banish him from Saxony. Karlstadt received the senten his condemnation with a heavy heart.

"He looked on Luther as the author of his disgrace, and filled Ge with his complaints and lamentations. He wrote a farewell letter to his at Orlamunde. The bells were tolled, and the letter read in the pr of the sorrowing church. It was signed: 'Andrew Bodenstein, expe Luther, unconvicted, and without even a hearing.'"*

It is in vain for D'Aubigné, whose words we have cited, to pretend that this persecution of Karlstadt wa brought about by Luther. The testimony of Karlstadt of all Germany, to the sympathy of which he appeale well as the voice of all history, is against this hypothesis certain was it, that he owed his sufferings to the influen Luther with the elector of Saxony, that, when wearied o wanderings from city to city, he sought repose for his hairs in his native Saxony, he had only to invoke the pathy of Luther. The sternness of the Saxon monk rele he permitted Karlstadt to return to the neighborhood of tenberg; but only on condition that he should retrac errors, and cease to preach. Karlstadt joyfully accepte humiliating conditions: he resided for some time "in a of domestic exile at Remberg and Bergwitz-two small ges, whence he could just see the steeples of Wittenbe But he soon forgot his promise: he abandoned the ag tural pursuits in which he had been engaged, and, Bibl hand, sought again to disseminate his doctrines. Lut

* D'Aubigné, vol iii, p. 179. He cites Luther's Epist. ii, 558, ed Wette. + Ibid. Gustavus Pfizer--"Martin Luther's Leiben," Ulenberg, and Ad. zel-"Neuere Geschichte Deutchen," 1, 269.

Audin, p. 419.

spirit of intolerance was again aroused; and again was Karlstadt banished, never more to return to Wittenberg.

There were two other Lutheran theologians who shared his fate: Krautwald and Schwenkfeld, who were likewise forced to quit Saxony for having rebelled against the authority of the Saxon monk. In a letter to these companions in misfortune, Karlstadt draws a lively picture of the distress to which he had been reduced by the intolerance of Luther: "I shall soon be forced," says he, "to sell all, in order to support myself-my clothes, my delf, all my furniture. No one takes pity on me; and I fear that both I and my child shall perish with hunger." He also addressed a long letter of complaint against Luther, to Brück, the chancellor of Saxony:† but it was all unavailing. Luther was omnipotent at court, and Karlstadt perished in exile!-Why does D'Aubigné conceal all these important facts? We are not at all astonished at it: his history is of the same unfair and partial character throughout.

The cruel persecutions of the Anabaptists is another dark page in the history of the Reformation. To be sure, these sectarists taught many things subversive of all social order: such as polygamy and disobedience to all constituted authority. But their chief crimes, in the eyes of Luther and the reformers, were their rejection of Luther's authority, their pretensions to supernatural lights, and their protest against infant baptism, and baptism by any other mode than immersion. A little before the meeting of the diet at Augsburg in 1534, Rothmann, one of their principal prophets, had openly announced his principles in the streets of that city. The people were captivated by his bold eloquence, and seduced by the novelty of his doctrines. In vain did the preachers of reform attempt to argue with this enthusiast, who claimed immediate inspiration from heaven. The people cried out, in triumph; "Answer Rothmann: Catholics, Lutherans, Zuin+ Ibid.

* Apud Audin, p. 420.

glians—you are all in the way of perdition. The only path to heaven is that pointed out by our master: whoever walks not in it, will be involved in eternal darkness."*

But the Lutherans did not think proper to answer his arguments. Both he and the Zuinglians had prepared a confession of faith to be presented to the Diet. Luther and Melancthon succeeded by their influence in preventing them from being even heard at the Diet. The former wrote to the latter from Coburg in a tone of triumph: "That all was decided; that the doctrine of Zuingle and of Rothmann was diabolical; and that these sowers of discord, these ravenous wolves, who devastated the fold of Christ, should be banished." At this same Diet, the Lutherans sought for themselves, not only liberty of conscience, but churches to worship in, and all the privileges of citizenship; and still they would not allow their adversaries even to be heard! And yet, as Audin well remarks, "Rothmann at Augsburg, was precisely what Luther had been at Worms."

