TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—Where a suitable character is unavailable, superscripts are rendered
as word^[sup].
LUTHER
IMPRIMATUR
EDM. CAN. SURMONT,
_Vic. Gen._
_Westmonasterii, die 13 Decembris, 1915._
LUTHER
BY
HARTMANN GRISAR, S.J.
PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BY
E. M. LAMOND
EDITED BY
LUIGI CAPPADELTA
VOLUME V
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LTD.
BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.
1916
A FEW PRESS OPINIONS OF VOLUMES I-IV.
“His most elaborate and systematic biography ... is not merely a book
to be reckoned with; it is one with which we cannot dispense, if only
for its minute examination of Luther’s theological writings.”—_The
Athenæum_ (Vol. I).
“The second volume of Dr. Grisar’s ‘Life of Luther’ is fully as
interesting as the first. There is the same minuteness of criticism
and the same width of survey.”—_The Athenæum_ (Vol. II).
“Its interest increases. As we see the great Reformer in the thick of
his work, and the heyday of his life, the absorbing attraction of his
personality takes hold of us more and more strongly. His stupendous
force, his amazing vitality, his superhuman interest in life,
impress themselves upon us with redoubled effect. We find him the
most multiform, the most paradoxical of men.... The present volume,
which is admirably translated, deals rather with the moral, social,
and personal side of Luther’s career than with his theology.”—_The
Athenæum_ (Vol. III).
“Father Grisar has gained a high reputation in this country through
the translation of his monumental work on the History of Rome and the
Popes in the Middle Ages, and this first instalment of his ‘Life of
Luther’ bears fresh witness to his unwearied industry, wide learning,
and scrupulous anxiety to be impartial in his judgments as well as
absolutely accurate in matters of fact.”—_Glasgow Herald._
“This ‘Life of Luther’ is bound to become standard ... a model of
every literary, critical, and scholarly virtue.”—_The Month._
“Like its two predecessors, Volume III excels in the minute analysis
not merely of Luther’s actions, but also of his writings; indeed,
this feature is the outstanding merit of the author’s patient
labours.”—_The Irish Times._
“This third volume of Father Grisar’s monumental ‘Life’ is full of
interest for the theologian. And not less for the psychologist; for
here more than ever the author allows himself to probe into the
mind and motives and understanding of Luther, so as to get at the
significance of his development.”—_The Tablet_ (Vol. III).
“Historical research owes a debt of gratitude to Father Grisar for the
calm unbiased manner in which he marshals the facts and opinions on
Luther which his deep erudition has gathered.”—_The Tablet_ (Vol. IV).
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIX. ETHICAL RESULTS OF THE NEW TEACHING _pages_ 3-164
1. PRELIMINARIES. NEW FOUNDATIONS OF MORALITY.
Difficulties involved in Luther’s standpoint; poverty
of human reason, power of the devil, etc. How despair
may serve to excite humility _pages_ 3-7
2. THE TWO POLES: THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
His merits in distinguishing the two; what he means by
“the Gospel”; his contempt for “the Law”; the Law a
mere gallows _pages_ 7-14
3. ENCOUNTER WITH THE ANTINOMIANISM OR AGRICOLA.
Connection between Agricola’s doctrine and Luther’s.
Luther’s first step against Agricola; the Disputations;
the tract “Against the Antinomians”; action of the
Court; end of Agricola; the reaction of the Antinomian
movement on Luther _pages_ 15-25
4. THE CERTAINTY OF SALVATION AND ITS RELATION TO MORALITY.
Psychology of Luther’s conception of this certainty as
the very cause and aim of true morality. Luther’s last
sermons at Eisleben; notable omissions in these sermons
on morality; his wavering between Old and New _pages_ 25-43
5. ABASEMENT OF PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY.
Faith, praise and gratitude our only duties towards
God. “All works, apart from faith, must be for our
neighbour’s sake.” There are “no good works save such
as God commands.” Good works done without faith are
mere sins. Annulment of the supernatural and abasement
of the natural order. The Book of Concord on the
curtailment of free-will. Christianity merely inward.
Divorce of Church and World, of Religion and Morals.
Lack of obligation and sanction _pages_ 43-66
6. THE PART PLAYED BY CONSCIENCE AND PERSONALITY. LUTHER’S WARFARE WITH
HIS OLD FRIEND CASPAR SCHWENCKFELD.
On Conscience and its exercise; how to set it to rest.
Help of conscience at critical junctures. Conscience
in the religious questions of the day. Schwenckfeld
_pages_ 66-84
7. SELF-IMPROVEMENT AND THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH.
Whether Luther founded a school of godly, Christian
life. A Lutheran theologian on the lack of any teaching
concerning emancipation from the world. The means of
self-reform and their reverse side. Self-reform and
hatred of the foe. Companion phenomena of Luther’s
hate. Kindlier traits and episodes: The Kohlhase case
in history and legend. The Reformation of the Church
and Luther’s Ethics; His work “Against the new idol and
olden devil.” The Reformation in the Duchy of Saxony.
The aims of the Reformation and the currents of the age _pages_ 84-133
8. THE CHURCH APART OF THE TRUE BELIEVERS.
Luther’s earlier theory on the subject; Schwenckfeld;
the proceedings at Leisnig; the Popular Church
supported by the State; the abortive attempt to create
a Church Apart in Hesse _pages_ 133-144
9. PUBLIC WORSHIP. QUESTIONS OF RITUAL.
The “Deutsche Messe”; the liturgy not meant for “true
believers”; place of the sermon _pages_ 145-154
10. SCHWENCKFELD AS A CRITIC OF THE ETHICAL RESULTS OF LUTHER’S
LIFE-WORK.
Schwenckfeld disappointed in his hope of a moral
renovation. Luther’s wrong teaching on Law and Evangel;
on predestination, on freedom and on faith alone,
on the inward and outward Word. Schwenckfeld on the
Popular Church and the new Divine Service _pages_ 155-164
CHAPTER XXX. LUTHER AT THE ZENITH OF HIS LIFE AND
SUCCESS, FROM 1540 ONWARDS. APPREHENSIONS AND
PRECAUTIONS _pages_ 165-224
1. THE GREAT VICTORIES OF 1540-1544.
Success met with at Halle and Naumburg; efforts made at
Cologne, Münster, Osnabrück, Brunswick, and Merseburg.
Progress abroad; the Turkish danger; the Council _pages_ 165-168
2. SAD FOREBODINGS.
False brethren; new sects; gloomy outlook for the
future _pages_ 169-174
3. PROVISIONS FOR THE FUTURE.
A Protestant Council suggested by Bucer and
Melanchthon. Luther’s attitude towards the
Consistories. He seeks to reintroduce the Lesser
Excommunication. The want of a Hierarchy begins to be
felt _pages_ 174-191
4. CONSECRATION OF NICHOLAS AMSDORF AS “EVANGELICAL BISHOP” OF
NAUMBURG (1542).
The Ceremony. Luther’s booklet on the Consecration of
Bishops. Excerpts from his correspondence with the new
“Bishop” _pages_ 192-200
5. SOME FURTHER DEEDS OF VIOLENCE. FATE OF ECCLESIASTICAL WORKS OF ART.
End of the Bishopric of Meissen. Destruction of
Church Property. Luther’s attitude towards pictures
and images. Details as to the fate of works of art in
Prussia, Brunswick, Danzig, Hildesheim, Merseburg, etc.
Protest of the Nuremberg artists _pages_ 200-224
CHAPTER XXXI. LUTHER IN HIS DISMAL MOODS, HIS
SUPERSTITION AND DELUSIONS _pages_ 225-318
1. HIS PERSISTENT DEPRESSION IN LATER YEARS. PERSECUTION MANIA AND
MORBID FANCIES.
Weariness and pessimism. Grounds of his low
spirits; suspects the Papists; and his friends. His
single-handed struggle with the powers of evil _pages_ 225-241
2. LUTHER’S FANATICAL EXPECTATION OF THE END OF THE WORLD. HIS
HOPELESS PESSIMISM.
Why he was convinced that the end was nigh. Allusions
to the end of the world in the Table-Talk _pages_ 241-252
3. MELANCHTHON UNDER THE DOUBLE BURDEN, OF LUTHER’S PERSONALITY AND
HIS OWN LIFE’S WORK.
Some of Melanchthon’s deliverances. His state of
servitude. His last years. His real character.
Unfounded tales about him _pages_ 252-275
4. DEMONOLOGY AND DEMONOMANIA.
Luther’s devil-lore. On all the evil the devil works
in the world. On the devil’s dwelling-place, his
shapes and kinds. Witchcraft. Connection of Luther’s
devil-mania with his character and doctrine. The best
weapons to use against the devil _pages_ 275-305
5. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LUTHER’S JESTS AND SATIRE.
His humour in the home and in his writings. He finds
relief in it amidst his troubles. Some instances of his
jests _pages_ 306-318
CHAPTER XXXII. A LIFE FULL OF STRUGGLES OF CONSCIENCE _pages_ 319-375
1. ON LUTHER’S “TEMPTATIONS” IN GENERAL.
Some characteristic statements concerning his “combats
and temptations” _pages_ 319-321
2. THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THE “TEMPTATIONS.”
“Supposing you had to answer for all the souls that
perish!” “If you do not penance shall you not likewise
perish?” “See how much evil arises from your
doctrine!” _pages_ 321-326
3. AN EPISODE. TERRORS OF CONSCIENCE BECOME TEMPTATIONS OF THE DEVIL.
Schlaginhaufen falls into a faint at Luther’s house.
Luther persuades himself that his remorse of conscience
comes from the devil _pages_ 326-330
4. PROGRESS OF HIS MENTAL SUFFERINGS UNTIL THEIR FLOOD-TIDE IN
1527-1528.
“What labour did it not cost me ... to denounce the
Pope as Antichrist.” The height of the storm; “tossed
about between death and hell”; “I seek only for a
gracious God.” Luther pens his famous hymn, “A safe
stronghold our God is still”; the hymn an echo of his
struggles _pages_ 330-345
5. THE TEN YEARS FROM 1528-1538. HOW TO WIN BACK PEACE OF CONSCIENCE.
At the Coburg. “I should have died without a struggle.”
The waning of the “struggles by day and by night”;
thoughts of suicide; how to reach peace _pages_ 346-356
6. LUTHER ON HIS FAITH, HIS DOCTRINE, AND HIS DOUBTS, PARTICULARLY IN
HIS LATER YEARS.
His notion of faith, (_a_) the accepting as true, (_b_)
the believing trust. His picture of himself and his
difficulties in late years; he compares his case with
that of St. Paul and with that of Christ in the Garden.
Some misunderstandings and false reports as to Luther’s
having himself condemned his own life-work _pages_ 356-375
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT IS CONVOKED, 1542.
LUTHER’S POLEMICS AT THEIR HIGHEST TENSION _pages_ 376-431
1. STEPS TAKEN AND TRACTS PUBLISHED SUBSEQUENT TO 1537 AGAINST THE
COUNCIL OF THE CHURCH.
The Schmalkalden meeting in 1537. Luther, after having
asked for a Council, now opposes such a thing. His “Von
den Conciliis.” The Ratisbon Interim. The Council is
summoned _pages_ 376-381
2. “WIDER DAS BAPSTUM ZU ROM VOM TEUFFEL GESTIFFT.” THE PAPACY RENEWS
ITS STRENGTH.
Luther is urged by highly placed friends to thwart
the plans of Pope Paul III. The fury of his new book.
