THE LIFE AND TIMES sarj of indulgences, nay, further, the pope himself, should j)ledge their souls to guarantee it.
" They are the enemies of the pope and of Christ who, by reason of the preaching of indulgences, forbid the preaching of the word of 55. " The pope can have no other thought than this
: if the indulgence, which is a lesser matter, be celebrated with ringing of bells, with pomp and ceremony, much more should we honor and celebrate the gospel, which is a greater thing, with a hundred bells, and with a hundred pomps and ceremonies.
" The true and precious treasure of the church is the holy gospel of the glory and grace of " The treasures of the gospel are nets in which, in former times, the rich and those in easy circumstances w^ere caught.
Gii. " But the treasures of indulgences are nets with which they now catch the riches of the people.
" It is the duty of bishops and pastors to receive the commissaries of indulgences Avith every mark of respect.
68. " But it is still more their duty to ascertain with their eyes and ears that the said commissaries «lo not preach the dreams of their own imagination, instead of the orders of the pope.
71. " Cursed be he who speaks against the indulgences of the pope.
" But blessed bo ho who speaks against the foolisli and impudent language of the preachers of indulgences.
77. " The indulgence of the pope cannot take away the smallest daily sin, as far as regards the guilt of the offence.
" It is blas23liemy to say that the cross adorned with the arms of the pope is as effectual as the cross of Christ.
" The bishops, pastors, and theologians who permit such things to be told the people, will have to render an account of them.
" This shameless preaching, these impudent commendations of indulgences, make it difficult for the learned to defend the dignity and honor of the Y>ope against the calumnies of the preachers, and the subtle and crafty questions of the common people.
82. "As, for instance, why does not the pope, for the sake of most holy love, and because of the extreme need of the souls, which forms the most urgent reason, at once deliver all souls from jmrgaiory ; while yet, for the sake of pitiable money, in order to erect
St. Peter's church, which forms a most insignificant reason, he delivers innumerable souls ?
" Again, what does the pope forgive, or what does he distribute to those who, through trug. repentance, are already entitled to forgiveness and indulgences ?
" Why, say they, does not the pope, who is richer than the richest Croesus, budd the mother THE LIFE AND TIMES cliurcli of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with that of poor Christians ?
" Would that we were quit of those preachers who cry to the church, Peace, peace, and there is no peace.
" We should exhort Christians to diligence in following Christ their head, through crosses, death, and hell.
95. " For it is far better to enter into the kingdom of heaven through much tribulation, than to acquire a carnal security by the consolations of a false peace."
Such were the theses, negative and polemical, Mdiich have been well said to have contained the germs of the Reformation.
They show how closely Luther was still tied in the swaddling bands of For if there is any one thing more prominent than another in them, it is the ever present tacit assumption that the pope must side with him, and discountenance those blasphemous doctrines to which Leo had already committed himself.
Had Luther at this time been informed of the length to which his theses would ultimately lead him, he wovdd probably have been filled with horror.
He had neither the wish nor the thought of introducing innovations, or of breaking with Rome.
On the contrary, he imagined himself to be a much better Romanist than the scandalous priests whose iniquities he had undertaken to uncloak.
He was led gradually and reluctantl}- to assume his later position of hostility to the holy see. meant him to grope his way through much vexation and travail of soul, out of the papal darkness up to the table-land of his final protestation.
The gi'eat heresy which the theses contained was their denial to the pope of all power to remit sins, and his declaration that the laws of ecclesiastical penance in no respect concerned the dead.
It is singular how so good a churchman as Luther then was, came to entertain these clear and concise views, especially as no doctrine of the Boman church is more definitely settled than this very one of indulgences.^
Strangely enough, Luther does not appear to have then been at all conscious of his heresy in this matter ; and indeed it is curious to notice how anxious the Wittemberg monk was, all through the earlier phases of the fierce controversy which followed the publication of his theses, to persuade himself and others that he advocated no new or hostile measures to the Koman polity
; how much he dreaded even the whispered reproach of heresy ; inflexibly earnest only in denouncing, not indulgences per se, but only their abuse.
