked with the pen in his “Wider Hans Worst.” They made war on the Duke in the summer of 1542, seized upon his lands and of their own initiative introduced the innovations, their troops at the same time committing unexampled excesses.Luther acclaimed the victory as a deed of God; such a proceeding could not be described as the work of man; such a success foreboded the approach of the Day of Judgment and retribution.[1575]The Imperial Chamber of Justice protested against the violent appropriation of the country by the Schmalkalden Leaguers, and, on Sep. 3, summoned the two princes and their confederates to Spires to answer for the breach of the peace committed at the expense of Duke Henry. Thereupon all the members of the League of Schmalkalden repudiated their obedience to the “wicked, dissolute, Popish rascals,” as the Landgrave Philip politely styled the Imperial Court. In this he was at one with Luther, who, in former years, had called the Imperial Chamber “a devil’s whore.”[1576]A new war of the Leaguers on Henry, who was anxious to recover his lands, was crowned in 1545 by a still more notable success on the part of the rebels, who this time contrived to take the Duke himself prisoner. When, however, Philip of Hesse, out of consideration for the Emperor,seemed inclined to set the captive free, Luther intervened with a circular letter addressed to Philip and his own Elector. He was determined to characterise any idea of setting free the “mischievous, wild tool of the Roman idol” as an open attack not merely on the Evangel, but even on the manifest will of God as displayed in the recent war which had been waged “by His angels.” Here his pseudo-mysticism is again much to the fore. The circular letter was soon printed and spread broadcast.[1577]Without any deep insight into the real state of affairs, either political or ecclesiastical, unmindful even of diplomacy, Luther seeks to work on the fears of the Protestant princes by an extravagant description of the Divine Judgments which were overtaking blasphemers, and tells them they will be sharers in the sin of others if, now that God had “broken down the bulwark” of the Papacy, they were to set it up anew.To the Papists he says: “Stop, you mad fools, Pope and Papists, and do not blow the flame that God has kindled. For it will turn against yourselves so that the sparks and cinders will fly into your eyes. Yes, indeed, this is God’s fire, Who calls Himself a consuming fire. You know and are convinced in your own conscience that your cause is wicked and lost and that you are striving against God.”[1578]He writes confidently: We on this side, without causing either Emperor or Pope “to raise a hair, have unceasingly prayed, implored, besought and clamoured for peace, as they very well know; this, however, we have never been able to obtain from them, but have had daily to endure nothing but insults, attacks and extermination.” The defensive alliance of the Catholic Princes and Estates became in his eyes a robber-league, established under pretext of religion; “what they wanted was not the Christian religion but the lands of the Elector and Landgrave.”[1579]The captive Duke had obtained help from Italy, very likely from the Pope. “In short, we all know that the Pope and the Papists would gladly see us dead, body and soul, whereas we for our part would have them all to be saved body and soul together with us.”[1580]The whole writing, with its combination of rage and mysticism, and likewise much else dating from thatperiod, may well raise grave doubts as to the state of the author’s mind.The inroad into Brunswick was merely a preliminary to the religious wars soon to break out and ravage Germany. No sooner had Luther closed his eyes in death than they began on a larger scale with the Schmalkalden War, which was to prove so disastrous to the Protestants. His words just quoted to the princes of his party were repeated almost word for word in the Protestant manifestos during the religious wars.It is possible that he may have been roused to make such attacks on the Catholics by certain disagreeable events which occurred from 1541 onwards. Political steps were being taken which were unfavourable to Lutheranism and not at all adequately balanced by the Protestants’ victory in Brunswick and elsewhere.Luther was made painfully aware of the unexpected weakening of the League of Schmalkalden which resulted from the bigamy of Landgrave Philip of Hesse. By virtue of a secret compact with the Emperor, into which Philip of Hesse had found himself forced (June 13, 1541),[1581]the latter, in his position of head of the German Protestants, had bound himself not to consent that Duke William of Cleves, who inclined to Protestantism, should be admitted into the Schmalkalden League; he had also to refuse any assistance to the Duke when the Emperor Charles V took the field against him on account of the union of Guelders with Cleves. The progress of Protestantism in these districts was checked by the Emperor’s victory in 1543. The formal introduction of the new faith into Metz was frustrated by the Emperor; at Cologne too the Reformers saw all their efforts brought to naught.The Diet of Spires, in 1544, it is true brought the Protestants an extension of that peace which was so favourable to their interests, but the campaign which Charles V thereupon undertook against François I—whom Philip of Hesse and the Schmalkaldeners were compelled by the above-mentioned compact to leave on the lurch—led to the humiliation of the Frenchman, who was compelled to make peace at Crespy on Sep. 14, 1544. There the King of Francepromised the Emperor never again to side with the German Protestants.Luther was also troubled by the dissensions within the League of Schmalkalden, by the refusal of Joachim II of Brandenburg, of Louis, Elector of the Palatinate, and especially of Duke Maurice of Saxony to join the League; the last sovereign’s intimate relations with the Emperor were also a source of anxiety. At Wittenberg it was clearly seen what danger threatened Lutheranism should the Imperial power gather strength and intervene on behalf of the Roman Church.The Roman Church, so Luther exclaims fretfully in his “Kurtz Bekentnis” (1545), is made up of “nothing but Epicureans and scoffers at the Christian faith.” The Pope, “the greatest foe of Christ and the real Antichrist, has made himself head of Christendom, nay, the very hind-piece and bottom-hole of the devil through which so many abominations of Masses, monkery and immorality are cacked into the world.”[1582]The Zwinglian “Sacramentarians”One controversy which greatly excited Luther at this time was that with the Swiss Sacramentarians. Once more his old feud with Zwinglianism was to break out and embitter his days. When, in 1542, the elevation was abolished in the parish church of Wittenberg (to some extent out of deference to the wishes of the Landgrave of Hesse who objected to this rite), some people too hastily concluded that Luther was renouncing his own doctrine in favour of that of the Swiss; hence he deemed it necessary once more to deny, in language too clear to be mistaken, any intention to make common cause with a company, which, as he puts it, had been “infected and intoxicated with an alien spirit.”Moreover, Caspar Schwenckfeld, with the object of moving the feelings of Luther’s opponents, made known to them Luther’s rude and so discreditable letter.[1583]The animosity of the Swiss and of their South German sympathisers now assumed serious dimensions. Luther accordingly determined to address the reply which he had beenplanning for some time to the Sacramentarians as a body, declaring that that “slanderer” Schwenckfeld was not worth a single line.

