Part 15 (1/2)

The Word, rejected and condemned as it had been by bishops and priests in Germany, met with singular success beyond the eastern boundary of the Empire, among the Order of Teutonic Knights in Prussia. The Grand Master of the Order, Albert of Brandenburg, brother of the Elector of Brandenburg, and cousin of Albert, the Archbishop and Cardinal, had kept up communication with Luther, both orally and by letter, and had been advised by him and Melancthon to make himself familiar with the gospel and the principles of the Evangelical Church. And, above all, there were here two bishops who espoused the new teaching, and who were anxious to tend the flocks committed to their charge as true evangelical bishops or overseers, in the sense insisted on by Luther, and particularly to minister to the Word by preaching and by the care of souls. These were George of Polenz, Bishop of Samland since 1523, and Erhard of Queiss, Bishop of Pomerania since 1524. The members of the Order, almost without exception, were on their side: they resolved to establish a temporal princedom in Prussia and to renounce their vows of 'false chast.i.ty and spirituality.' The King of Poland, under whose suzerainty the country had long been, solemnly invested the hitherto Grand Master on April 10, 1525, as hereditary Duke of Prussia. Thus Prussia became the first territory that collectively embraced the Reformation, whilst as yet, even in the Electorate of Saxony, no general measures had been taken in its support. It became, in short, the first Protestant country. Luther wrote to the new Duke: 'I am greatly rejoiced that Almighty G.o.d has so graciously and wondrously helped your princely Grace to attain such an eminent position, and further my wish is that the same merciful G.o.d may continue His blessing to your Grace through life, for the benefit and G.o.dly welfare of the whole country.' And to the Archbishop Albert he held the new Duke up as a s.h.i.+ning example, in saying of him, 'How graciously has G.o.d sent such a change, as, ten years ago, could not have been hoped for or believed in, even had ten Isaiahs and Pauls announced it. But because he gave room and honour to the gospel, the gospel in return has given him far more room and honour--more than he could have dared to wish for.'

The gospel now received its first testimony in blood. With joyful confidence Luther beheld what G.o.d had done, but could not refrain from lamenting, with sorrowful humility, that he himself had not been found worthy of martyrdom. In the Imperial hereditary lands, where for some years missionaries, chiefly members of Luther's own Augustine Order, had been actively labouring in the strength of the convictions derived from Wittenberg, two young Augustine monks, Henry Voes and John Esch, were publicly burnt, on July 1, 1523, as heretics. Luther thereupon addressed a letter to 'the beloved Christians in Holland, Brabant, and Flanders,' praising G.o.d for His wondrous light, that He had caused again to dawn. He spoke out even stronger in some verses in which he celebrated the young martyrs; they were published no doubt originally as a broadsheet:

A new song will we raise to Him Who ruleth, G.o.d our Lord; And we will sing what G.o.d hath done, In honour of His Word.

At Brussels in the Netherlands, It was through two young lads, He hath made known His Wonders, &c.

They conclude as follows:--

So let us thank our G.o.d to see His Word returned at last.

The Summer now is at the door, The Winter is forepast, The tender flowerets bloom anew, And He, who hath begun, Will give His work a happy end.

He was, later on, deeply grieved by the death of his brother-Augustine and friend Henry Moller of Zutphen, who, after having been forced to fly from the Netherlands, had begun a blessed work at Bremen, and was now murdered in the most brutal manner on December 11, 1524, by a mob instigated by monks, near Meldorf, whither he had gone in response to an invitation from some of his companions in the faith. Luther informed his Christian brethren in a circular of the end of this 'blessed brother' and 'Evangelist.' He mentions, with him, the two martyrs of Brussels, as well as other disciples of the new doctrine; one Caspar Tauber, who was executed at Vienna, a bookseller named Georg, who was burnt at Pesth, and one who had been recently burnt at Prague. 'These and such as these,' he adds, 'are they whose blood will drown the popedom, together with its G.o.d, the devil.'

With regard to his work of reformation, which had now spread so widely and found so many coadjutors, Luther at present thought as little about the outward const.i.tution of a new Church as he had thought about any outward organisation of the war itself, or an external alliance of his adherents, or of a cleverly devised propaganda. Just as here the simple Word was to achieve the victory, so his whole efforts were devoted solely to restoring to the congregations the possession and enjoyment of that Word in all its purity, that they might gather round it, and be thereby further edified, sustained, and guided.

