CHAPTER XXVIII

THE NEW DOGMAS IN AN HISTORICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LIGHT

1. The Bible text and the Spirit as the “True Tests of Doctrine”

LUTHER’S theological opinions present an attractive field to the

psychologist desirous of studying his character. They are in great

part, as has been several times shown, the result of his experiences,

inward or outward, and appear peculiarly suited to meet his own

case. Hence an examination of his doctrines will be of great value,

particularly towards an understanding of his inner history.

The specifically Lutheran doctrine of the Bible as sole judge in

matters of faith, i.e. the old, so-called “formal principle” of

Protestantism, deserves to be considered first, though, in point of

time, it was not the first to be reached by Luther. Actually it was

first broached by the author of the schism only when the opposition

between his newly discovered views and the Church’s teaching determined

him to set aside both her claim to act as judge, and all other outward

authority on doctrine. Refusing to be bound by the Church, in place of

the teaching office with its gift of infallibility, which, according

to the belief of the ancient Church, guards the treasure of revelation

and therefore also decides on the sense of Holy Scripture, Luther set

up as supreme arbiter the letter of the Bible. From this source, so

he teaches, the faithful draw the doctrines of the faith, each one

according to his ability and enlightenment.

The interpretation of the Sacred Books, in his view, takes place under

the illumination of the Holy Ghost, and such an illumination he claimed

first and foremost for himself. “Any believer who has better grounds

and authority from Scripture on his side, is more to be believed than

the Pope or a whole Council.”[1369]

_Liberty for the Examination of Scripture and Luther’s Autonomy._

Luther only gradually reached his teaching concerning the supremacy of

Holy Scripture.

His examination at Augsburg drew forth from him his first statements

on this subject. In the postscript to his own report of the interview

he places Holy Scripture first amongst the theological sources, adding

that it was merely being corrupted by the so-called sacred Decrees

of the Church;[1370] in his appeal to the Council he also places the

Bible and its decision (i.e. his interpretation) above the Pope. Even

then, however, he admitted the authority of the Council side by side

with that of the Bible only in so far as he confidently looked to the

Council for a decision in his favour. The fact that about this time

he fancied he could descry Antichrist in the Pope reveals at once the

wide gulf he was about to create between all ecclesiastical authority

and Scripture privately interpreted.--Without having as yet formally

proclaimed the new principle on Holy Scripture, he nevertheless

declared at the Leipzig Disputation, that Scripture ranked above a

Council,[1371] and that Œcumenical Councils had already erred in

matters of faith. Only when driven into a corner by his defence of the

heresy of Hus, and after fruitless evasions, were these admissions

wrung from him by Eck. Any light thus thrown on the matter by the

Catholic speaker was, however, at once obscured by the following

ambiguous clause added by Luther: “Councils have erred, and may err,

particularly on points which do not appertain to faith.”[1372]

Immediately after the Leipzig Disputation, in a letter addressed

by himself and Carlstadt to the Elector, Luther lays it down that

“a layman with the Scripture on his side is more to be believed in

than the Pope and a Council without Scripture.”[1373] Then, in the

“_Resolutiones super propositionibus Lipsiæ disputatis_,” he gives

utterance to an assertion behind which he seeks to shelter his views:

“Faith does not originate in authority but is produced in the heart

only by the Holy Ghost, though man is indeed moved to faith by word

and example.”[1374]

Yet, as though he himself wished to demonstrate the perils his new

principle involved, not merely for the interpretation of the Bible but

even for the integrity of the Sacred Books, he makes in the very same

writing, on ostensibly intrinsic grounds, his famous onslaught on the

Epistle of St. James which had been urged against him. Because this

canonical Epistle tells against his doctrine of Justification, he will

have it that, “its style is far beneath the dignity of an Apostle and

is not to be compared with that of Paul.”[1375] Already at the Leipzig

Disputation he had attacked the second Book of the Machabees, which

did not suit his views, again for intrinsic reasons and because it ran

counter to true doctrine; the Church had indeed admitted it into the

Canon, but “she could not raise the status of a book nor impart to it

a higher value than it actually possessed.”[1376]

