Lutheranism, sentiments of Doctor Luther and his sectarians on Religion.

Lutheranism had as its author, in the 16th century, Martin Luther, from whom it took the name. This heresiarch was born in Eisleben, a town in the county of Mansfeld in Thuringia, in 1483. After his studies he entered the order of the Augustinians in 1508: he came to Wittenburg and taught Philosophy there in the university that had been established there several years previously. In 1512 he took the bonnet of doctor in theology: he commenced in 1516 to rise up against scholastic theology, which he fought in his theses that same year. In 1517 Leon X, having had preached indulgences for those who would contribute to the expenses of the edifice of St. Peter's in Rome, gave the commission for this to the Dominicans: the Augustinians claimed that it belonged in preference to them; and Jean Staupitz, their commissioner general in Germany, gave the order to Luther to preach against these collectors. See Indulgence.

Luther, a violent and hot-tempered man, and moreover very vain and very full of himself, acquitted himself of this commission in another manner than his superior apparently wanted. From preachers of indulgences, he turned to the indulgences themselves, and declaimed against one as well as the other. He first advanced ambiguous propositions, and when engaged through dispute, he supported them in a bad sense, and he said so much about them that he was excommunicated by the Pope in 1520. He tasted well the flattering pleasure of seeing himself the head of a party that neither the excommunication of Rome, nor the condemnation of several famous universities, made any impression at all upon him. Thus he made a sect that was called Lutheranism and whose sectarians were called Lutherans , from the name Luther, which is close to the Greek and which he took in place of that of his family, which was Loser or Lauther . It was the custom of people of letters in this century to give themselves Greek names, as witnessed by Capnion, Erasme, Melanchton, Bucer, etc. See Names.

In 1523 Luther completely quit the religious habit, and in 1525 he seduced a nun called Catherine de Bora, debauched her and later married her publicly. After having attracted Germany to his sentiments, under the protection of the Saxon Duke George, he died at Eislebe, his native land, in 1546. See Reform.

The first who accepted Lutheranism were those of Mansfeld and of Saxony: it was preached in Kreichsaw in 1621: it was accepted in Groslar, Rostoch, and Riga in Livonia, in Reutlinge and in Hall in Swabia, in Ausgburg, in Hamburg, in Trept in Pomerania in 1522, in Prussia in 1523; in Einbech, in the Duchy of Lunebourg, Nuremberg and Breslaw in 1525; in the Hesse in 1526. At Aldenburg, Strasbourg and Brunswich in 1528; at Gottingen, Lemgou, Lunebourg in 1530;in Munster and Paderborn in Westphalia, in 1532; Etlingen and Ulm in 1533; in the Duchy of Crubenhagen, in Hanover and Pomerania in 1534; in the Duchy of Wurtemberg in 1535; in Cothus in lower Lusace, in 1537; in the country of Lipe in 1538; in the Electorate of Brandenburg, in Brêmen, Hall in Saxony, in Léipsic in Misnie, and Quetlenbourg in 1539; in Embden in eastern Frisia, in Hailbron, in Halberstad, Magdeburg in 1540; in the Palatinate in the duchies of Neubourg, in Ragensburg and Wismar in 1540; in Buxtende, Hildesheim and Osnabruck in 1543; in the lower Palatinate in 1546, in Meklemburg in 1552; in the marquisates of Dourlach and Hochberg in 1556; in the county of Bentheim in 1564; in Haguenau and the lower marquisate of Baden in 1568, and in 1570 in he duchy of Magdeburg. Jovet, vol. I. p. 460-461 .

Lutheranism has suffered several variations, both during the life and after the death of its author. Luther rejected the Letter of St. James as contrary to the doctrine of St. Paul touching on justification, and the Apocalypse; but these two books are today accepted by the Lutherans. He admitted only the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist; he believed in impanation , that is to say, that the materiality of the bread and the wine remained with the body of Jesus Christ, and in this the Lutherans differ from the Calvinists. See Consubstantiation.

Luther claimed that the mass is not a sacrifice at all; he rejected the adoration of the host, auricular confession, all satisfactory works, indulgence, purgatory, ritual, and the use of images. Luther fought against freedom and argued that everything we do is determined, and that all deeds acomplished in mortal sin, including even the virtues of the pagans, are crimes; and that we are just only as a function of the merits and the justice of Jesus Christ. He disapproved of fasting and abstaining from meat, monastic vows, and the celibacy of persons dedicated to God.

From Lutheranism thirty-nine quite different sects have issued; to wit, the Confessionists called Miricains , the Antinomians, the Samosatenses, the Inferains, the Anti-diaphoristes, the Anti Enkfeldiens, the Anto-sandrins, the Anti-Calvinistes, the Imposers of hands, the Bi-sacramentals, the Tri-sacramentals, the Confessionists, the Mous-philosophers, the Maionists, the Adiaphorists, the Quadri-sacramentals, the Luthero-Calvinists, the Anmetists, the Medio-sandrins, the Confessionists Opinionated and Recalcitrant, the Sufeldiens, the Onandrins, the Stanoanrians, the Antisancarians, the Simple Zwinglians, the Significant Zwinglians, the Carlostatiens, the Tropists évargiques, the Arrabonaires, the Spiritual Sucéfeldiens, the Servetiens, the Davitiques or Davidi-Georgians, and the Memnonites. Jovet, vol I, p. 475. Dictionnaire de Trévoux .