Luther joined.
[←11]
i.e., Johann Eck.
[←12]
Co-adjutor – an assistant to a bishop.
[←13]
Philipp Melanchthon, (1497-1560). German author of the Augsburg Confession of the Lutheran Church (1530), humanist, Reformer, theologian, and educator. He was a friend of Martin Luther and defended his views. In 1521 Melanchthon published the Loci communes, the first systematic treatment of the new Wittenberg theology developed by Luther. He played an important role in reforming public schools in Germany. Ency. Brittanica.
[←14]
Karl von Miltitz (c. 1490-1529) – liaison between the papal court and Elector Frederick the Wise. He met with Luther in Altenburg
in 1519, and negotiated a settlement: Luther would be silent on indulgences, write a conciliatory letter to the Pope, and publish a tract supporting papal authority. Luther’s silence was contingent on the silence of his opponents, Johann Tetzel and Albert of Mainz. But Luther’s statements at the Leipzig Debate, and his three treatises To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and On the Freedom of a Christian, all published in 1520, made reconciliation impossible. Miltitz investigated Tetzel and accused him of fraud and embezzlement; but Miltitz was later discredited, and his accusations dismissed.
[←15]
Induration: any pathological hardening or thickening of tissue.
[←16]
Sophist: someone whose reasoning is subtle and often specious, drawing from Greek philosophical methods.
[←17]
There is a defect in Luther’s statement of the believer’s union with Christ: he does not mark, he did not discern, its origin and foundation, and its consequent exclusiveness and appropriateness to a peculiar people. He refers it all to his believing; which is the manifestation, realization and effectuation of that relation which has subsisted, not in divine purpose only, but in express stipulation and arrangement, from everlasting. And this has been the source of that very faith, or rather of that energizing of the Holy Ghost, which he considers as its parent. But the thing itself, the nature of this union, is so beautifully described that, whatever its defects, I could be glad to give it all currency.
[←18]
Frederick III, or FREDERICK THE WISE (1463-1525), elector of Saxony who worked for constitutional reform of the Holy Roman Empire and protected Martin Luther after Luther was placed under the imperial ban in 1521. In 1486, Frederick allied himself with Berthold, archbishop of Henneberg, to promote imperial reforms that would increase the power of the nobles against the Holy Roman emperor. In 1500 he became president of the Reichsregiment (the Imperial Governing Council), which was soon disbanded for lack of funds. He was instrumental in securing the election of the emperor CHARLES V in 1519 after refusing the crown himself. Frederick appointed Luther and Philipp Melanchthon to the University of Wittenberg, and refused to carry out a papal bull against Luther in 1520. After the ban was imposed on Luther the next year, Frederick welcomed him to the Wartburg castle, where Luther translated the Bible into German.
[←19]
Much was said in the course of these discussions, about a future council. Luther acknowledged the authority of such a council; maintaining only that it must be legally convened — the civil governor being the sole rightful summoner; — and that its decisions must be regulated by the word of God. There is more of sound than substance in the recognition of this appeal, upon Luther’s principles. Waving the difficulty of summoning such a general council, where deputies are to be brought together out of all Christendom, divided as it is into independent states under various supreme heads; what is the decision at last? “The testimony of Scripture is testimony of Scripture to my conscience, only so far as I am led to understand Scripture in a sense which is coincident with the general decision. If that decision is contrary to my own deliberate, conscientious and supposedly Spirit-taught views, as a lover of order I bow to the tribunal by submitting to its penalties, whether positive or negative; but I cannot confess myself convinced, or adopt the judgment of the council as my own, without violating Luther’s fundamental principle, ‘the word is my judge.'” (See Part ii. Sect. 12. note k of the following work.) Luther’s last answer confirms the distinction which I have been marking here: that his resolution applies to the supposed decision of a council.
[←20]
Gravelled: annoyed, disturbed, peeved.
[←21]
Johann the Steadfast or Constant (1468-1532), was Elector of Saxony from 1525 to 1532. He organised the Lutheran Church in the Electorate of Saxony, aided by Martin Luther. This “Saxon model” was soon implemented beyond Saxony, in other territories of the Holy Roman Empire. Luther turned to the Elector for secular leadership and funds on behalf of a church that was largely stripped of its assets and income after the break with Rome.