From that time forward Luther gives the most varied expression to the

principle of the free interpretation of Scripture: He declares, that

the Bible may be interpreted by everyone, even by the “humble miller’s

maid, nay, by a child of nine if it has the faith.”[1377] “The sheep

must judge whether the pastors teach in Christ’s own tone.”[1378]

“Christ alone, and none other than the Crucified, do we acknowledge as

our Master. Paul will not have us believe him or an angel (Gal. i. 8,

12) unless Christ lives and speaks in him.” He is at pains to inform

“the senseless Sophists, the unlearned bishops, monks and priests, the

Pope and all his Gomorrahs” that we were baptised, not in the name of

any Father of the Church, “but in the name of Jesus Christ.”[1379]

“That a Christian assembly or congregation has the right and the power

to judge of doctrine and to appoint and dismiss preachers” is the title

of one of Luther’s writings of 1523.[1380] Later we meet the downright

declaration: “Neither Church, nor Fathers, nor Apostles, nor angels

are to be listened to except so far as they teach the pure Word of God

(‘_nisi afferant et doceant purum verbum Dei_’).”[1381]

In his bias against his foes he does not pause to consider that the

very point at issue is to discern what the “pure Word of God” is, for,

where it exists, any opposition on the part of “Church, Fathers and

Apostles” is surely inconceivable. It is merely an echo of his early

mystic theories when, in a dreamy sort of way, he hints, that the pure

Word manifests itself to each believer and reveals itself to the world

without the intervention of any outward authority. It was clearly mere

prejudice in his own favour which led him to be ruled by the one idea

that the “pure Word of God” was to be found nowhere but in his own

reading of the Bible.

How greatly he allowed himself to be deceived by such fancies is

already apparent in Luther’s earliest known statements on Scripture

at the very beginning of the public controversy. His devotion to

Biblical study from his youth, and the academic laurels he had won

in this branch of learning, led him, consciously or not, to find

in himself an embodiment of Holy Scripture. Only in this way can

we explain his strange language concerning the Bible in his “Eyn

Freiheyt dess Sermons” against Tetzel. Here, at the very commencement,

instead of setting quietly about his task, which was to defend his

new interpretation against the tradition, objected by his opponent,

he sings a pæan in praise of the unassailable Divine Word. “All who

blaspheme Scripture with their false glosses,” he writes, “shall perish

by their own sword, like Goliath (1 Kings xvii. 51).... Christ’s

doctrine is His Divine Word. Whence it is forbidden, not only to

this blasphemer [Tetzel], but to any angel in heaven, to change one

letter of it. For it is written: ‘God does not deny what He has once

said,’ Job xiii. [xiv.], and in the Psalter [cxviii. 89]: ‘For ever,

O Lord, Thy word standeth firm.’ Not a jot or tittle of the most

insignificant letter of the law of God shall pass; everything must

be fulfilled.”[1382] Here Tetzel becomes a rude ass, “who brays at

Luther,” reminding the latter of a “sow” that defiles the venerable

Scripture.[1383]

How uncalled for his emphatic words quoted above on the value of the

Bible really were can be more readily perceived now from a distance;

for his opponents’ esteem and that of the Church generally for the

Word of God was certainly not behind his, whilst the Church provided

a safeguard for Holy Scripture which Luther was unwilling to admit.

But in those days, in the midst of the struggle, such praises showered

by Luther on Holy Writ served to make people think--not at all to his

disadvantage--that he was the herald and champion of the Bible, which

the Popish Church did not reckon at its true worth, whereas, all the

while, he should have been striving to show that his contentions really

had the support of Scripture. Even later his misleading cry was ever:

Back to the sacred stronghold of the Bible! Back to the “true, pure and

undefiled Word of God!”

“Thy Word is the Truth” was his habitual battle-shout, though about

this there had never been the least dispute.

“Against all the sayings of the Fathers,” he says in 1522 in his reply

to King Henry VIII, “against all the arts and words of angels, men and

devils I set the Scriptures and the Gospel.... Here I stand and here

I defy them.... The Word of God I count above all else and the Divine

Majesty supports me; hence I should not turn a hair were a thousand

Augustines against me, and am certain that the true Church adheres

with me to God’s Word.” “Here Harry of England must hold his tongue.”