How to deal with Pope and Cardinals. The “Wittenberg
Reformation” drawn up as a counterblast against the
Council of Trent _pages_ 381-389
3. SOME SAYINGS OF LUTHER’S ON THE COUNCIL AND HIS OWN AUTHORITY.
“If we are to submit to this Council we might as well
have submitted twenty-five years since to the lord of
the Councils.” How Luther would have spoken to the
Fathers of the Council had he attended it _pages_ 389-394
4. NOTABLE MOVEMENTS OF THE TIMES ACCOMPANIED BY LUTHER WITH “ABUSE AND
DEFIANCE DOWN TO THE VERY GRAVE.” THE CARICATURES.
The Brunswick raid and Luther’s treatment of Duke
Henry. His wrath against the Zwinglians: “A man that
is a heretic avoid.” The exception Luther made in
favour of Calvin, the friendly relations between the
two, their similarities and divergencies. Luther vents
his anger on the Jews in his “Von den Jüden” and “Vom
Schem Hamphoras” (1543); exceptional foulness of his
language in these two screeds. An earlier work of his
on the Jews; reason why, in it, he is fairer to the
Jews than in his later writings; some special motives
for his later polemics against the Jews; his “De
ultimis verbis Davidis.” His crusade against the Turks;
his translation of the work of Richardus against the
Alcoran. His last effort against the Papacy: “Popery
Pictured”; some of the abominable woodcuts described;
the state of soul they presuppose. Pirkheimer on “the
audacity of Luther’s unwashed tongue” _pages_ 394-431
CHAPTER XXXIV. END OF LUTHER’S LITERARY LABOURS. THE
WHOLE REVIEWED _pages_ 432-556
1. TOWARDS A CHRISTIANITY VOID OF DOGMA. PROTESTANT OPINIONS.
Harnack, etc., on Luther’s abandonment of individual
points of Christian doctrine and destruction of the
older idea of faith: The Canon and true interpretation
of Scripture; speculative theology. Luther’s own
admissions that Christian doctrine is a chain the
rupture of any link of which involves the rupture
of the whole. Luther’s inconsistencies in matters
of doctrine as instanced by Protestant theologians:
Original sin and unfreedom; Law and Gospel; Penance;
Justification and good works; his teaching on merit, on
the sacraments and the supper; on the Church and Divine
worship _pages_ 432-469
2. LUTHER AS A POPULAR RELIGIOUS WRITER. THE CATECHISM.
Collected works: Luther’s preface to the Latin
and German Collections. The Church-postils and
Home-postils; advantages and shortcomings of his
popular works; his silence regarding self-denial.
Origin and character of the Larger and Smaller
Catechisms. His Catechisms compared with the older
catechetic works _pages_ 470-494
3. THE GERMAN BIBLE.
The work of translation completed in 1534; how it was
launched on the public and the extent of its success.
The various revisions of the work and the notes of the
meetings held under Luther’s presidency. His anxiety
to use only the best German; “Chancery German.” The
language of the German Bible, its scholarship; its
inaccuracies; Luther’s “Sendbrieff” to defend his
addition of the word “alone” in Romans iii. 28.
The corrections of Emser the Dresden “scribbler.”
How Luther belittled certain books of Scripture.
Some side-lights into the psychology of Luther’s
translation. The Bible in earlier ages; the “Bible
in chains.” Luther’s indebtedness to earlier German
translators _pages_ 494-546
4. LUTHER’S HYMNS.
His efforts to interest his friends in the making of
hymns. His best-known hymn, “A safe stronghold our God
is still.” Other hymns; their character and musical
setting. The “Hymn for the Out-driving of Antichrist”
once falsely ascribed to Luther _pages_ 546-556
CHAPTER XXXV. LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND
EDUCATION (continued in Vol. VI) _pages_ 557-606
1. HISTORICAL OUTLINES FOR JUDGING OF HIS SOCIAL WORK.
Luther’s “signal services” as they appear to certain
modern Protestants. The fell results of his twin
principle: 1º, that the Church is alien to the world,
and 2º, has no power to make binding laws _pages_ 557-568
2. THE STATE AND THE STATE CHURCH.
The State de-Christianised and the Church regarded
as a mere union of souls. Luther as “Founder of the
modern State.” The secular potentate assimilated to
King David. The New Theocracy. The Established Church.
Significance of the Visitation introduced in the Saxon
Electorate. The “Instructions of the Visitors.” Luther
to the end the plaything of divergent currents _pages_ 568-606
VOL. V.
THE REFORMER (III)
LUTHER
CHAPTER XXIX
ETHICAL RESULTS OF THE NEW TEACHING
1. Preliminaries. New Foundations of Morality
LUTHER’S system of ethics mirrors his own character. If Luther’s
personality, in all its psychological individuality, shows itself in
his dogmatic theology (see vol. iv., p. 387 ff.), still more is this
the case in his ethical teaching. To obtain a vivid picture of the
mental character of their author and of the inner working of his mind,
it will suffice to unfold his practical theories in all their blatant
contradiction and to examine on what they rest and whence they spring.
First and foremost we must investigate the starting-point of his moral
teaching.
To begin with, it was greatly influenced by his theory that the Gospel
consisted essentially in forgiveness, in the cloaking over of guilt and
in the soothing of “troubled consciences.” Thanks to a lively faith
to reach a feeling of confidence, is, according to him, the highest
achievement of ethical effort. At the same time, however, Luther lets
it be clearly understood that we can never get the better of sin. In
the shape of original sin it ever remains; concupiscence is always
sinful; and, even in the righteous, actual sin persists, only that its
cry is drowned by the voice speaking from the Blood of Christ. Man must
look upon himself as entirely under the domination of the devil, and,
only in so far as Christ ousts the devil from his human stronghold, can
a man be entitled to be called good. In himself he is not even free to
do what is right.
To the author of such doctrines it was naturally a matter of some
difficulty to formulate theoretically the injunctions of morality.
Some Protestants indeed vaunt his system of ethics as the best ever
known, and as based on an entirely “new groundwork.” Many others,
headed by Stäudlin the theologian, have nevertheless openly admitted
that “no system of Christian morality could exist,” granted Luther’s
principles.[1]
Of his principles the following must be borne in mind. Man’s attitude
towards things Divine is just that of the dumb, lifeless “pillar of
salt into which Lot’s wife was changed”; “he is not one whit better
off than a clod or stone, without eyes or mouth, without any sense
and without a heart.”[2] Human reason, which ought to govern moral
action, becomes in matters of religion “a crazy witch and Lady
Hulda,”[3] the “clever vixen on whom the heathen hung when they thought
themselves cleverest.”[4] Like reason, so the will too, in fallen
man, behaves quite negatively towards what is good, whether in ethics
or in religion. “We remain as passive,” he says, “as the clay in the
hands of the potter”; freedom there is indeed, “but it is not under
our control.” In this connection he refers to Melanchthon’s “_Loci
communes_,”[5] whence some striking statements against free-will have
already been quoted in the course of this work.[6]
It is only necessary to imagine the practical application of such
principles to perceive how faulty in theory Luther’s ethics must have
been. Luther, however, was loath to see these principles followed out
logically in practice.
Other theories of his which he applies either not at all or only to
a very limited extent in ethics are, for instance, his opinions that
the believer, “even though he commit sin, remains nevertheless a godly
man,” and, that, owing to our trusting faith in Christ, God can descry
no sin in us “even when we remain stuck in our sins,” because we “have
donned the golden robe of grace furnished by Christ’s Blood.” In his
Commentary on Galatians he had said: “Act as though there had never
been any law or any sin but only grace and salvation in Christ”;[7] he
had declared that all the damned were predestined to hell, and, in
spite of their best efforts, could not escape eternal punishment. (Vol.
ii., pp. 268 ff., 287 ff.)
In view of all the above we cannot help asking ourselves, whence the
moral incentive in the struggle against the depravity of nature is to
come; where, granted that our will is unfree and our reason blind,
any real ethical answerableness is to be found; what motive for moral
conduct a man can have who is irrevocably predestined to heaven or to
hell; and what grounds God has for either rewarding or punishing?
To add a new difficulty to the rest, Luther is quite certain of the
overwhelming power of the devil. The devil sways all men in the world
to such a degree, that, although we are “lords over the devil and
death,” yet “at the same time we lie under his heel ... for the world
and all that belongs to it must have the devil as its master, who
is far stronger than we and clings to us with all his might, for we
are his guests and dwellers in a foreign hostelry.”[8] But because
through faith we are masters, “my conscience, though it feels its
guilt and fears and despairs on its account, yet must insist on being
lord and conqueror of sin ... until sin is entirely banished and is
felt no longer.”[9] Yea, since the devil is so intent on affrighting
us by temptations, “we must, when tempted, banish from sight and mind
the whole Decalogue with which Satan threatens and plagues us so
sorely.”[10]
Such advice could, however, only too easily lead people to relinquish
an unequal struggle with an unquenchable Concupiscence and an
overwhelmingly powerful devil, or, to lose sight of the distinction
between actual sin and our mere natural concupiscence, between sin and
mere temptation; Luther failed to see that his doctrines would only
too readily induce an artificial confidence, and that people would put
the blame for their human frailties on their lack of freedom, their
ineradicable concupiscence, or on the almighty devil.
How, all this notwithstanding, he contrived to turn his back on the
necessary consequences of his own teaching, and to evolve a practical
system of ethics far better than what his theories would have led us
to expect, is plain from his warm recommendation of good works, of
chastity, neighbourly love and other virtues.
In brief, he taught in his own way what earlier ages had also taught,
viz. that sin and vice must be shunned; in his own way he exhorted all
to practise virtue, particularly to perform those deeds of brotherly
charity reckoned so high in the Church of yore. In what follows we
shall have to see how far his principles nevertheless intervened,
and how much personal colouring he thereby imparted to his system of
ethics. In so doing what we must bear in mind is his own way of viewing
the aims of morality and practical matters generally, for here we are
concerned, not with the results at which he should logically have
arrived, but with the opinions he actually held.
The difficulty of the problem is apparent not merely from the nature
of certain of his theological views just stated, but particularly
from what he thought concerning original sin and concupiscence, which
colours most of his moral teaching.
In his teaching, as we already know, original sin remains, even after
baptism, as a real sin in the guise of concupiscence; by its evil
desires and self-seeking it poisons all man’s actions to the end of
his life, except in so far as his deeds are transformed by the “faith”
from above into works pleasing to God, or rather, are accounted as
such. Owing to the enmity to God which prevails in the man who thus
groans under the weight of sin even “civil justice is mere sinfulness;
it cannot stand before the absolute demands of God. All that man
can do is to acknowledge that things really are so and to confess
his unrighteousness.”[11] Such an attitude Luther calls “humility.”
Catholic moralists and ascetics have indeed ever made all other virtues
to proceed from humility as from a fertile source, but there is no need
to point out how great is the difference between Luther’s “humility”
and that submission of the heart to God’s will of which Catholic
theologians speak. Humility, as Luther understood it, was an “admission
of our corruption”; according to him it is our recognition of the
enduring character of original sin that leads us to God and compels us
“to admit the revelation of the Grace of God bestowed on us in Christ’s
work of redemption,” by means of “faith, i.e. security of salvation.”
It is possible to speak “only of a gradual restraining of sin,” so
strongly are we drawn to evil. We indeed receive grace by faith, but
of any infused grace or blotting out of sin, Luther refuses to hear,
since the inclinations which result from original sin still persist.
Hence “by grace sin is not blotted out.” Rather, the grace which man
receives is an imputed grace; “the real answer to the question as to
how Luther arrived at his conviction that imputed grace was necessary
and not to be escaped is to be found in his own inward experience that
the tendencies due to original sin remain, even in the regenerate. This
sin, which persists in the baptised, ... forces him, if he wishes to
avoid the pitfall of despair ... to keep before his mind the consoling
thought ... ‘that God does not impute to him his sin.’”[12]
2. The two Poles: the Law and the Gospel
One of the ethical questions that most frequently engaged Luther’s
attention concerned the relation of Law and Gospel. In reality it
touched the foundations of his moral teaching.