Wherever this privilege was denied to Christians, Luther claimed for them the right, by virtue of their universal priesthood, to ordain a priest for themselves, and to reject the ensnaring deceits of mere human doctrine. He declared himself to this effect, in a treatise written in 1523, and intended in the first instance for the Bohemians--that is to say, for the so-called Utraquists who were then the leading party in Bohemia. These sectaries, whose only ground of estrangement from Rome was the question of administering the cup to the laity, and who had never thought of separating themselves from the so-called Apostolical succession of the episcopate in the Catholic Church, Luther then hoped, albeit in vain, to win over to a genuine evangelical belief and practice of religion. In this treatise he went a step beyond the election of pastors by their congregations, by maintaining that a whole district, composed of such evangelical communities, might appoint their own overseer, who should exercise control over them, until the final establishment of a supreme bishopric, of an evangelical character, for the entire national Church. But of any such ecclesiastical edifice for Germany, wholly absorbed as he was in her immediate needs, he had not yet said a word. Congregations of such a kind, and suitable for such a purpose, could only be created by preaching the Word; nor had Luther yet abandoned the hope that the existing German episcopate, as already had been the case in Prussia, would accept an evangelical reconstruction on a much larger scale.

With regard to individual congregations, moreover, it was the opinion of Luther and his friends that, where the local magistrates and patrons of the Church were inclined to the gospel, the appointment of pastors might be made by them in a regular way. A separation of civil communities, each represented by their own magistrate, from the ecclesiastical or religious units, was an idea wholly foreign to that time.

That the word of G.o.d should be preached to the various congregations in a pure and earnest manner, that those congregations themselves should be entrusted with the work, should make it their own, and, in reliance thereon, should lift up their hearts to G.o.d with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving,--this was the fixed object which Luther held in view in all the regulations which he made at Wittenberg, and wished to inst.i.tute in other places. In this spirit he advanced cautiously and by degrees in the changes introduced in public wors.h.i.+p,--changes which, as he admits, he had commenced with fear and hesitation. 'That the Word itself,' he says, 'should advance mightily among Christians, is shown by the whole of Scripture, and Christ Himself says (Luke x.) that ”one thing is needful,” namely, that Mary should sit at the feet of Christ, and hear His Word daily. His Word endures for ever, and all else must melt away before it, however much Martha may have to do.' He points out as one of the great abuses of the old system of wors.h.i.+p, that the people had to keep silence about the Word, while all the time they had to accept unchristian fables and falsehoods in what was read, and sung, and preached in the churches, and to perform public wors.h.i.+p as a work which should ent.i.tle them to the grace of G.o.d. He now set vigorously about separating the mere furniture of wors.h.i.+p.

As to the Word itself, on the contrary, he was anxious to have it preached to the congregation, wherever possible, every Sunday morning and evening, and on week-days, at least to the students and others, who desired to hear it: this was actually done at Wittenberg. Innovations, not apparently required by his principles, he shunned himself, and warned others to do so likewise. Nor was he less diligent to guard against the danger of having the new forms of wors.h.i.+p, now practised at Wittenberg, made into a law for all evangelical brethren without distinction. He gave an account and estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend Hausmann, the priest at Zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for Christ's sake,' that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these matters, he should make it known. No one, he declared, durst condemn or despise different forms practised by others. Outward customs and ceremonies were, indeed, indispensable, but they served as little to commend us to G.o.d, as meat or drink (1 Cor. viii. 8) served to make us well pleasing before Him.

In order to enable the congregations themselves to take an active part in the service, he now longed for genuine Church hymns, that is to say, songs composed in the n.o.ble popular language, verse, and melody. He invited friends to paraphrase the Psalms for this purpose; he had not sufficient confidence in himself for the work.

And yet he was the first to attempt it. With fresh impulse and with the exuberance of true poetical genius, his verses on the Brussels martyrs had flowed forth spontaneously from his inmost soul. They were the first, so far as we know, that Luther had ever written, though he was now forty years of age. With the same poetic impulse he composed, probably shortly after, a hymn in praise of the 'highest blessing' that G.o.d had shown towards us in the sacrifice of His beloved Son.

Rejoice ye now, dear Christians all, And let us leap for joy, And dare with trustful, loving hearts, Our praises to employ, And sing what G.o.d hath shown to man, His sweet and wondrous deed, And tell how dearly He hath won. etc.

The full tone of a powerful, fresh, often uncouth, but very tender popular ballad no other writer of the time displayed like Luther.

And whilst seeking to compose or re-arrange hymns for congregational use in church, he now busied himself with the Psalter, paraphrasing its contents in an evangelical spirit and in German metre.

Thus now, early in 1524, there appeared at Wittenberg the first German hymn-book, consisting at first, of only eight hymns, about half of them, such as that beginning _Nun freut euch_, being original compositions of Luther, and three others adapted from the Psalms. In the course of the same year he brought out a further collection of twenty hymns, written by himself for the evangelical congregation there: among these is the one on the Brussels martyrs.

It was, in fact, the year in which German hymnody was born. Luther soon found the coadjutors he had wished for.

