PERSONAL EQUATION IN difference in the personal endowment and development of the two men. Luther felt the need of some tangible means of grace by which he could come into direct communion with God. This he found in the Lord's Supper. To him this need THE of divine communion was so pressing that he scarcely thought of the human act of memorial. Zwingli, Zwingli, THE STRIFE. whose personality and providential training were totally diverse. from Luther's, could not understand the need of his antagonist, to whom the opposing view seemed to rob the sacrament of all significance. To this must be added that the similarity between Zwingli's opinions and those of Carlstadt rendered Luther suspicious. Luther came to make membership in the true Church dependent upon the acceptance of certain doctrines, thereby ruling Zwingli out of the Church. The Swiss, on the other hand, thought Luther's doctrine of the sacraments to be only a variety of Roman Catholicism.' 1 See Möller, iii, 78. CHAPTER XXIV. THE MARBURG COLLOQUY. THE dispute had become so heated and public that the evangelical party was divided into two well defined and unfriendly camps, only less fearing and hating each other than they feared and hated the common foe. The division gave most of the cities of the Suabian Circle' to Zwingli, but with a Lutheran party everywhere active. Zwinglianism extended from Basel along the entire course of the Rhine and into the Netherlands, and even into East Friesland, thus dividing Lutheran Germany on the questions under discussion. ORIGIN OF Not only did the division give occasion to scandal in the eyes of the Romanists, but it absorbed energies which were needed in spreading the Gospel, while it lifted to undue prominence a matter of subordinate import. The relations between the emperor and the pope were becoming more friendly every day, and the fear increased lest soon the power of the emperor would be hurled against the divided Protestant peoples. This fear was augmented by the decisions of the diet of Spires in March, 1529, which, while they did not directly require the execution of the edict of the diet of Worms, so long delayed, yet proposed PROTESTANTS. to execute it within the Roman Catholic territories, to prohibit farther reforms in the territories of the evangelical party, to give freedom of worship to the Roman Catholics everywhere, to exterminate the Zwinglians and Anabaptists, and to forbid the withdrawal of submission, the confiscation of property, or the refusal of taxes to any Roman Catholic spiritual superior. The inequality of these decisions and their influence upon the progress of the Reformation and the religious liberties of the evangelicals could not be overlooked. On April 19 the evangelical princes entered a solemn protest. Among these princes there were only John of Saxony; Philip, Landgrave of Hesse; George of Brandenburg; Ernst of Lüneburg; and Wolfgang of Anhalt; while fourteen cities through their representatives joined in the protest. Among them were such important cities as Strasburg, Nuremberg, Constance, and Ulm. This protest, which 1 See Freeman's Historical Geography, p. 216. was handed in on Sunday, April 25, in its more formal shape, gave the name of Protestants to the Lutheran party.' It was an act which had the same significance for the Reformation as the Declaration of Independence for the American Revolution. Before that time the Lutherans had claimed to be a part of the Church; now began the movement which ended in their formal recognition as an independent ecclesiastical organization. The Protestants saw the significance of the act and of the league which they at the same time formed for self-defense. The extreme desirability, not to say necessity, of CONFERENCE a harmonization of the divided parties of the Ref- AGREED UPON. ormation was evident to all not wholly blinded by passion. Luther at first raised objections,' and the Elector John was inclined to side with him, for political reasons, but the Landgrave Philip, who was greatly inclined toward Zwingli's views, pressed so energetically for an attempt at harmony that, reluctantly, the Wittenbergers agreed to a conference. Philip had cautiously said nothing about inviting Zwingli along with Ecolampadius, but he, together with other representatives of the figurative interpretation, as well as Luther, Melanchthon, and their adherents, was invited to the colloquy, which was to open on Friday, October 1. Great was the joy of Zwingli and high his expectations of a union between himself and the Lutheran party. His reasons for desiring such a union were not wholly religious, but partly political; for he aimed at a great Protestant alliance against Roman Catholicism. His prayer before the opening of the colloquy is very touching, including earnest petitions that the passions and misunderstandings of the past might be allayed and removed. During the colloquy he conscientiously strove to conduct himself in the spirit of the prayer. The Wittenbergers hesitated to accept the invitation because of the low opinions they entertained of the Zwinglian party. They could not well meet on equal terms those whom they regarded as heretics. Besides, Luther and Melanchthon both believed that a compromise for the sake of political advantage would be essentially 1 See Möller, iii, 88, 89; Schaff, vi, 690, 691; Ranke, History of Germany in the Time of the Reformation, iii, 113. The substance of the protest and appeal is found in Gieseler, iv, 130, 131. 2 * Luther, in a letter to Elector John, May 22, 1529, called the Zwinglians "audacious enemies of God's word, who fight against God and the sacraments."