634 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
burg, France, Venice, and Denmark, against the Roman empire and the house of Habsburg. He believed in muscular, ageressive Christianity, and in rapid movements to anticipate an attack of the enemy, or to be at least fully prepared for it. The fiery and enthusiastic young Landgrave freely entered into these plans, which opened a tempting field to his ambition, and discussed them with Zwingli, probably already at Marburg, and afterwards in confidential letters, till the catastrophe at Cappel made an end to the correspondence, and the projected alliance.!
The Wittenbergers, as already remarked, would have nothing to do with political alliances unless it were an alliance against foreign foes. They were monarchists and imperialists, and loyally attached to Charles V., “the noble blood,” as Luther called him. They feared that an alliance with the Swiss would alienate him still more from the Reformation, and destroy the prospect of reconciliation. In the same year Luther wrote two vigorous works (one dedicated to Philip of Hesse) against the Turks, in which, as a Christian, a citizen, and a patriot, he exhorted the German princes to aid the Emperor in protecting the German fatherland against those invaders whom he regarded as the Gog and Magog of prophecy, and as the instruments of God’s wrath for the punishment of corrupt Christendom.? He had a still stronger
1 There are still extant ten letters from the Landgrave to Zwingli, and three from Zwingli to the Landgrave, to which should be added four letters from Duke Ulrich of Wiirttemberg to Zwingli. They are published in Kuchenbecker’s Monumenta Hassiaca, in Neudecker’s Urkunden aus der Reformationszeit, and in Zwingli’s Opera, vol. VIII., and are explained and discussed by Max Lenz in three articles quoted in the Literature. ‘The correspondence began during the second Diet of Speier, April 22, 1529 (the date of the first epistle of Philip), and ended Sept. 30, 1531 (the date of Philip’s last letter), eleven days before Zwingli’s death. The letters of the Landgrave, before the Marburg Conference, treat of religion; those after that Conference, chiefly of politics, and are strictly confidential. The prince addresses the theologian as ‘‘ Dear Master Ulrich,’’ ‘‘ Dear Zwingli,’”’ etc.
2 Vom Kriege wider die Tiirken, April, 1529, and Heerpredigt wider den
Tiirken, published at the end of 1529, and in a second edition, January, 1530. In the ΕἸ]. ed., XX XI. 31 sqq. and 80 sqq.
8 107. THE MARBURG CONFERENCE, A.D. 1629. 635
religious motive to discourage a colloquy. He had denounced the Swiss divines as dangerous heretics, and was unwilling to negotiate with them, except on terms of absolute surrender such as could not be expected from men of honor and conscientious conviction.
The Wittenbergers, therefore, received the invitation to a colloquy with distrust, and resisted it. Luther declared that _such a conference was useless, since he would not yield an inch to his opponents, Melanchthon even suggested to the Elector that he should forbid their attendance. They thought that “ honorable Papists”” should be invited as judges on a question touching the real presence! But the Elector was unwilling to displease the Landgrave, and commanded the Reformers to attend. When they arrived at the Hessian frontier, Luther declared that nothing could induce him to cross it without a safe-conduct from the Landgrave (which arrived in due time). They reached Marburg on the last of September, three days after the Swiss.
How different the three historic appearances of Luther in public! In the Leipzig disputation with Eck, we see him struggling in the twilight for emancipation from the bondage of popery. At Worms he stood before the Emperor, with invincible courage, as the heroic witness of the liberty of conscience. Marburg he entered reluctantly, at the noonday heat of his labors, in bad humor, firmly set in his churchly faith, imperious and obstinate, to face the Swiss Reformers, who were as honest and earnest as he, but more liberal and conciliatory. In Leipzig he protested as a Catholic against the infallibility of pope and council; in Worms he protested against the papal tyranny over the Bible and private judgment; in Marburg he protested as a conservative churchman against his fellow-Protestants, and in favor of the catholic faith in the mystery of the sacrament.1_ On all occasions he
1 R. Rothe calls Luther an old Catholic, not a modern Protestant, though the greatest Reformer and a prophet. (Kirchengesch. 11. 334.)