These twenty-four hymns by Luther were followed in after years by only twelve more from his own pen, among the latter being his grand hymn, _Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott_, written probably in 1527. Of these later compositions, comparatively few expressed entirely his own ideas; most of them had reference to subjects already in the possession and use of the Christian world, and of German Christians in particular; that is to say, some referred to the Psalms and other portions of the Bible, others to parts of the Catechism, others again to short German ballads, sung by the people, and even to old Latin hymns. In all of them he was governed by a strict regard to what was both purely evangelical, and also suitable for the common wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d. And yet they differ widely, one from another, in the poetical form and manner in which he now gives utterance to the longings of the heart for G.o.d, now seeks to clothe in verse suited for congregational singing words of belief and doctrine, now keeps closely to his immediate subject, now vents his emotions freely in Christian sentiments and poetical form, as for example in _Ein' feste Burg_, the most sublime and powerful production of them all.

The new hymns went forth in town and country, in churches and homes, throughout the land. Often, far more than any sermons could have done, they brought home to ears and hearts the Word of evangelical truth. They became weapons of war, as well as means of edification and comfort.

In his preface to a small collection of songs, which Luther had published in the same year, he remarks: 'I am not of opinion that the gospel should be employed to strike down and destroy all the arts, as certain high ecclesiastics would have it. I would rather that all the arts, and especially music, should be employed in the service of Him who has created them and given them to man.' What he says here about music and poetry, he applied equally to all departments of knowledge. He saw art and learning now menaced by wrong-minded enthusiasts. For this reason he was particularly anxious that they should be cultivated in the schools.

With great zeal he directed his counsels to the general duty of caring for the good education and instruction of the young, as indeed he had done some time before in his address to the German n.o.bility. These, above all, he said, must be rescued from the clutches of Satan. He had again in his mind schools for girls. Thus in 1523 he recommended the conversion of the cloisters of the Mendicant Orders into schools 'for boys and girls.' The same advice was offered by Eberlin, already mentioned, who was then living at Wittenberg, and who made the suggestion to the magistrates of Ulm.

But Luther's chief advice was directed to the requirements of the Church and the State, or 'temporal government,' which a.s.suredly were then in need of educated and well-cultured servants. For the training here required, the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, were indispensable, and for the ministers of the Church, Greek and Hebrew in particular, as the languages in which the Word of G.o.d was originally conveyed to man. 'Languages,' he says, 'are the sheaths which enclose the sword of the Spirit, the shrine in which this treasure is carried, the vessel which contains this drink.' He insisted further on the study of history, and especially of that of Germany. It was a matter of regret to him that so little had been done towards writing the history of Germany, whilst the Greeks, the Romans, and the Hebrews had compiled theirs with such industry. 'O!

how many histories and sayings,' he remarked, 'we ought to have in our possession, of all that has been done and said in different parts of Germany, and of which we know nothing. That is why, in other countries, people know nothing about us Germans, and all the world calls us German beasts, who can do nothing but fight, and guzzle, and drink.' Such were his opinions, as given in 1524, in a public letter 'To the Councillors of all the States of Germany; an appeal to inst.i.tute and maintain Christian schools.'

The enthusiasm which had recently inspired young men of talent and ambition to study and imitate the ancient cla.s.sics, and had banded together the leading teachers of Humanism, very quickly died away.

The universities everywhere were less frequented. Enemies of Luther ascribed this to the influence of his doctrines, though matters were little better where his doctrines were repudiated. It is not, indeed, surprising that the Humanist movement, with its regard for formal culture and aesthetic enjoyment, and its aristocracy of intellect, should retire perforce before the supreme struggle, involving the highest issues and interests of life, which was now being waged by the German people and the Church. A further cause of this decline of academical studies was to be found, no doubt, in the vigorous, and somewhat giddy bound taken by trade and commerce in those days of increased communication and extensive geographical discovery, and in the striving after material gain and enjoyment, which seemed to find satisfaction in other ways more easily and rapidly than by learned industry and the pursuit of culture. It was from these quarters that came the complaints against the great merchants' houses, the usury, the rise in prices, the luxury and extravagance of the age,--complaints which were re-echoed alike by the friends and foes of the Reformation. The Reformers themselves fully recognised the thanks they owed to those Humanistic studies, and their permanent value for Church and State. In the new church regulations introduced in the towns and districts which accepted the evangelical teaching, the school system then played a prominent part. Nuremberg, some years after, was among the most active to establish a good high school. Luther himself went in April 1525 with Melancthon to his native place Eisleben, to a.s.sist in promoting a school, founded there by Count Albert of Mansfeld: his friend Agricola was the head master.

Thus we see that the work of planting and building occupied Luther at this time more than the contest with his old opponents. Well might he, as he says in his hymn, rejoice to see the spring-tide and the flowers, and hope for a rich summer.