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Luther Before the Diet
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God’s word, to vanquish the papal champion. No attempt was made
to defend the Reformer. There was manifest a general impulse to
root out the Lutheran heresy from the empire. Rome had enjoyed
the most favorable opportunity to defend her cause. The greatest of
her orators had spoken. All that she could say in her own vindication
had been said. But the apparent victory was the signal of defeat.
Henceforth the contrast between truth and error would be more
clearly seen, as they should take the field in open warfare. Never
from that day would Rome stand as secure as she had stood.
The majority of the assembly were ready to sacrifice Luther to the
demands of the pope; but many of them saw and deplored the existing
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depravity in the church, and desired a suppression of the abuses
suffered by the German people in consequence of Rome’s corruption
and greed of gain. The legate had presented the papal rule in the
most favorable light. Now the Lord moved upon a member of the
Diet to give a true delineation of the effects of papal tyranny. With
noble firmness, Duke George of Saxony stood up in that princely
assembly, and specified with terrible exactness the deceptions and
abominations of popery, and their dire results. In closing he said:—
“These are but a few of the abuses which cry out against Rome
for redress. All shame is laid aside, and one object alone incessantly
pursued: money! evermore money! so that the very men whose duty
it is to teach the truth, utter nothing but falsehoods, and are not only
tolerated but rewarded; because the greater their lies, the greater
are their gains. This is the foul source from which so many corrupt
streams flow out on every side. Profligacy and avarice go hand in
hand. Alas! it is the scandal caused by the clergy that plunges so
many poor souls into everlasting perdition. A thorough reform must
be effected.”
A more able and forcible denunciation of the papal abuses could
not have been made by Luther himself; and the fact that the speaker
was a determined enemy of the Reformer, gave greater influence to
his words.
Had the eyes of the assembly been opened, they would have
beheld angels of God in the midst of them, shedding beams of
light athwart the darkness of error, and opening minds and hearts
to the reception of truth. It was the power of the God of truth and
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wisdom that controlled even the adversaries of the Reformation, and