44

IMPORTANCE OF THE MASS

sense of agitation and impatience. Five communicants alone had presented themselves in the confessional: the rest simply took part in the public confession of sins. Carlstadt gave a public absolution to all, imposing on them no other penance than this: "Sin no more." They finished by singing the Agnus Dei.*

No one opposed Carlstadt; these reforms had already obtained general assent. The archdeacon administered the Lord's Supper again on New Year's day, and on the Sunday following, and from that time it was regularly celebrated. Einsidlen, one of the elector's councillors, having reproached Carlstadt with seeking his own glory rather than the salvation of his hearers: "Mighty lord," replied he, "there is no form of death that can make me withdraw from Scripture. The Word has come upon me with such promptitude............... Woe be to me if I preach it not!"+ Shortly after, Carlstadt

married.

In the month of January 1522, the council and university of Wittemberg regulated the celebration of the Lord's Supper according to the new ritual. They were, at the same time, engaged on the means of reviving the moral influence of religion; for the Reformation was destined to restore simultaneously faith, worship, and morality. It was decreed not to tolerate mendicants, whether they were begging friars or not; and that in every street there should be some pious man commissioned to take care of the poor, and summon open sinners before the university and the council.

Thus fell the mass-the principal bulwark of Rome; thus the Reformation passed from simple teaching into public worship. For three centuries the mass and transubstantiation had been peremptorily established.§ From that period everything in the Church had taken a new direction; all things tended to the glory of man and the worship of the

* Wenn man communicirt hat, so singt man: Agnus Dei carmen. Corp. Ref. i. 540.

+ Mir ist das Wort fast in grosser Geschwindigkeit eingefallen. Ibid. 545.

Keinen offenbaren Sünder zu dulden......Ibid. 540.

§ By the Council of Lateran, in 1215.

IN THE ROMISH SYSTEM.

45

priest. The Holy Sacrament had been adored; festivals had been instituted in honour of the sublimest of miracles; the adoration of Mary had acquired a high importance; the priest who, on his consecration, received the wonderful power of "making the body of Christ," had been separated from the laity, and had become, according to Thomas Aquinas, a mediator between God and man;* celibacy had been proclaimed as an inviolable law; auricular confession had been enforced upon the people, and the cup denied them; for how could humble laymen be placed in the same rank as priests invested with the most august ministry? The mass was an insult to the Son of God: it was opposed to the perfect grace of His cross, and the spotless glory of His everlasting kingdom. But if it lowered the Saviour, it exalted the priest, whom it invested with the unparalleled power of reproducing in his hand, and at his will, the Sovereign Creator. From that time the Church seemed to exist not to preach the Gospel, but simply to reproduce Christ bodily. + The Roman pontiff, whose humblest servants created at pleasure the body of God himself, sat as God in the temple of God, and claimed a spiritual treasure, from which he drew at will indulgences for the pardon of souls.

Such were the gross errors which, for three centuries, had been imposed on the Church in conjunction with the mass. When the Reformation abolished this institution of man, it abolished these abuses also. The step taken by the archdeacon of Wittemberg was therefore one of a very extended range. The splendid festivals that used to amuse the people, the worship of the Virgin, the pride of the priesthood, the authority of the pope-all tottered with the mass. The glory was withdrawn from the priests, to return to Jesus Christ, and the Reformation took an immense stride in ad

vance.

Sacerdos constituitur medius inter Deum et populum. Th. Aquin. Summa, iii. 22.

+ Perfectio hujus sacramenti non est in usu fidelium, sed in consecratione materiæ. Ibid. Quest. 80.

False Reform-The New Prophets-The Prophets at WittembergMelancthon-The Elector-Luther-Carlstadt and the Images-Disturbances-Luther is called for-He does not hesitate-Dangers.

PREJUDICED men might have seen nothing in the work that The was going on but the effects of an empty enthusiasm. very facts were to prove the contrary, and demonstrate that there is a wide gulf between a Reformation based on the Word of God and a fanatical excitement.

Whenever a great religious ferment takes place in the Church, some impure elements always appear with the manifestations of truth. We see the rise of one or more false reforms proceeding from man, and which serve as a testimony or countersign to the real reform. Thus many false messiahs in the time of Christ testified that the real Messiah had appeared. The Reformation of the sixteenth century could not be accomplished without presenting a similar pheIn the small town of Zwickau it was first mani

nomenon.

fested.