His having rightly determined how Law and Gospel stood seemed to him
one of his greatest achievements, in fact one of the most important
of the revelations made to him from on High. “Whoever is able clearly
to distinguish the Law from the Gospel,” he says, “let such a one
give thanks to God and know that he is indeed a theologian.”[13]
Alluding to the vital importance of Luther’s theory on the Law with
its demands and the Gospel with its assurance of salvation, Friedrich
Loofs, the historian of dogma, declares: Here “may be perceived the
fundamental difference between the Lutheran and the Catholic conception
of Christianity,”[14] though he does not fear to hint broadly at the
“defects” and “limitations” of Luther’s new discovery; rather he admits
quite openly, that some leading aspects of the question “never even
revealed themselves clearly” to Luther, but betray a “notable” lack of
discernment, and that Luther’s whole conception of the Law contained
“much that called for further explanation.”[15]
In order to give here a clearer picture of Luther’s doctrine on this
matter than it was possible to do in the earlier passages where
his view was touched upon it may be pointed out, that, when, as he
so frequently does, he speaks of the Law he means not merely the
Old-Testament ceremonial and judicial law, but even the moral law and
commands both of the Old Covenant[16] and of the New,[17] in short
everything in the nature of a precept binding on the Christian the
infringement of which involves him in guilt; he means, as he himself
expresses it, “everything ... that speaks to us of our sins and of
God’s wrath.”[18]
By the Gospel moreover he understands, not merely the promises
contained in the New Testament concerning our salvation, but also those
of the Old Covenant; he finds the Gospel everywhere, even previous to
Christ: “There is not a book in the Bible,” he says, “which does not
contain them both [the Law and the Gospel]. God has thus placed in
every instance, side by side, the Law and the promises, for, by the
Law, He teaches what we are to do, and, by the promises, how we are to
set about it.” In his church-postils where this passage occurs Luther
explains more fully what he means by the “promise,” or Gospel, as
against the Law: It is the “glad tidings whereby grace and forgiveness
of sins is offered. Hence works do not belong to the Gospel, for it is
no law, but faith only [is required], for it is simply a promise and an
offer of Divine grace. Whoever believes it receives the grace.”[19]
As to the relationship between the Law and the Gospel: Whereas the Law
does not express the relation between God and man, the Gospel does. The
latter teaches us that we may, nay must, be assured of our salvation
previous to any work of ours, in order, that, born anew by such faith,
we may be ready to fulfil God’s Will as free, Christian men. The Law,
on the other hand, reveals the Will of God, on pedagogic grounds, as
the foundation of a system of merit or reward. It is indeed necessary
as a negative preparation for faith, but its demands cannot be complied
with by the natural man, to say nothing of the fact that it seems to
make certainty of salvation, upon which everything depends in our
moral life, contingent on the fulfilment of its prescriptions.[20]
From this one can see how inferior to the Gospel is the Law.
The Law speaks of “_facere_, _operari_,” of “deeds and works” as
essential for salvation. “These words”—so Luther told the students
in his Disputations in 1537 on the very eve of the Antinomian
controversy—“I should like to see altogether banished from theology;
for they imply the notions of merit and duty (“_meritum et debitum_”),
which is beyond toleration. Hence I urge you to refrain from the use of
such terms.”[21]
What he here enjoins he had himself striven to keep in view from
the earliest days of his struggle against “self-righteousness” and
“holiness-by-works.” These he strove to undermine, in the same measure
as he exalted original sin and its consequences. Psychologically his
attitude in theology towards these questions was based on the renegade
monk’s aversion to works and their supposed merit. His chief bugbear
is the meritoriousness of any keeping of the Law. For one reason
or another he went further and denied even its binding character
(“_debitum_”); caught in the meshes of that pseudo-mystic idealism to
which he was early addicted we hear him declaring: the Christian, when
he is justified by “faith,” does of his own accord and without the Law
everything that is pleasing to God; what is really good is performed
without any constraint out of a simple love for what is good. In
this wise it was that he reached his insidious thesis, viz. that the
believer stands everywhere above the Law and that the Christian knows
no Law whatever.[22] In quite general terms he teaches that the Law is
in opposition to the Gospel; that it does not vivify but kills; and
that its real task is merely to frighten us, to show us what we are
unable to do, to reveal sin and “increase it.” The preaching of the Law
he here depicts, not as “good and profitable, but as actually harmful,”
as “nothing but death and poison.”[23]
That such a setting aside of the specifically Mosaic Law appealed to
him, we can readily understand. But does he include in his reprobation
the whole “_lex moralis_,” the Natural Law which the Old Testament
merely confirmed, and which, according to Luther himself, is written
in man’s heart by nature? This Law he asserts is implicitly obeyed as
soon as the heart, by its acceptance of the assurance of salvation,
is cleansed and filled with the love of God.[24] And yet “in many
instances he applies to this Natural Law what he says elsewhere of the
Law of Moses; it too affrights us, increases sin, kills, and stands
opposed to the Gospel.”[25] Desirous of destroying once and for all any
idea of righteousness or merit being gained through any fulfilment of
any Law, he forgets himself, in his usual way, and says strong things
against the Law which scarcely agree with other statements he makes
elsewhere.
Owing to polemists taking too literally what he said, he has been
represented as holding opinions on the Law and the Gospel which in
point of fact he does not hold; indeed, some have made him out a real
Antinomian. Yet we often hear him exhorting his followers to bow with
humility to the commandments, to bear the yoke of submission and thus
to get the better of sin and death. Nevertheless, particularly when
dealing with those whose “conscience is affrighted,” he is very apt
to forget what he has just said in favour of the Law, and prefers to
harp on his pet theology: “Man must pay no heed to the Law but only to
Christ.” “In dealing with this aspect of the matter we cannot speak too
slightingly of so contemptuous a thing [as the Law].”[26]
His changeableness and obscurity on this point is characteristic of
his mode of thought.
At times he actually goes so far as to ascribe to the Law merely
an outward, deterrent force and to make its sole value in ordinary
life consist in the restraining of evil. Even when he is at pains to
emphasise the “real, theological” use of the Law as preparatory to
grace, he deliberately introduces statements concerning the Law which
do not at all help to explain the matter. According to him, highly
as we must esteem the Law for its sacred character, its effect upon
people who are unable to keep it is nevertheless not wholesome but
rather harmful, because thereby sin is multiplied, particularly the
sin of unbelief, i.e. as seen in want of confidence in the certainty
of salvation and in the striving after righteousness by the exact
fulfilling of the Law.[27] “Whoever feels contrition on account of the
Law,” he says for instance, “cannot attain to grace, on the contrary
he is getting further and further away from it.”[28]
Even for the man who has already laid hold on salvation by the “_fides
specialis_” and has clothed himself in Christ’s merits, the deadening
and depraving effect of the Law has not yet ceased. It is true that he
is bound to listen to the voice of the Law and does so with profit in
order to learn “how to crucify the flesh by means of the spirit, and
direct his steps in the concerns of this life.” Yet—and on this it is
that Luther dwells—because the pious man is quite unable to fulfil
the Law perfectly, he is only made sensible of his own sinfulness;
against this dangerous feeling he must struggle.[29] Hence everything
depends on one’s ability to set oneself with Christ above the Law and
to refuse to listen to its demands; for Christ, Who has taken the
whole load upon Himself, bears the sin and has fulfilled the Law for
us.[30] That this, however, was difficult, nay, frequently, quite
impossible, Luther discovered for himself during his inward struggles,
and made no odds in admitting it. He gives a warning against engaging
in any struggles with our conscience, which is the herald of the
Law; such contests “often lead men to despair, to the knife and the
halter.”[31] Of the manner in which he dealt with his own conscience
we shall, however, speak more in detail below (XXIX, 6).
It is not necessary to point out the discrepancies and contradictions
in the above train of thought. Luther was untiring in his efforts
at accommodation, and, whenever he wished, had plenty to say on
the matter. Here, even more plainly than elsewhere, we see both
his lack of system and the irreconcilable contradictions lying in
the very core of his ethics and theology. Friedrich Loofs says
indulgently: “Dogmatic theories he had none; without over much
theological reflection he simply gives expression to his religious
convictions.”[32]
It is strange to note how the aspect of the Law changes according
as it is applied to the wicked or to the just, though it was given
for the instruction and salvation of all alike. In the New Testament
we read: “My yoke is sweet and my burden light,” but even in the
Old Testament it had been said: “Much peace have they that love thy
Law.”[33] According to Luther the man who is seeking for salvation and
has not yet laid hold on faith in the forgiveness of sins must let
himself be “ground down [’_conteri_,’ cp. ‘_contritio_’] by the Law”
until he has learnt “to live in a naked trust in God’s Mercy.”[34] The
man, however, who by faith has assured himself of salvation looks at
the Law and its transgressions, viz. sin, in quite a different light.
“He lives in a different world,” says Luther, “where he must know
nothing either of sin or of merit; if however he feels his sin, he is
to look at it as clinging, not to his own person, but to the person
(Christ) on whom God has cast it, i.e. he must regard it, not as it
is in itself and appears to his conscience, but rather in Christ
by Whom it has been atoned for and vanquished. Thus he has a heart
cleansed from all sin by the faith which affirms that sin has been
conquered and overthrown by Christ.... Hence it is sacrilege to look
at the sin in your heart, for it is the devil who puts it there, not
God. You must say, my sins are not mine; they are not in me at all;
they are the sins of another; they are Christ’s and are none of my
business.”[35] Elsewhere he describes similarly the firm consolation
of the righteous with regard to the Law and its accusations of sin:
“This is the supreme comfort of the righteous, to vest and clothe
Christ with my sins and yours and those of the whole world, and then
to look upon Him as the bearer of all our sins. The man who thus
regards Him will soon come to scorn the fanatical notions of the
sophists concerning justification by works. They rave of a faith that
works by love (‘_fides formata caritate_’), and assert that thereby
sins are taken away and men justified. But this simply means to
undress Christ, to strip Him of sin, to make Him innocent, to burden
and load ourselves with our own sins and to see them, not in Christ,
but in ourselves, which is the same thing as to put away Christ and
say He is superfluous.”[36]
The confidence with which Luther says such things concerning the
transgression of the Divine Law by the righteous is quite startling;
nor does he do so in mere occasional outbursts, but his frequent
statements to this effect seem measured and dispassionate, nor were
they intended simply for the learned but even for common folk.
It was for the latter, for instance, that in his “Sermon von dem
Sacrament der Puss” he said briefly: “To him who believes, everything
is profitable and nothing harmful, but, to him who believes not,
everything is harmful and nothing profitable.”[37]
“Whosoever does not believe,” i.e. has failed to lay hold of the
certainty of salvation, deserves to feel the relentless severity of
the Law; let him learn that the “right understanding and use of the
Law” is this, “that it does no more than prove” that all “who, without
faith, follow its behests are slaves, stuck [in the Law] against their
will and without any certainty of grace.” “They must confess that by
the Law they are unable to make the slightest progress.”
“Even should you worry yourself to death with works, still your heart
cannot thereby raise itself to such a faith as the Law calls for.”[38]
Thus, by the Law alone, and without the help of Luther’s “faith,” we
become sheer “martyrs of the devil.”
