man of so
humble,
peaceable a
disposition ever filled the world with
contention. We cannot but see that he would have loved
privacy, quiet
diligence in the shade; that it was against his will he ever became a
notoriety. Notoriety: what would that do for him? The goal of his march
through this world was the Infinite Heaven; an indubitable goal for him:
in a few years, he should either have attained that, or lost it forever!
We will say nothing at all, I think, of that
sorrowfulest of theories, of
its being some mean
shopkeepergrudge, of the Augustine Monk against the
Dominican, that first kindled the wrath of Luther, and produced the
Protestant Reformation. We will say to the people who
maintain it, if
indeed any such exist now: Get first into the
sphere of thought by which
it is so much as possible to judge of Luther, or of any man like Luther,
otherwise than distractedly; we may then begin arguing with you.
The Monk Tetzel, sent out
carelessly in the way of trade, by Leo
Tenth,--who merely wanted to raise a little money, and for the rest seems
to have been a Pagan rather than a Christian, so far as he was
anything,--arrived at Wittenberg, and drove his scandalous trade there.
Luther's flock bought Indulgences; in the confessional of his Church,
people pleaded to him that they had already got their sins
pardoned.
Luther, if he would not be found
wanting at his own post, a false sluggard
and
coward at the very centre of the little space of ground that was his
own and no other man's, had to step forth against Indulgences, and declare
aloud that _they_ were a futility and
sorrowfulmockery, that no man's sins
could be
pardoned by _them_. It was the
beginning of the whole
Reformation. We know how it went; forward from this first public challenge
of Tetzel, on the last day of October, 1517, through remonstrance and
argument;--spreading ever wider, rising ever higher; till it became
unquenchable, and enveloped all the world. Luther's heart's desire was to
have this grief and other griefs amended; his thought was still far other
than that of introducing
separation in the Church, or revolting against the
Pope, Father of Christendom.--The
elegant Pagan Pope cared little about
this Monk and his doctrines; wished, however, to have done with the noise
of him: in a space of some three years, having tried various softer
methods, he thought good to end it by _fire_. He dooms the Monk's writings
to be burnt by the hangman, and his body to be sent bound to
Rome,--probably for a similar purpose. It was the way they had ended with
Huss, with Jerome, the century before. A short
argument, fire. Poor Huss:
he came to that Constance Council, with all imaginable promises and
safe-conducts; an
earnest, not
rebellious kind of man: they laid him
instantly in a stone
dungeon "three feet wide, six feet high, seven feet
long;" _burnt_ the true voice of him out of this world; choked it in smoke
and fire. That was _not_ well done!
I, for one,
pardon Luther for now
altogether revolting against the Pope.
The
elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree of his, had kindled into noble just
wrath the bravest heart then living in this world. The bravest, if also
one of the
humblest,
peaceablest; it was now kindled. These words of mine,
words of truth and soberness, aiming
faithfully, as human
inability would
allow, to
promote God's truth on Earth, and save men's souls, you, God's
vicegerent on earth, answer them by the hangman and fire? You will burn me
and them, for answer to the God's-message they
strove to bring you? You
are not God's vicegerent; you are another's than his, I think! I take your
Bull, as an em
parchmented Lie, and burn _it_. _You_ will do what you see
good next: this is what I do.--It was on the 10th of December, 1520, three
years after the
beginning of the business, that Luther, "with a great
concourse of people," took this
indignant step of burning the Pope's
fire-decree "at the Elster-Gate of Wittenberg." Wittenberg looked on "with
shoutings;" the whole world was looking on. The Pope should not have
provoked that "shout"! It was the shout of the
awakening of nations. The
quiet German heart,
modest, patient of much, had at length got more than it
could bear. Formulism, Pagan Popeism, and other Falsehood and corrupt
Semblance had ruled long enough: and here once more was a man found who
durst tell all men that God's-world stood not on
semblances but on
realities; that Life was a truth, and not a lie!
