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

his powerful appeals scattered from the church with no disposition manifested to give their hearts to the Saviour, or to consecrate their lives to his service. At length, the preacher, around whose pulpit the incense of popular applause was continually ascending, was heard to say in bitterness of lamentation, “Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon.”

This great and good man died at Wittenberg on the 19th of April, 1560, in the sixty-third year of his age.

Martin Luther has generally been regarded as the father of the Reformation. He was certainly one of the greatest men of the sixteenth century. He was the son of very poor parents, his father being a miner; and was born at Eisleben, Nov. 10, 1483. Martin’s childhood was simply such as was to be expected in the home of poor but very religious parents. At the age of fourteen he was sent to school at Magdeburg; but his destitution was so great, that he often obtained a few pence, which contributed essentially to his support, by singing in the streets. Still he made rapid progress in study; and, being taken under the care of a maternal relation, at the age of eighteen he entered the University of Erfurt. Here the closeness of his application and his attainments soon attracted the attention of his teachers.

The Bible at that time was a sealed book to the laity. Luther, to his great delight, found a copy in the Latin language in the library of the university. He studied it with the utmost diligence, and became so interested in its contents, that he resolved to devote himself to the study of divinity. The sudden death of a friend at this time, who fell dead at his side, so impressed him with melancholy emotions, that he decided to withdraw from the world, and immure himself in the glooms of the cloister. Accordingly, he entered the monastery of the Augustines at Erfurt in the year 1505, and patiently submitted to all the rigors and penances imposed upon him by his superiors. But he was tortured with a sense of sin: none of his self-inflicted sufferings appeased his conscience. His mental agitation threw him into severe and dangerous illness. He felt that he had no good works upon which he could rely as atonement for his many infirmities, and his good sense enabled him to contemplate with thorough disgust the traffic in indulgences.

But a gleam of new light dawned upon his mind as one of the brothers spoke to him of salvation from sin and its penalty through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ,—salvation through faith, and not by works.

The high intellectual endowments of Luther could not be concealed. The provincial of the order released him from the menial duties of the cloister that he might devote himself to the study of theology. In 1507 he was ordained a Catholic priest; and, one year after, was made professor of philosophy in the University of Wittenberg. Here his commanding intellect, and independence of character, collected around him a large number of disciples. A visit to Rome in 1510 revealed to him the corruption of the clergy, and utterly destroyed his reverence for the pope. Upon his return to Wittenberg, at the age of twenty-nine, he was made a doctor in theology, and became a preacher.

At this time the impudent charlatan Tetzel was traversing Germany, peddling out his indulgences. The zeal and indignation of Luther were aroused: he preached against the outrage vehemently, and published ninety-five propositions, which contained an irrefutable attack upon the infamous traffic. The propositions were at once declared to be heretical; but no arts of flattery, or terrors of menace, could induce the fearless Luther to recant. Pamphlet after pamphlet proceeded from his pen, assailing the corruptions of the Church; while thousands gathered to listen to his bold denunciations from the pulpit. In 1520 the pope issued a bull of excommunication against Luther and his friends, and his writings were publicly burned at Rome, Cologne, and Louvain. Luther, unintimidated, publicly burned the bull of Papal excommunication at Wittenberg on the 10th of December, 1520.

Several of the German princes, and many of the most illustrious nobles, had embraced the doctrines of Luther; so that he was not left without powerful support. Still the world was amazed at the boldness of an obscure monk, who thus ventured to bid defiance to the Catholic clergy, to the fanatic emperor of Germany, and to the pope himself. Luther was summoned by the emperor to appear at the Diet of Worms, and was provided with a safe-conduct from his Majesty. Yet his friends trembled in fear of his assassination. It was upon this occasion, when urged not to expose himself to such danger, that he gave his memorable reply:—

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

As Luther approached Worms, when within three miles of the city, a cavalcade of two thousand citizens came out to honor him with their escort. The Emperor Charles V. presided at the diet. The body was composed of the Archduke Ferdinand, six electors, twenty-four dukes, seven margraves, and many princes, counts, lords, and ambassadors. Luther’s defence was considered by his friends unanswerable; and his foes seemed to think that the only reply to be made was by the dagger of the assassin. To rescue him from this peril, his powerful friends kidnapped him on his return, as we have mentioned, and conveyed him to the Castle of Wartburg, where for ten months he was concealed. These months of retirement he devoted to the translation of the New Testament into German.