It is this road, according to him, that the Papists tread and that he
himself, so he assures us, had followed when a monk. There he had been
obliged to grind himself on the Law, i.e. had been forced to fight his
way in despair until at last he discovered justification in faith.[39]
One thing that is certain is his early antipathy—due to the laxity of
his life as a religious and to his pseudo-mysticism—for the burdens
and supposed deadening effect of the Law, an antipathy to which he
gave striking expression at the Heidelberg Disputation.[40]
Luther remained all his life averse to the Law.[41] In 1542, i.e.
subsequent to the Antinomian controversy, he even compared the Law to
the gallows. He hastens, however, to remove any bad impression he may
have made, by referring to the power of the Gospel: “The Law does not
punish the just; the gallows are not put up for those who do not steal
but for robbers.”[42] The words occur in an answer to his friends’
questions concerning the biblical objections advanced by the Catholics.
They had adduced certain passages in which everlasting life is promised
to those who keep the Law (“_factores legis_”) and where “love of
God with the whole heart” rather than faith alone is represented as
the true source of righteousness and salvation. Luther solves the
questions to his own content. Those who keep the Law, he admits, “are
certainly just, but not by any means owing to their fulfilment of the
Law, for they were already just beforehand by virtue of the Gospel;
for the man who acts as related in the Bible passages quoted stands in
no need of the Law.... Sin does not reign over the just, and, to the
end, it will not sully them.... The Law is named merely for those who
sin, for Paul thus defines the Law: ‘The Law is the knowledge of sin’
(Rom. iii. 20).”—In reality what St. Paul says is that “_By the Law_
is the knowledge of sin,” and he only means that the Old-Testament
ordinances of which he is speaking, led, according to God’s plan, to
a sense of utter helplessness and therefore to a yearning for the
Saviour. Luther’s very different idea, viz. that the Law was meant for
the sinner and served as a gallows, is stated by W. Walther the Luther
researcher, in the following milder though perfectly accurate form: “In
so far as the Christian is not yet a believer he lacks true morality.
Even in his case therefore the Law is not yet abrogated.”[43]
“A distinction must be made,” so Luther declares, “between the Law for
the sinner and the Law for the non-sinner. The Law is not given to the
righteous, i.e. it is not against them.”[44]
The olden Church had stated her conception of the Law and the Gospel
both simply and logically. In her case there was no assumption of any
assurance of salvation by faith alone to disturb the relations between
the Law and the Gospel; one was the complement of the other; though,
agreeably to the Gospel, she proclaimed the doctrine of love in its
highest perfection, yet at the same time, like St. Peter, she insisted
in the name of the “Law,” that, in the fear of sin and “by dint of
good works” we must make sure our calling and election (2 Peter i.
10). She never ceased calling attention to the divinely appointed
connection between the heavenly reward and our fidelity to the Law,
vouched for both in the Old Testament (“For thou wilt render to every
man according to his works,” Ps. lxi. 13) and also in the New (“The
Son of Man will render to every man according to his works,” Mt. xvi.
27, and elsewhere, “For we must all be manifested before the judgment
seat of Christ that everyone may receive the proper things of the body
according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil,” 2 Cor. v. 10).
3. Encounter with the Antinomianism of Agricola
Just as the Anabaptist and fanatic movement had originally been
fostered by Luther’s doctrines, so Antinomianism sprang from the seed
he had scattered.
Johann Agricola, the chief spokesman of the Antinomians, merely carried
certain theses of Luther’s to their logical conclusion, doing so
openly and regardless of the consequences. He went much further than
his master, who often had at least the prudence here and elsewhere to
turn back half-way, a want of logic which Luther had to thank for his
escape from many dangers in both doctrine and practice. In the same
way as Luther, with the utmost tenacity and vigour, had withstood the
Anabaptists and fanatics when they strove to put in full practice
his own principles, so also he proclaimed war on the Antinomians’
enlargement and application of his ideas on the Law and Gospel which
appeared to him fraught with the greatest danger. That the contentions
of the Antinomians were largely his own, formulated anew, must be
fairly evident to all.[45]
Johann Agricola, the fickle and rebellious Wittenberg professor, seized
on Luther’s denunciations of the Law, more particularly subsequent
to the spring of 1537, and built them up into a fantastic Antinomian
system, at the same time rounding on Luther, and even more on the
cautious and reticent Melanchthon, for refusing to proceed along the
road on which they had ventured. In support of his views he appealed to
such sayings of Luther’s, as, the Law “was not made for the just,” and,
was “a gallows only meant for thieves.”
He showed that, whereas Luther had formerly refused to recognise any
repentance due to fear of the menaces of the Law, he had come to hold
up the terrors of the Law before the eyes of sinners. As a matter of
fact Luther did, at a later date, teach that justifying faith was
preceded by a contrition produced by the Law; such repentance due to
fear was excited by God Almighty in the man deprived of moral freedom,
as in a “_materia passiva_.”—The following theses were issued as
Agricola’s: “1. The Law [the Decalogue] does not deserve to be called
the Word of God. 2. Even should you be a prostitute, a cuckold, an
adulterer or any other kind of sinner, yet, so long as you believe,
you are on the road to salvation. 3. If you are sunk in the depths of
sin, if only you believe, you are really in a state of grace. 4. The
Decalogue belongs to the petty sessions, not to the pulpit. 11. The
words of Peter: ‘That by good works you may make sure your calling and
election’ [2 Peter i. 10] are all rubbish. 12. So soon as you begin to
fancy that Christianity requires this or that, or that people should be
good, honest, moral, holy and chaste, you have already rent asunder the
Gospel [Luke, ch. vi.].”[46]
In his counter theses Luther indignantly rejected such opinions: “the
deduction is not valid,” he says, for instance, “when people make out,
that what is not necessary for justification, either at the outset,
later, or at the end, should not to be taught” (as obligatory), e.g.
the keeping of the Law, personal co-operation and good works. “Even
though the Law be useless to justification, still it does not follow
that it is to be made away with, or not to be taught.”[47]
* * * * *
Luther was the more indignant at the open opposition manifest in
his own neighbourhood and at the yet worse things that were being
whispered, because he feared, that, owing to the friendly understanding
between Agricola, Jacob Schenk and others, the new movement might
extend abroad. The doctrine, in its excesses, seemed to him as
compromising as the teaching of Carlstadt and the doings of the
fanatics in former days. In reality it did embody a fanatical doctrine
and an extremely dangerous pseudo-theology; in Antinomianism the
pseudo-mystical ideas concerning freedom and inner experience which
from the very beginning had brought Luther into conflict with the
“Law,” culminated in a sort of up-to-date gnosticism.
We now find Luther, in the teeth of his previous statements, declaring
that “Whoever makes away with the Law, makes away with the Gospel.”[48]
He says: “Agricola perverts our doctrine, which is the solace of
consciences, and seeks by its means to set up the freedom of the
flesh”;[49] the grace preached by Agricola was really nothing more than
immoral licence.[50]
The better to counter the new movement Luther at once proceeded to
modify his teaching concerning the Law. In this wise Antinomianism
exercised on him a restraining influence, and was to some extent of
service to his doctrine and undertaking, warning him, as the fanatic
movement had done previously, of certain rocks to be avoided.
Luther now came to praise Melanchthon’s view of the Law, which hitherto
had not appealed to him, and declared in his Table-Talk: If the Law is
done away with in the Church, that will spell the end of all knowledge
of sin.[51]
This last utterance, dating from March, 1537, is the first to forebode
the controversy about to commence, which was to cause Luther so much
anxiety but which at the same time affords us so good an insight into
his ethics and, no less, into his character. Even more noteworthy are
the two sermons in which he expounds his standpoint as against that of
Agricola, whom, however, he does not name.[52]
The first step taken by Luther at the University against the Antinomian
movement was the Disputation of Dec. 18, 1537. For this he drew up a
list of weighty theses. When the Disputation was announced everyone
was aware that it was aimed at a member of the Wittenberg Professorial
staff, at one, moreover, whom Luther himself, as dean, had authorised
to deliver lectures on theology at Wittenberg. When Agricola failed
even to put in an appearance at the Disputation, as though it in no
way concerned him, and also continued to “agitate secretly” against
the Wittenberg doctrine, Luther, in a letter addressed to Agricola
on Jan. 6, 1538, withdrew from him his faculty to teach, and even
demanded that he should forswear theology altogether (“_a theologia in
totum abstinere_”); if he now wished to deliver lectures he would have
to ask permission “of the University” (where Luther’s influence was
paramount).[53] This was a severe blow for Agricola and his family.
His wife called on Luther, dropped a humble curtsey and assured him
that in future her husband would do whatever he was told. This seems
to have mollified Luther. Agricola himself also plucked up courage to
go to him, only to be informed that he would have to appear at the
second Disputation on the subject—for which Luther had drawn up a
fresh set of theses—and there make a public recantation. Driven into
a corner, Agricola agreed to these terms. At the second Disputation
(Jan. 12, 1538) he did, as a matter of fact, give explanations deemed
satisfactory by Luther, by whom he was rewarded with an assurance
of confidence. He was, nevertheless, excluded from all academical
office, and though the Elector of Saxony permitted him to act as
preacher this sanction was not extended by Bugenhagen to any preaching
at Wittenberg.[54] A third and fourth set of theses drawn up by
Luther,[55] who could not do enough against the new heresy, date from
the interval previous to the settlement, though no Disputation was held
on them that the peace might not be broken.
Agricola nevertheless was staunch in his contention, that, in his
earlier writings, Luther had expressed himself quite differently, and
this was a fact which it was difficult to disprove.
On account of Agricola’s renewal of activity, Luther, on Sep. 13,
1538, held another lengthy and severe Disputation against him and his
supporters, the “hotheads and avowed hypocrites.” For this occasion
he produced a fifth and last set of theses. He also insisted that his
opponent should publicly eat his words. This time Luther admitted that
some of his own previous statements had been injudicious, though he
was disposed to excuse them. In the beginning they had been preaching
to people whose consciences were troubled and who stood in need of a
different kind of language than those whose consciences had first to
be stirred up. Agricola, finding himself in danger of losing his daily
bread, yielded, and even agreed to allow Luther himself to pen the
draft of his retractation, hoping thus to get off more easily.
Instead of this, and in order, as he said, to “paint him as a
cowardly, proud and godless man,” Luther wrote a tract (“Against the
Antinomians”) addressed to the preacher Caspar Güttel, which might take
the place of the retractation agreed upon.[56] It was exceedingly rude
to Agricola. It represented him as a man of “unusual arrogance and
presumption,” “who presumed to have a mind of his own, but one that
was really intent on self-glorification”; he was a standing proof that
in the world “the devil liveth and reigneth”; by his means the devil
was set on raising another storm against Luther’s Evangel, like those
others raised by Carlstadt, Münzer, the Anabaptists and so forth.[57]
In spite of all this the writing, according to a statement made by
its author to Melanchthon, was all too mild (“_tam levis fui_”),
particularly now that Agricola’s great “obstinacy” was becoming so
patent.[58]
Luther even spoke of the excommunication which should be launched
against so contumacious a man. As a penalty he caused him to be
excluded from among the candidates for the office of Dean, and when
Agricola complained to the Rector and to Bugenhagen of Luther’s
“tyranny” both refused to listen to him.[59]
In the meantime Agricola expressed his complete submission in a printed
statement, which, however, was probably not meant seriously, and
thereupon, on Feb. 7, 1539, was nominated by the Elector a member of
the Consistory. He at once profited by this mark of favour to present
at Court a written complaint against Luther, referring particularly
to the scurrilous circular letter sent to Caspar Güttel. He protested
that, for wellnigh three years, he had submitted to being trodden under
foot by Luther, and had slunk along at his heels like a wretched cur,
though there had been no end to the insult and abuse heaped upon him.
