Two conceptions, the second being derived from the first, lay at the basis
of everything which Luther said or did about the organisation of the
Christian fellowship into churches.
The primary and cardinal doctrine, which was the foundation of everything,
was the spiritual priesthood of all believers. This, he believed, implied
that preaching, dispensing the sacraments, ecclesiastical discipline, and
so forth were not the exclusive possession of a special caste of men to
whom they had been committed by God, and who therefore were mediators
between God and man. These divine duties belonged to the whole community
as a fellowship of believing men and women; but as a division of labour
was necessary, and as each individual Christian cannot undertake such
duties without disorder ensuing, the community must seek out and set apart
certain of its members to perform them in its name.
The second conception was that secular government is an ordinance ordained
of God, and that the special rule claimed by the Roman Pontiff over things
secular and sacred was a usurpation of the powers committed by God to the
secular authority. This Luther understood to mean that the Christian
magistracy might well represent the Christian community of believers, and,
in its name or associated with it, undertake the organisation and
superintendence of the Church civic or territorial.
In his earlier writings, penned before the outbreak of the Peasants’ War,
Luther dwells most on the thought of the community of believers, their
rights and powers; in the later ones, when the fear of the common man had
taken possession of him, the secular authority occupies his whole field of
thought. But although, before the Peasants’ War, Luther does not give such
a fixed place to the secular magistracy as the one source of authority or
supervision over the Church, the conception was in his mind from the
first.
Among the various duties which belong to the company of believers, Luther
selected three as the most outstanding,—those connected with the
pastorate, including preaching, dispensing the sacraments, and so forth;
the service of Christian charity; and the duty of seeing that the children
belonging to the community, and especially “poor, miserable, and deserted
children,” were properly educated and trained to become useful members of
the commonwealth.
In the few instances of attempts made before the Peasants’ War to
formulate those conceptions into regulations for communities organised
according to evangelical principles, we find the community and the
magistracy combining to look after the public worship, the poor, and
education. Illustrations may be seen in the Wittenberg ordinance of 1522
(Carlstadt), and the ordinances of Leisnig (1523) and Magdeburg
(1524).(373) All three are examples of the local authority within a small
community endeavouring, at the prompting of preachers and people, to
express in definite regulations some of the demands of the new evangelical
life.
Luther himself thought these earlier regulations premature, and insisted
that the Wittenberg ordinance should be cancelled. He knew that changes
must come; but he hoped to see them make their way gradually, almost
imperceptibly, commending themselves to everyone without special enactment
prescribed by external authority. He published suggestions for the
dispensation of the Lord’s Supper and of Baptism in the churches in
Wittenberg as early as 1523; he collected and issued a small selection of
evangelical hymns which _might_ be sung in Public Worship (1524); during
the same year he addressed the burgomasters and councillors of all German
towns on the erection and maintenance of Christian schools; and he
congratulated more than one municipality on provisions made for the care
of the poor.(374) Above all, he had, while in Wartburg, completed a
translation of the New Testament which, after revision by Melanchthon and
other friends, was published in 1522 (Sept. 21st), and went through
sixteen revised editions and more than fifty reimpressions before 1534.
The translation of the Old Testament was made by a band of scholars at
Wittenberg, published in instalments, and finally in complete form in
1534.
He always cherished the hope that the evangelical faith would spread
quietly all over his dear Fatherland if only room were made for the
preaching of the gospel. This of itself, he thought, would in due time
effect a peaceful transformation of the ecclesiastical life and worship.
The Diets of Nürnberg and Speyer had provided a field, always growing
wider, for this quiet transformation. Luther was as indifferent to forms
of Church government as John Wesley, and, like Wesley, every step he took
in providing for a separate organisation was forced upon him as a
practical necessity. To the very last he cherished the hope that there
might be no need for any great change in the external government of the
Church. The Augsburg Confession itself (1530) concludes with the words.