Harry would see how Luther “stood upon his rock” and that he, Harry,

“twaddled” like a “silly fool.”[1384]

_Experience given by the Spirit._

The “rock” on which Luther’s interpretation of the Bible rests is a

certain inward feeling and perception by the individual of the Bible’s

teaching.

In the last resort it is on an inward experience of having been taught

by the Spirit the truth and meaning of the Divine words that the

Christian must firmly take his stand. Just as Luther believed himself

to have passed through such an experience, so, according to him, all

others must first reach it and then make it their starting-point.

This is the Spirit from on High that co-operates with the Word of

Scripture.

“Each man must believe solely because it is the Word of God and

because he feels within that it is true, even though an angel from

heaven and all the world should preach against it.”[1385] We must not

regard the “opinion of all Christendom” but “each one for himself

alone” must believe the Scriptures.[1386] “The Word itself must

content the heart and embrace and seize a man and, as it were, hold

him captive till he feels how true and right it is.”

“Hence every Christian can learn the truth from Scripture,” so

a present-day Protestant theologian describes Luther’s then

teaching;[1387] “he is bound by no human school of interpretation, but

the plain sense of Scripture and the experience of his heart suffice.”

He adds: “This might of course draw down upon Luther the charge of

subjectivism.” “What Luther said of the ‘whisper’ of the word of

forgiveness is well known. Thus [according to Luther] God can, when

necessary, work without the use of any means.” Thanks to the “whisper”

the Bible becomes a sure guide, “for [according to him] the Holy Ghost

always works in the heart the selfsame truth.” “From the peculiar

religious standpoint of his own experience of salvation,” Luther,

so the same theologian admits, determined his “attitude towards

Scripture.” In this we have one of the results of his “personal

experience.”

“How it comes to pass,” says Luther, “that Christ thus enters the

heart you cannot tell; but your heart feels plainly, by the experience

of faith, that He is there indeed.”[1388] “When the Holy Ghost

performs His office then it proceeds.”[1389] “No one can rightly

understand God or the Word of God unless he receives it directly from

the Holy Ghost.”

When his friend Carlstadt, together with whom Luther had at first

insisted on Scripture only, later struck out a path of his own in

doctrine and ecclesiastical practice while continuing to appeal to

Scripture and to his own enlightenment, even the controversy with him

and the “fanatics” failed to make Luther relinquish in theory his

standpoint concerning the Bible and the Spirit as the one source and

rule of faith. He became, however, more cautious in formulating it and

endeavoured at least to leave a back door open. He was less insistent

in his assertion that the Spirit instructed, by the inward Word, each

one who read the Scriptures; so much the more did he emphasise the

supposed “clearness of the outward Word,” viz. the Bible, and deprecate

any wanton treatment of it (by anyone save himself); at the same time

he began to lay stress on the outward side of the Church, on the

preaching office and the administration of the Sacraments.[1390] The

fanatics he reproves for “merely gaping at the Spirit in their hearts,”

whereas the outward articles must necessarily precede this.[1391] At

times what he says almost looks like a repudiation of his earlier

theory of enlightenment through the Spirit; for instance, when he

describes how the fanatics wait “till the heavenly voice comes and God

speaks to them.”[1392] Now, the outward Word of the Gospel, proclaimed

by men truly “called,” is to be the guiding star amidst the mischief

wrought by the sectarians; this outward Word, so he now fancies, will

surely avail to decide every issue, seeing that it is so clear; only

by dint of juggling could the sense of the Bible, as manifest in the

outward Word, be distorted; looked at fairly it at once settled every

question--needless to say in Luther’s favour; to understand it, all

that was needed was the “natural language,” the “Lady Empress who far

excels all subtle inventions.”[1393]