CHAPTER XXXIIITHE COUNCIL OF TRENT IS CONVOKED, 1542. LUTHER’S POLEMICS AT THEIR HIGHEST TENSION1. Steps taken and Tracts Published subsequent to 1537 against the Council of the ChurchAtthe meeting held in 1537 by the protesting Princes and Estates at Schmalkalden the General Council, which had been suggested as a means of bringing about a settlement and of establishing religious peace, was most outspokenly rejected, and that in a way very insulting to Rome.[1514]In its blunt refusal the assembly was more logical than Luther and his theologians, who as yet were averse to an absolute repudiation of the Council. The hatred of the Pope which Luther himself had been so earnest in inculcating at Schmalkalden caused those with whom the decision rested to overlook certain considerations of prudence and diplomacy.If Luther opposed a thoroughgoing rejection of the Council it was not because he had the slightest intention of accepting any Council that did not at once declare in his favour. He knew very well that under the conditions on which he insisted there could be no question of a real Council as the Church had always understood it. The real motive for his hesitation was that, for him and his followers, it was a delicate matter, in view of the attitude they had previously adopted on this question, to oppose too abruptly the idea of a Council. He foresaw that the Catholic Imperialists would overwhelm the Protestants with most righteous and bitter reproaches for now turning their backs upon the Council after having at one time been loudest in their demands for it, and outdone themselves in complaints and murmurs on account of its postponement. What impression would the attitude of the protesting Princes make on the Emperor, who was now full of plans for the Council? Andwould not many be scared away who were still halting at the parting of the ways and were inclined to delay their decision until the looked-for Council? “The Papists assert that we are so reprobate,” wrote Luther, “that we refuse to listen to anybody, whether Pope, Church, Emperor, or Empire, or even the Council which we had so often called for.”[1515]Such considerations, however, were not strong enough to prevent him at once lending the whole weight of his voice in support of the resolution arrived at by the Schmalkalden Leaguers.After so offensive a rejection of any further attempts at reunion, the armed conflict with the Emperor which had so long been threatening now seemed bound to come. Luther, putting all subterfuge aside, looked this contingency boldly in the face. In a memorandum to his Elector dating from the end of January, 1539, he expressed himself even more strongly than before in favour of the right of armed resistance to the Emperor and the Empire; should the former have recourse to violent measures against the Evangel, then there would be no difference between the Emperor and a hired assassin; if the overlord attempts to impose on his subjects blasphemy and idolatry, he must expect to meet with bloody resistance on the part of those attacked.[1516]While negotiations on which hung war or peace were in progress at Frankfurt, and while, in consequence of this, the question of the Council receded once more into the background, Luther was putting the finishing touch to his “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen,” which appeared in the spring of 1539.[1517]In spite of being weak and unwell his powers of work seemed inexhaustible; his own troubles and worries were all forgotten when it was a question of entering the lists as the leader of the movement. The work was intended to forestall the Œcumenical Council should it ever become an accomplished fact, and to frustrate as far as possible its harmful effects on himself. In it with the utmost audacity the author pits his own authority against that of the highest secular and ecclesiastical powers; his tone is at once so self-confident and so coarse that here again it provides the psychologist with an enigma.With his projected Council, so he says at the commencement, the Pope in reality only wanted to deal the Emperor and all Christians “a blow on the snout.” He held out the Council to them just as, in playing with a dog, we offer him a morsel on the point of a knife, and, when he snaps at it, we hit him with the handle. He declares roundly that, “the Papists would not and could not hold a Council unless indeed they first took captive the Emperor, the kings and all the princes.”[1518]If the Emperor and the Princes wished “reprobates to slap their cheeks,” then let them continue to debate about the Council. The alleged impossibility of the Council he proclaims still more rudely, asserting that, the Papists being what they are, the whole world must despair of any amelioration of the Church: “They would rather leave Christendom to perish, and have the devil himself for their God and Lord, than accept Christ and give up even one jot of their idolatry.” Hence we must look for reformation from Christ our Lord, “and let them fare devilwards as they are bent on doing.”[1519]He then goes on to explain that amendment was impossible on the olden principles of the Fathers and canons, but could come about only by means of Holy Scripture; the Fathers and canons were not at one; even the first four Œcumenical Councils—the history of which he treats summarily though with little real historical knowledge—had only been able to ratify the belief laid down in Scripture; for faith a surer and more stable foundation was necessary than that of ecclesiastical Councils ever subject to make mistakes. At the same time he has nothing but scorn for the claims of the ancient and universal Church to be the permanent infallible teacher on matters of faith; he has no eye for her divinely guaranteed power as it had been exemplified in the General Councils, so solemnly representing the Churches of the whole world. On the other hand, his own pretensions are far above question. He knows, so he asserts, much more about the ancient Councils than all the Papists in a lump. He could instruct the Council, should one actually be summoned, on its procedure and its standards. It has, according to him, no power in the Church save to reject new errors which do not agree with Scripture (as though a Council had ever adopted any other course). Even the office of a clergyman or schoolmaster may, he says, be compared with that of the Councils in so far as, within their own small sphere, they judge human opinions and human rules by the standard of the Word of God, and seek to oppose the devil. But just as, in the case of these, he cannot guarantee that they will always read Holy Scripture aright, so also in the case of the Councils.If, however, such a solemn Council was convened—and such a thing might conceivably be of some use—then the first requirement, so he declares with surprising frankness, was “that, in the Council, the Pope should not merely lay aside his tyranny of human law, but also hold with us.... The Emperor and thekings must also help in this and compel the Pope should he refuse.”[1520]This he wrote for the disabusal of the infatuated, for at that time, strange to say, some Germans of the greatest influence still fancied it possible to pave the way for a reconciliation by means of negotiations and religious conferences, and were anxious to leave the Lutheran question in suspense until a General Council should meet. Luther further demands, that “the thoroughly learned in Holy Scripture ... and a few prudent and well-disposed laymen ... should also be invited to the Council. Then the abominations of the Pope would speedily be condemned.”He adds: “Yes, you will say, but of such a Council there is no hope. That is what I think too.”[1521]He is ready, however, to be content with a Provincial Council of the same sort held in Germany, and expresses the strange hope, that “the other monarchs would in time approve and accept the decisions of such a Council.” With this reference to the Provincial Council he is dallying with a proposal made by some short-sighted imperial advisers, viz. that a “free, German Council” should attempt to settle the controversy.The author then proceeds to set forth his jumbled theories on the “Church” and finally brings the lengthy work to a conclusion with a protestation that his doctrine forms the very pillars on which the Church rests: “Whoever teaches differently, even were he an angel from heaven, let him be anathema” (Gal. i. 8). “We are determined to be the Pope’s master and to tread him under foot, as Psalm xci.[13] says: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.”[1522]In many parts of the “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen” Luther is inclined to repeat himself, whilst the style exhibits a certain dreariness and monotony often met with in this class of Luther’s productions, at least when the ardour of his polemics begins to fail, or when his object in view is not popular instruction and edification. He himself on its completion wrote of it to Melanchthon who was attending the meeting at Frankfurt: “The book sadly vexes me, I find it weak and wordy.”[1523]At any rate with many who lacked any real discernment it no doubt served to cover Luther’s and his friends’ retreat from a position they had so long and persistently defended, viz. that a Council was the chief thing called for.The fruitless meetings of Frankfurt and Hagenau and the equally fruitless conferences of Worms and Ratisbon werefollowed, in 1541, by the Ratisbon Interim. This, as might have been foreseen, satisfied neither party. As for the Council it had been repeatedly postponed by Paul III on account of the embroilments between the Emperor and France and the opposition of the Protestants.At last, on May 22, 1542, the Pope convened a General Synod to begin in the town of Trent on Nov. 1 of that same year. The head on earth of the Catholic Church, in the Bull summoning the Council, spoke of the political obstacles now at last happily removed. The aim of the assembly was to be to debate, and by the light of divine wisdom and truth, settle on such steps “as might appear effective for the safeguarding of the purity and truth of the Christian religion, for the restoration of good morals and the amendment of the bad, for the establishing of peace, harmony and concord among Christians, both rulers and ruled, and lastly for opposing the inroads of the unbelievers [the Turks].” The Pope most earnestly implores the Emperor and the other Christian monarchs “by the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose faith and religion are being most violently assailed both from within and from without,” not to forsake God’s cause but by active co-operation to support it in every way.The grand project of a Council was, however, further delayed by the war which suddenly broke out between Charles V and France. Only on Dec. 13, 1545, could the first session be held at Trent. It was then indeed high time, for the Emperor Charles V, in the hope of securing a united front against the French, had shown himself much too disposed to yield to the German Protestants, as is evident from the Reichsabschied of Spires in 1544.As to Luther: up to the very last moment he scoffed at the efforts of Rome, as though her proposals for reform were all mere sham. Under this cloak of contempt he concealed his real annoyance at the opening of the Council.As soon as the new Bull of Convocation for 1545 appeared he wrote to his old friend, Wenceslaus Link: “I have seen the Pope’s writing and the Bull convening the Council to Trent for Lætare Sunday. May Christ laugh last at the reprobates who laugh at Him. Amen.”[1524]A few days later he said in a letter to his confidant, Justus Jonas: “To believe the Pope’s promises would be like placing faith in the father of lies whose own darlingson he is.”[1525]—“The Pope is mad and foolish from top to toe,” so he informs his Elector.[1526]A “Feast of Fools”[1527]is the only fit word with which he can describe the assembly of the ablest and most learned men in the Church, who came from every land, honourably intent on bringing peace to Christians and gaining a victory for truth. Luther had not the slightest doubt where the real well-spring of truth undefiled was to be found; on the same day that he wrote to his Elector the words just quoted, in a letter to Nicholas Amsdorf, the “true and genuine bishop of the Church of Naumburg,” as he styles him, he says: “I glory in the fact that this at least is certain: The Son of God is seated at the right hand of the Father and by His Spirit speaks most sweetly to us here below, just as He spoke to the Apostles; we, however, are His disciples and hear the Word from His lips. Praise be to God Who has chosen us unworthy sinners to be thus honoured by His Son and has permitted us to hearken to His Majesty through the Word of the Evangel. The angels and the whole of God’s creation wish us luck; but the Pope, Satan’s own monster, grieves and is affrighted, and all the gates of hell shake. Let us rejoice in the Lord. For them the Day approaches and the end. I have in mind another book against Popery, but the state of my head and my endless correspondence hinders me. Yet with God’s help I shall set about it shortly.”[1528]What he is thinking of is a continuation—which death prevented him from carrying out—of a new book with which we must now deal.2. “Wider das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel Gestifft.” The Papacy renews its StrengthLuther’s anger against the Papacy had been kindled into a glowing flame by the sight of the unity displayed by the Catholic Church in view of the Council. It seemed incredible to him that the old body which he had pronounced dead should again sit in Council and prepare to infuse new life into itself, to revive ecclesiastical discipline and to condemn the Church he himself had founded. His soreness at such a consolidation of Catholicism he relieved by a sort of last effort in his book “Against the Roman Papacy founded by the devil.”[1529]It was only his broken health, a foretoken of approaching death, and his many cares that prevented his following it up as he had threatened in his letter to Amsdorf just quoted. As he says there, he only hopes that God will give him“bodily strength and ghostly energy enough” to enable him, “like Samson of old, to wreak one act of vengeance on these Philistines.” The simile is truly a horrible one; the unhappy man, broken down from the effects of a life of tireless labour and endless excitement, still burns with the desire once more to shake the pillars of the ancient Church so as to bury all faithful Catholics beneath her ruins. As to what would be his, the blind Samson’s, fate beneath the ruins he does not consider as seriously as the true members of the ancient Church would have wished him to do.The occasion of the book was the following. Pope Paul III had sent to the Emperor two briefs in quick succession to dissuade him from making perilous concessions to the Protestants, and, in particular, in the interests of the Œcumenical Council, to oppose the project of holding a German National Council. Luther received from two different quarters an invitation to write against the supposed interference of the Pope. His Elector, through Chancellor Brück, requested, “that the said Martin may deal with the Pope’s writing, particularly as the formal announcement of the Council is now to hand; for we have no doubt that he is well able to do this. The same might then be printed and launched into the public.”[1530]Another invitation to the same effect, supported by information to be used against the Pope, reached Luther indirectly from the Imperial chancery itself through the intermediary of Nicholas Perrenoti, a councillor; some of the officials seem to have been anxious to avenge themselves on Paul III for crossing their plans.[1531]The work was published on March 26, 1545. As early as April 13, Marsupino, Secretary to King Ferdinand, was able to present a copy to the Papal Legates at the Council of Trent. Justice Jonas at once brought out a Latin translation entitled “Contra papatum romanum a diabolo inventum.” Thus at the very time the General Council made its bow before the world, Luther’s attack was brought to the notice of educated readers of all nations. No great harm was done to Catholic interests by Luther’s hanging up the drastic picture of himself, depicted in this scurrilous writing, as a warningto the whole world; humanistic culture and the grand classic idiom had, however, scarcely ever before suffered such degradation as in the Latin rendering of this foul book.The first and chief part of the work was to prove, that it was both wrong and presumptuous for the Popes to style themselves heads of Christendom, and that it was the devil alone who had put such a notion into their heads. In the second part it is demonstrated that in particular the claim made by the Popes that no one had the right to judge or to depose them was of fiendish origin. Finally, in the third, it is shown that the alleged handing over of the Roman Empire by the Greeks to the Germans through the instrumentality of the Popes was also a mere hellish lie.Sincere admirers of Luther read with amazement this book, which, for all its ferocity, is so reminiscent of the gutter. Some, even of his followers, again openly expressed the opinion that by it he had harmed himself more than any foe could have done—so unmeasured are his words and so utterly crazy the things he propounds. At times the pages seem to have been written in nothing short of a paroxysm of hate, and can only be understood by bearing in mind the author’s frightful state of inward turmoil.The very first words give us a glimpse of what is to come: “The most hellish Father, St. Paulus Tertius, as though he were Bishop of the Roman Churches, has written two briefs to Carolus Quintus, our Lord Emperor.... He has also, to speak by permission, issued a Bull almost for the fifth time, and now once more the Council is to meet at Trent; no one, however, may attend it but only his own brew, the Epicureans and those who please him.” Luther proceeds to ask whether this can really be a Council, which is ruled by the “gruesome abomination at Rome, who styles himself Pope,” and not rather some “puppet-show got up during the Carnival to tickle the Pope’s fancy.”The fury of the writer increases as he proceeds and he goes on to make the following demands: “Now let Emperor, kings, princes, lords and whoever can, set the axe to the root, and may God give no luck to hands that hang idle. First of all let them take from the Pope, Rome, Romandiol, Urbino, Bononia and all that he holds as Pope.... He won them by blasphemy and idolatry, and has laid waste the kingdom of Christ, wherefore he is termed the abomination of desolation [Mt. xxiv. 15]. After this the Pope himself, the Cardinals and the whole scoundrely train of his idolatrous Popish Holiness should be seized, and, as blasphemers, have their tongues torn from their throats and nailed in a row on the gallows-tree, in like manner as they affix their seals in a row to their Bulls; though even this would be but slight punishmentfor all their blasphemy and idolatry. After this let them hold as many Councils as they please on the gallows, or in hell with all the demons.... They are criminal, shameless, obstinate creatures.”[1532]The gloomy fancy that inspires his furious pen has, however, another kind of death in readiness for such opponents. “Were I Emperor I know full well what I should do: I would couple together all the blasphemous knaves, Pope, Cardinals and all the Popish crew, bind them and take them down to Ostia where there is a little stretch of water called in Latin the Mare Tyrrhenum.... Into it I would drop the lot and give them a good bath, along with the keys with which they bind and loose everything.... They might also take their pastoral staves so as to be able to smite the face of the waters.... And, lastly, as refreshing fodder and drink, they might have all the decrees, decretals, bulls, indulgences, etc. What do you wager that after half an hour in this healing bath all their diseases would cease?... On it I would risk Christ our Lord.”[1533]“The Pope,” so he exclaims on the same page, “is the head of the accursed Churches of all the worst knaves upon earth, a Vicar of the devil, a foe of God, an adversary of Christ and a destroyer of His Churches, a teacher of all lies, blasphemy and idolatry, an arch-church-thief and robber of the Church’s keys, a murderer of kings and an inciter to all kinds of bloodshed, a whoremonger above all whoremongers and the author of every kind of immorality, even of that which may not be mentioned, an antichrist, a man of sin, a child of destruction, a real werewolf. Whoever refuses to believe this, let him fare away with his God, the Pope.”[1534]“As an elect teacher and preacher to the Churches of Christ bound to speak the truth, I have herewith done my part. He who is set on stinking may go on stinking.... Let a Church be where it may throughout the world it can have no other Gospel ... than we have here in our Churches at Wittenberg.”[1535]As to how high Luther as a preacher and man of learning set himself and his Church above the Pope and his, we can see from what follows: “The whole Roman mob is nothing else but a stable full of great, rude, loutish, shameless donkeys, who know nothing of Holy Scripture, or of God, or of Christ, or what a bishop is, what God’s Word, or the Spirit, or baptism is, or what are sacraments, the keys and good works.... I, Dr. Martin, am still living, and having been brought up in the Pope’s school and donkey’s stable became a Doctor of Theology, and was even accounted a good and learned Doctor, which I assuredly was, so that I can truly testify how deep, and high, and broad, and long is their skill in Holy Scripture.”[1536]—And lest someone should object: “Have you any right to judge?” he replies lightheartedly: “It is enough for us to know that the Pope-Ass has been condemned by God Himself and all the angels.” “Wecannot be heretics, for we have believed and confessed the Scriptures.”[1537]An earlier saying of his to the effect that: “I am carried away and know not by what spirit” (“rapior nescio quo spiritu”), comes before the mind of the reader when Luther describes yet a third form of death for the Pope and his courtiers. He would fain see him, the Cardinals and the whole court, dealt with according “to fox-law, their hides being dragged over their heads, that they may thus be taught to pay with their skins; after this the hides may be thrown into the healing bath of Ostia, or into the fire.” “See and behold,” he exclaims, “how my blood boils! How it longs to see the Papacy punished though my spirit is well aware that no temporal penalty can make amends, even for one single Bull or decree!”[1538]Luther’s defenders have, strange to say, thought it necessary to lay stress on the fact that these three proposals cannot have been seriously meant.[1539]Everyone will admit that they are not a settled plan, for the carrying out of one would have rendered the others difficult or unfeasible. But does this fact modify in any way the revolting character of these words or cancel the invitation to make use of violence? It would be better to argue, that, owing to his fanatism about which only a pathologist can judge, he was not fully aware of what he was doing.—Some Catholics have suggested that the abnormal virulence of many pages of this book was due to the excitement caused by intoxicating liquors. Of this unfortunately there is no proof. That the reason for his horrible language must be sought rather in mental overstrain, in the preponderance just then of an abnormal side of his spiritual life, seems fairly clear also from the other quotations from this work which we were obliged to adduce elsewhere.[1540]Some time before the work in question was written, Brück, the Chancellor, had written to the Elector that, if the Council convened by the Pope “were to resume and continue its knavery” it would be necessary for Luther “to put the axe to the root of the tree, which by the Grace of God he is better able to do than other men”; this he wrote on Jan. 20, 1545.[1541]At that same time a calmer scene was being enacted in Saxony. On Jan. 14, the Wittenberg theologians, headed by Luther, presented to the Elector the so-called Wittenberg Reformation, drawn up at the sovereign’s request. This work had a close connection with the Œcumenical Council. It is true it was merely written in view of the approaching negotiations at the Diet, to facilitate one of those “religiouscompromises” which had now become so common. It was, however, at the same time, so to speak, a theological manifesto of the Protestants called forth by the Council. Hence it had been drawn up by Melanchthon (and not by Luther) in terms cautious and moderate. “The theologians,” wrote Brück, “have drawn up their ‘Reformation’ very courteously, nor is there any trace of Dr. Martin’s boisterousness” in it.