Full Text for Luther: A Blessing to the English, part 7 (Text)

t I I .. i   ,otltorbtu __ IJ K Luthn !33 m4tulngtral AtntlJ1u Continuing LEHRE UNO WEHRE MAGAZIN PUER Ev.-LUTH. HOMILE11K THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLy-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Vol. XIV March, 1943 No.3 CONTENTS Pap The Soelal Ethic of Martin Luther. Carl Walter Bemel' _ ____ 181 Sermon Study on 1 Cor. 15:12-20. Th. Laetsch 1'19 Luther: A messing to the Euglisb. Wm. Dallmann 191 Die Taufe J'ohannis des Taeufers in ihrem Verhaeltuis ZD Christi Taufe. M. Lelmel' _ ______.___ __ 117 Outlines on Old Testament Texts (SynodieaI Conference) __ Z07 Miscellanea -.:---______ __ __ _ ___ __ _____ __ 214 TheologieaI Observer ----______ ___ ___ m Book Review ---:..- ---_ EIn PrecIIger mUll Dleht aIleIn loOei­ Ba 1st kela om,. du die H lAute dell. aIIo daa8 er die Schafe unter­ mehr bel dar Xlrche behaelt clenn weI8e. wle Ide rechte CbrIaten sollen die gute PrecUgt. - Apoæ. Art. 24 seJn, BODclem aach daneben den Woel­ fen weJam. daII lie die Schafe Dleht aqreIfeD und mit falIcher Lebre ver­ If the trumpet live. an uncenam fuebrea und Jrrtum eJnfuehren. sound, who Ihall prepare hlmIe1f to the battle? -1 Cor.l4:' PuhUsbed for the Bv. Luth. Synod of MIssouri, Ohio, anel Other States CONCORDIA PUBLISHING BOUSE, St. Louis, Mo. Luther: A Blessing to the English 191 of our hope. - Now is Christ Risen! In Him we have for empty philosophy a sure Gospel; for earthly helpers a divine Redeemer; for woeful misery heavenly joy; for fear of death a glorious hope.- Let Us Thank God for the Easter Message! It assures us of the Deity of Christ. It certifies to us our redemption. It guarantees to us our resurrection. - Vv.17-20. The Glorious Light of Easter Morning. It dispels the darkness of sin, v.17. The clouds of adversity cannot obscure it, v. 19. It changes the night of death into the day of life. TH. LAETSCH ~ III • Luther: A Blessing to the English VI!. Tho. RnMl"t Eames in Trouble On the Fourth Sunday in Advent, December 24, 1525, Hugh Latimer preached in the Augustinian chapel, and so Prior Barnes preached in St. Edward's Church and used Luther's sermon on Philippians 4: 4. He denounced the observance of holy days, the temporal possessions and the secular jurisdiction of the Church, the extrava- gance of Wolsey. The only apostle followed by the bishops was Judas; the only prophet Balaam. Holy orders, church hallowings, and pardons were sold "as openly as a cow and an ass." Paul taught no bishop should be bishop of more than one city. He did not pray to Our Lady, nor for the souls in purgatory. It was not right for Christians to sue one another. To the last remark he was roused by a clergyman who had just sued a person too poor to pay a vow made to the Church. And that greedy scoundrel sat brazenly in the congregation! And the preacher supported himself by St. Paul, Athanasius, and Jerome. Fox writes: "He so postilled the whole epistle following the Scripture and Luther's postil, that for that sermon he was immediately accused of heresy." Bitter enemies in the audience lodged twenty-five heresies against the bold preacher with Vice- Chancellor Edmund Natares, or Nottoris, also a personal enemy. The prior had to face Natares, Ridley, Watson, Preston, Fooke, and TyrelL Would he submit himself? was the peremptory demand of the Vice-Chancellor. He would recall anything contrary to the Word of God, or to St. Augustine, St. James, or of "the four holy doctors." "Or to the laws of the Church," added Ridley and Preston. To this he demurred; not being a doctor of the law, he knew not what was included in that phrase. 192 Luther: A Blessing to the English Thundering at the door, students demanding admittance. The bedell could not quiet them, neither the Vice-Chancellor, though "he gave them good and fair words." "They said it appertained to learning, and they were the body of the university." The hear- ing had to be adjourned. Within a few days the same authorities called Barnes for a further cross-examination. Again a demonstration by the uni- versity put a stop to the proceedings. After a month Watson and Preston asked Barnes to sign on the dotted line a revocation. After consulting with eight friends, among them Bilney and Stafford, he made a formal refusal. The Lutheran doctrines were discussed with great heat, "one preach- ing against another." Six days before Shrovetide Cardinal Wolsey sent Chaplain Capon and Master Gibson, a sergeant at arms, to make a strict search for Lutheran books. President Dr. Thomas Forman of Queens' tipped off his thirty friends. The inquisitors ripped up planks and examined walls in the various colleges, but they found no Lutheran books! On February 6 Barnes was arrested and taken to Cardinal Wolsey at Windsor. Coverdale escaped a personal accusation and with two other