Where the
Scriptures seemed endangered by worldly politics, he protested, caring
little who was hit. It was not his fault that he was strong and the
princes were weak, and no blame attaches to him, the monk, the
professor, the pastor, if the league of Protestant princes was weak as
a herd of deer against the crafty policy of the Emperor. He himself
was well aware that Italian diplomacy was not his strong point. If the
active Landgrave of Hesse happened not to follow the advice of the
clergy, Luther, in his heart, respected him all the more: "He knows
what he wants and succeeds, he has a fine sense of this world's
affairs."
Now, after Luther's return to Wittenberg, the flood of democracy was
rising among the people. He had opened the monasteries; now the people
called for redress against many other social evils, such as the misery
of the peasants, the tithes, the traffic in benefices, the bad
administration of justice. Luther's honest heart sympathized with this
movement. He warned and rebuked the landed gentry and the princes. But
when the wild waves of the Peasant War flooded his own spiritual
fields, and bloody deeds of violence wounded his sensibilities; when
he felt that the fanatics and demagogues were exerting upon the hordes
of peasants an influence which threatened destruction to his doctrine;
then, in the greatest anger, he threw himself into opposition to the
uncouth mob. His call to the princes sounded out, wild and warlike;
the most horrible thing had fallen upon him--the gospel of love had
been disgraced by the wilful insolence of those who called themselves
its followers.
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