LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION
1. Historical Outlines for Judging of his Social Work
IT would be beyond our present scope to examine in detail all the views
advanced concerning Luther’s social and economic attitude. Recent
research in social economics has already rectified many of these.
What the historian of sociology chiefly misses is any appreciation
of Luther in the light of the theories and conditions prevailing at
the close of the Middle Ages. It has been remarked quite rightly,
that, from the way in which the matter is dealt with in Protestant
Church-history and “practical theology,” it is perfectly clear that,
hitherto, the Middle Ages have in many instances been altogether
misjudged.[2165]
There is still much for historical research to do in this field.
Neglect to study as they deserved whole centuries of our history,
prolific though they were in great things, has avenged itself by the
one-sided character of the prevalent views concerning them. In the case
of many writers too much attention to the verdicts pronounced by Luther
on every possible occasion against the Church of the past is what is
chiefly responsible for their disinclination to pursue the matter
further; they are too prone to regard things from the watch-tower of
Lutheran theology. It is not so very long since hardly any paradox or
calumny against the social “disorders” prevalent amongst the clergy and
the monks, in family life and the commonwealth under Popery, was too
monstrous, provided it had been uttered by the Wittenberg Professor, to
be dished up again, though possibly under somewhat politer form, by the
occupants of Protestant pulpits and chairs of theology.
Statements such as the following, taken word for word from recent
works, which, following our habit, we shall refrain from naming, are
based on the traditional assertions of controversy and on insufficient
acquaintance with the Middle Ages.
“Luther accomplished something eminently positive when he put the
State-idea on those lines which it was ultimately to follow in his
own country.” For, “according to him, the duty of the State is
the promotion of the general welfare.” “We have the fullest right
to appeal to the spirit of his State policy, above all, because,
in opposition to the mediæval view, it conceded to the State an
independent status.” “The State, according to him, was to put in
practice in social life the principle of ‘serving our neighbour.’”
We often find all “political” as well as all “civil freedom” traced
back to Luther. He it was, so we are told, who introduced, or laid
the foundations for, the real mutual tolerance displayed by citizens
in the State, just as he did for the principle of nationality, for
scientific freedom, for the freedom for invention, and, finally, for
the freedom of the Press.
He “laid constant stress on charity towards our neighbour in direct
contrast to the individualism of the Middle Ages, when even almsgiving
resolved itself ultimately into mere selfish interest, the giver
living in hope of a heavenly reward.” “He proclaimed that: Mendicancy
was to be done away with.... The number of the destitute, and their
claim on public benevolence he reduced to a minimum. These principles
are in direct contrast with the devout and indiscriminate almsgiving
of the Middle Ages and paved the way for the modern poor-law system.”
“The sanctity of the home and the family had suffered severely
under the influence of monasticism.” Luther had to “reorganise the
methods of education in order to make, of the home and the family,
institutions for the public welfare.” He became the “father of the
modern National Schools.”
“In his plans for the maintenance and direction of civic affairs
Luther once more brought into their own the ‘principles of social
responsibility.’”
He set aside the mediæval “contempt for material things and for
labour as a means of production.” Luther performed a signal service
to economics by restoring respect for work; for, “maybe, there was
no phenomenon of mediæval life which presented a greater obstacle to
material happiness than laziness.” “Economic progress was impossible”
where the theory prevailed, that “the contemplative life was of
greater value than the active.” “Luther bestowed new dignity not only
on work in general, but also on its every branch”; according to him
“no work is degrading which serves the interests of mankind.”
He was the “guardian and promoter of the interests of society,” and
the “importance of his influence is still more enhanced by the fact
that he showed himself a conservative and guiding spirit in the midst
of social disorder and confusion of ideas.”
If this holds good of the service he rendered to society as a whole,
he was also within narrower limits the “reformer and restorer” of
family life. His own marriage was “one of his greatest reforming acts,
by which he confirmed his rehabilitation of the conjugal state, and,
by his labours as a whole, he secured to marriage, and thus to the
very foundation of family life, the prerogative of being a ‘divine
institution.’” He brought the duties of the family into respect,
whereas, formerly, “the Church, which permeated everything, had been
the cause of their neglect.”
“It remains an historical truth that the greatness of the German
people in politics, economics and intellectual life may be traced
back to those divine powers which the Reformation set free by its
recognition of the free grace of God in Christ.”
There are, however, other Protestant scholars, who are not theologians,
who regard such praise of Luther’s social importance as either quite
mistaken or at least greatly exaggerated; in their opinion Luther’s
services lay rather in his work for religion, and on behalf of the
knowledge of God and union with Him by faith.
L. Feuchtwanger, for instance, a representative sociologist, recently
spoke in tones almost ironical of the view held “by most [Protestant]
Church-historians,” who praise “the religion of Luther as having
produced autonomous ethics, the modern State, a society that despises
idleness, the German family, in short all that is great and good.”
He is of opinion that such views call for “revision”; nor would such
a revision, so he says, “detract from the eminent importance of the
reformation.”[2166] We shall speak later on of the proofs he adduces
to show the error of the “obstinate opinion,” as he terms it, “that
Protestantism created the modern system of public charity,”[2167] and
that Luther brought about the regeneration of benevolence.
E. Troeltsch, the Heidelberg theologian, says in “Die Bedeutung des
Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen Welt”: “As a matter
of fact, the importance of Protestantism must not be one-sidedly
exaggerated. The foundations of the modern world in the State, in
society, in economics, learning and art were established in a great
measure independently of Protestantism, partly as an outgrowth of
the later Middle Ages, partly as the result of the Renaissance,
particularly of the Renaissance as assimilated by Protestantism,
partly—as in the case of the Catholic countries, Spain, Austria,
Italy and especially France—after the rise of Protestantism and
concurrently with it.” “With the principle of nationalism,” writes
Troeltsch, “his [Luther’s] system of an established Church had
no connection. The latter merely promoted the solidification and
centralisation of the chief authorities, whereas the former is a
product of the entirely modern democratic awakening of the masses
and the romantic idea of a national spirit.” In another passage he
says: “There can be no question of [Protestantism] having paved the
way for the modern idea of freedom—of science, of thought, or of the
press—nor of its having inspired the scholarship which it controlled
with new aims, or led it to break new ground.”[2168]
There are even Protestants who are disposed to deny that Luther
took any interest in the State and in public affairs. “It follows
from Luther’s views of life,” writes Erich Brandenburg, the author
of “Luthers Anschauung vom Staate und der Gesellschaft,” that a
Christian neither can nor ought to care for the outbuilding of the
existing order of the State and society. For “God has thrown us into
the world and put us under the rule of the devil, so that here we
have no paradise but look forward hourly to every kind of misfortune
to life and limb, wife and child, goods and honour.’[2169]... By the
fact of his birth the Christian [according to Luther] has been given
a definite place.... To seek for a better one, or to wish to create
an entirely different state of things would be to rebel against the
Will of God. Far from its being the Christian’s duty to strive after
an improvement in the order of the State or of society, any such
striving would be really sinful.” “He [Luther] regards civil life as
merely one aspect of the probation which he has to endure on earth”;
in his eyes the struggle for political freedom simply implies an
“unlawful devotion to earthly aims, an absence of trust in God, and
an attempt to create a paradise on earth by our own strength.”[2170]
Where tyranny prevails one is not even allowed to emigrate, so Luther
insists, unless indeed the ruler will not suffer the Evangel, when
it became lawful and advisable, to seek another home.[2171] Nowadays
people have a different conception, so Brandenburg points out, of
national greatness and political freedom.[2172]
Albert Kalthoff, a Bremen preacher, who belongs to the extreme left
of the Protestant party, goes still further: “There is a considerable
amount of conceit sticking to our Protestant churches, indeed the
Reformation festival seems to afford it a fitting occasion for
celebrating each year its orgy. What is not Protestantism supposed to
have brought to the world? National freedom and prosperity, modern
science and technicology, all this we hear described as the fruit of
the tree of Protestant life; not long since I even read of a German
professor who quite seriously ascribed the whole of our present-day
civilisation to Luther.”[2173]
Luther’s favourable traits in respect of social conditions, his
eloquent admonitions on family life and love of our neighbour deserve a
high place. There is no call again to bring forward examples after all
we have quoted elsewhere. Luther is even fond of including under the
“neighbourly love” of which he so frequently speaks the whole of our
social activity on behalf of our fellow men.[2174]
His struggle against voluntary celibacy and renunciation of the
world, however ill advised, had at least one good result, viz. that
it afforded him an opportunity to speak strongly on the duties of the
home, which were so often neglected, on the importance of the humble,
everyday tasks involved in matrimony and the training of children,
on work at home and for the community, whether in a private or a
public capacity. That plentiful children were a blessing, a principle
which had always been recognised in the Christian world, he insisted
upon emphatically in connection with his advocacy of marriage. The
keeping of the fourth commandment, which had always been regarded as
the corner-stone of society, was warmly emphasised by him as regards
the relations both to parents and to other secular authorities.
It would be hard to gainsay that his teaching has bequeathed to
Protestantism a wealth of instructions on the cultivation of family
affection and the maintenance of a well-ordered household. From the
first it was beneficial to the social foundations of society, and its
good influence has been apparent even down to our own times. Luther’s
writings and sermons, as we soon shall see, also contain some excellent
admonitions against usury as well as against begging; he preaches
contentment with our lot as well as honest industry; he has also much
to say of relief of the poor and education of the young either for
the learned professions or for life in general. In the same way that
he sought to interest the community more and more in the relief of
the indigent—though by rather novel means, which it seemed to him
might take the place of the help formerly afforded by the churches,
monasteries and private charity—so also his appeals on behalf of the
schools were addressed more to the congregation, the authorities and
the State than had been customary in the days of the Church schools.
The increased share now taken by these bodies in this work, if kept
within reasonable bounds, might indeed turn out advantageous, though
the results did not reach his expectations, and in fact did not show
themselves until much later, and then were due to factors altogether
independent of Protestantism.
It must also be pointed out to Luther’s credit that he at once
vigorously withstood the communistic views which had begun to make
their appearance even before his day, as soon as experience had opened
his eyes to their dangers. He perceived the radical trend of the
Anabaptists—which it is true was not without some affinity with his
own doctrines. He came after a while to oppose in popular writings the
extravagant social demands of the peasants, and, in spite of the crass
exaggeration of his language, his tracts give many a useful hint for
the improvement of existing conditions on Christian lines.
The charge he brings against earlier times, viz. that, owing to the
too great number of clergy and religious a premium had been placed on
idleness,[2175] is perhaps not devoid of a grain of truth; nor was
his complaint that the indolence of so many people who lived by the
Church endangered the welfare of the State and was opposed to the
interests of the community altogether unjustified.[2176] The strongly
worded passages where Luther speaks in favour of work and exhorts the
authorities to cultivate and promote labour were quite in place, though
it is true they can be matched by a whole row of equally vigorous
admonitions by Catholic writers, dating from the Middle Ages and from
the years immediately preceding Luther’s day.[2177]
Owing to his having by his attacks on ecclesiastical institutions
dried up many of the existing sources of charity there can be no doubt
that indirectly he contributed to awaken those who were less well off
to a sense of their duty to work for their own living. In this wise
the sense of responsibility was aroused in the masses. The secular
authorities were also obliged to intervene more frequently owing to
the falling off in the support afforded by the Church to the needy and
oppressed, particularly in cases where all the labour and exertion of
the individual were insufficient to guarantee subsistence or legal
protection. In so far therefore, viz. in regard of the growing needs of
social life, it has been truly remarked that the religious revolution
of the 16th century smoothed the way for the material conditions of
modern society and new cultural problems; in this sense Luther assisted
in bringing about the economic conditions of the present day. We shall
say nothing here of the rise of the modern spirit with its rejection of
authority and its principle of unrestrained intellectual freedom.
Luther also helped in a certain sense to set the worldly authorities on
their own feet and to make them more independent. This was an outcome
of his violent struggle against the influence previously exerted over
the State by the olden Church, or to speak more accurately of his
assault on the Church as such, albeit it was attended by the other
eminently unfortunate results. In the course of history, according to
the Divine plan, new and useful elements not seldom spring up from evil
seed. Owing to a too close union of the two powers and the assumption
of many worldly functions by the Church, the representatives of the
latter were too often exposed in their work to a not unjustifiable
criticism. The Church was charged with being inefficient in her
management of outward business and this detracted from the respect
due to her spiritual functions; unnecessary jealousy was aroused and
social developments in themselves desirable were frequently retarded.
Thus, though the storm let loose by Luther wrought great devastation,
yet it is not to be regretted that since then many temporal forces now
transferred from the Church to the State have been set to work with
satisfactory results such as might otherwise not have been attained. In
some places certainly they had come into operation long before this,
but speaking generally, things in this respect were still in a backward
state.
* * * * *
Important factors for judging of Luther’s social work are two ideas on
which he laid great stress and which we have already discussed. One is
the separation of the Church from the world, which, albeit, in very
contradictory fashion, he attempted to carry out; the other is his plea
that the Church, which he sought to divest of all legislative power,
possessed no authority to make binding laws. What has been said already
may here be summed up anew with a few more quotations to the point.
We have in the first place the separation of the spiritual and
supernatural. Luther’s work did great harm in the sphere of the
supernatural and, so far as his influence extended, alienated society
from it.[2178] His doctrine, particularly concerning the state of man,
grace and good works was of such a nature as in reality to withdraw
society from the supernatural atmosphere, however much he might extol
the “knowledge of the free grace of God in Christ,” which he claimed
had been won by his exertions.
The detachment of the supernatural life expressed itself also in a
systematic, jealous exclusion of any worldly meddling in the spiritual
domain, for the rule of the Gospel must, according to Luther, be
something quite distinct from the worldly rule. By his principles
and his writings he materially contributed to the secularisation of
society and the State. According to him Christ simply says without any
reservation: “My kingdom is no business of the Roman Emperor.” The
spiritual rule must be as far apart from the temporal rule “as heaven
is from earth.”[2179]
“What is most characteristic of the kingdom of grace,” so writes E.
Luthardt, one of the best-known Lutheran moralists, who, however, fails
to point out its want of clearness, “is the order of grace, whilst what
is most characteristic of the kingdom of the world and the world’s life
is the order of law; they are quite different in kind nor do they run
on the same lines but belong to entirely different worlds. To the one
I belong as a Christian, to the other as a man; for we live at once in
two different spheres of life, and are at the same time in heaven and
on earth.” “Each one must keep within his own limits,” and “not make of
the Gospel outward laws for life in the world, for Jesus gave His law
only for Christians, not for the rest.”[2180]
Luthardt rightly appeals to Luther’s words: “This is what the Gospel
teaches you: It has nothing to do with worldly things, but leaves
them as God has already disposed them by means of the worldly
authorities.” “The kingdom of Christ has nothing to do with outward
things, but leaves them all unaltered to follow their own order.”
