Catholics claim that Luther's work, though ostensibly undertaken in
behalf of religious liberty, necessarily had to result in the very
opposite of freedom. They point to the fact that in most countries which
accepted the Protestant faith the Church became subservient to the
State. These state churches of Europe, however, which in the view of
Catholics are the product of Luther's reform movement, are to be
regarded as only one symptom of the intolerance which characterizes the
entire activity of Luther. He had indeed adopted the principle of
"private interpretation" of the Scriptures, however, only for himself.
He was unwilling to accord to others the right which he claimed for
himself. All who dissented from his teaching were promptly attacked by
him, and that, in violent and scurrilous language. The Protestant party
in the course of time became a warring camp of Ishmaelites, Luther
fighting everybody and everybody fighting Luther. Religious intolerance
and persecution became the prevailing policy of Protestants in their
dealings with other Protestants. The burning of Servetus at Geneva by
Calvin was the logical outcome of Luther's teaching. The maxim, _Cuius
regio, eius religio,_ that is, The prince, or government, in whose
territory I reside determines my religion, became a Protestant tenet.
America got its first taste of religious liberty, not from the original
Protestant settlers, but from the Catholic colonists whom Lord
Baltimore brought to Maryland, etc., etc.
The view here propounded is in plain contravention of what the world has
hitherto believed, and to a very large extent still believes, regarding
Luther's attitude toward the right of the individual to choose his own
religion and to determine for himself matters of faith. The position
which Luther occupies in his final answer before the Emperor at Worms is
generally believed to state Luther's position on the question of
religious liberty in a nutshell. "Unless convinced by the Word of God or
by cogent reason" that he was wrong, he declared at the Diet of Worms,
he could not and would not retract what he had written. The individual
conscience, he maintained, cannot be bound. Each man must determine the
meaning of the Word for himself. And the inevitable result of this
principle is individual liberty. This principle Luther maintained to the
end of his life. His appeal to the magistrates to suppress the Peasants'
Revolt was not a call to suppress the false teachings of the peasants,
but their disorderly conduct. Against their spiritual aberrations Luther
proposed to wage war with his written and oral testimony. "The peace and
order of the State must be maintained against disorder, personal
violence, destruction of property, public immorality, and treason,
though they come in the guise of religion. The State must grant liberty
of conscience, freedom of speech, and the privilege of the press. These
are inalienable rights belonging alike to every individual, subject only
to the limitation that they are not permitted to encroach upon the
rights of others. The natural, the almost inevitable, consequence of the
declaration and recognition of these principles was eventually the
establishment of modern constitutional law. It was not in consequence of
his teaching, but merely in spite of it, that for the next two centuries
(in certain instances) monarchical government became more autocratic, as
feudalism was being transformed into civil government. . . . All through
Luther's writings, and in his own acts as well, is to be read the right
of the individual to think and believe in matters political, religious,
and otherwise as he sees proper. His is the right to read the Bible, and
any other book he may desire. He has the right to confer and counsel,
with others, to express and declare his views _pro_ and _con,_ in speech
and print, so long as he abides by, and remains within, the laws of the
land. Luther firmly believed in the liberty of the individual as to
conscience, speech, and press. The search for truth must be
untrammeled." (Waring, _Political Theories of Luther,_ p. 235 f.)
This testimony of one who has made a careful investigation of Luther's
writings on the subject of liberty of conscience is, of course, not
first-hand evidence; it merely shows what impressions people take away
from their study of Luther. Let us hear Luther himself. In the _Appeal
to the German Nobility_ he says: "No one can deny that it is breaking
God's commandments to violate faith and a safe-conduct, even though it
be promised to the devil himself, much more then in the case of a
heretic. . . . Even though John Hus were a heretic, however bad he may
have been, yet he was burned unjustly and in violation of God's
commandments, and we must not force the Bohemians to approve this, if
we wish ever to be at one with them. Plain truth must unite us, not
obstinacy. It is no use to say, as they said at the time, that a
safe-conduct need not be kept if promised to a heretic; that is as much
as to say, one may break God's commandments in order to keep God's
commandments. They were infatuated and blinded by the devil, that they
could not see what they said or did. God has commanded us to observe a
safe-conduct; and this we must do though the world should perish; much
more, then, where it is only a question of a heretic being set free. We
should overcome heretics with books, not with fire, as the old Fathers
did. If there were any skill in overcoming heretics with fire, the
executioner would be the most learned doctor in the world; and there
would be no need of study, but he that could get another into his power
could burn him." (10, 332.)
