transferred to a Dominican. There is no ground for that assertion. The Dominicans had been for nearly three centuries the peculiar favourites of the Holy See, and objects of all its partialities; and it is particularly remarkable, that, after the middle of the fifteenth century, during a period scandalously fruitful in the abuse in question, we very rarely meet with the name of any Augustinian as employed in that service. Moreover, it is almost equally important to add, that none of the contemporary adversaries of Luther ever advanced the charge against him, even at the moment in which the controversy was carried on with the most unscrupulous rancour.
The matter in dispute between Luther and Tetzel went in the first instance no farther than this—whether the Pope had authority to remit the divine chastisements denounced against offenders in the present and in a future state—or whether his power only extended to such human punishments, as form a part of ecclesiastical discipline—for the latter prerogative was not yet contested by Luther. Nevertheless, his office and his talents drew very general attention to the controversy; the German people, harassed by the exactions, and disgusted with the insolence of the papal emissaries, declared themselves warmly in favour of the Reformer; while on the other hand, the supporters of the abuse were so violent and clamorous, that the sound of the altercation speedily disturbed the festivities of the Vatican.
Leo X., a luxurious, indolent, and secular, though literary pontiff, would have disregarded the broil, and left it, like so many others, to subside of itself, had not the Emperor Maximilian assured him of the dangerous impression it had already made on the German people. Accordingly he commanded Luther to appear at the approaching diet of Augsburg, and justify himself before the papal legate. At the same time he appointed the Cardinal Caietan, a Dominican and a professed enemy of Luther, to be arbiter of the dispute. They met in October, 1518; the legate was imperious; Luther was not submissive. He solicited reasons; he was answered only with authority. He left the city in haste, and appealed “to the Pope better informed,”—yet it was still to the Pope that he appealed, he still recognized his sovereign supremacy. But in the following month Leo published an edict, in which he claimed the power of delivering sinners from all punishments due to every sort of transgression; and thereupon Luther, despairing of any reasonable accommodation with the pontiff, published an appeal from the Pope to a General Council.
The Pope then saw the expediency of conciliatory measures, and accordingly despatched a layman, named Miltitz, as his legate, with a commission to compose the difference by private negotiations with Luther. Miltitz united great dexterity and penetration with a temper naturally moderate, and not inflamed by ecclesiastical prejudices. Luther was still in the outset of his career. His opinions had not yet made any great progress towards maturity; he had not fully ascertained the foundations on which his principles were built; he had not proved by any experience the firmness of his own character. He yielded—at least so far as to express his perfect submission to the commands of the Pope, to exhort his followers to persist in the same obedience, and to promise silence on the subject of indulgences, provided it were also imposed upon his adversaries.
It is far too much to say (as some have said) that had Luther’s concession been carried into effect, the Reformation would have been stifled in its birth. The principles of the Reformation were too firmly seated in reason and in truth, and too deeply ingrafted in the hearts of the German people, to remain long suppressed through the infirmity of any individual advocate. But its progress might have been somewhat retarded, had not the violence of its enemies afforded it seasonable aid. A doctor named Eckius, a zealous satellite of papacy, invited Luther to a public disputation in the castle of Pleissenburg. The subject on which they argued was the supremacy of the Roman pontiff; and it was a substantial triumph for the Reformer, and no trifling insult to papal despotism, that the appointed arbiters left the question undecided.
Eckius repaired to Rome, and appealed in person to the offended authority of the Vatican. His remonstrances were reiterated and inflamed by the furious zeal of the Dominicans, with Caietan at their head. And thus Pope Leo, whose calmer and more indifferent judgment would probably have led him to accept the submission of Luther, and thus put the question for the moment at rest, was urged into measures of at least unseasonable vigour. He published a bull on the 15th of June, 1520, in which he solemnly condemned forty-one heresies extracted from the writings of the Reformer, and condemned these to be publicly burnt. At the same time he summoned the author, on pain of excommunication, to confess and retract his pretended errors within the space of sixty days, and to throw himself upon the mercy of the Vatican.
Open to the influence of mildness and persuasion, the breast of Luther only swelled more boldly when he was assailed by menace and insult. He refused the act of humiliation required of him; more than that, he determined to anticipate the anathema suspended over him, by at once withdrawing himself from the communion of the church; and again, having come to that resolution, he fixed upon the manner best suited to give it efficacy and publicity. With this view, he caused a pile of wood to be erected without the walls of Wittemberg, and there, in the presence of a vast multitude of all ranks and orders, he committed the bull to the flames; and with it, the Decree, the Decretals, the Clementines, the Extravagants, the entire code of Romish jurisprudence. It is necessary to observe, that he had prefaced this measure by a renewal of his former appeal to a General Council; so that the extent of his resistance may be accurately defined: he continued a faithful member of the Catholic Church, but he rejected the despotism of the Pope, he refused obedience to an unlimited and usurped authority. The bull of excommunication immediately followed (January 6, 1521), but it fell without force; and any dangerous effect, which it might otherwise have produced, was obviated by the provident boldness of Luther.
Here was the origin of the Reformation. This was the irreparable breach, which gradually widened to absolute disruption. The Reformer was now compromised, by his conduct, by his principles, perhaps even by his passions. He had crossed the bounds which divided insubordination from rebellion, and his banners were openly unfurled, and his legions pressed forward on the march to Rome. Henceforward the champion of the Gospel entered with more than his former courage on the pursuit of truth; and having shaken off one of the greatest and earliest of the prejudices in which he had been educated, he proceeded with fearless independence to examine and dissipate the rest.
Charles V. succeeded Maximilian in the empire in the year 1519; and since Frederic of Saxony persisted in protecting the person of the Reformer, Leo X. became the more anxious to arouse the imperial indignation in defence of the injured majesty of the Church. In 1521 a diet was assembled at Worms, and Luther was summoned to plead his cause before it. A safe-conduct was granted him by the Emperor; and on the 17th of April he presented himself before the august aristocracy of Germany. This audience gave occasion to the most splendid scene in his history. His friends were yet few, and of no great influence; his enemies were numerous, and powerful, and eager for his destruction: the cause of truth, the hopes of religious regeneration, appeared to be placed at that moment in the discretion and constancy of one man. The faithful trembled. But Luther had then cast off the encumbrances of early fears and prepossessions, and was prepared to give a free course to his earnest and unyielding character. His manner and expressions abounded with respect and humility; but in the matter of his public apology he declined in no one particular from the fulness of his conviction. Of the numerous opinions which he had by this time adopted at variance with the injunctions of Rome, there was not one which in the hour of danger he consented to compromise. The most violent exertions were made by the papal party to effect his immediate ruin; and there were some who were not ashamed to counsel a direct violation of the imperial safe-conduct: it was designed to re-enact the crimes of Constance, after the interval of a century, on another theatre. But the infamous proposal was soon rejected; and it was on this occasion that Charles is recorded to have replied with princely indignation, that if honour were banished from every other residence, it ought to find refuge in the breasts of kings.
Luther was permitted to retire from the diet; but he had not proceeded far on his return when he was surprised by a number of armed men, and carried away into captivity. It was an act of friendly violence. A temporary concealment was thought necessary for his present security, and he was hastily conveyed to the solitary Castle of Wartenburg.
