184 OPINIONS OF THE REFORMERS. would have to unsheathe it in defence of the conscience of his subjects, and that, already on the brink of the tomb, he would not be allowed to go down to it in peace. He immediately wrote to Wittemberg to hear the opinion of the fathers. of the Reformation. There also troubles and persecutions were apprehended. "What shall I say?" exclaimed the gentle Melancthon; 'whither shall I turn? Hatred overwhelms us, and the world is transported with fury against us."* Luther, Linck, Melancthon, Bugenhagen, and Amsdorff consulted together on the reply they should make to the elector. Their answer was almost entirely to the same purport, and the advice they gave him is very remarkable. "No prince," said they, can undertake a war without the consent of the people, from whose hands he has received his authority. Now, the people have no desire to fight for the Gospel, for they do not believe. Let not princes, therefore, take up arms; they are rulers of the nations, and therefore of unbelievers." Thus, it was the impetuous Luther who counselled the wise Frederick to restore his sword to its sheath. He could not have returned a better answer to the reproach of the pope, that he excited the laity to imbrue their hands in the blood of the clergy. Few characters have been more misunderstood than his. This advice was dated the 8th of February. Frederick restrained himself. The pope's wrath soon bore fruit. The princes who had set forth their grievances against Rome, alarmed at their own daring, were now desirous of making amends by their compliance. Many, besides, thought that the victory would remain with the Roman pontiff, as he appeared to be the stronger party. "In our days," said Luther, "princes are content to say three times three make nine; or else, twice seven make fourteen: The reckoning is correct; the affair will succeed. Then our Lord God arises and says: How you reckon me?......For a cipher perhaps ?......He * Quid dicam ! quo me vertam ! Corp. Ref. i. 627. + Principi nullum licet suscipere bellum, nisi consentiente populo, a quo accepit imperium. Ibid. 601. then turns their calculations topsy-turvy, and their accounts prove false."* CHAPTER IV. Persecution-Exertions of Duke George-The Convent at AntwerpMiltenberg-The Three Monks of Antwerp-The Scaffold-The Martyrs of Brussels. THE torrent of fire poured forth by the humble and meek Adrian kindled a conflagration; and its flickering flames communicated an immense agitation to the whole of Christendom. The persecution, which had been for some time relaxed, broke out afresh. Luther trembled for Germany, and endeavoured to appease the storm. "If the princes," said he, oppose the truth, the result will be a confusion that will destroy princes and magistrates, priests and people. I fear to see all Germany erelong deluged with blood.+ Let us rise up as a wall and preserve our people from the wrath of our God. Nations are not such now as they have hitherto been. The sword of civil war is impending over the heads of our kings. They are resolved to destroy Luther; but Luther is resolved to save them. Christ lives and reigns; and I shall live and reign with him."§ These words produced no effect; onward to scaffolds and to bloodshed. Jesus Christ, did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Persecution was necessary in God's purposes. As certain objects are hardened in the fire, to protect them from the influence of the atmosphere, so the fiery trial was intended to protect the evangelical truth from the influence of the Rome was hastening So kehrt er ihnen auch die Rechnung gar um. L. Opp. xxii. 1831. + Ut videar mihi videre Germaniam in sanguine natare. L. Epp. ii. 156. Cogitent populos non esse tales modo, quales hactenus fuerunt. Ibid. 157. § Christus meus vivit et regnat, et ego vivam et regnabo. Ibid. 158. DUKE GEORGE'S EXERTIONS. 136 • world. But the fire did still more than this: it served, as in the primitive times of Christianity, to kindle in men's hearts a universal enthusiasm for a cause so furiously persecuted. When man begins to know the truth, he feels a holy indignation against injustice and violence. A heavendescended instinct impels him to the side of the oppressed; and at the same time the faith of the martyrs exalts, wins, and leads him to that doctrine which imparts such courage and tranquillity. Duke George took the lead in the persecution. But it was a little thing to carry it on in his own states only; he desired, above all, that it should devastate electoral Saxony, that focus of heresy, and spared no labour to move the Elector Frederick and Duke John. "Merchants from Saxony," he wrote to them from Nuremberg, “relate strange things about that country, and such as are opposed to the honour of God and of the saints: they take the sacrament of the Lord's Supper with their hands !.............. The bread and wine are consecrated in the language of the people; Christ's blood is put into common vessels; and at Eulenburg, a man to insult the priest entered the church riding on an ass!......Accordingly, what is the consequence? The mines with which God had enriched Saxony have failed since the innovating sermons of Luther. Would to God that those who boast of having uplifted the Gospel in the electorate had rather carried it to Constantinople. Luther's strain is sweet and pleasing, but there is a poisoned tail, that stings like that of the scorpion. Let us now prepare for the conflict! Let us imprison these apostate monks and impious priests; and that too without delay, for our hair is turning gray as well as our beards, and shows us that we have but short time left for action." Thus wrote Duke George to the elector. The latter replied firmly but mildly, that any one who committed a crime in his states would meet with due punishment; but that for what concerned the conscience, such things must be left to God.