granted in 1524, Germany might have been spared the calamity of bloodshed, and entered upon a
career of prosperity. But the rulers and the peasants were alike blind to their best interests, and
consulted their passion instead of reason. The peasants did not stick to their own program, split up
in parties, and resorted to brutal violence against their masters. Another program appeared, which
aimed at a democratic reconstruction of church and state in Germany. Had Charles V. not been
taken up with foreign schemes, he might have utilized the commotion for the unification and
consolidation of Germany in the interest of an imperial despotism and Romanism. But this would
have been a still greater calamity than the division of Germany.
Progress of the Insurrection.
The insurrection broke out in summer, 1524, in Swabia, on the Upper Danube, and the
Upper Rhine along the Swiss frontier, but not on the Swiss side, where the peasantry were free. In
1525 it extended gradually all over South-Western and Central Germany. The rebels destroyed the
palaces of the bishops, the castles of the nobility, burned convents and libraries, and committed
other outrages. Erasmus wrote to Polydore Virgil, from Basel, in the autumn of 1525: "Every day
there are bloody conflicts between the nobles and the peasants, so near us that we can hear the
firing, and almost the groans of the wounded." In another letter he says: "Every day priests are
imprisoned, tortured, hanged, decapitated, or burnt."
At first the revolution was successful. Princes, nobles, and cities were forced to submit to
the peasants. If the middle classes, which were the chief supporters of Protestant doctrines, had
taken sides with the peasants, they would have become irresistible.
But the leader of the Reformation threw the whole weight of his name against the revolution.
Luther advises a wholesale Suppression of the Rebellion.
The fate of the peasantry depended upon Luther. Himself the son of a peasant, he had, at
first, considerable sympathy with their cause, and advocated the removal of their grievances; but
he was always opposed to the use of force, except by the civil magistrate, to whom the sword was
given by God for the punishment of evil-doers. He thought that revolution was wrong in itself, and
contrary to Divine order; that it was the worst enemy of reformation, and increased the evil
complained of. He trusted in the almighty power of preaching, teaching, and moral suasion. In the
battle of words he allowed himself every license; but there he stopped. With the heroic courage of
a warrior in the spiritual army of God, he combined the humble obedience of a monk to the civil
authority.
He replied to the Twelve Articles of the Swabian peasants with an exhortation to peace
(May, 1525). He admitted that most of them were just. He rebuked the princes and nobles, especially
the bishops, for their oppression of the poor people and their hostility to the gospel, and urged them
to grant some of the petitions, lest a fire should be kindled all over Germany which no one could
extinguish. But he also warned the peasants against revolution, and reminded them of the duty of
obedience to the ruling powers (Rom. 13:1), and of the passage, that "They that take the sword
shall perish with the sword" (Matt. 26:52). He advised both parties to submit the quarrel to a
committee of arbitration. But it was too late; he preached to deaf ears.
When the dark cloud of war rose up all over Germany, and obscured the pure light of the
Reformation, Luther dipped his pen in blood, and burst out in a most violent manifesto "against
the rapacious and murderous peasants." He charged them with doing the Devil’s work under pretence
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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