ECK GAVE WAY to all the intoxication of what he wished to represent as a victory. He inveighed against Luther; heaped charge upon charge against him; wrote to Frederick; and desired, like a skillful general, to take advantage of the confusion that always follows a battle to obtain important concessions from that prince. While waiting for the measures that were to be taken against his adversary’s person, he called down fire upon his writings, even on those he had not read. He begged the elector to summon a provincial council: "Let us exterminate these vermin," said the coarse doctor, "before they multiply beyond all bounds."

It was not against Luther alone that he vented his anger. His imprudence called Melancthon into the lists. The latter, connected by tender ties of friendship with the excellent Ecolampadius, wrote him an account of the disputation, speaking of Dr. Eck in terms of commendation. Nevertheless, the pride of the Chancellor of Ingolstadt was wounded. He immediately took up the pen against "that grammarian of Wittenberg, who was not ignorant, indeed, of Latin and Greek, but who had dared publish a letter in which he had insulted him – Dr. Eck."

Melancthon replied, and this was his first theological writing. It is characterized by all that exquisite urbanity which distinguished this excellent man. Laying down the fundamental principles of hermeneutics, he showed that we ought not to interpret Scripture by the Fathers, but the Fathers by Scripture. "How often has not Jerome been mistaken!" said he; "how frequently Augustine! how frequently Ambrose! how often their opinions are different! and how often they retract their errors! There is but one Scripture, inspired by the Holy Ghost, and pure and true in all things.

"Luther does not follow certain ambiguous explanations of the ancients, say they; and why should he? When he explains the passage of Saint Matthew: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,’ he says the same thing as Origen, who alone is a host; as Augustine in his homily; and as Ambrose in his sixth book upon Saint Luke; I will mention no others. What then, will you say the Fathers contradict one another? And is there any thing astonishing in that? I believe in the Fathers because I believe in Scripture. The meaning of Scripture is one and simple, like heavenly truth itself. It is obtained by comparing Scripture with Scripture: it is deduced from the thread and connection of the discourse. There is a philosophy that is enjoined us as regards Holy Scripture: and that is, to bring all human opinions and maxims to it, as to a touchstone by which to try them."

It had been a long time since such powerful truths had been set forth so arrestingly. The Word of God was restored to its place, and the Fathers to theirs. The simple method by which we may arrive at the real meaning of Scripture was firmly laid down. The Word floated above all the difficulties and all the explanations of the School. Melancthon furnished the means of replying to all those who, like Dr. Eck, should perplex this subject, even to the most distant ages. The feeble grammarian had risen up, and the broad, sturdy shoulders of the scholastic gladiator had bent under the movement of his arm.

The weaker Eck was, the louder he clamored. By his boastings and his accusations be hoped to secure the victory that he had lost in his discussions. The monks and all the partisans of Rome re-echoed his clamors. From every part of Germany, reproaches were poured upon Luther; but he remained unaffected by them. "The more I find my name covered with opprobrium, the more do I glory in it," said he at the conclusion of the explanations he published on the Leipzig propositions. "The truth, that is to say Christ, must needs increase, and I must decrease. The voice of the Bride and the Bridegroom causes me a joy that far surpasses the terrors inspired by these clamors. Men are not the authors of my sufferings, and I entertain no hatred toward them. It is Satan, the prince of wickedness, who desires to terrify me. But He who is within us is mightier than he that is in the world. The judgment of our contemporaries is bad; that of posterity will be better."

If the Leipzig disputation augmented Luther’s enemies in Germany, it also increased the number of his friends in foreign countries. "What Huss was in Bohemia in other days, you now are in Saxony, dear Martin," wrote the Bohemian brethren to him; "for this reason, pray and be strong in the Lord!"

About this time the war broke out between Luther and Emser, then professor at Leipzig. The latter wrote to Dr. Zack, a zealous Roman Catholic of Prague, a letter in which his design appeared to be to deprive the Hussites of their notion that Luther belonged to their party. Luther could not doubt that by seeming to justify him, the learned Leipziger was endeavoring to fix upon him the suspicion of adhering to the Bohemian heresy, and he accordingly resolved to tear aside the veil under which his former host of Dresden desired to conceal his hostility. With this intent he published a letter, addressed "To Emser the Goat" (his adversary’s crest was a goat), and concluded by these words, so clearly depicting his character: "My maxim is, – to love all men, but to fear none."

