While these pages of Luther's were in the press, towards the middle of June, Hutten, full of hope himself, and carrying with him the hopes of Luther and Melancthon, set off on his journey to the Emperor's brother in the Netherlands, and, on his way, paid a visit at Cologne to the learned Agrippa von Nettesheim, accompanied, as the latter says, by a 'few adherents of the Lutheran party.' There, as Agrippa relates with terror, they expressed aloud their thoughts. 'What have we to do with Rome and its Bishop?' they asked. 'Have we no Archbishops and Bishops in Germany, that we must kiss the feet of this one? Let Germany turn, and turn she will, to her own bishops and pastors.' Hutten paid the expenses of this journey out of money given him by the Archbishop Albert; between these two, therefore, the bonds of friendship were not yet broken. Albert was the first of the German bishops; Hutten, and very possibly the Archbishop also, might reasonably suppose that a reform proceeding from the Emperor and the Empire, might place him at the head of a German National Church.
But Luther had already put his pen to a composition which was to summon the German laity to the grand work before them, to establish the foundations of Christian belief, and to set forth in full the most crying needs and aims of the time. He had resolved to give the strongest and amplest expression in his power to the truth for which he was contending.
LUTHER'S WORKS TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION, AND ON THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY.
In a dedication to his friend and colleague Amsdorf, prefixed to the first of these works, he begins, 'The time of silence is past, and the time for speaking is come.' He had several points, he tells us, concerning the improvement of the Christian condition, to lay before the Christian nobility of Germany; perhaps God would help His Church through the laity, since the clergy had become entirely careless. If charged with presumption in venturing to address such high people on such great matters, so be it, then perhaps he was guilty of a folly towards his God and the world, and might one day become court-jester. But inasmuch as he was a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, he rejoiced in the opportunity of satisfying his oath in this manner.