But God ere long extracted the sting from this fear, and arming Luther in the panoply of his rich grace, and grounding him upon the rock of truth, made his chosen warrior to deserve his title of " Champion of the Bible."
8 See Bossuet's remarks quoted iu Chap. X, at page 121.
On the evening of this same eventful October, Luther, returning from the thronged and excited market-place, where the eager burghers of the good old town of Wittemberg were still busy in discussing, and mostly in approving the theses of their idolized monk, and where the jubilant students of the university were congregated in numbers, entered his cell, bowed his head in prayer, after which he remained wrapped in pensive thought for some time; then taking up his pen, he wrote this letter to Albert, Archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg, having in some manner learned that this prince, in whom the Wittemberg professor saw only a superior worthy of respect and obedience,* had both sanctioned and prescribed the quackery of indulgences.
" To the most reverend father in Christ, my most illustrious lord Prince Albert, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence, Marquis of Brandenburg, etc., etc.
"Luther to his lord and pastor in Christ, in all submission and reverence.
" The grace and mercy of God, and whatever can be and is.
* Domino suo et pastori in Christo venerabiliter metuendo.
Address on the letter.
" Pardon me, most reverend fatlier in Christ, illustrious prince, that I have the temerity, I who am the least of mankind, to raise my eyes to your sublimity, and address a letter to you.
" Jesus, my Lord and Saviour, is witness for me, that, long restrained by the consciousness of my own turpitude and weakness, I have long delayed commencing the work which I now undertake with open and upraised brow, impelled by the fidelity I owe to Jesus Christ
; deign then, your grace, to cast a look upon the grain of sand who now approaches you, and to receive my prayer with paternal clemency.
" Persons are now hawking about papal indulgences, under the name and august title of your lordship, for the construction of " I say nothing about the vaporings of the preachers, which I have not myself heard
; but I complain bitterly of the fatal errors in which they are involving the common people, men of weak understanding, whom, foolish as they are, these men persuade that they will be sure of salvation if they only buy their letters of plenary indulgence.
" They believe that souls will fly out of purgatory the moment the money paid for their redemption is thrown into the preacher's bag, and that such virtue belongs to these indulgences, that there is no sin, however great, even the violation, which is impossible, of the mother of God, which the indulgences will not absolutely and at once efface.
And is it thus that men dare to teach unto death those who are intrusted to your care, Oh reverend father, and make more difficult the account which Avill be demanded of you in the great day
" When I saw these things I coukl remain silent no longer.
No, there is no episcopal power which can insure to man his salvation ; even the infinite grace of our Lord cannot render him wholly secure
: the apostle commands us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.
The righteous scarcely shall he saved, so narrow is the way which leads to life.
Those who are saved are called in the Scripture, brands saved from the burning ; everywhere the Lord reminds us of the difficulty of salvation.
" How then dare these men seek to render poor souls fatally confident of salvation, on the mere strength of purchased indulgences and futile promises?
The chiefest work of bishops should be to take care that the people learn truly the gospel, and be full of Christian charity.
"Never did Christ j^reach indulgences, nor command them to be preached : what he preached and commanded to be preached was the gospel.
" I would implore you to silence these ill preachers ere some one shall arise and, utterly confutiug them and their preachings, cast discredit upon your sublimity, a thing to be avoided, but which I fear must needs occur, unless you take measures for silencing those men.
"I entreat your grace to read and consider tlie propositions, wherein I have demonstrated the vanity of these indulgences, which the preachers thereof call all-powerful."
To this letter, so respectful and gentle in its tone, yet so firm and decided withal, and to which Luther appended his theses, the haughty prelate to whom it was addressed did not deign to reply.
Havins: about the same time addressed a missive of somewhat similar scope and purpose to Jerome, Bishop of Brandenburg, Avho had consecrated him a priest at Erfurth, in 1507, this prelate sent him in reply, by a Carthusian monk, an epistle in which he pointed out to the Wittemburg doctor that, in what he was doing, he was assailing one of the most time-honored and definitively settled tenets of the Eoman see, and indeed attacking the church itself.
Jerome therefore adjured him to remain silent, for the sake of peace.'^^ Luther did not receive much sympathy or support at this time from any quarter.
Even Staupitz stood by in doubting fear.