In his treatise _On the Limits of Secular Authority,_ Luther says:
"Unbearable loss follows where the secular authority is given too much
room, and it is likewise not without loss where it is too restricted.
Here it punishes too little; there it punishes too much. Although it is
more desirable that it offend on the side of punishing too little than
that it punish too severely; because it is always better to permit a
knave to live than to put a good man to death, inasmuch as the world
still has and must have knaves, but has few good men.
"In the first place, it is to be noted that the two classes of the human
race, one of whom is in the kingdom of God under Christ, and the other
in the kingdom of the world under civil authority, have two kinds of
laws; for every kingdom must have its laws and its rights, and no
kingdom or _regime_ can stand without law, as daily experience shows.
Temporal government has laws that do not reach farther than over person
and property, and what is external on the earth; for God will not permit
any one to rule over the soul of man but Himself. Therefore, where
temporal power presumes to give laws to the soul, it touches God's rule,
and misleads and destroys the souls. We wish to make that so clear that
men may comprehend it, in order that our knights, the princes and
bishops, may see what fools they are when seeking to force people by
their laws and commandments to believe thus or so. When a man lays a
human law or commandment upon the soul, that it must believe this or
that, as the man prescribes, it is assuredly not God's Word. . . .
Therefore it is a thoroughly foolish thing to command a man to believe
the Church, the Fathers, the councils, although there is nothing on it
from God's Word.
"Now tell me, how much sense does the head have that lays down a command
on a matter where it has no authority? Who would not hold as of unsound
mind the person who would command the moon to shine when it wishes? How
fitting would it be if the Leipzig authorities would lay down laws for
us at Wittenberg, or we at Wittenberg for the people of Leipzig?
Moreover, let men thereby understand that every authority should and may
concern itself only where it can see, know, judge, sentence, transform,
and change; for what kind of judge is he to me who would blindly judge
matters he neither hears nor sees? Now tell me, how can a man see, know,
judge, sentence, and change the heart? For that is reserved to God
alone. A court should and must be certain when it sentences, and have
everything in clear light. But the soul's thoughts and impulses can be
known to no one but God. Therefore it is futile and impossible to
command or compel a man by force to believe thus or so. For that purpose
another grip is necessary. Force does not accomplish it. For my
ungracious lords, Pope and bishops, should be bishops and preach God's
Word; but they leave that and have become temporal princes and rule with
laws that concern only person and property. They have reversed the order
of things. Instead of ruling souls (internally) through God's Word, they
rule (externally) castles, cities, lands, and people, and kill souls
with indescribable murder. The temporal lords should, in like manner,
rule (externally) land and people; but they leave that. They can do
nothing more than flay and shave the people, set one tax and one rent on
another; there let loose a bear and here a wolf; respect no right, or
faith, or truth, and conduct affairs so that robbers and knaves
increase in number; and their temporal _regime_ lies as far beneath as
the _regime_ of the spiritual tyrants. Faith is a matter concerning
which each one is responsible for himself; for as little as one man can
go to heaven or hell for me, so little can he believe or not believe for
me; and as little as he can open or close heaven or hell for me, so
little can he drive me to belief or unbelief. We have the saying from
St. Augustine: 'No one can or should be compelled to believe.' The blind
and miserable people do not see what a vain and impossible thing they
undertake; for, however imperiously they command, and however hard they
drive, they cannot force people any farther than they follow with their
mouth and the hand. They cannot compel the heart, though they should
break it. For true is the maxim: _Gedanken sind zollfrei_. (No toll is
levied on thought.) When weak consciences are driven by force to lie,
deceive, and say otherwise than they believe in the heart, they burden
themselves also with a heavy sin; for all the lies and false witness
given by such weak consciences rest upon him who forces them.
"Christ Himself clearly recognized and concisely stated this truth when
He said: 'Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,
and unto God the things that are God's' (Matt. 22, 21). Now, when
imperial authority stretches itself over into God's kingdom and
authority and does not keep within its own separate jurisdiction, this
discrimination between the two realms has not been made. For the soul is
not under authority of the emperor. He can neither teach nor guide it,
neither kill it nor give it life, neither bind nor loose, neither judge
nor sentence, neither hold nor let alone; which necessarily would exist
had he authority so to do, for they are under his jurisdiction and
power.
