Part 22 (1/2)

The imminence of the common danger favoured the attempts of the South German States to effect an agreement with the German Protestants, and the efforts of Butzer in that direction. Luther himself acknowledged in a letter to Butzer, how very necessary a union with them was, and what a scandal was caused to the gospel by their rupture hitherto, nay, that if only they were united, the Papacy, the Turks, the whole world, and the very gates of h.e.l.l would never be able to work the gospel harm. Nevertheless, his conscience forbade him to overlook the existing differences of doctrine; nor could he imagine why his former opponents, if they now acknowledged the Real Presence of the Body at the Sacrament, could not plainly admit that presence for the mouth and body of all partakers, whether worthy or unworthy. He deemed it sufficient at present, that each party should desist from writing against the other, and wait until 'perhaps G.o.d, if they ceased from strife, should vouchsafe further grace.' The new explanations, however, were enough to make the Schmalkaldic allies abandon their scruples to admitting the South Germans, and they were accordingly received into the league.

Thus then, at the end of March 1531, a mutual defensive alliance for six years of the members of the Schmalkaldic League was concluded between the Elector John, the Landgrave Philip, three Dukes of Brunswick Luneburg, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, Counts Albert and Gebhard of Mansfeld, the North German towns of Magdeburg, Bremen, and Lubeck, and the South German towns of Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, and also Ulm, Reutlingen, Bibrach, and Isny.

Even Luther no longer raised any objections.

By this alliance the Protestants presented a firm and powerful front among the const.i.tuent portions of the German Empire. Their adversaries were not so agreed in their interests. Between the Dukes of Bavaria, and between the Emperor and Ferdinand, political jealousy prevailed to an extent sufficient to induce the former to combine with the heretics against the newly-elected King. Outside Germany, Denmark reached the hand of fellows.h.i.+p to the Schmalkaldic League; for the exiled King of Denmark, Christian II., who had previously turned to the Saxon Elector and been friendly to Luther, now sought, after returning in all humility to the orthodox Church, to regain his lost sovereignty with the help of his brother-in-law, the Emperor. The King of France also was equally ready to make common cause with the Protestant German princes against the growing power of Charles V.

As for Luther, we find no notice on his part of the schemes and negotiations connected with these political events, much less any active partic.i.p.ation in them. There was just then a rupture pending between Henry VIII. of England and the Emperor, and the former was preparing to secede from the Church of Rome. Henry was anxious for a divorce from his wife Katharine of Arragon, an aunt of the Emperor, on the ground of her previous marriage with his deceased brother, which, as he alleged, made his own marriage with her illegal; and since the Pope, in spite of long negotiations, refused, out of regard for the Emperor, to accede to his request, Henry had an opinion prepared by a number of European universities and men of learning, on the legality and validity of his marriage, which in fact for the most part declared against it. A secret commissioner of the former 'Protector of the Faith' was then sent to the Wittenbergers, and to Luther, whom he had so grossly insulted.

Luther, however, p.r.o.nounced (Sept. 5, 1531) against the divorce, on the ground that the marriage, though not contrary to the law of G.o.d as set forth in Scripture, was prohibited by the human law of the Church. The political side of the question he disregarded altogether. He expressed himself to Spalatin, in a certain tone of sadness, about the Pope's evil disposition towards the Emperor, the intrigues he seemed to be promoting against him in France, and the animosity of Henry VIII. towards him on account of his decision on the marriage; and added, 'Such is the way of this wicked world; may G.o.d take our Emperor under His protection!'

With Charles V. and Ferdinand the question of peace or war was, of necessity, largely governed by the menacing att.i.tude of the Turks; in fact it determined their policy in the matter. Luther kept this danger steadily in view; after the publication of the Recess he promised the wrath of G.o.d upon those madmen who would enter upon a war while they had the Turks before their very eyes. Ferdinand in vain sought to conclude a treaty of peace with the Sultan, who demanded him to surrender all the fortresses he still possessed in a part of Hungary, and reserved the right of making further conquests.

He was even induced, in March 1581, to advise his brother to effect a peaceful arrangement with the Protestants, in order to ensure their a.s.sistance in arms. Attempts at reconciliation were accordingly made through the intervention of the Electors of the Palatinate and Mayence. The term allowed by the Diet (April 15) pa.s.sed by unnoticed. The Emperor also directed the 'suspension of the proceedings, which he had been authorised by the Recess of Augsburg to set on foot in religious matters, till the approaching Diet.'

The negotiations were languidly protracted through the summer, without effecting any definite result. An opinion, drawn up jointly by Luther, Melancthon, and Bugenhagen, advised against an absolute rejection of the proposed restoration of episcopal power; the only thing necessary to insist upon being that the clergy and congregations should be allowed by the bishops the pure preaching of the gospel which had hitherto been refused them.

About this time Luther had the grief of losing his mother. She died on June 30, after receiving from her son a consolatory letter in her last illness. Of his own physical suffering in this month we have already spoken. On the 26th, he wrote to Link that Satan had sent all his messengers to buffet him (2 Cor. xii. 7), so that he could only rarely write or do anything: the devil would probably soon kill him outright. And yet not his will would be done, but the will of Him who had already overthrown Satan and all his kingdom.