While new friends and enemies thus sprang up around Luther, his old friends seemed to be deserting him. Staupitz, who had brought the reformer from the obscurity of his cloister at Erfurt, began to evince some coolness toward him. Luther had soared too high for Staupitz, who could not follow him. "You abandon me," wrote Luther to him. "All day long I have been very sad on your account, as a weaned child cries after its mother. I dreamed of you last night; you were leaving me, while I groaned and shed bitter tears. But you stretched out your hand, bade me be calm, and promised to return to me again."

The pacificator Miltitz was desirous of making a fresh attempt to calm the agitation of men’s minds. But what hold could he have over men still agitated by the emotions that struggle had excited? His endeavors proved unavailing. He was the bearer of the famous Golden Rose presented to the elector, but the latter did not condescend to receive it in person. Frederick knew the artifices of Rome, and all hope of deceiving him was relinquished.

Luther, far from retreating, advanced daily. It was at this time that he aimed one of his most violent blows against error in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. The second Commentary is undoubtedly superior to the first; but in the first he expounded with great power the doctrine of justification by faith. Each expression of the new apostle was full of life, and God made use of him to introduce a knowledge of Himself into the hearts of the people. "Christ gave Himself for our sins," said Luther to his contemporaries. "It was not silver or gold that He gave for us; it was not a man; it was not all the angels; it was Himself that He gave, apart from whom there is nothing great. And He gave this inestimable treasure – for our sins. Where now are those who vaunt of the power of our will? Where are all the lessons of moral philosophy? Where are the power and the strength of the law? Since our sins were so great that nothing could take them away except a ransom so immeasurable, shall we still claim to obtain righteousness by the strength of our own will, by the power of the law, or by the teaching of men? What shall we do with all these artifices, with all these delusions? Alas! we shall cover our iniquities with a false righteousness, and we shall make hypocrites of ourselves, whom nothing in the world can save."

But while Luther was thus laying down the doctrine that there is no salvation for men out of Christ, he also showed that this salvation transforms man, and makes him abound in good works. "He who has truly heard the Word of Christ, and who keeps it, is immediately clothed with the spirit of charity. If you love the man who has made you a present of twenty florins (coin first struck in 1252), or done you any important service, or in any other manner testified his affection, how much more ought you to love Him who has given you not gold or silver, but Himself, who has even received so many wounds for your sake, who for you has sweated drops of blood, and who died for you; in a word, who, by paying for all your sins, has swallowed up death, and obtained for you in heaven a Father full of love! . . . If you love Him not, you have not heard with your heart the things that He has done; you have not believed them, for faith worketh by love."

"This Epistle is my epistle," said Luther, speaking of the Epistle to the Galatians: "I am wedded to it."

His adversaries compelled him to advance more quickly than he would have done without them. At this period Eck incited the Franciscans of Juterbock to attack him again. Luther, in reply, not content with repeating what he had already taught, attacked errors that he had newly discovered. "I should like to know," said he, "in what part of Scripture the power of canonizing the saints has been given to the popes; and also what necessity, what utility there is in canonizing them. . . . For that matter," added he sarcastically, "let them canonize as much as they like!"

Luther’s new attacks remained unanswered. The blindness of his enemies was as favorable to him as his own courage. They passionately defended secondary matters, and when Luther laid his hand on the foundations of the Roman doctrine, they saw them shaken without uttering a word. They busied themselves in defending the outworks. Their intrepid adversary was advancing into the body of the Place, and there boldly planting the standard of truth. Accordingly, they were afterwards astonished when they beheld the fortress they were defending undermined and on fire, and crumbling into ruins in the midst of the flames, while they were flattering themselves that it was impregnable, and were still braving those who led the assault. Thus are all great catastrophes effected.

The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was now beginning to occupy Luther’s thoughts. He looked in vain for this holy supper in the Mass. One day, shortly after his return from Leipzig, he went into the pulpit. Let us listen to his words, for they are the first he uttered on a subject that has since rent the Church of the Reformation into two parties. He said: "In the holy sacrament of the altar there are three things we must observe: the sign, which should be outward, visible, and in a bodily shape; the thing signified, which is inward, spiritual, and in the mind of man; and faith, which makes use of both." If definitions had been carried no farther, unity would have been maintained.

Luther continued: "It would be a good thing if the Church, by a general council, should order both kinds to be given to the believer; not however that one kind is not sufficient, for faith alone would suffice." This bold language pleased his hearers. A few of them were however alarmed and irritated. "It is false and scandalous," said they.