But his impetuous spirit chafed to escape from the prison-bars which protected him. Through a thousand perils he at length returned to Wittenberg, and there commenced anew his life of tireless zeal in assailing the corruptions of the Church. He drew up a new liturgy for the service of his followers, expurgated of its empty forms; urged the abolition of monasteries, which had mainly become the resort of ignorance and vice; and trampled under his feet the prejudices of papal ecclesiasticism by marrying a nun, Catherine von Bora. Luther was forty-two years of age when he took this important step.

The virtues as well as the imperfections of this extraordinary man were those of impetuosity, courage, self-reliance, and indomitable zeal. He was often very severe. “The severity which he used in the defence of his faith by no means diminishes the merit of his constancy. An apology may easily be found for the frequent rudeness of his expressions in the prevailing mode of speaking and thinking; in the nature of his undertaking, which required continual contest; in the provocations with which he was continually assailed; in his frequent sickness; and in his excitable imagination.”210

Even the enemies of Luther, who so bitterly censure the severity often found in his writings, are constrained to admit that he was impelled by honest and honorable motives. Luther says of himself,—

“I was born to fight with devils and factions: this is the reason that my books are so boisterous and stormy. It is my business to remove obstructions, to cut down thorns, to fill up quagmires, and to open and make straight the paths. But, if I must necessarily have some failing, let me rather speak the truth with too great severity than once to act the hypocrite, and conceal the truth.”

No one can be informed of the amount of labor performed by Luther, without astonishment. While preaching several times each week, and often every day, conducting a very extensive and important correspondence with the reformers all over Europe, he was one of the most prolific writers of any age, and rendered his name immortal by translating the Bible into the German language. This latter work alone one would deem sufficient to have engrossed the most industrious energies for a lifetime. His admirable hymns are still sung in all the churches; and the tune of “Old Hundred,” which he composed, will last while time endures. In the performance of such labors, he lived until he was sixty-three years of age. Just before he died, he wrote to a friend in the following pathetic strain:—

“Aged, worn out, weary, spiritless, and now blind of one eye, I long for a little rest and quietness. Yet I have as much to do, in writing and preaching and acting, as if I had never written or preached or acted. I am weary of the world, and the world is weary of me. The parting will be easy, like that of the guest leaving the inn. I pray only that God will be gracious to me in my last hour, and I shall quit the world without reluctance.”

A few days after writing the above, Martin Luther died, at Eisleben,—on the 18th of February, 1546. He was buried in the Castle Church at Wittenberg.

John Wickliffe is often called “the morning star” of the Reformation. He was born in Yorkshire, England, about the year 1324. In his earliest years he developed unusual mental endowments, and graduated at Queen’s College, Oxford, with high honors. At the age of thirty-two he published a treatise upon “The Last Age of the Church,” in which he ventured to assail some of the assumptions of the pope, and severely to attack the encroachments of the mendicant friars. In 1372, Wickliffe, having received the title of D.D., delivered lectures on theology at Oxford with great applause. At that time a controversy was beginning to arise between the pope and Edward III., King of England. Edward, sustained by his parliament, refused to submit to the vassalage which the pope had exacted of his predecessors. Wickliffe with his pen very successfully defended the position taken by the king. He thus secured the favor of his monarch, but exasperated the pope, Gregory XI. Wickliffe was accused of heresy. The pope issued a bull, and nineteen articles of alleged false doctrine were drawn up against him. Gregory issued three bulls addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, ordering the seizure and imprisonment of Wickliffe.

In the mean time, Edward III. had died; but the British court and the populace of London rallied so enthusiastically around Wickliffe, that no judgment could be taken against him. Soon after this, Gregory XI. died; and all proceedings against the English reformer were dropped. But the zeal of Wickliffe was thoroughly aroused; and, encouraged by the powerful support he received from the British court and from the people, he assailed with increasing freedom the exorbitant pretensions of the court of Rome. Speaking of his labors, McIntosh says,—

“The new opinions on religion which now arose mingled with the general spirit of Christianity in promoting the progress of emancipation, and had their share in the few disorders which accompanied it. Wickliffe, the celebrated reformer, had become one of the most famous doctors of the English Church. His lettered education rendered him no stranger to the severity with which Dante and Chaucer had lashed the vices of the clergy without sparing the corruptions of the Roman see itself. His theological learning and mystical piety led him to reprobate the whole system of wealth and worldliness, by which a blind bounty had destroyed the apostolical simplicity and primitive humility of the Christian religion.”

This eminent man, who in the end of the fourteenth century commenced the assault upon the corruptions of the court of Rome, died of a paralytic stroke on the 31st December, 1384. His doctrine and his spirit survived him, and paved the way for the final and entire separation of the Church of England from that of Rome. The exasperation which his writings created in the bosoms of the advocates of the Papacy may be inferred from the fact,