“Our meaning is not to have rule taken from the bishops; but this one
thing only is requested at their hands, that they would suffer the gospel
to be purely taught, and that they would relax a few observances, which
cannot be held without sin. But if they will remit none, let them look how
they will give account to God for this, that by their obstinacy they
afford cause of division and schism, which it were yet fit they should aid
in avoiding.”(375) It was not that he believed that the existence of the
visible Catholic Church depended on what has been ambiguously called an
apostolic succession of bishops, who, through gifts conferred in
ordination, create priests, who in turn make Christians out of natural
heathen by the sacraments. He did not believe that ordination needed a
bishop to confer it; he made his position clear upon this point as early
as 1525, and ordination was practised without bishops from that date. But
he had no desire to make changes for the sake of change. The Danish Church
is at once episcopal and Lutheran to this day.
It ought also to be remembered that Luther and all the Reformers believed
and held firmly the doctrine of a visible Catholic Church of Christ, and
that the evangelical movement which they headed was the outcome of the
centuries of saintly life _within_ that visible Catholic Church. They
never for a moment supposed that in withdrawing themselves from the
authority of the Bishop of Rome they were separating themselves from the
visible Church. Nor did they imagine that in making provision, temporary
or permanent, for preaching the word, the dispensation of the sacraments,
the exercise of discipline, and so forth, they were founding a new Church,
or severing themselves from that visible Church within which they had been
baptized. They refused to concede the term _Catholic_ to their opponents,
and in the various conferences which they had with them, the Roman
Catholics were always _officially_ designated “the adherents of the old
religion,” while they were termed “the associates of the Augsburg
Confession.”
Luther cherished the hope, as late as 1545, that there might not need to
be a permanent change in the external form of the Church in Germany; and
this gives all the earlier schemes for the organisation of communities
professing the evangelical faith somewhat of a makeshift and temporary
appearance, which they in truth possessed.
The Diet of Speyer of 1526 gave the evangelical princes and towns the
right, they believed, to reorganise public worship and ecclesiastical
organisation within their dominions, and this right was largely taken
advantage of. Correspondents from all quarters asked Luther’s advice and
co-operation, and we can learn from his answers that he was anxious there
should be as much local freedom as possible,—that communities should try
to find out what suited them best, and that the “use” of Wittenberg should
not be held to regulate the custom of all other places.
It was less difficult for the authorities in the towns to take over the
charge of the ecclesiastical arrangements. They had during mediæval times
some experience in the matter; and city life was so compact that it was
easy to regulate the ecclesiastical portion. The prevailing type exhibited
in the number of “ordinances” which have come down to us, collected by
Richter and Sehling, is that a superintendent, one of the city clergy, was
placed over the city churches, and that he was more or less responsible to
the city fathers for the ecclesiastical life and rule within the domains
of the city.
The ecclesiastical organisation of the territories of the princes was a
much more difficult task. Luther proposed to the Elector of Saxony that a
careful visitation of his principality should be made, district by
district, in order to find out the state of matters and what required to
be done.
The correspondence of Luther during the years 1525-1527 shows how urgent
the need of such a visitation appeared to him. He had been through the
country several times. Parish priests had laid their difficulties before
him and had asked his advice. His letters describe graphically their
abounding poverty, a poverty increased by the fact that the only
application of the new evangelical liberty made by many of the people was
to refuse to pay all clerical dues. He came to the conclusion that the
“common man” respected neither priest nor preacher, that there was no
ecclesiastical supervision in the country districts, and no exercise of
authority to maintain even the necessary ecclesiastical buildings. He
expressed the fear that if things were allowed to go on as they were
doing, there would be soon neither priest’s house nor schools nor scholars
in many a parish. The reports of the first Saxon Visitation showed that
Luther had not exaggerated matters.(376) The district about Wittenberg was
in much better order than the others; but in the outlying portions a very
bad state of things was disclosed. In a village near Torgau the Visitors
discovered an old priest who was hardly able to repeat the Creed or the
Lord’s Prayer,(377) but who was held in high esteem as an exorcist, and
who derived a good income from the exercise of his skill in combating the
evil influences of witches. Priests had to be evicted for gross
immoralities. Some were tavern-keepers or practised other worldly
callings. Village schools were rarely to be found. Some of the peasants
complained that the Lord’s Prayer was so long that they could not learn
it; and in one place the Visitors found that not a single peasant knew any
prayer whatsoever.
