With feelings of the deepest gratitude and the most unfeigned humiliation, we would pause awhile, and meditate on the late scenes at Marburg. With gratitude to God for having given such publicity to the teaching of scripture on the subject of the Lord's supper; but with mourning and humiliation over the inconsistency of one who had so much influence there. The doctrines so clearly taught by the Swiss, had been little known in Germany till that time. Consubstantiation having been adopted by Luther and his followers, the true meaning and object of that sacred institution were unknown. Great interest was awakened in all parts by the newly-discovered truths, which were embraced by an immense number of persons. It spread rapidly throughout all Germany, and may have been an everlasting blessing to thousands of precious souls. Lambert, as we have seen, was converted to the views of Zwingle; and the Landgrave himself, a short time before his death, declared that the conference had induced him to renounce the error of consubstantiation.
Thus God in His own goodness overruled these unseemly debates for the spread of the truth, and for the accomplishment of His own gracious purposes. Little did Luther contemplate the merciful use that God would make of that conference; and that, when he, Luther, was caring only for his own reputation, God was caring for the advancement of the Reformation.
But alas! what is man—fallen, self-seeking man! Where is now the Luther of the early days of the Reformation? Why has the heart that was so large, liberal, and considerate of all, so soon degenerated into the most undisguised and intolerant bigotry? The answer is plain—then he stood for God by faith; now he stood in pride as the head of a party. And this explains not only the wonderful change that had come over the spirit of Luther, but the ignoble failure of many distinguished men from that day until now. At the Diet of Worms and other places, Luther, almost alone, fought for the truth of God against the lie of Satan; but at Marburg he fought for the lie of Satan, in the form of his new dogma, against the truth of God. Some may be ready to say that he was fighting for the truth according to his conscience; so far it may have been so. But it will be remembered that he resisted all peaceful investigation of the truth, all reasonable means for arriving at a proper understanding of those "four words"—This is my body—and seemed only to care for the maintenance of his own authority and power as the chief of his party. There was no concern manifested by either Luther or any of the Saxons for the general interest of the gospel, or for the triumph of the Reformation. Thus was the great and blessed work of Luther marred and vitiated by the most absurd and foolish dogma ever proposed to the credulity of man.
The position and danger of a party leader in the things of God, are clearly expressed in the following opinion of Luther. "At Marburg, Luther was pope. By general acclamation the chief of the evangelical party, he assumed the character of a despot; and to sustain that part in spiritual matters, it is necessary to create the prejudice of infallibility. If he once yielded any point of doctrine—if he once admitted that he had fallen into error—the illusion would cease, and with it the authority that was founded on it. It was thus at least with the multitude. He was obliged by the very position which he believed he occupied, or which he wished to occupy, to defend in the loftiest tone every tenet that he had once proclaimed to the people....
"Upon the whole, he lost both influence and reputation by that controversy. By his imperious tone, and elaborate sophistry he weakened the affections and respect of a large body of intelligent admirers. Many now began to entertain a less exalted opinion of his talents, as well as of his candor. Instead of the self-devotion and magnanimity which had thrown such a luster over his earlier struggles, a vain-glorious arrogance seemed to be master of his spirit; and but for the indulgence of this ignoble passion, the mantle, which might have wrapped Germany and Switzerland in one continuous fold, was rent asunder. He was no longer the genius of the Reformation. Descending from that magnificent position, whence he had given light to the whole evangelical community, he was now become little more than the head of a party, then, indeed, the more conspicuous and powerful section of the reformers, but destined in after times to undergo reverses and defections, which have conferred the appellation of Lutheran on an inconsiderable proportion of the Protestant world."
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