CHAPTER VIII.

DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LUTHER.

WHILE appearances of danger daily increased, and the tempest which had been so long gathering was ready to break forth in all its violence against the Protestant Church, Luther was saved, by a seasonable death, from feeling or beholding its destructive rage. Having gone, though in a declining state of health, and during a rigorous season, to his native city of Eysleben, in order to compose, by his authority, a dissension among the Counts of Mansfield, he was seized with a violent inflammation in his stomach, which, in a few days, put an end to his life, in the sixty-third year of his age. As he was raised up by Providence to be the author of one of the greatest and most interesting revolutions recorded in history, there is not any person, perhaps, whose character has been drawn with such opposite colours. In his own age, one party, struck with horror and inflamed with rage, when they saw with what a daring hand he overturned every thing which they held to be sacred, or valued as beneficial, imputed to him not only all the defects and vices of a man, but the qualities of a demon. The other, warmed with the admiration and gratitude which they thought he merited, as the restorer of light and liberty to the Christian Church, ascribed to him perfections above the perfection of humanity, and viewed all his actions with a veneration bordering on that which should be paid only to those who are guided by the immediate inspiration of Heaven. It is his own conduct, not the undistinguishing censure, or the exaggerated praises of his contemporaries, that ought to regulate our opinions concerning him. Zeal for what he regarded as truth, undaunted intrepidity to maintain his own system, abilities, both natural and acquired, to defend its principles, and unwearied industry in propagating them, are virtues which

shine so conspicuously in every part of his behaviour, that even his enemies must allow him to have possessed them in an eminent degree. To these may be added, with equal justice, such purity, and even austerity, of manners, as became one who assumed the character of a reformer; such sanctity of life, as suited the doctrine which he delivered; and such perfect disinterestedness, as affords no slight presumption of his sincerity. Superior to all selfish considerations, a stranger to the elegancies of life, and despising its pleasures, he left the honours and emoluments of the Church to his disciples, being satisfied himself, in his original office of Professor in the University, and Pastor of the town of Wittemberg, with the moderate appointments annexed to these offices.

No one can read Luther's history, the detail of his actual sayings and doings, without feeling that if ever honesty and integrity were embodied, it was in his person. He avowed nothing but what he conscientiously believed; he kept back nothing which conscience dictated to be avowed. And then, not only was his belief of all he taught most sincere, it was also most thoroughly practical and influential. He himself daily lived upon that bread of life which he broke to others. The doctrines which he preached to mankind were the support of all his own hopes, the spring of all his comforts, the source of his peace of mind, of his strength for service or for suffering in the cause of God; the principles which evermore governed and animated him, raised him above the fear of man, and the love of the world, and carried him with an heroic elevation of soul through a series of labours and dangers, never, perhaps, surpassed since the days of the Apostle Paul. In the genuine doctrines of the Gospel, and especially in that of our being "justified freely, by God's grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus," and this inestimable benefit appropriated only by a living faith, and not by our own works or deservings, he found that which could alone relieve his own conscience from an anxiety amounting, at times, even to anguish, and for want of which he saw the whole Christian world around him groaning under a system of delusion, impo

what he had thus found to be the relief and salvation of his own soul, he could not but proclaim to others also. Neither “counted he his life dear unto himself, so that he might finish his course with joy, and the ministry, which he had received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." Never, probably, did there exist the man who could more truly say with St. Paul, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom (or by which) the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." And this, assuredly, in all its parts, is the state of mind which is especially wanting to us, to give more effect to our ministrations, and to draw down a larger measure of the divine blessing upon them. May He, with whom is the residue of the spirit, indeed raise up among us evermore a new race of such "men of God," by whom he will indeed revive his Church wherever it is decayed, reform it wherever it is corrupted, unite it wherever it is divided, and extend it wherever it is not yet planted; that "the wilderness and the solitary place may be glad for them, and the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose!"