Soon afterwards, the desire of the Catholics for coercive measures was stimulated afresh by the news of a defeat which the Reformed cities in Switzerland had sustained at the hands of the five Catholic Cantons, notwithstanding that the balance of force inclined there far more than in Germany to the side of the Evangelicals. The struggle which Luther was perpetually endeavouring to avert from Germany, culminated in Switzerland in a b.l.o.o.d.y outbreak, mainly at Zwingli's instigation. Zwingli himself fell on October 11 in the battle of Cappel, a victim of the patriotic schemes by which he had laboured to achieve for his country a grand reform of politics, morality, and the Church, but for which he had failed to enlist any intelligent or unanimous co-operation on the part of his companions in faith. Ferdinand triumphed over this first great victory for the Catholic cause. He was now ready to renounce humbly his claim upon Hungary, so that, by making peace with the Sultan, he might leave his own and the Emperor's hands free in Germany. Luther saw in the fate of Zwingli another judgment of G.o.d against the spirit of Munzer, and in the whole course of the war a solemn warning for the members of the Schmalkaldic League not to boast of any human alliance, and to do their utmost to preserve peace.

But the events in Switzerland gave no handle against those who had not joined the Zwinglians, nor were even the latter weakened thereby in power and organisation. The South Germans had now to cling all the more firmly to their alliance with the Lutheran princes and cities; the Zwinglian movement suffered shortly afterwards (Dec. 1) a severe loss in the death of Oecolampadius. Finally the Sultan was not satisfied with Ferdinand's repeated offers, but prepared for a new campaign against Austria in the spring of 1532, and towards the end of April he set out for it.

This checked the feverous desire of Germans for war against their fellow-countrymen, and brought to a practical result the negotiations for a treaty which had been conducted early in 1582 at Schweinfurt, and later on at Nuremberg. They amounted to this: that all idea of an agreement on the religious and ecclesiastical questions in dispute was abandoned until the hoped-for Council should take place, and that, as had long been Luther's opinion, they should rest content with a political peace or _modus vivendi_, which should recognise both parties in the position they then occupied. The main dispute was on the further question, how far this recognition should extend;--whether only to the Schmalkaldic allies, the immediate parties to the present agreement, or to such other States of the Empire as might go over to the new doctrine from the old Church--which still remained the established Church of the Emperor and the Empire in general--and, perhaps further, to Protestant subjects of Catholic princes of the Empire. There was also still the question as to the validity of Ferdinand's election as King of Rome. Luther was again and again asked for his opinion on this subject.

He was just then suffering from an unusually severe attack, which incessantly reminded him of his approaching end. In addition, he was deeply concerned about the health of his beloved Elector. Early in the morning of January 22 he was seized again, as his friend Dietrich, who lived with him, informs us, with another violent attack in his head and heart. His friends who had come to him began to speak of the effect his death would have on the Papists, when he exclaimed, 'But I shall not die yet, I am certain. G.o.d will never strengthen the Papal abominations by letting me die now that Zwingli and Oecolampadius are just gone. Satan would no doubt like to have it so: he dogs my heels every moment; but not his will will be done, but the Lord's.' The physician thought that apoplexy was imminent, and that if so, Luther could hardly recover. The attack however seems to have quickly pa.s.sed away, but Luther's head remained racked with pain. A few weeks later, towards the end of February, he had to visit the Elector at Torgau, who was lying there in great suffering, and had been compelled to have the great toe of his left foot amputated. Luther writes thence about himself to Dietrich, saying that he was thinking about the preface to his translation of the Prophets, but suffered so severely from giddiness and the torments of Satan, that he well-nigh despaired of living and returning to Wittenberg. 'My head,' he says, 'will do no more: so remember that, if I die, your talents and eloquence will be wanted for the preface.' For a whole month, as he remarked at the beginning of April, he was prevented from reading, writing, and lecturing. He informed Spalatin, in a letter of May 20, which Bugenhagen wrote for him, that at present, G.o.d willing, he must take a holiday. And on June 13 he told Amsdorf that his head was gradually recovering through the intercessions of his friends, but that he despaired of regaining his natural powers.

Notwithstanding this condition and frame of mind, Luther continued to send cordial, calm, and encouraging words of peace, concerning the negotiations then pending, both to the Elector John and his son John Frederick.

Concerning Ferdinand's election Luther declared to these two princes on February 12, and again afterwards, that it must not be allowed to embarra.s.s or prevent a treaty of peace. If it violated a trifling article of the Golden Bull, that was no sin against the Holy Ghost, and G.o.d could show the Protestants, for a mote like this in the eyes of their enemies, whole beams in their own. It must needs be an intolerable burden to the Elector's conscience if war were to arise in consequence,--a war which might 'well end in rending the Empire asunder and letting in the Turks, to the ruin of the Gospel and everything else.'