As to the alleged clearness of the word of Scripture it is sufficient

to recall that he himself indirectly challenged it by accusing the

whole Church of having misunderstood the Bible, and to consider

the abyss that separated his interpretation, even of the most

vital texts, from that of the scholars of the past. “Though we had

the Bible and read it,” he says, “yet we understood nothing of

it.”[1394]--Nevertheless he fancied he could save his theory by

appealing to the clearness of the text and the assistance rendered

by a knowledge of languages. “St. Paul wills” (1 Cor. xiv. 29), so

Luther says, in a writing on the schools, “that Christians should judge

all doctrine, though for this we must needs be acquainted with the

language. For the preacher or teacher may indeed read the Bible through

and through as much as he chooses, but he will sometimes be right and

sometimes wrong, if there be no one there to judge whether he is

doing it well or ill. Thus in order to judge there must be skill or a

knowledge of tongues, otherwise it is all to no purpose.”[1395]

But above all, as he impresses on the reader in the same tract, he

himself had thrown light on the Bible by his knowledge of languages;

his interpretation, thanks to the “light” of the languages, had

effected “such great things that all the world marvels and must confess

that now we have the Gospel almost as pure and undefiled as the

Apostles had it, that it is restored to its pristine purity, and is

even more undefiled than at the time of St. Jerome or Augustine.”[1396]

His willingness, expressed from time to time, to submit himself or any

other teacher to the judgment of anyone possessed of greater learning

and a more profound spiritual sense, attracted many enlightened minds

to his party.[1397]

Luther’s self-contradiction in speaking, first, of the great clearness

of the Bible, and then of its great obscurity, cannot fail to strike

one.

“Whoever now wants to become a theologian,” he says, for instance,

“enjoys a great advantage. For, first, he has the Bible which is now so

clear that he can read it without any difficulty.” “Should anyone say

that it is necessary to have the interpretation of the Fathers and that

Scripture is obscure, you must reply, that that is untrue. There is no

book on earth more plainly written than Holy Scripture; in comparison

with all other books it is as the sun to any other light.”[1398]

Elsewhere he says: “The ungodly sophists [the Schoolmen] have asserted,

that in Holy Scripture there is much that is obscure and not yet

clearly explained,” but according to him they were not able to bring

forward one vestige of proof; “if the words are obscure in one passage,

they are clear in another,” and a comparison makes everything plain,

particularly to one who is learned in languages.[1399]--Thus the Bible,

according to a further statement, is “clearer, easier and more certain

than any other writing.”[1400] “It is in itself quite certain, quite

easy and quite plain; it is its own explanation; it is the universal

argument, judge and enlightener, and makes all clear to all.”[1401]

Later, however, the idea that Holy Scripture was obscure preponderated

with him. Two days before his death Luther wrote in Latin on a piece

of paper, which was subsequently found on his table, his thoughts on

the difficulty of understanding Scripture: “No one can understand the

Bucolics of Virgil who has not been a herdsman for five years; nor his

Georgics unless he has laboured five years in the fields. In order to

understand aright the epistles of Cicero a man must have been full

twenty years in the public service of a great State. No one need fancy

he has tasted Holy Scripture who has not ruled Churches for a hundred

years with prophets like Elias and Eliseus, with John the Baptist,

Christ and the Apostles.”[1402] In all likelihood his experiences with

the sectarians in his own camp led him towards the end of his life to

lay more stress on the difficulty of understanding the Bible.

Even with the “plain, arid Scripture” and a clear brain it may easily

happen, as he says, to a man to fall into danger through the Bible, by

looking at it from “his own conceit,” as “through a painted glass,”

and “seeing no other colour than that of the glass.”[1403] Such people

cannot then be set right, but become “masters of heresy.”[1404] All

heresy seems to him to come from Scripture and to be based on it.

There is no heretic, he says in a sermon in 1528, who does not appeal

to Scripture; hence it came about that people called the Bible a

heresy-book.[1405] The “heresy-book” was a favourite topic with him.

