Amongst the Catholic writers who pointed out to the Wittenberg professor that his lack of a Divine call or higher mission was proved by the visible absence of any special virtue, and by his behaviour as a teacher, we may mention the Franciscan Johann Findling (Apobolymæus). In the beginning of 1521 the latter published an “admonition” addressed to Luther which relies chiefly on the reasons mentioned above.[490] In this anonymous writing the Franciscan deals so considerately with the monk, who was already then excommunicate, that recent Protestant writers have actually contrasted him with the “Popish zealots.”[491] Luther he terms his “beloved,” and is unwilling even to describe him as a “heretic,”[492] following in this the example of many other monks who showed the same scruple, probably on account of their own former vacillation. Excuses of various kinds are not wanting in Findling’s letter.
What is of interest in the present connection is the question the author sets before the originator of the schism in the following challenge: “If you are a prophet or seer sent by God to point out the truth to men, let us perceive this, that we may believe in you, approve your action and follow you. If what you preach and write is of Divine revelation, then we are ready to honour you as a messenger sent from heaven.... But it is written: ‘Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God’ (1 John iv. 1).... We are unable to believe in you because so much strife, so many intrigues, insults, bitter reproaches, vituperation and abuse proceed from you.... Quarrels, blasphemies and enmities are, as St. Ambrose says, foreign to the ministers of God.”[493] Your acrimony, your vituperation, your calumny and abuse are such that one is forced to ask: “Where is your Christian spirit, or your Lutheran spirit, for, according to some, Lutheran means the same as Christian?” Has not Christ commanded: “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you? Certainly if prayer consists in calumny, abuse, detraction, reviling and cursing, then you pray excellently and effectually enough. Not one of all those I have ever read curses and abuses others as you do.”[494]
The writer also points out how Luther’s followers imitate and even outdo him; they were likewise turning his head by their praises; they sang hymns in his honour, but hymns coming from such lips were a poor tribute. Nor was the applause of the masses beyond suspicion, for it merely showed that what he wrote was to the taste of the multitude; for instance, when he blamed the authorities and cited them before his tribunal. It was his rude handling of his ghostly superiors which had brought the nobility and the knights to his side. Had he overwhelmed them and the laity with such reproaches as he had heaped upon the spiritual authorities, then “I know not whether you would still be in the land of the living.”[495]