What Luther reproached him with he had never taught. The latter had
accused him of many things which he “neither would, could nor might
admit.”[60]
Luther in his turn, in a writing, appealed to the Elector and his
supreme tribunal. In vigorous language he explained to the Court,
utterly incapable though it was of deciding on so delicate a question,
why he had been obliged to withstand the false opinions of his opponent
which the Bible condemned. Agricola had dared to call Luther’s doctrine
unclean, “a doctrine on behalf of which our beloved Prince and Lord
wagered and imperilled land and subjects, life and limb, not to speak
of his soul and ours.” In other words, to differ from Luther was
high treason against the sovereign who agreed with him. He sneers at
Agricola in a tone which shows how great licence he allowed himself
in his dealings with the Elector: Agricola had drawn up a Catechism,
best nicknamed a “Cackism”; Master Grickel was ridden by an angry imp,
etc. So far was he from offering any excuse for his virulence against
Agricola that he even expressed his regret for having been “so friendly
and gentle.”[61]
To the same authority, as though to it belonged judgment in
ecclesiastical matters, Melanchthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen and Amsdorf sent
a joint memorandum in which they recommended a truce, “somewhat timidly
pointing out to the Elector, that Luther was hardly a man who could be
expected to retract.”[62]
The Court Councillors now took the whole matter into their hands and
it was settled to lodge a formal suit against Agricola. The latter,
however, accepted a call from Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, to act as
Court preacher, and, in spite of having entered into recognisances not
to quit the town, he made haste to get himself gone to his new post
in Berlin (Aug., 1540). On a summons from Wittenberg, and seeing that,
unless he made peace with Luther, he could do nothing at Berlin, he
consented to issue a circular letter to the preachers, magistrates and
congregation of Eisleben[63] “which might have satisfied even Luther’s
exorbitant demands.”[64] He explained that he had in the meantime
thought better of the points under discussion, and even promised “to
believe and teach as the Church at Wittenberg believes and teaches.”
In 1545, when he came to Wittenberg with his wife and daughter, Luther,
who still bore him a grudge, whilst allowing them to pay him a visit,
refused to see Agricola himself. On another occasion it was only thanks
to the friendly intervention of Catherine Bora that Luther consented to
glance at a kindly letter from him, but of any reconciliation he would
not hear. Regarding this last incident we have a note of Agricola’s
own: “_Domina Ketha, rectrix cœli et terræ, Iuno coniunx et soror
Iovis_, who rules her husband as she wills, has for once in a way
spoken a good word on my behalf. Jonas likewise did the same.”[65]
Luther’s hostility continued to the day of his death. He found
justification for his harshness and for his refusal to be reconciled in
the evident inconstancy and turbulence of his opponent. For a while,
too, he was disposed to credit the news that Antinomianism was on the
increase in Saxony, Thuringia and elsewhere.
Not only was Agricola’s fickleness not calculated to inspire
confidence, but his life also left much to be desired from the moral
standpoint. Though Luther was perhaps unaware of it, we learn from
Agricola’s own private Notes, that the “vices in which the young take
delight” had assailed him in riper years even more strongly than in
his youth. Seckendorff also implies that he did not lead a “regular
life.”[66]
In 1547 Agricola, together with Julius Pflug, Bishop of Naumburg, and
Helding, auxiliary of Mayence, drew up the Augsburg Interim. As General
Superintendent of the Brandenburg district and at the invitation
of his Elector he assisted in the following year at the religious
Conferences of the Saxon theologians. He died at Berlin, Sep. 22, 1566,
of a disease resulting from the plague.
Of the feeling called forth in circles friendly to Luther by
Agricola’s part in the Interim we have proof in the preface which
introduces in the edition of 1549 Luther’s letter of 1539 to the Saxon
Court. Here we read: If the Eisleben fellow (Agricola) “was ever a
dissolute sharper, who secretly promoted false doctrine and made use
of the favour and applause of the pious as a cloak for his knavery,”
much more has this now become apparent by his outcry concerning the
Interim and the alleged good it does. The editors recall the fact,
that “Our worthy father in God, Dr. Martin Luther of happy memory,
shortly before his end, in the presence of Dr. Pommer, Philip,
Creutziger, Major, Jonas and D. Paulus Benedictus” spoke as follows:
“Eisleben (Agricola) is not merely ridden by the devil but the devil
himself lodges in him.” In proof of the latter statement they add,
that trustworthy persons, who had good grounds for their opinion,
had declared, that “it was the simple truth that devils had visibly
appeared in Eisleben’s house and study, and at times had made a great
disturbance and clatter; whence it is clear that he is the devil’s own
in body and soul.” “The truth,” they conclude, “is clear and manifest.
God gives us warnings enough in the writings of pious and learned
persons and also by signs in the sky and in the waters. Let whoever
wills be admonished and warned. For to each one it is a matter of life
eternal; to which may God assist us through Christ our Lord, Amen.”[67]
A writing of Melanchthon’s, dating from the last months of his
life and brought to light only in 1894, gives further information
concerning a later phase of the Antinomian controversy as fought out
between Agricola and Melanchthon.[68]
Melanchthon, for all his supposed kindliness, here empties the vials
of his wrath on Johann Agricola because the latter had vehemently
assailed his thesis “_Bona opera sunt necessaria_.” As a matter of
fact, so he writes, he bothered himself as little about Agricola’s
“preaching, slander, abuse, insistence and threats” as about the
“cackle of some crazy gander.” But Christian people were becoming
scandalised at “this grand preacher of blasphemy” and were beginning
to suspect his own (Melanchthon’s) faith. Hence he would have them
know that Agricola’s component parts were an “asinine righteousness,
a superstitious arrogance and an Epicurean belly-service.” To his
thesis he could not but adhere to his last breath, even were he to
be torn to pieces with red-hot pincers. He had refrained from adding
the words “_ad salutem_” after “_necessaria_” lest the unwary should
think of some merit. The “_ad salutem_” was an addition of Agricola’s,
that “foolish man,” who had thrust it on him by means of a “shameless
and barefaced lie.” He is anxious to win his spurs off the Lutherans.
Yet donkeys of his ilk do understand nothing in the matter, and God
will “punish these blasphemers and disturbers of the Churches.”
But in order that “a final end may at length be put to the evil
doing, slander, abuse and cavilling it will,” he says, “be necessary
for God to send the Turk; nothing else will help in such a case.”
Melanchthon compares himself to Joseph, who was sold by his brethren.
If Joseph had to endure this “in the first Church,” what then “will
be my fate in the extreme old age of this mad world (‘_extrema mundi
delira senecta_’) when licence wanders abroad unrestrained to sully
everything and when such unspeakably cruel hypocrites control our
destinies? I can only pray to God that He will deign to come to the
aid of His Church and graciously heal all the gaping wounds dealt her
by her foes. Amen.”
A certain reaction against the Antinomian tendency, is, as already
explained, noticeable in Luther’s latter years; at least he felt called
upon to revise a little his former standpoint with regard to the Law,
the motive of fear, indifference to sin and so forth, and to remove
it from the danger of abuse. He was also at pains to contradict the
view that his doctrine of faith involved an abrogation of the Law.
“The fools do not know,” he remarked, for instance, alluding to Jacob
Schenk, “all that faith has to do.”[69]
In his controversy with Agricola we can detect a tendency on his part
“to revert to Melanchthon’s doctrine concerning repentance.”[70]
He insisted far more strongly than before[71] on the necessity of
preaching the Law in order to arouse contrition; he even went so far
along Catholic lines as to assert, that “Penance is sorrow for sin with
the resolve to lead a better life.”[72] He also admitted, that, at the
outset, he had said things which the Antinomians now urged against
the Law, though he also strove to show that he had taken pains to
qualify and safeguard what he had said. Nor indeed can Luther ever have
expected that all the strong things he had once hurled against the Law
and its demands would ever be used to build up a new moral theology.
And yet, even at the height of the Antinomian controversy, he stood
firmly by his thesis regarding the Law, fear and contrition, viz. that
“Whoever seeks to be led to repentance by the Law, will never attain to
it, but, on the contrary, will only turn his back on it the more”;[73]
to this he was ever true.
“Luther,” says Adolf Harnack, “could never doubt that only the
Christian who has been vanquished by the Gospel is capable of true
repentance, and that the Law can work no real repentance.”[74]
The fact however remains, that, at least if we take his words as
they stand, we do find in Luther a doctrine of repentance which
does not claim faith in the forgiveness of sins so exclusively as
its source.[75] The fact is that his statements do not tally.[76]
Other Protestant theologians will have it that no change took place
in Luther’s views on penance,[77] or at least that the attempts
so far made to solve the problem are not satisfactory.[78] Stress
should, however, be laid on the fact, that, during his contest with
Antinomianism Luther insisted that it was necessary “to drive men to
penance even by the terrors of the Law,”[79] and that, alluding to his
earlier statements, he admits having had much to learn: “I have been
made to experience the words of St. Peter, ‘Grow in the knowledge of
the Lord.’”
Of the converted, i.e. of those justified by the certainty of
salvation, he says in 1538 in his Disputations against Agricola: The
pious Christian as such “is dead to the Law and serves it not, but
lies in the bosom of grace, secure in the righteousness imputed to him
by God.... But, so far as he is still in the flesh, he serves the law
of sin, repulsive as it may sound that a saint should be subject to
the law of sin.”[80] If Luther finds in the saint or devout man such
a double life, a free man side by side with a slave, holiness side by
side with sin, this is on account of the concupiscence, or as Luther
says elsewhere, original sin, which still persists, and the results of
which he regarded as really sinful in God’s sight.
Elsewhere in the same Disputations he speaks of the Law as
contemptuously as ever: “The Law can work in the soul nothing but
wanhope; it fills us with shame; to lead us to seek God is not in the
nature and might of the Law; this is the doing of another fellow,”
viz. of the Gospel with its preaching of forgiveness of sins in
Christ.[81] It is true he adds in a kindlier vein: “The Law ought
not so greatly to terrify those who are justified (‘_nec deberet
ita terrere iustificatos_’) for it is already much chastened by
our justification in Christ. But the devil comes and makes the Law
harsh and repellent to those who are justified. Thus, through the
devil’s fault, many are filled with fear who have no reason to fear.
But [and now follows the repudiation of the extreme theories of the
Antinomians], the Law is not on that account abolished in the Church,
or its preaching suppressed; for even the pious have some remnant of
sin abiding in their flesh, which must be purified by the Law.... To
them, however, the Law must be preached under a milder form; they
should be admonished in this wise: You are now washed clean in the
Blood of Christ. Yield therefore your bodies to serve justice and
lay aside the lusts of the flesh that you may not become like to
the world. Be zealous for the righteousness of good works.” There
too he also teaches how the “Law” must be brought home to hardened
sinners. In their case no “mitigation” is allowable. On the contrary,
they are to be told: You will be damned, God hates you, you are full
of unrighteousness, your lot is that of Cain, etc. For, “before
Justification, the Law rules, and terrifies all who come in contact
with it, it convicts and condemns.”[82]
Among the most instructive utterances touching the Antinomians is the
following one on sin, more particularly on breach of wedlock, which
may be given here as amplifying Luther’s statements on the subject
recorded in our vol. iii. (pp. 245, 256 f., etc.): The Antinomians
taught, so he says, that, if a man had broken wedlock, he had only to
believe (“_tantum ut crederet_”) and he would find a Gracious God. But
surely that was no Church where so horrible a doctrine (“_horribilis
vox_”) was heard. On the contrary what was to be taught was, that,
in the first place, there were adulterers and other sinners who
acknowledged their sin, made good resolutions against it and possessed
real faith, such as these found mercy with God. In the second place,
however, there were others who neither repented of their sin nor
wished to forsake it; such men had no faith, and a preacher who should
discourse to them concerning faith (i.e. fiducial faith) would merely
be seducing and deceiving them.
4. The Certainty of Salvation and its relation to Morality
How did Luther square his system of morality with his principal
doctrine of Faith and Justification, and where did he find any ground
for the performance of good works?