Two years earlier he had used the expression twice on one day,[1406]

and in 1525, when complaining in a sermon that the fanatics decked

themselves out with Scripture, he said: “Thus it is true what people

say, viz. that Holy Scripture is a heresy-book, i.e. a book that the

heretics claim for themselves; there is no other book that they misuse

so much as this book, and there has never been a heresy so bad or so

gross that it has not sheltered itself behind Scripture.”[1407] These

preachers from among the fanatics, he says, boast of the voice of God

and of the Spirit, but they were never sent; let them prove by miracles

their Divine mission![1408]

Thus he had retracted nothing of his strange doctrine concerning

private enlightenment; on the contrary, when not actually dealing with

the sectarians, he still declared with that persistence of which he

was such a master and which shrank from no self-contradictions, that

the Spirit alone taught man how to understand the Scriptures, now that

man, owing to original sin, was quite unable to grasp even the plainest

passages. “In it [the Bible] not one word is of so small account as to

allow of our understanding it by reason.”[1409] Only by virtue of the

higher light by which he understood Scripture could a man “impartially

prove and judge the different spirits and their doctrines.” This he

wrote in his “_De servo arbitrio_” at a time when he had already

engaged upon the struggle with the “Heavenly Prophets.”[1410] And to

these principles he remained faithful till death without, however, as

a Protestant scholar repeatedly points out of the several sides of

Luther’s theology, “explaining more clearly” their relation to the

difficulties involved.

* * * * *

Concerning the inward Word or the enlightenment by the Spirit some

words of Luther’s in 1531 may be given here.

In that year he preached on the Gospel of St. John. He dwelt at

some length on his favourite passage: “Whoever believeth in Me hath

everlasting life,” and its context. Here, speaking repeatedly of the

outward and the inward Word, he insists especially on the former and

particularly on the hearing of sermons with faith, though so far was

he from relinquishing the inward Word that he combines it in a strange

way with the outward, and finally arrives once more at his earlier pet

idea: Whoever is taught inwardly by the Spirit is free to judge and

decide on all things.

“The Lord Christ intends,” so he explains, “that we should hold fast

and remain by the outward, spoken Word, and thereby He has put down

reason from its seat,” i.e. has repudiated the objections of the

fanatics who differed from him. Christ, according to Luther, exhorts

us “diligently to listen to and learn the Word.”[1411] The beginning

of Justification is in this, that “God proclaims to you the spoken,

outward Word.”[1412] To this end God has His messengers and vicars.

“When you hear a sermon from St. Paul or from me, you hear God the

Father Himself; yet both of us, you and I, have one schoolmaster

and doctor, viz. the Father ... only that God speaks to you through

me.”[1413] Here he does not enter into the question of his mission,

though he shows plainly enough that he was not going to be set aside.

“God must give the spoken Word,” “otherwise it does not make its way.

But if you are set on helping yourselves, why then should I preach? In

that case you have no need of me.... We may be angered and stupefied

over it” (viz. at the apparent divergence between the Word of God and

reason), yet we must listen and weigh “the Word that is preached by

the lips of Christ.”[1414]

Excellent as this exhortation may be so far as St. Paul was concerned,

the speaker is at no pains to supply his hearer with any proof of his

own saying, viz. “that God speaks to you through me.” He insists upon

it, however, and now comes the intervention of the Spirit: God must

“inspire the conviction that it is His Word”[1415] which has been

heard. “Without the Word we must not do anything, but must be taught

by God.”[1416] “When the heart can feel assured that God the Father

Himself is speaking to us [when we listen to a sermon], then the Holy

Ghost and the light enter in; then man is enlightened and becomes a

happy master, and is able to decide and judge of all doctrine, for he

has the light, and faith in the Divine Word, and feels certain within

his breast that his doctrine is the very Word of God.”[1417] When you

“feel this in your heart, then account yourself one of the disciples

of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will allow Him to be Master and

surrender yourself to Him. In this way will you be saved.”[1418]

The real breathing of the Spirit of God, however, confirms the

utterances only of the “preaching office,” viz. Luther’s and the

Lutherans’. This he proclaims in the following words: “The true

breathing and inspiration of the Holy Ghost is that which is wafted

through the preaching office and the outward Word.”[1419]

In what follows, for the better understanding of Luther’s attitude

towards the Bible, we shall examine two consequences of his subjective

ways, viz. their effect on the inspiration and the Canon of Scripture,

and the exegetical disagreement which was the result of the principle

of inward experience, also the means he chose to remedy it.