friends went with Barnes to help draw up his defense. "Now I begin to taste of Holy Scriptures." Stephen Gardiner writes: "Barnes, whom I knewe fyrst at Cambridge, a trymme minion frere Augustine, one of a merye skoffynge witte frerelike, and as a good felowe in company was beloved of many, a doctor of divinitie he was, but never like to have proved to be either martyre or confessor in Christes religion, and yet he began there to exercise raylinege (which amonge such as newly profess Christ, is a great pece of connynge, and a great forwardness to reputation, especiallye, if he rayle of Byshops as Barnes began, and to please suche of the lower sort as envieth ever auctoritie) cheflye againste my lorde Cardinall, then, under the Kinges maiesty, having the high administration of the realme." ... At the time of this accusation of Barnes, I was in service with my Lord Cardinal, of acquaintance with Barnes, and not accompted his enemy, and yet I thank God I never favored such strange opinions as he and some other wantonly began to set forth; but because there was not in them malice, and they maintained com- munication having some savor of learning, I was familiar with such sort of men, and was then sorry for Barnes, and glad to help him, so far as might stand with my duty to my Lord, my master." Wednesday evening, February 7, Barnes was led by his friends Luther: A Blessing to the English 193 Gardiner and Edward Fox to the Cardinal, and a memorable con- versation followed. "Were it better for me, being in the honor and dignity that I am, to coin my pillars and pole axes and to give the money to five or six beggars that will soon . . . them out against the wall, than for to maintain the commonwealth by them as I do? Do you not reckon the commonwealth better than five or six beggars?" Barnes manfully held his ground and held the coining of them might be for the salvation of the Cardinal's soul, and as for the commonwealth, he sensibly said it "did not hang on them, for as his Grace knew, the commonwealth was before his Grace and must be when his Grace is gone. Alonely, I damned in my sermon the gorgeous pomp and pride of all exterior ornaments." "Will you be ruled by us, and we will do all things for your honesty and for the honesty of your university." "I thank your Grace for your good will. I will stick to the Holy Scriptures and to God's book, according to the simple talent that God hath lent me." "Well, thou shalt have thy learning tried to the uttermost, and thou shalt have the law." Forthwith he should have gone to prison in the Tower but that Gardiner and Fox became his sureties that night. Gardiner, who knew, says "that railing in a friar had been easily pardoned if Barnes had not fondly persisted in the Ana- baptists' opinion denying suits to be lawful among Christian men." The Cardinal said: "Barnes began at the lewdest opinion of the Anabaptists, whereby to extinct the orders of justice." The next day came the public examination before six bishops and other doctors. The first article charged Barnes with contempt for the observance of holy days. Chancellor John Fisher "would not condemn it as heresy for a hundred pounds; but it was a foolish thing to preach this before all the butchers of Cambridge." John Clerk, recently made bishop of Bath and Wells, for services against the Lutheran party, was not disposed to mercy, and pressed more than one point with vindictive unfairness against the accused. For three days the "able disputant" defended him- self with Augustine and the Bible. On Saturday John Clerk at last bade him turn or burn. "Jesus have mercy on me; I will surely not read it" - the revocation. He would burn rather than turn. Gardiner and Fox begged him to recant. "By reason of their good words and piteous I granted to read the roll. Then was all the people that stade ther, called to hear me. For in the other thre dayes, was there no man suffered to here one worde that I spake. After this I was commanded to subscribe it, and to make a 13 194 Luther: A Blessing to the English crosse on it. Than was I commanded to goe knel downe before the byshop of Bathe, and to require absolucion of hym, but he wolde not assoyle me, except I wold first swere that I wolde fulfyll the penaunce that he shuld enjoyne to me. So did I swere, . . . and the nexte day, which was fastyngame Sunday, I shuld do open penaunce at Poules." He had company. As early as 1250 the German Hanse merchants settled in Thames Street, the old Roman wall, at Dowgate, the western end of Caesar's London. Their large stone house was called Guilda Aula Theutonicorum, commonly the Steelyard, Stahlhof, and lay between All Hallows Lane and Cousin Lane. In 1259, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, the only Englishman to be Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and brother-in-law of Kaiser Frederick II, got