words must be interpreted figuratively, in such a manner as other and corresponding expressions-viz., "I am the door; "I am the true vine." Luther admitted the figurative character of the latter expressions, but would not admit that there was any analogy between them and the solemn words he had put forward in the front of the controversy. Then they verged to a prolonged discussion as to the meaning of Christ's language in the famous sixth chapter of St John's Gospel. The Swiss divines maintained that the passage, "It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing," was conclusive against the doctrine of transubstantiation. Luther denied that it applied to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and besides argued that the flesh did not and could not mean the flesh of Christ, but our own flesh. To say that "the flesh of Christ profiteth nothing," appeared to him blasphemy. Christ himself said, "His flesh bringeth life;" "but if there be spiritual life in Christ," it was urged, "what does it matter to eat his flesh?" "That," Luther replied with heat, "is a rationalistic question; it is enough that the Word of God says so: what the Word states we are bound to believe without doubt or cavil. The world must obey God's precepts; we must all obey his word. Worms, listen! It is your God who speaks!" Zwingle joined in the discussion, and it waxed more vehement. He hinted, not very reverently, that Luther did nothing but repeat the same words; Christ himself had decisively explained what he meant by his words. "Your language," Luther retorted, "savours of the camp." The announcement of dinner fortunately interrupted * the disputants for the time. After dinner the debate was resumed, and carried on throughout the forenoon and afternoon of the following day. Zwingle became metaphysical and argumentative. "A body," he said, "cannot be without place; but Christ's body is in Heaven, therefore it cannot be in the bread of the Eucharist." Luther was not to be moved from his point by such an argument, although he afterwards acknowledged its force. When pressed by Zwingle's dialectics, he exclaimed, "I will have nothing to do with your mathematics: God is above mathematics!" "The body of Christ," he held, "was in the bread as the sword in the scabbard, or the Holy Ghost in the dove;" and finally, rising from his seat, he tore the velvet cloth from the table and held up before the Assembly the large letters, "This is my body," as an unassailable watchword to be received in evidence of his doctrine by all good Christians. It was obvious that continued discussion could lead to no good. Luther's dogmatism was unyielding. All his deepest feelings, as well as his theological reputation, were involved in his maintaining his ground. He had taken his stand, as he supposed, upon the Word of God, and nothing should make him swerve from that. It was proposed by the Landgrave that the conference should terminate by a declaration from both sides. that, although they disagreed in this particular, they concurred in the essentials of faith, and recognised * And yet he elsewhere accuses the Zwinglians of want of logic, which, he says, makes it impossible to convince them; "for one can neither teach nor dispute without dialectics, and Zwingle knows no more about them than an ass." : each other as Christian brethren. The Zwinglian party eagerly embraced the proposal; but Luther hesitated he would not acknowledge a hearty brotherhood where there were variances on so vital a point as the Sacrament of the Altar. Zwingle was affected to tears by this coldness. Luther said, "We cannot accept you as brethren, but we are willing to hold out to you the hand of charity." The warmheartedness of the Swiss responded cordially even to this offer, and the conference terminated with apparent good-will and commendatory prayers on both sides. Upon the whole, Luther appears nowhere less admirable than in this famous conference; not, indeed, for the opinion which he defended, but for the irate and dogmatic spirit in which he defended it. He kept ever singing the same song, as Zwingle said, "This is my body." His tone was very unreasoning and arbitrary, and there is scarcely any absurdity that might not be based on Scripture in the manner in which he used it, and considered it enough to use it, on this occasion. There is something, moreover, painful and unworthy of him in the terms in which he characterised the Swiss divines in his letters, and in the unbending, unkindly temper in which he met the warmly-proffered friendship of Zwingle. The character of the latter-frank, gallant, fearless,-a soldier-reformer, with his Greek Testament, and nothing else, in his hand-appears in a far higher light throughout the debate. But he and Luther never could understand one another; and when, in the end of this very year, the German heard of the death of the brave Swiss on the sanguinary field of * * Briefe, vol. iii. p. 216-513; vol. iv. pp. 28, 29. Cappel, fighting for the liberties of his country, there is no sympathy, but a grating harshness, in the tone in which he received the sad news. The Marburg Conference, however, was not without some friendly and conciliatory results even in matters of doctrine, as the fourteen articles, which were at length signed on both sides, testify. It did not serve to unite Luther and the Swiss more cordially, for he continued to write with an increasing vehemence against them; but it served to show, in all things save that of the Eucharist, a substantial unity of doctrine in the two great branches of the Reformation meeting locally together at so many points. In the following year we find Luther at Coburg during the memorable meeting of the Diet at Augsburg. As the imperial sentence against him had never been recalled, it was thought expedient that he should not make his appearance at the Diet, but leave the conduct of affairs in this great crisis to Melancthon, whose more courtly manner and cooler judgment were in any case supposed to be more fit for bringing the pending negotiations to some favourable termination. Luther, however, removed to Coburg to be conveniently at hand for consultation; and, secure in the strong fortress of the Elector there, he abandoned himself to a most joyful interest in nature, and a variety of literary studies, while the news of the Diet floated to his solitude; and, in return, he counselled, encouraged, and warned Me. ✦ His well-known and often-quoted saying sufficiently shows the intense dislike with which he continued to regard them,-"Happy is the man who has not been of the Council of the Sacramentarians; who has not walked in the ways of the Zwinglians." me. lancthon. On the 22d of April he writes: "I have at length arrived at my Sinai, dear Philip; but of this Sinai I will make a Sion: I will raise thereon three tabernacles-one to the Psalmist, one to the Prophets, and one to Esop. It is truly a pleasant place, and most agreeable for study, unless your absence saddens I reside in a vast abode which overlooks the castle; I have the key of all its apartments. There are about thirty persons together, of whom twelve are watchers by night, and two sentinels besides, who are constantly posted on the castle heights." On the 29th of June, while matters are proceeding, and Melancthon writes complaining of his difficulties, he replies: "To-day your last news has reached me, in which you advise me of your labours, your dangers, your tears, as if I were ignorant of these things, or sat in a bed of roses, and bore no part of your cares. Would to God my cause were such as admitted of tears!" When he hears of the Confession being read in open Diet, he is in great spirits; but the fears. and anxieties of Melancthon, who desired not merely to maintain the reformed doctrines, but to effect a reconciliation with the Romanists, speedily bring disquiet to him. He fell back upon that in which he was always stronger than Melancthon-Faith. "Our cause is deposited," he said, "in a commonplace not to be found in your book, Philip; that commonplace is Faith." And in the same grand strain he wrote to the chancellor, Bruck: "I was lately looking out of my window, when I beheld two wonderful sights. First, I saw the stars and God's fair bright firmament, but Briefe, vol. iv. pp. 2, 3. + Ibid., p. 52. * |