This Saxon Visitation was the model for similar ones made in almost every
evangelical principality, and its reports serve to show what need there
was for inquiry and reorganisation. The lands of Electoral Saxony were
divided into four “circles,” and a commission of theologians and lawyers
was appointed to undertake the duties in each circle. The Visitation of
the one “circle” of Wittenberg, with its thirty-eight parishes, may be
taken as an example of how the work was done, and what kinds of
alterations were suggested. The commissioners or Visitors were Martin
Luther and Justus Jonas, theologians, with Hans Metzsch, Benedict Pauli,
and Johann v. Taubenheim, jurists. They began in October 1528, and spent
two months over their task. It was a strictly business proceeding. There
is no account of either Luther or Jonas preaching while on tour. The
Visitors went about their work with great energy, holding conferences with
the parish priests and with the representatives of the community. They
questioned the priests about the religious condition of the people—whether
there was any gross and open immorality, whether the people were regular
in their attendance at church and in coining to the communion. They asked
the people how the priests did their work among them—in the towns their
conferences were with the _Rath_, and in the country districts and
villages with the male heads of families. Their common work was to find
out what was being done for the “cure of souls,” the instruction of the
youth, and the care of the poor. By “cure of souls” (_Seelsorge_) they
meant preaching, dispensation of the sacraments, catechetical instruction,
and the pastoral visitation of the sick. It belonged to the theologians to
estimate the capacities of the pastors, and to the jurists to estimate the
available income, to look into all legal difficulties that might arise,
and especially to clear the entanglements caused by the supposed
jurisdiction of convents over many of the parishes.
This small district was made up of three outlying portions of the three
dioceses of Brandenburg, Magdeburg, and Meissen. It had not been inspected
within the memory of man, and the results of episcopal negligence were
manifest. At Klebitz the peasants had driven away the parish clerk and put
the village herd in his house. At Bülzig there was neither parsonage nor
house for parish clerk, and the priest was non-resident. So at Danna;
where the priest held a benefice at Coswig, and was, besides, a chaplain
at Wittenberg, while the clerk lived at Zahna. The parsonages were all in
a bad state of repair, and the local authorities could not be got to do
anything. Roofs were leaking, walls were crumbling, it was believed that
the next winter’s frost would bring some down bodily. At Pratau the priest
had built all himself—parsonage, out-houses, stable, and byre. All these
things were duly noted to be reported upon. As for the priests, the
complaints made against them were very few indeed. In one case the people
said that their priest drank, and was continually seen in the
public-house. Generally, however, the complaints, when there were any,
were that the priest was too old for his work, or was so utterly
uneducated that he could do little more than mumble the Mass. There was
scanty evidence that the people understood very clearly the evangelical
theology. Partaking the Lord’s Supper in both “kinds,” or in one only, was
the distinction recognised and appreciated between the new and the old
teaching; and when they had the choice the people universally preferred
the new. In one case the parishioners complained that their priest
insisted on saying the Mass in Latin and not in German. In one case only
did the Visitors find any objection taken to the evangelical service. This
was at Meure, where the parish clerk’s wife was reported to be an enemy of
the new pastor because he recited the service in German. It turned out,
however, that her real objection was that the pastor had displaced her
husband. At Bleddin the peasants told the Visitors that their pastor,
Christopher Richter, was a learned and pious man, who preached regularly
on all the Sundays and festival days, and generally four times a week in
various parts of the parish. It appeared, however, that their admiration
for him did not compel them to attend his ministrations with very great
regularity. The energetic pastors were all young men trained at
Wittenberg. The older men, peasants’ sons all of them, were scarcely
better educated than their parishioners, and were quite unable to preach
to them. The Visitors found very few parishes indeed where three, four,
five or more persons were not named to them who never attended church or
came to the Lord’s Table; in some parishes men came regularly to the
preaching who never would come to the Sacrament. What impressed the
Visitors most was the ignorance, the besotted ignorance, of the people.
They questioned them directly; found out whether they knew the Apostles’
Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer; and then questioned
them about the meanings of the words; and the answers were disappointing.
