The strongest sympathizers with Luther were outside of the Diet, among the common people,
the patriotic nobles, the scholars of the school of Erasmus, and the rising generation of liberal men.
As he returned from the Diet to his lodgings, a voice in the crowd was heard to exclaim: "Blessed
be the womb that bare this son." Tonstal, the English ambassador, wrote from Worms, that "the
Germans everywhere are so addicted to Luther, that, rather than he should be oppressed by the
Pope’s authority, a hundred thousand of the people will sacrifice their lives."^373 In the imperial
chambers a paper was found with the words: "Woe to the nation whose king is a child" (Eccl. x.
16).^374 An uprising of four hundred German knights with eight thousand soldiers was threatened
in a placard on the city hall; but the storm passed away. Hutten and Sickingen were in the Emperor’s
service. "Hutten only barks, but does not bite," was a saying in Worms.
The papal party triumphed in the Diet. Nothing else could be expected if the historic
continuity of the Latin Church and of the Holy German Roman Empire was to be preserved. Had
Luther submitted his case to a general council, to which in the earlier stages of the conflict he had
himself repeatedly appealed, the result might have been different, and a moderate reform of the
mediaeval Church under the headship of the Pope of Rome might have been accomplished; but no
more. By denying the infallibility of a council, he openly declared himself a heretic, and placed
himself in opposition to the universal opinion, which regarded oecumenical Councils, beginning
with the first of Nicaea in 325, as the ultimate tribunal for the decision of theological controversies.
The infallibility of the Pope was as yet an open question, and remained so till 1870, but the
infallibility of a general council was at that time regarded as settled. A protest against it could only
be justified by a providential mission and actual success.
It was the will of Providence to prepare the way, through the instrumentality of Luther, for
independent church-organizations, and the development of new types of Christianity on the basis
of the word of God and the freedom of thought.
NOTE ON LUTHER’S SENTENCE: "HERE I STAND," ETC.
These words of Luther have been reported again and again, not only in popular books, but
in learned histories, without a doubt of their genuineness. They are engraven on his monument at
Worms.
But this very fact called forth a critical investigation of the Saxon Archivarius, Dr. C. A.
H. Burkhardt (author of the learned work: Luther’s Briefwechsel), Ueber die Glaubwürdigkeit der
Antwort Luthers: "Hie steh’ ich, ich kann nicht anders, Gott helff mir. Amen," in the "Theol. Studien
und Kritiken" for 1869, III. pp. 517–531. He rejects all but the last three words (not the whole, as
Janssen incorrectly reports, in his History, II. 165, note). His view was accepted by Daniel Schenkel
(1870), and W. Maurenbrecher (Gesch. d. kath. Reform., 1880, I. 398). The latter calls the words
even "Improper and unworthy," because theatrical, which we cannot admit.
On the other hand, Professor Köstlin, the biographer of Luther, has come to the rescue of
the whole sentence in his Easter-program: Luther’s Rede in Worms, Halle, 1874; comp. his notes
in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1882, p. 551 sq., and his Martin Luther, I. 453, and the note, p.
800 sq. (second Ed. 1883). His conclusion was accepted by Ranke in the sixth Ed. of his Hist. of
Germany (I. 336), and by Mönckeberg (pastor of St. Nicolai in Hamburg), who supports it by new
(^373) In Fiddes Life of Wolsey, quoted by Ranke, I. 337, note.
(^374) Ranke (I. 337) says "in den kaiserlichen Gemächern." Other reports say that these words were placarded in public places at Worms.