“In God’s kingdom in which He rules through the Gospel there is no
going to law, nor have we anything to do with law, but everything
is summed up in forgiveness, remission and bestowing, and there is
no anger or punishment, nothing but benevolence and service of our
neighbour.” As to the temporal matters, “there the lawyers are free
to help and advise how things are to be.” “If anyone were to try and
rule the world according to the Gospel, just think, my good friend,
what the result would be. He would break the chains and bonds that
hold back the wild and savage beasts.”[2181]—It is true that he here
altogether overlooks the fact that religion has, on the contrary, to
help in governing the world by her moral laws, restraining the “wild
and savage” elements by means of her laws, her authority and her means
of grace; just as when speaking above of the two spheres of life
in which man is placed he forgets that we are endowed with but one
conscience and one responsibility, viz. that of the Christian, which
is inseparable from man as he is at present constituted.
“Now, praise be to God, all the world knows,” says Luther, of his
sundering of the two spheres of life, “with what diligence and pains I
have laboured and still labour to distinguish between the two offices
or rules, the temporal and the spiritual, and to keep them, apart;
each one now is instructed as to his own work and kept to it, whereas
in Popery it was all so entangled and in such confusion that no one
kept within his own powers, dominion and rights.”[2182]
Protestants have found the essential difference between Protestantism
and Catholicism to consist in the fact, that, according to Luther’s
directions, Protestantism separates “religion and theology, faith
and knowledge, morality and politics, Christianity and art,” whereas
Catholicism, according to the motto of Pius X, seeks to “renew all
things in Christ.” “We know that revelation has only an inward mission
to the individual soul; the Catholic believes in its public mission
for universal civilisation.” “We should fear for the purity of our
faith and no less for morality and civilised order should these
domains ever be christianised.”[2183]
The result of forbidding the “spiritual rule” ever to encroach on the
temporal domain was so to enfeeble the precepts of ethics as to deprive
them of any real authority for making themselves felt as a power in
secular government.
With Luther everything is constructed without any basis of authority;
he proffers, as he is fond of saying, “opinions and advice,”[2184] and
even this he does without a trace of theory or method; as for binding
regulations he has none; nor has he any Church behind him that can set
up an obligatory ethical standard; he recognises indeed the universal
priesthood, but no Church with any paramount authority in spiritual
things, no hierarchy and no social institution such as the Catholic
Church is. This is the chief reason why his moral instructions lack
any definite and binding force over people’s minds. The great mass of
mankind must be guided by clear and fixed rules, counsels which address
themselves to man’s good-will are in themselves practically useless for
the direction or guidance of the masses, constituted as they are. The
Gospel, moreover, in spite of what Luther says to the contrary, though
it brings the glad tidings of salvation and forgiveness, also contains
a large number of strict moral precepts; the Divine Founder of the
Church, in His wisdom, also equipped her with full power to issue, on
the lines traced out by Himself, the commands called for by the needs
of every age. She disposes of spiritual penalties and has the right to
excommunicate offenders when this is necessary to emphasise her laws.
With Luther the last resource lay in the system of the State-Church.
The “Christian authorities” became the authorities of the congregations
(see below, p. 579 ff.).[2185] Thus the founder of the new religion
frequently requires the rulers who had rallied to his system to make
use of their power in order to lend their sanction and authority to the
ethical regulations he gave to his followers, and which he himself was
unable to enforce.
Here we shall only consider one class of cases where it was of great
importance to him to see his “opinion and advice” followed. According
to him, as Luthardt himself admits in his “Ethik Luthers,”[2186] “The
authorities were to serve and promote the cause of the Evangel....
From this Luther went on, however, to give advice which really was at
variance with his fundamental views. It is true when he demands that
the rulers should not suffer any such sects as deny the rights, etc.,
of the authorities, he was merely imposing on them the fulfilment of
one of the duties of the State,[2187] but when he requires the rulers
to make use of their powers to check the scandal of heresy and false
worship, which was the most horrible and dangerous form of scandal; or,
when heresy had been proved from Scripture, to forbid its preaching;
‘to insist on the true worship, to punish and forbid false doctrine
and idolatry and to risk everything rather than allow themselves
and their people to be forced into idolatry and falsehood’; or ‘to
banish from the land those who deny such articles as the Divinity of
Christ and the redemption,’ etc.; or again, when two opposing parties
confront each other, as, for instance, the Lutherans and the Papists,
to decide according to Scripture and forbid the party that failed to
agree with Scripture to preach,[2188]—all these and similar matters
are plainly based on the assumption that the ruler had a right to
form an independent opinion as to whether a doctrine was or was not
in accordance with Scripture, an assumption which Luther, as a matter
of fact, strongly deprecates in theory. When Luther speaks in this
way he is taking it for granted that he has to do with a Christian
ruler, who as such does not merely perform his office of ruler like the
heathen Emperor or the Grand Turk, but is influenced by the Gospel and
recognises the Word of God.”
Expressed in different words Luthardt’s ideas would amount to this:
According to Luther it is imperative that the rulers should be good
Lutherans and accept the Evangel and the Word of God as he taught it.
No other Christian ruler may venture to put the above measures in
force, for the truth is he is no Christian at all.
This leads us to look closer into Luther’s ideas on the secular
authority and the State-Church.
2. The State and the State Church
Most Protestant writers become very eloquent and go into great detail
when dealing with the main ideas Luther is supposed to have expressed
on the State and on social order.
He maintained, so they assert, and impressed strongly on all ages
to come, that the purpose of the State was to keep the peace and
uphold the right against the wicked by means of legislation and
penalties: “_Magistratus instrumentum, per quod Deus pacem et iura
conservat_.”[2189] This temporal peace was the best earthly possession
and comprised all temporal blessings; in point of fact the “true
preaching office” should, so he declared, bring peace, but with the
greater number “this is not the case,”[2190] so that the authority
of the ruler was necessary for the maintenance of outward peace.
“This worldly government,” according to him, “preserves temporal
peace, rights and life,” indeed he says it makes wild beasts into men
and saves men from becoming wild beasts.[2191] The true Evangelical
doctrine, unlike the earlier one, leads to the secular government
being regarded as “the great gift of God and His own gracious
order,”[2192] notwithstanding that all authority was instituted by God
on account of the sin that reigns in man. Human reason and experience,
and also the Holy Ghost, must teach the authorities how to fulfil
their duty. They must, so far as this is possible, work for the common
welfare of their subjects in this world. Since, according to Luther,
they must punish what is evil in their subjects’ external behaviour
and take care that “all public scandal be banished and removed,”[2193]
their task seems to trench on morals and on religion. Good sovereigns
instruct their people concerning temporal things, “how to manage
their homes and farms, how to rule the land and the people, how to
make money and secure possessions, how to become rich and powerful,”
further, “how we are to till the fields, plough, sow, reap and keep
our house.”[2194] In short the ruler must interest himself in the
needs of his subjects as “though they were his very own.”[2195] The
worldly rulers must provide for the support of their subjects, and
particularly for the poor, the widows and orphans, and extend to them
their fatherly protection.
Other fine sayings of Luther’s on this subject and on the duties he
assigns to the rulers are instanced in plenty.
The ruler “holds the place of a father, only that his sway is more
extensive, for he is not merely the father of one family, as it were,
but of as many as there are inhabitants, citizens or subjects in his
country.... And because they bear this name and title and look upon it
as in all honour their greatest treasure, it is our duty to respect
them and regard them as our dearest, most precious possession on
earth.”[2196] Luther insisted in the strongest terms on the duty of
obedience, more particularly after his experiences during the Peasant
War. He emphasises very strongly, in opposition to the fanatics, that
the secular Courts must rule and their authority be recognised, and
also that the oath must be taken when required.
He even tells the rebels: “God would rather suffer the rulers who do
what is wrong than the mob whose cause is just. The reason is that
when Master Omnes wields the sword and makes war on the pretence
that he is in the right, things fare badly. For a Prince, if he is
to remain a Prince, cannot well chop off the heads of all, though he
may act unjustly and cut off the heads of some.” For he must needs
retain some about him, continues Luther with a touch of humour; but
when the mob is in revolt then “off go all the heads.”[2197] “Even
where a ruler has pledged himself to govern his subjects in accordance
with a constitution—‘according to prearranged articles’—Luther will
not admit that it is lawful to deprive him of his authority should he
disregard his oath.... No one has the right or the command from God to
enforce a penalty in the case of the authorities.”[2198] But things
ought not to reach such a pass in the case of the prince’s government.
Obedience should make everything smooth for him. He cherishes and
provides for all, as many as he has subjects, and may thus be called
the father of them all, just as in old days the heathen called their
pious rulers the fathers and saviours of the country.[2199]
These ideas are not, however, peculiar to Luther. They were current
long before his time and had been discussed from every point of view by
Christian writers who, in turn, had borrowed them from antiquity.
In all this, which, furthermore, Luther never summed up in a theory,
all that is new is his original and forcible manner of putting forward
his ideas. “It is hardly possible to argue,” says Frank G. Ward, one of
the latest Protestant writers in this field, “that his view of the duty
of the State contained anything very new.... The opinion that the State
had an educational duty was held even in classical antiquity.”[2200]
If it was held in Pagan times, still more so was this the case in the
Christian Middle Ages. It is to classical antiquity that we just heard
Luther appeal when he referred to the “_pater patriæ_.” He had become
acquainted in the Catholic schools with the ideas of antiquity purified
by Christian philosophy.
Still, there is much that is really new in Luther’s views on the State
and the rulers which does not come out in the passage quoted above;
what is new, however, far from being applauded by modern Protestant
judges, is often reprehended by them.
As the accounts we had to give elsewhere were already so full it will
not be necessary again to go into details; it is, however, worth while
again to emphasise the conclusions already arrived at by calling
attention to some data not as yet taken into consideration.
In the first place one thing that was new was the energetic application
made by Luther in his earlier years of his peculiar principle of the
complete separation of world and Church. The State, or, rather, ordered
society (for there was as yet no political State in the modern sense),
was consequently de-Christianised by him, at least in principle, at
least if we ignore the change which soon took place in Luther himself
(see below, p. 576 f.). The proof of this de-Christianisation is
found in his own statements. In his writing of 1523, “Von welltlicher
Uberkeytt,” he expressly told the rulers of the land that they had no
concern with good people and “that it was not their business to make
them pious,” but that they were only there to rule a world estranged
from God, and to maintain order by force when the peace was disturbed
or men suffered injustice. Amongst real Christians there would,
according to Luther, be no secular rulers.[2201] Even when Luther,
in this tract of which he thought so highly, is instructing a pious
Christian ruler on his duties, he has nothing to say of his duty to
protect and further the Church, though in earlier days all admonitions
to the princes had insisted mainly on this.
His view of the two powers at work in the social order was new,
particularly as regards the spiritual sphere and the position of those
holding authority in the Church. The believing Christians in Luther’s
eyes formed merely a union of souls,[2202] without any hierarchy or a
jot of spiritual authority or power; there is in fact only one power
on earth qualified to issue regulations, viz. the secular power; the
combination of the two powers, which had formed the basis of public
order previously, was thrown over, any spiritual ruler being out of
place where all the faithful were priests. There is but a “ministry”
of the word, conferred by election of the faithful, and its one duty is
to bring the Gospel home to souls; it knows nothing of law, vengeance
or punishment.[2203] The ministry of the Word must indeed stand, but
is by no means a supervising body, in spite of the “neo-Lutheran
conception of the office,” as some Protestant theologians of the
present day disapprovingly call it.
Carl Holl, in his “Luther und das landesherrliche Kirchenregiment”
(1911), says with some truth: “Luther knows as little of a Christian
State as he does of a Christian shoemaking trade”; “Our life here
below is only Christian in so far as the individuals concerned are
Christians. Their sphere of action is not prescribed to Christians by
Christianity but rather by the divine order of nature.”[2204]—Hence
the whole public congregational system, so far as it needs laws to
govern it, must remain on a purely natural basis.
This view is confirmed by the following odd-sounding statements of
Luther’s:
Among Christians the sword can have no place, “hence you cannot make
use of it on or among Christians, who have no need of it”; still
the world “cannot and may not do without it” (this power); in other
words, as Christians, both subjects and rulers suffer injustice gladly
according to the Gospel, but, for the sake of their neighbours and
for the keeping of order in the world, both favour the use of force.
Secular rule does not extend beyond “life and limb and what is outward
on this earth.”[2205] “Our squires, our princes and our bishops,
shall see what fools they are,” when they “order us to believe the
Church, the Fathers and the Councils though there is no Word of God in
them. It is the apostles of the devil who order such things, not the
Church.” And yet “our Emperor and the clever princes are doing this
now.”[2206] Hence the princes must keep to their own outward sphere,
viz. only coerce the wicked, and not seek to rule over Christians.
“Christians can be governed by nothing but the Word of God. For
Christians must be ruled by faith, not by outward works.... Those who
do not believe are not Christians, nor do they belong to the kingdom
of Christ, but to the kingdom of the world, hence they must be coerced
and driven with the sword and by the outward government. Christians
do everything that is good of their own accord and without being
compelled, and God’s Word is enough for them.”[2207]
When Luther contrasts in this way the kingdom of Christ and the true
life of a Christian with the temporal kingdom and the functions of
the authorities, he goes so far in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,”
and even in his sermons, as strongly to depreciate the secular or
civil power. He teaches, for instance, that the Christian who holds
the office of ruler, must do things that are forbidden to Christians
as such, for instance, pronounce sentence, put to death and use other
strong measures against the unruly. But all this belongs in reality to
hell.—“Whoever is under the secular rule,” so we read in a curious
sermon in Luther’s Church-Postils, “is still far from the kingdom of
heaven, for the place where all this belongs is hell; for instance,
the prince who governs his people in such a way as to allow none to
suffer injustice, and no evildoer to go unrequited, does well and
receives praise.... Nevertheless, as explained above, this is not
appointed for those who belong to heaven but merely in order that
people may not sink yet deeper into hell and make things even worse.
Therefore no one who is under the secular government can boast that he
is acting rightly before God; in His sight it is still all wrong”; for
of Christians more is required; whoever wishes to act according to the
Gospel must ever be ready to suffer injustice.[2208] But the secular
authority must, either “of its own initiative or at the instance of
others, without any complaint, entreaty or exertion of his, help and
protect him. Where it does not he must allow himself to be fleeced
and abused, and not resist evil, according to the words of Christ.
And be assured that this is no counsel of perfection as our sophists
lyingly and blasphemously assert, but a strict command binding on all
Christians.”[2209] There is a huge gulf between the kingdom of such a
Christian and that of the “jailers, hangmen, lawyers, advocates and
such-like rabble.”
Such are the epithets Luther flings at the secular power, the State
and its ministers, whose task it is to “seek out the wicked, convict
them, strangle and put them to death.”[2210] These authorities must
indeed exist and a Christian must submit to them willingly—not for
his own sake but for that of his neighbour, i.e. for the sake of the
common good; he himself has no need of them; the behaviour of the
Christian towards this secular power must be dictated by his Christian
love for his neighbour.
A Protestant critic writes: “Luther hardly recognises any so-called
Christian State.... We find Luther warning his hearers against
seeing anything particularly useful or indispensable behind the work
of the government. The ruler’s sense of responsibility was to be
something purely human.... The Christian in fact has no need of any
ruler.”[2211] “Luther’s interest in things political (see below) is
practically nil; where the State can be of any use to him he welcomes
it and even gives it its meed of praise.... His appreciation of the
State is usually just a matter of feeling.”[2212] We come to see that
“he took no independent interest in politics.... He even goes so far
as to characterise the outward order of the State as a necessary evil.
