Friday, August 12, 2022

Jacques Bénigne Bossuet on Martin Luther Acting as a Prophet during the Reformation

 

Luther acts the Prophet: promises to destroy the Pope immediately without suffering the taking of arms.

 

Luther assumed the tone of a prophet against those who opposed his doctrine. After admonishing them to submit to it, he threatened at last to pray against them. “My prayers,” said he, “will not be Salmoneus’s thunder, no empty rumbling in the air. Luther’s voice is not to be stopt so, and I wish your highness find it not to your cost” (Ep. ad George Duc. Sax. T. ii. f. 491). Thus he wrote to the Prince of the House of Saxony. “My prayer,” continued he, “is an impregnable bulwark, more powerful than the devil himself. Had it not been for that, long ago, Luther would not be so much as spoken of; and men will not stand astonished at so great a miracle!” When he threatened any with the divine judgments, he would not have it believed he did it upon general views. You would have said that he read it in the book of fate. Nay he spoke with such certainty of Papacy’s approaching downfall, that his followers no longer doubted of it. Upon his assertion, it was deemed certain that two antichrists, the Pope and the Turk, were clearly pointed out in Scripture. The Turk was just falling, and the attempts he was then making in Hungary were to be the last act of this tragedy. As for the papacy, it was just expiring, and the most he could allow was two years reprieve: but above all, let them beware of employing arms in this work. Thus he spoke, whilst yet but weak; and prohibited all other weapons than the word, in the cause of his gospel. The Papal reign was to expire on a sudden by the breath of Jesus Christ;--namely, by the preaching of Luther. Daniel was express on the point; St. Paul left no doubt; and Luther, their interpreter, would have it so. Such prophecies are still in fashion. The failure of Luther prevents not our ministers from venturing at the like event now; they know the infatuation of the vulgar, ever destined to be charmed with some spell. These prophecies of Luther stand in his works upon record to this day, an eternal evidence against those who so lightly gave them credit (Assert. Art. Damnat. t. v. f. 3. ad Prop. 3. ad Prop. 33. ad. Lib. Amb. Cathar. ib. f. 161. Cont. Reg. Aug. ib. 331, 332, et seq.) Sleidan, his historian, relates them with a serious air. He lavishes all the elegance of his fine style, all the purity of his polished language, to represent to us a picture which Luther had dispersed throughout Germany (Sleid. Liv. 70. Xlv. 225, xvi. 261, &c.), was. Yet, if we believe Sleidan, it was a prophetic piece; nay, the accomplishment of many of Luther’s prophecies had been seen already, and the remainder of them was still in the hands of God.

 

Luther was not looked on as a prophet by the people alone. The learned of the party would have him esteemed such. Philip Milanchthon, who, from the beginning of the disputes, had entered himself on the list of his disciples, and was the most able as well as the most zealous of them all, conceived at first a firm persuasion that there was something in this man extraordinary and prophetic; and, notwithstanding all the weaknesses he discovered in his master, he was a long time before he could relinquish the conviction; and, speaking of Luther, he wrote to Erasmus, “you know we ought to prove and not to despite prophecies” (Mel. Lib. iii, Epist, 65). (Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, The History and the Variations of the Protestant Churches, 2 vols. [2d ed.; Maynooth: Richard Coyne, 1836], 1:42-44)

 

Blog Archive