Chapter IV: Part 4

Luther's confidence in the boasted unity of the Roman Church was somewhat shaken when he discovered that he could not read mass in any church in the territory at Milan, because there the Ambrosian form of service was prescribed while he had been trained to the Gregorian.

Luther shook his head at the freedom of certain public manners of the Italians which reminded him of dogs and of what he had read about Kerkyra.

Luther heard of a Lenten collation, probably at the abbey of San Benedetto de Larione, where the word "fast" had to be spelled with an _e_ as the second letter.

The loquaciousness, spicy talk, blasphemy, dishonesty, treachery, quarrelsomeness, and deadly animosities of the Italians, Luther regards as strange, considering that they live so near to the Holy City.

He wondered why the Italians do not permit their women to go out of their houses except deeply veiled.

He finds that the Italians show no respect for their beautiful churches and the divine service conducted in them. Even on great festivals the magnificent cathedrals are almost empty, the worshipers are chatting with one another while the service is in progress. Even quarrels are settled at these holy places, sometimes with the knife. When there is a burial, they hurry the corpse to the grave, not even the relatives being in attendance.

He is grieved at the irreligious manner in which the priests at Rome read mass. They hurry through the performance with incredible rapidity. They crowd each other away from the altar in their haste to get their performance finished. "Hurry, hurry! Begone! Come away!" he hears them calling to one-another. Sometimes two priests are reading mass at one altar at the same time. They had finished the whole mass before Luther had reached the Gospel in the service of the mass. And then they would receive money from the bystanders who had come in and had watched them. In a half hour a priest could get a handful of silver. Luther refused such gifts.

Luther heard few preachers at Rome, and those that he heard he did not like. They were very lively in the delivery of their sermons, they would run to and fro in their pulpit, bend far over toward the audience, utter violent cries, change their voice suddenly, and gesticulate like madmen.

Luther saw Pope Julius from a distance several times. He thought it queer that a healthy and strong man like the Pope should have himself carried to church in a litter instead of walking thither, and that such show should be made of his going there and a procession should be formed to accompany him. He saw the Pope sit at the altar and hold out his foot to be kissed by people. He saw the Pope take communion. He did not kneel like other communicants, but sat on his magnificent throne; a cardinal priest handed him the chalice, and he sipped the wine through a silver tube.

However, these and other things did not at the time shake Luther's belief in the Catholic Church. He came to Rome and left Rome a devout Catholic. Staupitz, the vicar of his order, had really gratified him in permitting him to go to Rome as the traveling companion of another monk. Luther had expressed the wish to make a general confession at Rome. With this thought on his mind he started out, and he treated the whole journey as a pilgrimage. After the manner of pious monks the two companions walked one behind the other, reciting prayers and litanies. Whether his general confession and his first mass at Rome, probably at Santa Maria del Popolo, gave him that sense of spiritual satisfaction which he craved, he has not told us. When he had come in sight of the city, he had fallen on his face like the crusaders in sight of Jerusalem, and had fervently blessed that moment. Now he ran through the seven stations of Rome, read masses wherever he could, gathered an abundance of indulgences by going through prescribed forms of worship at many shrines, listened to miracle-tales, knelt before the veil of St. Veronica near the Golden Gate at San Giovanni and before the bronze statue of St. Peter in the chapel of St. Martin, where a crucifix had of its own accord raised itself up and become transfixed in the dome, saw the rope with which Judas hanged himself fastened to the altar of the Apostles Simon and Judas at St. Peter's, the stone in the chapel of St. Petronella on which the penitential tears of Peter had fallen, cutting a groove in it two fingers wide, had the guide show him the Pope's crown, the tiara, which, he thought, cost more money than all the princes of Germany possessed, was perplexed at finding the heads and bodies of Peter and Paul assigned to different places, at the Lateran Church and at San Paolo Fuori, mounted the Scala Santa--Pilate's staircase--on his knees, passed with awe the relief picture in one of the streets which the popular legend declared to be that of the female Pope Johanna and her child, saw the ancient pagan deities of Rome depicted in Santa Maria della Rotonda, the old Pantheon, stared at the head of John the Baptist in San Silvestro in Capite, tried, but failed to read the famous Saturday mass at San Giovanni, the oldest and greatest sanctuary of Christianity, rested from a fatiguing tour through the Lateran in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where Pope Sylvester II, the Faustus of the Italians, was carried away by the devils, went through the catacombs with its 6 martyred Popes and 176,000 other martyrs, etc., etc.

Looking back to this visit later, Luther remarked, "I believed everything" Just what official Rome expected every devout pilgrim to do, just what it expects them to do to-day. And these Romanists want to point the finger of ridicule at the simpleton, the easy dupe, the holy fool Luther! Does Rome perhaps think the same of all the pious pilgrims that annually crowd Rome? Luther heard himself called "un buon Christiano" at Rome and discovered that that meant as much as "an egregious ass." But he considered that a part of Italian wickedness. The Church, he was sure, approved of all that he did, in fact, had taught him to do all that. It required ten years or more to disabuse his mind of the frauds that had been practised on him, and then he declared that he would not take 100,000 gulden not to have seen with his own eyes how scandalously the Popes were hoodwinking Christians. If it were not for his visit at Rome, he says, he might fear that he was slandering the Popes in what he wrote about them.