State organisation in his eyes is simply a kind of enforced charity
towards our neighbour.”[2213]
“Luther knows no Christian State,” says another Protestant writer
of Luther’s theories. “The State is as worldly a thing as eating
and drinking”; indeed its commands and its deeds “all belong to
hell.”[2214]
This worldly bond of union is good, when, with God’s help, it follows
the dictates of reason. It is the only union that exists, for Luther
does not recognise State and Church as two unions. This, says Holl, is
now regarded “as an axiom.”[2215] We may, it is true, admit with Holl
that Luther is not quite consistent in this, but this is only because
he reverts inadvertently to the old ideas, and, even in his “Von
welltlicher Uberkeytt,” incidentally speaks of a spiritual authority
and of bishops in whom it is invested.[2216]
Some Protestant writers, quite erroneously, extol the “Christendom”
equipped with both spiritual and secular authority which Luther
substituted for the twin powers of yore. It was only owing to his want
of logic, and out of practical considerations for the interests of his
religion (see below), that he was able to endow as he did the State
with spiritual authority. And, besides, “Christendom,” to which indeed
he often enough refers, had, in reality, been completely abrogated by
him at least in the traditional sense, viz. of the kingdom of God on
earth which embraces as in one family all the baptised. For had he
not deprived baptism of its dignity and made membership of the Church
dependent on the faith of the adult?
“Luther drags away the corner stone on which the whole edifice [of
Christendom] rests,” says Holl. “According to his teaching we are
not simply baptised into the Church as was the case according to
the Catholic doctrine. Baptism, indeed, even to him, constitutes
the foundation of Christianity, but the grace of the sacrament is
only effective in those who believe in the promises offered therein
(‘_Sacramenta non implentur dum fiunt, sed dum creduntur_’).... Luther,
by making admission into the spiritual society dependent on a personal
condition, destroyed the idea of Christendom in the mediæval Catholic
sense”;[2217] this Holl regards as his chief merit.
This is undoubtedly so true, that, in the case of the wars against the
Turks, Luther refused to hear of any “Christendom” in the traditional
sense which might be pitted against the Crescent, and this on the
ground that but few of the combatants were real Christians, i.e. real
believers in the Evangel he preached.[2218] He also reserves the
honourable title of Christians, as the headings of many of his writings
show, for those who personally professed the new faith.[2219]
_Was Luther the Founder of the Modern State?_
The question seems so extraordinary, that we must hasten to say that
some of Luther’s more passionate admirers have actually claimed for him
that he prepared the way for the modern State.
The difficulty of proving that he is really entitled to such an honour
becomes obvious as soon as we recall that all modern theories of
government agree in seeing the ideal community in a well-knit body with
equal rights and equal liberties for all, religious freedom included.
The same standard of justice applies without exception to every citizen
and all religions (such at least is the programme) are esteemed alike;
moreover, to this standard of justice, all, even the monarch or the
supreme representative of the republic, must bow, seeing that the heads
of the State have ceased to be absolute.
But what, according to Luther’s theory and practice, was the position
of the Lutheran ruler in respect of his civil and religious authority?
How did it stand with the freedom and independence of his subjects,
particularly where different religious practices co-existed?
It is true that, taking his instructions to the rulers just discussed,
which he derived from his principle of the separation of Church and
world, we should expect him to recognise freedom of conscience. The
instructions, however, though seemingly addressed to all, sprang from
his opposition to the Catholic rulers. The latter, particularly in
the infancy of Protestantism, were above all to be urged to grant
entire liberty and not to trouble about religion; what Luther wished
to impress upon them was that they had no right to interfere with the
Lutheran movement within their jurisdiction.[2220]
Luther spoke quite otherwise when dealing with princes who were
favourable to his preaching, or who had introduced the new religious
system. In proportion as the rulers and municipalities that favoured
his cause grew more numerous, he came to confer on them full powers to
stamp out the Catholic faith, and even made it their duty so to do.
He also perceived all too well the extent to which zealous Protestant
princes, such as Johann of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, could further
his innovations. From that time forward he promoted the growing
authority of the sovereigns over the Churches, above all by warmly
defending the principle that in every country uniformity of worship and
doctrine must prevail, short of which there would always be “revolts
and sects,” as he said in 1526.[2221]
This was, however, to destroy the main groundwork of the modern State
theory, viz. the personal freedom of the individual. It was to
interfere with the evenness of justice and with the sacred right of
conscience. What other rights of the subject would the sovereign regard
as sacred once the door had been opened to arbitrary action in the
domain of religious practice?[2222]
The argument with which Luther conceals his selfish aim of securing new
fields for his own religious system, and veils the real motive of his
struggle against Popery, is deserving of special attention in spite of
all its frivolity.
According to Luther’s new modification of his views each locality
was to have but one form of worship. Any divergency in preaching or
worship must always sow the seeds of dissension, revolt and mob-law;
the authorities ought not to permit such a state of things if they
valued the preservation of order; so as to insure uniformity of
preaching and worship dissenting preachers must be removed. It was
for this reason that the inhabitants of Nuremberg had “silenced their
monks and shut up their monasteries.”[2223] In this way, encouraged
by the wisdom of a “prudent” town-council, which did not look beyond
the city walls, Luther came to make his notorious request to his
sovereign, viz. that Catholics who remained true to their faith
should be banished from the country; for “madcaps,” who refuse to
take the proposed arrangement in good part and in the spirit of
Christian charity, are not to be suffered among Christians but must
be swept away like “chaff from the threshing floor.”[2224] As though
the secular power had not even then ample means at its disposal for
checking or punishing any real disturbance of the peace on the part
of a congregation. At the present day we can afford to smile at the
strange reason assigned for measures so far-reaching against innocent
citizens of the State; the assertion that difference of worship gives
rise to unendurable discord sounds ridiculous to one used to the
principles of liberty paramount in the civilised States of to-day. At
any rate, this dictum did not make of Luther the founder of the modern
State.
In strange contrast with the modern ideas of justice is the excuse he
brings forward to vindicate the violent conversion to Protestantism
so often practised by the magistrates or petty rulers in their own
territories. “What is done by the regular authorities is not to be
regarded as revolt.”[2225] Is it really a fact that subversion and
violence cease to be wrong when practised by the regular authorities?
The modern State—in theory at any rate—recognises no such principle.
It must be added, that both Luther and the princes devoted to him
were fond of declaring that the really Christian rulers were bound to
put an end to insults and blasphemies against God, regardless of any
disturbance of civil life which might ensue. Luther made a beginning
by exhorting the sovereign and the congregation to abolish the Mass at
Wittenberg which, like Catholic worship in general, was a perpetual
blasphemy of God. “The regular authorities” must rise up against
“such blasphemy.” The scandal given being public, no indulgence was
to be shown by Christians.[2226] Eventually every false doctrine was
accounted a public scandal, i.e. every opinion expressed in writings
or sermons which deviated from the true Evangel. “It is the duty” of
the authorities, he says, “to punish public blasphemers ... and in
the same way they should punish, or at least not brook, those who
teach that Christ did not die for our sins, but that each one must
make satisfaction for himself.”[2227] This, according to him, was
notoriously the teaching of the Catholics.
But if the Papists and the Lutherans as they are called, “preach
against each other in a parish, town or district” and neither party
will yield, “then let the authorities step in and try the case, and
whichever party does not agree with Scripture, let him be ordered
to hold his tongue.”[2228] Thus the official delegated by the
prince—where the prince himself was loath to take the chair—is to
decide which is the true meaning of the Bible, and which party really
conforms to it.
How opposed this was to the ground principles of the modern State
it is scarcely necessary to point out here. The freedom postulated
by the latter was absolutely unknown to Luther; had his mind ever
risen to such heights he would never have proposed the farcical Bible
examination to be held by the authorities.
The relation between such demands as these and Luther’s own former
attitude has not escaped the censure of Protestant writers.
“Luther here contradicts himself,” remarks Drews;[2229] “as late as
1524 he had said that men must be allowed to disagree, and a year
later that the authorities have no right to prevent every man from
‘teaching and believing whatever he wished, whether it be Gospel or
lie’; it was sufficient if they checked the preaching of rebellion and
any disturbance of the peace.”[2230]
The Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony adopted the view that
uniformity of doctrine was called for. He would, so he declared,
“recognise or tolerate no sects or divisions in his lands or
principalities,” in order the better “to prevent harmful revolt and
other unrighteousness.” But at the same time he assured his subjects
that it was not his intention to “prescribe to anyone what he should
hold or believe.”[2231]
_The Prince as Absolute Patriarch_
Things drifted, thanks to Luther’s own action, slowly but surely
towards an entire control of the Church by the State. Luther knew of
no better means of stimulating the Evangelical rulers to take action
in ecclesiastical things than by setting up before them the example of
King David.
He describes in 1534, in his exposition of Psalm ci. (c.),[2232] how,
in order to exterminate false doctrine, David “made a visitation of
the whole of his kingdom.” “He always checked any public inroads of
heresy. For the devil never idles or sleeps, hence neither must the
spiritual authorities be idle or slumber.” “Oh what a great number of
false teachers, idolaters and heretics was he not obliged to expel,
or in other ways stop their mouths.... The true teachers on the other
hand he had everywhere sought out, promoted, called, appointed and
commanded to preach the Word of God purely and simply.... He himself
diligently instituted, ordered and appointed true teachers everywhere,
himself writing Psalms in which he points out how they are to teach
and praise God.” “David in this was a pattern and masterpiece to all
pious kings and lords ... showing them how they must not allow wicked
men to lead souls astray.”[2233] “I say again, let whoever can, be
another David and follow his example, more particularly the princes
and lords.”[2234] David, so he continues later, led “pious kings
and princes rightly and in a Christian manner to the churches,” but
he was also a “model in secular government,” which “can have its own
rule apart from the kingdom of God”; to this all Popish princes should
restrict themselves and not try to instruct Christ how to rule His
Church and spiritual realm.[2235]
Hence all that he had once written quite generally of the separation
of the kingdom of God with “its own rule” from the “worldly
government” was in fact, as he now says more outspokenly, only to
apply to the “false priestlings,” and their princes.
But when according to David’s example a Lutheran preacher “by virtue
of his office,” or a Lutheran prince, demanded the suppression of the
false teaching, this “spiritual rule is nothing more than a service
offered to God’s own supremacy”; the Lutheran prince is not thereby
intruding on the “spiritual or divine authority but remains humbly
submissive to it and its servant.”
“For, when directed towards God and the service of His Sovereignty,
everything must be equal and made to intermingle, whether it be
termed spiritual or secular.” “Thus they must be united in the same
obedience and kneaded together as it were in one cake.”[2236]—It is
hardly possible to believe our eyes when we meet with such phrases
coming from the same pen that had formerly so strongly championed the
complete sundering of the spiritual from the temporal. Yet Luther even
seeks to justify the contradiction on more serious grounds. When it
was a case of the true Word of God and of the Evangel, then matters
stood quite otherwise.
“The secular and spiritual government” are most improperly confused,
so he declares, when “spiritual or secular princes and lords seek
to change and control the Word of God and to lay down what is to
be taught or preached”; here he is referring to the non-Lutheran
authorities. Quite a different thing is it “when David concerns
himself with the divine or spiritual government,” and really restores
God’s glory. Had David said: “My good people, act differently from
what God has taught you,” then this would indeed have spelt a
“confusion of the spiritual and temporal, of the divine and human
government”—such as Luther’s opponents are now guilty of. But David,
the servant of God and pattern of all pious princes and kings, because
he acted otherwise, was adorned with such high and kingly virtues even
in his temporal government that it must have been the work of God,
i.e. His peculiar grace; but this same grace is with all pious princes
in order that, under their sway and in spite of the hatred of the
devil, the temporal rule and “God’s own Rule” may prosper. Supported
by such grace David could say of the two authorities he combined: “I
suffer neither ungodly men in the spiritual domain nor yet evildoers
in the temporal.”[2237]
Thus, in the hands of a pious Evangelical prince, the co-existence of
these two rules involves no disturbance of order. And they may all
the more readily be put into the hand of one who serves God according
to His “Word” seeing that there is in reality but a single power;
according to Luther, the hierarchy having been destroyed, there was
no one holding spiritual authority; as for the semblance of spiritual
authority which the congregation had once possessed it had willingly
resigned it into the hands of the Christian David on the princely
throne. There is but one authority that embraces everything temporal
and spiritual and that works in the two “governments” (read: spheres
of life), i.e. in the temporal life of the subjects, which is founded
on reason and earthly laws, and in the spiritual domain to which the
Gospel lifts them up. In both orders man is admonished to obedience
towards God by the pious ruler who regulates everything either himself
or by means of the preachers.
Thus Luther’s conception of the State finally grows into a kind of
theocracy.
The theocracy of the Israelites is therefore held up to the rulers
in the example not only of David but also of the other pious Jewish
kings. In the political sphere Old Testament imagery exercised far
too great an influence on Luther and his arbitrary new creations. How
widely different from the Jewish theocracy was it to see the Father
of the country made the highest authority not merely on practical
questions of Church government but even on differences concerning
faith? The “absolute patriarch”[2238] at Luther’s express demand drives
his negligent or reluctant subjects to hear the preachers; on him
depends the introduction and use of the greater excommunication, should
this weapon ever become necessary; he removes from their posts those
professors of the theological or other faculties who oppose the ruling
faith, just as he makes his authority felt on the preacher who forsakes
the right path. He is, according to Luther, the chief guardian of the
young and of all who need his protection, in order, that, where his
subjects do not take thought for their salvation and act accordingly,
he may “force them to do so, in the same way as he obliges them to
give their services for the repair of bridges, roads and ways, or to
render such other services as their country may require.”[2239]
On one occasion Luther points out, that in the past, the Pope of Rome
had been all in all. Now it is the sovereign of the land, who, as God’s
own Vicar, is all in all.
Thus we have here, writes Frank Ward in his “Darstellung der Ansichten
Luthers vom Staat,” “almost the counterpart of the old ecclesiastical
absolutism, seeing that all ecclesiastical functions and conditions
so far as they belong to the outward domain are put under the
State.”[2240] Instead of its being “almost the counterpart,” it would
be better to say that it was an absolute caricature of the supposed
ecclesiastical absolutism of the past. Ward, however, goes on to say
that in the chapter in question he had only shown how, “Luther gave the
State an independent dignity and position, and how he had enlarged and
strengthened its claims.”
In direct contrast to those writers who see in Luther’s political
theory the foundation of the modern State, is a recent statement of
Heinrich Boehmer’s.
“Luther’s political and social views,” says this author,[2241] “are
in every essential point quite mediæval, antiquated and unmodern.