Luther came back from the Visitation in greatly depressed spirits, and
expressed his feelings in his usual energetic language. He says in his
introduction to his _Small Catechism_, a work he began as soon as he
returned from the Visitation:
“In setting forth this Catechism or Christian doctrine in such a
simple, concise, and easy form, I have been compelled and driven
by the wretched and lamentable state of affairs which I discovered
lately when I acted as a Visitor. Merciful God, what misery have I
seen, the common people knowing nothing at all of Christian
doctrine, especially in the villages! and unfortunately many
pastors are well-nigh unskilled and incapable of teaching; and
although all are called Christians and partake of the Holy
Sacrament, they know neither the Lord’s Prayer, nor the Creed, nor
the Ten Commandments, but live like poor cattle and senseless
swine, though, now that the gospel is come, they have learnt well
enough how they may abuse their liberty. Oh, ye bishops, how will
ye ever answer for it to Christ that ye have so shamefully
neglected the people, and have not attended for an instant to your
office? May all evil be averted from you! (_Das euch alles unglück
fliche_). Ye forbid the taking of the Sacrament in one kind, and
insist on your human laws, but never inquire whether they know the
Lord’s Prayer, the Belief, the Ten Commandments, or any of the
words of God. Oh, woe be upon you for evermore!”
The Visitors found that few books were to be seen in the parsonages. They
record one notable exception, the parsonage of Schmiedeberg, where the
priest had a library of twelve volumes. It could not be expected that such
uneducated men could preach to much edification; and one of the
recommendations of the Visitors was that copies of Luther’s _Postils_ or
short sermons on the Lessons for the Day should be sent to all the
parishes, with orders that they should be read by the pastors to their
congregations.
They did not find a trace anywhere of systematic pastoral visitation or
catechising.
In their practical suggestions for ending the priestly inefficiency, the
Visitors made simple and homely arrangements. To take one example,—at
Liessnitz, the aged pastor Conrad was quite unable from age and ignorance
to perform his duties; but he was a good, inoffensive old man. It was
arranged that he was to have a coadjutor, who was to be boarded by the
rich man of the parish and get the fees, while the old pastor kept the
parsonage and the stipend, out of which he was to pay fourteen gulden
annually to his coadjutor.
The Visitors found that schools did not exist in most of the villages, and
they were disappointed with the condition of the schools they found in the
smaller towns. It was proposed to make the parish clerks the village
schoolmasters; but they were wholly incompetent, and the Visitors saw
nothing for it but to suggest that the pastors must become the village
schoolmasters. The parish clerks were ordered to teach the children to
repeat the _Small Catechism_ by rote, and the pastors to test them at a
catechising on Sunday afternoons. In the towns, where the churches usually
had a _cantor_ or precentor, this official was asked to train the children
to sing evangelical hymns.
In their inquiries about the care of the poor, the Visitors found that
there was not much need for anything to be done in the villages; but the
case was different in the towns. They found that in most of them there
existed old foundations meant to benefit the poor, and they discovered all
manner of misuses and misappropriations of the funds. Suggestions were
made for the restoration of these funds to their destined uses.
This very condensed account of what took place in the Wittenberg “circle”
shows how the work of the Visitors was done; a second and a third
Visitation were needed in Electoral Saxony ere things were properly
arranged; but in the end good work was accomplished. The Elector refused
to take any of the confiscated convent lands and possessions for civil
purposes, and these, together with the Church endowments, provided
stipends for the pastors, salaries for the schoolmasters, and a settled
provision for the poor.
When the Visitation was completed and the reports presented, the Visitors
were asked to draft and issue an _Instruction_ or lengthy advice to the
clergy and people of the “circle” they had inspected. This _Instruction_
was not considered a regular legal document, but its contents were
expected to be acted upon.
These Visitations and Instructions were the earliest attempts at the
reorganisation of the evangelical Church in Electoral Saxony. The Visitors
remained as a “primitive evangelical consistory” to supervise their
“circles.”
The Saxon Visitations became a model for most of the North German
evangelical territorial Churches, and the Instructions form the earliest
collection of requirements set forth for the guidance of pastors and
Christian people. The directions are very minute. The pastors are told how
to preach, how to conduct pastoral visitations, what sins they must
specially warn their people against, and what example they must show them.