An opinion, drawn up on May 16 by Luther and Bugenhagen, was equally decided in counselling submission on the question as to the extension of the truce, if peace itself depended upon it. For if the Emperor, he said, was now pleased to grant security to the now existing Protestant States, he did so as a favour and a personal privilege. They could not coerce him into showing the same favour to others. Others must make the venture by the grace of G.o.d, and hope to gain security in like manner. Everyone must accept the gospel at his own peril.

Luther began already to hear the reproach that to adopt such a course would be to renounce brotherly love, for Christians should seek the salvation and welfare of others besides themselves. He was reproached again with disowning by his conduct the Protestant ideal of religious freedom and the equal rights of Confessions. Very differently will he be judged by those who realise the legal and const.i.tutional relations then existing in Germany, and the ecclesiastico-political views shared in common by Protestants and Catholics, and who then ask what was to be gained by a course contrary to that which he advised in the way of peace and positive law. That the sovereigns of Catholic States should secure toleration to the Evangelical wors.h.i.+p in their own territories was opposed to those general principles by virtue of which the Protestant rulers took proceedings against their Catholic subjects. According to those principles, nothing was left for subjects who resisted the established religion of the country but to claim free and unmolested departure. Luther observed with justice, 'What thou wilt not have done to thee, do not thou to others.' With regard to the further question as to the princes who should hereafter join the Protestants, it certainly sounds naive to hear Luther speak of a present mere act of favour on the part of the Emperor. But he was strictly right in his idea, that a concession, involving the separation of some of the States of the Empire from the one Church system hitherto established indivisibly throughout the Empire, and their organisation of a separate Church, had no foundation whatever in imperial law as existing before and up to the Reformation, and could in so far be regarded simply as a free concession of the Emperor and Empire to individual members of the general body; who, therefore, had no right to compel the extension of this concession to others, and thereby hazard the peace of the Empire. Something had already been gained by the fact that at least no limitation was expressed. A door was thus left open for extension at a future time; and for those who wished to profit by this fact, the danger, if only peace could be a.s.sured, was at any rate diminished. If we may see any merit in the fact that the German nation at that time was spared a b.l.o.o.d.y war, unbounded in its destructive results, and that a peaceful solution was secured for a number of years, that merit is due in the first place to the great Reformer. He acted throughout like a true patriot and child of his Fatherland, no less than like a true Christian teacher and adviser of conscience.

The negotiations above described involved the further question about a Council, pending which a peaceful agreement was now effected. In the article providing for the convocation of a 'free Christian Council,' the Protestants demanded the addition of the words, 'in which questions should be determined according to the pure Word of G.o.d.' On this point, however, Luther was unwilling to prolong the dispute. He remarked with practical wisdom that the addition would be of no service; their opponents would in any case wish to have the credit of having spoken according to the pure Word of G.o.d.

In June bad news came again from Nuremberg, tending to the belief that the Papists had thwarted the work of peace. Luther again exclaimed, as he had done after the Diet of Augsburg, 'Well, well!

your blood be upon your own heads; we have done enough.'

Towards the end of the month, when the Elector again invited his opinion, he repeated, with even more urgency than before, his warnings to those Protestants also who were 'far too clever and confident, and who, as their language seemed to show, wished to have a peace not open to dispute.' He begged the Elector, in all humility, to 'write in earnest a good, stern letter to our brethren,' that they might see how much the Emperor had graciously conceded to them which could be accepted with a good conscience, and not refuse such a gracious peace for the sake of some paltry, far-fetched point of detail. G.o.d would surely heal and provide for such trifling defects.

On July 23 the peace was actually concluded at Nuremberg, and signed by the Emperor on August 2. Both parties were mutually to practise Christian toleration until the Council was held; one of these parties being expressly designated as the Schmalkaldic allies. The value of this treaty for the maintenance of Protestantism in Germany was shown by the indignation displayed by the Papal legates from the first at the Emperor's concessions.

The Elector John was permitted to survive the conclusion of the peace, which he had been foremost among the princes in promoting.

Shortly after, on August 15, he was seized with apoplexy when out hunting, and on the following day he breathed his last. Luther and Melancthon, who were summoned to him at Schweinitz, found him unconscious. Luther said his beloved prince, on awakening, would be conscious of everlasting life; just as when he came from hunting on the Lochau heath, he would not know what had happened to him; as said the prophet (Isaiah lvii. 1, 2), 'The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds.' Luther preached at his funeral at Wittenberg, as he had done seven years before at his brother's, and Spalatin tells us how he wept like a child.

John had, throughout his reign, laboured conscientiously to follow the Word of G.o.d, as taught by Luther, and to encounter all dangers and difficulties by the strength of faith. He has rightly earned the surname of 'the Steadfast.' Luther especially praises his conduct at the Diet of Augsburg in this respect; he frequently said to his councillors on that occasion, 'Tell my men of learning that they are to do what is right, to the praise and glory of G.o.d, without regard to me, or to my country and people.' Luther distinguished piety and benevolence as the two most prominent features of his character, as wisdom and understanding had been those of the Elector Frederick's.

'Had the two princes,' he said, 'been one, that man would have been a marvel.'

PART VI.