While Luther's visit at Rome, then, brought about no spiritual change in him, it helped to give him a good conscience afterwards when his conflict with Rome had begun.

13. Pastor Luther.

Luther's famous protest against the sale of indulgences, published October 31, 1517, in the form of ninety-five theses, is represented by Catholic writers as an outburst of Luther's violent temper and an assault upon the Catholic Church that he had long premeditated. By this time, it is said, Luther had become known to his colleagues as a quarrelsome man, loving disputations and jealous of victory in a debate. His methods of teaching at the university were novel, in defiance of the settled customs of the Church. His dangerous innovations caused the suspicion to spring up that he was plotting rebellion against the authority of the Church. The arrival of the indulgence-hawker Tetzel in the neighborhood of Wittenberg gave him the long-looked-for occasion to strike a blow at the sacred teachings of the Church which he had solemnly promised to support and defend against all heretics, and from whose teachings he had already apostatized in his heart.

The fact is that Luther was so little conscious of an intention to stir up strife for his Church that he was probably the most surprised man in Germany when he observed the excitement which his Theses were causing. The method he had chosen for voicing his opinion had no revolutionary element in it. It was an invitation to the learned doctors to debate with him the doctrinal grounds for the sale of indulgences. Catholic writers point to the fact that Luther declared at a later time that he did not know what an indulgence was when he attacked Tetzel. They seek to prove from this remark of Luther that it was not conscientious scruples, but the desire to cause trouble in the Church that prompted Luther to his action. They do not see that this remark speaks volumes for Luther. By his Theses he meant to get at the truth of the teaching concerning indulgences. His Theses were written in Latin, not in the people's language. Others translated them into German and scattered them broadcast throughout Germany. The Theses are no labored effort to set up, by skilful, logical argument and in carefully chosen terms, a new dogma in oppositon [tr. note: sic] to the teaching of the Church, but they are exceptions hurriedly thrown on paper, like the notes jotted down by a speaker to guide him in a discussion of his subject. Last, not least, the Theses, while contradicting the prevailing practise of selling indulgences, breathe loyalty to the Catholic Church. From our modern standpoint Luther appears in the Theses as half Protestant, or evangelical, half Roman Catholic. In his own view he was altogether Catholic. His Theses were merely a call: Let there be light! Let our consciences be duly instructed!

We still have a letter which Luther wrote to Pope Leo X about six months after he had published the Theses. This letter shows in what an orderly and quiet way Luther proceeded in his attack upon the traffic in indulgences, and how much he believed himself in accord with the Pope and the Church. We shall quote a few statements from this letter: "In these latter days a jubilee of papal indulgences began to be preached, and the preachers, thinking everything allowed them under the protection of your name, dared to teach impiety and heresy openly, to the grave scandal and mockery of ecclesiastical powers, totally disregarding the provisions of the Canon Law about the misconduct of officials. . . . They met with great success, the people were sucked dry on false pretenses, . . . but the oppressors lived on the fat and sweetness of the land. They avoided scandals only by the terror of your name, the threat of the stake, and the brand of heresy, . . . if, indeed, this can be called avoiding scandals and not rather exciting schisms and revolt by crass tyranny. . . .

"I privately warned some of the dignitaries of the Church. By some the admonition was well received, by others ridiculed, by others treated in various ways, for the terror of your name and the dread of censure are strong. At length, when I could do nothing else, I determined to stop their mad career if only for a moment; I resolved to call their assertions in question. So I published some propositions for debate, inviting only the more learned to discuss them with me, as ought to be plain to my opponents from the preface to my Theses. [This was, by the way, a common practise in those days among the learned professors at universities.] Yet this is the flame with which they seek to set the world on fire! . . ." (15, 401; transl. by Preserved Smith.)

Luther's publication of the Theses was the act of a conscientious Christian pastor. Being a priest, Luther had to hear confession. Through the confessional he learned how the common people viewed the indulgences: they actually believed that by buying indulgences they were freed from all the guilt and punishment of their sins. Absolution became a plain business transaction: you pay your money and you take your goods. Luther wrote this to his archbishop the same day on which he published his Theses. "Papal indulgences," he says in the letter to Albert, Archbishop of Mayence and Primate of Germany, "for the building of St. Peter's are hawked about under your illustrious sanction. I do not now accuse the sermons of the preachers who advertise them, for I have not seen the same, but I regret that the people have conceived about them the most erroneous ideas. Forsooth, these unhappy souls believe that, if they buy letters of pardon, they are sure of their salvation; likewise, that souls fly out of purgatory as soon as money is cast into the chest; in short, that the, grace conferred is so great that there is no sin whatever which cannot be absolved thereby, even if, as they say, taking an impossible example, a man should violate the mother of God. They also believe that indulgences free them from all penalty and guilt." (15, 391; transl. by Preserved Smith, p. 42.)