In the main he made everything to proceed from and rest upon a firm,
personal certainty of salvation. The artificial system thus built up,
so far as it is entitled to be called a system at all, requires only
to be set forth in order to be appreciated as it deserves. It will be
our duty to consider Luther’s various statements, and finally his own
summary, made late in life, of the conclusions he had reached.
_Certainty of Salvation as the cause and aim of True Morality. The
Psychological Explanation_
Quite early Luther had declared: “The ‘_fides specialis_,’ or assurance
of salvation, of itself impels man to true morality.” For, “faith
brings along with it love, peace, joy and hope.... In this faith all
works are equal and one as good as the other, and any difference
between works disappears, whether they be great or small, short or
long, few or many; for works are not pleasing [to God] in themselves
but on account of faith.... A Christian who lives in this faith has
no need to be taught good works, but, whatever occurs to him, that he
does, and everything is well done.” Such are his words in his “Sermon
von den guten Wercken” to Duke Johann of Saxony in 1520.[83]
He frequently repeats, that “Faith brings love along with it,” which
impels us to do good.
He enlarges on this in the festival sermons in his Church-Postils,
and says: When I am made aware by faith, that, through the Son of God
Who died for me, I am able to “resist and flaunt sin, death, devil,
hell and every ill, then I cannot but love Him in return and be well
disposed towards Him, keeping His commandments and doing lovingly and
gladly everything He asks”; the heart will then show itself full “of
gratitude and love. But, seeing that God stands in no need of our
works and that He has not commanded us to do anything else for Him but
to praise and thank Him, therefore such a man must proceed to devote
himself entirely to his neighbour, to serve, help and counsel him
freely and without reward.”[84]
All this, as Luther says in his “Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen
Menschen,” must be performed “by a free, willing, cheerful and
unrequited serving of our neighbour”;[85] it must be done “cheerfully
and gladly for Christ’s sake Who has done so much for us.”[86]
“That same Law which once was hateful to free-will,” he says in his
Commentary on Galatians, “now [i.e. after we have received the faith
and assurance of salvation] becomes quite pleasant since love is
poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost.... We now are lovers of the
Law.”[87] From the wondrous well-spring of the imputed merits of Christ
there comes first and foremost prayer; if only we cling “trustfully
to the promise of grace,” then “the heart will unceasingly beat and
pulsate to such prayers as the following: O, beloved Father, may Thy
Name be hallowed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done.”[88] But all is
not prayer and holy desire; even when the “soul has been cleansed by
faith,” the Christian still must struggle against sin and against the
body “in order to deaden its wantonness.”[89] The Christian will set
himself to acquire chastity; “in this work a good, strong faith is of
great help, more so here than anything else.” And why? Because whoever
is assured of salvation in Christ and “enjoys the grace of God, also
delights in spiritual purity.... Under such a faith the Spirit without
doubt will tell him how to avoid evil thoughts and everything opposed
to chastity. For as faith in the Divine mercy persists and works all
good, so also it never ceases to inform us of all that is pleasing or
displeasing to God.”[90]
Whence does our will derive the ability and strength to wage this
struggle to the end? Only from the assurance of salvation, from
its unshaken awareness that it has indeed a Gracious God. For this
certainty of faith sets one free, first of all from those anxieties
with regard to one’s salvation with which the righteous-by-works are
plagued and thus allows one to devote time and strength to doing what
is good; secondly this faith in one’s salvation teaches one how to
overcome the difficulties that stand in one’s way.[91]
There was, however, an objection raised against Luther by his
contemporaries and which even presented itself to his own mind: Why
should a lifelong struggle and the performance of good works be
requisite for a salvation of which we are already certain? It was
re-formulated even by Albert Ritschl, in whose work, “Rechtfertigung
und Versöhnung,” we find the words: “If one asks why God, Who makes
salvation to depend on Justification by faith, prescribes good works
at all, the arbitrary character of the assumption becomes quite
evident.”[92] In Luther’s own writings we repeatedly hear the same
stricture voiced: “If sin is forgiven me gratuitously by God’s Mercy
and is blotted out in baptism, then there is nothing for me to do.”
People say, “If faith is everything and suffices of itself to make us
pious, why then are good works enjoined?”[93]
In order to render Luther’s meaning adequately we must emphasise his
leading answer to such objections. He is determined to insist on good
works, because, as he says, they are of the utmost importance to the
one thing on which everything else depends, viz. to faith and the
assurance of salvation.[94]
In his “Sermon von den guten Wercken,” which deserves to be taken as
conclusive, he declares outright that all good works are ordained—for
the sake of faith. “Such works and sufferings must be performed
in faith and in firm trust in the Divine mercy, in order that, as
already stated, all works may come under the first commandment and
under faith, and that they may serve to exercise and strengthen
faith, on account of which all the other commandments and works are
demanded.”[95] Hence morality is necessary, not primarily in order
to please God, to obey Him and thus to work out our salvation, but
in order to strengthen our “_fides specialis_” in our own salvation,
which then does all the needful.[96] It is necessary, as Luther says
elsewhere, in order to provide a man with a reassuring token of the
reality of his “_fides specialis_”; he may for instance be tempted to
doubt whether he possesses this saving gift of God, though the very
doubt already spells its destruction; hence let him look at his works;
if they are good, they will tell him at the dread hour of death: Yes,
you have the “faith.”[97] Strangely enough he also takes the Bible
passages which deal with works performed under grace as referring to
faith, e.g. “If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments” (Mt.
xix. 17) and, “By good works make your calling and election sure” (2
Peter i. 10). The latter exhortation of St. Peter signifies according
to Luther’s exegesis: “Take care to strengthen your faith,” from the
works “you may see whether you have the faith.”[98] According to St.
Peter you are to seek in works merely “a sign and token that the faith
is there”; his meaning is not that you “are to do good works in order
that you may secure your election.” “We are not to fancy that thereby
we can become pious.”[99]
This thought is supplemented by another frequent exhortation of
Luther’s which concerns the consciousness of sin persisting even after
“justification.” The sense of sin has, according to him, no other
purpose than to strengthen us in our trustful clinging to Christ, for
as no one’s faith is perfect we are ever called upon to fortify it, in
which we are aided by this anxiety concerning sin: “Though we still
feel sin within us this is merely to drive us to faith and make our
faith stronger, so that despite our feeling we may accept the Word and
cling with all our heart and conscience to Christ alone,” in other
words, to follow Luther’s own example amidst the pangs of conscience
that had plunged him into “death and hell.”[100] “Thus does faith,
against all feeling and reason, lead us quietly through sin, through
death and through hell.” “The more faith waxes, the more the feeling
diminishes, and vice versa. Sins still persist within us, e.g. pride,
avarice, anger and so on and so forth, but only in order to move us
to faith.” He refrains from adducing from Holy Scripture any proof in
support of so strange a theory, but proceeds to sing a pæan on faith
“in order that faith may increase from day to day until man at length
becomes a Christian through and through, keeps the real Sabbath, and
creeps, skin, hair and all, into Christ.”[101] The Christian, by
accustoming himself to trust in the pardoning grace of Christ and by
fortifying himself in this faith, becomes at length “one paste with
Christ.”[102]
Hence the “_fides specialis_” as just explained, seems to be the chief
ethical aim of life.[103] This is why it is so necessary to strengthen
it by works, and so essential to beat down all anxieties of conscience.
Here Luther is speaking from his own inward experience. He says: “Thus
must the conscience be lulled to rest and made content, thus must all
the waves and billows subside.... Our sins towered mountain-high about
us and would fain have made us despair, but in the end they are calmed,
and settle down, and soon are seen no longer.”[104] It was only very
late in his life that Luther reached a state of comparative calm, a
calm moreover best to be compared with the utter weariness of a man
worn out by fatigue.[105]
_Luther’s Last Sermons at Eisleben on the Great Questions of Morality_
In the four sermons he preached at Eisleben—the last he ever
delivered—Luther gives utterance to certain leading thoughts quite
peculiar to himself regarding morality and the “_fides specialis_.”
These utterances, under the circumstances to be regarded as the ripest
fruit of his reflection, must be taken in conjunction with other
statements made by him in his old age. They illustrate even more
clearly than what has gone before the cardinal point of his teaching
now under discussion, which, even more than any other, has had the bad
luck to be so often wrongly presented by combatants on either side.
Luther’s four sermons at Eisleben, which practically constitute his
Last Will and Testament of his views on faith and good works, were
delivered before a great concourse of people. A note on one delivered
on Feb. 2, 1546, tells us: “So great was the number of listeners
collected from the surrounding neighbourhood, market-places and
villages, that even Paul himself were he to come preaching could
hardly expect a larger audience.”[106] For the reports of his sermons
we are indebted to the pen of his pupil and companion on his journey,
Johann Aurifaber.[107] From their contents we can see how much Luther
was accustomed to adapt himself to his hearers and to the conditions
prevailing in the district where he preached. The great indulgence
then extended to the Jews in that territory of the Counts of Mansfeld;
the religious scepticism shared or favoured by certain people at the
Court; and, in particular, the moral licence—which, taking its cue
from Luther’s teaching, argued: “Well and good, I will sin lustily
since sin has been taken away and can no longer damn me,” as he
himself relates in the third sermon,[108]—all this lends colour to
the background of these addresses delivered at Eisleben. In particular
the third sermon, on the parable of the cockle (Mt. xiii. 24-30), is
well worth notice. It speaks of the weeds which infest the Church and
of those which spring up in ourselves; in the latter connection Luther
expatiates on the leading principles of his ethics, on faith, sin and
good works, and concludes by telling the Christian how he must live and
“grow in faith and the spirit.”[109] One cannot but acknowledge the
force with which the preacher, who was even then suffering acutely,
speaks on behalf of good works and the struggle against sin. What he
says is, however, tainted by his own peculiar views.
“God forgives sin in that He does not impute it.... But from this
it does not follow that you are without sin, although it is already
forgiven; for in yourself you feel no hearty desire to obey God, to go
to the sacrament or to hear God’s Word. Do you perhaps imagine that
this is no sin, or mere child’s play?” Hence, he concludes, we must
pray daily “for forgiveness and never cease to fight against ourselves
and not give the rein to our sinful inclinations and lusts, nor obey
them contrary to the dictates of conscience, but rather weaken and
deaden sin ever more and more; for sin must not merely be forgiven but
verily swept away and destroyed.”[110]
He exhorts his hearers to struggle against sin, whether original or
actual sin, and does so in words which place the “_fides specialis_” in
the first place and impose the obligation of a painful and laborious
warfare which contrasts strongly with the spontaneous joy of the just
in doing what is good, elsewhere taken for granted by Luther.
“Our doctrine as to how we are to deal with our own uncleanness
and sin is briefly this: Believe in Jesus Christ and your sins are
forgiven; then avoid and withstand sin, wage a hand-to-hand fight with
it, do not allow it its way, do not hate or cheat your neighbour,”
etc.[111]
Such admonitions strenuously to strive against sin involuntarily
recall some very different assurances of his, viz. that the man who
has once laid hold on righteousness by faith, at once and of his own
accord does what is good: “Hence from faith there springs love and joy
in God and a free and willing service of our neighbour out of simple
love.”
