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 § 91. Causes and Means of Progress.


The Reformation spread over Germany with the spontaneous and irresistible impulse of a great historical movement that struck its roots deep in the wants and necessities of the church. The only propaganda of Luther was the word and the pen, but these he used to the utmost of his time and strength. "There was no need of an arrangement," says Ranke, "or of a concerted agreement, or of any special mission. As at the first favor of the vernal sun the seed sprouts from the ploughed field, so the new convictions, which were prepared by all what men had experienced and heard, made their appearance on the slightest occasion, wherever the German language was spoken."744

The chief causes of progress were the general discontent with papal tyranny and corruption; the desire for light, liberty, and peace of conscience; the thirst for the pure word of God. The chief agencies were the German Bible, which spoke with Divine authority to the reason and conscience, and overawed the human authority of the pope; the German hymns, which sang the comforting doctrines of grace into the hearts of the people; and the writings of Luther, who discussed every question of the day with commanding ability and abundant knowledge, assuring the faith of friends, and crushing the opposition of foes. The force and fertility of his genius as a polemic are amazing, and without a parallel among fathers, schoolmen, and modern divines. He ruled like an absolute monarch in the realm of German theology and religion; and, with the gospel for his shield and weapon, he was always sure of victory.745

What Luther did for the people, Melanchthon accomplished, in his gentle and moderate way, for scholars. In their united labors they were more than a match for all the learning, skill, and material resources of the champions of Rome.

No such progress of new ideas and principles had taken place since the first introduction of Christianity. No power of pope or emperor, no council or diet, could arrest it. The very obstacles were turned into helps. Had the Emperor and his brother favored the cause of progress, all Germany might have become nominally Lutheran. But it was better that Protestantism should succeed, in spite of their opposition, by its intellectual and moral force. A Protestant Constantine or Charlemagne would have extended the territory, but endangered the purity, of the Reformation.

Secular and selfish motives and passions were mingled with the pure enthusiasm for the gospel. Violence, intrigues, and gross injustice were sometimes employed in the suppression of the old, and the introduction of the new, faith.746  But, human sin and imperfection enter into all great movements of history. Wherever God builds a church, the Devil is sure to build a chapel close by. The Devil is mighty; but God is almighty, and overrules the wrath and outwits the wit of his great enemy. Nothing but the power of truth and conviction could break down the tyranny of the papacy, which for so many centuries had controlled church and state, house and home, from the cradle to the grave, and held the keys to the kingdom of heaven. It is an insult to reason and faith to deny the all-ruling and overruling supremacy of God in the history of the world and the church.


 § 92. The Printing-Press and the Reformation.


The art of printing, which was one of the providential preparations for the Reformation, became the mightiest lever of Protestantism and modern culture.

The books before the Reformation were, for the most part, ponderous and costly folios and quartos in Latin, for limited circulation. The rarity of complete Bibles is shown by the fact that copies in the libraries were secured by a chain against theft. Now small and portable books and leaflets were printed in the vernacular for the millions.

The statistics of the book trade in the sixteenth century reveal an extraordinary increase since Luther. In the year 1513, there appeared only ninety prints in Germany; in 1514, one hundred and six; in 1515, one hundred and forty-five; in 1516, one hundred and five; in 1517, eighty-one. They are mostly little devotional tracts, flying newspapers, official notices, medical prescriptions, stories, and satirical exposures of clerical and monastic corruptions. In 1518 the number rose to one hundred and forty-six; in 1519, to two hundred and fifty-two; in 1520, to five hundred and seventy-one; in 1521, to five hundred and twenty-three; in 1522, to six hundred and seventy-seven; in 1523, to nine hundred and forty-four. Thus the total number of prints in the five years preceding the Reformation amounted only to five hundred and twenty-seven; in the six years after the Reformation, it rose to three thousand one hundred and thirteen.747

These works are distributed over fifty different cities of Germany. Of all the works printed between 1518 and 1523 no less than six hundred appeared in Wittenberg; the others mostly in Nürnberg, Leipzig, Cologne, Strassburg, Hagenau, Augsburg, Basel, Halberstadt, and Magdeburg. Luther created the book-trade in Northern Germany, and made the little town of Wittenberg one of the principal book-marts, and a successful rival of neighboring Leipzig as long as this remained Catholic. In the year 1523 more than four-fifths of all the books published were on the side of the Reformation, while only about twenty books were decidedly Roman Catholic. Erasmus, hitherto the undisputed monarch in the realm of letters, complained that the people would read and buy no other books than Luther's. He prevailed upon Froben not to publish any more of them. "Here in Basel," he wrote to King Henry VIII., "nobody dares to print a word against Luther, but you may write as much as you please against the pope." Romish authors, as we learn from Cochlaeus and Wizel, could scarcely find a publisher, except at their own expense; and the Leipzig publishers complained that their books were unsalable.

The strongest impulse was given to the book trade by Luther's German New Testament. Of the first edition, Sept. 22, 1522, five thousand copies were printed and sold before December of the same year, at the high price of one guilder and a half per copy (about twenty-five marks of the present value). Hans Luft printed a hundred thousand copies on his press in Wittenberg. Adam Petri in Basel published seven editions between 1522 and 1525; Thomas Wolf of the same city, five editions between 1523 and 1525. Duke George commanded that all copies should be delivered up at cost, but few were returned. The precious little volume, which contains the wisdom of the whole world, made its way with lightning speed into the palaces of princes, the castles of knights, the convents of monks, the studies of priests, the houses of citizens, the huts of peasants. Mechanics, peasants, and women carried the New Testament in their pockets, and dared to dispute with priests and doctors of theology about the gospel.748

As there was no copyright at that time, the works of the Reformers were multiplied by reprints in Nürnberg, Augsburg, Strassburg, Basel. Republication was considered a legitimate and honorable business. Luther complained, not of the business itself, but of the reckless and scandalous character of many reprints of his books, which were so full of blunders that he could hardly recognize them.749  Sometimes the printers stole his manuscript, and published it elsewhere. He was not hindered by any censorship, except that he received occasionally a gentle warning from the Elector when he did not spare the princes. He took no honorarium for his books, and was satisfied with a number of free copies for friends. Authors were usually supported by a professorship, and considered it beneath their dignity, or as ungentlemanlike, to receive a royalty, but were indirectly rewarded by free copies or other presents of the publishers or rich patrons, in return for dedications, which were originally, as they are now, nothing more than public testimonies of regard or gratitude, though often used, especially during the seventeenth century, for selfish purposes.750  Cash payments to authors were, down to the eighteenth century, rare and very low. Few could make a decent living from writing books; and, we may add, few publishers acquired wealth from their trade, which is very uncertain, and subject to great losses. "Habent sua fata libelli."

But, while the progressive Reformation gave wings to the printing-press, the conservative re-action matured gradually a system of restriction, which, under the name of censorship and under the direction of book-censors, assumed the control of the publishing business with authority to prevent or suppress the publication and sale of books, pamphlets, and newspapers hostile to the prevailing religious, moral, or political sentiments.751  The Peasants' War, which was kindled by inflammatory books, and threatened a general overthrow of social order, strengthened the reactionary tendencies of Protestant, as well as Roman Catholic, governments.

The burning of obnoxious books by public authority of church or state is indeed as old as the book-trade. A work of Protagoras, in which he doubted the existence of the Greek gods, was burned at the stake in Athens about twenty years after the death of Pericles. The Emperor Augustus subjected slanderous publications (libelli famosi) to legal prosecution and destruction by fire. Christian emperors employed their authority against heathen, heretical, and infidel books. Constantine the Great, backed by the Council of Nicaea, issued an edict against the writings of Porphyry and Arius; Accadius, against the books of the Eunomians (398); Theodosius, against the books of the Nestorians (435). Justinian commanded the destruction of sundry obnoxious works, and forbade their re-issue on pain of losing the right arm (536). The oecumenical synod of 680 at Constantinople burned the books which it had condemned, including the letters of the Monothelitic Pope Honorius.

Papal Rome inherited this practice, and improved upon it. Leo I. caused a large number of Manichaean books to be burnt (446). The popes claimed the right and duty to superintend the religious and moral literature of Christendom. They transferred the right in the thirteenth century to the universities, but they found little to do until the art of printing facilitated the publication of books. The Council of Constance condemned the books of Wiclif and Hus, and ordered the bishops to burn all the copies they could seize (1415).