Luther had preached against the popular belief in indulgences, pilgrimages to shrines of the saints and their relics, for two years before he published his Theses. He was confident that the Church could not countenance this belief. Forgiveness of sins is to the penitent in heart who are sorry for their sins, and their sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, who atoned for them, and in whom we have the forgiveness of sin by the redemption through His blood. This is the Scriptural doctrine of penitence,--that sorrowful, contrite, and believing attitude of the heart which is the characteristic of true Christians throughout their lives. Through penitence we become absolved in the sight of God from all guilt and punishment of our sins, and the minister, by announcing this fact, is to convey to the penitent the assurance that his sins have been forgiven. Whatever penances or pious exercises the Church may impose an sinners who have confessed their sins can only be imposed as a wholesome disciplinary measure and as aids to the needed reformation of life. These penances, since they originate in the choice of the Church, may also be remitted by the Church, and for these penances the Church may accept a commutation in money, which payment, however, cannot supersede the paramount duty of the penitent to amend his sinful conduct. Such were Luther's views in brief outline at the time he published his Theses. If we are to take modern Catholic critics of Luther seriously, that has also been the teaching of their Church on the subject of indulgences. They claim that the good intentions of the Popes were grossly misinterpreted and the system of indulgences was put to uses for which it was never intended. If that is the case, why do they attack Luther for his attempt to have the abuses corrected? According to their own presentation of the true teaching of the Church on the subject of indulgences, Luther was the most dutiful son of the Church in his day in what he did on All Souls' Eve, 1517.

But the Roman teaching on indulgences is not such an innocent affair as Catholics would have us believe. The practise of substituting for penances some good work or contribution to a pious purpose had arisen in the Church at a very early time. "This," says Preserved Smith, who has well condensed the history of indulgences, "was the seed of indulgence which would never have grown to its later enormous proportions had it not been for the crusades. Mohammed promised his followers paradise if they fell in battle against unbelievers, but Christian warriors were at first without this comforting assurance. Their faith was not long left in doubt, however, for as early as 855 Leo IV promised heaven to the Franks who died fighting against the Moslems. A quarter of a century later John VIII proclaimed absolution for all sins and remission of all penalties to soldiers in the holy war, and from this time on the 'crusade indulgence' became a regular means of recruiting, used, for example, by Leo IX in 1052 and by Urban II in 1095. By this time the practise had grown up of regarding an indulgence as a remission not only of penance, but of the pains of purgatory. The means which had proved successful in getting soldiers for the crusade were first used in 1145 or 1146 to get money for the same end, pardon being assured to those who gave enough to fit out one soldier on the same terms as if they had gone themselves.

"When the crusades ceased, in the thirteenth century, indulgences did not fall into desuetude. At the jubilee of Pope Boniface VIII, in 1300, a plenary indulgence was granted to all who made a pilgrimage to Rome. The Pope reaped such an enormous harvest from the gifts of these pilgrims that he saw fit to employ similar means at frequent intervals, and soon extended the same privileges as were granted to pilgrims to all who contributed for some pious purpose at their own homes. Agents were sent out to sell these pardons, and were given power to confess and absolve, so that in 1393 Boniface IX was able to announce complete remission of both guilt and penalty to the purchasers of his letters.

"Having assumed the right to free living men from future punishment, it was but a step for the Popes to proclaim that they had the power to deliver the souls of the dead from purgatory. The existence of this power was an open question until decided by Calixtus III in 1457, but full use of the faculty was not made until twenty years later, after which it became of all branches of the indulgence trade the most profitable."

The reader will note that the indulgence trade in its latest form had not become a general thing until about six years before Luther's birth. It was a comparatively new thing that Luther attacked. In our remarks on monasticism in a previous chapter we alluded to the Roman teaching concerning the Treasure of the Merits of the Saints, or the Treasure of the Church. This teaching greatly fructified the theory of indulgences. It has never been shown, and never will be, how this Treasure originates. In the work of our Redeemer there was nothing superabundant that the Scriptures name. He fulfilled the entire Law for man, and His merits are of inestimable value. But they were all needed for the work of satisfying divine justice. Moreover, all these merits of Christ are freely given to each and every believer and cancel all his guilt, according to the statement of Paul: "Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth." As regards the merits of the saints, which they accumulated by doing good works in excess of what they were required to do, this is a purely imaginary asset of the papal bank of Rome. Every man, with all that he is and has and is able to do, owes himself wholly to God. At the best he can only do his duty. There is no chance for doing good works in excess of duty. If he were really to do all, he would only do what it was his duty to do, Luke 17, 10, and would be told to regard himself, even in that most favorable case, as an unprofitable servant.