"When I undertook to write against the gross error of indulgences," says Luther, writing at a later period, "Dr. Staupitz said, 'What, would you write against the pope?
They will not permit you to do this.'
' But suppose they must permit it?' replied I."t Still, Luther has assured us that he "entered into the controversy without any definite plan, witht Tischreden, p. 384.
THE LIFE AND TIMES out knowledge or inclination;" and lie adds, "I was taken quite unawares, and I call God, the searcher of hearts, to witness."*
Meantime the publication of these theses, and the sermon in German which Luther delivered in support of them,t struck upon the whole of German}^ hke a huge thunderbolt.
This submission of man to God, of the finite to t]ie infinite, was at once recognized by the German people as the true national religion, as the faith which Gottschalk proclaimed in the time of Charlemagne, from the very cradle of German Christianity.:}:
The people accordingly threw themselves with the most hungry avidity upon this religious pasture, from which they had been shiit out ever since the fourteenth centur3^
The propositions were printed in thousands, devoured, spread abroad, diffused in every direction.
Before two weeks had elapsed his w^ords had penetrated to the remotest corners of Germany, and in foiuweeks throughout Christendom ;§ this too in the infancy of printing, when
Faust had but recently modelled his rough type, and long before the press flashed news across the globe upon its myriad and lightning wings.
« Casu enim, uoii vohmtate nee studio, in has tiu-bas incidi, L. Op]). Lat. in Prsef. f One of the fathers came np to Luther after this sermon, and pulling him by the sleeve, and shaking his head, said,
"Doctor, youare going too far, you will do us much harm.
The Dominicans are laughing in their sleeves at us."
Luther, "if it comes not from God it will fall ; if it proceeds from his Holy Spirit, it will triumph."
§ Meurcr's Life of Luther.
From this wide-spread publicity, the modest and doubtful young doctor shrank.
He had designed for his theses no such extensive circulation, wi'iting them merely for local effect, and as a basis for academic disputation.
Luther's alarm at his success is exhibited by himself: "I am sorry," he said, "to see them so extensively printed and distributed
: this is not a good way wherein to set about the instruction of the people ; I myself feel some doubts upon certain points.
There are things which I should more closely have investigated and ascertained, others which I should have altogether omitted, had I foreseen this result."
But even had he desired to do so, Luther could not have laid the perturbed spirit of reform which he had invoked.
His theses, epigrammatic and terse in their form, had created so great a sensation because men's minds were already ahve to the absurdities and blasphemies of the indulgence-mongers, and these propositions of the Wittemberg doctor gave adequate expression to a universal feeling, echoed the popular thought.
He could therefore no more have stilled the tumult he had conjured up, than he could have silenced the ceaseless throbbings of the ocean.
The fires of debate once lighted, God meant should blaze on and on until all Europe w^as aglow, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Baltic sea.
Luther's timidity and qualms of conscience soon vanished before the lying and virulent assaults of the indulgence preachers and their backers.
THE LIFE AND TIMES the lukewarmness of his friends, who left him to contehd alone in the arena, the brave monk, girding up his loins, and buckling on his sjjiritual armor, determined, like David, to go forth single-handed to the combat with the Goliath of the indulgences.
"Some copies of my propositions," he says, "liaying found their way to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where Tetzel was then acting as inquisitor, and selling indulgences under the archbishop-elector of Mayence, he, foaming with rage and alarm at the theses I had set forth, published a set of counterresolutions in reply, to the number of one hundred nnd six, in which he maintained the most insolent and blasphemous doctrines respecting the pretended power and infallibility of the pope
; and in a second series of resolutions, he assumes the office of general interpreter of the Scriptures, and railed against heretics and heresiarchs, by which names he designated myself and my friends
; and he concluded his insolence by burning my theses publicly in the city of Frankfort.
"When the news of the madman's proceedings reached Wittemberg, a number of persons collected together, and having procured Tetzel's productions, retaliated upon him by burning them in the public square, amid the cheers and derision of a large proportion of the inhabitant's.
" I was not sorry that such a mass of absurdity and extravagance should meet with the fate it really merited ; but at the same time I regretted the manner in which it was done, and solemnly affirm that