In that place there lived a few men who, agitated by the great events that were then stirring all Christendom, aspired at direct revelations from the Deity, instead of meekly desiring sanctification of heart, and who asserted that they were called to complete the Reformation so feebly sketched out by Luther. "What is the use," said they, "of clinging so closely to the Bible? The Bible! always the Bible! Can the Bible preach to us? Is it sufficient for our instruction? If God had designed to instruct us by a book, would he not have sent us a Bible from heaven? It is by the Spirit alone that we can be enlightened. God himself speaks to us. God himself reveals to us what we should do, and what we should preach." Thus did these fanatics, like the adherents of Rome, attack the fundamental principle on which the

THE NEW PROPHETS—THEIR PREACHING.

47

entire Reformation is founded-the all-sufficiency of the Word of God.

A simple clothier, Nicholas Storch by name, announced that the angel Gabriel had appeared to him during the night,* and that after communicating matters which he could not yet reveal, said to him: "Thou shalt sit on my throne." A former student of Wittemberg, one Mark Stubner, joined Storch, and immediately forsook his studies; for he had received direct from God (said he) the gift of interpreting the Holy Scriptures. Another weaver, Mark Thomas, added to their number; and a new adept, Thomas Munzer, a man of fanatical character, gave a regular organization to this rising sect. Storch, desirous of following Christ's example, selected from among his followers twelve apostles and seventy-two disciples. All loudly declared, as a sect in our days has done, that apostles and prophets were at length restored to the Church of God.+

The new prophets, pretending to walk in the footsteps of those of old, began to proclaim their mission: "Woe! woe!" said they; a Church governed by men so corrupt as the bishops cannot be the Church of Christ. The impious rulers of Christendom will be overthrown. In five, six, or seven years, a universal desolation will come upon the world. The Turk will seize upon Germany; all the priests will be put to death, even those who are married. No ungodly man, no sinner will remain alive; and after the earth has been purified by blood, God will then set up a kingdom; Storch will be put in possession of the supreme authority, and commit the government of the nations to the saints. Then there will be one only faith, one only baptism. The day of the Lord is at hand, and the end of the world draweth nigh. Woe! woe! woe!" Then declaring that infant baptism was valueless, the new prophets called upon all men to come and receive from their hands the true baptism, as a sign of their introduction into the new Church of God.

* Advolasse Gabrielem Angelum. Camerarii Vita. Mel. p. 48.

+ Breviter, de sese prædicant viros esse propheticos et apostolicos. Corp. Ref. i. 514. The author alludes to the followers of Irving.—TR.

Ut rerum potiatur et instauret sacra et respublicas tradat sanctis viris tenendas. Camerar. Vita. Mel. p. 45.

This language made a deep impression on the people. Many pious souls were stirred by the thought that prophets were again restored to the Church, and all those who were fond of the marvellous threw themselves into the arms of the extravagants of Zwickau.

But scarcely had this old heresy, which had already appeared in the days of Montanism and in the Middle Ages, found followers, when it met with a powerful antagonist in the Reformation. Nicholas Hausmann, of whom Luther gave this powerful testimony, "What we preach, he practises,' was pastor of Zwickau. This good man did not allow himself to be misled by the pretensions of the false prophets. He checked the innovations that Storch and his followers desired to introduce, and his two deacons acted in unison with him. The fanaties, rejected by the ministers of the Church, fell into another extravagance. They formed meetings in which revolutionary doctrines were professed. The people were agitated, and disturbances broke out. A priest, carrying the host, was pelted with stones; the civil authority interfered, and cast the ringleaders into prison.‡ Exasperated by this proceeding, and eager to vindicate themselves and to obtain redress, Storch, Mark Thomas, and Stubner repaired to Wittemberg.§

They arrived there on the. 27th of December 1521. Storch led the way with the gait and bearing of a trooper. Mark Thomas and Stubner followed him. The disorder then prevailing in Wittemberg was favourable to their designs. The youths of the academy and the citizens, already profoundly agitated and in a state of excitement, were a soil well fitted to receive these new prophets.

Thinking themselves sure of support, they immediately called on the professors of the university, in order to obtain

* Quod nos docemus, ille facit.

+ Einen Priester der das Venerabile getragen mit Steinen geworfen. Seck. p. 482.

Sunt et illic in vincula conjecti. Mel. Corp. Ref. i. 513.

§ Huc advolarunt tres viri, duo lanifices, literarum rudes, literatus tertius est. Ibid.

|| Incedens more et habita militum istorum quos Lanzknecht dicimus. L. Epp. ii. 245.