his brother, King Henry III, to grant special privileges to these German merchants. Old Stow tells they traded in ''Wheat, Rye, and other Grain, Cables, Ropes, Masts, Pitch, Tar, Flax, Hemp, Linen Cloth, W ainscots, Wax, Steel, and other profitable Merchandises." They also ran the Rhenish Wine House, noted by good old Samuel Pepys. "The Steelyard merchants advanced loans to our kings, and were always found to be available for national emergencies." Hans Holbein's Triumphs of Riches and Poverty gave charm to the walls. His portrait of one of these merchants, George Gyze, is described by John Ruskin in language quite lyrical. The Steelyard has been replaced by the Cannon Street Station. Some of these merchants attended All Hallows the More or Great, south of Thames Street, and presented the great altar screen and all the other fine wood carvings. The pulpit was sur- rounded by the eagle of the Hansa. Stow tells us: "Near to the Standard in Cheap, is Honeylane, so called, not of the Sweetness thereof, being very narrow, and somewhat dark, but rather of often Washing and Sweeping to keep it clean. In this lane is the small Parish Church of Alhallow's [the Less]. There was a Parsonage House." Since Feb.7, 1524, the parson was Dr. Thomas Forman, one of the "German Lu- therans" of Cambridge, D. D. in 1524. His curate was Thomas Garret, a fellow of Oxford, to whom Erasmus by Robert Aldridge at Christmas 1525 sent greetings as a "bookseller." When some of these German merchants quit going to mass, Cardinal Wolsey sent Bishop John Clerk of Bath, Stephen Gardiner, now archdeacon of Taunton, and others to examine them on February 8, 1526. Hans Ellerdorpe has been here for a year and a quarter. Found a book of Luther's in a chamber of one of his master's Luther: A Blessing to the English 195 agents, on whose death he took possession of all his master's goods, did not burn it because it was not his own, did not read a whole page of it. Helbert Bellendorpe came in 1511; about a year ago he had some of Luther's German books, viz., De Captivitate, De Casti- tate, &c. Read a few pages of the former, and a third part of the latter, and burned them shortly after Christmas last. About Whit- suntide last, when he returned from Germany, he brought with him three German books, two of them Luther's and one of Carolus Stadius [Carlstadt]; also a New Testament in German, knows not whose translation, and the five Books of Moses, which he says are Luther's. He lent some dialogues and a book of Stadius to George Van Telight. Was in London when Luther's books were burned in St. Paul's churchyard. Has eaten flesh on three prohibited days. Hans Reussel has been in England fourteen months, before that time six months in Estlande, where he was born, formerly in England one and a half years. When last in Estlande read some books and sermons of Martin Luther. Remembers the name of one, De Libertate Christianitatis. Had seen, even then, Luther's book against the king of England, in German, but had read nothing in it, except the letter at the beginning; About half a year ago Helbert Bellonder told him of news from beyond sea; which on desiring to hear, he lent him a book that Luther had written against Carolus Stadius, in German, which he kept for a month, and read through. When Hermann Van Holt was sent to the Tower, deponent burned this book. During the time he has been in England this last time, he has had the Five Books of Moses and the New Testament in Luther's German translation, and read them often, but not all through. Had a treatise on the Lord's Prayer, the Articles of Faith, and the Ten Commandments, composed by Luther in German. Was pleased with Luther's books. Thinks the Pope is on a level with other bishops; heard this in sermons in his own country, and also in general conversation. Now he be- lieves as the Church believes, and acknowledges the Pope, with all Christians, to be the Church. Ate flesh only once on Friday at Gregory's house. Henry Pryknes confesses in presence of the lord Legate he has been in England upward of two years and a half. About Michaelmas past the purser of a ship dropped in his chamber a little book in German, which he identified in court, entitled Opera quaedam Martini Lutheri, in which he read a treatise upon the Lord's Prayer. Had not heard of the burning or condemnation of Luther's books until the feast of All Saints last, when he heard say that all Luther's adherents, and those who possessed his books, 196 Luther: A Blessing to the English were excommunicated. Submits himself to correction. All four were taken to the Fleet prison. On February 11, 1526, Shrove Sunday, a procession moves from the Fleet. The warden, the knight marshal, the tipstafi's, and "all the company they could make, with bills and glaives"; in the midst of these armed officials, six men in penitential dress, one