Here we may pause for a moment and note some of the great actors which now crowd the scene of this busy apoch. The age of the Reformation is one of the most remarkable in history for great men and great events.
Martin Luther, the one whom the Spirit of God is especially using, stands before us the most central and the most prominent figure. In his situation of peculiar danger, he might think that he was almost done; but God was gathering around him some of those distinguished men who early declared their entire sympathy with his position, and engaged all their powers in its defense. In the year 1518 Philip Melancthon was appointed professor of Greek in the university at Wittemberg; and from that period he became the intimate friend and the faithful fellow-laborer of the Reformer, even to the end of his life. Oecolampadius, professor at Basle, Ulric Zwingle, doctor of divinity at Zurich, Martin Bucer, and many others, did a gracious providence raise up just at this time, who have ever since been numbered among the most illustrious instruments of the Reformation.
The imperial throne falling vacant by the death of Maximilian in January 1519 proved favorable to the cause of Reform. The attention of the court of Rome was diverted from the affairs of Luther to the more pressing business of the new emperor. And Frederick, during the interregnum as vicar of the empire, was able to afford Luther a still more secure protection. The imperial crown was offered by the electors to Frederick, but he declined the perilous distinction, not caring to trouble himself with the weight of empire. The election fell on Maximilian's grandson Charles—grandson also of Ferdinand the Catholic. The youthful, handsome, and chivalrous princes,—Henry VIII. king of England, and Francis I. king of France,—aspired also to the imperial dignity; but the hereditary claims and possessions of Charles speedily turned the balance in his favor. He was sovereign of Spain, of Burgundy and the low countries, of Naples and Sicily, of the new empire of the Indies, and the discovery of America by Columbus added, to his many kingdoms, the new world. Since the days of Charlemagne, no monarch had swayed a scepter over such vast dominions.
The pope, though at first opposed to the elevation of Charles, from the conflicting interests of the Vatican, withdrew his objections, seeing he would be elected; and Charles was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, on the 22nd of October, 1520.
Thus at the early age of nineteen, as Charles V. emperor of Germany, he assumed the imperial power. He is described as a youth of great intelligence, with a strong natural taste for military exercises. He was remarkable for a gravity and sedateness far beyond his years, and most amiable when it suited him. He possessed the subtlety and penetration of the Italian, with the taciturnity and reserve of the Spaniard; and withal he was a firm and devoted Catholic. "He was pious and silent," said Luther; "I will wager that he does not talk so much in a year as I do in a day."
This is the man to whom Luther's case must now be referred. No fitter man could have been found to execute the decrees and do the work of the Vatican. The pious reflections of D'Aubigne on this change of government are worthy of the warm-hearted biographer of Luther. "A new actor was about to appear on the scene. God designed to bring the Wittemberg monk face to face with the most powerful monarch that had appeared in Christendom since the days of Charlemagne. He selected a prince in the vigor of youth, and to whom everything seemed to announce a long reign.... and to him he opposed that lowly Reformation, begun in the secluded cell of a convent at Erfurt by the anguish and the sighs of a poor monk. The history of this monarch and of his reign was destined, it would seem, to teach the world an important lesson. It was to show the nothingness of all the strength of man when it presumes to measure itself with the weakness of God. If a prince, a friend to Luther, had been called to the imperial throne, the success of the Reformation might have been ascribed to his protection. If even an emperor opposed to the new doctrines, but yet a weak ruler, had worn the diadem, the triumph of this work might have been accounted for by the weakness of the monarch. But it was the haughty conqueror at Pavia who was destined to vail his pride before the power of God's word; and the whole world beheld the man who found it an easy task to drag Francis I. a prisoner to Madrid obliged to lower his sword before the son of a poor miner!"