The Confession of Augsburg and the League of Smalcalde form an important era of Protestantism, since, by these, the reformed faith received its definite form, and was moreover guaranteed. The work for which Luther had been raised up was now, in the main, accomplished. His great message had been delivered and heard.
[Sidenote: Death and Character of Luther.]
After the confirmation of his cause, his life was perplexed and anxious. He had not anticipated those civil commotions which he now saw, sooner or later, were inevitable. With the increase of his party was the decline of spirituality. Political considerations, also, with many, were more prominent than moral. Religion and politics were mingled together, not soon to be separated in the progress of reform. Moreover, the reformers differed upon many points among themselves. There was a lamentable want of harmony between the Germans and the Swiss. Luther had quarrelled with nearly every prominent person with whom he had been associated, except Melancthon, who yielded to him implicit obedience. But, above all, the Anabaptist disorders, which he detested, and which distracted the whole bishopric of Münster, oppressed and mortified him. Worn out with cares, labors, and vexations, which ever have disturbed the peace and alloyed the happiness of great heroes, and from which no greatness is exempt, he died at Eisleben, in 1545, while on a visit to his native place in older to reconcile dissensions between the counts of Mansfeldt.
Luther's name is still reverenced in Germany, and, throughout all Protestant countries, he is regarded as the greatest man connected with the history of the church since the apostolic age. Others have been greater geniuses, others more learned, others more devout, and others more amiable and interesting; but none ever evinced greater intrepidity, or combined greater qualities of mind and heart. He had his faults: he was irritable, dogmatic, and abusive in his controversial writings. He had no toleration for those who differed from him--the fault of the age. But he was genial, joyous, friendly, and disinterested. His labors were gigantic; his sincerity unimpeached; his piety enlightened; his zeal unquenchable. Circumstances and the new ideas of his age, favored him, but he made himself master of those circumstances and ideas, and, what is more, worked out ideas of his own, which were in harmony with Christianity. The Reformation would have happened had there been no Luther, though at a less favorable time; but, of all the men of his age that the Reformation could least spare, Martin Luther stands preëminent. As the greatest of reformers, his name will be ever honored.