+ * Wie ihre Bärt und Haare ausweisen. Seckend. p. 482. THE ANTWERP CONVENT. 137 George, unable to persuade Frederick, hastened to persecute the followers of the work he detested. He imprisoned the monks and priests who followed Luther; he recalled the students belonging to his states from the universities which the Reformation had reached; and ordered that all the copies of the New Testament in the vulgar tongue should be given up to the magistrates. The same measures were enforced in Austria, Wurtemberg, and the duchy of Brunswick. But it was in the Low Countries, under the immediate authority of Charles V., that the persecution broke out with. greatest violence. The Augustine convent at Antwerp was filled with monks who had welcomed the truths of the Gospel. Many of the brethren had passed some time at Wittemberg, and since 1519, salvation by grace had been preached in their church with great energy. The prior, James Probst, a man of ardent temperament, and Melchior Mirisch, who was remarkable, on the other hand, for his ability and prudence, were arrested and taken to Brussels about the close of the year 1521. They were brought before Aleander, Glapio, and several other prelates. Taken by surprise, confounded, and alarmed, Probst retracted. Melchior Mirisch found means to pacify his judges; he escaped both from recantation and condemnation. These persecutions did not alarm the monks who remained in the convent at Antwerp. They continued to preach the Gospel with power. The people crowded to hear them, and the church of the Augustines in that city was found too small, as had been the case with the one at Wittemberg. In October 1522, the storm that was muttering over their heads burst forth; the convent was closed, and the monks thrown into prison and condemned to death.* A few of them managed to escape. Some women, forgetting the timidity of their sex, dragged one of them (Henry Zuphten) from the hands of the executioners.+ Three young monks, Henry Voes, John Esch, and Lambert Thorn, escaped for a time the search of the inquisitors. All the sacred vessels of the convent were sold; the gates were barricaded; the holy * Zum Tode verurtheilet. Seck. p. 548. + Quomodo mulieres vi Henricum liberarint. L. Epp. ii. 265. sacrament was removed, as if from a polluted spot; Margaret, the governor of the Low Countries, solemnly received it into the church of the Holy Virgin;* orders were given that not one stone should be left upon another of that heretical monastery; and many citizens and women who had joyfully listened to the Gospel were thrown into prison.+ Luther was filled with sorrow on hearing this news. "The cause that we defend," said he, "is no longer a mere game; it will have blood, it calls for our lives."‡ Mirisch and Probst were to meet with very different fates. The prudent Mirisch soon became the docile instrument of Rome, and the agent of the imperial decrees against the partisans of the Reformation. § Probst, on the contrary, having escaped from the hands of the inquisitors, wept over his backsliding; he retracted his retractation, and boldly preached at Bruges in Flanders the doctrines he had abjured. Being again arrested and thrown into prison at Brussels, his death seemed inevitable. A Franciscan took pity on him, and assisted his escape; and Probst, "preserved by a miracle of God," says Luther, reached Wittemberg, where his twofold deliverance filled the hearts of the friends to the Reformation with joy.¶ On all sides the Roman priests were under arms. The city of Miltenberg on the Maine, which belonged to the Archbishop of Mentz, was one of the German towns that had received the Word of God with the greatest eagerness. The inhabitants were much attached to their pastor John Draco, * Susceptum honorificé a domina Margareta. L. Epp. ii. 265. +Cives aliquos, et mulieres vexatæ et punitæ. Ibid. Et vitam exiget et sanguinem. Ibid. 181. § Est executor Cæsaris contra nostros. Ibid. 207. || Domo captum, exustum credimus. Ibid. 214. Jacobus, Dei miraculo liberatus, qui nunc agit nobiscum. L. Epp. ii. 182. This letter, placed in M. de Wette's collection, under the date of April 14, must be posterior to the month of June; since on the 26th of June Luther writes that Probst has been taken a second time and is going to be burnt. We cannot admit that Probst visited Wittemberg between his two imprisonments, for Luther would not have said of a Christian, who had saved his life by a recantation, that he had been delivered by a miracle of God. Perhaps we should read in the date of the letter in die S. Turiafi, instead of in die S. Tiburtii, which would bring it down to the 13th of July,-a far more probable date in my opinion. |