But supposing there were superabundant merits, supererogatory works of Christ and the saints, who has determined their quantity? Who takes the inventory of this stock of the papal bank of Rome? Is he the same party who determines the length of a person's stay in purgatory and can tell how much he has been in arrears in the matter of goodness and virtuousness, and how much cash will purchase his release? How is this intelligence conveyed to purgatory that Mr. So-and-so is free to proceed to heaven? A multitude of such questions arising in all thinking minds that want to arrive at rock bottom facts in so serious a matter always baffle the theologians of Rome. They owe the world an answer on these questions for four hundred years. Is the world doing Rome an injustice when it regards the sale of indulgences a pure confidence game in holy disguise, the offer of a fictitious value for good cash, the boldest and baldest gold-bricking that mankind has heen [tr. note: sic] subjected to?

The sale of indulgences which was started in Luther's days was a particularly offensive enterprise. "It was not so much the theory of the Church that excited Luther's indignation as it was the practises of some of her agents. They encouraged the common man to believe that the purchase of a papal pardon would assure him impunity without any real repentance on his part. Moreover, whatever the theoretical worth of indulgences, the motive of their sale was notoriously the greed of unscrupulous ecclesiastics. The 'holy trade' as it was called had become so thoroughly commercialized by 1500 that a banking house, the Fuggers of Augsburg, were the direct agents of the Curia in Germany. In return for their services in forwarding the Pope's bulls, and in hiring sellers of pardons, this wealthy house made a secret agreement in 1507 by which it received one-third of the total profits of the trade, and in 1514 formally took over the whole management of the business in return for the modest commission of one-half the net receipts. Naturally not a word was said by the preachers to the people as to the destination of so large a portion of their money, but enough was known to make many men regard indulgences as an open scandal.

"The history of the particular trade attacked by Luther is one of special infamy. Albert of Brandenburg, a prince of the enterprising house of Hohenzollern, was bred to the Church and rapidly rose by political influence to the highest ecclesiastical position in Germany. In 1513, he was elected, at the age of twenty-three, Archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of the bishopric of Halberstadt,--an uncanonical accumulation of sees confirmed by the Pope in return for a large payment. Hardly had Albert paid this before he was elected Archbishop and Elector of Mayence and Primate of Germany (March 9, 1514). As he was not yet of canonical age to possess even one bishopric, not to mention three of the greatest in the empire, the Pope refused to confirm his nomination except for an enormous sum. The Curia at first demanded twelve thousand ducats for the twelve apostles. Albert offered seven for the seven deadly sins. The average between apostles and sins was struck at ten thousand ducats, or fifty thousand dollars, a sum equal in purchasing power to near a million to-day. Albert borrowed this, too, from the Fuggers, and was accordingly confirmed on August 15, 1514.

"In order to allow the new prelate to recoup himself, Leo obligingly declared an indulgence for the benefit of St. Peter's Church, to run eight years from March 31, 1515. By this transaction, one of the most disgraceful in the history of the papacy, as well as in that of the house of Brandenburg, the Curia made a vast sum. Albert did not come off so well. First, a number of princes, including the rulers of both Saxonies, forbade the trade in their dominions, and the profits of what remained were deeply cut by the unexpected attack of a young monk." (Preserved Smith, p. 86 ff.)

Luther had ample reason to dread the demoralizing effect of the indulgence-venders' activity upon the common people. In the sermons of Tetzel the church where he happened to do business was raised to equal dignity with St. Peter's at Rome. Instead of confessing to an ordinary priest, he told the masses they had now the rare privilege of confessing to an Apostolical Vicar, specially detailed for this work. With consummate skill he worked on the tender feelings of parents, of mothers, who were mourning the loss of children, or of children who had lost their parents. He impersonated the departed in their agonies in purgatory, he made the people hear the pitiful moaning of the victims in the purgatorial fires, and transmitted their heartrending appeals for speedy help to the living. He clinched the argument by playing on the people's covetousness: for the fourth part of a gulden they could transfer a suffering soul safely to the home of the eternal paradise. Had they ever had a greater bargain offered to them? Never would they have this indispensable means of salvation brought within easier reach. Now was the time, now or never! "0 ye murderers, ye usurers, ye robbers, ye slaves of vice," he cried out, "now is the time for you to hear the voice of God, who does not desire the death of the sinner, but would have the sinner repent and live. Turn, then, O Jerusalem, to the Lord, thy God!" He declared that the red cross of the indulgence-venders, with the papal arms, raised in a church, possessed the same virtue as the cross of Christ. If Peter were present in person, he would not possess greater authority, nor could he dispense grace more effectually than he. Yea, he would not trade his glory as an indulgence-seller with Peter's glory; for he had saved more souls by selling the indulgences than Peter by preaching. Every time a coin clinked in his money chest a liberated soul was soaring to heaven.