People speak of ‘Luther’s views’ or even of ‘Luther’s teaching on
the State and society.’ But it would be better to refrain from using
such terms which can only serve to arouse false expectations. As
little as the reformer was familiar with the words state and society,
so little did he know their meaning. For no State or society in the
modern sense of the word existed at the time in central or northern
Germany, but merely a large number of bodies somewhat resembling
States, all of which, however, fell far short of the ideal of a
State.” He goes on to explain, that, for this reason, Luther always
speaks to the “authorities,” they being in his eyes the most potent
factor in the political organisations he knew; yet, in determining
their duties, “his mind moves on quite mediæval lines”; “in the
matter of political theory he is far behind even Thomas of Aquin,
for Thomas had, in the Italian cities, an example of a far more
highly developed State, whilst in the school of Aristotle he had made
acquaintance with a number of political ideas and views which had led
him to a very thorough study of politics.” Boehmer points out that,
according to Luther, the Natural Law upbears the outward order with
which alone he was conversant—viz. the landed-aristocratic society
which predominated at the time of the reformation—until it came to
appear as almost a divine institution, any attempt to overthrow which
amounted to a crime, “a view which indeed explains much of the success
of Lutheranism, but which is anything but modern.”[2242]
Luther’s “Patriarchal theory,” according to H. Boehmer, had an even
greater influence on the political conditions of Lutheran countries
than his other theory of the rights of the nobility. The princes
within the domain of the new church system entered eagerly into the
theory of their supposed paternal rights and finally built it out
into a quite insufferable absolutism. Such an undue growth of the
secular power was the more to be feared seeing that any independent
spiritual power, which might, as in the Middle Ages, have served as
a counterweight, no longer existed, having been swallowed up in the
authority of the prince. Everything had indeed been secularised, and,
to the Lutheran ruler, as God’s own representative, it now was left to
direct the religious and temporal concerns of the population on the
lines laid down in the Bible.
“The Lutheran prince,” says Boehmer, “as father of the country,
undertook to provide for his subjects in every department of life; his
rule was absolute, though indeed patriarchal, an ideal of the State
quite in accordance with Luther’s views.”[2243]
“Any separation or division of Church and State Luther neither
recognised nor desired,” now that he had invested the Evangelical
princes with the supreme episcopate.[2244]
The term “Zwangskultur,” often used of the absolutism obtaining in
the Lutheran order of society, is not altogether incorrect, in spite
of the protests of Protestant theologians. Other Protestant authors
find a parallel between Luther’s view of the State and certain late
mediæval ones; both, according to them, have been influenced by
humanism, with its Cæsarean conception of unfreedom, and by theocratic
absolutism.
Carl Sell notes how the Reformation, “in its own way, put new
life into the mediæval idea of a new theocracy.” “How deeply the
theocratical idea was rooted in the Protestant State-system may
be seen from the time it took before the States would consent to
surrender their religious character.”[2245]
After the Reformation, says G. Steinhausen, “the theological spirit
more than ever laid hold of the world and mankind and fettered the
ardent longing for freedom. Herein lies the chief harm wrought by the
Reformation.”[2246]
“It was the Reformation,” so O. Gierke says, “that brought about
the energetic revival of the theocratic ideal. In spite of all
their differences Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin agree in
emphasising the Christian call, and, consequently, the divine right
of the secular authority. Indeed, on the one hand by subordinating
the Church more or less to the State, and on the other by making the
State’s authority dependent on its fulfilling its religious duties,
they give to the Pauline dictum ‘All authority comes from God’ a far
wider scope than it had ever had before.”[2247]
_Luther’s Real Merit and his Claims_
If anyone ever really believed that the modern State was in any way
embodied in Luther’s ideal or that he paved the way for it, the
easiest way to disprove such an assumption would be to show that the
most essential feature of the modern State is entirely wanting in the
Lutheran, patriarchal one, viz. freedom and the political co-operation
of the people, and, above all, the vital atmosphere of personal and
corporate independence in religious matters.
In point of fact the most that can be argued is that Luther to some
extent, though in an entirely negative way, paved the road for the
modern conception of the State.
This he did by his relentless opposition to the Church, which had so
long held sway. As early as the days of Boniface VIII attempts had been
made to curtail her action in politics. The efforts of some of the
Catholic sovereigns, who, without denying the inherent rights of the
spiritual authority, laboured to establish State-Churches also tended
in the same direction. Luther was, however, the first who sought to
destroy all ecclesiastical authority, as a mere symbol of Antichrist.
Hence, for those rulers who took his part, one of the chief obstacles
that had withstood the growth of modern conditions was swept away.
Nevertheless, wellnigh three hundred years, full of gloomy experiences,
had to elapse before a way could be found out of the new labyrinth of
despotism, indolence and disorder; and, all this while, the theocratic
patriarch of Lutheranism almost invariably stood as an obstacle in the
way of development.
Frank Ward may indeed assert, that it is possible “to appeal at
least to the spirit of his theory of the State, if not to its every
detail.”[2248] This, however, is only possible if by “its spirit”
we understand not what was new but the old, wholesome, traditional
elements which Luther retained, i.e. the political ideas handed down
by antiquity and the Christian philosophy of the past, on which he so
skilfully impressed his own drastic touch. To these olden elements
Luther was, however, scarcely fair.
According to what he says and reiterates there had devolved on him
alone the incredibly onerous task of finding a way out of the gruesome
darkness into which the relations between prince and hierarchy, State
and Church, spiritual and temporal order had been plunged in the
past: “This is how things stood then. No one had heard or taught, nor
did anyone know anything concerning the secular authority, whence
it came, what its office or work was, or how it should serve God.
The most learned men—I will not name them—looked upon the secular
power as a heathen, human and ungodly thing, as a state dangerous to
salvation.... In short princes and lords, even such as wished to be
pious, regarded their station and office as of no account.... Thus the
Pope and the clergy were at that time all in all, over all and in all,
like a very god in the world, and the secular power lay unknown and
uncared for in the darkness.”[2249]
Yet he himself had abased the authorities by reducing them in his
writing of 1523 to the position of “jailers and hangmen,” working in a
domain foreign to all that was spiritual.[2250] This, of course, was
at a time when he had not as yet found patrons amongst the rulers as
he was to do later. According to him, those who wielded the secular
power, i.e. the princes, were no Christians. In 1522 he complains of
the princes to whom he had appealed in vain: “Now they let everything
go and one stands in the way of the other. Some even help and further
the cause of Antichrist. They are at loggerheads and do not show
themselves at all willing to help matters on.”[2251] Thus, according
to him, Christ is left to Himself; but “He is the Lord of life and
death.... Together with Him we too shall conquer and despise even the
princes.”[2252] “God Himself will shortly make an end of Popery by His
Word.... A new Church will arise but not by the doing of the princes
but of those in whom the Word of God has really taken root.”[2253]
Luther then wished, as we have already shown, to bring about the
establishment of a Congregational Church; later on he even dreamed
of assembling together only the true believers. As, however, the
Congregational Churches did not thrive and as it proved impossible
to carry out the scheme of a Church apart, he allowed the State to
intervene, and, with its help, there came the National Church; this
soon grew into a State-Church with the sovereign at its head.
Luther still remained, however, the great teacher. He continued to
vaunt his ambiguous “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt.” In 1529 he even
related how Duke Frederick had caused this writing to be copied and
“specially bound; he was very fond of it because it showed him what
his position was.”[2254] In 1533, looking back on the whole of his
writings concerning the authorities he says: “In Popery such views
of the secular power lay under the bench”; “since the time of the
Apostles no doctor or scribe” has instructed the worldly estates so
“well and outspokenly” as he, not even “Ambrose and Augustine.”[2255]
We may here recall the sober and perfectly true remark of Fr. v.
Bezold. Luther may have plumed himself on having been the first to
revive a right understanding of and respect for the secular authority,
but that “the indefensibility of this and similar claims has long
since been demonstrated.”[2256]
Luther’s error is evident, though unfortunately not to all, as we can
convince ourselves by reading the eulogies of Luther which are still so
common under the pen of Protestant writers; for instance, that Luther
had “deepened Augustine’s view of the State”; that he was ever moving
forward “in a straight line,” expanding and perfecting the knowledge
already acquired; and that even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt” “he
was already at his best,” etc.
It may, therefore, be all the more useful to look a little more closely
into one side of the present subject which has not yet been dealt with
but which leads to interesting disclosures, viz. into the question of
the various circumstances, some outward, some inward and personal,
which led Luther to evolve his theory of the patriarchal, absolutist
State. Here the Visitation of 1527-28 stands out as a milestone on the
road of his development.
_Other Factors which assisted in the Establishment of the State-Church_
It was a common phenomenon in all the earlier struggles against the
ecclesiastical hierarchy for the separatists to seek for support and
assistance from the secular power and the State. From the time of the
earliest controversies in the Church this tendency had been noticed
among those who broke away. Luther too, from the time of his first
public rupture, had cast his eyes on the secular power; nay, even
earlier, in his Commentary on Romans, he betrays a tendency to put the
secular before the spiritual.[2257]
To these ideas he gave full play in the call to reform the Church which
he addressed “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.”
For the next few years, however, the ideas are less to the fore. Luther
was very well aware that a quiet and gradual procedure would appeal
far more to the then Elector, Frederick the Wise, than any urging on
of the innovations at high pressure and with State interference. The
Elector was in fact so averse to taking any strong measures, that on
the contrary he frequently impressed on the Wittenberg leaders the need
there was for caution.
Matters assumed another aspect, when, in 1525, there came a change of
ruler. The Elector Johann of Saxony was a zealous friend of Luther’s
and soon became the real patron of Lutheranism. His attitude towards
the innovations, taken with Luther’s new tendencies, constituted a
prime factor in the rise of a State-governed Church.
Another factor was the condition of the Lutheran congregations which
had so far sprung up. They were scattered and devoid of organisation.
Not seldom they bore within them seeds of dissension born as they had
been out of quarrels within the parishes, and maintained for the most
part only by the violent action of a majority of the council. The
petty rulers naturally sought to link themselves up with the greater
powers so as to maintain both the ecclesiastical innovations and their
newly acquired rights. The sovereign was a pillar of strength on whom
they leaned, when in doubt, when it was a question of defending the
preachers they had appointed, of removing persons they regarded with
disfavour, or of allaying disputes amongst the burghers.
To all this, however, must be added a further circumstance which
contributed to bring about the State supremacy of a later date, viz.,
the corruption of many of the newly formed congregations, a corruption
which urgently called for a strong hand and adequate means of coercion.
“When, after the Peasant War,” writes Carl Müller, “the dreadful
decline in things ecclesiastical made itself felt, the parsonages and
schools threatening to fall into ruins and the agricultural population
to relapse into savagery, the time arrived for the rulers of the land
to come into greater prominence. It was now no longer a question of
individual congregations but rather of the whole country, and above all
of the rising generation.”[2258]
The intervention of the prince subsequent to the victory over the
peasants in 1525 also greatly promoted the increased devotion with
which men of influence, Luther included, attached themselves to the
authority of the ruler as a bulwark against revolution. The arrogance
of the country folk had to be broken by strengthening the power of the
sovereign; this Luther repeated so often and so loudly that his foes
began to call him a footlicker of the princes.
_Significance of the Visitation and Inquisition held in the Saxon
Electorate_
The decisive importance, for the inward development of the new Church
system and for Luther’s position, of the Visitation of the churches
of the Saxon Electorate held in 1528 has already been pointed out
cursorily.[2259] The Visitation brought to a head a growth which had
long been in process. The princely supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs
which then came about and was formally sanctioned in Saxony became,
with Luther’s consent, which was partly given freely, partly wrung
from him, something permanent in the birthplace of the new Church, the
Visitations continuing to be carried out in the same way by the prince
of the land. Saxony provided a model which was gradually followed in
other districts where Lutheranism prevailed, while the then tendency
to strengthen the reigning houses so as to enable them to hold their
own against Emperor and Empire also exercised a powerful influence.
The Electoral Visitation which Luther had counselled and to which
he most zealously lent his help, had for its aim, according to
his own words, which we must take in their most literal sense,
“the constituting of the churches” because “everything is now so
mangled.”[2260] So much did he expect from it that he even expressed
the hope that it would clear up for the future the whole problem of
the new “Church” and its organisation, which, strange to say, he had
never seen fit to think out theoretically. As a matter of fact it
was “cleared up,” and that by the very programme for the Visitation
issued by the Court. What was to be instituted was to be neither a
Church apart, nor a number of free Congregational Churches, nor a great
independent National Church, but a State Establishment, a compulsory
Church in fact, though calling itself a National Church upheld by the
charity of the State.[2261]
We have the programme of the Visitation in the three documents
which follow in chronological order, the “Instructions” for the
Visitors themselves issued by the Elector on June 16, 1527,[2262] the
“Instructions of the Visitors addressed to the ministers of the Saxon
Electorate” and the Preface to the same which Luther composed, both of
which appeared in print together in March, 1528.[2263]
It can scarcely be doubted that Luther had a hand in the drafting
of the Electoral Instructions, which form a sort of Magna Charta
of princely supremacy in Church matters. All his previous written
communications with the Court had been tending towards this end. In his
earliest efforts to bring about the Visitation he had told the ruler
that it pertained to his “office” to see that the Evangelical workers
were remunerated, that, into his hands “as the supreme head” had fallen
“all the monasteries and foundations” and, with them, the “duty and
obligation of seeing into a matter in which no one else could or had a
right to interfere.” “Not God’s command alone but our own needs require
that some step should here be taken.” Thus he demands that the prince,
by virtue of his own authority as “one appointed by God for the matter
and empowered to act,” should nominate four persons as Visitors, who by
his “orders should arrange for the erection and support of schools and
parsonages where this was wanted”; of these persons, two were to attend
to the material needs, and two who had had a theological training were
to examine into the doctrine, preaching and performance of spiritual
duties.[2264]
Such were the “principles which were eventually carried into practice.
For ages after, the Lutheran sovereigns asserted their right to
draw up rules concerning the doctrine and constitution of their
National Churches, and, to this end, not only laid claim to the old
ecclesiastical revenues but also to the right to levy special taxes on
their subjects.”[2265]
Luther was moved to take up his new standpoint not merely by the needs
of the day but also by pious Lutherans, such as Nicholas Hausmann, the
pastor of Zwickau, who by examples taken from the Bible had pointed
out to the Elector himself what his rights and duties were in this
field;[2266] an even stronger influence was, maybe, exerted on him
by the lawyers of the Court, who were intent on making the most of
the rights of the sovereign, especially by Chancellor Brück, their
spokesman, with whom Luther was brought into closer contact when
seeking to remedy the existing distress. He himself, as we shall see,
hesitated a little about entering upon this new course. The supremacy
of the prince nevertheless seemed inevitably called for by the
secularisation of Church property, also for the appointment and payment
of the pastors, for the removal of incapable preachers and those who
excited the mob,—especially those of “fanatic” inclinations—and,
lastly, for the final and violent uprooting of Catholic worship where
it still lingered.