The care of schools and of the poor was not forgotten.(378)
The fact that matrimonial cases were during the Middle Ages almost
invariably tried in ecclesiastical courts, made it necessary to provide
some legal authority to adjudicate upon such cases when the mediæval
episcopal courts had either temporarily or permanently lost their
authority. This led to a provisional arrangement for the government of the
Church in Electoral Saxony, which took a regular legal form. A pastor,
called a superintendent, was appointed in each of the four “circles” into
which the territory had been divided for the purpose of Visitation, to act
along with the ordinary magistracy in all ecclesiastical matters,
including the judging in matrimonial cases.(379) This Saxon arrangement
also spread largely through the northern German evangelical States.
A third Visitation of Electoral Saxony was made in 1532, and led to
important ecclesiastical changes which formed the basis of all that came
afterwards. As a result of the reports of the Visitors, of whom Justus
Jonas seems to have been the most energetic, the parishes were rearranged,
the incomes of parish priests readjusted, and the whole ecclesiastical
revenues of the mediæval Church within Electoral Saxony appropriated for
the threefold evangelical uses of supporting the ministry, providing for
schools, and caring for the poor. The doctrine, ceremonies, and worship of
the evangelical Church were also settled on a definite basis.(380)
The Visitors pointed out that hitherto no arrangement had been made to
give the whole ecclesiastical administration one central authority. The
Electoral Prince had always been regarded as the supreme ruler of the
Church within his dominions, but as he could not personally superintend
everything, there was needed some supreme court which could act in all
ecclesiastical cases as his representative or instrument. The Visitors
suggested the revival of the mediæval episcopal consistorial courts
modified to suit the new circumstances. Bishops in the mediæval sense of
the word might be and were believed to be superfluous, but their true
function, the _jus episcopale_, the right of oversight, was indispensable.
According to Luther’s ideas—ideas which had been gaining ground in Germany
from the last quarter of the fifteenth century—this _jus episcopale_
belonged to the supreme secular authority. The mediæval bishop had
exercised his right of oversight through a _consistorial court_ composed
of theologians and canon lawyers appointed by himself. These mediæval
courts, it was suggested, might be transformed into Lutheran
ecclesiastical courts if the prince formed a permanent council composed of
lawyers and divines to act for him and in his name in all ecclesiastical
matters, including matrimonial cases. The Visitors sketched their plan; it
was submitted for revision to Luther and to Chancellor Brück, and the
result was the Wittenberg Ecclesiastical Consistory established in
1542.(381) That the arrangement was still somewhat provisional appears
from the fact that the court had not jurisdiction over the whole of the
Electoral dominions, and that other two Consistories, one at Zeitz and the
other at Zwickau, were established with similar powers. But the thing to
be observed is that these courts were modelled on the old mediæval
consistorial episcopal courts, and that, like them, they were composed of
lawyers and of theologians. The essential difference was that these
Lutheran courts were appointed by and acted in the name of the supreme
secular authority. In Electoral Saxony their local bounds of jurisdiction
did not correspond to those of the mediæval courts. It was impossible that
they should. Electoral Saxony, the ordinance erecting the Consistory
itself says, consisted of portions of “ten or twelve” mediæval dioceses.
The courts had different districts assigned to them; but in all other
things they reproduced the mediæval consistorial courts.
The constitutions of these courts provided for the assembling and holding
of Synods to deliberate on the affairs of the Church. The General Synod
consisted of the Consistory and the superintendents of the various
“circles”; and particular Synods, which had to do with the Church affairs
of the “circle,” of the superintendent, and of all the clergy of the
“circle.”
Such were the beginnings of the consistorial system of Church government,
which is a distinctive mark of the Lutheran Church, and which exhibits
some of the individual traits of Luther’s personality. We can see in it
his desire to make full use of whatever portions of the mediæval Church
usages could be pressed into the service of his evangelical Church; his
conception that the one supreme authority on earth was that of the secular
government; his suspicion of the “common” man, and his resolve to prevent
the people exercising any control over the arrangements of the Church.