"David long ago expressed it briefly: 'The heaven, even the heavens, are
the Lord's; but the earth hath He given to the children of men' (Ps.
115, 16). That is to say, over what is on the earth and belongs to the
temporal earthly kingdom, man has power from God; but what belongs to
heaven and to the eternal kingdom is under the Lord of heaven alone. But
finally, this is the meaning of Peter: 'We ought to obey God rather than
men' (Acts 5, 29). He here clearly marks a limit to temporal authority;
for were men obliged to observe everything that civil authority wished,
the command, 'We ought to obey God rather than men,' would have been
given in vain.
"If, now, your princes or temporal lord command you to believe this or
that, or to dispense with certain books, say: 'I am under obligations to
obey you with body and estate; command me within the compass of your
authority on earth, and I will obey you. Put if you command me as to
belief, and order me to put away books, I will not obey, for then you
become a tyrant and overreach yourself, and command where you have
neither right nor power.' If your goods are taken and your disobedience
is punished, you are blessed, and you may thank God that you are worthy
to suffer for God's Word. When a prince is in the wrong, his subjects
are not under obligations to follow him, for no one is obliged to do
anything against the right; but we must obey God, who desires to have
the right rather than men.
"But thou sayest once more: 'Yea, worldly power cannot compel to belief.
It is only external protection against the people being misled by false
doctrine. How else can heretics be kept it bay?' Answer: That is the
business of bishops, to whom the office is entrusted, and not to
princes. For heresy can never be kept off by force; another grip is
wanted for that. This is another quarrel and conflict than that of the
sword. God's Word must contend here. If that avail nothing, temporal
power will never settle the matter, though it fill the world with blood.
Heresy pertains to the spiritual world. You cannot cut it with iron, nor
burn it with fire, nor drown it in water. You cannot drive the devil out
of the heart by destroying, with sword or fire, the vessel in which he
lives. This is like fighting a blade of straw." (10, 395 ff.)
Referring to the Anabaptists, Luther wrote in 1528: "It is not right,
and I think it a great pity, that such wretched people should be so
miserably slain, burned, cruelly put to death; every one should be
allowed to believe what he will. If he believe wrongly, he will have
punishment enough in the eternal fire of hell. Why should he be tortured
in this life, too; provided always that it be a case of mistaken belief
only, and that they are not also unruly and oppose themselves to the
temporal power?" (17, 2188.)
To his friend Cresser he wrote: "If the courts wish to govern the
churches in their own interests, God will withdraw His benediction from
them, and things will become worse than before. Satan still is Satan.
Under the Popes he made the Church meddle in politics; in our time he
wishes to make politics meddle with the Church." (21b, 2911.
Translations by Waring.)
But why did not these excellent principles attain better results in
Luther's own time? On this question we have no better answer than that
given by Bryce: "The remark must not be omitted in passing how much less
than might have been expected the religious movement did at first
actually effect in the way of promoting either political progress or
freedom of conscience. The habits of centuries were not to be unlearned
in a few years, and it was natural that ideas struggling into existence
and activity should work erringly and imperfectly for a time." (_Holy
Roman Empire_, p. 381.) This would be Luther's own answer. His work was
among people who were just emerging from the ignorance and spiritual
bondage in which they had been reared in the Catholic Church. They had
to be gradually and with much patience taught, not only in regard to
their rights and privileges, but also in regard to their proper and most
efficient application. But it is not in agreement with the facts when
the charge is directed against Luther that he employed the authority of
the State for furthering the ends of the Church because he urged the
Saxon Elector to arrange for a visitation of the demoralized churches
in the country, and to order such improvements to be made as would be
found necessary (Erlangen Ed. 55, 223); also when he sought the
Elector's aid for the reform party at Naumburg at the election of a new
bishop (17, 113). In both instances he speaks of the Elector as a
"Notbischof," that is, an emergency bishop. But his remarks must be
carefully studied to get his exact meaning. For he declares that the
Elector as a magistrate is under no obligation to attend to these
matters. They are not state business. But he is asked as a Christian to
place himself at the head of a laudable and necessary movement, and to
place his influence and ability at the disposition of the Master, just
as a Christian laborer, craftsman, merchant, musician, painter, poet,
author, consecrate their abilities to the Lord. This means that the
"emergency bishop" has not the right to issue commands in the Church,
but he has the privilege and duty to serve. The people needed a leader,
and who was better qualified for that than their trusted prince?