The invention of the printing-press (c. 1450) called forth sharper measures in the very city where the inventor, John Gutenberg, lived and died (1400-1467). It gave rise also to the preventive policy of book-censorship which still exists in some despotic countries of Europe. Berthold, Archbishop of Mainz, took the lead in the restriction of the press. He prohibited, Jan. 10, 1486, the sale of all unauthorized German translations of Greek and Latin works, on the plea of the inefficiency of the German language, but with a hostile aim at the German Bible. In the same year Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull against the printers of bad books. The infamous Pope Alexander VI. prohibited in 1498, on pain of excommunication, the printing and reading of heretical books; and in a bull of June 1, 1501, which was aimed chiefly against Germany, he subjected all kinds of literary publications to episcopal supervision and censorship, and required the four archbishops of Cöln, Mainz, Trier, and Magdeburg, or their officials, carefully to examine all manuscripts before giving permission to print them. He also ordered that books already printed should be examined, and burnt if they contained any thing contrary to the Catholic religion. This bull forms the basis of all subsequent prohibitions and restrictions of the press by papal, imperial, or other authority.752

Leo X., who personally cared more for heathen art than Christian literature, went further, and prohibited, in a bull of March 3, 1515, the publication of any book in Rome without the imprimatur of the magister sacri palatii (the book-censor), and in other states and dioceses without the imprimatur of the bishop or the inquisitor of heretical depravity.753  Offenders were to be punished by the confiscation and public burning of their books, a fine of one hundred ducats, and excommunication. Archbishop and Elector Albrecht of Mainz was the first, and it seems the only, German prince who gave force to this bull for his own large diocese by a mandate of May 17, 1517, a few months before the outbreak of the Reformation. The papal bull of excommunication, June 15, 1520, consistently ordered the burning of, all the books of Luther."754  But he laughed it to scorn, and burned in revenge the pope's bull, with all his decretals, Dec. 10, 1520.

Thus, with the freedom of conscience, was born the freedom of the press. But it had to pass through a severe ordeal, even in Protestant countries, and was constantly checked by Roman authorities as far as their power extended. The German Empire, by the Edict of Worms, made itself an ally of the pope against free thought and free press, and continued so until it died of old age in 1806.755  Fortunately, the weakness of the empire and the want of centralization prevented the execution of the prohibition of Protestant books, except in strictly papal countries, as Bavaria and Austria. But unfortunately, the Protestants themselves, who used the utmost freedom of the press against the Papists, denied it to each other; the Lutherans to the Reformed, and both to the Anabaptists, Schwenkfeldians and Socinians.756  Protestant princes liked to control the press to protect themselves against popery, or the charges of robbery of church property and other attacks. The Elector John Frederick was as narrow and intolerant as Duke George on the opposite side. But these petty restrictions are nothing compared with the radical and systematic crusade of the Papists against the freedom of the press. King Ferdinand of Austria ordered, July 24, 1528, all printers and sellers of sectarian books to be drowned, and their books to be burnt. The wholesale burning of Protestant books, including Protestant Bibles, was a favorite and very effective measure of the Jesuitical reaction which set in before the middle of the sixteenth century, and was promoted by the political arm, and the internecine wars of the Protestants. Pope Paul IV. published in 1557 and 1559 the first official Index Librorum prohibitorum; Pius IV. in 1564, an enlarged edition, generally known as Index Tridentinus, as it was made by order of the Council of Trent. It contains a list of all the books forbidden by Rome, good, bad, and indifferent. This list has been growing ever since in size (1590, 1596, 1607, 1664, 1758, 1819, etc.), but declining in authority, till it became, like the bull against the comet, an anachronism and a brutum fulmen.757


 § 93. Protestantism in Saxony.







Nevertheless, the change was general and permanent. Leipzig became the chief Lutheran university, and the center of the Protestant book-trade, and remains so to this day. Joachim Camerarius (Kammermeister), an intimate friend and correspondent of Melanchthon, labored there as professor from 1541-1546 for the prosperity of the university, and for the promotion of classical learning and evangelical piety.


His next successors, Augustus I. (his brother, 1553-1586). Christian I. (1586-1591), and Christian II. (1591-1611), were intolerant Lutherans, and suppressed Crypto-Calvinism and every other creed. Frederick Augustus I. (1694-1733) sold the faith of his ancestors for the crown of Poland. Since that time the rulers of Saxony have been Roman Catholics, while the people remained Lutheran, but gradually grew more liberal than their ancestors. Freedom of worship was granted to the Roman Church in 1807, to the German Reformed in 1818, and more recently (since 1866) to other communions.


 § 94. The Reformation in Nürnberg.


Priem: Geschichte von Nürnberg, 1874. F Roth: Die Einführung der Reformation in Nürnberg, 1517-28, Würzburg, 1885 (pp. 271).



Nürnberg (Nuremberg), the most picturesque mediaeval city of Germany, was at that time the metropolis of German commerce, politics, letters, and art, and of an unusual constellation of distinguished men, most of whom sympathized with Erasmus and Luther. Pirkheimer, the Maecenas of Nürnberg (1475-1530), prepared the way, although he afterwards withdrew, like his friend Erasmus and other humanists.760  Albrecht Dürer, the famous painter (1471-1528), admired the heroic stand of Luther at Worms, and lamented his supposed death when removed out of sight; but during the eucharistic controversy he inclined to the view of Zwingli. Hans Sachs (1494-1576), the "Mastersinger" and shoemaker-poet, saluted the "Nightingale" of Wittenberg (1523). Wenzeslaus Link, an Augustinian monk and intimate friend and correspondent of Luther, was sent by Staupitz from Wittenberg to the Augustinian convent at Nürnberg in 1518, and promoted the cause by his popular evangelical sermons. The preachers of the two splendid churches of St. Sebaldus and St. Lorenz followed the movement. The mass was abolished in 1524. The most effective promoters of the Reformation besides Link were Spengler, a layman, and Osiander, the preacher of St. Lorenz.





 § 95. The Reformation in Strassburg. Martin Bucer.


Joh. W. Baum: Capito und Butzer, Elberfeld, 1860 (partly from MSS. See a complete chronological list of Bucer's works, pp. 577-611). W. Krafft: art. "Butzer" in Herzog's Encykl.2, vol. III. 35-46 (abridged in Schaff-Herzog). Tim. W. Röhrich: Gesch. der Reformation in Elsass und besonders in Strassburg, Strassb. 1830-32, 3 vols. A. Erichson: L'Église française de Strasbourg au seizième siècle d'après des monuments inédits. Stasb. 1885. Max Lenz: Briefwechsel Landgraf Philipps mit Bucer, Leipzig, 1880 and 1887, 2 vols. Ad. Baum: Magistrat und Reformation in Strassburg. Strassb. 1887 (212 pages).


Strassburg, the capital of the Alsace, celebrated for its Gothic cathedral, university, and libraries, had been long before the Reformation the scene of the mystic revival preacher Tauler and the Friends of God. It was a thoroughly German city before Louis XIV. incorporated it with France (1681), and was re-conquered by Germany in 1870.

The Reformation began there in 1523. Zell, Bucer, Capito (Köpfel), Hedio (Heil), and for a few years Calvin also (1538 to 1541), labored there with great success. The magistrate abolished the mass, 1528, and favored the Protestant cause under the lead of Jacob Sturm, an enlightened patriot, who represented the city in all important transactions at home, in the Diet, and in conferences with the Romanists, till his death (1553). He urged the establishment of a Christian college, where classical learning and evangelical piety should be cultivated. His namesake, Johann Sturm, an eminent pedagogue, was called from Paris to preside over this college (1537), which grew into an academy, and ultimately into a university. Both were moderate men, and agreed with Capito and Bucer.761  The church of Strassburg was much disturbed by the Peasants' War, the Anabaptists, and still more by the unfortunate sacramental controversies.

