# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 01 10_S38
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of God's word, Hebrews 13:7, has been observed in the Lutheran Church, and the memory of Luther's death-day has been renewed again and again; this shall now also be a strong encouragement to us to do likewise this year; for what teacher, since the time of the apostles, has proclaimed God's Word so purely and faithfully, and indeed to the whole Church, as Luther? Whose end could we contemplate, among many thousands, so as to wish with Balaam: Let my soul die the death of this righteous man, and let my end be like his end? Whose footsteps could we follow more safely in doctrine and in the confession of faith than Luther's? Is not the remembrance of his great merits, the contemplation of his blessed end, the steadfast holding to his pure faith, a holy duty, a thank-offering pleasing to God? Do not all these things themselves bring us the richest fruits? Is not such a memorial observance, especially in our time, a highly necessary, public confession before open opponents as well as before false brethren, that we are ashamed neither of the testimony which Luther so faithfully bore, nor of his person, but rather hold both — the dear teacher's person and doctrine — in high honor? If the Roman Catholic Church observes every year the memorial feasts of a host of so-called saints, many of whom never lived, and many of whom did more harm than good by their lives, should not the Lutheran Church, after the passing of three centuries, keep the solemn remembrance of Luther's death-day, just as the people of God once did at the death of the high priest Jehoiada, because he had done good in Israel, toward God and toward his house! (2 Chronicles 24:16.) If the world erects monuments to its great men, who are of the world, dedicates foundations, celebrates festivals, and otherwise honors them after its own fashion, should we not renew and preserve among ourselves the memory of the great man of God, our doubly-honored Luther — whom the world, too, indeed calls a great man, though it neither knows nor acknowledges his true greatness — whose death, however, is held precious in the sight of the LORD, for he has hitherto belonged, and shall continue to belong, to the number of those of whom it is written in Psalm 112:6: His memory shall be eternal, and his name shall never be forgotten! To this end may God bless this contribution to this year's memorial observance of Luther's death-day for all readers, as he has blessed the account of Luther's life offered last year.

Before, however, we turn to a closer consideration of Luther's last days and his blessed end, we must survey his whole life with attentive eyes, especially the last twenty-nine years, namely from 1517 to 1546, so that we may recognize what a great wonder of God it was that his end, amid so many countless mortal dangers, did not come sooner. How unceasingly did Satan, a murderer from the beginning, seek Dr. Luther's
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life! How did this chief enemy of Luther's employ all his power and cunning to remove him — who had done such great harm and damage to his kingdom — out of the way as soon as possible, and to bring about his death through his enemies, or through severe bodily illnesses, or through even more severe spiritual assaults! But how did God's watchful care ever preserve his breath, how did God's counsel ever bring to nothing the murderous designs of Satan and all his instruments! How abundantly the streams of divine grace poured into Luther's soul, so that in firm faith in eternal life he could despise temporal death, and although he was still at times assailed by the fear of death, he was nevertheless ready, with the greatest heroic courage, to suffer even a martyr's death, while at the same time, with a quiet spirit, he wholly surrendered to God's will as to how and when he should die, longing from his heart only for a speedy, blessed end, often believing it to be near, and always holding himself ready for it in true faith! Some evidences of all this shall now be adduced.

"Death to Luther!" was the Pope's watchword, since Luther would not recant what he had testified in 1517 in the Ninety-Five Theses and thereafter, ever more forcefully as time went on, against Antichrist and his kingdom. For three years already, Pope Leo X had confirmed by his deeds the meaning of his name, "the tenth lion," inasmuch as he had, with a fury that ten lions do not possess, tried everything to get Luther into his hands by cunning or by force. Finally, in 1520, he pronounced the ban against him — that is, he publicly and solemnly excluded him from the Christian Church as an obstinate heretic, and commanded all spiritual and temporal authorities loyal to him, as the bull of excommunication states, to "seize him personally, hold him until the Pope's demand, and deliver him up"; at the same time he threatened those who would not obey this command with "any and all penalties," while promising the obedient sons of the Church "a worthy reward and recompense for so good a work." But the undaunted Luther despised this fearsome ban and wrote to Spalatin on that account: "I am not afraid on this account. The Lord's will be done." That the Pope, by this ban, intended not merely Luther's capture but indeed his death, and believed himself thereby to be doing God a service, is made clear by the well-known papal maxim: a heretic must die (haereticus de vita); this is confirmed by the manifold threats of the papist mob, by the streams of blood shed by so many thousands of steadfast confessors of Lutheran doctrine, and above all by the repeated attempts on Luther's precious life, the execution of which, however, God's hand prevented.

"You shall die!" the imperial declaration of outlawry cried out anew to Luther in 1521, after he had courageously withstood the Diet of Worms. Charles V commanded therein all his subjects throughout the whole Roman Empire: "that all of you, jointly and severally, after the expiration of the aforementioned twenty days (of safe conduct), which end on the fourteenth day of this present month of May, shall neither house, harbor, feed, give drink to, nor shelter the aforementioned Martin Luther, nor show him, in word or deed, secretly or openly, any help, adherence, assistance, or furtherance whatsoever. But wherever you may come upon him and apprehend him, and are able to overpower him (!), you shall take him captive and send him to Us well guarded." At the same time, all those who would adhere to or protect Luther were likewise threatened with this same imperial edict of outlawry.

That this severe imperial edict, which pronounced the death sentence upon Luther, was not actually carried out against him, was not because it had not been publicly proclaimed everywhere — for Luther's enemies took care that it became known — nor, as is often claimed, was it due to some tacit leniency on the Emperor's part or to his hasty departure for Spain; for even from Spain the Emperor pressed for the execution of his edict against Luther, and other princes as well — for example the kings of England, Hungary, and Portugal, but especially Duke George of Saxony — exerted their full influence to have Luther put to death; only the hand of God the Most High brought this bloody counsel to nothing. But it was not only through open force that Luther's enemies sought to remove him; they also tried secret assassination and poison. Already in 1518 he was warned not to travel to Augsburg for his hearing before Cardinal Cajetan, since certain great men lay in wait for him, planning to have him strangled or drowned. In 1520 Luther was in danger of being shot in his room by a stranger who claimed to be the Emperor's chancellor. In the same year he was given poison at a banquet in Wittenberg, but a violent vomiting soon followed, by which the poison lost its deadly effect, whereupon Luther said: "In me, too, Christ's promise is surely fulfilled: if you drink anything deadly, it shall not harm you." On another occasion, probably at the table of the Bishop of Trier, his bitter enemy Dr. Eck drank a toast to him with a glass of wine. When Luther took the glass and, according to his custom, made the sign of the cross over it to bless it, the bottom suddenly fell out, so that the wine spilled onto the table. Luther, however, said: "This drink is either not good for me, or it is not granted to me." Also in 1525, Luther's enemies bribed a Jewish physician with 2,000 ducats to administer poison to him secretly, but God caused all these attempts to fail.

Luther was also at times exposed to other mortal dangers, for example in Leipzig in 1519, on the occasion of the disputation with Dr.