At bottom, as was said above, we are to consider Luther as a Prophet
Idol-breaker; a bringer-back of men to
reality. It is the
function of
great men and teachers. Mahomet said, These idols of yours are wood; you
put wax and oil on them, the flies stick on them: they are not God, I tell
you, they are black wood! Luther said to the Pope, This thing of yours
that you call a Pardon of Sins, it is a bit of rag-paper with ink. It is
nothing else; it, and so much like it, is nothing else. God alone can
pardon sins. Popeship,
spiritual Fatherhood of God's Church, is that a
vain
semblance, of cloth and
parchment? It is an awful fact. God's Church
is not a
semblance, Heaven and Hell are not
semblances. I stand on this,
since you drive me to it. Standing on this, I a poor German Monk am
stronger than you all. I stand
solitary, friendless, but on God's Truth;
you with your tiaras, triple-hats, with your treasuries and armories,
thunders
spiritual and temporal, stand on the Devil's Lie, and are not so
strong!--
The Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th of April, 1521,
may be considered as the greatest scene in Modern European History; the
point, indeed, from which the whole
subsequent history of civilization
takes its rise. After multiplied negotiations, disputations, it had come
to this. The young Emperor Charles Fifth, with all the Princes of Germany,
Papal nuncios, dignitaries
spiritual and temporal, are assembled there:
Luther is to appear and answer for himself, whether he will recant or not.
The world's pomp and power sits there on this hand: on that, stands up for
God's Truth, one man, the poor miner Hans Luther's Son. Friends had
reminded him of Huss, advised him not to go; he would not be advised. A
large company of friends rode out to meet him, with still more
earnestwarnings; he answered, "Were there as many Devils in Worms as there are
roof-tiles, I would on." The people, on the
morrow, as he went to the Hall
of the Diet,
crowded the windows and house-tops, some of them
calling out
to him, in
solemn words, not to recant: "Whosoever denieth me before men!"
they cried to him,--as in a kind of
solemnpetition and adjuration. Was it
not in
reality our
petition too, the
petition of the whole world, lying in
dark
bondage of soul, paralyzed under a black spectral Nightmare and
triple-hatted Chimera,
calling itself Father in God, and what not: "Free
us; it rests with thee; desert us not!"
Luther did not desert us. His speech, of two hours,
distinguished itself
by its
respectful, wise and honest tone; submissive to
whatever">
whatsoever could
lawfully claim
submission, not submissive to any more than that. His
writings, he said, were
partly his own,
partly derived from the Word of
God. As to what was his own, human
infirmity entered into it; unguarded
anger,
blindness, many things
doubtless which it were a
blessing for him
could he
abolishaltogether. But as to what stood on sound truth and the
Word of God, he could not recant it. How could he? "Confute me," he
concluded, "by proofs of Scripture, or else by plain just
arguments: I
cannot recant
otherwise. For it is neither safe nor
prudent to do aught
against
conscience. Here stand I; I can do no other: God
assist me!"--It
is, as we say, the greatest moment in the Modern History of Men. English
Puritanism, England and its Parliaments, Americas, and vast work these two
centuries; French Revolution, Europe and its work everywhere at present:
the germ of it all lay there: had Luther in that moment done other, it had
all been
otherwise! The European World was asking him: Am I to sink ever
lower into
falsehood,
stagnant putrescence,
loathsomeaccursed death; or,
with
whatever paroxysm, to cast the
falsehoods out of me, and be cured and
live?--
Great wars, contentions and disunion followed out of this Reformation;
which last down to our day, and are yet far from ended. Great talk and
crimination has been made about these. They are
lamentable, undeniable;
but after all, what has Luther or his cause to do with them? It seems
strange
reasoning to
charge the Reformation with all this. When Hercules
turned the purifying river into King Augeas's stables, I have no doubt the
confusion that resulted was
considerable all around: but I think it was
not Hercules's blame; it was some other's blame! The Reformation might
bring what results it liked when it came, but the Reformation simply could
not help coming. To all Popes and Popes' advocates, expostulating,
lamenting and accusing, the answer of the world is: Once for all, your
Popehood has become
untrue. No matter how good it was, how good you say it
is, we cannot believe it; the light of our whole mind, given us to walk by
from Heaven above, finds it
henceforth a thing unbelievable. We will not
believe it, we will not try to believe it,--we dare not! The thing is
_
untrue_; we were traitors against the Giver of all Truth, if we durst
pretend to think it true. Away with it; let
whatever">
whatsoever likes come in the
place of it: with _it_ we can have no farther trade!--Luther and his
Protestantism is not
responsible for wars; the false Simulacra that forced
him to protest, they are
responsible. Luther did what every man that God