[1542]The “Reformation” treats successively of “doctrine true and undefiled,” which it asserts is to be found in the Confession of Augsburg, “of the right use of the sacraments,” of the preaching office and episcopal government, of the ecclesiastical courts and spiritual jurisdiction, of learning and the schools, and of the defence and support of the churches. Many useful elements which meet the actual needs of the time are found scattered through the document. Stress is laid on the need of some direction and supervision of the preachers in such a way as to suggest the recognition of episcopal authority; the German episcopate is to be retained ... provided it accepts Luther’s doctrine![1543]It would in many respects be instructive to draw a parallel between the “Wittenberg Reformation” and the Catholic reformation proclaimed by the Council of Trent in the course of its successive sessions. We shall emphasise only one point. In the case of proceedings against “false doctrine” the Wittenbergers go much further than the Council in their demands for submission on the part of the individual. According to them the ecclesiastical courts (Consistories) were to lend their firm support to Luther’s own doctrine and interpretation of the Bible—for which, as a matter of fact, his name offered the sole guarantee—these courts were moreover to comprise “God-fearing men, chosen from among the laity of high standing in the Church.” The question of any deviation from the faith, was, with their assistance, “first to be examined into and then judgment pronounced in the ordinary way.” So painful a subordination of the individual to private opinions concerning faith, and so uncalled-for an introduction of the lay elementinto the spiritual courts, never entered the mind of any member of the Council.Conscious of its divine right the Council of Trent, even during Luther’s lifetime, solemnly laid the foundations of those decisions on doctrine which are now, and for ever will be, binding on the Catholic Church. It rose far above the quarrels of the day and the personal attacks on the successor of Peter and the venerable hierarchy; in what it laid down it was careful ever to preserve intact the great bond with the past.It was but a few days before Luther departed this life that the “Holy Œcumenical and General Synod legitimately called together in the Holy Ghost,” as in accordance with ancient usage it styles itself, declared in its third session, that its highest task was to oppose the heresies of the day and to reform the morals of the people. During this session, on Feb. 4, 1546, the Council renewed the creed of the Roman Church as the “basis on which all who confess the faith of Christ are agreed and as the one firm foundation against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.”As the opposing camp had the habit of constantly appealing to Holy Writ so the Council, in its next session, held after Luther’s death on April 8, 1546, solemnly declared Holy Scripture to be the “Spring of wholesome truth and discipline of morals,” though at the same time, agreeably to the ancient and uninterrupted teaching of the Church, it also included tradition: “Which truth is contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which the Apostles received from the lips of Christ ... and which, having been as it were handed down, have survived to our own day”; it, on the one hand, declared the sacred books of both Old and New Testament, the Canon of which it fixed anew, to have God for their author (“Deus auctor”) and to be worthy of equal affection and reverence; on the other, it reasserted the rights of the teaching office of the Church and of the tradition handed down from ages past, both of which Protestantism had questioned. To prevent any abuse of the Word of God, it also enacted that no member of the Church, relying on his own prudence, should, in matters of faith and morals, twist Holy Writ so as to make it mean anything else “than Holy Mother Churchheld and holds, seeing that it is hers to interpret Scripture” in accordance “with the unanimous consensus of the Fathers.” The Council’s first reforming decree also seeks to safeguard the treasure of Holy Scripture by forbidding any profanation of it or its use for superstitious purposes.After long adjournments, necessitated by the state of public affairs and after the ground had been prepared by careful study of the Bible, the Fathers and the Schoolmen, there followed, in 1546 and 1547, the weighty discussions on original sin and justification. In the final Canon on the justification of the sinner by grace (vol. iii., p. 185), the point on which all the questions raised by the innovations turned, the Synod pronounces an anathema on any man who shall declare that the Catholic doctrine it has just laid down “detracts from the glory of God or the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord, and does not rather enhance the truth of our faith and the glory of God and of Jesus Christ.” There followed resolutions concerning the sacraments in general, then, in 1551, on the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance; and finally, to pass over other points, in 1562 and 1563, the decrees on Communion, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrament of priestly ordination, and on Marriage. The 25th and last session, on Dec. 4, 1563, was devoted to the doctrine of Purgatory, of the veneration of the saints and relics, indulgences, fast-days and festivals, and also to the drawing up of various far-reaching regulations on discipline.The Synod had striven throughout to make its disciplinary decrees keep pace with its doctrinal promulgations. Thereby it provided a lasting and effectual foundation for the reform of the Church. This, taken in connection with so clear a statement of the unanimity of the Church’s teaching throughout the ages, deprived the separatists of every pretext for remaining estranged from the unity of the faith. The main point was that the Church, purified from the many abuses to which human frailty had given rise, or at least earnestly resolved to remove those still remaining, stood forth again as the city on the hill, visible afar off in her splendour and calling all to her in order to make them sharers in the hope of life. She was confident that He Who had said: “I will be with you all days, even to the consummation of the world,” had extended His protecting Hand over the assembly, and had spoken through it for the instructionof the faithful and also of the erring brethren. The infallibility of such general Councils was never questioned by any Catholic.A fresh outburst of zeal was the result, and the ancient Church soon showed that she had within her unsuspected powers for self-improvement.3. Some Sayings of Luther’s on the Council and his own Authority“They now seek to get at us under cover of a nominal Council,” says Luther, “in order to be able to shriek at us.... This is Satan’s wisdom as against the foolishness of God. How will God extricate Himself from their cunning schemes? Still, he is the Lord Who will mock at His contemners. If we are to submit to this Council we might as well have submitted twenty-five years since to the lord of the Councils, viz. the Pope and his Bulls. We shall not consent to discuss the matter until the Pope admits that the Council stands above him, and until the Council takes sides [with us] against the Pope, for even the Pope’s own conscience already reproaches him. They are mad and crazy. ‘Deo gratias.’”[1544]A series of similar utterances may be quoted.“The Papists are ashamed of themselves and stand in fear of their own conscience. Us they do not fear because, like Virgil of old, they console themselves with having already survived worse things. The paroxysm will cease suddenly.... They put to death the pious John Hus, who never departed in the least from the Papacy but only reproved moral disorders.”[1545]“For it was then not yet the time to unmask the [Roman] beast” (this having been reserved for me). “I, however, have not attacked merely the abuses but even the doctrine, and have bitten off the [Pope’s] heart. I don’t think the Pope will grow again.... The article of Justification has practically taken the shine out of the Pope’s thunderbolts.”[1546]“Our Church by the grace of God comes quite near to that of the Apostles, because we have the pure doctrine, the catechism, the sacraments and the [right] use of government, both in the State and in the home. If the Word, which alone makes the Church, stands and flourishes, then all is well. The Papists, however, who seek to erect a Church on conciliar decrees and decretals will only arouse dissensions among themselves and ‘wash thetiles’—however much they may pride themselves on their reason and wisdom.”[1547]“I must for once boast, for it is a long while since I did so last. A Council whereby the Church might be reformed has long been clamoured for. I think I have summoned such a Council as will make the ears of the Papists tingle and their heart burst with malice: for I take it, that, even should the Pope hold a General Council, he will not be able to effect so much by it. First, I have driven the Papists to their books, particularly to Scripture, and deposed the heathen Aristotle and the ‘Summists.’ ... Secondly, I have made them to be more reserved about their indulgences. Thirdly, I have almost put an end to the pilgrimages and field-devilry.” Only look, he says, at the reduction of the monasteries and the many other things which no Council could ever have achieved but which have been brought about by “our people.” Everything had been lost, the “Our Father, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, Penance, Baptism, Prayer [etc., he enumerates twenty-one similar things].” “No institution, no monastery, university or presbytery” taught even one of these articles aright; now, however, “I have set all things in order.”[1548]I can “write books as well as the Fathers and the Councils,” and this I may say “without pride.”[1549]This is because I have “exercised myself” in the Word of God by “prayer, meditation and temptations” (“oratio, meditatio, tentatio”).[1550]In my “temptation” the devil raged against me in every way, but God in a wonderful manner “kept alight His torch so that it did not go out.”[1551]Persecution overtook me “like the Apostles,” who “fared no better than their Lord and Master.”[1552]But the devil has entered into His foes the Papists, to whom, “in spite of all our good and well-meant admonitions, prayers and entreaties,”[1553]they have surrendered themselves; and rightly so, for the Papists (as I know from my own youthful experience when I did the same myself) refuse even to recognise the Gospel as a mystery.[1554]They simply make an end of all religion.But, all this notwithstanding, as the Council shall learn “I am really a defender and prop of the Pope. After my death the Pope will suffer a blow which he will be unable to withstand. Then they will say: Would that we now had Luther to give some advice; but if anyone offers advice now they refuse it; when the hour is passed God will no longer be willing.”[1555]After “God had given me that splendid victory which enabled me to get the better of my monkish vocation, the vows, masses and all the other abominations ... Pope and Emperor werealike unable to stop me.” It is true that I still have temptations to humble me, “but we remain victorious and shall conquer.”[1556]“These Italians [at Trent they were present in large numbers] are profane men and Epicureans. No Pope or cardinal for the last six hundred years has read the Bible. They understand less of the catechism than does my little daughter. May God preserve us from such blindness and leave us His divine Word.”[1557]This was the frame of mind in which Luther confronted the Council.We shall be better able to appreciate the strangeness of his attitude if we imagine Luther, attended by a few theologians of his own circle, journeying to the Council at Trent and there holding converse with the foreign prelates, as he had done at Wittenberg with the Legate Vergerio.In his wonted fashion he would not have hesitated to express plainly his views concerning his own authority. Some examples of his opinions of himself have already been given.[1558]What impression would the Wittenberger’s novel claims have made on bishops and theologians from distant lands where the Church was still in perfect peace, and where the spiritual supremacy of the hierarchy was unquestioned? With what astonishment would they have listened to those strange replies, which the Saxon had always ready in plenty, to such objections as they might have raised on the score of his disturbance of the peace of both Church and State, of the disorders within his own fold and of his own private life and that of his followers?A number of other statements taken from his writings and conversations with his intimates may help to make the picture even more vivid.“I have the Word,” we can hear him saying to the bishops in his usual vein, “that is enough for me! Were even an angel to come to me now I should not believe him.”[1559]“Whoever obtrudes his doctrine on me and refuses to yield, must inevitably be lost; for I must be right, my cause being not mine, but God’s, Whose Word it also is. Hence those who are against it must go under. Hence my unfailing defiance.... I have risked my life on it and will die for it. Therefore whoever sets himself against me must be ruined if a God exists at all.”[1560]To friend and foe I can only say: “Take in faith what Christ says to you through me; for I am not deceived, so far as I know. It is not the words of Satan that I speak. Christ speaks through me.”[1561]“Though there are many who regard my cause as diabolical and condemn it, yet I know that my word and undertaking is not of me but of God, and neither death nor persecution will teach me otherwise.”[1562]And before anyone can slip in a word of rejoinder he, again, as his way was, appeals to his personal knowledge. “I know that God together with all His angels bears me witness that I have not falsified His Word, baptism or sacrament, but have preached rightly and truthfully.”[1563]This doctrine I learnt in my “temptations,” during which “I had to ponder ever more and more deeply.” “What is lacking to the fanatics and the mob is that they have not that real foeman who is the devil; he certainly teaches a man thoroughly.”[1564]The hostility met with, particularly from false brethren, is also “God’s sure seal upon us”; by such “we have become like St. Paul, nay, like the whole Church.”[1565]The chief thing for me, however, so he continues, is conscience and conviction. “Take heed,” such is my axiom, “not to make mere play of it. If you wish to begin it, then begin it with such a clear conscience that you may defy the devil.... Be a man and do everything that goes against and vexes them [the opponents] and omit everything that might please them.”[1566]To those who ask whether his conscience did not upbraid him for breaking the peace and for overthrowing all order, he replies: It is quite true “Satan makes my conscience to prick me for having by false doctrine thrown the world into confusion and caused revolts.... But I meet him with this: The doctrine is not mine, but the Son of God’s; whole worlds are nothing to God, even should ten of them be rent by rebellion and go headlong to destruction. It is written in Holy Scripture [Mt. xvii. 5], ‘Hear ye Him’ (Christ), or everything will fall into ruins, and again [Ps. ii. 10], ‘Hearken, ye kings,’ or else ye shall perish. It was thus that Paul too had to console himself, when, in the Acts, he was accused of treason against God and Cæsar. God wills that the article of Justification shall stand, and if men accept it then no State or government will perish, but, if not, then they alone are the cause of their misfortune.”[1567]With no less confidence is he prepared to counter the otherobjections. My doctrine breeds evil? “After the proclamation of the Evangel it is true we see in the world great wickedness, ingratitude and profanation; this followed on the overthrow of Antichrist [which I brought about]; but in reality it is only, that, formerly, before the dawn of the Evangel, we did not see so plainly these sins which all were already there, but now that the morning star has risen the whole world awakens, as though from a drunken sleep, and perceives the sins which previously, while all men were asleep and sunk in the gloom of night, they had failed to recognise. But [in view of all the wickedness] I set my hopes on the Last Day being not far distant; things cannot go on for more than a hundred years; for the Word of God will again grow weaker; owing to lack of ministers of the Word darkness will arise. Then the whole world will grow savage and so lull itself into a state of security. After this the voice will resound (Mt. xxv. 6): ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ Then God will not be able to endure it any longer.”[1568]Is our own life any objection? It is no question of life but of doctrine, “and, as to the doctrine, it is indubitable that it is the Word of God. ‘The words that I speak,’ saith the Lord [John xiv. 10], ‘are not mine but the Father’s.’” Certainly “I should not like God to judge me by my life.”[1569]—“My doctrine is true and includes the forgiveness of sins, because my doctrine is not mine; Christ also says, ‘My doctrine is not Mine.’ My doctrine stands fast, be my life what it may.”[1570]“True enough, it is hard when Satan comes and upbraids us saying: You have laid violent hands on this marvellous edifice of the Papacy,” you, “a man full of error and sin.” “But Paul also, according to Rom. ix., had at times to endure similar reproaches.” “We answer: We do not attack the Pope on account of his personal errors and trespasses; we must indeed condemn them, but we will overlook them and forgive them as we ourselves wish to be forgiven. Thus it is not a question for us of the Pope’s personal faults and sins, but of his doctrine and of submission to the Word. The Pope and his followers, quite apart from their own sins, offend against the glory and the grace of God, nay, against Christ Himself, of whom the Father says: Hear ye Him. But the Pope would have men’s ears attentive only to what he says!”[1571]But, because my doctrine is true, so he concludes, this had to come about, “as I had long ago foreseen; in spite of the purity of my theology I [like Paul] was alleged to have preached ‘scandal’ to the holy Jews and ‘foolishness’ to the sapient heathen.”[1572]—Nevertheless, “whoever teaches otherwise than I have taught, or condemns me, condemns God and must remain a child of hell.”[1573]—“For the future I will not do the Papists thehonour,” of permitting them, “or even an angel from heaven, to judge of my doctrine, for we have had too much already of foolish humility.”[1574]With what wonder and perplexity at so unaccountable an attitude would the foreign bishops have listened to words such as these!4. Notable Movements of the Times accompanied by Luther with “Abuse and Defiance down to the very Grave.” The CaricaturesBrunswick, Cleves, the Schmalkalden LeaguersLuther followed with great sympathy and perturbation the warlike proceedings instituted by the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse against Duke Henry of Brunswick, whom he had himself already attacked with the pen in his “Wider Hans Worst.” They made war on the Duke in the summer of 1542, seized upon his lands and of their own initiative introduced the innovations, their troops at the same time committing unexampled excesses.Luther acclaimed the victory as a deed of God; such a proceeding could not be described as the work of man; such a success foreboded the approach of the Day of Judgment and retribution.[1575]The Imperial Chamber of Justice protested against the violent appropriation of the country by the Schmalkalden Leaguers, and, on Sep. 3, summoned the two princes and their confederates to Spires to answer for the breach of the peace committed at the expense of Duke Henry. Thereupon all the members of the League of Schmalkalden repudiated their obedience to the “wicked, dissolute, Popish rascals,” as the Landgrave Philip politely styled the Imperial Court. In this he was at one with Luther, who, in former years, had called the Imperial Chamber “a devil’s whore.”[1576]A new war of the Leaguers on Henry, who was anxious to recover his lands, was crowned in 1545 by a still more notable success on the part of the rebels, who this time contrived to take the Duke himself prisoner. When, however, Philip of Hesse, out of consideration for the Emperor,seemed inclined to set the captive free, Luther intervened with a circular letter addressed to Philip and his own Elector. He was determined to characterise any idea of setting free the “mischievous, wild tool of the Roman idol” as an open attack not merely on the Evangel, but even on the manifest will of God as displayed in the recent war which had been waged “by His angels.” Here his pseudo-mysticism is again much to the fore. The circular letter was soon printed and spread broadcast.[1577]Without any deep insight into the real state of affairs, either political or ecclesiastical, unmindful even of diplomacy, Luther seeks to work on the fears of the Protestant princes by an extravagant description of the Divine Judgments which were overtaking blasphemers, and tells them they will be sharers in the sin of others if, now that God had “broken down the bulwark” of the Papacy, they were to set it up anew.To the Papists he says: “Stop, you mad fools, Pope and Papists, and do not blow the flame that God has kindled. For it will turn against yourselves so that the sparks and cinders will fly into your eyes. Yes, indeed, this is God’s fire, Who calls Himself a consuming fire. You know and are convinced in your own conscience that your cause is wicked and lost and that you are striving against God.”[1578]He writes confidently: We on this side, without causing either Emperor or Pope “to raise a hair, have unceasingly prayed, implored, besought and clamoured for peace, as they very well know; this, however, we have never been able to obtain from them, but have had daily to endure nothing but insults, attacks and extermination.” The defensive alliance of the Catholic Princes and Estates became in his eyes a robber-league, established under pretext of religion; “what they wanted was not the Christian religion but the lands of the Elector and Landgrave.”[1579]The captive Duke had obtained help from Italy, very likely from the Pope. “In short, we all know that the Pope and the Papists would gladly see us dead, body and soul, whereas we for our part would have them all to be saved body and soul together with us.”[1580]The whole writing, with its combination of rage and mysticism, and likewise much else dating from thatperiod, may well raise grave doubts as to the state of the author’s mind.The inroad into Brunswick was merely a preliminary to the religious wars soon to break out and ravage Germany. No sooner had Luther closed his eyes in death than they began on a larger scale with the Schmalkalden War, which was to prove so disastrous to the Protestants. His words just quoted to the princes of his party were repeated almost word for word in the Protestant manifestos during the religious wars.It is possible that he may have been roused to make such attacks on the Catholics by certain disagreeable events which occurred from 1541 onwards. Political steps were being taken which were unfavourable to Lutheranism and not at all adequately balanced by the Protestants’ victory in Brunswick and elsewhere.Luther was made painfully aware of the unexpected weakening of the League of Schmalkalden which resulted from the bigamy of Landgrave Philip of Hesse. By virtue of a secret compact with the Emperor, into which Philip of Hesse had found himself forced (June 13, 1541),[1581]the latter, in his position of head of the German Protestants, had bound himself not to consent that Duke William of Cleves, who inclined to Protestantism, should be admitted into the Schmalkalden League; he had also to refuse any assistance to the Duke when the Emperor Charles V took the field against him on account of the union of Guelders with Cleves. The progress of Protestantism in these districts was checked by the Emperor’s victory in 1543. The formal introduction of the new faith into Metz was frustrated by the Emperor; at Cologne too the Reformers saw all their efforts brought to naught.The Diet of Spires, in 1544, it is true brought the Protestants an extension of that peace which was so favourable to their interests, but the campaign which Charles V thereupon undertook against François I—whom Philip of Hesse and the Schmalkaldeners were compelled by the above-mentioned compact to leave on the lurch—led to the humiliation of the Frenchman, who was compelled to make peace at Crespy on Sep. 14, 1544. There the King of Francepromised the Emperor never again to side with the German Protestants.Luther was also troubled by the dissensions within the League of Schmalkalden, by the refusal of Joachim II of Brandenburg, of Louis, Elector of the Palatinate, and especially of Duke Maurice of Saxony to join the League; the last sovereign’s intimate relations with the Emperor were also a source of anxiety. At Wittenberg it was clearly seen what danger threatened Lutheranism should the Imperial power gather strength and intervene on behalf of the Roman Church.The Roman Church, so Luther exclaims fretfully in his “Kurtz Bekentnis” (1545), is made up of “nothing but Epicureans and scoffers at the Christian faith.” The Pope, “the greatest foe of Christ and the real Antichrist, has made himself head of Christendom, nay, the very hind-piece and bottom-hole of the devil through which so many abominations of Masses, monkery and immorality are cacked into the world.”[1582]The Zwinglian “Sacramentarians”One controversy which greatly excited Luther at this time was that with the Swiss Sacramentarians. Once more his old feud with Zwinglianism was to break out and embitter his days. When, in 1542, the elevation was abolished in the parish church of Wittenberg (to some extent out of deference to the wishes of the Landgrave of Hesse who objected to this rite), some people too hastily concluded that Luther was renouncing his own doctrine in favour of that of the Swiss; hence he deemed it necessary once more to deny, in language too clear to be mistaken, any intention to make common cause with a company, which, as he puts it, had been “infected and intoxicated with an alien spirit.”Moreover, Caspar Schwenckfeld, with the object of moving the feelings of Luther’s opponents, made known to them Luther’s rude and so discreditable letter.[1583]The animosity of the Swiss and of their South German sympathisers now assumed serious dimensions. Luther accordingly determined to address the reply which he had beenplanning for some time to the Sacramentarians as a body, declaring that that “slanderer” Schwenckfeld was not worth a single line.