Gradually all the Lutheran Churches have adopted, in general outline at
least, this consistorial system; but it would be a mistake to think that
the Wittenberg “use” was adopted in all its details. Luther himself, as
has been said, had no desire for anything like uniformity, and there was
none in the beginning. All the schemes of ecclesiastical government
proceed on the idea that the _jus episcopale_ or right of ecclesiastical
oversight belongs to the supreme territorial secular authority. All of
them include within the one set of ordinances, provisions for the support
of the ministry, for the maintenance of schools, and for the care of the
poor—the last generally expressed by regulations about the “common chest.”
The great variety of forms of ecclesiastical government drafted and
adopted may be studied in Richter’s collection, which includes one hundred
and seventy-two separate ecclesiastical constitutions, and which is
confessedly very imperfect. The gradual growth of the organisation finally
adopted in each city and State can be traced for a portion of Germany in
Sehling’s unfinished work.(382)
The number of these ecclesiastical ordinances is enormous, and the
quantity is to be accounted for partly by the way in which Germany was
split up into numerous small States in the sixteenth century, and also
partly by the fact that Luther pled strongly for diversity.
The ordinances were promulgated in many different ways. Most frequently,
perhaps, the prince published and enacted them on his own authority like
any other piece of territorial legislation. Sometimes he commissioned a
committee acting in his name to frame and publish. In other cases they
resulted from a consultation between the prince and the magistrates of one
of the towns within his dominions. Sometimes they came from the councils
and the pastors of the towns to which they applied. In other instances
they were issued by an evangelical bishop. And in a few cases they are
simply the regulations issued by a single pastor for his own parish, which
the secular authorities did not think of altering.
Although they are independent one from another, they may be grouped in
families which resemble each other closely.(383)
Some of the territories reached the consistorial system much sooner than
others. If a principality consisted in whole or in part of a secularised
ecclesiastical State, the machinery of the consistorial court lay ready to
the hand of the prince, and was at once adapted to the use of the
evangelical Church. The system was naturally slowest to develop in the
imperial cities, most of which at first preferred an organisation whose
outlines were borrowed from the constitution drafted by Zwingli for
Zurich.
Once only do we find an attempt to give an evangelical Church occupying a
large territory a democratic constitution. It was made by Philip,
Landgrave of Hesse, who was never afraid of the democracy. No German
prince had so thoroughly won the confidence of his commonalty. The
Peasants’ War never devastated his dominions. He did not join in the
virulent persecution of the Anabaptists which disgraced the Lutheran as
well as the Roman Catholic States during the latter half of the sixteenth
century. It was natural that Luther’s earlier ideas about the rights of
the Christian community (_Gemeinde_) should appeal to him. In 1526 (Oct.
6th), when the Diet of Speyer had permitted the organisation of
evangelical Churches, Philip summoned a Synod at Homberg, and invited not
merely pastors and ecclesiastical lawyers, but representatives from the
nobles and from the towns. A scheme for ecclesiastical government, which
had been drafted by Francis Lambert, formerly a Franciscan monk, was laid
before the assembly and adopted. It was based on the idea that the word of
God is the only supreme rule to guide and govern His Church, and that
Canon Law has no place whatsoever within an evangelical Church. Scripture
teaches, the document explains, that it belongs to the Christian community
itself to select and dismiss pastors and to exercise discipline by means
of excommunication. The latter right ought to be used in a weekly meeting
(on Sundays) of the congregation and pastor. For the purposes of orderly
rule the Church must have office-bearers, who ought to conform as nearly
as possible to those mentioned in the New Testament Scriptures. They are
bishops (pastors), elders, and deacons; and the deacons are the guardians
of the poor as well as ecclesiastical officials. All these office-bearers
must remember that their function is that of servants, and in no sense
lordly or magisterial. They ought to be chosen by the congregation, and
set apart by the laying on of hands according to apostolic practice. A
bishop (pastor) must be ordained by at least three pastors, and a deacon
by the pastor or by two elders. The government of the whole Church ought
to be in the hands of a Synod, to consist of all the pastors and a
delegate from every parish. Such in outline was the democratic
ecclesiastical government proposed for the territory of Hesse and accepted
by the Landgrave.(384) He was persuaded, however, by Luther’s strong
remonstrances to abandon it. There is no place for the democratic or
representative element in the organisation of the Lutheran Churches.