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Champion of Truth
99
never pledged myself to chain up the word of God,” he said, “nor
will I.
He had not been long absent from Worms when the papists
prevailed upon the emperor to issue an edict against him. Luther
was denounced as “Satan himself under the form of a man and
dressed in a monk’s frock.
As soon as his safe-conduct should
expire, all persons were forbidden to harbor him, give him food or
drink, or by word or act, aid or abet him. He was to be delivered
to the authorities, his adherents also to be imprisoned and their
property confiscated. His writings were to be destroyed, and, finally,
all who should dare to act contrary to this decree were included
in its condemnation. The elector of Saxony and the princes most
friendly to Luther had left Worms soon after his departure, and the
emperor’s decree received the sanction of the diet. The Romanists
were jubilant. They considered the fate of the Reformation sealed.
God Uses Frederick of Saxony
A vigilant eye had followed Luther’s movements, and a true and
noble heart had resolved upon his rescue. God gave to Frederick of
Saxony a plan for the Reformer’s preservation. On his homeward
journey Luther was separated from his attendants and hurriedly
conveyed through the forest to the castle of Wartburg, an isolated
mountain fortress. His concealment was so involved in mystery that
even Frederick himself knew not whither he had been conducted.
This ignorance was with design; so long as the elector knew nothing,
he could reveal nothing. Satisfied that the Reformer was safe, he
was content.
[107]
Spring, summer, and autumn passed, and winter came, and
Luther still remained a prisoner. Aleander and his partisans ex-
ulted. The light of the gospel seemed about to be extinguished. But
the Reformer’s light was to shine forth with brighter radiance.
30
Martyn, vol. 1, p. 420.
31
D’Aubigne, bk. 7, ch. 11.