A Visitation was begun in the Electorate in Feb., 1527, by a very
characteristic commission appointed by the sovereign assisted by the
University of Wittenberg; it was composed of the following members: the
lawyer, Hieronymus Schurff, the two noblemen Hans von der Planitz and
Asmus von Haubitz, and Melanchthon. The Electoral Instructions of June,
1527, referred to above were the result of previous experience, and had
the approval of both Luther and Melanchthon. The practical experience
already gained also proved useful in the drawing up of the “Unterricht
der Visitatorn an die Pharhern” which was of a more theological and
practical character. It is almost entirely the work of Melanchthon,
though it was formally approved and accepted by Luther after some
slight alterations. It was sent to Luther by the Elector, who had
carefully gone into its details, and who directed him to look through
it and also write an historical preface (“narration”) to it, though
the work as a whole was to appear to come from the Court. In due time
both the “Instructions” and the Preface were sent to the press by the
Elector.
What had transpired of the contents of the “Unterricht” had already
aroused considerable opposition within the Lutheran camp; it was
displeasing to the zealots to find Melanchthon again returning half-way
to the Catholic doctrine in the matter of penance, free-will and good
works. They openly declared that official Lutheranism was “slinking
back.” After its appearance further criticism was aroused among both
Protestants and Catholics. Of the Catholic writers, Cochlæus ironically
drew attention in his “_Lutherus septiceps_” to the withdrawal that had
taken place from Luther’s former crass assertions. He also incidentally
describes the strange appearance of the State Visitors: “Here comes the
Visitor wearing a new kind of mitre, setting up a new form of Papacy,
prescribing new laws for divine worship, and reviving what had long
since fallen into disuse and dragging it forth into the light once
more.”[2267] Joachim von der Heyden in his printed letter to Catherine
Bora even declared, that, in the rules for the Visitation, Luther “had
resumed the Imperial rights,” which he had “for a while discarded.”
He is referring to certain of the rules dealing with Church property,
which were to Luther’s personal interest.[2268]
The Elector’s Instruction to the Visitors themselves is, however, of
even greater importance in the history of the rise of the Lutheran
State Church.
“In this Instruction, not only do we meet everywhere with traces of
Luther’s wishes,” but it also follows him “in applying the property of
monasteries and pious foundations to the support of the churches and
schools. In all this, true to Luther’s ideas, it sees the duty of the
sovereign who constitutes the Christian authority.”[2269]
In this Instruction the attitude adopted by the Elector with regard to
doctrine is, that, in view of the Word of God,[2270] he, the supreme
lord, is not free to brook the practice of false worship and the
teaching of false dogma in his lands. What the true doctrine really
is, is taken for granted as known, though it is never expressly
stated. On the other hand, in the Preface to the “Unterricht,” Luther
tells, how, “now, by the unspeakable grace of God the Gospel has
mercifully been brought back to us once more, or, rather, has dawned
on us for the first time.”[2271] It was the duty of the sovereign, so
the Instruction says, to abolish public scandals and hence to remove
unworthy clerics. He must proclaim the Gospel to his subjects by means
of those called to do so, and admonish them through the Visitors to
take the same to heart. The congregations must, when necessary, assist
in supporting the preachers. The Visitors had the right to insist in
the sovereign’s name on the contributions called for by the law, and
into their hands the Elector committed the management of the Church
property.
The ruler must take steps, as the divinely appointed authority, in
obedience to the Word of God, and in the interests of his country to
abolish the remnants of Popish error by means of a Visitation. Those
ministers who were papistically inclined were simply to be removed and
all the preachers “who advocate, preach or hold any erroneous doctrine
are to be told to quit our lands in all haste and also, that, should
they return, they will be severely dealt with.” Whoever refuses to
abide by the regulations of the sovereign in the dispensing of the
sacraments, is to leave the Electorate. For, “though it is not our
intention to prescribe to anyone what he is to hold or believe, yet
we will not tolerate any sect or division in our principality in order
to prevent harmful revolt and other mischief.”[2272]
Thus a formal “Inquisition” was introduced, even to the very name,
which was to be undertaken by the Visitors in respect not merely
of the clergy but even of the laity, attention being paid to the
information laid before the Visitors by the officials and members
of the nobility. Any layman who refused to desist from his “error”
when summoned to do so was obliged within a certain term to sell out
and leave the country “with a warning of being severely dealt with”
similar to that addressed to clergymen.
Hence by means of this “Instruction” the foundation was laid for
the State supremacy in religious matters. “Spalatin’s wish was now
fulfilled,” says N. Paulus; “the sovereign had now put the ‘Christian
bit’ in the mouth of all the clergy, and they could now preach nothing
else than the Lutheran doctrine.”[2273] “Oh, what a noble work it
would be,” Spalatin had written in 1525, when first proposing such
a use of the ‘bit,’ “and what great good would result for the whole
of Christendom.”[2274] “Spalatin’s pious wish,” drily remarks Th.
Kolde, “was to be more thoroughly realised than probably he bargained
for.”[2275]
Luther himself was pleased with the Instructions. He never ventured to
bring forward any real objection against it, greatly as the document
ran counter to his earlier principles; after the appearance of the
“Unterricht” addressed to the pastors, headed by Luther’s remarkable
preface, it was once more printed without any protest. Yet the Preface
bears witness to his misgivings.
_Luther’s Misgivings in the Preface to the Visitors’ Directions_
The standpoint taken up by the Wittenberg Professor in his Preface
to the “Unterricht” is so curious that it has even been said that a
“manifest contradiction” exists between it and the Instructions which
follow.[2276]
In it, albeit cautiously, he made certain reservations, which show
that the absolutist system of Church government proposed by the Prince
did not really appeal to him. It is clear he did not feel quite at
ease about the Instructions, because of his former advocacy of the
independence of the congregations in ecclesiastical matters, because of
the future subserviency of Church to State and because the directions
were at variance with honest convictions deeply rooted in his mind from
the days of his youth. At the same time his misgivings are expressed
only with the greatest restraint.
He says: “Although His Electoral Highness is not commanded to
teach and to exercise a spiritual rule, yet it is his duty as the
secular authority to insist that no dissensions, factions and
revolt take place among his subjects”; for which reason too the
Emperor Constantine had exhorted the Christians to unity in faith
and doctrine. He adds: His Highness, the Prince, had settled on the
Visitation at Luther’s request “out of Christian charity and for God’s
sake, though this was not indeed required of him as a secular ruler.”
These, however, were mere Platonic excuses by which he sought to
reassure himself, to explain the contradictions involved in his
position, and, probably, to defeat those who looked askance at this
Visitation ordained by the State.
It is easy to perceive from the language of the Preface that one of
the writer’s objects was to meet the objections he feared from his own
party. Among the ministers were some, who, it was to be apprehended,
would “ungratefully and proudly despise” the action of the Prince;
“madcaps, who out of utter malice cannot tolerate anything that is
common and applies to all.” These he reminds of the sovereign’s powers
of coercion by which they would be “sundered.” Seemingly he also tries
to defend himself from the very natural charge of having introduced
an incompetent authority into the Church Visitation; this he does by
limiting the sovereign power as we just heard him do. The charge, that
the Instructions of the Visitors were untrue to his former doctrine
(he means more particularly that of good works) he answers by a
rhetorical assertion to the contrary.
He also thinks it necessary to defend the measures aimed at those
whose belief is different; this he does by a reference to the “unity
of the spirit,” which sounds rather strange coming from him. To
the Catholics who were obliged to quit their country since, for the
sake of peace, conformity was required, Luther sends the following
greeting: “Be careful to keep, as Paul teaches, the unity of the
spirit in the bond of peace and charity Amen” (Eph. iv. 3).
When judging the Preface the fact must be taken into account
that the “Unterricht” which Luther is launching on the public
introduces amongst other things the office of the “super-attendents”
(superintendents). In these directions coercion is defended in the
strongest terms. Whoever preaches or teaches “against the Word of
God,” what is “conducive to revolt against the authorities,” is to be
“prohibited” from doing so by the Superintendent; if this be of no
avail then the matter is to be “notified at once to the officer, in
order that His Electoral Highness may take further steps.” All this
simply on the authority of the sovereign.
Hence had Luther really wished, as has been asserted, to protest
against the powers claimed by the sovereign and his Visitors this
should have been very differently worded.
The passage regarding the “super-attendent” in itself shows that
Luther did not regard the “Unterricht” merely as a spiritual guide,
as has been recently asserted, or as representing that purely
spiritual function which, according to him, is concerned only with
the conscience, with doctrine and advice, and knows nothing of any
law or command. This naturally follows from the above, even though
the elastic Preface contains a qualifying statement, viz. that he
could not allow the directions in the “Unterricht to be issued as a
strict law lest we set up new Papal Decretals”; it is his intention to
send them forth as a “history or account, and also as a testimony and
confession of our faith.” In this, again, we can only see his desire
to explain away the disagreeable expedient into which he had been
forced by circumstances.
Since the beginning of the Church, he goes on, there had always been
an episcopal Visitation though now this had ceased and “Christendom
lay torn and distracted”; none of us (the Wittenberg Professors)
having been called or definitely appointed to this, he had come “to
play the part of conscience” and had moved the sovereign to take this
step. In other words, no one on earth has the right to “constitute”
new churches, not even the man who discovered the new Evangel; it was
merely a venture on Luther’s part, when, owing to the urgency of the
case, he called in the assistance of the secular power. Such a mental
process, is, to say the least, highly involved.
It is sufficiently evident that this Preface, inscribed, so to speak,
over the portals of the new State-governed Church, may lay claim to
great psychological interest.
The interest deepens if we turn our attention to the demonological
ideas Luther here brings into play. At that time he was suffering from
the after-effects of his dreadful struggles with the “devil” (1527-28)
and with his own conscience. That, here too, the devil might not be
absent, he shows in the Preface how Satan had wrought all sorts of
mischief amongst the Papists (this is Luther’s consolation) by neglect
of the Visitations, and had set up nothing but “spiritual delusions and
monk-calves.”[2277] The “idle, lazy bellies” had been forced to serve
Satan. He gives this warning for the future: “The Devil has not grown
good or devout this year, nor will he ever do so.” “Christ says in John
viii. that the devil is a murderer.”[2278]
The words Luther uses when he characterises the intervention of the
secular authorities in Church matters as merely a work of necessity
or charity on the part of the chief member of the Church, are of
psychological rather than of doctrinal importance.
What Luther says of the rights of the State authorities in Church
affairs reveals how little his heart was in this abandonment of
ecclesiastical authority to the secular arm. It shows the need he
felt of concealing beneath fair words the road he had thus opened up
to State-administration of the Church.[2279] The Saxon Elector is a
“Christian member”; he is a “Christian brother” in the Church, who,
as sovereign, must play his part; his intervention here appears as a
service performed by the ruler towards the Christian community. “Our
emergency Bishop,” such is the title Luther once bestows on Johann
Frederick. The state of financial confusion amongst the Protestants
is what chiefly demands, he says, that “His Electoral Highness, the
embodiment of the secular authority, should look into and settle
things.” On the other hand, it is not of his _secular_ authority,
but simply of his authority, that Luther speaks in the writing he
addressed to the Elector on Nov. 22, 1526, where he appeals to him to
make an end of the material and spiritual mischief by establishing
“schools, pulpits and parsonages.” He says, “Now that all spiritual
order and restraint have come to an end in the principality and all
the monasteries and institutions have fallen into the hands of Your
Electoral Highness as the supreme head, this brings with it the duty
and labour of regulating this matter, which no one else either can or
ought to undertake.” “God has in this case called and empowered Your
Electoral Highness to do this.”[2280] The supervision of the doctrine
as well as of the personal conduct of the ministers, and not merely
the providing for their material wants, all come within the ordinary
province of the “supreme head.”
_Divergent Currents_
The psychological significance of Luther’s hesitation to sanction the
ruler’s supremacy in church government lies in its affording us a fresh
insight into the various drifts of his mind and temperament.
On the one hand, he helped to raise State-ecclesiasticism into the
saddle, and, on the other, he would fain see it off again and looks at
it with the unfriendliest of eyes. He not only gives us to understand
in the most unmistakable manner that it is not his ideal, but, up to
the very last, he says things of it which ring almost like an anathema;
nor does he forbear to heap reproaches on the natural consequences of
an institution of which notwithstanding he himself was the father. Only
error, with its ambiguity and want of logic, combined with an obstinate
will, could issue in such contradictions.
His earlier and truer recognition of the independence of the spiritual
power refused to be entirely extinguished. It was the same here as
with Luther’s doctrine of faith alone, of justification and good
works; again and again the old, wholesome views break out from under
the crust of the new errors and, all involuntarily, find expression
in quite excellent moral admonitions. So too his former orthodox
views concerning the dignity of the Bible are at variance with the
liberties he takes with the Word of God, and, even according to
Protestant divines, lead him to an ambiguous theory and to a practice
full of contradictions.[2281] Yet again, his call to make use of armed
force against the Emperor is contrary to what he had taught for long
years regarding the unlawfulness of such resistance; the disquiet and
perturbation, the consciousness of this causes him he seeks to drown
beneath ever louder battle cries.[2282] We find something similar
throughout the whole field of his psychology: everywhere we can detect
gainstriving currents.
In the questions bearing on the rights of the State and the Church,
his temperament, which was so susceptible to sudden changes, needed
only some strong impulse from without in order to bring to light one or
other of these opposing trends. One powerful stimulus of the sort was
afforded by the attractive outlook of bettering the frightful condition
of the Lutheran congregations in Saxony, making his disputed cause
victorious, and at the same time getting rid of the remaining Papists.
By this alluring prospect he was taken captive. It would seem to have
led him to shut his eyes to the iron fetters which State supremacy in
Church matters would forge about his Church system not merely in Saxony
but far beyond its borders. When, afterwards, he would willingly have
retraced his steps, it was already too late. He was condemned to make
statements extolling freedom in spiritual matters, the futility of
which was plain to himself, and which, therefore, Protestants should
not take so seriously as some of them do.
It is not sufficiently realised how such opposing tendencies run side
by side from the very outset of his career.
Even in his “An den christlichen Adel,” in spite of the violence with
which he incites the nobility against the Church’s administration
we can see that he wishes to set his new allies more against the
alleged “robberies and exactions” of the Church and the abuses which
he supposed to be beyond remedy, than against the Church as such. It
is true, that, by his universal priesthood, he breaks down the walls
which mark the field of her sway; God can speak “through the mouth of
any pious man against the Pope”; “in principle every Christian has
the right to summon a Council”;[2283] but, should the secular powers
gather together the Council he desired, they would, according to him,
do so simply at the will and command of the Christian congregation
which he also takes into account and which he admits possesses a
certain spiritual “sword” which exists side by side with the secular
sword, though only for the benefit of souls. Thus the spiritual power
still exists as a dream. Only a Christian ruler, a “brother Christian,
brother priest and sharer in the same spirit-world” may demand that
violent reformation for which Luther yearns.[2284]—Thus, even in this
stormy work, the two contrary drifts are to some extent discernible.
With the same desire to retain intact some sort of spiritual order
distinct from the secular, Luther here and elsewhere seeks to reserve
to the Christian congregation the right of choosing their pastors;
circumstances were, however, to prove too strong for him.