-De Wette, iii, 455. Comp. Schaff, vi, 693, n. 1, and Möller, iii, 90. wicked. God was able to care for his truth without human combinations for its support. Nevertheless, under the command of the elector they departed for Marburg, where, in the Landgrave's castle, the colloquy was to take place. It was, in fact, the last of the tragical scenes of Luther's life, which from that time on began to decline in power.' At the suggestion of the Landgrave, who wished to avoid too great appearance of divergence in public, Luther met Ecolampa PRIVATE CONFERENCE OF LEADERS. dius, and Zwingli Melanchthon, in private conference before the public colloquy began. The Lutherans had long suspected that Zwingli and his followers were not sound in their doctrines concerning Christ and sin. The effect of the private conference was to remove, at least partially, this suspicion. For his part Zwingli's explanations showed Melanchthon how greatly he had misjudged him, and in accordance with his natural disposition he agreed to the Lutheran forms of expression on these subjects. The public disputation took place in the presence of all the representatives on both sides, and several others who had been especially invited. Contrary to Zwingli's wish, the colloquy was conducted in German. Nothing new was elicited,' but there were some dramatic scenes worthy of notice. Luther was first to speak. Declaring that he would never yield, he wrote on the table in large characters the words, "Hoc est corpus meum." In his heat he said that if God should command him to eat crab apples, rotten apples, or dung, he could not doubt that it would DISPUTATION be salutary, and he should obey. The great man AT MARBURG. could not understand his opponents, and when Zwingli made some reference to the breaking of Luther's neck, he took it literally, and threatened to "let fly at Zwingli's snout" (schnauze) until he repented. The Landgrave rebuked him for taking such easy offense. On the third day Feige, the Landgrave's chancellor, tried to persuade the disputants to come to an understanding; but Luther said this would be possible only THE PUBLIC 1 See an interesting comment on the three great historical appearances of Luther in public, in Schaff, vi, 635. 2 Zwingli had just returned from the first war of Cappel, and to the astonishment of all appeared at the colloquy rather as a soldier than as a preacher of the Gospel of peace.--Vilmar, p. 107, n. 3 See the substance of the colloquy in Christoffel, pp. 350-358, and in Schaff, vi, pp. 640-644. The account in Christoffel is preceded by a summary of the private conferences between Zwingli and Melanchthon, and Luther and Ecolampadius. on condition that his opponents should come over to his view. When they affirmed the impossibility of this Luther abandoned them to God's judgment, with the prayer that he would enlighten their darkened hearts. Immediately, however, he begged pardon for his harshness, whereupon Zwingli, with tears, entreated Luther's forgivenes, and declared his earnest desire for harmony. But Luther had again fallen back into his accustomed hardness, and replied, "Your spirit is different from ours," and ended by refusing to acknowledge them as members of the Christian Church, or as brethren, declining Zwingli's proffered hand of fellowship. The English sweat, a dangerous contagion, had broken out in Marburg and was spreading rapidly. The representatives were anxious to depart, but by the efforts of the Landgrave they were detained long enough for Luther to write a confession, which should, if possible, stand as a memorial of the essential harmony between the opposing factions. The confession contained fifteen articles, afterward known as the Marburg Articles, THE MARBURG covering the essential doctrines of the evangelical ARTICLES. faith.' The Swiss reformers, for the sake of peace, agreed to Luther's terminology in fourteen of the fifteen articles, although had they been written by them the language would have been much modified. In the fifteenth article they agreed that the sacrament should be administered in both kinds; that the eucharist is not a sacrifice; that the Lord's Supper is a sacrament of the true body and blood of Christ; and that the spiritual manducation of the body of Christ is a necessity to the Christian. The divergence concerning the corporeal presence remained, but it was agreed that 1 1 They may be seen in Christoffel, pp. 358-362. We give the fifteenth article in full: "We believe and hold, all of us, in regard to the Holy Supper of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that it ought to be dispensed in both kinds, according to the institution of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. That the mass is no work by which one can acquire or obtain for another, be he dead or alive, mercy and the forgiveness of sins. That the sacrament of the altar is a sacrament of the true body and blood of Christ, and that the spiritual partaking of this body and blood is a matter of especial need to every Christian. In the same manner we agree in regard to the use of the sacrament, that the sacrament, as well as the word delivered and ordained to us of God, moves weak consciences, through the Holy Ghost, to faith and love. And although we cannot come to a union of opinion as to whether the real body and the real blood of Christ are bodily present in the bread and wine, yet each party ought to manifest Christian love toward the other, in so far as conscience permits it, and both ought earnestly to supplicate the Almighty God that he would confirm by his Spirit the true understanding of his word in us. Amen." 19 2 |