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT IS CONVOKED, 1542. LUTHER’S POLEMICS AT THEIR HIGHEST TENSION

Atthe meeting held in 1537 by the protesting Princes and Estates at Schmalkalden the General Council, which had been suggested as a means of bringing about a settlement and of establishing religious peace, was most outspokenly rejected, and that in a way very insulting to Rome.[1514]In its blunt refusal the assembly was more logical than Luther and his theologians, who as yet were averse to an absolute repudiation of the Council. The hatred of the Pope which Luther himself had been so earnest in inculcating at Schmalkalden caused those with whom the decision rested to overlook certain considerations of prudence and diplomacy.

If Luther opposed a thoroughgoing rejection of the Council it was not because he had the slightest intention of accepting any Council that did not at once declare in his favour. He knew very well that under the conditions on which he insisted there could be no question of a real Council as the Church had always understood it. The real motive for his hesitation was that, for him and his followers, it was a delicate matter, in view of the attitude they had previously adopted on this question, to oppose too abruptly the idea of a Council. He foresaw that the Catholic Imperialists would overwhelm the Protestants with most righteous and bitter reproaches for now turning their backs upon the Council after having at one time been loudest in their demands for it, and outdone themselves in complaints and murmurs on account of its postponement. What impression would the attitude of the protesting Princes make on the Emperor, who was now full of plans for the Council? Andwould not many be scared away who were still halting at the parting of the ways and were inclined to delay their decision until the looked-for Council? “The Papists assert that we are so reprobate,” wrote Luther, “that we refuse to listen to anybody, whether Pope, Church, Emperor, or Empire, or even the Council which we had so often called for.”[1515]Such considerations, however, were not strong enough to prevent him at once lending the whole weight of his voice in support of the resolution arrived at by the Schmalkalden Leaguers.

After so offensive a rejection of any further attempts at reunion, the armed conflict with the Emperor which had so long been threatening now seemed bound to come. Luther, putting all subterfuge aside, looked this contingency boldly in the face. In a memorandum to his Elector dating from the end of January, 1539, he expressed himself even more strongly than before in favour of the right of armed resistance to the Emperor and the Empire; should the former have recourse to violent measures against the Evangel, then there would be no difference between the Emperor and a hired assassin; if the overlord attempts to impose on his subjects blasphemy and idolatry, he must expect to meet with bloody resistance on the part of those attacked.[1516]

While negotiations on which hung war or peace were in progress at Frankfurt, and while, in consequence of this, the question of the Council receded once more into the background, Luther was putting the finishing touch to his “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen,” which appeared in the spring of 1539.[1517]In spite of being weak and unwell his powers of work seemed inexhaustible; his own troubles and worries were all forgotten when it was a question of entering the lists as the leader of the movement. The work was intended to forestall the Œcumenical Council should it ever become an accomplished fact, and to frustrate as far as possible its harmful effects on himself. In it with the utmost audacity the author pits his own authority against that of the highest secular and ecclesiastical powers; his tone is at once so self-confident and so coarse that here again it provides the psychologist with an enigma.

With his projected Council, so he says at the commencement, the Pope in reality only wanted to deal the Emperor and all Christians “a blow on the snout.” He held out the Council to them just as, in playing with a dog, we offer him a morsel on the point of a knife, and, when he snaps at it, we hit him with the handle. He declares roundly that, “the Papists would not and could not hold a Council unless indeed they first took captive the Emperor, the kings and all the princes.”[1518]If the Emperor and the Princes wished “reprobates to slap their cheeks,” then let them continue to debate about the Council. The alleged impossibility of the Council he proclaims still more rudely, asserting that, the Papists being what they are, the whole world must despair of any amelioration of the Church: “They would rather leave Christendom to perish, and have the devil himself for their God and Lord, than accept Christ and give up even one jot of their idolatry.” Hence we must look for reformation from Christ our Lord, “and let them fare devilwards as they are bent on doing.”[1519]He then goes on to explain that amendment was impossible on the olden principles of the Fathers and canons, but could come about only by means of Holy Scripture; the Fathers and canons were not at one; even the first four Œcumenical Councils—the history of which he treats summarily though with little real historical knowledge—had only been able to ratify the belief laid down in Scripture; for faith a surer and more stable foundation was necessary than that of ecclesiastical Councils ever subject to make mistakes. At the same time he has nothing but scorn for the claims of the ancient and universal Church to be the permanent infallible teacher on matters of faith; he has no eye for her divinely guaranteed power as it had been exemplified in the General Councils, so solemnly representing the Churches of the whole world. On the other hand, his own pretensions are far above question. He knows, so he asserts, much more about the ancient Councils than all the Papists in a lump. He could instruct the Council, should one actually be summoned, on its procedure and its standards. It has, according to him, no power in the Church save to reject new errors which do not agree with Scripture (as though a Council had ever adopted any other course). Even the office of a clergyman or schoolmaster may, he says, be compared with that of the Councils in so far as, within their own small sphere, they judge human opinions and human rules by the standard of the Word of God, and seek to oppose the devil. But just as, in the case of these, he cannot guarantee that they will always read Holy Scripture aright, so also in the case of the Councils.If, however, such a solemn Council was convened—and such a thing might conceivably be of some use—then the first requirement, so he declares with surprising frankness, was “that, in the Council, the Pope should not merely lay aside his tyranny of human law, but also hold with us.... The Emperor and thekings must also help in this and compel the Pope should he refuse.”[1520]This he wrote for the disabusal of the infatuated, for at that time, strange to say, some Germans of the greatest influence still fancied it possible to pave the way for a reconciliation by means of negotiations and religious conferences, and were anxious to leave the Lutheran question in suspense until a General Council should meet. Luther further demands, that “the thoroughly learned in Holy Scripture ... and a few prudent and well-disposed laymen ... should also be invited to the Council. Then the abominations of the Pope would speedily be condemned.”He adds: “Yes, you will say, but of such a Council there is no hope. That is what I think too.”[1521]He is ready, however, to be content with a Provincial Council of the same sort held in Germany, and expresses the strange hope, that “the other monarchs would in time approve and accept the decisions of such a Council.” With this reference to the Provincial Council he is dallying with a proposal made by some short-sighted imperial advisers, viz. that a “free, German Council” should attempt to settle the controversy.The author then proceeds to set forth his jumbled theories on the “Church” and finally brings the lengthy work to a conclusion with a protestation that his doctrine forms the very pillars on which the Church rests: “Whoever teaches differently, even were he an angel from heaven, let him be anathema” (Gal. i. 8). “We are determined to be the Pope’s master and to tread him under foot, as Psalm xci.[13] says: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.”[1522]