The chief reformer of Strassburg was Martin Bucer (1491-1552).762  He was a native of Alsace, a Dominican monk, and ordained to the priesthood. He received a deep impression from Luther at the disputation in Heidelberg, 1518; obtained papal dispensation from his monastic vows (1521); left the Roman Church; found refuge in the castle of Francis of Sickingen; married a nun, and accepted a call to Strassburg in 1523.

Here he labored as minister for twenty-five years, and had a hand in many important movements connected with the Reformation. He attended the colloquy at Marburg (1529); wrote, with Capito, the Confessio Tetrapolitana (1530); brought about an artificial and short-lived armistice between Luther and Zwingli by the Wittenberg Concordia (1536); connived, unfortunately, at the bigamy of Philip of Hesse; and took a leading part, with Melanchthon, in the unsuccessful reformation of Archbishop Herrmann of Cologne (1542). Serious political troubles, and his resistance to the semi-popish Interim, made his stay in Strassburg dangerous, and at last impossible. Melanchthon in Wittenberg, Myconius in Basel, and Calvin in Geneva, offered him an asylum; but be accepted, with his younger colleague Fagius, a call of Cranmer to England (1549). He aided him in his reforms; was highly esteemed by the archbisbop and King Edward VI., and ended his labors as professor of theology in Cambridge. His bones were exhumed in the reign of Bloody Mary (1556), but his memory was honorably restored by Queen Elizabeth (1560).

Bucer figures largely in the history of his age as the third (next to Luther and Melanchthon) among the Reformers of Germany, as a learned theologian and diplomatist, and especially as a unionist and peacemaker between the Lutherans and Zwinglians. He forms also a connecting link between Germany and England, and exerted some influence in framing the Anglican standards of doctrine and worship. His motto was: "We believe in Christ, not in the church."763

He impressed his character upon the church of Strassburg, which occupied a middle ground between Wittenberg and Zürich, and gave shelter to Calvin and the Reformed refugees of France. Strict Lutheranism triumphed for a period, but his irenical catholicity revived in the practical pietism of Spener, who was likewise an Alsacian. In recent times the Strassburg professors, under the lead of Dr. Reuss, mediated between the Protestant theology of Germany and that of France, in both languages, and furnished the best edition of the works of John Calvin.


 § 96. The Reformation in North Germany.


In Magdeburg the doctrines of Luther were preached in 1522 by Melchior Mirisch, an Augustinian prior, who had studied at Wittenberg. The magistrate shook off the authority of Archbishop Albrecht, invited Luther to preach in 1524, and secured the services of his friend Nicolaus von Amsdorf, who became superintendent, and introduced the, necessary changes. During the Interim troubles the city was a stronghold of the Lutheran party headed by Flacius, and laid under the imperial ban (1548). In the Thirty Years' War it was burnt by Tilly (1631), but rose anew from destruction.764

In Magdeburg appeared the first Protestant church history, 1559-1574, in thirteen folio volumes, edited by Flacius, under the title "The Magdeburg Centuries,"—a work of colossal industry, but utilizing history for sectarian purposes against popery. It called forth the Annales of Baronius in the opposite interest.

Breslau and Silesia were reformed chiefly by John Hess, who studied at Wittenberg, 1519, a friend of Luther and Melanchthon. He held a successful disputation in Breslau in defense of the Protestant doctrines, 1524.765

Kaspar Schwenkfeld von Ossig (1490-1561), a nobleman in the service of the Duke Frederick II. of Liegnitz, was one of the earliest promoters of the Reformation in Silesia, but fell out with Luther in the eucharistic controversy (1524). He had peculiar views on the sacraments, similar to those of the Quakers. He also taught that the flesh of Christ was deified. He founded a new sect, which was persecuted in Germany, but is perpetuated among the Schwenkfeldian congregations in Eastern Pennsylvania.766

Among the later leaders of the Protestant cause in Breslau must be mentioned Crato von Crafftheim (d. 1585), who studied at Wittenberg six years as an inmate of Luther's household, and became an eminent physician of the Emperor Maximilian II. His younger friend, Zacharias Ursinus (d. 1583), is one of the two authors of the Heidelberg Catechism. Crato belonged to the Melanchthonian school, in distinction from the rigid Lutheranism which triumphed in the Formula of Concord.767

Bremen accepted Protestantism in November, 1522, by calling Heinrich Moller, better known as Heinrich von Zütphen (1468-1524), to the parish of Ansgari, and afterwards two other Protestant preachers. Moller had studied at Wittenberg, 1515, and taken a degree in 1521 under Melanchthon. He was prior of an Augustinian convent at Dort, and preached there and in Antwerp the doctrines of the Reformation, but had to flee for his life. He followed an invitation to preach in Ditmar, but met with opposition, and was burnt to death by a fanatical and drunken mob excited by the monks. Luther published an account of his death, and dedicated it to the Christians in Bremen, with an exposition of the tenth Psalm. He rejoiced in the return of the spirit of martyrdom, which, he says, "is horrible to behold before the world, but precious in the sight of God."768

In 1527 all the churches of Bremen were in charge of Protestant pastors, and afterwards divided between the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions. The convents were turned into schools and hospitals.

Hamburg, which shares with Bremen the supremacy in the North German and maritime commerce, followed in 1523. Five years later Dr. Bugenhagen, called Pomeranus (1485-1558), was called from Wittenberg to superintend the changes. This Reformer, Luther's faithful friend and pastor, had a special gift of government, and was the principal organizer of the Lutheran churches in Northern Germany and Denmark. For this purpose he labored in the cities of Braunschweig (1528), Hamburg (1529), Lübeck (1530-1532), in his native Pomerania (1534), and in Denmark, where he spent nearly five years (1537-1542). His church constitutions were models.769

Lübeck, a rich commercial city, and capital of the Hanseatic League, expelled the first Lutheran preachers, but recalled them, and removed the priests in 1529. Bugenhagen completed the work.

In Braunschweig-Lüneburg, Duke Ernst the Confessor favored the new doctrines in 1527, and committed the prosecution of the work to Urbanus Rhegius, whom he met at the Diet of Augsburg, 1530.

Rhegius770 (1489-1541) belongs to the second class of Reformers. He was the son of a priest on the Lake of Constance, educated at Lindau, Freiburg-i.- B. (in the house of Zasius), and Ingolstadt under Dr. Eck, and ordained priest at Constance (1519). He joined the humanistic school, entered into correspondence with Erasmus, Faber, and Zwingli, and became an imperial orator and poet-laureate, though his poetry is stiff and conventional. He acquired the doctorate of divinity at Basel. He was called to Augsburg by the magistrate, and labored as preacher in the Dome from 1523 to 1530. He passed from Romanism to Lutheranism, from Lutheranism to Zwinglianism, and back to a moderate Lutheranism. He sympathized most with Bucer, and labored afterwards for the Wittenberg Concordia. The imperial prohibition of Protestant preaching, June 16, 1530, terminated his career in Augsburg, though he remained till Aug. 26, and conferred much with Bucer and Melanchthon.

He now entered upon his more important and permanent labors as general superintendent of Lüneberg, and took the leading part in the Reformation of Celle, Hannover, Minden, Soest, Lemgo, and other places; but he gives a doleful description of the moral condition. He attended the colloquy at Hagenau, and died soon after his return, May 27, 1541.

He wrote two catechisms and several devotional books. In his earlier career he was vain, changeable, and factious. He lacked originality, but had the talent of utilizing and popularizing the new ideas of others. Luther gives him the testimony: "He hated not only the popish abominations, but also all sectaries; he sincerely loved the pure word, and handled it with all diligence and faithfulness, as his writings abundantly show."771

The Dukes of Mecklenburg, Heinrich and Albrecht, applied to Luther in 1524 for "evangelists," and Luther sent them two Augustinian monks. Heinrich favored the Reformation, but very cautiously. The university of Rostock, founded 1419, became at a later period a school of strict Lutheran orthodoxy.


 § 97. Protestantism in Augsburg and South Germany.