“Throughout Christendom things should be so ordered that every town
chooses from amongst its congregation a learned and pious burgher,
commits to him the office of pastor and sees that he is given enough
for his upkeep.”[2285] The congregation is also to have the right to
depose him should his preaching not turn out in accordance with the
Word of God. What Luther has in mind is united action on the part
of all the true believers. But here, again, he has perforce to lean
rather on the authorities. For, in the congregation, we have first of
all the Town-Council, which, even when only a minority of the burghers
is in favour of the religious reform, receives from Luther a power
which does not belong to it, viz. of seeing that the people it rules
are supplied with the right preachers. Above the Council, moreover,
stands the supreme authority, viz. the sovereign. The latter must
naturally assist the Council in choosing good Evangelical preachers
and must himself take steps when dissensions cause the Council to
refuse to move. Luther, again, will do nothing in opposition to the
Court; for instance, he will not allow any pastor to enter upon his
office who is not a “_persona grata_” at the Court, even though
he should have been duly called by the congregation.[2286] Every
parish is indeed independent by divine right, but the prince also
acts by divine right when, as protector and defender, he intervenes,
regardless of the traditional rights of patron and warden, etc.[2287]
In Saxony, where the ruler was favourable to Lutheranism, his
authority was indispensable for the establishment of the Church. On
the other hand, where the conditions were less favourable to Luther,
there, according to his “_De instituendis ministris_,” the principal
work must devolve on the town councillors and the patrons as well as
on the preachers appointed by them to the congregations;[2288] to
these it falls to elect bishops, so that everything may be put on
independent ecclesiastical lines.—Thus Luther was not so averse to
changing both methods and principles.
The change in Luther’s views comes out most clearly in the leave he
gives to the highest secular power to annul the choice made by the
congregation. The instructions for the Visitation prescribed that,
on the bare authority of the prince and regardless of the rights of
the congregation, those pastors who taught what was erroneous or who
had proved otherwise unsatisfactory were to be deposed and replaced
by others. This held even of those who were strongly backed by
their congregation. “In point of fact,” says Carl Müller, “this was
practically to shift the responsibility from the congregation and its
authorities to the sovereign. It is also clear, that, where there was
a divergency of opinion concerning the orthodoxy of a preacher, the
sovereign naturally had his own way.”[2289] But, even before this,
Luther had refused to sanction the demand of the Erfurt burghers, viz.
that the parishes should themselves appoint their pastors even against
the wishes of the Town-Council; it was “seditious,” so he wrote in
1525, “that the parishes should seek to choose or dismiss their
pastors regardless of the Council.”[2290] Here the Council happened to
be on his side; where this was not the case, Luther was just as ready
to set aside its rights in favour of those of the ruler.
In this wise the right of the congregation to elect its pastor, a
right which he had once praised so highly, even in his own day was so
whittled away as to become quite meaningless. Of the two tendencies
which had been apparent in him from the first, one inclining towards
the authorities and the other towards freedom of election, the former
had won the day.
We already know that Luther inclined for a long while to the
establishment of a Church-Apart or assembly of true believers. Yet,
at the same time, he was working for a National Church, albeit he was
convinced that such a Church would for the most part be composed of
non-Christians. Eventually the latter was to hold the field owing to
the force of outward circumstances.[2291]
He was in favour of a Church which should be entirely free, and at the
same time of a confessional Church with binding dogmas. So strongly
did he stand for freedom in all ecclesiastical matters that he not
only refused to recognise the existence of any spiritual “authority”
among his followers, but also declared no Pope, no angel, no man had
the power to rob the faithful of this freedom or to impose anything on
him.[2292] At the same time, however, he was in favour of that strict
disciplinary government which finds its expression in the regulations
for the Visitation.
According to Luther there is no real Canon Law. He refuses to recognise
State and Church as two bodies which exist side by side.[2293] And yet
he complains of the way in which the rights of the Church, i.e. of his
Church, were being thwarted by the lawyers.[2294]
He wished a distinction to be drawn between the Prince and the
Christian, and declared: “His princely authority has nothing to do with
his Christianity”; and yet he himself united the spiritual and the
secular power in the prince’s hands so closely that they were never
afterwards to be wrenched apart. As Carl Müller truly remarks, we must
not “press too much the term ‘emergency bishop for the time being’
which Luther applies to the secular ruler.”[2295]
True to one of his ruling tendencies, he based on the Bible the rights
and duties of the authorities in every department of the spiritual
sphere. “If the authorities do not wish it, then neither must you.”
Nevertheless, almost in the same breath, he scoffs at the claims of
the authorities when they did not happen to fall in with his wishes,
or when they proved an obstacle to the expulsion of Popery: “Why pay
attention to him [the Elector]? He has no right to command except in
worldly things.”[2296]
He stood for the Consistories and promoted their establishment in
spite of Spalatin’s objections; and yet, on the other hand, he opposed
them, saying, that the Courts were after ruling the Churches as they
pleased, and that Satan was bent on introducing the secular power
into the Church.[2297] Hence, from about 1540, he attempted to set
up Protestant bishops as in the case of Nicholas Amsdorf.[2298] The
Consistories displeased him and made life unbearable. Still, because
the ecclesiastical edifice he had erected could not do without them,
he bridled his tongue; very different is the picture of Luther from
that of the champions of the Church’s independence in the early days of
Christianity, for instance, Ambrose or Chrysostom, who, regardless of
self, staked all they had in the struggle against the oppressors of the
Church. His habit of making the naughty lawyers of the Court the butt
of his complaints is significant enough, for the really responsible
party was the Court itself and the Elector in person, who used his
newly acquired power to rule more autocratically in Church matters than
any Pope had ever done.
_Conclusion_
The prince did not rule as a member of a religious commonwealth which
also had rights of its own, but rather as one holding the highest
powers of the episcopate; he nominated the pastors and provided for
their support; he watched over the lives and behaviour of the clergy,
and, at Luther’s instance, took proceedings against the false teachers
and the remnants of Popery; he alone controlled the consistory which
acted in his name; matrimonial cases were already being dealt with
by his lawyers and the disposal and management of the property which
had formerly belonged to the Church depended entirely on the Court.
The right of the congregations “to appoint and dismiss preachers and
to pronounce on doctrine” seemed now forgotten. If a layman dared to
call a preacher to task the authorities were bound to take proceedings
against him for disturbance of the public peace and order.
Not that Luther hesitated to complain or express his displeasure with
the State-Church system whenever he found it in his way, or when he
saw Catholic princes make use of his principles, or when he thought
the cause of the new religion compromised. On such occasions we hear
him bewailing: “The worldly rulers, the princes, kings and nobles
throughout the land, not to speak of the magistrates in the villages,
want to wield the sword of the Word and teach the pastors how and
what they are to preach and how they must govern their Churches. But
do you boldly say to such: You fool, you brainless dolt, look to your
own calling and don’t try to preach; leave that to your pastor.” He
declares in the same way: “The secular government does not extend over
the conscience, though there are many crazy princes who seek to raise
their power and influence over the welkin itself and even to rule
consciences, also to settle what is to be believed or not; yet, the
worldly power has only to do with that which reason grasps.”[2299]
He considered that the interests of his new Church were endangered
when, in 1533, the Hessian theologians advocated the enforcement of
the greater excommunication by the sovereign; he saw in this a real
peril in the then state of things; he wrote: “I would not have the
temporal authorities meddle in this office; they should let it be, in
order that the real distinction between the two powers be upheld (‘_ut
staret vera et certa distinctio utriusque potestatis_’).”[2300]
But where in the domain of Protestantism at that time, was there to be
found any real ecclesiastical ruler who could act with “power”?
The only factor that kept his anger from breaking forth was his
consciousness that he owed everything he had achieved to the ruler of
the land. But “at heart he saw only too well,” remarks a Protestant
Church-historian whom we have repeatedly quoted, “that the Princes,
under the cloak of the Christian name which they did not deserve to
bear, were solely intent on their own aggrandisement when they laid
their hands on ecclesiastical authority. He also saw that he himself,
in his ‘Unterricht,’ was to blame for this.”[2301] Hence it is all the
stranger to hear Luther declaring when at odds with the officials,
that they must never tire of “insisting, impressing, urging and
driving home the distinction between the secular and the spiritual
rule ... for the troublesome devil will not cease cooking and brewing
up the two kingdoms together.” And yet we have heard him say that the
two should form “one cake.”[2302]
Concerning his attitude towards the authorities some recent
theologians of his own camp have expressed themselves very differently
from what might have been expected:
“Thus, with Luther, the end tallies with the beginning,” they write;
“everything has been thought out clearly and is in perfect agreement.”
And similarly: “The principles which guided him [in his scheme and
arrangement of the Visitation] are precisely the same as appear in his
earlier writings.” “It is evident that Luther’s opinions, though ever
in a state of growth, were yet in their fundamental lines always the
same.”
The opinion expressed by another Protestant theologian comes closer
to the truth; he declares openly: The want of logic in Luther’s mode
of thought is perhaps “nowhere more apparent than in his views on
the authorities and their duty towards religion.... It will never
be possible to get away from the contradictions in his theory and
between his theory and his practice.”[2303]
It only remains to add, that, of the diverging currents, that one is
always the strongest which seems most likely to promote his work, the
diffusion of his doctrine and the growth of his Church. A glance at the
weathercock of expediency will tell us which tendency we may expect to
find predominant, for, as a rule, it is the prospect of success that
decides him. At the same time it must be admitted, that, in his zeal
for his cause, he is at times hardly aware of the extent to which he is
proving untrue to his original plans.
The present-day observer of such vacillation even in matters so
far-reaching and fundamental will naturally ask himself how it was that
Luther’s fickleness failed to discourage his followers. The answer is,
however, not far to seek. He himself, as a general rule, concealed
the actual state of the case under the veil of his eloquence, and his
partisans were either not aware of how things really stood or else
followed him with a blind enthusiasm for the common aims and the common
struggle which all his changes and contradictions could not avail
to quench. This was the origin of the picture which so many German
Protestants cherish of Luther. To them he was a champion of the Church
and the State, faithful to his principles to the last. Such a portrait
differs widely from that which the historian draws from an impartial
study of Luther’s writings and correspondence.[2304]
A Protestant Church-historian, H. Hermelink, recently attempted to
place Luther side by side with the “greatest politicians” of our
nation.[2305] Although worldly diplomacy and organisation were not
Luther’s strong point, still there is much truth in this idea. All that
we have said tends to confirm this, though possibly not quite in the
sense intended by Hermelink. At the same time what Carl Müller says is
also not without its justification: “Luther lacked an insight into the
character of the secular government, which, once it has been pushed
in a given direction, cannot be expected to stand still at the point
which he fixes as the limit of its powers. Thus the longer he lived the
more reason he had to complain of the lawyers, and, when he was dead,
the process went on even further.”[2306]
END OF VOL. V.
PRINTED BY
WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD,
PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Gesch. der Moral,” Göttingen, 1908, p. 209.
[2] Cp. the passages quoted in Möhler, “Symbolik,” § 11.
[3] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 24, p. 516; Erl. ed., 34, p. 138.
[4] _Ib._, 10, 2, p. 295=16², p. 532.
[5] Lauterbach, “Tagebuch,” p. 7.
[6] Vol. ii., p. 239 f. and vol. iv., p. 435. Cp. Luther’s own words,
_passim_, in our previous volumes.
[7] Comm. on Gal., Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 557; Irmischer, 2, p. 144.
[8] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 36, p. 495; Erl. ed., 51, p. 90. Cp. our vol.
iv., p. 436.
[9] _Ib._, p. 495=91.
[10] To Hier. Weller (July?), 1530, “Briefwechsel,” 8, p. 159.
[11] W. Braun, “Die Bedeutung der Concupiscenz in Luthers Leben und
Lehre,” Berlin, 1908, p. 310.
[12] Braun, _ib._, p. 310-312.
[13] “Comm. on Gal.,” Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 207; Irmischer, 1, p. 172.
[14] “Leitfaden zum Stud. der DG,” Halle, 1906, p. 722.
[15] _Ib._, pp. 770 f., 773 f., 778.
[16] Cp. Loofs, _ib._, p. 771, n. 4.
[17] But cp. what Loofs says, _ib._, p. 772, n. 5.
[18] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 13², p. 153.
[19] _Ib._, 10², p. 96.
[20] Cp. Loofs, _ib._, p. 721 f.
[21] “Disput.,” ed. P. Drews, p. 159; cp. _ib._, pp. 126, 136 f., 156.
[22] “_Dixi ... quod christianus nullam prorsus legem habeat, sed quod
tota illi lex abrogata sit cum suis terroribus et vexationibus._”
“Comm. on Gal.,” Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 668 f.; Irmischer, 2, p. 263.
[23] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 9², p. 238 f.
[24] _Ib._, Weim. ed., 24, p. 10; Erl. ed., 33, p. 13. Cp. Loofs,
_ib._, p. 764, n. 2.
[25] Loofs, _ib._, p. 773, where he cites the “Comm. on Gal.” (1535),
Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 209; Irmischer, 1, p. 174.
[26] “_Quia Paulus hic versatur in loco iustificationis, ... necessitas
postulabat, ut de lege tamquam de re contemptissima loqueretur, neque
satis viliter et odiose, cum in hoc argumento versamur, de ea loqui
possumus._” “Comm. on Gal.,” Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 557; Irmischer, 2,
p. 144. “_Conscientia perterrefacta ... nihil de lege et peccato scire
debet, sed tantum de Christo._” _Ib._, p. 207 f.=p. 173 _sq._ Cp.
“Werke,” Erl. ed., 58, p. 279 f. (“Tischreden”) and “Opp. lat. var.” 4,
p. 427.
[27] Cp. Loofs, _ib._, p. 775. Luther here refers to Rom. v. 20; vii.
9, etc.
[28] “_Contritus lege tantum abest ut perveniat ad gratiam, ut longius
ab ea discedat._” “Disput.,” ed. P. Drews, p. 284.
[29] “Comm. on Gal.,” Weim. ed., 2, p. 498; 40, 1, p. 208; Irmischer,
3, p. 236; 1, p. 173.
[30] Loofs, _ib._, p. 775 f.
[31] “_Quæ (conscientia) sæpe ad desperationem, ad gladium et ad
laqueum homines adigit._” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 25, p. 330; “Opp. lat.
exeg.,” 23, p. 141 _sq._
[32] P. 737, n.
[33] Mt. xi. 30; Ps. cxviii. 165.
[34] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 1, p. 357; “Opp. lat. var.,” 1, p. 392. Luther
frequently uses the term “_conteri lege_.”
[35] “_Dices enim: Peccata mea non sunt mea, quia non sunt in me, sed
sunt aliena, Christi videlicet; non ergo me lædere poterunt._” “Werke,”
Weim. ed., 25, p. 330; “Opp. lat. exeg.,” 23, p. 141.
[36] “Comm. on Gal.,” Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 436; Irmischer, 2, p. 17.
[37] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 2, p. 723; Erl. ed., 16², p. 48.
[38] _Ib._, 10, 1, l. p. 338 f. = 7², p. 259 ff.
[39] See, however, below, vol. vi., xxxvii., 2.
[40] Vol. i., p. 317 f. and _passim_.