The Lutherans carried out their intolerant principles in regard to the Anabaptists. On the 7th of August, 1536, a synod was convened at Homburg, to which deputies were sent by all the cities who had separated from Rome. The chief object of the meeting was to devise means for exterminating the Anabaptists. Not one voice was raised in their favor. Even Melancthon, whom Audin styles "the Fenelon of the Reformation," voted for inflicting the punishment of death on every Anabaptist who would remain obstinate in his errors, or who would dare return from the place of banishment to which the magistrates might transport him. Fenelon would not have been thus intolerant.

"The ministers of Ulm demanded that heresy should be extinguished by fire and sword. Those of Augsburg said: 'If we have not yet sent any Anabaptist to the gibbet, we have at least branded their cheeks with red iron.' Those of Tubingen cried out 'mercy for the poor Anabaptists, who

* See Catrou-Histoire de l'Anabaptisme, and Audin, p. 459. + Apud Audin, ibid. See the authorities he quotes, ibid. Ibid., p. 460,

are seduced by their leaders; but death to the ministers of this sect.' The chancellor showed himself much more tolerant: he wished that the Anabaptists should be imprisoned, where by dint of hard usage, they might be converted."*

From this synod emanated a decree, from which we will present the following extract, as a specimen of Lutheran intolerence, officially proclaimed:

....

"Whoever rejects infant baptism-whoever transgresses the orders of the magistrates-whoever preaches against taxes-whoever teaches the community of goods—whoever usurps the priesthood—whoever holds unlawful assemblies—whoever sins against faith-shall be punished with death. . . . . As for the simple people who have not preached, or administered baptism, but who were seduced to permit themselves to frequent the assemblies of the heretics, if they do not wish to renounce Anabaptism, they shall be scourged, punished with perpetual exile, and even with death, if they return three times to the place whence they have been expelled.”+

Philip, the pious landgrave of Hesse, professed to have some scruples of conscience on the severity of this decree: he consulted Luther on the subject. The monk answered him in a letter dated from Wittenberg, the Monday after Pentecost of the same year. He therein openly defended persecution on Scriptural grounds:

"Whoever denies the doctrines of our faith-aye, even one article which rests on the Scripture, or the authority of the universal teaching of the church (!), must be punished severely. He must be treated not only as a heretic, but also as a blasphemer of the holy name of God. It is not necessary to lose time in disputes with such people: they are to be condemned as impious blasphemers."

Towards the close of this letter, speaking of a false teacher,

* Catrou, ut supra liv. i, p. 224, seqq., and Audin, p. 464.

Ibid. See also Gastius, p. 365, seqq. Menzel, ut supra, and Meshovius, 1. v, cap. xv, xviii, seqq., etc.

he

W. Menzel confirms this. Speaking of the same Diet of Augsburg in which the Lutheran confession of faith which bears its name was presented, says, that the landgrave of Hesse suddenly left the meeting, "filled with anger at the weakness of his friends in subscribing to the decree, by which the disciples of Zuingle were put under the ban of the empire."--Hist. Germany, vol. ii, p. 251.

different were they from those specious principles of u sal liberty by which they had allured multitudes to standard!

The other reformers were not a whit better than Lut regard to toleration. D'Aubigné himself says, that at fourteen men and seven women "were imprisoned allowance of bread and water in the heretics' tower."+ he says, that this was done "in spite of Zuingle's entreat but he gives no authority whatever for this statement. know that Zuingle was almost omnipotent at Zurich, was to Switzerland, what Wittenberg was to Germany. he really wished it, he might surely have prevented thi elty. He had indeed complained of Luther's intole when he was the victim of its violence. In a German published at Zurich in 1526, he had used this langua regard to the course pursued by Luther and his party:

"See then, how these men, who owe all to the word, would wish close the mouths of their opponents, who are at the same time their Christians. They cry out that we are heretics, and that we should listened to. They proscribe our books, and denounce us to the magistr

But when his star culminated, he was as fierce a and as intolerant a tyrant, as those brother reformers v he thus strongly denounced. Did he not die on the fie battle, fighting for his peculiar ideas of reform? And di the Protestants of Switzerland throw the poor Anaba into the Rhine, inclosed in sacks, and jeer them at the

p. 465.

* Luth. Comment. in Psal. 71. Opp. Jenæ tom. v, p. 147. Apud † D'Aubigné, vol. iii, p. 307 Apud Audin, p. 411.

t Ibid.