With his projected Council, so he says at the commencement, the Pope in reality only wanted to deal the Emperor and all Christians “a blow on the snout.” He held out the Council to them just as, in playing with a dog, we offer him a morsel on the point of a knife, and, when he snaps at it, we hit him with the handle. He declares roundly that, “the Papists would not and could not hold a Council unless indeed they first took captive the Emperor, the kings and all the princes.”[1518]If the Emperor and the Princes wished “reprobates to slap their cheeks,” then let them continue to debate about the Council. The alleged impossibility of the Council he proclaims still more rudely, asserting that, the Papists being what they are, the whole world must despair of any amelioration of the Church: “They would rather leave Christendom to perish, and have the devil himself for their God and Lord, than accept Christ and give up even one jot of their idolatry.” Hence we must look for reformation from Christ our Lord, “and let them fare devilwards as they are bent on doing.”[1519]

He then goes on to explain that amendment was impossible on the olden principles of the Fathers and canons, but could come about only by means of Holy Scripture; the Fathers and canons were not at one; even the first four Œcumenical Councils—the history of which he treats summarily though with little real historical knowledge—had only been able to ratify the belief laid down in Scripture; for faith a surer and more stable foundation was necessary than that of ecclesiastical Councils ever subject to make mistakes. At the same time he has nothing but scorn for the claims of the ancient and universal Church to be the permanent infallible teacher on matters of faith; he has no eye for her divinely guaranteed power as it had been exemplified in the General Councils, so solemnly representing the Churches of the whole world. On the other hand, his own pretensions are far above question. He knows, so he asserts, much more about the ancient Councils than all the Papists in a lump. He could instruct the Council, should one actually be summoned, on its procedure and its standards. It has, according to him, no power in the Church save to reject new errors which do not agree with Scripture (as though a Council had ever adopted any other course). Even the office of a clergyman or schoolmaster may, he says, be compared with that of the Councils in so far as, within their own small sphere, they judge human opinions and human rules by the standard of the Word of God, and seek to oppose the devil. But just as, in the case of these, he cannot guarantee that they will always read Holy Scripture aright, so also in the case of the Councils.

If, however, such a solemn Council was convened—and such a thing might conceivably be of some use—then the first requirement, so he declares with surprising frankness, was “that, in the Council, the Pope should not merely lay aside his tyranny of human law, but also hold with us.... The Emperor and thekings must also help in this and compel the Pope should he refuse.”[1520]This he wrote for the disabusal of the infatuated, for at that time, strange to say, some Germans of the greatest influence still fancied it possible to pave the way for a reconciliation by means of negotiations and religious conferences, and were anxious to leave the Lutheran question in suspense until a General Council should meet. Luther further demands, that “the thoroughly learned in Holy Scripture ... and a few prudent and well-disposed laymen ... should also be invited to the Council. Then the abominations of the Pope would speedily be condemned.”

He adds: “Yes, you will say, but of such a Council there is no hope. That is what I think too.”[1521]

He is ready, however, to be content with a Provincial Council of the same sort held in Germany, and expresses the strange hope, that “the other monarchs would in time approve and accept the decisions of such a Council.” With this reference to the Provincial Council he is dallying with a proposal made by some short-sighted imperial advisers, viz. that a “free, German Council” should attempt to settle the controversy.

The author then proceeds to set forth his jumbled theories on the “Church” and finally brings the lengthy work to a conclusion with a protestation that his doctrine forms the very pillars on which the Church rests: “Whoever teaches differently, even were he an angel from heaven, let him be anathema” (Gal. i. 8). “We are determined to be the Pope’s master and to tread him under foot, as Psalm xci.[13] says: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.”[1522]

In many parts of the “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen” Luther is inclined to repeat himself, whilst the style exhibits a certain dreariness and monotony often met with in this class of Luther’s productions, at least when the ardour of his polemics begins to fail, or when his object in view is not popular instruction and edification. He himself on its completion wrote of it to Melanchthon who was attending the meeting at Frankfurt: “The book sadly vexes me, I find it weak and wordy.”[1523]At any rate with many who lacked any real discernment it no doubt served to cover Luther’s and his friends’ retreat from a position they had so long and persistently defended, viz. that a Council was the chief thing called for.

The fruitless meetings of Frankfurt and Hagenau and the equally fruitless conferences of Worms and Ratisbon werefollowed, in 1541, by the Ratisbon Interim. This, as might have been foreseen, satisfied neither party. As for the Council it had been repeatedly postponed by Paul III on account of the embroilments between the Emperor and France and the opposition of the Protestants.

At last, on May 22, 1542, the Pope convened a General Synod to begin in the town of Trent on Nov. 1 of that same year. The head on earth of the Catholic Church, in the Bull summoning the Council, spoke of the political obstacles now at last happily removed. The aim of the assembly was to be to debate, and by the light of divine wisdom and truth, settle on such steps “as might appear effective for the safeguarding of the purity and truth of the Christian religion, for the restoration of good morals and the amendment of the bad, for the establishing of peace, harmony and concord among Christians, both rulers and ruled, and lastly for opposing the inroads of the unbelievers [the Turks].” The Pope most earnestly implores the Emperor and the other Christian monarchs “by the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose faith and religion are being most violently assailed both from within and from without,” not to forsake God’s cause but by active co-operation to support it in every way.

The grand project of a Council was, however, further delayed by the war which suddenly broke out between Charles V and France. Only on Dec. 13, 1545, could the first session be held at Trent. It was then indeed high time, for the Emperor Charles V, in the hope of securing a united front against the French, had shown himself much too disposed to yield to the German Protestants, as is evident from the Reichsabschied of Spires in 1544.

As to Luther: up to the very last moment he scoffed at the efforts of Rome, as though her proposals for reform were all mere sham. Under this cloak of contempt he concealed his real annoyance at the opening of the Council.

As soon as the new Bull of Convocation for 1545 appeared he wrote to his old friend, Wenceslaus Link: “I have seen the Pope’s writing and the Bull convening the Council to Trent for Lætare Sunday. May Christ laugh last at the reprobates who laugh at Him. Amen.”[1524]A few days later he said in a letter to his confidant, Justus Jonas: “To believe the Pope’s promises would be like placing faith in the father of lies whose own darlingson he is.”[1525]—“The Pope is mad and foolish from top to toe,” so he informs his Elector.[1526]A “Feast of Fools”[1527]is the only fit word with which he can describe the assembly of the ablest and most learned men in the Church, who came from every land, honourably intent on bringing peace to Christians and gaining a victory for truth. Luther had not the slightest doubt where the real well-spring of truth undefiled was to be found; on the same day that he wrote to his Elector the words just quoted, in a letter to Nicholas Amsdorf, the “true and genuine bishop of the Church of Naumburg,” as he styles him, he says: “I glory in the fact that this at least is certain: The Son of God is seated at the right hand of the Father and by His Spirit speaks most sweetly to us here below, just as He spoke to the Apostles; we, however, are His disciples and hear the Word from His lips. Praise be to God Who has chosen us unworthy sinners to be thus honoured by His Son and has permitted us to hearken to His Majesty through the Word of the Evangel. The angels and the whole of God’s creation wish us luck; but the Pope, Satan’s own monster, grieves and is affrighted, and all the gates of hell shake. Let us rejoice in the Lord. For them the Day approaches and the end. I have in mind another book against Popery, but the state of my head and my endless correspondence hinders me. Yet with God’s help I shall set about it shortly.”[1528]What he is thinking of is a continuation—which death prevented him from carrying out—of a new book with which we must now deal.

As soon as the new Bull of Convocation for 1545 appeared he wrote to his old friend, Wenceslaus Link: “I have seen the Pope’s writing and the Bull convening the Council to Trent for Lætare Sunday. May Christ laugh last at the reprobates who laugh at Him. Amen.”[1524]A few days later he said in a letter to his confidant, Justus Jonas: “To believe the Pope’s promises would be like placing faith in the father of lies whose own darlingson he is.”[1525]—“The Pope is mad and foolish from top to toe,” so he informs his Elector.[1526]A “Feast of Fools”[1527]is the only fit word with which he can describe the assembly of the ablest and most learned men in the Church, who came from every land, honourably intent on bringing peace to Christians and gaining a victory for truth. Luther had not the slightest doubt where the real well-spring of truth undefiled was to be found; on the same day that he wrote to his Elector the words just quoted, in a letter to Nicholas Amsdorf, the “true and genuine bishop of the Church of Naumburg,” as he styles him, he says: “I glory in the fact that this at least is certain: The Son of God is seated at the right hand of the Father and by His Spirit speaks most sweetly to us here below, just as He spoke to the Apostles; we, however, are His disciples and hear the Word from His lips. Praise be to God Who has chosen us unworthy sinners to be thus honoured by His Son and has permitted us to hearken to His Majesty through the Word of the Evangel. The angels and the whole of God’s creation wish us luck; but the Pope, Satan’s own monster, grieves and is affrighted, and all the gates of hell shake. Let us rejoice in the Lord. For them the Day approaches and the end. I have in mind another book against Popery, but the state of my head and my endless correspondence hinders me. Yet with God’s help I shall set about it shortly.”[1528]What he is thinking of is a continuation—which death prevented him from carrying out—of a new book with which we must now deal.

Luther’s anger against the Papacy had been kindled into a glowing flame by the sight of the unity displayed by the Catholic Church in view of the Council. It seemed incredible to him that the old body which he had pronounced dead should again sit in Council and prepare to infuse new life into itself, to revive ecclesiastical discipline and to condemn the Church he himself had founded. His soreness at such a consolidation of Catholicism he relieved by a sort of last effort in his book “Against the Roman Papacy founded by the devil.”[1529]

It was only his broken health, a foretoken of approaching death, and his many cares that prevented his following it up as he had threatened in his letter to Amsdorf just quoted. As he says there, he only hopes that God will give him“bodily strength and ghostly energy enough” to enable him, “like Samson of old, to wreak one act of vengeance on these Philistines.” The simile is truly a horrible one; the unhappy man, broken down from the effects of a life of tireless labour and endless excitement, still burns with the desire once more to shake the pillars of the ancient Church so as to bury all faithful Catholics beneath her ruins. As to what would be his, the blind Samson’s, fate beneath the ruins he does not consider as seriously as the true members of the ancient Church would have wished him to do.

The occasion of the book was the following. Pope Paul III had sent to the Emperor two briefs in quick succession to dissuade him from making perilous concessions to the Protestants, and, in particular, in the interests of the Œcumenical Council, to oppose the project of holding a German National Council. Luther received from two different quarters an invitation to write against the supposed interference of the Pope. His Elector, through Chancellor Brück, requested, “that the said Martin may deal with the Pope’s writing, particularly as the formal announcement of the Council is now to hand; for we have no doubt that he is well able to do this. The same might then be printed and launched into the public.”[1530]Another invitation to the same effect, supported by information to be used against the Pope, reached Luther indirectly from the Imperial chancery itself through the intermediary of Nicholas Perrenoti, a councillor; some of the officials seem to have been anxious to avenge themselves on Paul III for crossing their plans.[1531]

The work was published on March 26, 1545. As early as April 13, Marsupino, Secretary to King Ferdinand, was able to present a copy to the Papal Legates at the Council of Trent. Justice Jonas at once brought out a Latin translation entitled “Contra papatum romanum a diabolo inventum.” Thus at the very time the General Council made its bow before the world, Luther’s attack was brought to the notice of educated readers of all nations. No great harm was done to Catholic interests by Luther’s hanging up the drastic picture of himself, depicted in this scurrilous writing, as a warningto the whole world; humanistic culture and the grand classic idiom had, however, scarcely ever before suffered such degradation as in the Latin rendering of this foul book.

The first and chief part of the work was to prove, that it was both wrong and presumptuous for the Popes to style themselves heads of Christendom, and that it was the devil alone who had put such a notion into their heads. In the second part it is demonstrated that in particular the claim made by the Popes that no one had the right to judge or to depose them was of fiendish origin. Finally, in the third, it is shown that the alleged handing over of the Roman Empire by the Greeks to the Germans through the instrumentality of the Popes was also a mere hellish lie.

Sincere admirers of Luther read with amazement this book, which, for all its ferocity, is so reminiscent of the gutter. Some, even of his followers, again openly expressed the opinion that by it he had harmed himself more than any foe could have done—so unmeasured are his words and so utterly crazy the things he propounds. At times the pages seem to have been written in nothing short of a paroxysm of hate, and can only be understood by bearing in mind the author’s frightful state of inward turmoil.