[41] Cp. Mathesius, “Tischreden,” ed. Kroker, p. 260.—Ammon (“Hdb. der
chr. Sittenlehre,” 1, 1823, p. 76) laments that Luther “regarded the
moral law merely as a vision of terror,” and that according to him “the
essence of the Christian religion consisted, not in moral perfection,
but in faith.” De Wette, “Christl. Sittenlehre,” 2, 2, 1821, p. 280 f.,
thinks that an ethical system might have been erected on the antithesis
set up by Luther between the Law and the Gospel and on his theories of
Christian freedom, “but that Luther was not equal to doing so. He was
too much taken up with his fight against the Catholic holiness-by-works
to devote all the attention he should to the moral side of the question
and not enough of a scholar even to dream of any connection between
faith and morality being feasible.”
[42] Mathesius, _ib._ The Note in question is by Caspar Heydenreich.
[43] “Christl. Sittlichkeit nach Luther,” 1909, p. 91 f.
[44] Mathesius, “Tischreden,” p. 261.
[45] Cp. the passages cited above, p. 9 ff., and vols. iii. and iv.
_passim_.
[46] It was Luther himself who published the Antinomian theses in two
series on Dec. 1, 1537. Cp. “Opp. lat. var.,” 4, p. 420 _sqq._ The
most offensive of these theses Luther described as the outcome of
Agricola’s teaching and attributed them to one of the latter’s pupils;
Agricola, however, refused to admit that the propositions were his.
Cp. Köstlin-Kawerau (2, p. 458), who, after attempting to harmonise
Luther’s earlier and later teaching on the Law, proceeds: “He paid
no heed to the fact that Agricola was seeking to root sin out of the
heart of the believer, though in a way all his own, and which Luther
distrusted, nor did he make any distinction between what Agricola
merely hinted at and what others carried to extremes: in the one he
already saw the other embodied. All this was characteristic enough of
Luther’s way of conducting controversy.”
[47] “Opp. lat. var.,” 4, p. 434 (Thes. 17), 428 (Thes. 10).
[48] Mathesius, “Tischreden,” p. 352.
[49] _Ib._
[50] _Ib._, p. 357.
[51] _Ib._, p. 403.
[52] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 13², p. 153, Sermon of July 1, 5th Sunday after
Trinity, and _ib._, 14², p. 178, Sermon of Sep. 30, 18th Sunday after
Trinity. Cp. Buchwald, “Ungedruckte Predigten Luthers,” 3, p. 108 ff.
Köstlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 457.
[53] “Briefwechsel,” 11, p. 323.
[54] Cp. Drews, “Disputationen Luthers,” pp. 382, 388, 394; G. Kawerau,
“Joh. Agricola,” 1881, p. 194.
[55] “Opp. lat. var.,” 4, p. 430 _sq._
[56] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 32, p. 1 ff. (publ. early in 1539). Also
“Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 5, p. 147 ff.
[57] “Briefe,” _ib._, p. 154.
[58] To Melanchthon, Feb. 2, 1539, “Briefwechsel,” 12, p. 84.
[59] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 61, p. 35 (Table-Talk). Cp. Köstlin-Kawerau, 2,
p. 462 f.
[60] (In March, 1540) see C. E. Förstemann, “N. Urkundenbuch zur Gesch.
der Kirchenreformation,” 1, 1842, reprinted, p. 317 ff.
[61] _Ib._, p. 321 ff.; also in “Werke,” ed. Walch, 20, p. 2061 ff.,
and “Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 6, p. 256 ff.
[62] Förstemann, _ib._, p. 325. The quotation is from G. Kawerau, “Joh.
Agricola,” “RE. f. prot. Theol.”
[63] Förstemann, _ib._, p. 349.
[64] Köstlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 464.
[65] E. Kroker, “Katharina von Bora,” 1906, p. 280, from Agricola’s
Notes, pub. by E. Thiele.
[66] Cp. Kawerau in the Article referred to above, p. 20, n. 3.
[67] “Luthers Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 6, p. 256 ff.
[68] Melanchthon to Willibald Ransberck (Ramsbeck), Jan. 26, 1560,
publ. by Nic. Müller in “Zeitschr. für KG.,” 14, 1894, p. 139.
[69] Lauterbach, “Tagebuch,” p. 90. For other statements of Luther’s
see our vol. iii., p. 401.
[70] Loofs, _ib._, p. 858.
[71] On Luther’s attitude towards penance see our vol. iii., pp. 184
ff., 196.
[72] “Opp. lat. var.,” 4, p. 424.
[73] See above, p. 11, n. 2.
[74] “DG.,” 3^[4], p. 842.
[75] Cp. Loofs, _ib._, p. 860, n. 2 and 4; 790, n. 7, and Harnack, _ib._
[76] Harnack (_loc. cit._) points out that Luther’s statements on the
subject do not agree when examined in detail.
[77] E.g., Lipsius, “Luthers Lehre von der Busse,” 1892.
[78] E.g., Galley, “Die Busslehre Luthers und ihre Darstellung in
neuester Zeit,” 1900.
[79] To the latter passage (“Werke,” Erl. ed., 32, p. 7) E. F. Fischer
draws attention (“Luthers Sermo de pœnitentia von 1518,” 1906, p. 36).
Galley (_loc. cit._, p. 20) had also referred to the same as being
a further development of Luther’s doctrine on penance.—On Luther’s
shifting attitude in regard to the motive of fear see our vol. iv., p.
455 f.
[80] “Disputationes,” ed. Drews, p. 452.
[81] _Ib._, p. 402.
[82] _Ib._, pp. 402-404.
[83] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 206 f.; Erl. ed., 16², p. 127.
[84] _Ib._, Erl. ed., 15², p. 40.
[85] _Ib._, Weim. ed., 7, p. 36; Erl. ed., 27, p. 196.
[86] _Ib._, p. 30=189.
[87] “Comm. in ep. ad. Gal.,” 3, p. 365 (Irmischer).
[88] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 49, p. 114 f., Exposition of John xiv.-xvi.
[89] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 7, p. 30 f.; Erl. ed., 27, p. 189 f.
[90] _Ib._, 6, p. 269 f.=16², p. 212, “Sermon von den guten Wercken,”
1520.
[91] Our account is from Walther (above, p. 14, n. 1), p. 75 ff. His
faithful rendering of Luther’s thought shows how actual grace is
excluded.
[92] 3^[4], p. 460.
[93] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 7, p. 29 f.; Erl. ed., 27, p. 188. “Von der
Freyheyt eynes Christen Menschen.” Cp. _ib._, Erl. ed., 7², p. 257.
[94] Walther, _ib._, p. 99.
[95] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 249; Erl. ed., 16², p. 184.
[96] Cp. “Briefe,” ed. De Wette, where the idea that faith “then does
all the needful,” and that works are a natural product of faith is
summed up thus: “_Opera propter fidem fiunt_.”
[97] Cp. “Werke,” Weim. ed., 12, p. 386; Erl. ed., 51, p. 479, in 1523,
on 1 Peter iv. 19. Cp. also Erl. ed., 18², pp. 330, 333 f., in 1532, on
1 John iv. 17.
[98] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 9², p. 273.
[99] _Ib._, 13², p. 97.
[100] Cp. our vol. iv., p. 442.
[101] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 11², p. 219 f.
[102] _Ib._, 14², p. 257.
[103] Cp. Loofs, “DG.,” ^[4], p. 737. Hence Luther also says: “_Dum bonus
aut malus quisquam efficitur, non hoc ab operibus, sed a fide vel
incredulitate oritur_.” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 7, p. 62; “Opp. lat. var.,”
4, p. 239.
[104] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 11², p. 220.
[105] See below, ch. xxxii., 6.
[106] Printed, in “Werke,” Erl. ed., 20², 2, p. 524.
[107] The first revised by Cruciger. Aurifaber published his notes four
months after the sermons, which, as the Preface points out, “might well
be taken as a standing witness to his [Luther’s] doctrine.” “Werke,”
Erl. ed., 20², 2, p. 501.
[108] “Werke,” Erl. ed., _ib._, p. 551.
[109] _Ib._, p. 552.
[110] _Ib._, p. 551.
[111] _Ib._, p. 554.
[112] “Comm. on Gal.,” 1, p. 196 (Irmischer).
[113] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 12, p. 559; Erl. ed., 12², p. 175. “Comm. on
Gal.” (Irmischer), 1, p. 196.
[114] _Ib._, Erl. ed., 17², p. 94; 49, p. 348.
[115] _Ib._, 58, pp. 343, 347.
[116] See above, p. 26 f., and vol. ii., p. 27 ff.
[117] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 20², 2, p. 553.
[118] _Ib._, p. 548.
[119] _Ib._
[120] _Ib._, p. 549.
[121] _Ib._, p. 554.
[122] _Ib._, p. 555.
[123] Cp. p. 552: “Help me that I may, with gratitude, praise and exalt
Thy Son.”
[124] Köstlin’s summary, _ib._, p. 206.
[125] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 15², p. 40. Cp. “Opp. lat. exeg.,” 13, p. 144.
[126] Köstlin, _ib._, p. 207.
[127] Cp. vol. i., _passim_.
[128] Köstlin, _ib._, p. 204.
[129] In the Eisleben Sermons, p. 548.
[130] On Luther’s attitude towards the supernatural moral order, see
xxix., 5.
[131] Cp. vol. ii., p. 223 ff., particularly p. 240 ff.
[132] See above, p. 32, n. 4.
[133] Köstlin, _ib._, p. 206.
[134] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 58, p. 346.
[135] _Ib._, 20², 2, p. 548.
[136] _Ib._, p. 545.
[137] _Ib._, p. 549 f.
[138] _Ib._, p. 551.
[139] Luther’s opposite doctrine, which is of importance to the matter
under consideration, is expressed by Köstlin (_ib._, p. 126 f.) as
follows: Luther “does not make guilt and condemnation follow on the
act which is contrary to God’s will, nor even on the determination to
commit such an act, but on the inward motion, or concupiscence, nay, in
the inborn evil propensity [even of the baptised] which exists prior
to any conscious motion.... We do not find in his writings any further
information on the other questions here involved” (e.g. of the children
who die unbaptised, etc.).
[140] In the Eisleben sermons, _ib._, p. 551.
[141] _Ib._, p. 546.
[142] “Disputationes,” ed. Drews, p. 159. Cp. “Corp. ref.,” 3, p. 385.
Loofs, “DG.,”^[4], p. 857, n. 4, and 770, n. 4.
[143] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 19², p. 153.
[144] _Ib._, 13², p. 307.
[145] _Ib._, p. 305 ff.
[146] _Ib._, 15², p. 524. Köstlin, _ib._, p. 213.
[147] Cp. _ib._, 43, p. 362 ff.
[148] The headings in W. Walther’s “Die Sittlichkeit nach Luther,” pp.
100, 106, 120, 125 are as above.
[149] Above, p. 32 f.
[150] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 13², p. 304 f.
[151] Walther, _ib._, p. 102.
[152] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 20², 2, p. 553.
[153] _Ib._, 12², p. 219.
[154] _Ib._, 8², p. 119, in the exposition of 1 Cor. xiii. 2: “And
though I had all faith and could remove mountains and had not charity,
I am nothing.”
[155] _Ib._, 15², p. 40.
[156] Willibald Pirkheimer confronted Luther with the following
statement of the Catholic teaching: “We know that free-will of itself
without grace cannot suffice. We refer all things back to the Divine
grace, but we believe, that, after the reception of that grace without
which we are nothing, we still have to perform our rightful service. We
are ever subject to the action of grace and always unite our efforts
with grace.... But whoever believes that grace alone suffices even
without any exercise of our will or subduing of our desire, such a
one does nothing else but declare that no one is obliged to pray,
watch, fast, take pity on the needy, or perform works of mercy,” etc.
“Opp.,” ed. Goldast, p. 375 _sqq._, in Drews, “Pirkheimers Stellung zur
Reformation,” Leipzig, 1884, p. 119.
[157] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 16², p. 131.
[158] Feb. 2, 1519, “Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 408.
[159] See vol. iii., p. 462 ff.
[160] Adolf Harnack, “DG.,” 3^[4], p. 850.
[161] Loofs, “DG.,”^[4], p. 698, n. 1, p. 737.
[162] Harnack, _ib._, p. 831 f.
[163] “Confutatio calumn. resp.,” E 2a. Döllinger, “Reformation,” 1, p.
39.
[164] Köstlin, “Luthers Theol.,” 2², p. 208.
[165] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 9², p. 33.
[166] Köstlin, _ib._, pp. 284, 295.
[167] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 26, p. 200; Erl. ed., 23, p. 9. Köstlin,
however (p. 275 f.), points out that Luther nevertheless threatens
those who refuse to accept his injunctions. Cp. below, xxix., 9.
[168] “Werke,” _ib._, 7², p. 68.
[169] _Ib._, 10², p. 108.
[170] On dying spiritually, cp. vol. i., p. 169 and _passim_.
[171] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 10², p. 108.
[172] _Ib._
[173] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 13², p. 206.
[174] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 10², p. 25. Cp. on Luther’s restriction of
good works to practical love of our neighbour, vol. iv., p. 477 ff.,
and above, p. 26, 38 f.
[175] Chr. E. Luthardt, “Die Ethik Luthers in ihren Grundzügen,”²,
1875, p. 70.
[176] Cp. “Compend. totius theol. Hugonis Argentorat. O.P.,” V. cap.
ult.
[177] Quoted from Luthardt, _ib._, pp. 70-73.
[178] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 7², p. 68.
[179] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 26, p. 502 f.; Erl. ed., 30, p. 365.
[180] _Ib._, pp. 507, 509=370, 372.
[181] Ed. Irmischer, 3, p. 25. Cp. Loofs, “DG.,”^[4], p. 705.
[182] “Werke,” Erl. ed. 15², p. 60. “Opp. lat. exeg.,” 2, p. 273
_sqq._; 19, p. 18; 24, p. 463, _sq._ “Disputationes,” ed. Drews, pp.
115, 172.
[183] Cp. Köstlin, “Luthers Theol.,” 2², p. 169 f., the passages quoted.
[184] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 10, 1, 1, p. 340; Erl. ed., 7², p. 261.—For
the theological and psychological influences which led him to these
statements, see vol. i., pp. 72 ff., 149 ff.
[185] Cp. what Luther says in his Comm. on Romans in 1515-16: It
depends entirely “on the gracious Will of God whether a thing is to be
good or evil,” and “Nothing is of its own nature good, nothing of its
own nature evil,” etc., vol. i., p. 211 f.
[186] “Opp. lat. exeg.,” 1, p. 109, “In Genesim,” c. 3.
[187] See vol. i., p. 148 f. Cp. Denifle-Weiss, 1², p. 527, n. 1.
[188] Denifle-Weiss, _ib._, p. 528, n. 2.
[189] Denifle-Weiss, _ib._, p. 527. Cp. our vol. i., p. 148 f.
[190] “In 2 Sent.,” dist. 28, a. 1 ad 4. Denifle-Weiss, _ib._, p. 482,
n. 1. Cp. Luther’s frequent statement, already sufficiently considered
in our vol. iv., p. 476 f., in which he sums up his new standpoint:
Good works never make a good man, but good men perform good works.
[191] Cp. Denifle-Weiss, _ib._, p. 598.
[192] Denifle-Weiss, p. 604. Cp. also p. 600, n. 2, where Denifle
remarks: “Being an Occamist he never understood actual grace.”
