In the year 1546, Luther was removed from both the disasters and the triumphs of these latter scenes, by a rapid sickness and premature death. Fatigue and anxiety had impaired the native soundness and vigour of his bodily frame, and he died an old man, at the age of sixty-three.
The storm which had gathered around his head at Worms was repelled in its onset by a prudent stratagem of the elector’s, which he had probably communicated in secret to the emperor himself. Having seized his person, by a mock arrest, while returning to Wittemberg, Frederick took and hid Luther in the castle of Wartburg, where he fed and nourished him at his own expense, for ten months. He would have continued to do so to the end of his days if Luther had allowed him. In this hiding-place which he called his Patmos, comparing himself with St. John as banished to that island by Domitian, he saw many visions of the Almighty, which enlightened his future ministry. He betrayed a good deal of impatience under this seclusion. He complained that his kind detainer fed him too well; that he ate and drank too much, that he grew stupid and sensual. But the truth seems to have been this: that stir and bustle and a great to-do were his element. He did not like fowling (though he allegorized it) so well as reading lectures to five or six hundred young men, and preaching to half as many thousands.
Here, however, the Lord nurtured his Moses, and made him wiser in the art of feeding his sheep. And if He allowed him to be dull and heavy, he gave him no inclination to be idle. The Yonker, 23 in his horseman’s suit, wrote many tracts; improved himself in the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, which he studied very diligently with an eye to his projected translation of the Scriptures, and actually accomplished his German version of the New Testament, so as to publish it this same year. These were not the achievements of sloth and sensuality!
Of his original works at this period, his answer to Latomus’ defence of the Louvain divines was the most elaborate. A confutation, says Seckendorff,24 replete with so much solid learning and sound divinity, that it was impossible to reply to it without being guilty of obvious cavilling 25 or downright impiety. If its author had never published anything else in his whole life, he would, on account of this single tract, deserve to be compared with the greatest divines who ever existed in the church. At the time of writing it, he was furnished with no other book but the Bible. And yet he interprets the leading passages of the Prophets and the Apostles, and does away with the deceitful glosses of sophistical commentators, with so much exquisite erudition and ability that the genuine meaning of the inspired writers cannot help but be clear to every pious and attentive reader.
He dedicates it to Justus Jonas,26 who had recently been appointed to the presidency of the college of Wittemberg. He desired him to accept it as a sort of congratulatory present, expressing a strong sense of the divine indignation as now poured out upon the visible church, and hinting what he expected from the new president, in the discharge of his office.
‘It is my earnest prayer that you, my brother, who by your appointment ought to teach the pestilential decretals of Antichrist, may be enlightened by the Spirit of God to do your duty — that is, to UNTEACH everything that belongs to Popery. For though we are compelled to live in Babylon, we ought to show that our affections are fixed on our own country, Jerusalem. Be strong and of good comfort; and do not fear Baal-peor; but believe in the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forevermore. Amen.’
In this treatise, Luther vindicates himself from the charge of insincerity in having for so long a time submitted to the Pope, and to the received opinions. While he declares his grief for having done so, his thankfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ for that insight into the Scriptures — which he deemed a hundred times preferable to the scholastic divinity of the times — and now his full conviction that the Pope is that monster Antichrist, who was foretold throughout the sacred writings.
He expresses himself indifferent to the charge of lacking moderation. And as to sedition, it was no more than the Jews had charged Christ with; the main point in debate, he maintains, is ‘THE NATURE OF SIN.’
‘If in the passages which I have quoted from St. Paul, he says, it can be proved that the Apostle does not use the word SIN in its true and proper sense, my whole argument falls to the ground. But if this cannot be proved, then Latomus’ objections are without foundation. He blames me for maintaining that no human action can endure the severity of God’s judgment. I reply, he ought to shudder in undertaking to defend the opposite sentiment. Suppose for a moment, that any man could say he has indeed fulfilled the precept of God in some one good work. Then such a man might fairly address the Almighty to this effect:
“Behold, O Lord, by the help of your grace, I have done this good work. There is no sin in it; no defect; it does not need your pardoning mercy. Therefore, in this instance I do not ask for it. I desire that you would judge this action strictly and impartially. I feel assured that, as you are just and faithful, you cannot condemn it; and therefore, I glory in it before You. Our Saviour’s prayer teaches me to implore the forgiveness of my trespasses. But in regard to this work, mercy is not necessary for the remission of sin, but rather justice for the reward of merit.”
We are naturally led to such indecent, unchristian conclusions by the pride of the scholastic system! This doctrine of the sinless perfection of human works 27 finds no support in Scripture. It rests entirely on a few expressions of the Fathers, who are yet by no means agreed among themselves. And if they were agreed, their authority is still only human.
We are directed to prove ALL THINGS, and to hold fast that which is good. 1Thes 5.21 ALL doctrines, then, are to be proved by the sacred Scriptures. There is no exception here in favour of Augustine, Jerome, Origen, nor even of an antichristian Pope. Augustine, however, is entirely on my side of the question…. Such are my reasons for choosing to call that SIN to which you apply the softer terms defect and imperfection. But further, I may well interrogate all those who use the language of Latomus, as to whether they do not resemble the Stoics in their abstract definition of a wise man, or Quintilian in his definition of a perfect orator — that is, whether they do not speak of an imaginary character who never was, nor will ever be. I challenge them to produce a man who would dare to speak of his own work, and say it is without sin. Your way of speaking leads to the most pernicious views of the nature of sin. You attribute to mere human powers, that which is to be ascribed to divine grace alone. You make men presumptuous and secure in their vices. You depreciate the knowledge of the mystery of Christ, and by consequence, you depreciate the spirit of thankfulness and love to God. There is a prodigious effusion of grace expended in the conversion of sinners. You lose sight of this; you make nature innocent, and you so darken or pervert the Scripture, that the sense of it is almost lost in the Christian world.’
I make no apology for these instructive extracts.
‘The matter of this controversy must always be looked at as of last importance (if anything is to be called important), in which the glory of God, the necessity of the grace of Jesus Christ, the exercises of real humility, and the comfort of afflicted consciences, are more eminently concerned.’
‘Luther concludes his book with observing, that he is accused of treating Thomas Aquinas, Alexander, and others, in an injurious and ungrateful manner. He defends himself by saying that those authors had done much harm to his own mind; and he advises young students of divinity to avoid the scholastic theology and philosophy as the ruin of their souls. He expresses great doubts whether Thomas Aquinas was even a good man: he has a better opinion of Bonaventura. Thomas Aquinas, he says, held many heretical opinions, and is the grand cause of the prevalence of the doctrines of Aristotle, that destroyer of sound doctrine. What is it to me, if the Bishop of Rome has canonized him in his bulls?’
Valuable as this work is, however, it will allow no comparison with the truly Herculean and apostolic labour, in which he was interrupted by performing it. He says,
‘You can scarcely believe with how much reluctance