Augsburg, first known twelve years before Christ as a Roman colony (Augusta Vindelicorum), and during the middle ages an imperial city (since 1276), the seat of a bishop, the chief emporium for the trade of Northern Europe with the Mediterranean and the East, and the home of princely merchants and bankers (the Fuggers and Welsers), figures prominently in the early history of the Reformation, and gave the name to the standard confession of the Lutheran Church in 1530, and to the treaty of peace in 1555.772  Luther was there in 1518 at a conference with Cardinal Cajetan, and lodged with the Carmelite friar Frosch, who remained faithful to him. Peutinger, the bishop (Christoph von Stadium), and two canons (Adelmann) were friendly to reform, at least for a time. Urbanus Rhegius preached there from 1523 to 1530, and exerted great influence. He distributed, with Frosch, the communion with the cup at Christmas, 1524. Both married in 1526.

But the Zwinglians, under the lead of Michael Keller, gradually gained the upper hand among influential men. Zwingli took advantage of the situation in his famous letter to Alber, Nov. 16, 1524, in which he first fully developed his theory. Even Rhegius, who had written before against Carstadt (sic) and Zwingli, became a Zwinglian, though only for a short period.

The Anabaptist leaders, Hubmaier, Denck, Hetzer, Hut, likewise appeared in Augsburg, and gathered a congregation of eleven hundred members. They held a general synod in 1527. They baptized by immersion. Rhegius stirred up the magistrate against them: the leaders were imprisoned, and some executed.773

The confusion and strife among the Protestants strengthened the Roman party. The people did not know what to believe, and the magistrate hesitated. The moral condition of the city, as described by Rhegius, Musculus, and other preachers, was deplorable, and worse than under the papal rule. During the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, the Emperor prohibited all Protestant preaching in public: the magistrate made no objection, and dismissed the preachers. But the Augsburg Confession left a permanent impression on the place.

The South-German cities of Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau were, like Augsburg, influenced by Zwingli as well as Luther, and united with Strassburg in the Tetrapolitan Confession, which Bucer and Capito prepared in great haste during the Diet of Augsburg as a document of union between the two wings of Protestantism. It failed to meet the approval of the Diet, and was, like Zwingli's Confession, not even allowed to be read; but Bucer adhered to it to the end.

The most important and permanent conquest which the Reformation made in South Germany was that of the duchy (now kingdom) of Württemberg under Duke Ulrich, through the labors of Brenz, Blaurer, and Schnepf, after 1534. The University of Tübingen (founded 1477) became one of the most fruitful nurseries of Protestant theology, in all its phases, from the strictest orthodoxy to the most radical criticism.774




I. Lambertus Avenionensis: Paradoxa quae Fr. L. A. apud sanctam Hessorum Synodum Hombergi congregatam pro Ecclesiarum Reformatione e Dei Verbo disputanda et definienda proposuit, Erphordiae, 1527. (Reprinted in Sculteti Annales, p. 68; in Hardt, Hist. Lit. Ref. V. 98; an extract in Henke's N. Kirchengesch., I. 101 sqq.) N. L. Richter: Die Kirchenordnungen des 16ten Jahrh., Weimar, 1846, vol. I. 56-69 (the Homberg Constitution). C. A. Credner: Philipp des Grossmüthigen hessische Kirchenreformations-Ordnung. Aus schriftlichen Quellen herausgegeben, übersetzt, und mit Rücksicht auf die Gegenwart bevorwortet, Giessen, 1852 (123 pp.)


III. Works on Philip of Hesse by Rommel (Philipp der Grossmüthige, Landgraf von Hessen, Giessen, 1830, 3 vols.), and Wille (Philipp der Grossmüthige und die Restitution Herzog Ulrichs von Würtemberg, Tübingen, 1882). Max Lenz: Zwingli und Landgraf Philip, in Brieger's "Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte," 1879; and Briefwechsel Landgraf Philipps mit Bucer, Leipz. 1880, vol. 2d, 1887 (important for the political and ecclesiastical history of Germany between 1541 and 1547). The history of Philip is interwoven in Ranke's Geschichte (vols. I. to VI.), and in Janssen's Geschichte (vol. III.). Against Janssen is directed G. Bossert: Württemberg und Ianssen, Halle, 1884, 2 parts.




Hesse became, next to Saxony, the chief theater of the Reformation in its early history; and its chief patron among the princes, next to Elector John, was Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, surnamed the "Magnanimous" (1504-1567). He figures prominently in the political history of Germany from 1525, when he aided in the suppression of the Peasants' War, till 1547, when he was defeated by the Emperor in the Smalcaldian War, and kept a prisoner for five years (1547-1552). The last years of his life were quiet and conciliatory, but his moral force was broken by his misconduct and the failure of his political combinations.








The constitution, with the exception of a few minor features, remained a dead letter. The Landgrave was rather pleased with it, but Luther, whom he consulted, advised postponement; he did not object to its principles, but thought that the times and the people were not ripe for it, and that laws in advance of public opinion rarely succeed.783  Luther learned a bitter lesson from the Peasants' War and from the visitation of the churches in Saxony. Lambert himself, in his letters, complained of the prevailing corruptions and the abuse of evangelical liberty.784  A good reason both for the necessity and difficulty of discipline, which should have begun with the prince. But self-government must be acquired by actual trial and experience. Nobody can learn to swim without going into the water.







 § 99. The Reformation in Prussia. Duke Albrecht and Bishop Georg Von Polenz.


I. Luther's Letters to Albrecht from May 26, 1525, to May 2, 1545 (17, see list in Erl. ed. LVI. 248), to Briesmann and Georg von Polenz, in the collections of De Wette and Enders. J. Voigt: Briefwechsel der berühmtesten Gelehrten des Zeitalters der Reformation mit Herzog Albrecht von Preussen, Königsb. 1841.

II. Hartknoch: Preussische Kirchenhistorie, Königsberg, 1686. Arnoldt: Preussische Kirchengeschichte, Königsberg, 1769. Bock: Leben Albrechts des Aelteren, Königsb. 1750. Rhesa: De primis sacrorum reformatoribus in Prussia, Königsberg, 1823-1830 (seven University Programs containing biographies of Briesmann, Speratus, Poliander, Georg v. Polenz, Amandus). Gebser: Der Dom zu Königsberg, 1835. Erdmann: Preussen, Ordensstaat, in Herzog1, XII. 117-165 (1860; omitted in the second ed.). Pastor (R. Cath.): Neue Quellenberichte über den Reformator Albrecht von Brandenburg, Mainz, 1876 (in the "Katholik," LVI. February and March). C. A. Hase: Herzog Albrecht von Preussen und sein Hofprediger. Eine königsberger Tragödie aus dem Zeitalter der Reformation, Leipzig, 1879. Rindfleisch: Herzog Albrecht von Hohenzollern, der letzte Hochmeister, und die Reformation in Preussen, Danzig, 1880. P. Tschackert (professor in Königsberg): Georg von Polentz, Bischof von Samland, Leipzig, 1888 (in "Kirchengeschichtl. Studien" by Brieger, Tschackert, etc., pp. 145-194).

III. The general histories of Prussia by Stenzel, Droysen, Voigt (large work, 1827-39, in 9 vols.; condensed ed. 1850, in 3 vols.), Cosel, Hahn, Pierson (4th ed. 1881, 2 vols.), Ranke (Zwölf Bücher preussischer Gesch. 1874), Förster, etc. For the history of the Teutonic order, see Watterich: Die Gründung des deutschen Ordensstaates in Preussen, Leipzig, 1857; and Joh. Voigt: Geschichte des deutschen Ritterordens, Berlin, 1859, 2 vols.