The preacher continued: "There is no closer, deeper, or more indivisible union than that which takes place between the food and the body which the food nourishes. Christ is so united to us in the sacrament that He acts as if he were ourselves. Our sins assail Him; His righteousness defends us."

But Luther was not satisfied with setting forth the truth; he attacked one of the most fundamental errors of Rome. That Church maintains that the Sacrament operates of itself, independently of the disposition of the communicant. Nothing can be more convenient than that opinion. Hence the ardor with which the sacrament is sought. Luther attacked this doctrine, and opposed it by the contrary doctrine, by virtue of which faith and the concurrence of the heart are necessary.

This energetic protest was of a nature to overthrow the ancient superstitions; and yet it is most astonishing that no one paid any attention to it. Rome passed by that which should have called up a shriek of distress, and fell impetuously on the unimportant remark Luther had made at the beginning of his discourse, touching the communion in both kinds. This sermon having been published in December, a cry of heresy was raised in every quarter. "It is nothing more nor less than the doctrine of Prague," was the observation at the court of Dresden, where the sermon arrived during the festival of Christmas; "the work, besides, is in German, in order that the common people may understand it." The prince’s devotion was disturbed, and on the third day of the festival he wrote to his cousin Frederick: "Since the publication of this sermon, the number of those who receive the Eucharist in both kinds has increased in Bohemia by six thousand. Your Luther, from being a professor at Wittenberg, is about to become bishop of Prague and arch-heretic!"

"He was born in Bohemia!" said some, "of Bohemian parents; he was brought up in Prague, and taught from Wycliffe’s books!"

Luther thought it his duty to contradict these rumors in a writing wherein he seriously gives an account of his family. "I was born at Eisleben," said he, "and christened in St. Peter’s Church. Dresden the nearest place to Bohemia that I have ever visited."

Duke George’s letter did not estrange the elector from Luther. A few days after, this prince invited the doctor to a splendid banquet which he gave the Spanish ambassador, and there Luther valiantly contended against Charles’s minister. The elector had begged him, through his chaplain, to defend his cause with moderation. "Too much folly is displeasing to men," replied Luther to Spalatin; "but too much discretion is displeasing to God. The gospel cannot be defended without tumult and without scandal. The Word of God is a sword, – a war, – a ruin, –a stumbling-block, – a destruction, – a poison; and, as Amos says, it meets us like a bear in the road or a lioness in the forest. I seek nothing, I ask nothing. There is One greater than I, who seeketh and asketh. If He should fall, I lose nothing; if He stand, I am profited nothing."

Everything announced that Luther would need faith and courage now more than ever. Eck was forming plans of revenge. Instead of the laurels that he had reckoned on gaining, the Leipzig gladiator had become the laughingstock of all the sensible men of his nation. Several biting satires were published against him. One was the Epistle of Ignorant Canons, written by Ecolampadius, and which cut Eck to the quick. Another was a Complaint against Eck, probably from the pen of the excellent Pirckheimer of Nuremberg, overflowing with a sarcasm and dignity of which Pascal's Provincial Letters can alone give us any idea.

Luther manifested his displeasure at several of these writings. "It is better to attack openly," said he, "than to bite from behind a hedge."

What a disappointment for the Chancellor of Ingolstadt! His fellow countrymen abandoned him. He prepared to cross the Alps to seek foreign support. Wherever he went, he vented his threats against Luther, Melancthon, Carlstadt, and the elector himself. "From his lofty language," said the Wittenberg doctor, "one might take him to be God Almighty." Inflamed with anger and the desire of revenge, Eck published, in February, 1520, a work on the primacy of St. Peter. In this treatise, which was utterly destitute of all sound criticism, he maintained that this apostle was the first of the popes, and had dwelt twenty-five years in Rome. After this Eck set out for Italy, to receive the reward of his pretended triumphs, and to forge in Rome, under the shadow of the papal capitol, more powerful thunderbolts than the frail weapons of the schoolmen that had shivered in his hands.

Luther foresaw all the perils that his opponent’s journey might draw upon him; but he feared not. Spalatin, in alarm, begged him to propose peace. "No," replied Luther, "so long as he continues his clamors, I cannot withdraw my hands from the contest. I trust everything to God. I consign my bark to the winds and to the waves. The battle is the Lord’s. Why should you imagine that Christ will advance His cause by peace? Did He not fight with His own blood, and all the martyrs after Him?"

Such, at the opening of the year 1520, was the position of the combatants of Leipzig. The one was rousing all the papacy to crush his rival: the other waited for war with the same calmness that men look for peace. The new year was destined to see the storm burst forth.

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