[193] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 15², p. 60. After the words quoted above
follows the remarkable passage: One builds churches, another makes
pilgrimages, etc. “These are self-chosen works which God has not
commanded.... Such self-chosen works are nought ... are sin.”
[194] _Ib._, p. 61 f.
[195] “Symb. Bücher,” ed. Müller-Kolde,^[10], p. 599 f.
[196] _Ib._ The Thesis of man’s lack of freedom is bluntly expressed
on p. 589, and in the sequel it is pointed out that in Luther’s larger
Catechism not one word is found concerning free-will. Reference is made
to his comparison of man with the lifeless pillar of salt (p. 593), and
to Augustine’s “Confessions” (p. 596).
[197] The last remark is from Loofs, “DG.,”^[4], p. 857. Cp. our vol.
iii., p. 348 ff. and _passim_.
[198] “Symb. Bücher,” _ib._, p. 601.
[199] _Ib._
[200] _Ib._, p. 602.
[201] Cp. vol. ii., pp. 232, 265 f., 290.
[202] Quoted from Loofs, “DG.,”^[4], p. 758. On the statement “without on
that account being unjust” see vol. i., p. 187 ff., vol. ii, p. 268 f.
[203] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 18, p. 675; “Opp. lat. var.,” 7, p. 207. Cp.
Loofs, _ib._, p. 757.
[204] Cp. vol. ii., p. 294 ff, and below, xxxv., 2.
[205] The above largely reproduces Luthardt, “Luthers Ethik,”², p. 81
ff.
[206] See our vol. ii., p. 298 f.
[207] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 32, p. 439; Erl. ed., 43, p. 211. Exposition
of Mt. v.-vii. Cp. our vol. ii., p. 297 f., and vol. iii., pp. 52 f.,
60: A prince, as a Christian, must not even defend himself, since a
Christian is dead to the world.
[208] “Werke,” _ib._
[209] “Jugenderinnerungen aus seinem Nachlasse,” Jena, 1909, p. 155 f.
[210] Cp. vol. ii., p. 140 ff.; vol. iii., p. 187 ff.; vol. iv., p. 130
f.
[211] Luthardt, “Luthers Ethik,”², p. 81.
[212] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 14², p. 280 f.
[213] Cp. vol. ii., p. 107 for Luther’s earlier idea of the “holy
brotherhood of spirits,” in which “_omnia sunt indifferentia et
libera_.” See also vol. vi., xxxviii., 3.
[214] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 1², p. 108.
[215] _Ib._, Weim. ed., 11, p. 255; Erl. ed., 22, p. 73. “Von
welltlicher Uberkeytt,” 1523.
[216] _Ib._
[217] _Ib._, p. 252=70.
[218] _Ib._, p. 251=68.
[219] “Opp. lat. var.,” 4, p. 451.
[220] _Ib._, p. 445.
[221] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 31, p. 236. Verantwortung der auffgelegten
Auffrur, 1533. Cp. our vol. ii., p. 294, and vol. iv., p. 331.
[222] Luthardt, “Luthers Ethik,”², pp. 93-96.
[223] Cp. vol. iv., p. 127 ff., on the high esteem of worldly callings
in the period previous to Luther’s. Cp. N. Paulus, “Die Wertung der
weltlichen Berufe im MA.” (“Hist. Jahrb.,” 1911, p. 725 ff.).
[224] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 15², p. 42 f.
[225] Cp. W. Walther, “Die christliche Sittlichkeit nach Luther,”
1909, p. 50, where Ritschl’s opinion is disputed. The above complaint
of Luther’s “uncertain way” is from Ritschl, who was not the first to
make it; the Bible objection is also much older. It matters nothing
that in addition to the faith usually extolled as the source of works,
Luther also mentions the Holy Ghost (see passages in Walther, p. 46 f.)
and once even speaks of the new feeling as though it were a gift of
the Spirit dwelling in His very substance in the believer. (“Opp. lat.
exeg,.” 19, p. 109 _sq._) These are reminiscences of his Catholic days
and have in reality nothing to do with his doctrine of Imputation.
[226] “Symbolik,” § 25.
[227] _Ib._, § 26.
[228] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 30, 3, p. 206; Erl. ed., 23, p. 95.
[229] _Ib._
[230] p. 111.
[231] Owing to his assertion of man’s unfreedom and passivity, Luther
found it very difficult to retain the true meaning of conscience. So
long as he thought in any way as a Catholic he recognised the inner
voice, the “synteresis,” that urges us to what is good and reproves
what is evil, leaving man freedom of choice; this we see from his
first Commentary on the Psalms, above, vol. i., p. 76 f. But already
in his Commentary on Romans he characterised the “synteresis,” and the
assumption of any freedom of choice on man’s part, as the loophole
through which the old theology had dragged in its errors concerning
grace. (Above, vol. i., p. 233 f.)
[232] Cp. W. Walther, “Die christl. Sittlichkeit,” p. 31.
[233] Above, vol. iv., p. 227. “You are to believe without doubting
what God Himself has spoken to you, for I have God’s authority and
commission to speak to and to comfort you.”
[234] Letter of Aug. 21, 1544, “Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 5, p. 680:
“Believe me, Christ speaks through me.”
[235] “Colloq.,” ed. Bindseil, 3, p. 220: “_persuasi mihi, esse de
coelo vocem Dei_.”
[236] Letter of March 8, 1544, “Briefe,” _ib._, p. 636.
[237] In the letter quoted in n. 2, _ib._, p. 679 f.
[238] _Ib._
[239] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 18², p. 337.
[240] On July 14, 1528, “Briefwechsel,” ed. Enders, 6, p. 300 f.
[241] Cp. “Werke,” Weim. ed., 1, p. 354; “Opp. lat. var.,” 1, p. 388.
Cp. vol. i., p. 319.
[242] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 7, p. 290 f.; Erl. ed., 24², p. 209. For
fuller quotations see vol. ii., p. 58 f.
[243] _Ib._, Weim. ed., 4, p. 658.
[244] _Ib._, Erl. ed., 21, p. 324.
[245] _Ib._, 28, p. 224.
[246] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 12, p. 237; Erl. ed., 29, p. 25.
[247] _Ib._, Erl. ed., 29, p. 23; cp. above, vol. iii., p. 262 ff.
[248] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 18, p. 653; “Opp. lat. var.,” 7, p. 176 _sq._
[249] _Ib._, Erl. ed., 58, pp. 394-398.
[250] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 17, 1, p. 232; Erl. ed., 39, p. 111. Should a
preacher be unable thus to “boast,” he is to “hold his tongue,” so we
read there.
[251] See, e.g., vol. iii., pp. 110 ff.-158 f.
[252] “Vita Lutheri,” Coloniæ, 1622, p. 141.
[253] Above, vol. iii., p. 111.
[254] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 23, p. 69 f.; Erl. ed., 30, p. 19.
[255] _Ib._, p. 70=20.
[256] Lauterbach, “Tagebuch,” p. 22.
[257] On July 24, 1540, “Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 6, p. 274. Above, vol.
iv., p. 13 ff.
[258] To Chancellor Brück, “Briefwechsel,” 4, p. 282: “_Oportere ipsum
maritum sua propria conscientia esse firmum ac certum per verbum Dei,
sibi hæc licere_.” Cp. above, vol. iii., p. 259 f.
[259] Letter to Jonas, May 4, 1543, “Briefe,” 5, p. 556.
[260] Text in G. Berbig (“Quellen und Darstellungen aus der Gesch.
des Reformationszeitalters,” Leipzig, 1908), p. 277 (cp. Enders,
“Briefwechsel,” 4, p. 76 f.). This statement completes what was said in
vol. iii., p. 55.
[261] Karl Stange, “Die ältesten ethischen Disputationen Luthers,”
1904, p. vii.
[262] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 23; Erl. ed., 28, p. 298.—“He
ventured, relying on Christ,” says Adolf Harnack (“DG.,” 3^[4], p. 824),
“to lay hold on God Himself, and, by this exercise of his faith, in
which he saw God’s work, his whole being gained in independence and
firmness, and he acquired such confidence and joy as no man in the
Middle Ages had ever known.” Of Luther’s struggles of conscience, to
be examined more closely in ch. xxxii., Harnack says nothing. On the
other hand, however, he quotes, on p. 825, n. 1, the following words of
Luther’s: “Such a faith alone makes a Christian which risks all on God
whether in life or death.”
[263] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 7², p. 253 f.
[264] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 11², p. 248 f.
[265] Lauterbach, “Tagebuch”: “_in quotidiana versor lucta_.” On Feb.
26.
[266] “Luthers ungedruckte Predigten,” ed. G. Buchwald, Leipzig, 1885,
3, p. 245. Sermon of March 16, 1538.
[267] “Colloq.,” ed. Bindseil, 1, p. 56.
[268] “Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 6, p. 411.
[269] To Amsdorf, Oct. 18(?), 1529, “Briefwechsel,” 7, p. 173.
[270] Cp. A. Zahn, “Calvins Urteile über Luther” (“Theol. Stud. aus
Württemberg,” 4, 1883), p. 187. Pighius had written against Luther in
1543 on the servitude of the will. Cp., _ib._, p. 193, Calvin’s remark
against Gabriel de Saconay.
[271] The words can be better understood when we bear in mind that they
occur in the dedication to Duke Johann of Saxony, of his “Sermon von
den guten Wercken” (March 29, 1520). “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 203;
Erl. ed., 16², p. 122 f.
[272] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 53, p. 273 (“Briefwechsel,” 5, p. 83). Here
also we must remember that he is speaking to preachers, some of whom
differed from him.
[273] _Ib._, 53, p. 276.
[274] _Ib._, p. 272.
[275] “Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichtes,” 1², 1896, p. 174, n.
[276] F. Sawicki, “Kath. Kirche und sittliche Persönlichkeit,”
Cologne, 1907, pp. 86, 88, and “Das Problem der Persönlichkeit und des
Übermenschen,” Paderborn, 1909; J. Mausbach, “Die kath. Moral und ihre
Gegner,³”, Cologne, 1911. Part 2, particularly pp. 125 ff., 223 ff.
[277] See vol. iv., p. 118 ff.
[278] “A study of the earliest Letters of C. Schwenckfeld,” Leipzig,
1907 (vol. i. of the “Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum”), p. 268. Karl Ecke,
“Schwenckfeld, Luther und der Gedanke einer apostolischen Reformation,”
Berlin, 1911, p. 58.
[279] Cp. Ecke, _ib._, p. 59. Ecke (p. viii.) speaks of this writing as
a “first-rate source.”
[280] “Epistolar Schwenckfelds,” 2, 2, 1570, p. 94 ff. For full title
see Ecke, _ib._, p. 11. Cp. Th. Kolde, “Zeitschr. für KG.,” 13, p. 552
ff. Cp. below, p. 138 f.
[281] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 53, p. 383 (“Briefwechsel,” 5, p. 337).
[282] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 19, p. 123; Erl. ed., 53, p. 362
(“Briefwechsel,” 5, p. 302).
[283] “Epistolar,” _ib._, p. 645. Ecke, p. 87.
[284] Ecke takes these words as his motto on the title-page.
[285] “Epistolar,” 1, 1566, p. 200. Cp. on the “experience,” Ecke, p.
48 ff.
[286] Ecke, p. 118 f.
[287] See above, p. 79, n. 1.
[288] P. 222.
[289] Thus G. Kawerau in his sketch of Schwenckfeld in Möller’s “KG.,”
3³, p. 475.
[290] _Ib._, p. 478.
[291] Ecke, p. 217.
[292] “Corp. ref.,” 9, p. 579: “_Heri Stenckfeldianum librum contra me
scriptum accepi.... Talis sophistica principum severitate compescenda
est._” To G. Buchholzer, Aug. 5, 1558.
[293] Cordatus, “Tagebuch,” p. 337.
[294] Cp. below, and above, p. 82, n. 5; also Ecke, p. 218.
[295] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 61, p. 54.
[296] _Ib._, 57, p. 51.
[297] Mathesius, “Tischreden,” ed. Kroker, p. 167.
[298] “Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 5, p. 613. “Werke,” Erl. ed., 58, p. 29.
Cp. Mathesius, “Tischreden,” p. 335.
[299] Mathesius, “Tischreden,” _ib._
[300] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 32, p. 397.
[301] “Werke,” _ib._, 32, p. 411.
[302] 1520 or beginning of 1521. “Briefwechsel,” 3, p. 37. Cp.,
however, Ender’s remark on the authorship.
[303] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 204; Erl. ed., 16² p. 123.
[304] On March 25, 1520, “Briefwechsel,” 2, p. 366.
[305] Köstlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 291.
[306] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 209; Erl. ed., 16², p. 131.
[307] Cp. Köstlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 288.
[308] “Werke,” _ib._, p. 214=138.
[309] Much the same in the Exposition of the Ten Commandments (1528),
“Werke,” Weim. ed., 16, p. 485; Erl. ed., 36, p. 100.
[310] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 203; Erl. ed., 16², p. 122.
[311] _Ib._, pp. 243-245=177-179.
[312] _Ib._, p. 247 f.=182 f. Cp. the similar statements in the
Exposition of the Ten Commandments (1528), pp. 480 f., 484 f.=93 f., 96
f.
[313] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 245 f.; Erl. ed., 16², p. 180.
[314] Cp. _ib._, p. 246=181.
[315] P. 247=182.
[316] Elsewhere, however, he treats of the other forms of prayer.
[317] Cp. p. 237=168 f., 238 f.=170 f., 247 f.=182 f.
[318] See vol. iv., p. 501 f.
[319] P. 232=162.
[320] P. 262=202.
[321] P. 258=197.
[322] P. 246=180.
[323] P. 207=127.
[324] _Ib._
[325] P. 236.
[326] P. 271.
[327] Kaftan speaks of a theological want which he had attempted to
supply in his own “Dogmatik.” In reality, however, he has practice
equally in view, and, from his statements we may infer that the want
which had been apparent from Luther’s day was more than a mere defect
in the theory.
[328] P. 281.
[329] P. 276.
[330] P. 278.
[331] Cp. the letter to Hier. Weller, July (?), 1530, “Briefwechsel,”
8, p. 159; Schlaginhaufen, “Aufzeichnungen,” pp. 11, 89, etc.;
Cordatus, “Tagebuch,” p. 450; “Colloq.,” ed. Bindseil, 2, p. 299. See
our vol. iii., p. 175 ff.
[332] See vol. ii., p. 339; iii., p. 180 ff.; above, p. 9 ff.
[333] Above, vol. iii., p. 185 f.
[334] “Briefe,” ed. De Wette, 6, p. 155 ff.
[335] Cp. our vol. iii., p. 176 f.
[336] Vol. iii., p. 213 f.
[337] Cp. on Luther’s prayer, vol. iii., p. 206 f.; iv., p. 274 ff.
[338] Vol. iii., p. 213 f.
[339] Vol. iii., p. 207 f.; iv., p. 311.
[340] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 20², 2, p. 553. Cp. pp. 554, 558.
[341] _Ib._, p. 552.
[342] W. Walther, “Die Sittlichkeit nach Luther,” p. 63.