IV. Ranke: Vol. II. 326 sqq. Janssen: III. 70-77.


Of greater prospective importance than the conversion of Hesse and even of Saxony to Protestantism, was the evangelization of Prussia, which from a semi-barbarous Duchy on the shores of the Baltic rose to the magnitude of a highly civilized kingdom, stretching from the borders of Russia beyond the banks of the Rhine, and which is now, in connection with the new German Empire, the leading Protestant power on the Continent of Europe.791

Old Prussia792 was a colony of the Teutonic Knights (Deutschorden), one of the three military religious orders which arose during the crusades for the defense of the Holy Land and the protection of pilgrims. They had the same military and monastic constitution as the Knights Templars, and the Knights of St. John (Johannitae); but their members were all Germans. They greatly distinguished themselves in the later crusades, and their chivalrous blood still flows in the veins of the old Prussian nobility. They wore a white mantle with a black silver-lined cross, and as a special favor an imperial eagle on their arms, which descended from them to the royal house of Prussia. After the fall of Jerusalem they removed their headquarters to Venice, and afterwards to Marienburg and Königsberg (the capital, where the kings of Prussia are crowned). Emperor Frederick II. and Pope Innocent III. granted them all the lands they might conquer from the heathen on the eastern borders of Germany, and the grand-master's received the dignity of princes of the Roman Empire. They were invited by the Duke of Poland to defend the frontiers of his country against the heathen Prussians (1240). The conquest was completed in 1283. The Knights Christianized, or rather Romanized and Germanized, the Prussians, after the military fashion of Charlemagne in his dealings with the Saxons, and of Otho I. in subduing the Wends. The native heathenism was conquered, but not converted, and continued under Christian forms. Prussia is said to have contained under the Knights two millions of people and more than fifty cities, which carried on an extensive trade by means of the Hanseatic League. The chief cities were Marienburg, Königsberg, Thorn, Danzig, and Culm. But the common people were treated as slaves.

After nearly two centuries of rule the Knights degenerated, and their power declined by internal dissensions and the hostility of Poland. In 1466 they were forced by Casimir IV. in the Peace of Thorn to cede West Prussia with the richest cities to Poland, and to accept East Prussia as a fief of that kingdom. This was virtually the destruction of the political power of the order. The incompatibility of the military and monastic life became more and more apparent. Pope Adrian VI. urged Albrecht to restore the order to its former monastic purity and dignity. But this was impossible. The order had outlived itself.793

Luther saw this, and inaugurated a different kind of reform. He seized a favorable opportunity, and exhorted the Knights, in a public address, March 28, 1523, to forsake the false monastic chastity so often broken, and to live in true matrimonial chastity according to the ordinance of God in paradise (Gen. 2:18), which was older and wiser than popes and Councils. "Your order," he argued, "is truly a singular order: it is both secular and spiritual, and neither; it is bound to wield the sword against infidels, and yet to live in celibacy, poverty, and obedience, like other monks. These things do not agree together, as is shown by reason and by daily experience. The order is therefore of no use either to God or the world."794

In the summer of the same year be sent, at the wish of Albrecht, the pioneer of Protestant preachers, to Prussia, in the person of his friend Dr. Johannes Briesmann (14881549), a theologian of learning, piety, and executive ability, who arrived in Königsberg, Sept. 27, 1523, and labored there as preacher in the Dome, and successor of Bishop Georg von Polenz, till his death, with the exception of four years which he spent as evangelist in Riga (1527-1531).795  He afterwards sent two other gifted evangelists, known for their evangelical hymns, namely, Paul Speratus (d. 1551), and John Poliander (Graumann, d. 1541), who made themselves very useful. A third one, Amandus, created disturbance by his radicalism, which resembled that of Carlstadt, and caused his removal from Königsberg.

With the help of these theologians and evangelists, Duke Albrecht and Bishop Georg von Polenz brought about a radical change in Prussia, and prepared the way for its great future destiny. The religious reformation preceded the political change.

Albrecht, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, last grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights, and first Duke of Prussia, was born at Ansbach, May 16, 1490; destined for the clerical profession; received into the order of the Knights, and elected its grand-master in 1511. He made his entry into Königsberg, Nov. 22, 1512. His effort to make Prussia independent and to refuse obedience to the king of Poland, involved him in a disastrous war till 1521, when an armistice for four years was concluded. He attended, as one of the princes of the empire, the Diet of Nürnberg, 1522 and 1523, and sought protection against Poland, but in vain. He diligently heard, during that time, the sermons of Andreas Osiander, and was converted to the doctrines of the Reformation. He called him his "spiritual father in Christ, through whom God first rescued him from the darkness of popery, and led him to the true divine knowledge." On a journey to Berlin he had a private conference with Luther and Melanchthon, and asked their advice (September, 1523). "Trust in God," said Luther with the consent of Melanchthon, "rather than the empire; shake off the senseless rules of your order, and make an end to that hermaphrodite monster which is neither religious nor secular; abolish the unchaste chastity of monkery; take to thyself a wife, and found a legitimate secular sovereignty." At the same time be recommended to him Paul Speratus as his assistant, who afterwards became bishop of Pomesania. The prince smiled, but said nothing.796  He wavered between obedience to the pope and to his conscience, and his open and secret instructions to the bishop of Samland were contradictory. His brother, Margrave Georg of Brandenburg, had previously given him the same advice as Luther, and he ultimately followed it.

In the mean time the evangelical doctrines had already spread in Prussia, and facilitated the proposed political change by undermining the monastic constitution of the order.

Two bishops of Prussia, differing from their brethren in Germany, favored the movement, George von Polenz of Samland, and Erhard von Queiss of Pomesania. The former took the lead. Luther was agreeably surprised, and expressed his joy that one, at least, of the bishops dared to profess the free gospel of Christ.797  He dedicated to him his commentary on Deuteronomy, with a congratulatory letter full of gratitude for the rapid flight of the gospel to Prussia in the far North (1525).798  The bishop did not reply, and seems to have preserved a dignified or prudent reserve towards the person of Luther, while allowing free course to his doctrines.799

Erhard von Queiss renounced popery in a public sermon, 1524, and resigned his worldly possessions and authority to the Duke (1527), in order to attend better to the spiritual duties of an evangelical bishop.

Georg von Polenz was the chancellor and chief counselor of Albrecht (we may say his Bismarck on a small scale) in this work of transformation. He was about five years older than Luther, and survived him four years. He descended from an old noble family of Meissen in Saxony, studied law in Italy, and was for a while private secretary at the court of Pope Julius II. Then he served as a soldier under Maximilian I. He became acquainted with Margrave Albrecht at Padua, 1509, and joined the Teutonic Knights. In 1519 he was raised to the episcopal chair, and consecrated by the neighboring bishops of Ermland and Pomesania in the Dome of Königsberg. The receipt of the Roman curia for a tax of fourteen hundred and eighty-eight ducats is still extant in the archives of that city. The first years of his office were disturbed by war with Poland, for which he had to furnish men and means. During the absence of the Duke in Germany he took his place.

In September, 1523, be became acquainted with Dr. Briesmann, and learned from him the biblical languages, the elements of theology, which he had never studied before, and the doctrines of Luther. In January, 1524, be already issued an order that baptism be celebrated in the vernacular tongue, and recommended the clergy to read diligently the Bible, and the writings of Luther, especially his book on Christian Liberty. This was the beginning of the Reformation in Prussia. We have from him three sermons, and three only, which he preached in favor of the change, at Christmas, 1523, and at Easter and Pentecost, 1524. He echoes in them the views of Briesmann. He declares, "I shall with the Divine will hold fast to the word of God and to the gospel, though I should lose body and life, goods and honor, and all I possess." He despised the authority of Pope Clement VII., who directed his legate, Campeggio, Dec. 1, 1524, to summon the bishop as a rebel and perjurer, to induce him to recant, or to depose him.

In May, 1525, he resigned the secular part of his episcopal authority into the hands of the Duke, because it was not seemly and Christian for a bishop to have so much worldly glory and power. A few days afterwards be married, June 8, 1525, five days before Luther's marriage. In the next year the Duke followed his example, and invited Luther to the wedding (June, 1526). This double marriage was a virtual dissolution of the order as a monastic institution. In 1546 Georg von Polenz resigned his episcopal supervision into the hands of Briesmann. He died in peace, April 28, 1550, seventy-two years old, and was buried in the cathedral of Königsberg, the first Protestant bishop and chancellor of the first Prussian Hohenzollern, standing with him on the bridge of two ages with his hand on the Bible and his eye firmly fixed upon the future.