carrying a lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with fagots, signifying the fate their crimes had deserved, but this time mercifully remitted. Who are they? Dr. Robert Barnes and the four "Stillyard men." Amid crowds they come to St. Paul's Cathedral at eight o'clock. Dean Richard Pace receives them. The public seats are filled. On a platform in the center of the nave, enthroned in pomp of purple and gold and splendor, sits "the other king," the great Cardinal Wolsey, "euen like a bloudy Antichrist," supported on each side with eighteen bishops, mitred abbots, and priors - six and thirty in all; his chaplains and spiritual doctors in gowns of damask and satin. Opposite the platform over the north door is the Rood of Northen, a famous image, a great crucifix; and at the foot of it, inside a rail, a fire is burning, with the sinful books of Luther ranged around it in baskets, waiting for the execution of the sentence. On a second platform in front of the Cardinal's throne the six men are kneeling, their fagots on their shoulders, begging pardon of God and the Holy Catholic Church for their high crimes. After this confession Bishop John Fisher of Rochester preaches from Luke 18: 24, the lesson for Quinquagesima, "Against Luther and Dr. Barnes." "To all them that be not ouer peruersedly drowned in the heresies of Luther it shall appare (as I verily sup- pose) that his doctryne is veray pestilent and pernitious." Barnes says, "All his sermon was agaynst Lutherians." And during all the long sermon the five heretics had to kneel. Then Barnes tells the people "he was more charitably handled than he deserved, his heresies were so heinous and detestable." The knight marshal leads the prisoners three times round the blazing pile, casti-"lg in their fagots as they passed. The books in the baskets are heaped on the fagots, and the holocaust is complete. Fisher pronounces the prisoners absolved and received back into Communion. The Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London says Barnes and the other men "shulde a stonde at Powlles crosse at the sermonde with faggots and tapers, but for because of rayne they stode on the hye scaffolds within the church." !:ie :tllufe :;So~llnniS bes :tiiuiers 197 Barnes was a prisoner in the Fleet for half a year and then "a free prisoner" of the "Austyne freers," where Broad Street falls into Throgmorton Street. In 1550 Edward VI gave their church to "the Dutch nation in London." On fresh complaint he was sent to Northampton. Once more he was in danger of burning as a relapsed heretic, having sold New Testaments to two countrymen from Essex who had come for them to London. The Chronicle says, "he brake awaye from them and went beyend see unto Luter -" after two and three quarters of a year in prison. Oak Park, Ill. WM. DALLMANN stiie :taufe Soijannis bes :tiiufers in iijum ~erfjimlti~ ~u (£~rtfti :ttlufe ~in @egen]tanb ber .\)eHigen @5c1jrift. ber in feinem boUen 2u~ f ammenfjang toeniger in un] ern @5c1jriften oefjanbeIt toorben if±, ift ber bon ber :taufe bes ~ofjannes in i~rem !8erfjiiItnis au [fjrifti :taufe. Unb boc1j ift biefer @egenf±anb bon groBer 'lliic1jtigfeit unb lSebeu±ung fur bie @5±iidung unfers @Iauvens unb ben friiftigen :trof± unferer ;;taufe. &uc1j gefj± aus ~usflJrac1jen aUf unfern S'ronferenaen unb alts einigen unf erer @5c1jriften fjerbor, baB nh~t vei aUen bas rec1jte j8erftiinbnis unb biJIlige S'rlar~eit uver biefes !8erfjiiItnis bor~anben ift. Unb fo miJge benn biefer @egenftanb bon bes ~o~annes ;;trrufe in ifjrem !8erfjiiItnis au [~riiti ;;tcmfe au s b e r @5 d] r i f t gan3 f c1jIic1jt unb einfac1j miJgIic1jft furD bargefegt toerben. ~s lDirD gut f ein unb ilug1eic1j mefjr ~n±erefi e fur Die] en ®egen~ ftanb enDecren, lucnn tob: ltns altf bem @eliici unf erer Iutfjerifc1jen @5d)riften ettoas umf e~en unD bie @5±eilung veac1jten, toeIc1je unf ere 2e~rer in biefer @5ac1je einne~men. SDie Iu±fjirif c1jen :tfjeologen Ie~ren im aUgemeinen, bat rein 111efentHc1jer Unterfc1jieb iltoifc1jen [~rifti ;;taltfe unb ber :taltfe bee: 'i5o~annes lief±efje; jeboc1j erfIiiren fie, baB ein getoiffer Un±erfc1jieb ba f ci, unb fufjren einen foidJen in i~ren @5c1jrif±en an. ~n einem ncltcrcn Iut~erif c1jen S'rommeniar fjeiB! ee:: "It must be noted, on the one hand, that there are many points of agreement. John baptized by divine command, Luke 3: 2,3; John 1: 33; Matt. 21: 25; Luke 7: 30. His was a baptism in and with water, Matt. 3: 11, etc. It was, finally, a baptism unto repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, Mark 1: 4; Luke 3: 3. In all these features it agreed with the baptism of Christ." SDae: ift ber redJte fc1jriftgemiiBe @5tanb ber Iutfjerifc1jen ;;tijeologcn au 'i5ofjannie: :taufe. D. l.j3ielJer mac1jt noc1j barauf altfmedfam, baB auc1j bie iiIteren Iutfjerifc1jen :tfjeologen, toie Wlartin [fjemnit,l, ~ofjann