Besides, the churches had to be protected in their secular and civil
interests in those days. The young Protestant faith would have been
mercilessly extirpated by Rome, which was gathering the secular powers
around her to fight her battles with material weapons against
Protestants. The Protestant princes would have betrayed a trust which
citizens rightly repose in their government, if they had not taken steps
to afford the Protestant churches in their domains every legal
protection. The protection of citizens in the exercise of their
religious liberty is within the sphere of the civil magistrates. The
citizens can appeal to the government for such protection, and when the
government in the interest of religious liberty represses elements that
are hostile, it is not intolerant, but just. If a religion, like that of
the bomb-throwing anarchists and the vice-breeding Mormons, is forbidden
to practise its faith in the land, that is not intolerance, but common
equity.
One of the most pathetic spectacles which the student of medieval
history has to contemplate is the treatment of the Jews at the hands of
the Christians. "Few were the monarchs of Christendom," says Prof.
Worman, "who rose above the barbarism of the Middle Ages. By
considerable pecuniary sacrifices only could the sons of Israel enjoy
tolerance. In Italy their lot had always been most severe. Now and then
a Roman pontiff would afford them his protection, but, as a rule, they
have received only intolerance in that country. Down even to the time of
the deposition of Pius IX from the temporal power (1810) it has been the
barbarous custom, on the last Saturday before the Carnival, to compel
the Jews to proceed _en masse_ to the capitol, and ask permission of the
pontiff to reside in the city another year. At the foot of the hill the
petition was refused them, but, after much entreaty, they were granted
the favor when they had reached the summit, and as their residence the
Ghetto was assigned them." In France a prelate condemned the Jews
because the "country people looked upon them as the only people of
God," whereupon "all joined in a carnival of persecution, and the
history of the Jews became nothing else than a successive series of
massacres." In Spain the Jews were treated more kindly by the Moors than
by the Catholics. At first their services were valued in the crafts and
trades, "but the extravagance and consequent poverty of the nobles, as
well as the increasing power of the priesthood, ultimately brought about
a disastrous change. The estates of the nobles and, it is also believed,
those attached to the cathedrals and churches, were in many cases
mortgaged to the Jews; hence it was not difficult for 'conscience' to
get up a persecution when goaded to its 'duty' by the pressure of want
and shame. Gradually the Jews were deprived of the privilege of living
where they pleased; their rights were diminished and their taxes
augmented."
To their lowest stage of misery, however, the Jews were reduced during
one of the most holy enterprises which the papacy launched during the
Middle Ages--the Crusades. "The crusading movement was inaugurated by a
wholesale massacre and persecution first of the Jew, and afterwards of
the Mussulman. . . . Shut out from all opportunity for the development
of their better qualities, the Jews were gradually reduced to a decline
both in character and condition. From a learned, influential, and
powerful class of the community, we find them, after the inauguration of
the Crusades, sinking into miserable outcasts; the common prey of clergy
and nobles and burghers, and existing in a state worse than slavery
itself. The Christians deprived the Jews even of the right of holding
real estate; and confined them to the narrower channels of traffic.
Their ambition being thus fixed upon one subject, they soon mastered all
the degrading arts of accumulating gain; and prohibited from investing
their gain in the purchase of land, they found n more profitable
employment of it in lending it at usurious interest to the thoughtless
and extravagant." In course of time the borrowers recouped their losses
by inaugurating raids upon the Jews. Jew-baiting, persecutions,
expatriations of Jewish settlers, were of frequent occurrence. Towards
the end of the thirteenth century 16,000 Jews were expelled from England
and their property confiscated. In Germany "they had to pay all manner
of iniquitous taxes--body tax, capitation tax, trade taxes, coronation
tax, and to present a multitude of gifts, to mollify the avarice or
supply the necessities of emperor, princes, and barons. It did not
suffice, however, to save them from the loss of their property. The
populace and the lower clergy also must be, satisfied; they, too, had
passions to gratify. A wholesale slaughter of the 'enemies of
Christianity' was inaugurated. Treves, Metz, Cologne, Mentz, Worms,
Spires, Strassburg, and other cities were deluged with the blood of the
'unbelievers.' The word _Hep_ (said to be the initials of _Hierosolyma
est perdita_, Jerusalem is taken) throughout all the cities of the
empire became the signal for massacres, and if an insensate monk sounded
it along the streets, it threw the rabble into paroxysms of murderous
rage. The choice of death or conversion was given to the Jews; but few
were found willing to purchase their life by that form of perjury.
