Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/98

Rh 84 L U T L U T repudiates the Wittenberg Cuncord. The princes decided that they would have nothing to do with a council which did not meet on German soil. The emperor, alarmed at the progress of Protestantism, and at the united front shown by German Protestants, and troubled by the refusal of the pope to consent to a council to be held out of Italy, strove to bring Protestants and Roman Catholics together by means of religious conferences. The first of these, held at Hagenau, came to nothing. Next year (1541) the conference was renewed at Worms, when the Roman Catholic party promised reforms on condition that the Protestants first submitted to the pope. This condition could not be accepted. Representatives met the same year at Ratisbon, and here the conference was wrecked on the doctrine of transubstantiation, but the diet re newed the terms of the edict of Nuremberg of 1532 the Ratisbon Interim. It was felt by all parties that this provisional state of matters must come to an end some time, and that the Protestants must either be allowed to have their own way or win it by fighting. The emperor was not ready for war, and at the diet at Spires in 1544 it was agreed that the Protestants were to maintain their rights until a general council met. Whatever hopes they might have from such a council were soon dissipated. The council of Trent was opened that year, and its earliest acts were to refuse to pass the conciliatory measures pro posed by some of the liberal Roman Catholics. The em peror still temporized and promised reforms, if not by a council then by a national assembly, and many of the Protestants, Luther among them, still hoped that matters might settle themselves without civil war. This hope inspired what was called the Wittenberg Reformation, a document setting forth how near the evangelical church might approach the Roman Catholic and still retain the truths it had upheld. The year 1546 began, however, with unmistakable indications that Charles was now ready to strike a decisive blow. Luther had been suffering much during the last few years, and he felt his end to be near. In the month of January 1546 he undertook a journey to Eisleben in very inclement weather, in order to restore peace in the family of the counts of Mansfeld ; he caught a violent cold, but preached four times, and took all the time an active part in the work of conciliation. On the 17th of February he felt that his release was at hand ; and at Eisleben, where he was born, he died, in faith and prayer, on the following day. Nothing can be more edifying than the scene pre sented by the last days of Luther, of which we have the most authentic and detailed accounts. When dying, he collected his last strength and offered up the following prayer : &quot; Heavenly Father, eternal, merciful God, thou hast revealed to me Thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Him I have taught, Him I have confessed, Him I love as my Saviour and Redeemer, whom the wicked persecute, dishonour, and reprove. Take my poor soul up to Thee ! &quot; Then two of his friends put to him the solemn question, &quot;Reverend Father, do you die in Christ and in the doctrine you have constantly preached?&quot; He answered by an audible and joyful &quot; Yes &quot; ; and, re peating the verse, &quot; Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,&quot; he expired peacefully, without a struggle, on the 18th of February 1546, at four o clock in the after noon. The books on the life and work of Luther are so very numerous that it is impossible to do more than mention one or two. The best editions of Luther s works are (1) the Wittenberg, 1539-58, 19 vols. folio (7 in Latin and 12 in German ; Melanchthon wrote the prefaces, and inserted a life of Luther in the beginning of the 2d vol.) ; (2) Walch s edition, 24 vols. 4to, 1740-53 ; (3) the Erlangen edition, 65 vols. and 2 vols. of indices, in all 67 vols., in German, and 33 vols. in Latin, and not yet complete, 1826-73 ; (4) the last edition is from Frankfort-on-the-Muin, publishing at the expense of the Prussian Government. Luther s letters have been collected and edited by (1) DC Wette and Seidemann, L. Bricfe, 6 vols., 1825-56 ; (2) this emendated by Burkhardt, Luther s Brief wcchsel, 1866 ; (3) Seidemann, Luther- brief e, 1859. The Table Talk was translated (1) by William Ilazlitt, 1848, and (2) by Bindseil, Colloquia, &c., 3 vols., last published 1866. Lives of Luther. (1) J. Mathesius, Historic von D. M. Luther s, &c., Nuremberg, 1566; (2) Cochlaeus, Actact Scripta Luther i, Paris, 1565 (Roman Catholic and abusive) ; (3) Merle d Aubigne, Hist, of the lief., vols. i.-iii., 1838, &c. ; (4) Michelet, Life of Luther (his statements about himself collected), translated by Hazlitt, 1846 and 1862 ; (5) Croly, Life of Luther, 1857 ; (6) Julius Kostlin, Martin Luther, sein Leben, &c., 2 vols., 1875. The last is the best ; it has been summarized for popular reading in one volume, with interesting illustrations, 1882. The Times of Luther. (1) Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter d. Ref., 6 vols., 1st ed. 1839-47, reached a 6th ed., Eng. transl. by Sarah Austin, 1845-47 ; (2) Lb scher, Reformations Akta, Leipsic, 1720 ; (3) Hausser, The Period of the. Reformation, 2 vols., 1873 ; (4) Seebohm, Era of the Protestant Revolution, 1877 (a very short but good and clear summary of events). (T. M. L.) LUTHERANS are that body of Christians who adopted the principles of Martin Luther in his opposition to the Roman Church, to the Swiss theologians, and to the sectaries of Reformation times. They called themselves &quot; Evan gelical&quot; in distinction from the &quot;Reformed&quot; or followers of Calvin, and formed one of the two great divisions of the Reformation Church. In. the early days of controversy the stricter Lutherans held it to be their peculiar function to preserve the status religionis in Germania per Lutherum iiistauratus and to watch over the depositum Jesu Christi which Luther had left in their charge. Luther himself- was much more fitted to be a reformer and preacher than an exponent of a scheme of theology or the organizer of an ecclesiastical system. His wonderfully sympathetic nature was easily moved, and his own liking and disliking ruled him too strongly to make him able to expound in calm fashion the whole round of theology, giving to each doc trine its proper place in the system. His nominalist train ing, his quietism got from the mystics of the 14th and 15th centuries, his occasional fits of morbid melancholy, all kept him from looking at the whole system of Christian doc trine, and made him intensify the value and importance of special aspects of truth. The early Lutheran theology reflected the character of its founder. It lacked systematic completeness, more especially in its failure to construct a comprehensive doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit, and it swayed from side to side in violent controversies, until at length out of the conflicts emerged the Form of Concord, which, it was hoped, would succeed in pacifying the church. The dogmatic symbols of the Lutheran Church are usually said to include nine separate creeds, three of which are taken from the early Christian Church while six are the production of the 16th century. They are the Apostles Creed, the Nicceo Constantinopolitan Creed in its Western form (i.e., with the filioque], the so-called Athanasian Creed, the Augsburg Confession or Confessio Augustana, the Apology for the Augsburg Confession, the Smalkald Articles, Luther s two Catechisms, and the Form of Con cord. These nine confessions together make up the Liber Concordise of the Lutheran Church ; but only the three pre-Reformation creeds and the Augsburg confession are recognized by all Lutherans. Luther s catechisms, espe cially the shorter of the two, have been almost universally accepted, but the Form of Concord was expressly rejected by many Lutheran churches. The Augsburg Confession and Luther s Shorter Catechism may be said to contain the distinctive principles of Lutheranism which all Lutherans unite to maintain, but, as the principal controversies of the Lutheran Church all arose after the publication of the Augsburg Confession, and were fought out between men who united in accepting that symbol, it does not contain