The very first words give us a glimpse of what is to come: “The most hellish Father, St. Paulus Tertius, as though he were Bishop of the Roman Churches, has written two briefs to Carolus Quintus, our Lord Emperor.... He has also, to speak by permission, issued a Bull almost for the fifth time, and now once more the Council is to meet at Trent; no one, however, may attend it but only his own brew, the Epicureans and those who please him.” Luther proceeds to ask whether this can really be a Council, which is ruled by the “gruesome abomination at Rome, who styles himself Pope,” and not rather some “puppet-show got up during the Carnival to tickle the Pope’s fancy.”The fury of the writer increases as he proceeds and he goes on to make the following demands: “Now let Emperor, kings, princes, lords and whoever can, set the axe to the root, and may God give no luck to hands that hang idle. First of all let them take from the Pope, Rome, Romandiol, Urbino, Bononia and all that he holds as Pope.... He won them by blasphemy and idolatry, and has laid waste the kingdom of Christ, wherefore he is termed the abomination of desolation [Mt. xxiv. 15]. After this the Pope himself, the Cardinals and the whole scoundrely train of his idolatrous Popish Holiness should be seized, and, as blasphemers, have their tongues torn from their throats and nailed in a row on the gallows-tree, in like manner as they affix their seals in a row to their Bulls; though even this would be but slight punishmentfor all their blasphemy and idolatry. After this let them hold as many Councils as they please on the gallows, or in hell with all the demons.... They are criminal, shameless, obstinate creatures.”[1532]The gloomy fancy that inspires his furious pen has, however, another kind of death in readiness for such opponents. “Were I Emperor I know full well what I should do: I would couple together all the blasphemous knaves, Pope, Cardinals and all the Popish crew, bind them and take them down to Ostia where there is a little stretch of water called in Latin the Mare Tyrrhenum.... Into it I would drop the lot and give them a good bath, along with the keys with which they bind and loose everything.... They might also take their pastoral staves so as to be able to smite the face of the waters.... And, lastly, as refreshing fodder and drink, they might have all the decrees, decretals, bulls, indulgences, etc. What do you wager that after half an hour in this healing bath all their diseases would cease?... On it I would risk Christ our Lord.”[1533]“The Pope,” so he exclaims on the same page, “is the head of the accursed Churches of all the worst knaves upon earth, a Vicar of the devil, a foe of God, an adversary of Christ and a destroyer of His Churches, a teacher of all lies, blasphemy and idolatry, an arch-church-thief and robber of the Church’s keys, a murderer of kings and an inciter to all kinds of bloodshed, a whoremonger above all whoremongers and the author of every kind of immorality, even of that which may not be mentioned, an antichrist, a man of sin, a child of destruction, a real werewolf. Whoever refuses to believe this, let him fare away with his God, the Pope.”[1534]“As an elect teacher and preacher to the Churches of Christ bound to speak the truth, I have herewith done my part. He who is set on stinking may go on stinking.... Let a Church be where it may throughout the world it can have no other Gospel ... than we have here in our Churches at Wittenberg.”[1535]As to how high Luther as a preacher and man of learning set himself and his Church above the Pope and his, we can see from what follows: “The whole Roman mob is nothing else but a stable full of great, rude, loutish, shameless donkeys, who know nothing of Holy Scripture, or of God, or of Christ, or what a bishop is, what God’s Word, or the Spirit, or baptism is, or what are sacraments, the keys and good works.... I, Dr. Martin, am still living, and having been brought up in the Pope’s school and donkey’s stable became a Doctor of Theology, and was even accounted a good and learned Doctor, which I assuredly was, so that I can truly testify how deep, and high, and broad, and long is their skill in Holy Scripture.”[1536]—And lest someone should object: “Have you any right to judge?” he replies lightheartedly: “It is enough for us to know that the Pope-Ass has been condemned by God Himself and all the angels.” “Wecannot be heretics, for we have believed and confessed the Scriptures.”[1537]An earlier saying of his to the effect that: “I am carried away and know not by what spirit” (“rapior nescio quo spiritu”), comes before the mind of the reader when Luther describes yet a third form of death for the Pope and his courtiers. He would fain see him, the Cardinals and the whole court, dealt with according “to fox-law, their hides being dragged over their heads, that they may thus be taught to pay with their skins; after this the hides may be thrown into the healing bath of Ostia, or into the fire.” “See and behold,” he exclaims, “how my blood boils! How it longs to see the Papacy punished though my spirit is well aware that no temporal penalty can make amends, even for one single Bull or decree!”[1538]Luther’s defenders have, strange to say, thought it necessary to lay stress on the fact that these three proposals cannot have been seriously meant.[1539]Everyone will admit that they are not a settled plan, for the carrying out of one would have rendered the others difficult or unfeasible. But does this fact modify in any way the revolting character of these words or cancel the invitation to make use of violence? It would be better to argue, that, owing to his fanatism about which only a pathologist can judge, he was not fully aware of what he was doing.—Some Catholics have suggested that the abnormal virulence of many pages of this book was due to the excitement caused by intoxicating liquors. Of this unfortunately there is no proof. That the reason for his horrible language must be sought rather in mental overstrain, in the preponderance just then of an abnormal side of his spiritual life, seems fairly clear also from the other quotations from this work which we were obliged to adduce elsewhere.[1540]

The very first words give us a glimpse of what is to come: “The most hellish Father, St. Paulus Tertius, as though he were Bishop of the Roman Churches, has written two briefs to Carolus Quintus, our Lord Emperor.... He has also, to speak by permission, issued a Bull almost for the fifth time, and now once more the Council is to meet at Trent; no one, however, may attend it but only his own brew, the Epicureans and those who please him.” Luther proceeds to ask whether this can really be a Council, which is ruled by the “gruesome abomination at Rome, who styles himself Pope,” and not rather some “puppet-show got up during the Carnival to tickle the Pope’s fancy.”

The fury of the writer increases as he proceeds and he goes on to make the following demands: “Now let Emperor, kings, princes, lords and whoever can, set the axe to the root, and may God give no luck to hands that hang idle. First of all let them take from the Pope, Rome, Romandiol, Urbino, Bononia and all that he holds as Pope.... He won them by blasphemy and idolatry, and has laid waste the kingdom of Christ, wherefore he is termed the abomination of desolation [Mt. xxiv. 15]. After this the Pope himself, the Cardinals and the whole scoundrely train of his idolatrous Popish Holiness should be seized, and, as blasphemers, have their tongues torn from their throats and nailed in a row on the gallows-tree, in like manner as they affix their seals in a row to their Bulls; though even this would be but slight punishmentfor all their blasphemy and idolatry. After this let them hold as many Councils as they please on the gallows, or in hell with all the demons.... They are criminal, shameless, obstinate creatures.”[1532]

The gloomy fancy that inspires his furious pen has, however, another kind of death in readiness for such opponents. “Were I Emperor I know full well what I should do: I would couple together all the blasphemous knaves, Pope, Cardinals and all the Popish crew, bind them and take them down to Ostia where there is a little stretch of water called in Latin the Mare Tyrrhenum.... Into it I would drop the lot and give them a good bath, along with the keys with which they bind and loose everything.... They might also take their pastoral staves so as to be able to smite the face of the waters.... And, lastly, as refreshing fodder and drink, they might have all the decrees, decretals, bulls, indulgences, etc. What do you wager that after half an hour in this healing bath all their diseases would cease?... On it I would risk Christ our Lord.”[1533]

“The Pope,” so he exclaims on the same page, “is the head of the accursed Churches of all the worst knaves upon earth, a Vicar of the devil, a foe of God, an adversary of Christ and a destroyer of His Churches, a teacher of all lies, blasphemy and idolatry, an arch-church-thief and robber of the Church’s keys, a murderer of kings and an inciter to all kinds of bloodshed, a whoremonger above all whoremongers and the author of every kind of immorality, even of that which may not be mentioned, an antichrist, a man of sin, a child of destruction, a real werewolf. Whoever refuses to believe this, let him fare away with his God, the Pope.”[1534]

“As an elect teacher and preacher to the Churches of Christ bound to speak the truth, I have herewith done my part. He who is set on stinking may go on stinking.... Let a Church be where it may throughout the world it can have no other Gospel ... than we have here in our Churches at Wittenberg.”[1535]

As to how high Luther as a preacher and man of learning set himself and his Church above the Pope and his, we can see from what follows: “The whole Roman mob is nothing else but a stable full of great, rude, loutish, shameless donkeys, who know nothing of Holy Scripture, or of God, or of Christ, or what a bishop is, what God’s Word, or the Spirit, or baptism is, or what are sacraments, the keys and good works.... I, Dr. Martin, am still living, and having been brought up in the Pope’s school and donkey’s stable became a Doctor of Theology, and was even accounted a good and learned Doctor, which I assuredly was, so that I can truly testify how deep, and high, and broad, and long is their skill in Holy Scripture.”[1536]—And lest someone should object: “Have you any right to judge?” he replies lightheartedly: “It is enough for us to know that the Pope-Ass has been condemned by God Himself and all the angels.” “Wecannot be heretics, for we have believed and confessed the Scriptures.”[1537]

An earlier saying of his to the effect that: “I am carried away and know not by what spirit” (“rapior nescio quo spiritu”), comes before the mind of the reader when Luther describes yet a third form of death for the Pope and his courtiers. He would fain see him, the Cardinals and the whole court, dealt with according “to fox-law, their hides being dragged over their heads, that they may thus be taught to pay with their skins; after this the hides may be thrown into the healing bath of Ostia, or into the fire.” “See and behold,” he exclaims, “how my blood boils! How it longs to see the Papacy punished though my spirit is well aware that no temporal penalty can make amends, even for one single Bull or decree!”[1538]

Luther’s defenders have, strange to say, thought it necessary to lay stress on the fact that these three proposals cannot have been seriously meant.[1539]Everyone will admit that they are not a settled plan, for the carrying out of one would have rendered the others difficult or unfeasible. But does this fact modify in any way the revolting character of these words or cancel the invitation to make use of violence? It would be better to argue, that, owing to his fanatism about which only a pathologist can judge, he was not fully aware of what he was doing.—Some Catholics have suggested that the abnormal virulence of many pages of this book was due to the excitement caused by intoxicating liquors. Of this unfortunately there is no proof. That the reason for his horrible language must be sought rather in mental overstrain, in the preponderance just then of an abnormal side of his spiritual life, seems fairly clear also from the other quotations from this work which we were obliged to adduce elsewhere.[1540]

Some time before the work in question was written, Brück, the Chancellor, had written to the Elector that, if the Council convened by the Pope “were to resume and continue its knavery” it would be necessary for Luther “to put the axe to the root of the tree, which by the Grace of God he is better able to do than other men”; this he wrote on Jan. 20, 1545.[1541]

At that same time a calmer scene was being enacted in Saxony. On Jan. 14, the Wittenberg theologians, headed by Luther, presented to the Elector the so-called Wittenberg Reformation, drawn up at the sovereign’s request. This work had a close connection with the Œcumenical Council. It is true it was merely written in view of the approaching negotiations at the Diet, to facilitate one of those “religiouscompromises” which had now become so common. It was, however, at the same time, so to speak, a theological manifesto of the Protestants called forth by the Council. Hence it had been drawn up by Melanchthon (and not by Luther) in terms cautious and moderate. “The theologians,” wrote Brück, “have drawn up their ‘Reformation’ very courteously, nor is there any trace of Dr. Martin’s boisterousness” in it.[1542]

The “Reformation” treats successively of “doctrine true and undefiled,” which it asserts is to be found in the Confession of Augsburg, “of the right use of the sacraments,” of the preaching office and episcopal government, of the ecclesiastical courts and spiritual jurisdiction, of learning and the schools, and of the defence and support of the churches. Many useful elements which meet the actual needs of the time are found scattered through the document. Stress is laid on the need of some direction and supervision of the preachers in such a way as to suggest the recognition of episcopal authority; the German episcopate is to be retained ... provided it accepts Luther’s doctrine![1543]

It would in many respects be instructive to draw a parallel between the “Wittenberg Reformation” and the Catholic reformation proclaimed by the Council of Trent in the course of its successive sessions. We shall emphasise only one point. In the case of proceedings against “false doctrine” the Wittenbergers go much further than the Council in their demands for submission on the part of the individual. According to them the ecclesiastical courts (Consistories) were to lend their firm support to Luther’s own doctrine and interpretation of the Bible—for which, as a matter of fact, his name offered the sole guarantee—these courts were moreover to comprise “God-fearing men, chosen from among the laity of high standing in the Church.” The question of any deviation from the faith, was, with their assistance, “first to be examined into and then judgment pronounced in the ordinary way.” So painful a subordination of the individual to private opinions concerning faith, and so uncalled-for an introduction of the lay elementinto the spiritual courts, never entered the mind of any member of the Council.

Conscious of its divine right the Council of Trent, even during Luther’s lifetime, solemnly laid the foundations of those decisions on doctrine which are now, and for ever will be, binding on the Catholic Church. It rose far above the quarrels of the day and the personal attacks on the successor of Peter and the venerable hierarchy; in what it laid down it was careful ever to preserve intact the great bond with the past.

It was but a few days before Luther departed this life that the “Holy Œcumenical and General Synod legitimately called together in the Holy Ghost,” as in accordance with ancient usage it styles itself, declared in its third session, that its highest task was to oppose the heresies of the day and to reform the morals of the people. During this session, on Feb. 4, 1546, the Council renewed the creed of the Roman Church as the “basis on which all who confess the faith of Christ are agreed and as the one firm foundation against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.”

As the opposing camp had the habit of constantly appealing to Holy Writ so the Council, in its next session, held after Luther’s death on April 8, 1546, solemnly declared Holy Scripture to be the “Spring of wholesome truth and discipline of morals,” though at the same time, agreeably to the ancient and uninterrupted teaching of the Church, it also included tradition: “Which truth is contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which the Apostles received from the lips of Christ ... and which, having been as it were handed down, have survived to our own day”; it, on the one hand, declared the sacred books of both Old and New Testament, the Canon of which it fixed anew, to have God for their author (“Deus auctor”) and to be worthy of equal affection and reverence; on the other, it reasserted the rights of the teaching office of the Church and of the tradition handed down from ages past, both of which Protestantism had questioned. To prevent any abuse of the Word of God, it also enacted that no member of the Church, relying on his own prudence, should, in matters of faith and morals, twist Holy Writ so as to make it mean anything else “than Holy Mother Churchheld and holds, seeing that it is hers to interpret Scripture” in accordance “with the unanimous consensus of the Fathers.” The Council’s first reforming decree also seeks to safeguard the treasure of Holy Scripture by forbidding any profanation of it or its use for superstitious purposes.

