Besides all these causes of Luther’s rapid progress, arising from the nature of his enterprise, and the juncture at which he undertook it, he reaped advantage from some foreign and adventitious circumstances, the beneficial influence of which none of his forerunners in the same course had enjoyed. Among these may be reckoned the invention of the art of printing, about half a century before his time. By this fortunate discovery, the facility of acquiring and of propagating knowledge was wonderfully increased, and Luther's books, which must otherwise have made their way slowly and with uncertainty into distant countries, spread at once all over Europe. Nor were they read only by the rich and the learned, who alone had access to books before that invention; they got into the hands of the people, who, upon this appeal to them as judges, ventured to examine and to reject many doctrines which they had formerly been required to believe, without being taught to understand them.

The revival of learning at the same period was a circumstance extremely friendly to the Reformation. The study of the ancient Greek and Roman authors, by enlightening the human mind with liberal and sound knowledge, roused it from that profound lethargy in which it had been sunk during several centuries. Mankind seem, at that period, to have recovered the powers of inquiring and of thinking for themselves, faculties of which they had long lost the use; and fond of the acquisition, they exercised them with great boldness upon all subjects. They were not now afraid of entering an uncommon path, or of embracing a new opinion. Novelty appears rather to have been a recommendation of a doctrine; and instead of being startled when the daring hand of Luther drew aside or tore the veil which covered established errors, the genius of the age applauded and aided the attempt. Luther, though a stranger to elegance in taste or composition, zealously promoted the cultivation of ancient literature; and sensible of its being necessary to the light understanding of the scriptures, he himself had acquired considerable knowledge both in the Hebrew and Greek tongues. Melancthon, and some other of his disciples, were eminent proficients in the polite arts; and as the same ignorant monks who opposed the introduction of learning into Germany, set themselves with equal fierceness against Luther’s opinions, and declared the good reception of the latter to be the effect of the progress which the former had made, the cause of learning and of the Reformation came to be considered as closely connected with each other, and, in every country, had the same friends and the same enemies. This enabled the reformers to carry on the contest at first with great superiority. Erudition, industry, accuracy of sentiment, purity of composition, even wit and raillery, were almost wholly on their side, and triumphed with ease over illiterate monks, whose rude arguments, expressed in a perplexed and barbarous style, were found insufficient for the defence of a system, the errors of which, all the art and ingenuity of its later and more learned advocates have not been able to palliate.

That bold spirit of inquiry, which the revival of learning excited in Europe, was so favorable to the Reformation, that Luther was aided in his progress, and mankind were prepared to embrace his doctrines, by persons who did not wish success to his undertaking. The greater part of the ingenious men who applied to the study of ancient literature towards the close of the fifteenth century, and the beginning of the sixteenth, though they had no intention, and perhaps no wish, to overturn the established system of religion, had discovered the absurdity of many tenets and practices authorized by the church, and perceived the futility of those arguments by which illiterate monks endeavored to defend them. Their contempt of these advocates for the received errors, led them frequently to expose the opinions which they supported, and to ridicule their ignorance with great freedom and severity. By this, men were prepared for the more serious attacks made upon them by Luther, and their reverence both for the doctrines and persons against whom he inveighed was considerably abated. This was particularly the case in Germany. When the first attempts were made to revive a taste for ancient learning in that country, the ecclesiastics there, who were still more ignorant than their brethren on the other side of the Alps, set themselves to oppose its progress with more active zeal; and the patrons of the new studies, in return, attacked them with greater violence. In the writings of Reuchlin, Hutten, and the other revivers of learning in Germany, the corruptions of the church of Rome are censured with an acrimony of style little interior to that of Luther himself.

From the same cause proceeded the frequent strictures of Erasmus upon the errors of the church, as well as upon the ignorance and vices of the clergy. His reputation and authority were so high in Europe, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and his storks were read with such universal admiration, that the effect of these deserves to be mentioned as one of the circumstances which contributed considerably towards Luther’s success.

Erasmus, having been destined for the church, and trained up in the knowledge of ecclesiastical literature, applied himself more to theological inquiries than any of the revivers of learning in that age. His acute judgment and extensive erudition enabled him to discover many errors, both in the doctrine and worship of the Romish church. Some of these he confuted with great solidity of reasoning and force of eloquence. Others he treated as objects of ridicule, and turned against them that irresistible torrent of popular and satirical wit, of which he had the command. There was hardly any opinion or practice of the Romish church, which Luther endeavored to reform, but what had been previously animadverted upon by Erasmus, and had afforded him subject either of censure or of raillery. Accordingly, when Luther first began his attack upon the church, Erasmus seemed to applaud his conduct; he courted the friendship of several of his disciples and patrons, and condemned the behavior and spirit of his adversaries. He concurred openly with him in inveighing against the school divines, as the teachers of a system equally unedifying and obscure. He joined him in endeavoring to turn the attention of men to the study of the holy scriptures, as the only standard of religious truth.

Various circumstances, however, prevented Erasmus from holding the same course with Luther. The natural timidity of his temper; his want of that strength of mind which alone can prompt a man to assume the character of a reformer; his excessive deference for persons in high station; his dread of losing the pensions and other emoluments, which their liberality had conferred upon him; his extreme love of peace, and hopes of reforming abuses gradually, and by gentle methods, all concurred in determining him not only to repress and to moderate the zeal with which he had once been animated against the errors of the church, but to assume the character of a mediator between Luther and his opponents. But though Erasmus soon began to censure Luther as too daring and impetuous, and was at last prevailed upon to write against him, he must, nevertheless, be considered as his forerunner and auxiliary in this war upon the church. He first scattered the seeds, which Luther cherished and brought to maturity. His raillery and oblique censures prepared the way for Luther’s invectives and more direct attacks. In this light Erasmus appeared to the zealous defenders of the Romish church in his own times. In this light he must be considered by every person conversant in the history of that period.

In this long enumeration of the circumstances which combined in favoring the progress of Luther's opinions, or in weakening the resistance of his adversaries, I have avoided entering into any discussion of the theological doctrines of popery, and have not attempted to show how repugnant they are to the spirit of Christianity, and how destitute of any foundation in reason, in the word of God, or in the practice of the primitive church, leaving those topics entirely to ecclesiastical historians, to whose province they peculiarly belong. But when we add the effect of these religious considerations to the influence of political causes, it is obvious that the united operation of both on the human mind must have been sudden and irresistible. Though, to Luther’s contemporaries, who were too near perhaps to the scene, or too deeply interested in it, to trace the cause with accuracy, or to examine them with coolness, the rapidity with which his opinions spread appeared to be so unaccountable, that some of them imputed it to a certain uncommon and malignant position of the stars, which scattered the spirit of giddiness and innovation over the world, it is evident, that the success of the Reformation was the natural effect of powerful causes prepared by peculiar providence, and happily conspiring to that end. This attempt to investigate these causes, and to throw light on an event so singular and important, will not, perhaps, be deemed an unnecessary digression. I return from it to the course of the history.

 

The Diet of Worms