Albrecht, acting on the advice of Luther, changed the property of the Knights into a hereditary duchy. The king of Poland consented. On April 10, 1525, Albrecht was solemnly invested at Crakow with the rule of Prussia as a fief of Poland. Soon afterwards he received the homage of the Diet at Königsberg. The evangelical preachers saluted him under the ringing of the bells. The Emperor put him under the ban, but it had no effect. Most of the Knights received large fiefs, and married; the rest emigrated to Germany. Albrecht formally introduced the Reformation, July 6, 1525, and issued a Lutheran constitution and liturgy. The fasts were abolished, the number of holy days reduced, the ceremonies changed, the convents turned into hospitals, and worship conducted in the vernacular. All Romish and sectarian preaching was prohibited. He assumed all the ecclesiastical appointments, and became the supreme bishop of Prussia, the two Roman-Catholic bishops Georg and Queiss having surrendered to him their dignity. Their successors were mere superintendents. He felt, however, that the episcopal office was foreign to a worldly sovereign, and accepted it as a matter of necessity to secure order.800  He founded the University of Königsberg, the third Protestant university (after Wittenberg and Marburg). It was opened in 1544.801  He called Dr. Osiander from Nürnberg to the chief theological chair (1549); but this polemical divine, by his dissertations on the law and the gospel, and on the doctrine of justification, soon turned Prussia into a scene of violent and disgraceful theological controversies.802

Albrecht did not enjoy his reign. It was sadly disturbed in this transition state by troubles from within and without. He repeatedly said that he would rather watch sheep than be a ruler. He was involved in heavy debts. The seven children of his first wife, a daughter of the king of Denmark, died young, except a daughter, Anna Sophia, who married a duke of Mecklenburg (1555). His pious and faithful wife died, 1547. In 1550 he married a princess of Braunschweig; her first daughter was born blind; only one son, Albrecht Friedrich, survived him, and spent his life in melancholy. But Albrecht remained true to his evangelical faith, and died (March 20, 1568), with the words of Psa. 31:5, upon his lips, "Into Thine hand I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth." He left proofs of his piety in prayers, meditations, and the testament to his son, who succeeded him, and died without male issue, 1618.




A few glimpses of the later history are here in place to explain the present confessional status of the Protestant church in the kingdom of Prussia.

The Duchy of Prussia in 1618 fell as an inheritance to John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg (1608-1619), son-in-law of the second Prussian Duke (Albert Frederick), and a descendant of Frederick of Hohenzollern, who had become margrave of Brandenburg by purchase in 1415. In this way the connection of Prussia arid Brandenburg was completed.

But Prussia remained in feudal subjection to Poland till 1656, when Frederick William, "the great Elector," conquered the independence by the victory of Warsaw. He is the first, as Frederick II., his great-grandson, is the second, founder of the greatness of Prussia. After the terrible devastations of the Thirty Years' War he gathered the broken fragments of his provinces into a coherent whole during his long and successful reign (1640-1688). He was the most enlightened and most liberal among the German princes of his age. He protected the independence of Germany against French aggression. He was married to Louisa Henrietta, princess of Orange, of the Calvinistic faith, and authoress of the popular resurrection hymn, "Jesus, meine Zuversicht."803  He secured toleration to the Reformed churches in the Treaty of Westphalia. He gave refuge to over twenty thousand French Huguenots, who with their descendants became an important element in the Prussian nationality and the Reformed church. His son Frederick became the first king of Prussia, and was crowned at Königsberg, Jan. 18, 1701. He founded the University of Halle, 1693, which ultimately absorbed the University of Wittenberg by incorporation (1815), and assumed an important position in the history of German theology as the nursery, first of pietism, then of rationalism, and (since Tholuck's appointment, 1827) of the evangelical revival.

With John Sigismund began an important confessional change, which laid the foundation for the union policy of his successors. He introduced the Reformed or Calvinistic element, which had been crushed out in Saxony, into the Court and Dome Church of Berlin, and gave the Heidelberg Catechism a place besides the Augsburg Confession. His grandson, "the great Elector," strengthened the Reformed element by his marriage to a princess from Holland, who adorned her faith, and by inviting a colony of French Huguenots who left their country for the sake of conscience. It was therefore quite natural that the Reformed rulers of a Lutheran country should cherish the idea of a union of the two confessions, which was realized in the present century.804

We have seen that Old Prussia was Lutheranized under the direct influence of the Wittenberg divines with whom Albrecht was in Constant correspondence. In Brandenburg also, the Lutheran type of Protestantism, after many reverses and controversies, was established under John George (1571-1598); the Formula of Concord was forcibly introduced, and all Calvinistic teaching was strictly forbidden. The Brandenburg "Corpus Doctrinae" of 1572 emphasizes Luther's word that Zwingli was no Christian, and the Brandenburg chancellor Dietelmeyer is known by his unchristian prayer: "Impleat nos Deus odio Calvinistarum!"

But the Elector John Sigismund, who by travels and personal intercourse with Calvinistic princes and divines conceived a high regard for their superior Christian piety and courtesy, embraced the Reformed faith in 1606, and openly professed it in February, 1614, by declaring his assent to the four oecumenical symbols (including the Chalcedonense) and the altered Augsburg Confession of 1540, without imposing his creed upon his subjects, only prohibiting the preachers to condemn the Calvinists from the pulpit. In May, 1514, he issued a personal confession of faith, called the "Confession of Sigismund," or the "Brandenburg Confession" (Confessio Marchica). It teaches a moderate, we may say, Melanchthonian and unionistic Calvinism, and differs from the Lutheran Formula of Concord in the following points: It rejects Eutychianism and the ubiquity of Christ's body, consubstantiation in the Lord's Supper, the use of the wafer instead of the broken bread, and exorcism in baptism; on the other hand, it teaches the Calvinistic view of the spiritual real presence for believers, and unconditional election, but without an unconditional decree of reprobation; it distinctly declares that God sincerely wishes the salvation of all men, and is not the author of sin and damnation.

The change of Sigismund was the result of conscientious conviction, and not dictated by political motives. The people and his own wife re-mained Lutheran. He made no use of his territorial summepiscopate and the jus reformandi. He disclaimed all intention to coerce the conscience, since faith is a free gift of God, and cannot be forced. No man should pre-sume to exercise dominion over man's religion. He thus set, in advance of his age, a noble example of toleration, which became the traditional policy of the Prussian rulers. The pietistic movement of Spener and Francke, which was supported by the theological faculty at Halle, weakened the confessional dissensus, and strengthened the consensus. The Moravian brotherhood exhibited long before the Prussian Union, in a small community, the real union of evangelical believers of both confessions.

Frederick the Great was an unbeliever, and had as little sympathy with Pietism and Moravianism as with Lutheranism and Calvinism; but he was a decided upholder of religious toleration, which found expression in his famous declaration that in his kingdom everybody must be at liberty to get saved "after his own fashion." The toleration of indifferentism, which prevailed in the last century, broke down the reign of bigotry, and prepared the way for the higher and nobler principle of religious liberty.

The revival of religious life at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a revival of general Christianity without a confessional or denomina-tional type, and united for a time pious Lutherans, Reformed, and even Roman Catholics. It was accompanied by a new phase of evangelical theology, which since Schleiermacher and Neander laid greater stress on the consensus than the dissensus of the Protestant confessions in oppo-sition to rationalism and infidelity. The ground was thus prepared for a new attempt to establish a mode of peaceful living between the two confessions of the Reformation.

King Frederick William III. (1797-1840), a conscientious and God-fearing monarch, who had been disciplined by sad reverses and providen-tial deliverances of Prussia, introduced what is called the "Evangelical Union" of the Lutheran and Reformed confessions at the tercentennial celebration of the Reformation (Sept. 27, 1817). The term "evangelical," which was claimed by both, assumed thus a new technical sense. The object of the Union (as officially explained in 1834 and 1852) was to unite the two churches under, one government and worship, without abolishing the doctrinal distinctions.805  It was conservative, not absorptive, and dif-fered in this respect from all former union schemes between the Greek and Latin, the Protestant and Roman Catholic, the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, which aimed at doctrinal uniformity or at best at a doctrinal compromise. The Prussian Union introduced no new creed; the Augsburg Confession, Luther's Catechisms, and the Heidelberg Catechism continued to be used where they had been in use before; but it was assumed that the confessional differences were not vital and important enough to exclude Christian fellowship. The opposition proceeded chiefly from the "Old Lutherans," so called, who insist upon "pure doctrine," as the basis of union, to the exclusion of the Calvinistic "heresies," and who took just offense at the forcible introduction of the new liturgy of the king (the Agende of 1822); but the opposition was silenced by granting them the liberty of separate organization and self-government (1845). The Prussian Union suffers from the defects of Erastianism, but no more than any other state-church, or the introduction of the Reformation in the sixteenth century by the civil power. Experience has proved that moderate Lutherans and Reformed Christians can live together, commune at the same altar, and co-operate in the work of the common Master. This experience is a great gain. The union type of Protestantism has become an important historic fact and factor in the modern theology and church life of Prussia and those other parts of Germany which followed her example.

