# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 01 25_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

several princes and other persons of high rank came to see him. Already on the next day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he was led by the Imperial Marshal through the thickest crush of people in the streets — who, in order to see the monk, had even climbed onto rooftops — and through houses and gardens; and just as he was about to enter the town hall chamber, an old general, Georg von Frundsberg, clapped him on the shoulder with the words: "Little monk, little monk! You are now going a way such as I and many a commander have not gone even in our most desperate battle formation; if you are of the right conviction and are certain of your cause, then go forward in God's name and be of good courage — God will not forsake you." The door was opened, and Luther stood before the Emperor and the Empire. Besides the Emperor on his throne, there were present his brother, Archduke Ferdinand, six electors, twenty-four dukes, eight margraves, thirty-six bishops, one papal and five royal envoys, and more than two hundred men of high rank; while in the antechamber and at the windows were about five thousand people.

The first question put to L. was whether he acknowledged as his own the books that lay one after another on a bench, and whether he wished to recant what he had written in them. After the titles of the books had been read to him, he answered the first question in the affirmative; but regarding the second, so important question, concerning faith and salvation, he asked once more for time to consider. This was granted him, and on the following day he was summoned again before the assembly of the Empire, where, to the question whether he wished to defend all his books together or to recant something, he gave, modestly and humbly, yet with great Christian boldness, an explanation of the varied content but single chief purpose of his books, which latter was the testimony drawn from the pure Word of God. "Yet," he continued, "because I am a man and not God, I can defend my little books no better, nor defend them otherwise, than my Lord and Savior did his own teaching, when he said: If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil. Now if the Lord, who knew that he could not err, did not refuse to hear testimony against his teaching, even from a lowly, base servant, how much more should I, who am earth and ashes and can easily err, desire and wait to see whether anyone will give testimony against my teaching. Therefore I beg, through the mercy of God, Your Imperial Majesty, and Your Electoral and Princely Graces, or whoever else is able, be he of high or low estate, to bear witness and convict me by means of prophetic and apostolic writings that I have erred; and if I am convinced of this, I will be entirely willing and ready to recant every error, and will be the first to throw my little books into the fire. From this I hold it appears clearly and publicly that I have sufficiently considered and weighed the distress and danger, the nature and the discord, that is to be aroused through the occasion of my teaching, of which I was reminded yesterday firmly and strongly. To me indeed it is truly the very greatest joy and delight to see that, for the sake of God's Word, discord and disunity arise, for this is the nature, course, and fortune of God's Word. Therefore it is well to consider how wonderful God is in his counsels and judgments, lest perhaps that which is put forward to lay discord and disunity to rest — if we, out of confidence in our own power and wisdom, were to begin it with persecution and blasphemy of the Word of God — should turn into a terrible flood of unconquerable danger. Moreover, it is to be feared whether the reign of this most praiseworthy and gracious young man, Emperor Charles, might gain not only an evil, ill-fated beginning*), but also a like middle and end. For it is God who catches the wise in their own wit and cunning, and overturns the mountains before they are aware of it. Therefore it is necessary that one should fear God."

This and much else Luther had spoken in German, not shouting, but with the utmost modesty, yet with great boldness, and, quite exhausted, he ended after a speech lasting two hours. The Emperor, however, neither understood the German language properly nor cared for it; he therefore now demanded of Luther that he repeat the speech in Latin. "But," he himself relates, "I was sweating so much, and felt so hot on account of the crowd, and because I was standing there among the princes. Then Lord Friedrich von Thun said: If you cannot do it, it is enough, Doctor. But I repeated all my words in Latin." — Now, however, a short, plain answer was demanded as to whether he would recant or not; then Luther spoke: "Since Your Imperial Majesty and Your Electoral and Princely Graces desire a plain, simple, straightforward answer, I will give one that shall have neither horns nor teeth, namely this: unless I am convicted and overcome by testimonies of Holy Scripture, or by clear and evident grounds and reasons (for I believe neither the Pope nor the councils alone, since it is plain and manifest that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), and unless I am thus convinced by the passages that I have cited and adduced, and my conscience is held captive by the Word of God, I can and will recant nothing, since it is neither safe nor advisable to do anything against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me. Amen."

Great was the impression that this powerful and faith-filled speech made on all those present, yet of very different kinds. Those of papist sentiment were enraged that Luther had been permitted such great freedom to defend himself at length. These pressed the Emperor not to grant Luther the safe conduct promised him for his return journey, but rather to dispose of him at once as an obstinate heretic; it was recalled that the promised safe conduct had not been kept for the heretic Hus, but that he had instead been condemned and burned. This bloody counsel was given especially by the papal legate Caraccioli, the Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg, and the Emperor's Spanish and Italian councilors. In these negotiations matters among the great lords several times came close to bloody confrontation, for others, especially the Elector of Saxony and the Count Palatine of the Rhine, now took Luther's part in every way. The Elector had listened to Luther in the assembly with great satisfaction; that same evening he therefore said to Spalatin with great joy: "Oh, how well Martinus has acquitted himself! And what a fine speech, both in German and in Latin, he delivered before the Emperor and all the estates!" Old Duke Erich of Braunschweig sent Luther a silver tankard of Eimbeck beer to his lodging, so that he might refresh himself after this hot day. L. answered: "As Duke Erich has today thought of me, so may our Lord Christ think of him in his last struggle." (The Duke remembered this word even in his final hour.) The Emperor's decision was: "What has been promised shall be kept, and even if faithfulness were to be found nowhere else in the world, it shall nonetheless be found with the German Emperor"; he therefore did not revoke the safe conduct at all — indeed, this safe conduct was even extended, so that the princes might gain time to persuade Luther, should they still wish to attempt it in their own names, to recant after all. All effort was in vain; Luther pointed to the words of Gamaliel: "If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nothing; but if it be of God, you will not be able to overthrow it." Acts 5:38-39.

*) For in 1519, after Frederick the Wise had declined the imperial crown, the young King of Spain, Charles V, had been elected Emperor.

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So Luther was then granted leave to depart: "Since he, notwithstanding so many admonitions, would not submit himself to the unity of the Church, His Imperial Majesty must regard himself as an advocate of the Catholic faith, and accordingly commands him, within twenty-one days, to betake himself into his own custody under safe conduct, and on the way to stir up the people neither by preaching nor by writing."

L. replied: "As it has pleased the Lord, so it has come to pass; blessed be the name of the Lord." He then thanked the Emperor and the estates most humbly, and declared once more that he had desired nothing else "than that a reformation according to Holy Scripture, for which he had so earnestly asked, should be undertaken and carried out .. otherwise, for the sake of His Imperial Majesty and the Empire, he was gladly willing to do and suffer everything: life and death, honor and shame, and to reserve nothing at all for himself except the one Word of God alone, to confess and bear witness to it freely." Thus on April 26, 1521, he departed again from Worms, preceded once more by the imperial herald.

"The Evangelical Church in North America."

Under this heading there is found in "Theophilus," a religious journal published in Zanesville, Ohio (in its first issue),