Rather than subject their offspring to conversion and such Christian
training, fathers presented their breast to the sword after putting
their children to death, and wives and virgins sought refuge from the
brutality of the soldiers by throwing themselves into the river with
stones fastened to their bodies." (_McClintock and Strong Cyclop_., 4,
908 f.)
All this happened under the most Christian rule of the Popes. The
characteristic temper of the Jew in the Middle Ages, his fierce hatred
of Christianity, his sullen mood, his blasphemous treatment of matters
and objects sacred to Christians, are the result of the treatment he
received even from the members and high officials of the Church. Now
here comes Rome in our day asserting the kindness and generosity shown
the Jews by their Popes, because these afforded them shelter in the
Ghetto of the Holy City! How differently, they say, was this from the
treatment accorded the Jews by Luther. Why, these Catholic writers do
not tell the hundredth part of the truth about the attitude of their
Church to the Jews in the Middle Ages.
Let this be remembered when Luther's remarks about the Jews are taken up
for study. He is very outspoken against them; his utterances, however,
relate for the most part to the false teaching and religious practises,
to their perversion of the text and the meaning of the Scriptures, and
to the blasphemies which they utter against God, Jesus Christ, and His
Church, and to the lies which they assiduously spread about the
Christian religion. In all that Luther says against the Jews under this
head he is simply discharging the functions of a teacher of
Christianity; for Scripture says that it was given also "for reproof"
(2 Tim. 3, 16). No one can be a true theologian without being polemical
on occasion. In another class of his references to the Jews Luther
refers to their character: their arrogance and pride, their
stiffneckedness and contumacy, their greed and avarice, which makes
their presence in any land a public calamity. Though their church and
state has long been overthrown, and they are a people without a country,
homeless wanderers on the face of the earth, they still boast of being
"the people of God," and are indulging the wildest dreams about the
reestablishment of their ancient kingdom. They are looking for a Messiah
who will be a secular prince, and will make them all barons living in
beautiful castles and receiving the tribute of the Goyim. One may reason
and plead with them and show them that their belief contradicts their
own Scriptures, that their Talmud is filled with palpable falsehoods,
and that their hope is a chimera; but they turn a deaf ear to argument
and entreaty, and turn upon you with fierce resentment at your efforts
to show them the truth. Although they know that their habits of grasping
and hoarding wealth, driving hard and unfair bargains, their hunting for
small profits by contemptible methods like hungry dogs searching the
offal in the alley, rouses the enmity of communities against them and
causes them to become a blight to all true progress, to honest trade and
business in any land where they have become firmly established, so that
laws must be made against them, still they blindly and passionately
continue their covetous strivings. When Luther observes the corrupting
influence of the Jews on the public life and morals, he declares that
they ought to be expelled from the country, and their synagogs ought to
be destroyed, that is, they have deserved this treatment. But it is a
remarkable fact that even in these terrible denunciations of the Jews
Luther moves on Bible ground, as any one can see that will examine his
exposition of an imprecatory psalm, like Psalm 109 and 59. If these
words of God mean anything and admit of any application to an apostate
and hardened race, the Jews are that race, and a teacher of the Bible
has the duty to point out this fact. But Luther has not been a
Jewbaiter; he has not incited a riot against then, nor headed a raid
upon them, as Prof. Worman tells us that Catholic priests in the Middle
Ages occasionally would do. What Luther thought of persecuting the Jews
for their religion can be seen from his exposition of Psalm 14. He did
not believe in a general conversion of the Jews, but he held that
individual Jews would ever and anon be won for Christ and would be
grafted on the olive-tree of the true Church. "Therefore," he says, "we
ought to condemn the rage of some Christians--if they really deserve to
be called Christians--who think that they are doing God a service by
persecuting the Jews in the most hateful manner, imagining all manner of
evil about them, proudly and haughtily mocking them in their pitiful
misery. According to the statement in this Psalm (Ps. 14, 7) and the
example of the Apostle Paul in Rom. 9, 1, we ought rather to feel a
