The History of Christianity - John S. C. Abbott (bookstand for reading .txt) 📗

breathing through their cross-barred visors, and goggling through the holes left for their eyes, spurred their horses forward in solid mass, and fell headlong, horse and rider, with their heavy and inextricable weight of armor, into the trap set for them. It was a horrible massacre,—an avalanche of overthrown, struggling horses and human bodies cased in steel.

The momentum of the vast mass was such, that their onward movement could not be checked. The pressure behind forced forward those in the advance, till thousands were plunged into the abyss, writhing, struggling, choking, like vipers in a vase. The infuriated peasants and mechanics on the other side of the ditch, with clubs and every other available weapon, beat out the brains of those who endeavored to escape from the maelstrom of death. This enormous slaughter nearly depopulated France of its lords and princes.

The corruptions which had crept into the secularized Church more and more appalled the more devout both of the clergy and of the laity. True men began to speak loudly against these corruptions, and continued so to speak, notwithstanding all the denunciations of temporal and ecclesiastical power.

The leading cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, appointed by infamous popes and kings, were almost universally irreligious and corrupt men. There were some noble exceptions; but sincere piety was more generally found only with the more humble of the clergy, and with the common people.

In order to raise money, Pope Leo X., early in the sixteenth century, devised the plan of selling indulgences. A regular tariff of prices was fixed for the pardon of all crimes, from murder downwards. If a man wished to commit any outrage, or to indulge in any forbidden wickedness, he could do so at a stipulated price, and receive from the pope a full pardon. These permits, or indulgences as they were called, were peddled all over Europe, and an immense revenue was gathered from them. There was one man, by the name of John Tetzel, a brazen-faced miscreant, who made himself very notorious as a peddler of these indulgences. He traversed Northern France and Germany, engaged in this nefarious traffic.

In a cart gorgeously embellished, and accompanied by a musical band, he would approach some populous town, and tarry somewhere in the suburbs until his emissaries had entered the place and informed the inhabitants of the signal honor which awaited them from the advent of a nuncio from the pope with pardons for sin at his disposal.

All the church-bells would be set ringing for joy: the whole population would be thrown into the greatest excitement to receive the brilliant pageant. At the annotated hour the cavalcade entered, bedizened with all the gorgeous finery of a modern menagerie display. Tetzel carried, in the capacious box of his peddler’s cart, the parchment certificates of pardon for every imaginary sin. Murder, adultery, theft, sacrilege, blasphemy,—every crime had its specified price.

One could purchase pardon or absolution for any crime which had already been committed, or he could purchase permission to commit the crime if it were one he wished to perpetrate. With music and banners the procession advanced to the public square. Here Tetzel, mounted upon his box, with all the volubility of a modern mountebank palmed off his wares upon the eager crowd.

“My brothers,” said this prince of impostors, “God has sent me to you with his last and greatest gift. The Church is in need of money. I am empowered by the pope, God’s vicegerent, to absolve you from any and every crime you may have committed, no matter what it may be. The moment the money tinkles in the bottom of the box, your soul shall be as pure as that of the babe unborn.

“I can also grant you indulgence; so that any sins you may commit hereafter shall all be blotted out. More than this: if you have any friends now in purgatory suffering in those awful flames, I am empowered, in consideration of the money you grant the Church in this its hour of need, to cause that soul to be immediately released from purgatory, and to be borne on angel-wings to heaven.”

Enlightened as the masses of the people are at the present day, we can hardly imagine the effect these representations produced upon an ignorant and superstitious people who had ever been trained to the belief that the pope was equal in power to God. These peddlings of indulgences for sin were carried on all over Europe, and enormous sums of money were thus raised. The certificates, which were issued like government-bonds, ran in this form:—

“I, by the authority of Jesus Christ, his blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and the most holy pope, absolve thee from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they may be. I remit to thee all punishment which thou dost deserve in purgatory on their account, and restore thee to the innocence and purity thou didst possess at baptism; so that, when thou diest, the gates of punishment shall be shut against thee, and the gates of paradise shall be thrown wide open.”

It was this sale of indulgences which opened the eyes of Luther and other devout men to the corruptions which had crept into the Church. We have not space here to enter into the details of the great Protestant Reformation which ensued: the reader can find in the pages of D’Aubigné, which are easily accessible, a graphic narrative of its incidents. Notwithstanding the ferocious hostility of popes and kings, the Reformation spread rapidly among the masses of the people; and several sovereigns and princes of high rank, disgusted with the arrogance of the popes, espoused its principles. The Emperor Maximilian wrote to one of the leading men in the Saxon court in reference to Luther,—

“All the popes I have had any thing to do with have been rogues and cheats. The game with the priests is beginning. What your monk is doing is not to be despised. Take care of him: it may happen that we shall have need of him.”

