they availed even for future and uncommitted sin.* Whether or no Tetzel in his zeal for the holy business' ventured upon these and the like startling statements, certain it is that they were confidently attributed to him. Certain is it, too, that during the years 1516-17 the spirit of Luther was deeply stirred by them. It was on the 31st of October, in the latter year, that he took the step which is popularly regarded as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation by affixing to the door of the University Church at Wittenberg his famous ninety-five theses. It is indubitable that neither Luther, nor anyone else, at the time, attached any special importance to this act of his. What he desired was a full discussion of the subject of papal pardons regarding which theologians widely differed-principally for the sake of clearing his own mind. And academical disputations were a recognised means of attaining such an end. The 31st of October was the Vigil of All Saints, which was the Feast of the Dedication of the Castle Church at Wittenberg,-a day on which crowds resorted thither, in quest of the copious indulgences to be gained by visiting its abundant relics; a very fit and proper day, Luther may well have thought, for raising the whole question of the nature and value of these pardons. It is absolutely clear that he did not put forward his theses as a body of propositions which he was prepared to maintain at all hazards. Indeed, if carefully examined, they will be found to be by no means consistent with one another. They were stated, as the preamble to them declares, 'for love and desire of eliciting the truth,' and were expressed in terms, as their author subsequently wrote to Leo X., which were somewhat obscureand enigmatical.' On the same day that these theses were published, Luther wrote to Archbishop Albert recounting the stories current concerning Tetzel's preaching, and begging that prelate, in the most earnest terms, for the love of the souls. entrusted to him, to attend to the matter. Together with this. letter he sent to the Primate a copy of his theses, in order that his Illustrious Sublimity may see how undefined and uncertain a thing is that doctrine of indulgence, of which the preachers dream * Jortin, in his‘Life of Erasmus' (vol. i. p. 117), quotes from Seckendorff the following story, which, whether true or not, is certainly amusing:‘A gentleman of Leipzig went to Tetzel, and asked if he could sell him an indulgence beforehand for a certain crime which he would not specify and which he intended tocommit. Tetzel said Yes, provided they could agree upon the price. The bargain was struck, the money paid, and the absolution delivered in due form. Soon after this the gentleman, knowing that Tetzel was going from Leipzig, well loaded with cash, waylaid him, robbed him and cudgelled him, and told him at parting, that this was the crime for which he had purchased an absolution.' as. as absolutely fixed and sure.' The Archbishop returned no answer to this communication. But there is extant a letter from him to the Council charged with the administration of the dioceses of Maintz and Halberstadt, who had reported to him the action of the audacious friar of Wittenberg.' În this document he states, among other things, that he has sent all the papers to Rome; mentions the complaints which had reached him thence of the lavish expenditure incurred by Tetzel and Tetzel's subordinates in the performance of their duties; orders them to lessen it; and blames the Sub-Commissaries for unseemly speech and behaviour, both in preaching and in the inns they frequented, to the detriment of the holy business.' 'The Archbishop,' Dr. Beard observes, tacitly admits that there is some ground for Luther's complaints, but he does not, on that account, intend to put an end to a lucrative traffic.' It appears to us that no one can carefully examine those ninety-five theses of Luther's without being struck by their moderation. Earlier theologians had attacked the whole theory of indulgences in much sharper and bitterer tones. Moreover, the theses contain no fundamental propositions of a theological system; no dogmatic determinations opposed to the dominant divinity. True it is that the theory upon which indulgences were based, was difficult to reconcile with the doctrine as to faith which Luther had excogitated, and which he was gradually growing to regard as the very essence of Christianity. But it is certain, if anything is certain, that he had no presentiment of the work he was beginning when he nailed that paper to the door of the Church at Wittenberg. Nor, on the other hand, had the ecclesiastical authorities any presentiment