After long adjournments, necessitated by the state of public affairs and after the ground had been prepared by careful study of the Bible, the Fathers and the Schoolmen, there followed, in 1546 and 1547, the weighty discussions on original sin and justification. In the final Canon on the justification of the sinner by grace (vol. iii., p. 185), the point on which all the questions raised by the innovations turned, the Synod pronounces an anathema on any man who shall declare that the Catholic doctrine it has just laid down “detracts from the glory of God or the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord, and does not rather enhance the truth of our faith and the glory of God and of Jesus Christ.” There followed resolutions concerning the sacraments in general, then, in 1551, on the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance; and finally, to pass over other points, in 1562 and 1563, the decrees on Communion, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrament of priestly ordination, and on Marriage. The 25th and last session, on Dec. 4, 1563, was devoted to the doctrine of Purgatory, of the veneration of the saints and relics, indulgences, fast-days and festivals, and also to the drawing up of various far-reaching regulations on discipline.

The Synod had striven throughout to make its disciplinary decrees keep pace with its doctrinal promulgations. Thereby it provided a lasting and effectual foundation for the reform of the Church. This, taken in connection with so clear a statement of the unanimity of the Church’s teaching throughout the ages, deprived the separatists of every pretext for remaining estranged from the unity of the faith. The main point was that the Church, purified from the many abuses to which human frailty had given rise, or at least earnestly resolved to remove those still remaining, stood forth again as the city on the hill, visible afar off in her splendour and calling all to her in order to make them sharers in the hope of life. She was confident that He Who had said: “I will be with you all days, even to the consummation of the world,” had extended His protecting Hand over the assembly, and had spoken through it for the instructionof the faithful and also of the erring brethren. The infallibility of such general Councils was never questioned by any Catholic.

A fresh outburst of zeal was the result, and the ancient Church soon showed that she had within her unsuspected powers for self-improvement.

“They now seek to get at us under cover of a nominal Council,” says Luther, “in order to be able to shriek at us.... This is Satan’s wisdom as against the foolishness of God. How will God extricate Himself from their cunning schemes? Still, he is the Lord Who will mock at His contemners. If we are to submit to this Council we might as well have submitted twenty-five years since to the lord of the Councils, viz. the Pope and his Bulls. We shall not consent to discuss the matter until the Pope admits that the Council stands above him, and until the Council takes sides [with us] against the Pope, for even the Pope’s own conscience already reproaches him. They are mad and crazy. ‘Deo gratias.’”[1544]

A series of similar utterances may be quoted.

“The Papists are ashamed of themselves and stand in fear of their own conscience. Us they do not fear because, like Virgil of old, they console themselves with having already survived worse things. The paroxysm will cease suddenly.... They put to death the pious John Hus, who never departed in the least from the Papacy but only reproved moral disorders.”[1545]“For it was then not yet the time to unmask the [Roman] beast” (this having been reserved for me). “I, however, have not attacked merely the abuses but even the doctrine, and have bitten off the [Pope’s] heart. I don’t think the Pope will grow again.... The article of Justification has practically taken the shine out of the Pope’s thunderbolts.”[1546]“Our Church by the grace of God comes quite near to that of the Apostles, because we have the pure doctrine, the catechism, the sacraments and the [right] use of government, both in the State and in the home. If the Word, which alone makes the Church, stands and flourishes, then all is well. The Papists, however, who seek to erect a Church on conciliar decrees and decretals will only arouse dissensions among themselves and ‘wash thetiles’—however much they may pride themselves on their reason and wisdom.”[1547]“I must for once boast, for it is a long while since I did so last. A Council whereby the Church might be reformed has long been clamoured for. I think I have summoned such a Council as will make the ears of the Papists tingle and their heart burst with malice: for I take it, that, even should the Pope hold a General Council, he will not be able to effect so much by it. First, I have driven the Papists to their books, particularly to Scripture, and deposed the heathen Aristotle and the ‘Summists.’ ... Secondly, I have made them to be more reserved about their indulgences. Thirdly, I have almost put an end to the pilgrimages and field-devilry.” Only look, he says, at the reduction of the monasteries and the many other things which no Council could ever have achieved but which have been brought about by “our people.” Everything had been lost, the “Our Father, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, Penance, Baptism, Prayer [etc., he enumerates twenty-one similar things].” “No institution, no monastery, university or presbytery” taught even one of these articles aright; now, however, “I have set all things in order.”[1548]I can “write books as well as the Fathers and the Councils,” and this I may say “without pride.”[1549]This is because I have “exercised myself” in the Word of God by “prayer, meditation and temptations” (“oratio, meditatio, tentatio”).[1550]In my “temptation” the devil raged against me in every way, but God in a wonderful manner “kept alight His torch so that it did not go out.”[1551]Persecution overtook me “like the Apostles,” who “fared no better than their Lord and Master.”[1552]But the devil has entered into His foes the Papists, to whom, “in spite of all our good and well-meant admonitions, prayers and entreaties,”[1553]they have surrendered themselves; and rightly so, for the Papists (as I know from my own youthful experience when I did the same myself) refuse even to recognise the Gospel as a mystery.[1554]They simply make an end of all religion.But, all this notwithstanding, as the Council shall learn “I am really a defender and prop of the Pope. After my death the Pope will suffer a blow which he will be unable to withstand. Then they will say: Would that we now had Luther to give some advice; but if anyone offers advice now they refuse it; when the hour is passed God will no longer be willing.”[1555]After “God had given me that splendid victory which enabled me to get the better of my monkish vocation, the vows, masses and all the other abominations ... Pope and Emperor werealike unable to stop me.” It is true that I still have temptations to humble me, “but we remain victorious and shall conquer.”[1556]“These Italians [at Trent they were present in large numbers] are profane men and Epicureans. No Pope or cardinal for the last six hundred years has read the Bible. They understand less of the catechism than does my little daughter. May God preserve us from such blindness and leave us His divine Word.”[1557]

“The Papists are ashamed of themselves and stand in fear of their own conscience. Us they do not fear because, like Virgil of old, they console themselves with having already survived worse things. The paroxysm will cease suddenly.... They put to death the pious John Hus, who never departed in the least from the Papacy but only reproved moral disorders.”[1545]“For it was then not yet the time to unmask the [Roman] beast” (this having been reserved for me). “I, however, have not attacked merely the abuses but even the doctrine, and have bitten off the [Pope’s] heart. I don’t think the Pope will grow again.... The article of Justification has practically taken the shine out of the Pope’s thunderbolts.”[1546]

“Our Church by the grace of God comes quite near to that of the Apostles, because we have the pure doctrine, the catechism, the sacraments and the [right] use of government, both in the State and in the home. If the Word, which alone makes the Church, stands and flourishes, then all is well. The Papists, however, who seek to erect a Church on conciliar decrees and decretals will only arouse dissensions among themselves and ‘wash thetiles’—however much they may pride themselves on their reason and wisdom.”[1547]

“I must for once boast, for it is a long while since I did so last. A Council whereby the Church might be reformed has long been clamoured for. I think I have summoned such a Council as will make the ears of the Papists tingle and their heart burst with malice: for I take it, that, even should the Pope hold a General Council, he will not be able to effect so much by it. First, I have driven the Papists to their books, particularly to Scripture, and deposed the heathen Aristotle and the ‘Summists.’ ... Secondly, I have made them to be more reserved about their indulgences. Thirdly, I have almost put an end to the pilgrimages and field-devilry.” Only look, he says, at the reduction of the monasteries and the many other things which no Council could ever have achieved but which have been brought about by “our people.” Everything had been lost, the “Our Father, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, Penance, Baptism, Prayer [etc., he enumerates twenty-one similar things].” “No institution, no monastery, university or presbytery” taught even one of these articles aright; now, however, “I have set all things in order.”[1548]

I can “write books as well as the Fathers and the Councils,” and this I may say “without pride.”[1549]This is because I have “exercised myself” in the Word of God by “prayer, meditation and temptations” (“oratio, meditatio, tentatio”).[1550]In my “temptation” the devil raged against me in every way, but God in a wonderful manner “kept alight His torch so that it did not go out.”[1551]Persecution overtook me “like the Apostles,” who “fared no better than their Lord and Master.”[1552]But the devil has entered into His foes the Papists, to whom, “in spite of all our good and well-meant admonitions, prayers and entreaties,”[1553]they have surrendered themselves; and rightly so, for the Papists (as I know from my own youthful experience when I did the same myself) refuse even to recognise the Gospel as a mystery.[1554]They simply make an end of all religion.

But, all this notwithstanding, as the Council shall learn “I am really a defender and prop of the Pope. After my death the Pope will suffer a blow which he will be unable to withstand. Then they will say: Would that we now had Luther to give some advice; but if anyone offers advice now they refuse it; when the hour is passed God will no longer be willing.”[1555]

After “God had given me that splendid victory which enabled me to get the better of my monkish vocation, the vows, masses and all the other abominations ... Pope and Emperor werealike unable to stop me.” It is true that I still have temptations to humble me, “but we remain victorious and shall conquer.”[1556]

“These Italians [at Trent they were present in large numbers] are profane men and Epicureans. No Pope or cardinal for the last six hundred years has read the Bible. They understand less of the catechism than does my little daughter. May God preserve us from such blindness and leave us His divine Word.”[1557]

This was the frame of mind in which Luther confronted the Council.

We shall be better able to appreciate the strangeness of his attitude if we imagine Luther, attended by a few theologians of his own circle, journeying to the Council at Trent and there holding converse with the foreign prelates, as he had done at Wittenberg with the Legate Vergerio.

In his wonted fashion he would not have hesitated to express plainly his views concerning his own authority. Some examples of his opinions of himself have already been given.[1558]What impression would the Wittenberger’s novel claims have made on bishops and theologians from distant lands where the Church was still in perfect peace, and where the spiritual supremacy of the hierarchy was unquestioned? With what astonishment would they have listened to those strange replies, which the Saxon had always ready in plenty, to such objections as they might have raised on the score of his disturbance of the peace of both Church and State, of the disorders within his own fold and of his own private life and that of his followers?

A number of other statements taken from his writings and conversations with his intimates may help to make the picture even more vivid.

“I have the Word,” we can hear him saying to the bishops in his usual vein, “that is enough for me! Were even an angel to come to me now I should not believe him.”[1559]“Whoever obtrudes his doctrine on me and refuses to yield, must inevitably be lost; for I must be right, my cause being not mine, but God’s, Whose Word it also is. Hence those who are against it must go under. Hence my unfailing defiance.... I have risked my life on it and will die for it. Therefore whoever sets himself against me must be ruined if a God exists at all.”[1560]To friend and foe I can only say: “Take in faith what Christ says to you through me; for I am not deceived, so far as I know. It is not the words of Satan that I speak. Christ speaks through me.”[1561]“Though there are many who regard my cause as diabolical and condemn it, yet I know that my word and undertaking is not of me but of God, and neither death nor persecution will teach me otherwise.”[1562]And before anyone can slip in a word of rejoinder he, again, as his way was, appeals to his personal knowledge. “I know that God together with all His angels bears me witness that I have not falsified His Word, baptism or sacrament, but have preached rightly and truthfully.”[1563]This doctrine I learnt in my “temptations,” during which “I had to ponder ever more and more deeply.” “What is lacking to the fanatics and the mob is that they have not that real foeman who is the devil; he certainly teaches a man thoroughly.”[1564]The hostility met with, particularly from false brethren, is also “God’s sure seal upon us”; by such “we have become like St. Paul, nay, like the whole Church.”[1565]The chief thing for me, however, so he continues, is conscience and conviction. “Take heed,” such is my axiom, “not to make mere play of it. If you wish to begin it, then begin it with such a clear conscience that you may defy the devil.... Be a man and do everything that goes against and vexes them [the opponents] and omit everything that might please them.”[1566]To those who ask whether his conscience did not upbraid him for breaking the peace and for overthrowing all order, he replies: It is quite true “Satan makes my conscience to prick me for having by false doctrine thrown the world into confusion and caused revolts.... But I meet him with this: The doctrine is not mine, but the Son of God’s; whole worlds are nothing to God, even should ten of them be rent by rebellion and go headlong to destruction. It is written in Holy Scripture [Mt. xvii. 5], ‘Hear ye Him’ (Christ), or everything will fall into ruins, and again [Ps. ii. 10], ‘Hearken, ye kings,’ or else ye shall perish. It was thus that Paul too had to console himself, when, in the Acts, he was accused of treason against God and Cæsar. God wills that the article of Justification shall stand, and if men accept it then no State or government will perish, but, if not, then they alone are the cause of their misfortune.”[1567]With no less confidence is he prepared to counter the otherobjections. My doctrine breeds evil? “After the proclamation of the Evangel it is true we see in the world great wickedness, ingratitude and profanation; this followed on the overthrow of Antichrist [which I brought about]; but in reality it is only, that, formerly, before the dawn of the Evangel, we did not see so plainly these sins which all were already there, but now that the morning star has risen the whole world awakens, as though from a drunken sleep, and perceives the sins which previously, while all men were asleep and sunk in the gloom of night, they had failed to recognise. But [in view of all the wickedness] I set my hopes on the Last Day being not far distant; things cannot go on for more than a hundred years; for the Word of God will again grow weaker; owing to lack of ministers of the Word darkness will arise. Then the whole world will grow savage and so lull itself into a state of security. After this the voice will resound (Mt. xxv. 6): ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ Then God will not be able to endure it any longer.”[1568]Is our own life any objection? It is no question of life but of doctrine, “and, as to the doctrine, it is indubitable that it is the Word of God. ‘The words that I speak,’ saith the Lord [John xiv. 10], ‘are not mine but the Father’s.’” Certainly “I should not like God to judge me by my life.”[1569]—“My doctrine is true and includes the forgiveness of sins, because my doctrine is not mine; Christ also says, ‘My doctrine is not Mine.’ My doctrine stands fast, be my life what it may.”[1570]“True enough, it is hard when Satan comes and upbraids us saying: You have laid violent hands on this marvellous edifice of the Papacy,” you, “a man full of error and sin.” “But Paul also, according to Rom. ix., had at times to endure similar reproaches.” “We answer: We do not attack the Pope on account of his personal errors and trespasses; we must indeed condemn them, but we will overlook them and forgive them as we ourselves wish to be forgiven. Thus it is not a question for us of the Pope’s personal faults and sins, but of his doctrine and of submission to the Word. The Pope and his followers, quite apart from their own sins, offend against the glory and the grace of God, nay, against Christ Himself, of whom the Father says: Hear ye Him. But the Pope would have men’s ears attentive only to what he says!”[1571]But, because my doctrine is true, so he concludes, this had to come about, “as I had long ago foreseen; in spite of the purity of my theology I [like Paul] was alleged to have preached ‘scandal’ to the holy Jews and ‘foolishness’ to the sapient heathen.”[1572]—Nevertheless, “whoever teaches otherwise than I have taught, or condemns me, condemns God and must remain a child of hell.”[1573]—“For the future I will not do the Papists thehonour,” of permitting them, “or even an angel from heaven, to judge of my doctrine, for we have had too much already of foolish humility.”[1574]With what wonder and perplexity at so unaccountable an attitude would the foreign bishops have listened to words such as these!