Catholic writers declare that the people were told that they must repent in order to obtain forgiveness. So they were, in the manner aforestated. Repenting meant buying a letter of pardon from the Pope. That is the reason why Luther worded the first two of his Ninety-five Theses as he did: "Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying: _Poenitentiam agite!_ meant that the whole life of the faithful should be repentance. And these words cannot refer to penance--that is, confession and satisfaction." The Latin phrase "poenitentiam agere" has a double meaning: it may mean "repent" and "do penance." Our Lord used the phrase in the first, the indulgence-sellers in the second sense. Since the people had been raised in the belief that the Church had the authority from God to impose church fines on them for their trespasses, by which they were to remove the temporal punishment of their sins, this was called "doing penance,"--they were actually led to believe that the were obeying a command of Christ in buying a letter of indulgence. And not only did the people believe that they were purchasing release from temporal punishment, but from the guilt of sin and all its effects. The common man from the fields and the streets did not make the fine distinction of the hair-splitting theologians: his bargain meant to him that hell was closed and heaven open for him.

Another favorite defense of modern Catholic writers is, that the money paid for an indulgence was not meant to purchase anything, but was to be viewed as a thank-offering which the grateful hearts of the pardoned prompted them to make to the Church who had brought them the pardon free, gratis, and for nothing. This is Cardinal Gibbons's argument. He points triumphantly to the fact that the letters of indulgence were never handed the applicants at the same desk at which the "thank-offerings" were received. He does not say which desk the applicant approached first. But, supposing he obtained the letter first and then, with a heart bounding with joy and gratitude, hurried to the other desk, we have an interesting psychological problem confronting us. The two acts, the delivery of the letter of indulgence and the surrendering of the thank-offering, we are told, are independent the one of the other. Both are free acts, the one the free forgiveness of the Church, the other the free giving of the pardoned. The Church's grant of pardon has nothing to do with the payment of indulgence-money, and the indulgence-money is not related to the letter of indulgence. Now, then, the purchaser of an indulgence performs this remarkable feat: when he stands at the desk where the letter is handed to him, he does not think of any cost that he incurs. He views the letter as a pure gift. Then, obeying a sudden impulse of gratitude, he turns to the other desk and hands the official some money. He manages to think that he is not paying for anything, that would be utterly improper. How could a person pay for a donation, especially such a donation of spiritual and heavenly treasures? One disturbing element, however, remains: the amount of the thank-offering was fixed beforehand for particular sins, probably to regulate the recipient's gratitude and make it adequate. The writer has resolved to test the psychology of this process on himself the next time the Boston Symphony Company comes to town. He will try and think of the great singers as true benefactors of mankind, who go about the country bestowing favors on the public, and when he comes to the ticket-window he will merely make a thank-offering for the pleasure he is receiving. The scheme ought to work as well in this instance as in the other.

14. The Case of Luther's Friend Myconius.

There is a remarkable instance recorded in the annals of the Reformation which strikingly illustrates the operations of the indulgence-venders. This record deserves not to be forgotten. Gustav Freitag, the famous writer of German history, has embodied it in his sketch "Doktor Luther."

Frederic Mecum, in Latin Myconius, had become a monk in the Franciscan order. He had had an experience with Tetzel which caused him to turn to Luther with joy and wonder when the latter had published his Theses. Few of the writings of Myconius, who afterwards became the evangelical pastor of the city of Gotha, have been preserved. In the ducal library at Gotha Freitag found [tr. note: sic] an account in Latin of the incident to which we have referred. It is as follows: "John Tetzel, of Pirna in Meissen, a Dominican friar, was a powerful peddler of indulgences or the remission of sins by the Roman Pope. He tarried with this purpose of his for two years in the city of Annaberg, new at that time, and deceived the people so much that they all believed there was no other way of obtaining the forgiveness of sins and eternal life except to make amends with our works; concerning this making of amends, however, he said that it was impossible. But a single way was still left, that is, if we purchased the same for money from the Roman Pope, bought for ourselves, therefore, the Pope's indulgence, which he called the forgiveness of sins and a certain entrance into eternal life. Here I might tell wonders upon wonders and incredible things, what kind of sermons I heard Tetzel preach these two years in Annaberg, for I heard him preach quite diligently, and he preached every day; I could repeat his sermons to others, too, with all the gestures and intonations; not that I made him an object of ridicule, but I was entirely in earnest. For I considered everything as oracles and divine words, which one had to believe, and what came from the Pope I regarded as if coming from Christ Himself.

"Finally, at Pentecost, in the year of our Lord 1510, he threatened he would lay down the red cross and lock the door of heaven and put out the sun, and it would never again come about that the forgiveness of sins and eternal life could be obtained for so little money. Yes, he said, it was not to be expected that such charitableness of the Pope should come hither again as long as the world would stand. He also exhorted that every one should attend well to the salvation of his own soul and to that of his deceased and living friends. For now was at hand, according to him, the day of his salvation and the accepted time. And he said: 'Let no one under any condition neglect his own salvation; for if you do not have the Pope's letters, you cannot be absolved and delivered by any human being from many sins and "reserved cases"' (that is, cases with which an ordinary priest was not qualified to deal). On the doors and walls of the church printed letters were publicly posted in which it was ordered that one should henceforth not sell the letters of indulgence and the full power at the close as dear as in the beginning, in order to give the German people a sign of gratitude for their devotion; and at the end of the letter at the foot was written in addition, _'Pauperibus dentur gratis,'_ to the needy the letters of indulgence are to be given for nothing, without money, for the sake of God.