[←22]
Maurice (1521-1553) –Duke of Saxony. He betrayed the Protestant Faith and assured his father-in-law, Philip of Hesse, that if he surrendered to the emperor, Charles V, he would not be imprisoned. However, Philip was taken prisoner and exiled; and Maurice was promoted to Elector of Saxony. Charles V then tried to reintroduce Catholicism into the Protestant territories. When Charles commissioned Maurice to capture the Lutheran city of Magdeburg (1550), Maurice seized the opportunity to raise an army
; he signed compacts with France and Germany’s Protestant princes against the Habsburgs. In 1552 he signed a treaty with Henry II of France, to wage a campaign against the emperor Charles V. His father-in-law was eventually freed.
[←23]
‘During his residence in the castle of Wartburg he allowed his beard and hair to grow, assumed an equestrian sort of dress, and passed for a country gentleman, under the name of Yonker George.’
[←24]
Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626-1692). Chancellor of Saxe-Zeitz, founding chancellor of the Univ. of Halle, scholar of the Reformation, and supporter of Pietists. When Jesuit Louis Maimbourg published the Histoire du Lutheranisme in 1680, Seckendorff spent ten years collecting sources on Luther and the Reformation to refute it. This was the first scholarly history of the Reformation, and it contained nearly all sources of Luther’s work then available. Dict. of Luther and the Lutheran Traditions, eds. Granquist, Haemig, Kolb, Mattes, Strom (Baker Academic, 2017).
[←25]
Cavilling (cavil): raising trivial objections.
[←26]
Justus Jonas (1493-1555) – a German theologian and reformer. He was a Jurist, Professor, and Hymn writer. Jonas had befriended John Lange, a Greek scholar at Luther’s old Augustinian house in Erfurt, and Luther’s friend. Jonas and Luther corresponded through Lange. Jonas took sides with Luther after the Leipzig Debate, publishing a tract that defended him against John Eck’s charges. He accompanied Luther to the Diet of Worms in 1521. As a result of his association with Luther, he was deposed as canon at St. Severi in Erfurt and excommunicated. His own hero, Erasmus, attacked him for supporting Luther’s more contentious approach to reform.
[←27]
It is the works of the godly that are the subject of inquiry; the charge against which Luther here defends himself is, his having maintained that the very best acts of the best men, have the nature of sin.
[←28]
In Paradise Lost iv, 778, 788, John Milton refers to Ithuriel as a cherub. Along with the Zephon, it is dispatched by Gabriel to locate Satan. The “grieslie King” is discovered in the Garden of Eden “squat like a Toad, close at the ear of Eve.” By touching Satan with his spear, Ithuriel causes the Tempter to resume his proper likeness.
[←29]
I need scarcely mention the name of Leander Van Ess. But is there no opposition to this work, among the Roman Catholics? Are there not divisions and fiercest persecutions among them on this very ground? And where, and what, are the Bible Societies of Spain, Portugal, Bavaria and the Italian States?
[←30]
Jerome Emser (1477-1527) – A German antagonist of Luther. At first Emser sided with the reformers; but he wanted
a practical and moral reformation of the clergy, not a doctrinal reformation. After the Leipzig Debate, the breach between them was final. When Emser warned against Luther, Luther launched a scathing attack on Emser.
[←31]
It is unclear why this is in third person, unless perhaps it was transcribed by someone on Luther’s behalf. – WHG
[←32]
It was an acknowledged principle with him, as with our reformers, to alter as little as possible. He was more of a Cranmer than a Knox.
[←33]
If his faults are required, he had in him every fault under heaven. In him, that is, in his flesh, dwelt no good thing; that is, every bad thing dwelt. His within was like ours. “For from within, out of the heart, etc., ” etc. But if, as it should rather be, it is inquired what came out of him that is evil chiefly, then his vices, as is the nature of evil, were his virtues run mad: he was obstinate, fierce, contemptuous, vain. He was not unkind, as some would represent him; he had “bowels of mercies:” he was not rash; no man more deliberately weighed his words and deeds: he was not implacable; witness his attempts to conciliate that greatest of all bears, the Duke George, our tiger Henry, Carolstadt, Erasmus, and even the Pope.
[←34]
This does not imply that he always interpreted Scripture lightly, or saw all the truth; any more than his skill in arguing implies that he always arrived at right conclusions, or proceeded to them by just steps. His excellency in addressing the common people, let it be observed, did not consist in his having one doctrine or one reason for them, and another for the learned; he had one Gospel for all, and told it all to all. But he had powers of language, facility of illustration, and simplicity of expression, which made him intelligible and affecting for the most illiterate.
[←35]
Probably referring to the German PEASANTS’ WAR