In short, the great charm of Luther's character, and that from which the other excellencies, admired in him even by those for whom this may have less attraction, derived their origin, or their support, was his spirituality. His whole heart and soul were in religion, not in the barren notion of its truths, or in its mere exterior observances, but in the communion with God by which it is produced and cherished; in the love of God and of man, in the righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in the penitence, the faith, the devotion, the deadness to the world, the heavenly mindedness, in which it consists; and in all the practical fruits of righteousness and usefulness which it brings forth.

His extraordinary qualities were indeed alloyed with no inconsiderable mixture of human frailty and human passions; these, however, were of such a nature, that they cannot be imputed to malevolent intention, or dishonesty of purpose, but seem to have taken their rise from the same source with many of his virtues. His mind, forcible and vehement in all its

operations, roused by great objects, or agitated by violent passions, broke out, on many occasions, with an impetuosity which would astonish men of feebler spirits, or such as are placed in a more tranquil situation. By carrying some praiseworthy dispositions to excess, he bordered, sometimes, on what was culpable, and was often betrayed into actions which exposed him to censure. His confidence that his own opinions were well founded, approached to arrogance; his courage in asserting them, to rashness; his firmness in adhering to them, to obstinacy; and his zeal in confuting his adversaries, to rage and scurrility. Accustomed himself to consider every thing as subordinate to truth, he expected the same deference for it from other men; and, without making any allowances for their timidity and prejudices, he poured forth against such as disappointed him in this particular, a torrent of invective mingled with contempt. Regardless of any distinction of rank or character, when his doctrines were attacked, he chastised all his adversaries, indiscriminately, with the same rough hand; neither the royal dignity of Henry VIII., nor the eminent learning and abilities of Erasmus, screened them from the same severity of language with which he treated Tetzel or Eccius.

But these indecencies of which Luther was guilty must not be imputed wholly to the violence of his temper; they ought to be charged in part on the manners of the age. Among a rude people, unacquainted with those maxims which, by putting continual restraint on the passions of individuals, have polished society, and rendered it agreeable; disputes of every kind were managed with heat and strong emotions, and were uttered in their natural language without reserve or delicacy. At the same time, the works of learned men were all composed in Latin, and they were not only authorized by the example of eminent writers in that language, to use their antagonists with the most illiberal scurrility, but, in a dead tongue, indecencies of every kind appear less shocking than in a living language, whose idioms and phrases seem gross, because they are familiar.

In passing judgment upon the characters of men, we ought

to try them by the principles and maxims of their own age, not by those of another. For although virtue and vice are, at all times, the same, manners and customs vary continually; and some parts of Luther's behaviour, which appear to us most culpable, gave no disgust to his contemporaries. It was even by some of those qualities which we are now apt to blame, that he was fitted for accomplishing the great work which he undertook. To rouse mankind, when sunk in ignorance or superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry, armed with power, required the utmost vehemence of zeal, as well as a temper daring to excess. A gentle call would neither have reached, nor have excited, those to whom it was addressed. A spirit more amiable, but less vigorous than Luther's, would have shrunk back from the dangers which he braved and surmounted. Towards the close of Luther's life, though without any perceptible diminution of his zeal or abilities, the infirmities of his temper increased upon him; he was worn down with care and labour, with disease and pain. External events also were, at that juncture, peculiarly harassing; and all this acting upon a temper naturally irritable, and, it is admitted, not so much softened and subdued as it ought to have been, for a time overcame him. He was peevish and impatient to those about him, and he could no longer bear the scene of his vexations. The course, however, which he took, was the proper one; he retired, he relaxed himself, he visited his pious friends Arnsdorf, George of Anhalt, and others, and no doubt he communed with his God. The Elector wrote affectionately to him; the University solicited his return. He complied, and we hear no more of his fretfulness and desertion of his duties. This is, indeed, the true account of the case, which, while from the censures entailed upon Luther, it may admonish us how much it behoves even the greatest and best of men never to relax their watchfulness, but to pray to the last, "Hold thou me up and I shall be safe," may teach us also candour and forbearance in our judgments, and especially may guard us against confounding what is transient in the feelings of any one, with what is habitual and a part of his character. Having lived to be a witness of his own amazing success, to