of it. They were of those whose eyes the god of this world had blinded. And their blindness to the signs of the times, and the blundering which came of it, served the cause of Luther's revolution quite as much as the daring and doggedness of its author. It is not our intention here to pursue the twice-told tale of his transformation-as a recent Roman Catholic writer has expressed it from a harmless necessary reformer into a needless and noxious rebel.' We may, however, observe, borrowing a phrase from Cardinal Newman's 'Apologia,' that there were three distinct and separate blows which broke him. The first was the scandal of the indulgences upon which we have been dwelling, and which the ecclesiastical authorities did nothing to abate. In truth, indulgences had become a recognised expedient of Papal finance. And Leo X., in whose veins flowed the mercantile blood of the Medici, was not the man to attenuate an abundant source of Pontifical revenue, even if his pecuniary necessities c 2 necessities had permitted him to do so. He was liberal enough in matters of theology, and would listen with pleasure to disputants arguing for and against the soul's immortality. But Luther's attack upon his pardons touched him nearly. A year passed away, filled with brisk controversy between Luther and his opponents, the chief practical effect of which was gradually to mature and clarify his theological ideas, and to lead him, ever more and more decidedly, to express himself in a manner distasteful to the ecclesiastical authorities. In a letter written early in 1518 to Trutwetter, his old master at Erfurt, he uses these remarkable and significant words: 'I absolutely believe that it is impossible to reform the Church unless the canons, the decretals, the scholastic theology, philosophy, and logic, as they are now treated, are utterly rooted up, and new studies put in their place.' He adds, with an unusual touch of self-knowledge, 'I may seem to you no logician, nor perhaps am I; but one thing I know-that in the defence of this opinion I fear no man's logic.' The whole business was supremely distasteful to Leo X., whose counsellors were almost all of Cardinal Soderini's opinion, that the true danger to the Holy See was not in Germany but in Italy, where the Pope needed money to defend himself.' 'Heresy,' the Cardinal further observed, had always been put down by force, and not by attempts at reformation.' Leo saw no way out of the difficulty but this time-honoured way of repression. In the autumn of 1518 instructions were sent to Cardinal Cajetan, the Papal Nuncio in Germany, to get hold of Luther, keep him safely, and bring him to Rome. The instructions could not be executed. An Imperial safe-conduct protected Luther during his audiences of the Cardinal at Augsburg. They lasted just a week and led to nothing. Then Luther departed secretly from the city, having lodged with the legate an appeal, not merely from him to the Pope, but from the Pope badly informed to the Pope better informed ('a sanctissimo Domino Leone X. male informato ad melius informandum '). It was just a year after the publication of his theses that he reached Wittenberg. The Elector Frederick turned a deaf ear to Cajetan's admonitions and entreaties either to deliver him to the Papal authorities or to expel him from the Electoral dominions. Luther now replaced * A curious commentary upon these words of the Roman Cardinal in the sixteenth century was supplied by the First Napoleon in the nineteenth. In his speech to the Corps Législatif on June 16, 1811, he expressed himself as follows: Si la moitié de l'Europe s'est séparée de l'Eglise de Rome, on peut l'attribuer spécialement à la contradiction qui n'a cessé d'exister entre les vérités et les principes de la religion qui sont pour tout l'univers, et des prétentions et des intérêts qui ne regardaient qu'un très petit coin de l'Italie.' the the appeal he had lodged with Cajetan to the Pope better informed, by one to a future General Council. There can be no question that the inaction of the Papal authorities with regard to the abuses of indulgences, bred in Luther's mind an ever-deepening distrust of the whole ecclesiastical system with which those abuses were bound up. But further. Indomitably courageous as he undoubtedly was, he had no taste for martyrdom; and the designs of the Court of Rome against his liberty-it might be his life-filled him with not unnatural indignation. The only reply which the ecclesiastical authorities had to make to his testimony against scandals, was an endeavour to seize his person. 