"Then I began to deal with the deputies of this indulgence-peddler; but, in truth, I was impelled and urged to do so by the Holy Ghost, although I myself did not understand at the time what I was doing.

"My dear father had taught me in my childhood the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Christian Creed, and compelled me always to pray. For, he said, we had everything from God alone, gratis, for nothing, and He would also govern and lead us if we prayed with diligence. Of the indulgences and Roman remission of sins he said that they were only snares with which one tricked the simple out of their money and took it from their purses, that the forgiveness of sins and eternal life could certainly not be purchased and acquired with money. But the priests or preachers became angry and enraged when one said such things. Because I heard then nothing else in the sermons every day but the greatest praise of the remission of sins, I was filled with doubt as to whom I was to believe more, my father or the priests as teachers of the Church. I was in doubt, but still I believed the priests more than the instruction of my father. But one thing I did not grant, that the forgiveness of sins could not be acquired unless it was purchased with money, above all by the poor. On this account I was wonderfully well pleased with the little clause at the end of the Pope's letter, _'Pauperibus gratis dentur propter Deum.'_

"And as they, in three days, intended to lay down the cross with special magnificence and cut off the steps and ladders to heaven, I was impelled by my spirit to go to the commissioners and ask for the letters of the forgiveness of sins 'out of mercy for the poor.' I declared also that I was a sinner and poor and in need of the forgiveness of sins, which was granted through divine grace. On the second day, around evening, I entered Hans Pflock's house where Tetzel was assembled with the father-confessors and crowds of priests, and I addressed them in Latin and requested that they might allow me, poor man, to ask, according to the command in the Pope's letter, for the absolution of all my sins for nothing and for the sake of God, _'etiam nullo casu reservato,'_ without reserving a single case, and in regard to the same they should give me the Pope's _'literas testimoniales,'_ or written testimony. Then the priests were astonished at my Latin speech, for that was a rare thing at this time, especially in the case of young boys; and they soon went out of the room into the small chamber which I was alongside, to the commissioner Tetzel. They made my desire known to him, and also asked in my behalf that he might give me the letters of indulgence for nothing. Finally, after long counsel, they returned and brought this answer: _'Dear son, we have put your petition before the commissioner with all diligence, and he confesses that he would gladly grant your request, but that he could not; and although he might wish to do so, the concession would nevertheless be naught and ineffective. For he declared unto us that it was clearly written in the Pope's letter that those would certainly share in the exceeding generous indulgences and treasures of the Church and the merits of Christ _qui porrigerent manum adjutricem,_ who offered a helping hand; that is, those who would give money.' And all that they told me in German, for there was not one among them who could have spoken three Latin words correctly with any one.

"In return, however, I entreated anew, and proved from the Pope's letter which had been posted that the Holy Father, the Pope, had commanded that such letters should be given to the poor for nothing, for the sake of the Lord; and especially because there had also been written there _'ad mandatum domini Papae proprium,'_ that is, at the Pope's own command.

"Then they went in again and asked the proud, haughty friar, that he might kindly grant my request and let me go from him with the letter of indulgence, since I was a clever and fluently-speaking young man and worthy of having something exceptional granted me. But they came out again and brought again the answer, _'de manu auxiliatrice,' concerning the helping hand, which alone was fit for the holy indulgence. I, however, remained firm and said that they were doing me, a poor man, an injustice; the one whom both God and the Pope were unwilling to shut out of divine grace was rejected by them for some few pennies which I did not have. Then a contention arose that I should at least give something small, in order that the helping-hand might not be lacking, that I should only give a groschen; I said, 'I do not have it, I am poor.' At last it came to the point where I was to give six pfennigs; then I answered again that I did not have a single pfennig. They tried to console me and spoke with one another. Finally I heard that they were worried about two things, in the first place, that I should in no case be allowed to go without a letter of indulgence, for this might be a plan devised by others, and that some bad affair might hereafter result from it, since it was clear in the Pope's letter that it should be given to the poor for nothing. Again, however, something would nevertheless have to be taken from me in order that the others might not hear that the letters of indulgence were being given out for nothing; for the whole pack of pupils and beggars would then come running, and each one would want the same for nothing. They should not have found it necessary to be worried about that, for the poor beggars were looking more for their blessed bread to drive away their hunger.