_Inspiration and the Canon of Scripture._

In the matter of the inspiration of Scripture Luther never went so

far as the fanatical enthusiasts of later Lutheranism, who, in their

systems, taught an actual verbal inspiration, according to which the

writers of the Bible had not merely been impelled, enlightened, and

infallibly preserved from error, but had received every word from

God. On the contrary, owing to his wanton handling of the Bible, he

takes the inspiration of its writers so widely and vaguely that the

very idea of inspiration is practically evaporated. The Bible is

indeed, according to him, an outcome of the inspiration of God and

is the writing and Word of the Holy Ghost (“_Spiritus auctor est

libri_”),[1420] and may accordingly be described as “the Holy Ghost’s

own especial book, writing and Word”--which he sometimes explains

almost as though he had been a believer in verbal inspiration.[1421]

The fact is, however, that he sees “in the sacred writers no other form

of spiritual illumination than that displayed in the verbal preaching

of the Divine witnesses.”[1422] “Moreover we occasionally find him

questioning whether in certain passages the Holy Ghost ... is really

so unquestionably present as in other parts of Scripture.” The truth

is “he never formulated any detailed theory of Scriptural inspiration.

With Luther the action of the Holy Ghost, on the witnesses of both Old

Testament and New, is always one and the same, whether they proclaim

the Word verbally or by writing; nowhere do we meet with the thought

that they were under the influence of any other inspiration when they

wrote.”[1423]

The freedom he allowed himself, no less in the matter of inspiration

than in the principle of the Bible only, explains the distinction he

so often makes between the character and importance of the various

parts of the “Word of God,” which he will have one keep in view when

searching in Scripture for the truths of faith. In passages where

religion is not concerned, particularly in historical statements, he

believes that the tools of the Holy Ghost both could and did err.[1424]

He thinks that “the predictions of the prophets concerning the Kings

and secular affairs often turned out wrong.”[1425] The inspiration

of the Apostles (and Evangelists) in the New-Testament writings was

merely a part of their general “office,” not a “special inspiration” in

the nature of a “second power added to and independent of it.” “The

predominant importance of the Apostles he traces back to their general

inspiration in the sense described above.”[1426]

Catholic doctors before Luther’s day had showed themselves far more

jealous of the sacredness of the Bible, as regards both the idea of

inspiration and the equal value of all the books, and their every part.

In spite of this Luther would have it that he had been the first to

make the Bible respected.

One point deserving of consideration as an instance of Luther’s

wantonness is his attitude towards the Canon of the Sacred Books.

How was he to prove that this or that book was to be included amongst

the writings which constituted the Word of God, now that he had

rejected the testimony of ecclesiastical tradition? According to the

teaching of the ancient Church, it was tradition and the authority of

the Church which vouched for the canonical character of the books of

the Bible. Luther was confronted with this objection by Johann Eck

at the Leipzig Disputation, who quoted the well-known words of St.

Augustine, that he was compelled “to believe the Gospel only on the

authority of the Catholic Church.”[1427] No longer recognising the

authority of the Church, Luther met the objection by some strange

evasions.[1428] When at last he saw that no other meaning could be read

into the passage he threw it overboard and wrote: “If this meaning

be not in St. Augustine’s words then it were better to repudiate his

saying. For it is contrary to Scripture, to the Spirit and to all

experience.”[1429] Even for the inspired value of the books included in

the Canon he appealed in his arbitrary fashion, not to the infallible

Church, but to the “inward testimony of the Spirit.”

He could hardly escape being thus thrown back on this inward, mystical

attestation, seeing that, according to him, human reason is of little

assistance in the matter. Here the “inner sense” has to come in and,

just as under the illumination of the Spirit of God, it imparts

certainty concerning the meaning of the Bible, so also it discerns

the dignity and godly value of Scripture. For obvious reasons, here

again, he fails to favour us with any “clearer explanation” of his

theory. One thing, however, emerges clearly, viz. that the feeling of

certainty regarding both the meaning and the contents is practically

identical with the feeling that the writing in question is Divine;

since the Spirit from on High teaches me the truth which lies in the

sense of Scripture, so also it must teach me that it is Scripture; the

apprehension of the sense and of the Divine character of the sacred

pages is one and the same.[1430]

It is thus that Luther clothes in intangible, mystical language the

vital question of religion here involved; at the Leipzig Disputation he

had used terms no less elusive: Every book that really belongs to the

Canon has authority and certainty “_per se ipsum_.”[1431] His mystical

words were the outcome of deep-seated tendencies within him; Tauler’s

language, which Luther had so skilfully made his own, was to assist him

in concealing the obscurity and lack of logic inherent in his views.