'I saw,' he says, 'the thunderbolt launched against me. I was the sheep that muddied the wolf's water. Tetzel escaped, and I was to let myself be taken!' The development of his anti-papal opinions went on apace under this stimulus. Still, an open breach with Rome does not, as yet, present itself to his mind. In February 1519, we find him, as the result of his conference with Miltitz, agreeing to submit the impugned articles of his teaching to some learned bishop; to recant any errors that might be brought home to him; and no further to impugn the honour of the Roman Church. Nay, he further engaged to put forth a pamphlet in the German language, declaratory of his orthodoxy, and to write a loyal letter to the Sovereign Pontiff. That engagement he at once proceeded to fulfil, with characteristic impetuosity. The pamphlet, which he called 'An Instruction' (Unterricht) on certain articles alleged against him by his opponents, is a curious document. In it he professes his belief in the Intercession of Saints; in Purgatory; in Indulgences, as a release from satisfaction for sin, though a less thing than good works; in good works, not as making men holy, but as capable of being performed by one who is holy; in the supremacy of the Roman Church, as honoured by God above others; in the duty of maintaining ecclesiastical unity, and of obeying the commands of the Pope. His Letter to Leo X. is conceived in the same spirit. We see no reason to question the sincerity of Luther in thus writing, although, unquestionably, in his private correspondence at the time, he uses very different language. His mind was in a fluctuating state. It was teeming with half-formed *He possessed the shrewdness as well as the courage of a German peasant. Mozley remarks that he was resolutely cautious.' With a boldness equal to facing the blindest hazard, he never moved without a definite pledge of security. He obstinately insisted on safe-conducts. . . . He proved the saying that fear mixes largely with true courage, and that the better part of valour is discretion.' (Vol. i. p. 367.) ideas, which might shape themselves in one way or in another, as events determined. He did not see where he was going. He did not discern the consequences of his own principles. He desired reform. He did not contemplate revolution. It might well have been expected by those who read his' Instruction and his 'Letter to the Pope,' that his revolt was at an end. And so, perhaps, it might have been but for the 'ardor civium prava jubentium.' The truest foes of the Roman Church (it is an old story-and a new!) have ever been her insolent and aggressive friends, who have conducted themselves as if no respons bility attached to wild words and overbearing deeds; who have stated truths in the most paradoxical form, and stretched principles till they were close upon snapping; and who, at length, having done their best to set the house on fire, leave to others the task-often a hopeless task- of putting out the flame.' Bishop Creighton is well warranted when he observes that it was 'the stubborn conservatism of the old-fashioned theologians [which] gave force to Luther's revolt.' Prominent among them was John Maier, commonly known as Eck, from the Bavarian village which was the place of his nativity; a born disputant, whose wide reading, prodigious memory, vast command of words, logical mind, loud voice, and supreme self-confidence, eminently qualified him to triumph in those academical tournaments which were then the fashion. In that famous disputation at Leipzig (June 1519), he succeeded in fixing upon Luther Hussite views regarding the Apostolic See, and in extorting from him the declaration that General Councils can err and have erred. He obtained a dialectical triumph. But Luther obtained, not only a clearer insight into his own views, but a vast advertisement. The net result of the disputation,' writes Bishop Creighton, was that Eck's reputation was staked upon crushing Luther; that two parties began to form in Germany; and that the time for conciliation was passed. Luther was more and more resolved to appeal to public opinion. Eck was convinced that he had unmasked a dangerous heretic.' Luther returned from the Leipzig disputation to Wittenberg, and there pursued his academical and pastoral duties with his wonted energy. In his correspondence at this period we may follow the workings of his mind regarding the Seven Sacraments and the Priesthood of all Christians-questions upon which he was soon to declare himself in a sense opposed to that of the Roman Church. But he seems curiously unconscious of the course in which he is drifting. It is rather from the practical than the dogmatic side that he contemplates the matters which chiefly occupy his thoughts. No doubt the more logical |