Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts in the Second Through Nineteenth Centuries, Part 4: From the 13th to the 18th Centuries

 

Luther’s Belief in Miracles

However, Luther himself was not without belief in miracles. When his life was in danger, he left Wartburg trusting that God in His providence would keep him safe. This consciousness of God’s sovereign protection is particularly evident in his correspondence with Frederick the Elector of Saxony, who had told Luther to remain in hiding at Wartburg Castle.⁹⁰

Much later in his life, Luther wrestled with God in prayer at the bedside of the dying Philip Melanchthon. Then, with firm confidence, he went up to the sick man who felt that his last hour had come, and taking him by the hand, said, “Be of good cheer, Philip, you shall not die,” and from that very hour, Melanchthon revived.⁹¹

 

Anabaptists and Tongues

The gift of tongues was in evidence during the time of the Reformation, but it came to be associated with those who were thought to advocate violence, particularly among the Anabaptists.⁹² Although there was a manifestation of violence among Anabaptists at Muenster led by John Matthys, many of the Anabaptists were pacifists who were severely persecuted for their belief in religious freedom. Outbreaks of healings and tongues were especially evident among Anabaptists experiencing persecution. George H. Williams writes as follows about an incident that occurred near Erfurt:

Nearby was a prophet in the abbatial territory of Fulda whose rebaptized followers, excited by mass hypnosis, experienced healings, glossolalia, contortions, and other manifestations of a camp-meeting revival, similar to the Pentecostal outbreaks among the St. Gall Anabaptists of an earlier date. A large and determined group of these revivalists were besieged in their fortified house for six months in 1532. When finally captured, several were beheaded.⁹³

Because the Anabaptists had become associated with extreme and violent behavior, it is certain that the manifestation of glossolalia (tongues) in their midst only served to discredit the gift in the collective consciousness of mainline Protestantism.

 

Louis Bertrand in Latin America

The sixteenth century, for Europe, was the era of the Reformation, but for America, it was the era of missions to the Indians. Among the countless Franciscan, Dominican and Jesuit priests who gave their lives for the sake of missions in the New World was Louis Bertrand (A.D. 1526-1581), a Dominican who left Spain in 1562 to preach the gospel to the Indians in America. He spoke only Spanish and had to use an interpreter, but, according to his bull of canonization, the gifts of tongues, prophecy and miracles were conferred by Heaven on this apostle.⁹⁴ Within three years, in the isthmus of Panama and in the province of Cartagena, thousands of people were converted to Christianity.

 

Tags: 13th, 18th, centuries, gifts, miraculous, nineteenth, part, tongues

Category: Church History, Summer 1999