profound and cordial pity for them and always pray for them. . . . By
their tyrannical bearing these wicked people, who are nominally
Christians, cause not a little injury, not only to the cause of
Christianity, but also to Christian people, and they are responsible
for, and sharers in, the impiety of the Jews, because by their cruel
bearing toward them they drive them away from the Christian faith
instead of attracting them with all possible gentleness, patience,
pleading, and anxious concern for them. There are even some theologians
so unreasonable as to sanction such cruelty to the Jews and to encourage
people to it; in their proud conceit they assert that the Jews are the
Christians' slaves and tributary to the emperor, while in truth they are
themselves Christians with as much right as any one nowadays is Roman
Emperor. Good God, who would want to join our religion, even though he
were of a meek and submissive mind, when he sees how spitefully and
cruelly he is treated; and that the treatment he can expect is not only
unchristian, but worse than bestial? If hating Jews and heretics and
Turks makes people Christians, we insane people would indeed be the best
Christians. But if loving Christ makes Christians, we are beyond a doubt
worse than Jews, heretics, and Turks, because no one loves Christ less
than we. The rage of these people reminds me of children and fools, who,
when they see a picture of a Jew on a wall, go and cut out his eyes,
pretending that they want to help the Lord Christ. Most of the preachers
during Lent treat of nothing else than the cruelty of the Jews towards
the Lord Christ, which they are continually magnifying. Thus they
embitter believers against them, while the Gospel aims only at showing
and exalting the love of God and Christ." (4, 927.)
The Catholic claim that the Maryland Colony in the days of the Calverts
became the first home of true religious liberty on American soil has
been so often blasted by historians that one is loath to enter upon this
moth-eaten claim for fear of merely repeating what others have more
exhaustively stated. Catholics seem to forget what Bishop Perry has
called attention to: "The Maryland charter of toleration was the gift of
an English monarch, the nominal head of Church of England, and the
credit of any merit in this donative is due the giver, and not the
recipient, of the kingly grant." Prof. Fisher has called attention to
another fact: "Only two references to religion are to be found in the
Maryland charter. The first gives to the proprietary patronage and
advowson of churches. The second empowers him to erect churches,
chapels, and oratories, which he may cause to be consecrated according
to the ecclesiastical laws of England. The phraseology is copied from
the Avalon patent (drawn up in England in 1623 for a portion of the
colony of Newfoundland) that was given to Sir George Calvert (first
Lord Baltimore) when he was a member of the Church of England. Yet the
terms were such that recognition of that Church as the established form
of religion does not prevent the proprietary and the colony from the
exercise of full toleration toward other Christian bodies." (_Colonial
Era_, p. 64.) The Maryland Colony was admittedly organized as a
business venture, and its original members were largely Protestants. It
was to secure the financial interests of the proprietary that tolerance
was shown the colonists. Prof. Fisher says: "Any attempt to proscribe
Protestants would have proved speedily fatal to the existence of the
colony. In a document which emanated partly from Baltimore himself, it
is declared to be evident that the distinctive privileges 'usually
granted to ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church by Catholic
princes in their own countries could not be possibly granted hero (in
Maryland) without great offense to the King and State of England.'" (p.
63.) We have not the space in this review of Catholic charges and claims
to go into the religious history of the Maryland Colony as we should
like to do; otherwise we should explain the machinations of the Jesuits
in this colony, and prove that what tolerance Maryland in its early days
enjoyed it owed to the preponderating influence of non-Catholic forces.
It requires an unusual amount of courage for a Catholic writer at this
late day to parade his Church as the mother and protectress of religious
liberty and tolerance. Any person who has but a smattering knowledge of
the history of the world during the last four centuries will smile at
this claim. The old Rome of the days of the Inquisition and the _auto da
fes_ may seem tolerant in our days, but she is so from sheer necessity,
not from any voluntary and joyous choice of her own. Her intolerant
principles remain the same, only she has not the power to carry them
into effect.