"After they had held their deliberation, they came again to me and one gave me six pfennigs that I should give them to the commissioner. Through this contribution I, too, should become, according to them, a builder of the Church of St. Peter, at Rome, likewise a slayer of the Turk, and should furthermore share in the grace of Christ and the indulgences. But then I said frankly, impelled by the Spirit, if I wished to buy indulgences and the remission of sins for money, I could in all likelihood sell a book and buy them for my own money. I wanted them, however, for nothing, as gifts, for the sake of God, or they would have to give an account before God for having neglected and trifled away my soul's salvation on account of six pfennigs, since, as they knew, both God and the Pope wished that my soul should share in the forgiveness of all my sins for nothing, through grace. This I said, and yet, in truth, I did not know how matters stood with the letters of indulgence.

"At last, after a long conversation, the priests asked me by whom I had been sent to them, and who had instructed me to carry on such dealings with them. Then I told them the pure, simple truth, as it was, that I had not been exhorted or urged by any one at all or brought to it by any advisers, but that I had made such a request alone, without counsel of any man, only with the confidence and trust in the gracious forgiveness of sins which is given for nothing; and that I had never spoken or had dealings with such great people during all my life. For I was by nature timid, and if I had not been forced by my great thirst for God's grace, I should not have undertaken anything so great and mixed with such people and requested anything like that of them. Then the letters of indulgence were again promised me, but yet in such a way that I should buy them for six pfennigs which were to be given to me, as far as I was concerned, for nothing. I, however, continued to insist that the letters of indulgence should be given to me for nothing by him who had the power to give them; if not, I should commend and refer the matter to God. And so I was dismissed by them.

"The holy thieves, notwithstanding, became sad in consequence of these dealings; I, however, was partly downcast that I had received no letter of indulgence, partly I rejoiced, too, that there was, in spite of all, still One in heaven who was willing to forgive the penitent sinner his sins without money and loan, according to the words that I had often sung in church: 'As true as I live, says the Lord, I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live.' Oh, dear Lord and God, Thou knowest that I am not lying in this matter, or inventing anything about myself.

"While doing this, I was so moved that I, on returning to my inn, almost gushed forth and melted to tears. Thus I came to my inn, went to my room, and took the cross which always lay upon the little table in my study-room, placed it upon the bench, and fell down upon the floor before it. I cannot describe it here, but at that time I was able to feel the spirit of prayer and divine grace which Thou, my Lord and God, pouredst out over me. The essential import of the same, however, was this: I asked that Thou, dear God, mightst be willing to be my Father, that Thou mightst be willing to forgive me for my sins, that I submitted myself wholly to Thee, that Thou mightst make of me now whatsoever pleased Thee, and because the priests did not wish to be gracious to me without money, that Thou mightst be willing to be my gracious God and Father.

"Then I felt that my whole heart was changed. I was disgusted with everything in this world, and it seemed to me that I had quite enough of this life. One thing only did I desire, that is, to live for God, that I might be pleasing to Him. But who was there at that time who would have taught me how I had to go about it? For the word, life, and light of mankind was buried throughout the whole world in the deepest darkness of human ordinances and of the quite foolish good works. Of Christ there was complete silence, nothing was known about Him, or, if mention was made of Him, He was represented unto us as a dreadful, fearful Judge, whom scarcely His mother and all the saints in heaven could reconcile and make merciful with bloody tears; and yet it was done in such a way that He, Christ, thrust the human being who did penance into the pains of purgatory seven years for each capital sin. It was claimed that the pain of purgatory differed from the pain of hell in nothing except that it was not to last forever. The Holy Ghost, however, now brought me the hope that God would be merciful unto me.

"And now I began to take counsel a few days with myself as to how I might take up some other vocation in life. For I saw the sin of the world and of the whole human race; I saw my manifold sin, which was very great. I had also heard something of the secret holiness and the pure, innocent life of the monks, how they served God day and night, were separated from all the wicked life of the world, and lived very sober, pious, and virtuous lives, read masses, sang psalms, fasted, and prayed at all times. I had also seen this sham life, but I did not know and understand that it was the greatest idolatry and hypocrisy.

"Thereupon I made my decision known to the preceptor, Master Andreas Staffelstein, who was the chief regent of the school; he advised me straightway to enter the Franciscan cloister, the rebuilding of which had been begun at that time. And in order that I might not become differently minded in consequence of long delay, he straightway went with me himself to the monks, praised my intellect and ability, declared in terms of praise that he bad considered me the only one among his pupils of whom he was entirely confident that I should become a very devout man.

"I wished, however, first to announce my intention to my parents, too, and hear their ideas about the matter, since I was a lone son and heir of my parents. The monks, however, taught me from St. Jerome that I should drop father and mother, and not take them into consideration, and run to the cross of Christ. They quoted, too, the words of Christ, 'No one who lays hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.' All of this was bound to impel and enjoin me to become a monk. I will not speak here of many ropes and fetters with which they bound and tied my conscience. For they said that I could never become blessed if I did not soon accept and use the grace offered by God. Thereupon I, who would rather have been willing to die than be without the grace of God and eternal life, straightway promised and engaged to come into the cloister again in three days and begin the year of probation, as they called it, in the cloister; that is, I wanted to become a pious, devout, and God-fearing monk.

