The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth | Page 5

once the
common property of the community, should be investigated, and their
ancient rights restored to them, where they had been purchased, with
adequate compensation, but without compensation where they had been

usurped. That arbitrary compulsory service should cease, and the use
and enjoyment of their lands be granted to them in accordance with
ancient customs and the agreements between lords and peasants. That
arbitrary punishments should be abolished, as also certain new and
oppressive customs. And, finally, they desired that all their demands
should be tested by Scripture, and such as cannot stand this test to be
summarily rejected.
That the demands of the peasants, as formulated in the Twelve Articles,
were reasonable, just and moderate, few to-day would care to deny.
That they appealed to such of their religious teachers as had some
regard for the material, as well as for the spiritual, well-being of their
fellows, may safely be inferred from the leading position taken by some
of these both prior to and during the uprising. Nor can there be any
doubt but that at first the peasants looked to Wittenberg for aid, support
and guidance. Those who had proclaimed the Bible as the sole
authority, must, they thought, unreservedly support every movement to
give practical effect to its teachings. Those who had revolted against
the abuses of the spiritual powers at Rome, must, they thought,
sympathise with their revolt against far worse abuses at home. They
were bitterly to be disappointed. From Luther and the band of
scholastic Reformers that had gathered round him, they were to receive
neither aid, guidance nor sympathy. The learned and cultured
Melanchthon, Luther's right hand, denounced their demand that
serfdom should be abolished as an insolent and violent outrage (_ein
Frevel und Gewalt_), and preached passive obedience to any and every
established authority. "Even if all the demands of the peasants were
Christian," he said, "the uprising of the peasants would not be justified;
and that because God commands obedience to the authorities." Luther's
attitude was much the same. Though a son of a peasant, and evidently
realising that the demands of the peasants were just and moderate, and
"not stretched to their advantage," he at first assumed a somewhat
neutral attitude, which, however, he soon relinquished; and in a
pamphlet to which his greatest admirers must wish he had never put his
name, and which shocked even his own times and many of his own
immediate followers, he proclaimed that to put down the revolt all
"who can shall destroy, strangle, and stab, secretly or openly,

remembering that nothing is more poisonous, hurtful and devilish than
a rebellious man."
The rulers did not fail to better his instruction. In defence of their
privileges, the German princes, spiritual and temporal, catholic and
evangelical, united their forces, and the uprising was put down in a sea
of blood. The peasants, comparatively unarmed, were slaughtered by
thousands, and the yoke of serfdom was firmly re-fastened on the necks
of the people, until, some three hundred years later, in 1807, the
Napoleonic invasion compelled the ruling classes voluntarily to
relinquish some of their most cherished privileges. From a popular and
religious, the Reformation in Germany degenerated into a mere
political movement, and fell almost entirely into the hands of princes
and politicians to be exploited for their own purposes. The
reorganisation of the Churches, which the Reformation rendered
necessary in those States where it was maintained, was for the most
part undertaken by the secular authorities in accordance with the views
of the temporal rulers, whose religious belief their unfortunate subjects
were assumed to have adopted. The activities of the Lutheran
Reformers were soon engrossed weaving the web of a Protestant
scholasticism, strengthening and defending their favourite dogma of
justification by faith, abusing and persecuting such as differed from
them on some all-important question of dogma or doctrine, framing
propositions of passive obedience, and other such congenial pursuits.
Of the moral effect of the Reformation, of its effect on the general
character of the people who came under its influence, which is the one
test by which every such movement can be judged, we need say but
little. To put it as mildly as possible, it must be admitted, to use the
words of one of its modern admirers,[10:1] that "the Reformation did
not at first carry with it much cleansing force of moral enthusiasm." In
the hands of men more logical or of a less healthy moral fibre, Luther's
favourite dogma, of justification by faith alone, led to conclusions
subversive of all morality. However this may be, enemies and friends
alike have to admit that the immediate effects of the Reformation were
a dissolution of morals, a careless neglect of education and learning,
and a general relaxation of the restraints of religion. In passage