side, suggested that their mutual proteg^ be promoted to the still higher dignity of "Doctor of the holy Scriptures."
This project met with Staupitz's warm approval; and the amiable and worthy doctor at once repaired to Wittemberg to acquaint the young professor with the honor which the elector had decreed for him.
Summoning Luther into the garden of the uniyersity, he said to him, " My friend, you must now become a doctor of the holy
The vicar-general met with unexpected opposition.
Tlie surprised and modest monk recoiled; the thought of so great an honor overwhelmed him.
"Seek for one more worthy," said he; "I cannot consent to it."
" Nay," replied Staupitz, " the Lord has much to do in the church, and requires young and vigorous doctors."
" But I am weak and sickly," expostulated Luther; ; look for a strong man."
"Dead or alive," responded Staupitz, "the Lord requires you."
Spirit can make a doctor of divinity,"" persisted the young professor.
But the inexorable Staupitz responded authoritatively, "Do as your convent and I require, for you have promised to obey us."
Augustinian remembering that this was true, then pleaded, "But I am poor, and cannot pay the expense of such a promotion."
• Weismanni Hist. Eccl.
" The elector is not poor, and he "will take charge of the expense," was the ready reply.
Beaten thus from his last defence, the reluctant monk was forced to comply ; and accordingly the 18th of October, 1512, was the time appointed for the ceremony to take place.
At the close of the summer of 1512, Luther went to Leipsic, then the seat of the elector's court, for the purpose of receiving from the electoral treasury the money which had been promised for the purpose of defraying the expenses incidental to his doctorate.
He suffered there a vexatious detention of some weeks, owing to the negligence of the treasurers; so that it was not until the 4:th of October that he received the fifty florins which had been set aside for him.
' In his receipt for that sum, given to Pfeifinger and John Doltzig, the ever-present modesty of the young professor is shown conspicuously, on the very eve of his promotion, by his signature, "Martin, Brother of the Order of Hermits."At length the eventful day arrived on which Luther was to receive his licentiate in divinity.
Singularly enough it happened that it fell to the duty of Andrew Bodenstein, surnamed Carlstadt, from the city in which he resided, and who years after created a schism in the Beformation, to confer upon Martin Luther the highest dignity of the university.
Carlstadt was a man of vast learning, of capacious mind, and assiduous temper, but jealous, morose, and gloomy.
He was at tins time a doctor of divinity, lield a professorship in the university at Wittemberg, and j^erformed besides the offices of canon and archdeacon.
"At this time," he afterwards acknowledged, "I had not jei read the holy Scriptures*—a remark, it has been well said, which gives us a very correct idea of what theology flien was.
Here was a doctor of divinity, who had studied at half a dozen universities, and under the shadOAV of the Vatican itself, and yet who had never perused that Bible from which divinity is derived.
It has been charged that, though Carlstadt at this time considered Luther to be his inferior, he came ere long to cherish a most unchristian jealousy of him, going so far as to exclaim one day,
" I will not be less great than Lutlier."t Carlstadt presided at this ceremony, solemnly conferring upon his future rival the insignia of doctor of divinity, previous to which Luther took this oath
: " I swear to defend the evangelical truth with all my might."
" He was made," says Melaucthon, " a biblical doctor, and not a doctor of sentences;:}: and was thus called to devote himself to the study of the Bible, and not to the exposition of human traditions."
Luther, "pledged myself to my well-beloved Scriphires, to preach them faithfully, to teach them with * "Wiesmauni, Hist. Eccl., p. 141G.
X Doctor biblicus, et 7ion sententiarius.
THE LIFE AND TIMES purity, to study them all my life, and to defend them, both in disputation and in writing, against all false teachers, so far as God should give me the ability.""
" This solemn oath was Luther's call to the Reformation.
By imposing on his conscience the holy obligation of searching freely and boldly proclaiming' the Christian truth, this oath raised the new doctor above the narrow limits to which his monastic vow would perhaps have confined him.
Called by the university, by his sovereign, in the name of imperial majesty, and of the see of Bome itself, he became from that hour the most intrepid herald of the word of life.
On that memorable day Luther was armed champion of the Bible. "f This matter of his doctorate finally settled, Luther gave himself with renewed strength and animation to his chosen work at Wittemberg, pointing out with marvellous clearness and wealth of illustration the vital distinction between philosophy and faith.
He was constantly heard to repeat that " the writings of the apostles and prophets are more certain and sublime than all the sophisms and theology of the schools."
" Within my heart," he was accustomed to add, " reigns alone, and must reign alone, faith in my Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is the beginning, the middle, and the end of my thoughts."
" He who receives Christ as a Saviour," he said * Luther's Latin Op. W. XYL, p. 2061. t D'Aiibigne's Hist, of the Reformatiou, Vol.