Elsewhere too he says, “Good works are performed by faith and out of
our heartfelt joy that we have through Christ obtained the remission
of our sins.... Interiorly everything is sweet and delicious, and
hence we do and suffer all things gladly.”[112] And again, just
as we eat and drink naturally, so also to do what is good comes
naturally to the believer; the word is fulfilled: Only believe and
you will do all things of your own accord;[113] as a good tree must
bring forth good fruit and cannot do otherwise, so, where there is
faith, good works there must also be.[114] He speaks of this as a
“_necessitas immutabilitatis_” and as a “_necessitas gratuita_,” no
less necessary than that the sun must shine. In 1536 he even declared
in an instruction to Melanchthon that it was not right to say that
a believer _should_ do good works, because he can’t help performing
them; who thinks of ordering “the sun to shine, a good tree to bring
forth good fruit, or three and seven to make ten?”[115]
* * * * *
Of this curious idealism, first noticed in his “Von der Freyheyt eynes
Christen Menschen,” we find traces in Luther till the very end of his
life.[116] In later life, however, he either altered it a little or
was less prone to insist on it in and out of season. This was due to
his unfortunate experiences to the contrary; as a matter of fact faith
failed to produce the effects expected, and only in rare instances and
at its very best was it as fruitful as Luther wished. The truth is he
had overrated it, obviously misled by his enthusiasm for his alleged
discovery of the power of faith for justification.
He was also fond of saying—and of this assurance we find an echo
in his last sermon—that a true and lively faith should govern even
our feeling, and as we are so little conscious of such a feeling and
impulse to what is good, it follows that we but seldom have this faith,
i.e. this lively certainty of salvation.
When a Christian is lazy, starts thinking he possesses everything and
refuses to grow and increase, then “neither has he earnestness nor a
true faith.” Even the just are conscious of sin (i.e. original sin),
but they resist it; but where there is a distaste for the beloved
Word of God there can be “no real faith.” Luther, to the detriment
of his ethics, was disposed to relegate faith too much to the region
of feeling and personal experience; this, however, he could scarcely
avoid since his was a “_fides specialis_” in one’s own personal
salvation. True religion, in his opinion, is ever to rejoice and be
glad by reason of the forgiveness of sins and cheerfully to run the
way of God’s service; this idea is prominent in his third sermon at
Eisleben. The right faith “is toothsome and lively; it consoles and
gladdens.”[117] “It bores its way into the heart and brings comfort
and cheer”; “we feel glad and ready for anything.”[118]
But because the actual facts and his experience failed to tally with
his views, Luther, as already explained, had recourse to a convenient
expedient; towards the close of his life we frequently hear him
speaking as follows: Unfortunately we have not yet got this faith, for
“we do not possess in our hearts, and cannot acquire, that joy which
we would gladly feel”; thus we become conscious how the “old Adam, sin
and our sinful nature, still persist within us; this it is that forces
you and me to fail in our faith.”[119] “Even great saints do not
always feel that joy and might, and we others, owing to our unbelief,
cannot attain to this exalted consolation and strength ... and even
though we would gladly believe, yet we cannot make our faith as strong
as we ought.”[120] He vouchsafes no answer to the objection: But why
then set up aims that cannot be reached; why make the starting-point
consist in a “faith” of which man, owing to original sin, can only
attain to a shadow, except perhaps in the rare instances of martyrs,
or divinely endowed saints?
Luther, when insisting so strongly that good works must follow “faith,”
as a moral incentive to such works also refers incidentally to our duty
of gratitude and love in return for this faith bestowed on us.
Thus in the Eisleben sermons he invites the believer, the better to
arouse himself to good works, to address God in this way: “Heavenly
Father, there is no doubt that Thou hast given Thy Son for the
forgiveness of my sins. Therefore will I thank God for this during my
whole life, and praise and exalt Him, and no longer steal, practise
usury or be miserly, proud or jealous.... If you rightly believe,” he
continues, “that God has sent you His Son, you will, like a fruitful
tree, bring forth finer and finer blossoms the older you grow.”[121] In
what follows he is at pains to show that good works will depend on the
constant putting into practice of the “faith”; the Justification that
is won by the “_fides specialis_” is insufficient, in spite of all the
comfort it brings; rather we must be mindful of the saying of St. Paul:
“If by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh you shall live.”
“But if your flesh won’t do it, then leave it to the Holy Ghost.”[122]
The motive for good works which Luther here advances, viz. “To thank
God, to praise and extol Him,”[123] is worthy of special attention;
it is the only real one he furnishes either here or elsewhere. Owing
to the love of God which arises in the heart at the thought of His
benefits we must rouse ourselves to serve Him. The idea is a grand one
and had always appealed to the noblest spirits in the Church before
Luther’s day. It is, however, a very different thing to represent this
motive of perfect love as the exclusive and only true incentive to
doing what is pleasing to God. Yet throughout Luther’s teaching this
is depicted as the general, necessary and only motive. “From faith and
the Holy Ghost necessarily comes the love of God, and together with
it love of our neighbour and every good work.”[124] When I realise by
faith that God has sent His Son for my sake, etc., says Luther, in his
Church-Postils, “I cannot do otherwise than love Him in return, do His
behests and keep His commandments.”[125] This love, however, as he
expressly states, must be altogether unselfish, i.e. must be what the
Old Testament calls a “whole-hearted love,” which in turn “presupposes
perfect self-denial.”[126]
It is plain that we have here an echo of the mysticism which had at one
time held him in thrall;[127] but his extravagant idealism was making
demands which ordinary Christians either never, or only very seldom,
could attain to.
The olden Church set up before the faithful a number of motives adapted
to rouse them to do good works; such motives she found in the holy fear
of God and His chastisements, in the hope of temporal or everlasting
reward; in the need of making satisfaction for sin committed, or,
finally, for those who had advanced furthest, in the love of God,
whether as the most perfect Being and deserving of all our love,
or on account of the benefits received from Him; she invited people
to weld all these various motives into one strong bond; those whose
dispositions were less exalted she strove to animate with the higher
motives of love, so far as the weakness of human nature allowed.
Luther, on the contrary, in the case of the righteous already assured
of salvation, not only excluded every motive other than love, but also,
quite unjustifiably, refused to hear of any love save that arising from
gratitude for the redemption and the faith. “To love God,” in his eyes,
“is nothing more than to be grateful for the benefit bestowed” (through
the redemption).[128] And, again, he imputes such power to this sadly
curtailed motive of love, or rather gratitude, that it is his only
prescription, even for those who are so cold-hearted that the Word of
God “comes in at one ear and goes out at the other,” and who hear of
the death of Christ with as little devotion as though they had been
told, “that the Turks had beaten the Sultan, or some other such tit-bit
of news.”[129]
_Some notable Omissions of Luther’s in the above Sermons on Morality_
Hitherto we have been considering what Luther had to say on the
question of faith and morality in his last sermons. It remains to point
out what he did not say, and what, on account of his own doctrines, it
was impossible for him to say; as descriptive of his ethics the latter
is perhaps of even greater importance.
In the first place he says nothing of the supernatural life, which,
according to the ancient teaching of the Church, begins with the
infusion of sanctifying grace in the soul of the man who is justified.
As we know, he would not hear of this new and vital principle in the
righteous, which indeed was incompatible with his theory of the mere
non-imputation of sin. Further, he also ignores the so-called “infused
virtues” whence, with the help of actual grace, springs the new motive
force of the man received into the Divine sonship. By his denial of
the complete renewal of the inner man he placed himself in opposition
to the ancient witnesses of Christendom, as Protestant historians of
dogma now admit.[130]
Secondly, he dismisses in silence the so-called actual grace. Not even
in answering the question as to the source whence the believer draws
strength and ability to strive after what is good, does he refer to
it, so hostile is his whole system to any co-operation between the
natural and the supernatural in man.
Thirdly, he does not give its due to man’s freedom in co-operating
in the doing of what is good; it is true he does not expressly deny
it, but it was his usual practice in his addresses to the people to
say as little as possible of his doctrine of the enslaved will.[131]
Along with faith, however, he extols the Holy Ghost. “Leave it to
the Holy Ghost!” Indeed faith itself, and the strong feeling which
should accompany it, are exclusively the work of the Holy Ghost. It
is the Holy Ghost alone Who believes, and feels, and works in man,
according to Luther’s teaching elsewhere. This action of God alone is
something different from actual grace. In the instructions he gave to
Melanchthon in 1536 concerning justification and works,[132] Luther
entirely ignores any action on man’s part as a free agent, and yet
here we have the “clearest expression” of his doctrine of how good
works follow on justification. The Protestant author of “Luthers
Theologie in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung” remarks of this work
(and the same applies to the above sermons and other statements):
“Luther is always desirous, on the one hand of depreciating man’s
claim to personal worth and merit, and on the other by his testimony
to God’s mercy in Christ, of furthering faith and the impulses and
desires which spring from faith and the spirit; here, too, he says
nothing of any choice as open to man between the Divine impulses
working within him and those of his sinful nature.”[133]
Fourthly, and most important of all, Luther says nothing of the true
significance of morality for the attainment of everlasting life.
The best and theologically most convincing reply to the objection of
which he spoke: “Well and good, then I shall sin lustily,” etc. would
have been: No, a good moral life is essential for salvation! The
strongest Bible texts would have been there to back such a statement,
and, to his powerful eloquence, it should have proved an attractive
task to crush his frivolous opponents by so weighty an argument.
Yet we find never a word concerning the necessity of good works for
salvation, but merely an account of the wonders worked by faith of
its own accord alone _after_ it has laid hold on the heart. This is
readily understood, if justification is purely passive and effected
solely by the Spirit of God which enkindles faith and, with it, covers
over sin as with a shield, then the very being of the life of faith
must be mere passivity, and there can be no more question of attaining
to salvation by means of good deeds performed with the aid of grace.
In the instruction for Melanchthon mentioned above we find at the
end this clear query: “Is this saying true: Righteousness by works
is necessary for salvation?” Luther answers by a distinction: “Not
as if works operate or bring about salvation,” he says, “but rather
they are present together with the faith that operates righteousness;
just as of necessity I must be present in order to be saved.” This
distinction, however, leaves the question just where it was before. He
concludes his remarks on this vital matter with a jest on the purely
external and fortuitous presence of works in the man received into
eternal life: “I too shall be in at the death, said the rascal when
he was about to be hanged and many people were hurrying to see the
scene.”[134]
All the more strongly did Luther in his usual way describe in his last
sermon the natural sinfulness which persists in man owing to original
sin.
The sin that still dwells within us “forces” man to prevent faith
and works coming to their own.[135] For “he is not yet without sin,
though he has the forgiveness of sins and is sanctified by the Holy
Ghost.” In consequence of the “foulness” within him “the longer he
lives the worse he gets.” “We cannot get rid of our sinful body.”[136]
For this reason even the “best minds” so often are indifferent to
eternal life. On account of the evil taint in our flesh we are
unable to rise as high as we ought.[137] But if original sin and
its workings were declared really sinful in man (for even the very
motions against “heartfelt pleasure” in God’s service are, so we are
told, “sins”[138]), then it is no wonder that Luther should have been
confronted with the question of which he speaks: “If sin be in me, how
then can I be pleasing to God?”—a question which formerly could not
have been asked of those whose original sin had been washed away in
baptism. The teaching of the olden Church had been, that original sin
was blotted out by baptism, but that the inclination to evil persisted
in man to his last breath, though without any fault on his part so
long as consent was lacking.[139]
Still less to be wondered at was it, that many, unable to regard
themselves as responsible or guilty on account of the involuntary
motions of original sin, began to doubt whether any responsibility
existed for evil actions or whether moral effort was within the bounds
of possibility.
Further, according to Luther, our constant exercise of ourselves in
faith and our “rubbing” ourselves against sin was finally to lead
“not merely to our sins being forgiven but to their being altogether
rooted up and swept away; for your shabby, smelly body could not enter
heaven without first being cleansed and beautified.”[140] Taking for
granted his mystic assumption that sinful concupiscence can at last
be “swept away,” he insists on our continuing hopefully “to amend
by faith and prayer our weakness and to fight against it until such
a change takes place in our sinful body that sin no longer exists
therein,”[141] though, in his opinion, this cannot entirely be until
we reach heaven. Yet experience, had he but opened his eyes to it,
here once again contradicted him. The “_fomes peccati_,” as the
Catholic Church rightly teaches, cannot be extinguished so long as man
is on this earth, though it may be damped, and, by the practice of
what is right and the use of the means of grace, be rendered harmless
to our moral life. The Church expected nothing unreasonable from man,
though her moral standards were of the highest. Luther, however, by
abandoning the Church’s ethics, came to teach a strange mixture of
perverted, unworkable idealism and all too great indulgence towards
human frailty.