Providentially, the Elector of Saxony was the friend and protector of Luther. The intrepid monk wrote to the pope a remonstrance against the iniquities which were practised at Rome.

“You have three or four cardinals,” he wrote, “of learning and faith; but what are these three or four in so vast a crowd of infidels and reprobates? The days of Rome are numbered, and the anger of God has been breathed forth upon her. She hates councils, she dreads reform, and will not hear of a check being placed on her desperate impiety.”

A diet was summoned at Worms, composed of the princes and potentates of the great German empire. The Emperor Charles V. presided. Such a spectacle the world had never witnessed before. Luther was summoned to appear before this body to be tried for heresy. In those treacherous days it was not deemed safe for Luther to place himself in the hands of his enemies, though he had obtained a safe-conduct from the emperor. His friends urged him not to go to Worms. He replied,—

“If there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on the roofs of the houses, I would still go there.”

Before that august assembly, which had predetermined his condemnation and death, Luther made an eloquent defence, which he concluded in the following words:—

“Let me, then, be refuted and convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures, or by the clearest arguments; otherwise I cannot and will not recant; for it is neither safe nor expedient to act against conscience. Here I take my stand. I can do no otherwise, so help me God! Amen.”

He was suffered to depart under his safe-conduct; but he was closely followed, and measures were taken to arrest him the moment his safe-conduct should expire.

As, on his return home, he was passing through the gloomy paths of a forest, some horsemen suddenly appeared, seized him, dressed him in the disguise of military costume, put on him a false beard, mounted him on a horse, and drove rapidly away.

“His friends were anxious about his fate; for a dreadful sentence had been uttered against him by the emperor on the day when his safe-conduct expired, forbidding any one to sustain or shelter him, and ordering all persons to arrest and bring him into prison to await the judgment he deserved.”204

To rescue him from this doom, the Elector of Saxony had sent these troops, who conveyed him secretly, but in safety, to the Castle of Wartburg. Thus, while it was generally supposed that he had been waylaid and slain, he was peacefully prosecuting his studies within the walls of the fortress, safe from his foes.

The conflict between the reformers and the opponents of reform soon became the all-engrossing question of the age. Many were of the opinion that the end of the world was at hand. The whole continent of Europe was shaken by religions and political commotions. The religious question rallied powerful princes on the opposite sides. The Turks, in apparently overpowering numbers, were thundering at the gates of many of the Eastern cities. France was a maelstrom of excitement. Bigoted Spain declared “heresy” punishable with death. Terrible earthquakes shook the globe. A large portion of Lisbon in a moment was whelmed in ruin, burying thirty thousand of the inhabitants beneath the débris. An enormous ocean-wave swept the coast of Holland, consigning four hundred thousand people to a watery grave.

In the year 1530, the Emperor Charles V. determined to enforce by military power the oppressive decrees adopted by the Diet at Worms. But the Reformation in Germany had made extraordinary progress. Many German princes had adopted its principles, and were ready to draw the sword in its defence. These princes united in a solemn protest against this papal intolerance. This protest was signed by such men as John, Elector of Saxony, George, Margrave of Brandenburg, two Dukes of Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and the governors of twenty-four imperial cities. From this formidable protest, which was issued in the spring of the year 1529, the reformers took the name of Protestants, which they retain at the present day.

The Emperor Charles V., alarmed by this protest, after several long interviews with the pope, assembled a new diet at Augsburg in April, 1530. Hoping by menaces or bribes to silence the voice of Protestantism, he assumed the air of candor. “I have convened,” he said, “this assembly to consider the difference of opinion upon the subject of religion. It is my intention to hear both parties impartially, to examine their respective arguments, and to reform what requires to be reformed, that there may be in future only one pure and simple faith, and that, as all are the disciples of the same Jesus, all may form one and the same church.”

The Protestants appointed Luther and Melancthon to draw up a confession of their faith. Luther was a stern, unyielding man: Melancthon was amiable and pliant. Though they agreed in their confession, it did not exactly suit either. It was a little too yielding for Luther, and too uncompromising for Melancthon. Subsequently the document was revised by Melancthon, and somewhat softened to meet his own views. As thus modified, it was adopted by the German people who took the title of German Reformed. The Lutherans adhered to the original document.

The emperor, in co-operation with the pope, now threw off the mask, and resolved by force of arms to compel all to conform to the doctrines and usages of the Papal Church. He began to gather his armies to crush the Protestants. They entered into a league for mutual protection. A civil, religious war was just about to burst upon Germany, when the Turks, with an army three hundred thousand strong, commenced the ascent of the Danube. The emperor, alarmed by this terrible invasion, was compelled to call upon the Protestants for aid; but they feared the