"In the year of Christ 1510, the 14th of July, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I entered the cloister, accompanied by my preceptor, some few of my school-comrades, and some very devout matrons, to whom I had in part made known the reason why I was entering the spiritual order. And so I blessed my companions to the cloister, all of whom, amid tears, wished me God's grace and blessing. And thus I entered the cloister. Dear God, Thou knowest that this is all true. I did not seek idleness or provision for my stomach, nor the appearance of great holiness, but I wished to be pleasing unto Thee--Thee I wished to serve.

"Thus I at that time groped about in very great darkness" (p. 38 ff.)* *This account is published by the courtesy of the Lutheran Publication Society of Philadelphia; it is taken from their publication _Doctor Luther,_ by Gustav Freitag.

Few Christians can read this old record without pity stirring in them. The man of whom Myconius tells all this, Tetzel, has been recently represented to the American public as a theologian far superior to Luther, calm, considerate, kind, and of his actions the public has been advised that they were so utterly correct that the Roman Catholic Church of to-day does not hesitate one moment to do what Tetzel did. So mote it be! We admire the writer's honesty, and blush for his brazen boldness.

15. Luther's Faith without Works.

Out of Luther's opposition to the sale of indulgences there grew in the course of time one of the fundamental principles of Protestantism: complete, universal, and free salvation of sinners by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. In the controversies which started immediately after the publication of the Ninety-five Theses, Luther was led step by step to a greater clearness in his view of sin and grace, faith and works, human reason and the divine revelation. Not yet realizing the full import of his act, Luther had in the Theses made that article of the Christian faith with which the Church either stands or falls the issue of his lifelong conflict with Rome--the article of the justification of a sinner before God. It is, therefore, convenient to review the misrepresentations which Luther has suffered from Catholic writers because of his teaching on the subject of justification at this early stage in our review, though in doing so a great many things will have to be anticipated.

Catholic writers charge Luther with having perverted the meaning of justifying faith. Luther held that justifying faith is essentially the assurance that since Christ lived on earth as a man, labored, suffered, died, and rose again in the place of sinners, the world _en masse_ and every individual sinner are without guilt in the estimation of God. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Cor. 5, 19.) To this reconciliation the sinner has contributed nothing. It has been accomplished without him. He cannot add anything to it. God only asks the sinner to believe in his salvation as finished by Jesus Christ. To believe this fact does not mean to perform a work of merit in consideration of which God is willing to bestow salvation on the believer, but it means to accept the work of Christ as performed in our place, to rejoice therein, and to repose a sure confidence in this salvation in defiance of the accusations of our own conscience, the incriminations which the broken Law of God hurls at us, and the terrors of the final judgment. The believer regards himself as righteous before God not because of any good work that he has done, but because of the work which Christ has performed in his place. The believer holds that, when God, by raising Christ from the dead, accepted His work as a sufficient atonement for men's guilt and an adequate fulfilment of the divine Law, He accepted each and every sinner. The believer is certain that through the work of his Great Brother, Christ, he has been restored to a child relationship with God and enjoys child's privileges with his Father in heaven. The idea that he himself has done anything to bring about this blessed state of affairs is utterly foreign to this faith in Christ.

Catholic writers assert that the doctrine which we have just outlined is not Scriptural, but represents the grossest perversion of Scripture. They say this doctrine originated in "the erratic brain of Luther." Luther "was not an exact thinker, and being unable to analyze an idea into its constituents, as is necessary for one who will apprehend it correctly, he failed to grasp questions which by the general mass of the people were thoroughly and correctly understood. . . . He allowed himself to cultivate an unnecessary antipathy to so-called 'holiness by works,' and this attitude, combined with his tendency to look at the worst side of things, and his knowledge of some real abuses then prevalent in the practise of works, doubtless contributed to develop his dislike for good works in general, and led him by degrees to strike at the very roots of the Catholic system of sacraments and grace, of penance and satisfaction, in fact, all the instruments or means instituted by God both for conferring and increasing His saving relationship with man." Luther's teaching on justification is said to be the inevitable reverse of his former self-exaltation. Abandoning the indispensable virtue of humility, he had become a prey to spiritual pride, and had entered the monastery to achieve perfect righteousness by his own works. He had disregarded the wise counsels of his brethren, who had warned him not to depend too much on his own powers, but seek the aid of God. Then failing to make himself perfect, he had run to the other extreme and declared that there was nothing good in man at all, and that man could not of himself perform any worthy action. Finally he had hit upon the idea that justification means, "not an infusion of justice into the heart of the person justified, but a mere external imputation of it." Faith, in Luther's view, thus becomes an assurance that this imputation has taken place, and man accordingly need not give himself any more trouble about his salvation.