In the north of Germany another struggle was to be decided. The evangelical party wished to declare their faith before the empire and its ruler, to reveal the object of their efforts, and to defend the purity of their creed against danger and assault. For this purpose they prepared themselves with wise discretion, and in the measures taken by the reformers for the fortification of the great work, not the slightest trace was to be observed of the anxiety which at that time agitated the people. In the midst of a country whose inhabitants trembled at the new disease, and were perhaps already severely afflicted with it, did Luther, whilst at Marburg[624], sketch the first outlines of a profession of faith, which, as filled up by Melancthon, has become the foundation-stone of the evangelical church; and in the following spring, during his stay at Cobourg, he composed his sublime hymn, “Eine feste burg ist unser Gott,” a strong fortress is our God.
It could not but happen that, in the religious struggles which took place in these years, especial importance would be attributed to the English pestilence. Epidemics readily appear to man, in the narrow circle of his view, as scourges of God; and, indeed, this representation of them has ever been the prevailing one in all religions. For it is easier to estimate the ever-existing sins of humanity than the grand commotions comprehending both mind and body, of a terrestrial organism, which can only be perceived by a superior insight into things; and the mean selfishness of mankind and their delusions respecting their own qualities induce them to adopt the more easily the partial view, that the Supreme Being allows pestilences to exist only to destroy their enemies of another faith. On this account, not only do most contemporary writers speak of the just wrath of God, and of the chastisement thus prepared for the sins of the world[625], but the papal party took every possible pains to represent the English pestilence as a punishment for heresy and an evident warning against the triumphant doctrines of Luther. The cases in Hamburgh, where the eruption of the Sweating Sickness almost immediately followed the abolition of the monasteries, may certainly have obtained credit for such representations among the wavering and short-sighted, and, in a hundred other towns also, the Papists may have taken advantage of a similar occurrence of circumstances, for 1529 was a year when great and important questions were decided. At Lübeck, the monks in general preached that the English sweating fever was but a punishment which heaven inflicted on the Martineans, for so they called the followers of Luther, and the people were not undeceived until they saw with astonishment that Catholics also fell sick and died[626]. They went, however, much further, and did not hesitate to employ even falsehood and cruel revenge to gain their ends. Thus it was asserted that the meeting of the reformers at Marburg, on the 2d of October, had led to no union among them, because a panic at the new disease had seized the heretics[627]. Never did a dastardly fear of death enter the heart of Luther, who, when the plague broke out at Wittenburg in 1527, cheerfully and courageously remained at his post whilst all around him fled, and the high school was removed to Jena. Moreover, as we have seen, the Sweating Sickness never once came near Marburg, and the union of the two evangelical churches failed on totally different grounds.