One of the Catholic bishops who was opposed to the dogma of papal
infallibility, Reinkens, published a book bearing the remarkable title
_Revolution and Church_. In this book a thought is suggested which
connects the Roman Curia with political disturbances that occur in the
world. The author regards the declaration of papal infallibility as
another step forward in the imperialistic program of the Curia looking
towards world-dominion. He argues that it is in the interest of the
Vatican policies to foment trouble and breed revolutions in the
commonwealths of the world. "The thoughts of the Roman Curia," he says,
"are not the thoughts of God. Inasmuch, however, as it is these latter
that are realized with increasing force in the history of the world, and
that animate the formation of every true civil and ecclesiastical
institution, the Curia is gradually forced into a conflict with the
whole world. . . . The Curia (to carry its aims into effect) tries one
last means: its last attempt is to bring about a revolution. As 'the
Church' succeeded in digging her charter out of the ruins of the
commonwealths of the ancient world, so the spirits of Vaticanism hope
again to rebuild the palace of their dominion out of ruins." (p. 4.)
Again: "Bishop Hefele entertains the fear that the recent elevation of
the Pope to power (the infallibility dogma) will soon become the primary
dogma in the instruction of children. We regret to say that this fear
has proven well founded: all the governments, even the German, aid in
this instruction of the schoolchildren, because they retain religious
instruction on a confessional basis [we in America say on "sectarian"
lines], hence also that prescribed by the Vatican, as obligatory, and
the infallibilist clergy is salaried by the State for providing this
instruction The divine authority of the Pope extending over all men
tends to disturb the minds of the children in the schools: they are
taught at an early age to obey the Viceregent of God in preference to
obeying the Emperor and the State. In the higher schools this is done by
the clergy that is commissioned to teach in such schools." (p. 7.)
Again: "The Roman order of the Jesuits is not only spread like a net
over all countries, but it sinks its roots into every age, sex, estate,
and loosens and forces apart the ligaments of civil institutions." (p.
8.)
Luther's views on human free will are brought forward once more to show
that his teaching necessarily is hostile to liberty. Luther's famous
reply to Erasmus _On the Bondage of the Will_ is made to do yeoman's
service in this respect. What Luther has declared regarding the
sovereignty of God's rulership over men, regarding the relation of God
also to the evil existing in this world, regarding the absence of chance
in the affairs of men, regarding man's utter helplessness over and
against the supreme will of God, is cited to prove that Luther's
teaching leads, not to liberty, but either to recklessness or despair.
Luther's views on "the captive, or enslaved, will" are declared to be
the most degrading and demoralizing teaching that men have been offered
during the last centuries. Luther's famous illustration, _viz_., that
man is like a horse which either God or the devil rides, has prompted
the following remarks of one of Luther's most recent critics: "This
parable summarizes the whole of Luther's teaching on the vital and
all-important subject of man's free will. . . . All who are honest and
fearless of consequences must admit in frankest terms that Luther's
teaching on free will, as expounded in his book, and explicitly making
God the author of man's evil thoughts and deeds, cannot but lend a
mighty force to the passions and justify the grossest violations of the
moral law. Indeed, the enemy of souls, as Anderson remarks, 'could not
inspire a doctrine more likely to effect his wicked designs than
Luther's teaching oil the enslavement of the human will.'" There is a
dogmatic reason for this excoriation of Luther: Rome's teaching of
righteousness by works and human merit. The same author says, in
immediate connection with the foregoing: "Likening man to a 'beast of
burden,' does Luther not maintain that man is utterly powerless 'by
reason of his fallen nature' to lead a godly life, and merit by the
practise of virtue the rewards of eternal happiness? Does he not say:
'It is written in the hearts of men that there is no freedom of will,'
that 'all takes place in accordance with inexorable necessity,' and
that, even 'were free will offered him, he should not care to have it'?
But does not all this contradict the Spirit of God when, speaking in the
Book of Ecclesiasticus, He says: 'Before man is life and death, good and
evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him'?"
