So far, and as a mere practical spirit, his moderation
appears entirely commendable ; but it is impossible to deny
that he carried his moderation farther than this. He not
only did not like changes, but he naturally shrank from
new views. His mind as well as his practice was strongly
conservative ; the truth only reached him at first through a
struggle and wrench of his whole being, so violent that he
could not bear to repeat the process. After admitting one
streaming flood of light, he shut himself closely against its
farther ingress. He possessed none of that calmly specu-
lative and inquiring spirit, which is ever going out in search

1 Brief e, vol. ii. p. 423.
LUTHER. 77

of truth in all directions, and unfolding itself more and more
to the sunlight of discovery. He was both too logical and
too practical, too dogmatic and too immediate in his judg-
ments, to permit of such a consistent intellectual progress.
His mind required to be girded by clear and strong convic-
tions, within the sphere of which his activity knew no
bounds ; but no soaring aspirations after a higher truth than
that which had seized him, as it were, by divine violence,
haunted him ; and he would have thought it mere idle
vanity to dream of any such higher and more comprehen-
sive truth. • It is this which constitutes at once the disap-
pointment of his later years, and his weakness and defects
as a mere theologian. He would not advance with Carl-
stadt ; and so far he was right. He would have nothing
to do with Zwingle and the Sacramentarians ; and so far he
was honest. We respect his independence in both cases.