The two sons and successors of the founder of the Prussian Union, King Frederick William IV. (1840-1858), and Emperor William I. (1858-1888), have faithfully adhered to it in theory and practice.

Frederick William IV. was well versed in theology, and a pronounced evangelical believer. He wished to make the church more independent, and as a means to that end he established the Oberkirchenrath (1850, modified 1852), which in connection with the Cultusministerium should administer the affairs of the church in the name of the king; while a general synod was to exercise the legislative function. Under his reign the principle of religious liberty made great progress, and was embodied in the Prussian Constitution of 1850, which guarantees in Article XII. the freedom of conscience and of private and public worship to all religious associations.806

William I., aided by Bismarck and Moltke, raised Prussia, by superior statesmanship and diplomacy, and by brilliant victories in the wars with Austria (1866) and France (1870), to her present commanding position. He became by common consent of the German sovereigns and people the first hereditary emperor of United Germany under the lead of Prussia. He adorned this position in eighteen years of peace by his wisdom, integrity, justice, untiring industry, and simple piety, and gained the universal esteem and affection of the German nation, yea, we may say, of the civilized world, which mourned for him when on the 9th of March, 1888, in the ninety-first year of an eventful life, he entered into his rest. History has never seen a more illustrious trio than the Emperor William, "the Iron Chancellor," and "the Battle-thinker," who "feared God, and nothing else."

The new German Empire with a Protestant head is the last outcome of the Reformation of Prussia, and would not have been possible without it.


 § 100. Protestant Martyrs.





"Ein neues Lied wir heben an."808


The prior of their convents Lampert Thorn, was suffocated in prison. The martyrdom of Henry of Zütphen has already been noticed.809  Adolph Klarenbach and Peter Flysteden suffered at the stake in Cologne with constancy and triumphant joy, Sept. 28, 1529.810



In Southern Germany the Edict of Worms was more rigidly executed. Many executions by fire and sword, accompanied by barbarous mutilations, took place in Austria and Bavaria. In Vienna a citizen, Caspar Tauber, was beheaded and burnt, because he denied purgatory and transubstantiation, Sept. 17, 1524.813  In Salzburg a priest was secretly beheaded without a trial, by order of the archbishop, for Lutheran heresy.814  George Wagner, a minister at Munich, was burnt Feb. 8, 1527. Leonard Käser (or Kaiser) shared the same fate, Aug. 18, 1527, by order of the bishop of Passau. Luther wrote him, while in prison, a letter of comfort.815





744  Deutsche Geschichte, etc., vol. II. 46 (6th ed.).

745  I "Selbstherrschender, gewaltiger ist wohl nie ein Schriftsteller aufgetreten, in keiner Nation der Welt. Auch dürfte kein anderer zu nennen sein, der die vollkommenste Verständlichkeit und Popularität, gesunden, treuherzigen Menschenverstand mit so vielechtem Geist, Schwung und Genius vereinigt hätte. Er gab der Literatur den Charakter den sie seitdem behalten, der Forschung, des Tiefsinns, der Polemik." Ranke, II. 56. "Fesselnder, ergreifender und packender hat kein Deutscher geschrieben. Dabei beherrschte er seine Muttersprache mit solcher Gewalt, dass er sie zur Schriftsprache zu erheben vermochte." Fr. Kapp, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels, vol. I. p. 407.

746  Janssen dwells, we may say, exclusively on the lower motives, and by omitting the higher spiritual motives and aims utterly misrepresents the Reformers and the Reformation.

747  For these figures and several facts in this paragraph I am indebted to the instructive work of Friedrich Kapp, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels (published by the "Börsenverein der deutschen Buchhändler," Leipzig, 1886), vol. I. 407 sq. The statistics of Ranke (II. 56) are taken from Panzer's Annalen der älteren deutschen Literatur (1788 and 1802) and are superseded by the more recent and fuller investigations of Weller, Kuczynski, and Kapp.

748  This was the complaint of Cochlaeus, see p. 350. Luther called him Kochlöffel and Rotzlöffel (cochlear = spoon).

749  He called such printers thieves and highway robbers, and their work Bubenstück, den gemeinen Mann zu betrügen"(September, 1525).

750  Kapp (I. 318) mentions that the electors of Saxony from 1571-1670 received no less than a hundred and ninety-two "most humble" (alleruntherthänigste) dedications from various authors, and that the magistrate of Zürich received thirty-eight from 1670-1685.

751  On the history of the book censorship (Büchercensur) and press persecutions, compare the ninth and tenth chapters of Kapp, I. 522 sqq.

752  The bull is not given in the Bullarium, but by Raynaldus ad a. 1501, No. 36, Zaccaria, and Reusch (I. 54), in part also by Kapp (l.c. p. 530).

753  The bull "Inter solicitudines" was promulgated in the fifth Lateran Council. Labbe, XIV. 257, and Reusch, I. 55 sq.

754  The bull "Exurge, Domine," is printed in full, p. 235 sqq.

755  Kapp, l.c., p. 536 sqq., shows that the Edict of Worms, drawn up by the papal legate Aleander, is the beginning of the German book-censorship, and not, as usually supposed, the recess of the Nürnberg Diet of 1524. "Wie Rom," he says (539), "die Wiege der Büchercensur für die ganze Welt, so ist Worms ihre Geburtsstätte für Deutschland." The restriction of the press, however, was begun in Germany, as we have seen, already in 1486, by Elector Berthold of Mainz.

756  "Derselbe Luther," says Kapp, p. 552, "welcher das Papstthum für noch lange nicht genug zerscholten, zerschrieben, zersungen, zerdichtet Und zermalet hielt, rief schon 1525 die Censur für seinen nunmehrigen Standpunkt zur Hilfe." He refers to his attempt to secure a prohibition of Carlstadt's writings in Saxony.

757  Fr. Heinrich Reusch (old catholic Prof. at Bonn): Der Index der verbotenen Bücher, Bonn, 1883-85, 2 vols. Of older works we mention, Fr. Zaccaria, Storia polemica delle proibizioni de' libri, Rom., 1777; and Jos. Mendham, The Literary Policy of the Church of Rome exhibited in an account of her damnatory Catalogues or indexes, both prohibitory and expurgatory, London, 1826, 3d ed. 1844.

758  One of them, Johann Herrgott, was executed in Leipzig, 1527 (not 1524) for selling Lutheran books, or rather for complicity with the Peasants' War, and for agrarian socialistic doctrines. See A. Kirchhoff, Johann Herrgott, Buchführer von Nürnberg, und sein tragisches Ende, 1527, and Kapp, l.c., I. 438 sq. and 594.


760  See § 74, p. 434 sqq.

761  On Jacob Sturm see the monograph of H. Baumgarten, Strassburg. 1876. Of John Sturm (who died 1589, in his eighty-second year), there are several biographies, by C. Schmidt (in French, 1855), Rieth (1864), Kückelhahn (1872), and Zaar (1872).

762  Butzer in German, Bucerus in Latin.

763  "Wir sind Christgläubig, nicht kirchgläubig."

764  Seckendorf, I. 246. Wolter, Gesch. der Stadt Magdeburg (1845); Hoffmann, Chronik der Stadt Magdeb. (1850, 3 vols.); Rathmann, Gesch. Magdeb.; Preger, Matth. Flacius Illyricus und seine Zeit (Erlangen, 1859-1861).

765  Of this disputation Luther reported to Spalatin, May 11, 1524 (De Wette, II. 511): "Vratislaviæ disputatio Joannis Hess processit feliciter, frustra resistentibus tot legatis regum et technis episcopi."

766  Professor Hartranft, D. D., of Hartford, Conn., a descendant of the Pennsylvania Schwenkfelders, has investigated the Schwenkfeld literature at Breslau, and issued a prospectus for its publication (1887).