_Luther’s Vacillation between the Two Faiths, Old and New, in the
Matter of Morality and the Assurance of Salvation_
Many discordant utterances, betraying his uncertainty and his
struggles, have been bequeathed to us by Luther regarding the main
questions of morality and as to how we may insure salvation. First we
have his statements with regard to the importance of morality in God’s
sight.
In 1537 in a Disputation on June 1 he denounced the thesis, “Good
works are necessary for salvation.”[142] In the same way, in a
sermon of 1535, he asserted that it was by no means necessary for us
to perform good works “in order to blot out sin, to overcome death
and win heaven, but merely for the profit and assistance of our
neighbour.” “Our works,” he there says, “can only shape what concerns
our temporal life and being”; higher than this they cannot rise.[143]
Yet, when thus degrading works, he had again and again to struggle
within his own heart against the faith of the ancient Church
concerning the merit of good deeds. Especially was this the case
when he considered the “texts which demand a good life on account
of the eternal reward,”[144] for instance, “If thou wilt enter into
life, keep the commandments” (Mt. xix. 17), or “Lay up for yourselves
treasure in heaven” (_ib._, vi. 20). With them he deals in a sermon
of 1522. The eternal reward, he here says, follows the works because
it is a result of the faith which itself is the cause of the works.
But the believer must not “look to the reward,” or trouble about it.
Why then does God promise a reward?—In order that “all may know
what the natural result of a good life will be.” Yet he also admits
a certain anxiety on the part of the pious Christian to be certain
of his reward, and the favourable effect of such a certainty on the
good man’s will.[145] Here he exhorts his listeners; “that you be
content to know and be assured that this indeed will be the result,”
whilst in another sermon of that same year he describes as follows the
promise of eternal life as the reward of works: “It is an incentive
and inducement that makes us zealous in piety and in the service
and praise of God.... That God should guide us so kindly makes us
esteem the more His Fatherly Will and the Mercy of Christ”—but on no
account “must we be good as if for the sake of the reward.”[146] He
also quotes incidentally Mt. xix. 29, where our Lord says that all
who leave home, brethren, etc. for His name’s sake “shall receive
a hundredfold and shall possess life everlasting”; also Heb. x. 35
concerning the “great reward” that awaits those who lose not their
confidence. Such statements, he refuses, however, to see referred to
salvation, which will be the equal portion of all true believers,
but, in his arbitrary fashion, explains them as denoting some extra
ornament of glory.[147]
* * * * *
“Good works will be present wherever faith is.” As this supposition, a
favourite one with Luther from early days, fails to verify itself in
practice, and as the expedients he proposed to meet the new difficulty
are scattered throughout his writings, an admirer in recent times
ventured to sum up these elements into a system under the following
headings: “Faulty morality is a proof of a faulty faith.” “The fact
of morality being present proves the presence of faith.” “Moral
indolence induces loss of faith.” “Zeal for morality causes faith to
increase.”[148] The true explanation would therefore seem always to
be in the assumption of a want of “faith,” i.e. of a lack of that
absolute certainty of personal salvation which should regulate all
religious life,[149] in other words moral failings should be held to
prove the absence of this saving certainty.
Seen in this light good works are of importance, as the outward
demonstration that a person possesses the “_fides specialis_,” and
in this wise alone are they a guarantee of everlasting happiness.
They prove “before the world and before his own conscience” that
a Christian really has the “faith.” This is what Luther expressly
teaches in his Church-Postils: “Therefore hold fast to this, that a
man who is inwardly a Christian is justified before God solely by
faith and without any works; but outwardly and publicly, before the
people and to himself, he is justified by works, i.e. he becomes
known to others as, and certain in himself that, he is inwardly
just, believing and pious. Thus you may term one an open or outward
justification and the other an inward justification.”[150] Hence
Luther’s certainty of salvation, however strong it may be, still
requires to be tested by something else as to whether it is the true
“faith” deserving of God’s compassion; for “it is quite possible for
a man never to doubt God’s mercy towards him though all the while he
does not really possess it”;[151] according to Luther, namely, there
is such a thing as a fictitious faith.
In Luther’s opinion “faith” was a grasping of something actually
there. Hence if God’s mercy was not there, then neither was there any
“faith.” Accordingly, an “unwarrantable assurance of salvation” was
not at all impossible, and works served as a means of detecting it.
Walther, to whom we owe our summary, does not, it is true, prove the
existence of such a state of “unwarrantable assurance” by any direct
quotation from Luther’s writings, and, indeed, it might be difficult
to find any definite statement to this effect, seeing that Luther
was chary of speaking of any failure in the personal certainty of
salvation, on which alone, exclusive of works, he based the whole work
of justification.
And yet, as Luther himself frequently says, moods and feelings are
no guarantee of true faith; what is required are the works, which,
like good fruit, always spring from a good tree.—So strongly, in
spite of all his predilection for faith alone, is he impelled again
and again to have recourse to works. In many passages they tend to
become something more than mere signs confirmatory of faith. We need
not examine here how far his statements concerning faith and works are
consistent, and to what extent the sane Catholic teaching continued to
influence him.
What is remarkable, however, is, that, in his commendable efforts
to urge the performance of works in order to curtail the pernicious
results of his doctrine, Luther comes to attribute a saving action
to “faith,” only on condition that, out of love of God, we “strive”
against sin. In one of his last sermons at Eisleben he tells his
hearers: Sins are forgiven by faith and “are not imputed _so far as
you set yourself to fight against them_, and learn to repeat the Our
Father diligently ... and to grow in strength as you grow in age; and
you must be at pains to exercise your faith by resisting the sins
that remain in you ... in short, you must become stronger, humbler,
more patient and believe more firmly.”[152] The conditional “so far
as” furnishes a key which has to be used in many other passages
where works are demanded as well as faith. Faith, there, is real and
wholesome “in so far as” it produces works: “For we too admit it
and have always taught it, better and more forcibly than they [the
Papists], that we must both preach and perform works, and that they
must follow the faith, and, that, where they do not follow there the
faith is not as it should be.”[153]
Nor does he merely say that works of charity must follow eventually,
but that charity must be infused by the Spirit of God together with
faith of which it is the fruit.
“For though faith makes us righteous and pure, yet it cannot be
without love, and the Spirit must infuse love together with faith.
In short, where there is true faith, there the Holy Ghost is also
present, and where the Holy Ghost is, there love and all good things
must also be.... Love is a consequence or fruit of the Spirit which
comes to us wrapped up in the faith.”[154] “Charity is so closely
bound up [with faith and hope] that it can never be parted from faith
where this is true faith, and as little as there can be fire without
heat and smoke, so little can faith exist without charity.”[155] From
gratitude (as we have heard him state above, p. 26) the man who is
assured of salvation must be “well disposed towards God and keep His
commandments.” But if he be “sweetly disposed towards God” this must
“show itself in all charity.”
Taking the words at their face value we might find in these and similar
statements on charity something reminiscent of the Catholic doctrine
of a faith working through love.[156] But though this is what Luther
should logically have arrived at, he was in reality always kept far
from it by his idea both of faith and of imputation. It should be
noted that he was fond of taking shelter behind the assertion, that
his “faith” also included, or was accompanied by, charity. He was
obliged to do this in self-defence against the objections of certain
Evangelicals—who rushed to conclusions he would not accept—or of
Catholic opponents. Indeed, in order to pacify the doubters, he even
went so far as to say, that love preceded the “faith” he taught, and
that “faith” itself was simply a work like any other work done for the
fulfilling of the commandments.
It was in this sense that he wrote in the “Sermon von den guten
Werken,” composed at the instance of his prudent friend Spalatin for
the Duke of Saxony: “Such trust and faith brings with it charity and
hope; indeed, if we look at the matter aright, charity comes first, or
at least simultaneously with faith. For I should not care to trust God
unless I believed He would be kindly and gracious to me, whereby I am
well disposed towards Him, trust Him heartily and perform all that is
good in His sight.” In the same connection he characterises “faith”
as a “work of the first Commandment,” and as a “true keeping of that
command,” and as the “first, topmost and best work from which all
others flow.”[157] It might seem, though this is but apparent, that he
had actually come to acknowledge the reality and merit of man’s works,
in the teeth of his denial of free-will and of the possibility of
meriting.
Of charity as involved in faith he wrote in a similar strain in 1519
to Johann Silvius Egranus, who at that time still belonged to his
party, but was already troubled with scruples concerning the small
regard shown for ethical motives and the undue stress laid on faith
alone: “I do not separate justifying faith from charity,” Luther told
him, “on the contrary we believe because God, in Whom we believe,
pleases us and is loved by us.” To him all this was quite clear and
plain, but the new-comers who had busied themselves with faith, hope
and charity “understood not one of the three.”[158]
We may recall how the enquiring mind of Egranus was by no means
entirely satisfied by this explanation. In 1534 he published a bitter
attack on the Lutheran doctrine of works, though he never returned
more than half-way from Lutheranism to the olden Church.[159]
Many, like Silvius Egranus, who at the outset had been won over to the
new religion, took fright when they saw that, owing to the preference
shown to faith (i.e. the purely personal assurance of salvation), the
ethical principles regarding Christian perfection and man’s aim in
life, received but scant consideration.
Many truly saw therein an alarming abasement of the moral standard and
accordingly returned to the doctrine of their fathers. As the ideal to
be aimed at throughout life the Church had set up before them progress
in the love of God, encouraging them to put this love in practice by
fidelity to the duties of their calling and by a humble and confident
trust in God’s Fatherly promises rather than in any perilous “_fides
specialis_.”
In previous ages Christian perfection had rightly been thought to
consist in the development of the moral virtues, particularly of
charity, the queen of all the others. Now, however, Luther represented
“the consoling faith in the forgiveness of sins as the sum of
Christian perfection.”[160] According to him the “real essence of
personal Christianity lies in the confidence of the justified sinner
that he shares the paternal love of the Almighty of which he has been
assured by the work and person of Jesus Christ.” In this sense alone
can he be said to have “rediscovered Christianity” as a religion. We
are told that “the essence of Lutheran Christianity is to be found
in Luther’s reduction of practical Christianity to the doctrine of
salvation.”[161] He “altered the ideal of religious perfection as
no other Christian before his day had ever done.” The “revulsion”
in moral ideals which this necessarily involved spelt “a huge
decline.”[162]
George Wicel, who, after having long been an adherent of Lutheranism,
broke away from it in consequence of the moral results referred to,
wrote, in 1533, with much bitterness in the defence he addressed to
Justus Jonas: “Amongst you one hears of nothing but of remitting
and forgiving; you don’t seem to see that your seductions sow more
sins than ever you can take away. Your people, it is true, are so
constituted that they will only hear of the forgiving and never of
the retaining of sin (John xx. 23); evidently they stand more in need
of being loosed than of being bound. Ah, you comfortable theologians!
You are indeed sharp-sighted enough in all this business, for were
you to bind as often as you loose, you, the ringleaders of the party,
would soon find yourselves all alone with your faith, and might then
withdraw into some hole to weep for the loss of your authority and
congregation.” “Ah, you rascals, what a fine Evangelical mode of life
have you wrought with your preachment on grace.”[163]
5. Abasement of Practical Christianity