“I have the Word,” we can hear him saying to the bishops in his usual vein, “that is enough for me! Were even an angel to come to me now I should not believe him.”[1559]

“Whoever obtrudes his doctrine on me and refuses to yield, must inevitably be lost; for I must be right, my cause being not mine, but God’s, Whose Word it also is. Hence those who are against it must go under. Hence my unfailing defiance.... I have risked my life on it and will die for it. Therefore whoever sets himself against me must be ruined if a God exists at all.”[1560]

To friend and foe I can only say: “Take in faith what Christ says to you through me; for I am not deceived, so far as I know. It is not the words of Satan that I speak. Christ speaks through me.”[1561]

“Though there are many who regard my cause as diabolical and condemn it, yet I know that my word and undertaking is not of me but of God, and neither death nor persecution will teach me otherwise.”[1562]

And before anyone can slip in a word of rejoinder he, again, as his way was, appeals to his personal knowledge. “I know that God together with all His angels bears me witness that I have not falsified His Word, baptism or sacrament, but have preached rightly and truthfully.”[1563]

This doctrine I learnt in my “temptations,” during which “I had to ponder ever more and more deeply.” “What is lacking to the fanatics and the mob is that they have not that real foeman who is the devil; he certainly teaches a man thoroughly.”[1564]

The hostility met with, particularly from false brethren, is also “God’s sure seal upon us”; by such “we have become like St. Paul, nay, like the whole Church.”[1565]

The chief thing for me, however, so he continues, is conscience and conviction. “Take heed,” such is my axiom, “not to make mere play of it. If you wish to begin it, then begin it with such a clear conscience that you may defy the devil.... Be a man and do everything that goes against and vexes them [the opponents] and omit everything that might please them.”[1566]

To those who ask whether his conscience did not upbraid him for breaking the peace and for overthrowing all order, he replies: It is quite true “Satan makes my conscience to prick me for having by false doctrine thrown the world into confusion and caused revolts.... But I meet him with this: The doctrine is not mine, but the Son of God’s; whole worlds are nothing to God, even should ten of them be rent by rebellion and go headlong to destruction. It is written in Holy Scripture [Mt. xvii. 5], ‘Hear ye Him’ (Christ), or everything will fall into ruins, and again [Ps. ii. 10], ‘Hearken, ye kings,’ or else ye shall perish. It was thus that Paul too had to console himself, when, in the Acts, he was accused of treason against God and Cæsar. God wills that the article of Justification shall stand, and if men accept it then no State or government will perish, but, if not, then they alone are the cause of their misfortune.”[1567]

With no less confidence is he prepared to counter the otherobjections. My doctrine breeds evil? “After the proclamation of the Evangel it is true we see in the world great wickedness, ingratitude and profanation; this followed on the overthrow of Antichrist [which I brought about]; but in reality it is only, that, formerly, before the dawn of the Evangel, we did not see so plainly these sins which all were already there, but now that the morning star has risen the whole world awakens, as though from a drunken sleep, and perceives the sins which previously, while all men were asleep and sunk in the gloom of night, they had failed to recognise. But [in view of all the wickedness] I set my hopes on the Last Day being not far distant; things cannot go on for more than a hundred years; for the Word of God will again grow weaker; owing to lack of ministers of the Word darkness will arise. Then the whole world will grow savage and so lull itself into a state of security. After this the voice will resound (Mt. xxv. 6): ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ Then God will not be able to endure it any longer.”[1568]

Is our own life any objection? It is no question of life but of doctrine, “and, as to the doctrine, it is indubitable that it is the Word of God. ‘The words that I speak,’ saith the Lord [John xiv. 10], ‘are not mine but the Father’s.’” Certainly “I should not like God to judge me by my life.”[1569]—“My doctrine is true and includes the forgiveness of sins, because my doctrine is not mine; Christ also says, ‘My doctrine is not Mine.’ My doctrine stands fast, be my life what it may.”[1570]“True enough, it is hard when Satan comes and upbraids us saying: You have laid violent hands on this marvellous edifice of the Papacy,” you, “a man full of error and sin.” “But Paul also, according to Rom. ix., had at times to endure similar reproaches.” “We answer: We do not attack the Pope on account of his personal errors and trespasses; we must indeed condemn them, but we will overlook them and forgive them as we ourselves wish to be forgiven. Thus it is not a question for us of the Pope’s personal faults and sins, but of his doctrine and of submission to the Word. The Pope and his followers, quite apart from their own sins, offend against the glory and the grace of God, nay, against Christ Himself, of whom the Father says: Hear ye Him. But the Pope would have men’s ears attentive only to what he says!”[1571]

But, because my doctrine is true, so he concludes, this had to come about, “as I had long ago foreseen; in spite of the purity of my theology I [like Paul] was alleged to have preached ‘scandal’ to the holy Jews and ‘foolishness’ to the sapient heathen.”[1572]—Nevertheless, “whoever teaches otherwise than I have taught, or condemns me, condemns God and must remain a child of hell.”[1573]—“For the future I will not do the Papists thehonour,” of permitting them, “or even an angel from heaven, to judge of my doctrine, for we have had too much already of foolish humility.”[1574]

With what wonder and perplexity at so unaccountable an attitude would the foreign bishops have listened to words such as these!

Luther followed with great sympathy and perturbation the warlike proceedings instituted by the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse against Duke Henry of Brunswick, whom he had himself already attacked with the pen in his “Wider Hans Worst.” They made war on the Duke in the summer of 1542, seized upon his lands and of their own initiative introduced the innovations, their troops at the same time committing unexampled excesses.

Luther acclaimed the victory as a deed of God; such a proceeding could not be described as the work of man; such a success foreboded the approach of the Day of Judgment and retribution.[1575]

The Imperial Chamber of Justice protested against the violent appropriation of the country by the Schmalkalden Leaguers, and, on Sep. 3, summoned the two princes and their confederates to Spires to answer for the breach of the peace committed at the expense of Duke Henry. Thereupon all the members of the League of Schmalkalden repudiated their obedience to the “wicked, dissolute, Popish rascals,” as the Landgrave Philip politely styled the Imperial Court. In this he was at one with Luther, who, in former years, had called the Imperial Chamber “a devil’s whore.”[1576]

A new war of the Leaguers on Henry, who was anxious to recover his lands, was crowned in 1545 by a still more notable success on the part of the rebels, who this time contrived to take the Duke himself prisoner. When, however, Philip of Hesse, out of consideration for the Emperor,seemed inclined to set the captive free, Luther intervened with a circular letter addressed to Philip and his own Elector. He was determined to characterise any idea of setting free the “mischievous, wild tool of the Roman idol” as an open attack not merely on the Evangel, but even on the manifest will of God as displayed in the recent war which had been waged “by His angels.” Here his pseudo-mysticism is again much to the fore. The circular letter was soon printed and spread broadcast.[1577]

Without any deep insight into the real state of affairs, either political or ecclesiastical, unmindful even of diplomacy, Luther seeks to work on the fears of the Protestant princes by an extravagant description of the Divine Judgments which were overtaking blasphemers, and tells them they will be sharers in the sin of others if, now that God had “broken down the bulwark” of the Papacy, they were to set it up anew.

To the Papists he says: “Stop, you mad fools, Pope and Papists, and do not blow the flame that God has kindled. For it will turn against yourselves so that the sparks and cinders will fly into your eyes. Yes, indeed, this is God’s fire, Who calls Himself a consuming fire. You know and are convinced in your own conscience that your cause is wicked and lost and that you are striving against God.”[1578]

He writes confidently: We on this side, without causing either Emperor or Pope “to raise a hair, have unceasingly prayed, implored, besought and clamoured for peace, as they very well know; this, however, we have never been able to obtain from them, but have had daily to endure nothing but insults, attacks and extermination.” The defensive alliance of the Catholic Princes and Estates became in his eyes a robber-league, established under pretext of religion; “what they wanted was not the Christian religion but the lands of the Elector and Landgrave.”[1579]The captive Duke had obtained help from Italy, very likely from the Pope. “In short, we all know that the Pope and the Papists would gladly see us dead, body and soul, whereas we for our part would have them all to be saved body and soul together with us.”[1580]The whole writing, with its combination of rage and mysticism, and likewise much else dating from thatperiod, may well raise grave doubts as to the state of the author’s mind.

The inroad into Brunswick was merely a preliminary to the religious wars soon to break out and ravage Germany. No sooner had Luther closed his eyes in death than they began on a larger scale with the Schmalkalden War, which was to prove so disastrous to the Protestants. His words just quoted to the princes of his party were repeated almost word for word in the Protestant manifestos during the religious wars.

It is possible that he may have been roused to make such attacks on the Catholics by certain disagreeable events which occurred from 1541 onwards. Political steps were being taken which were unfavourable to Lutheranism and not at all adequately balanced by the Protestants’ victory in Brunswick and elsewhere.

Luther was made painfully aware of the unexpected weakening of the League of Schmalkalden which resulted from the bigamy of Landgrave Philip of Hesse. By virtue of a secret compact with the Emperor, into which Philip of Hesse had found himself forced (June 13, 1541),[1581]the latter, in his position of head of the German Protestants, had bound himself not to consent that Duke William of Cleves, who inclined to Protestantism, should be admitted into the Schmalkalden League; he had also to refuse any assistance to the Duke when the Emperor Charles V took the field against him on account of the union of Guelders with Cleves. The progress of Protestantism in these districts was checked by the Emperor’s victory in 1543. The formal introduction of the new faith into Metz was frustrated by the Emperor; at Cologne too the Reformers saw all their efforts brought to naught.

The Diet of Spires, in 1544, it is true brought the Protestants an extension of that peace which was so favourable to their interests, but the campaign which Charles V thereupon undertook against François I—whom Philip of Hesse and the Schmalkaldeners were compelled by the above-mentioned compact to leave on the lurch—led to the humiliation of the Frenchman, who was compelled to make peace at Crespy on Sep. 14, 1544. There the King of Francepromised the Emperor never again to side with the German Protestants.

Luther was also troubled by the dissensions within the League of Schmalkalden, by the refusal of Joachim II of Brandenburg, of Louis, Elector of the Palatinate, and especially of Duke Maurice of Saxony to join the League; the last sovereign’s intimate relations with the Emperor were also a source of anxiety. At Wittenberg it was clearly seen what danger threatened Lutheranism should the Imperial power gather strength and intervene on behalf of the Roman Church.

The Roman Church, so Luther exclaims fretfully in his “Kurtz Bekentnis” (1545), is made up of “nothing but Epicureans and scoffers at the Christian faith.” The Pope, “the greatest foe of Christ and the real Antichrist, has made himself head of Christendom, nay, the very hind-piece and bottom-hole of the devil through which so many abominations of Masses, monkery and immorality are cacked into the world.”[1582]

One controversy which greatly excited Luther at this time was that with the Swiss Sacramentarians. Once more his old feud with Zwinglianism was to break out and embitter his days. When, in 1542, the elevation was abolished in the parish church of Wittenberg (to some extent out of deference to the wishes of the Landgrave of Hesse who objected to this rite), some people too hastily concluded that Luther was renouncing his own doctrine in favour of that of the Swiss; hence he deemed it necessary once more to deny, in language too clear to be mistaken, any intention to make common cause with a company, which, as he puts it, had been “infected and intoxicated with an alien spirit.”

Moreover, Caspar Schwenckfeld, with the object of moving the feelings of Luther’s opponents, made known to them Luther’s rude and so discreditable letter.[1583]The animosity of the Swiss and of their South German sympathisers now assumed serious dimensions. Luther accordingly determined to address the reply which he had beenplanning for some time to the Sacramentarians as a body, declaring that that “slanderer” Schwenckfeld was not worth a single line.

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