Progress of Reform in Germany
157
does more by His word alone than you and I and all the world by our
united strength. God lays hold upon the heart; and when the heart is
taken, all is won....
“I will preach, discuss, and write; but I will constrain none, for
faith is a voluntary act. See what I have done. I stood up against the
pope, indulgences, and papists, but without violence or tumult. I put
forward God’s word; I preached and wrote—this was all I did. And yet
while I was asleep, ... the word that I had preached overthrew popery,
so that neither prince nor emperor has done it so much harm. And yet
I did nothing; the word alone did all. If I had wished to appeal to force,
the whole of Germany would perhaps have been deluged with blood.
But what would have been the result? Ruin and desolation both to
body and soul. I therefore kept quiet, and left the word to run through
the world alone.”—Ibid., b. 9, ch. 8.
Day after day, for a whole week, Luther continued to preach to
eager crowds. The word of God broke the spell of fanatical excitement.
The power of the gospel brought back the misguided people into the
way of truth.
Luther had no desire to encounter the fanatics whose course had
been productive of so great evil. He knew them to be men of un-
sound judgment and undisciplined passions, who, while claiming to
be specially illuminated from heaven, would not endure the slight-
est contradiction or even the kindest reproof or counsel. Arrogating
to themselves supreme authority, they required everyone, without a
question, to acknowledge their claims. But, as they demanded an
interview with him, he consented to meet them; and so successfully
did he expose their pretensions that the impostors at once departed
from Wittenberg.
The fanaticism was checked for a time; but several years later it
broke out with greater violence and more terrible results. Said Luther,
concerning the leaders in this movement: “To them the Holy Scriptures
[191]
were but a dead letter, and they all began to cry, ‘The Spirit! the Spirit!’
But most assuredly I will not follow where their spirit leads them. May
God of His mercy preserve me from a church in which there are none
but saints. I desire to dwell with the humble, the feeble, the sick,
who know and feel their sins, and who groan and cry continually to
God from the bottom of their hearts to obtain His consolation and
support.”—Ibid., b. 10, ch. 10.