767  Köstlin, biography of Hess in the "Zeitschrift des schlesischen Geschichtsvereins," vol. VI. Gilett, Crato von Crafftheim und seine Freunde, Frankfurt-a.-M. 1860, 2 parts. A very learned work. To Ursinus we shall return in the history of the Reformation in the Palatinate. In the cities of the Hanseatic League the Reformation was introduced at an early period.

768  Vom Bruder Heinrich in Ditmar verbrannt, Wittenberg, 1525, in the Erl. ed. XXVI. 313-337; in Walch, XXI. 94 sqq. Comp. Paul Crocius, Das grosse Martyrbuch, Bremen, 1682. Klaus Harms, Heinrich von Zütphen, in Piper's "Evang. Kalender," 1852.

769  Printed in Richter, Die evang. Kirchenordnungen, vol. I. C. Bertheau, Bugenhagen's Kirchenordnung für die Stadt Hamburg vom J. 1529, 1885. L. Hänselmann, B.'s Kirchenordnung f. d. Stadt Braunschweig, 1885. Frantz, Die evangelische Kirchenverfassung in den deutschen Städten des 16. Jahrh., Halle, 1876. Vogt, Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus, Elberfeld, 1867. The year 1885, the fourth centennial of Bugenhagen's birth, called out several popular sketches of his life by Knauth, Petrich, Zitzlaff, and Hering (1888). See also O. Vogt, Bugenhagen's Briefwechsel, Stettin, 1888.

770  So he spells his name (Rieger in German), not Regius (König).

771  Rhegius, Opera latine edita, Norimb. 1561; Deutsche Bücher und Schriften, Nürnb. 1562, and again Frankf. 1577. Döllinger, Die Reform. II. 58 sqq. Uhlhorn, Urbanus Rhegius, Elberfeld, 1862, and his sketch in Herzog2, XIII. 147-155.

772  Friedrich Roth, Augsburgs Reformationsgeschichte, 1517-1527. München, 1881.

773  See the description of the congregation of the "Apostolic Brethren," as the Anabaptists called themselves, in Ludwig Keller, Ein Apostel der Wiedertäufer (i.e., Hans Denck), Leipzig, 1882, ch. VI. 94-119.

774  Römer, Kirchliche Geschichte Württembergs, Stuttg. 1848. Keim, Schwäbische Reformationsgeschichte. Tübingen, 1855. Schneider, Württemb. Reformationsgesch. Stuttgart, 1887.

775  Ranke, II. 121.












787  Letter to Bucer, March 14, 1530, ib. II. 242.



790  The fact of Tyndale's sojourn in Marburg has been disputed without good reason by Mombert in the preface to his facsimile edition of Tyndale's Pentateuch, New York, 1884 (p. XXIX.). He conjectures that "Marborow" is a fictitious name for Wittenberg. Tyndale's name does not appear in the University Register, but he may not have entered it. Hans Luft was the well-known printer of Luther's Bible in Wittenberg in Saxony, but he may have had an agent in Marburg "in the land of Hesse."

791  "Bei weitem die merkwürdigste und durchgreifendste Veränderung fand in Preussen statt." Ranke, II. 326. Janssen can see in the Reformation of Prussia only a change for the worse. The best refutation of his view is the subsequent history and present condition of Prussia. The history of the past must be read in the light of the present. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

792  Prussia proper is a division of the kingdom of Prussia, and comprises East or Ducal Prussia and West or Royal Prussia, with a total area of 24,114 square miles, and a population of about three millions and a half. East Prussia was united with Brandenburg by the Elector John Sigismund, 1618 West Prussia was severed from Poland by Frederick the Great in the first division of that kingdom, 1772.

793  "Der deutsche Orden," says Ranke (II. 334), "und seine Herrschaft in Preussen war ohne Zweifel das eigenthümlichste Product des hierarchischritterlichen Geistes der letzen Jahrhunderte in der deutschen Nation; er hatte eine grossartige Weltenwirkung ausgeübt und ein unermessliches Verdienst um die Ausbreitung des deutschen Namens erworben; aber seine Zeit war vorüber."

794  An die Herren deutsches Ordens, dass sie falsche Keuschheit meiden und zur rechten ehelichen Keuschheit greifen, Ermahnung. Wittenberg, den 28 März, 1523. In the Erl. ed. XXIX. l6-33. Walch, XIX. 2157 sqq.

795  He published several sermons. Extracts in Seckendorf, I. 272. See the article "Briesmann" by Dr. Erdmann in Herzog2, II. 629-631, with literature.

796  Letter to John Briesmann, July 4, 1524, in De Wette, II. 526 sq.

797  "At last," he wrote to Spalatin, Feb. 1, 1524, "even a bishop has given the glory to the name of Christ, and proclaims the gospel in Prussia, namely the bishop of Samland, encouraged and instructed by John Briesmann, whom I sent, so that Prussia also begins to give farewell to the kingdom of Satan." De Wette, II. 474.

798  Erl. ed., Op. Lat. XIII. The dedicatory letter dated April, 1525, is printed also in De Wette, II. 647-651. In this letter occurs the notable passage (p. 649): "Vide mirabilia, ad Prussiam pleno cursu plenisque telis currit Evangelion." Comp. the passage quoted p. 539, note 2.

799  Professor Tschackert, his best biographer, says (l.c., p. 187): "The correspondence of Bishop Georg von Polentz, as far as known, contains not a syllable nor even an allusion to a letter of his to Luther. Even the name of Luther occurs after the reformatory mandate of 1524 only once, in a postscript to a letter to Paul Speratus, Aug. 22, 1535." In this letter he requested his colleague, Bishop Speratus of Pomesania, to give some noble students from Lithuania letters of introduction to Luther and Melanchthon ("literis tuis Martino et Philippo commendes.") See the letter, l.c., p. 191.

800  "Coacti sumus," he said, "alienum officium, i.e., episcopate in nos sumere, ut omnia ordine, et decenter fierent." Preface to the Articuli ceremoniarum, published by a general synod at Königsberg, May 12, 1530.

801  Arnoldt, Historie der königsberger Universität, 1746.

802  See above, p. 570. Osiander's son-in-law, Funke, Albrecht's chaplain and confessor, continued the controversies, but was at last beheaded with two others, 1566, as "Ruhestörer, Landesverräther und Beförderer der osiandrischen Ketzerei."

803  Several English translations; one by Miss Winkworth, "Jesus my Redeemer lives." The hymn has a long and interesting history. See A. F. W. Fischer, Kirchenlieder-Lexicon, I. 390-396.

804  For fuller information, see Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 554 sqq. To the literature there given should be added Ranke, Zwölf Bücher Preuss. Geschichte, Leipz. 1874, I. 185-192; Kawerau in Herzog2, XIV. 227-232; and Wangemann, Joh. Sigismund und Paul Gerhard, Berlin, 1884. The literature on the Prussian Union refers to the history after 1817, and is very large. We mention Nitzsch, Urkundenbuch der evangelischen Union, Berlin, 1853; Jul. Müller, Die evangel. Union, ihr Wesen und göttliches Recht, Berlin, 1854; Brandes, Geschichte der kirchlichen Politik des Hauses Brandenburg, 1872,' 73, 2 vols.; Mücke, Preussen's landeskirchliche Unionsentwicklung, 1879; Wangemann, Die preussische Union in ihrem Verhältniss zur Una Sancta, Berlin, 1884.

805  The Cabinetsordre of Feb. 18, 1834, declares: "Die Union bezweckt und bedeutet kein Aufgeben des bisherigen Glaubensbekenntnisses; auch ist die Autorität, welche die Bekenntnisschriften der beiden evangelischen Confessionen bisher gehabt, durch sie nicht aufgehoben worden."

806  See Schaff, Church and State in the United States, New York, 1888, p. 97 sq.

807  See Schaff, Church Hist. II. 78.

808  See above, p. 505, and Ranke, II. 119.

809  § 96, p. 574, sq.

810  See their biography in Piper's Evang. Kalender, VII. 408, and article "Klarenbach" by C. Krafft, in Herzog2, VIII. 20-33.


812  See § 93, p. 567, note.

813  Ranke, II. 117 sq.

814  Ibid. p. 117.


816  Ranke, III. 369.

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