We need no voice from heaven to assure us of the Lord's watchful care over His servant Luther. He trusted in God, and his faith was not disappointed. There is no more wonderful instance of the preserving power of divine providence on the page of history. Its lessons are well fitted to strengthen our faith in Him who rules over all. An Augustinian monk of humble condition, without authority, without protection, rose up against the most degrading, firmly-seated despotism ever imposed on the credulity of mankind, and alone he triumphed. We cannot be too often reminded of this unseen, but invincible power. Faith is always in harmony with the mind and government of God. This was the grand secret of Luther's victory. He had scarcely an avowed supporter when he stood superior to kings, princes, popes and prelates, to all that was mighty in power, and venerable for antiquity.
No human eye could discover any adequate motive for the strange position he had taken. It was neither vanity, ambition, nor fanaticism. He never was more, and he never cared to be more, than Dr. Martin Luther. It was also a time of general peace and quiet submission to papal authority. Why then trouble the still waters? There is but one answer to this question-conscience. There was a power in the enlightened conscience of the monk which the double sword of popery was powerless to overcome. Even the natural man without conscience can never be a man in any high and noble sense of the word. But faith placed the Reformer on the solid ground of the word of God, by which he was taught the difference between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, justice and oppression. Now he stood for the truth of God; and God, in wisdom and power, stood with him. He boldly maintained "that scripture was the only test of truth; that the interpretation of scripture was of private right and privilege*; that conscience had her prerogatives, which were higher than all the powers of earth; and that despotism, whether spiritual, ecclesiastical, or intellectual, was contrary to the will of God, and to the happiness, prosperity, and dignity of mankind." On this foundation the Reformation was built; and by the maintenance of these principles, that system of delusion, which was deemed omnipotent, was shaken to its center by a single monk in his brown frock and cowl.
To have accomplished the destruction of such a heretic, Rome would gladly have given the half of her kingdom; but she could not touch a hair of his head, or take a day or an hour of his life from him. For well nigh thirty years he defied her utmost malice, her loudest thunders, and all her powers. Yes, the powers which, only a little time before, had made the proudest monarchs to tremble on their thrones. But now there were bolts forged at Wittemberg as well as at the Vatican, and hurled with as little ceremony at popes and kings as at the Anabaptists or the revolutionary peasants. What is to be done with the audacious monk? Will no man rid His Infallibility of this pestilent enemy of the papacy? Where are the daggers and the poisoned cups of Jezebel, which have so often come to her aid? And yet, he is always at hand, always to be seen, always in action, writing, speaking, uttering defiance to his adversaries, or inspiring his friends with courage and resolution. But he has no designs of blood; his object is life, not death. When he is most violent, it is in word only, and that he may awaken Christendom from the slumber of ages; or rage against the high ones of the earth because they have sought to arrest the progress of the truth. Every hand that was engaged on the side of papal tyranny was raised against him, yet not one of them could strike the fatal blow.
Such is the perfect security of the man who reposes under the shield of the Almighty. Diet after diet of the German Empire may be convoked, aided by the representatives of papal authority, but all in vain; Luther is beyond their reach, yet always in sight. His door stands open; the poor may come for alms; distinguished strangers from all parts of Europe may enter, converse freely, and sup with the far famed professor; yet no man can be found to do him harm. And so he lived in the unwalled town of Wittemberg as safely as if he had been within the gates of heaven.