We submitted in chap. 15 the Scriptural evidence on the spiritual
disability of man. (The passage from Ecclesiasticus in the last
quotation is not Scripture.) It is useless to argue with a person who
refuses to accept this teaching of Scripture. We can only repeat what we
said before: Let the advocates of human free will proceed to do what
they claim they are able to do, and do it thoroughly. No one will
begrudge them the crown of glory when they obtain it. On the other hand,
they will have none but themselves to blame if they do not obtain it. In
the light of God's holy Word, in the light, moreover, of the experience
of the most spiritual-minded and saintly men that have lived on earth,
we see in the claim of the advocates of human free will regarding the
fulfilment of God's Law nothing but a vain boast, and a most mischievous
attempt to be smarter than God. The theory of salvation by merit is the
most disastrous risk that the human heart can take. Christ has
mercifully warned men not to take this risk. If they will not hear Him,
they will have to perish in their sins (John 8, 24).
In chap. 15 we also explained Luther's views on human free will in the
affairs of this life. We only have to add a word on the subject of
contingency. Are Luther's Catholic, critics really so blind as not to
see that man even in his ordinary affairs of common every-day life is
subject to the inscrutable government of God? Our physical life in its
most trivial aspects is entirely dependent not only on the laws of
nature, which are nothing but the order which the Creator has appointed
for the created universe, but also on extraordinary acts of God over
which no man has control. The farmer sows his wheat and expects to reap
a crop. How? By reason of the power of germination which the Creator has
put in the grain, and the laws which govern atmospheric changes, which
laws, again, the Creator governs. The farmer can do nothing to make the
wheat grow and ripen. He is utterly dependent upon God.--A merchant
decides that he will make a business trip to New York. He will leave the
next morning on the nine o'clock train. He orders his transportation,
and the next morning-he does not leave. "Something happened; I had to
change my plans," he tells his friends. Ah, says our Catholic critic,
but was he not free to change his mind? We say: You may talk as much as
you wish about the person's freedom; the fact remains that the person
would not have changed his mind unless he had to. - Let us follow this
merchant a little further: He actually starts on his trip two days
later. He is to arrive at his destination at two o'clock in the
afternoon of the next day, and very much depends on his arriving just at
that time. But he does not even get to Cincinnati. "Something happened,"
he wires to his friend. And now his human free will goes into operation
again: he changes his mind. - "Man proposes, but God disposes," this
belief is ineradicably written into the consciousness of all intelligent
men, even of intelligent pagans, and no philosophy of free will will
wipe it out. The wise farmer, after he has finished sowing his field,
says, "God willing, I shall reap a good crop." The wise merchant says,
"God willing, I shall be in New York to-morrow." And God approves of
this wise reservation which causes the prudent to submit their most
ordinary actions to divine revision. He says in Jas. 4, 13-16: "Go to
now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and
continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain, whereas ye know
not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a
vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For
that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or
that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil."
Let Luther's Catholic critics wrestle with these and similar texts of
Scripture, with these and similar facts of daily life. Luther has
rightly declared the sovereignty of God a mighty ax and thunderbolt that
shatters the assertion of human free will.
We have shown that Luther is no fatalist. His warning, on the one hand,
not to disregard the secret will of God, and on the other, not to seek
to find it out, is a masterpiece of wisdom. In view of the absolute
sovereignty of God and man's absolute dependence upon it, Luther urges
man to go to work in his chosen occupation in childlike reliance upon
God. He is to employ to the utmost capacity all his God-given energies
of mind and body and work as if everything depended on his industry,
strength, prudence, thrift, planning, and arranging. Having done all,
he is to say: Dear Lord, it is all subject to Thy approval. Thou art
Master; do Thou boss my business. If Thou overrulest my plans, I have
nothing to say; Thou knowest better. Not my will, but Thine, be done.
This is the whole truth in a nutshell that Luther drives home in that
part of his reply to Erasmus which treats of contingency. If ever
statements garbled from the context are unfair to the author, what the
Catholics are constantly doing in quoting Luther on the Bondage of the
Will is one of the most glaring exhibitions of unfairness on record.
This treatise of Luther deserves to be studied thoroughly and
repeatedly, and measured against the facts of the common experience of
all men. For a profitable study of this treatise there is, moreover,
required a very humble mind, a mind that knows its sin, and is sincere
in acknowledging its insufficiency.
The generation of Luther and the generations after him have had this
particular teaching of Luther before them four hundred years. What
effect has it had on human progress in every field of secular activity
in Protestant lands? Has it created that chaos and confusion which
Catholics claim it must inevitably lead to? Quite the contrary has
happened. And now let the patrons of the theory of human free will
measure their own success as recorded by history against that of
Protestants.