In reality, nevertheless, like the Catholics, he accepted the Canon of

Holy Scripture as handed down by antiquity; only that he granted to the

subjective influence of the “testimony of the Spirit” a far-reaching

and destructive force. He arbitrarily struck out of the Canon quite

a number of authentic writings,[1432] which will be enumerated

elsewhere[1433] together with his statements concerning them. His

literary opponents had a right to represent to him that so “strange

and arbitrary”[1434] a proceeding was merely a result of his theory

that the sacred books must prove their character and value to each man

individually. At any rate, his attitude towards the Bible cannot be

regarded as at all logical.[1435]

_Inward Assurance and Disagreements Without._

The second consequence of Luther’s biblical subjectivism which we

have to consider lies outside him. It is the disconcerting divergence

in interpretation which was the immediate result of his doctrine of

“inward experience,” to correct which he had recourse to some curious

remedies.

First of all we may append some further quotations from his writings

to those already adduced. The significance of this remarkable side

of the psychology of his doctrine is often not fully appreciated,

because it seems scarcely believable that Luther should have ventured

so far into the airy region of idealism. And yet, on the other hand,

we have here the principal reason for describing the new doctrine as

something interior, and as one doing better justice to our feelings

and personality, which was Luther’s own claim and, after him, that of

Protestants generally. The difficulty, however, is that almost every

sentence of Luther’s regarding the part played by “inward assurance”

in respect of the Bible, raises the question how that oneness of

interpretation which he ever presupposes, is to escape shipwreck, even

in the case of essential doctrines.

As early as Jan. 18, 1518, in his advice to Spalatin on the reading of

Scripture, Luther had appealed to the mystic “influence,” telling him

to distrust himself and to rely solely on the “_influxus Spiritus_”;

this appeal he supports on his own inward experience.[1436] In this

case his experience, however, mainly concerned the confirmation of

his chief doctrine; for it was under an inspiration from on High that

he had begun to feel his way to the new Evangel of Justification (see

vol. iii., p. 110 ff.). But what was to be done when others, too, laid

claim to a similar experience and inspiration?

At a later date he described to his friends how he had learnt to

understand Scripture “_in maximis agonibus et tentationibus_”; it

was thus he had found in the Bible the Divinity of Christ and the

articles on the Trinity; even now he was more certain of these truths

by experience than by faith.[1437] Even the absolute predestination

of the damned to hell, the entire absence of free-will for doing what

is good and other extravagant opinions questioned even by his own

followers, he declares he had learned directly from the Bible. In

1534 he places Scripture side by side with inward experience (or the

Spirit), as the warrant--even in the case of others--for all knowledge

of things Divine.

This he likewise applies to the Apostles’ Creed.[1438] In 1537 he said

in a sermon at Schmalkalden, “not only did all this [what is professed

in the Creed] take place as we read in the Word of the Gospel, but the

Holy Ghost also writes it inwardly in our heart.”[1439] He accepts

the teaching of the Apostles’ Creed because he has convinced himself

that it is based on Holy Writ.[1440] But how if others are not thus

convinced? Were they too to be fastened to the dogma?

R. Seeberg gives a good account of Luther’s views on the character

of the dogmas of the ancient Church.[1441] “He treats the symbols of

the ancient Church with great respect, particularly the Apostles’

Creed which contains all the chief articles of faith.[1442] But this

does not mean that he believes in each creed or Council as such.” “In

his work ‘Von den Conciliis’ with masterly historical criticism [?]

he denies all binding authority even to the ancient Councils”; even

the Council of the Apostles passed resolutions which were afterwards

rescinded, and so did the Nicene Council. “Dogma is true,” so runs

Luther’s teaching as given by Seeberg, “only so far as it agrees

with Scripture; in itself it is of no authority. But the truth of

Scripture is one that is attested interiorly. Hence we can say that

the Holy Ghost produces in us the assurance of the true doctrine [of

the Apostles’ Creed].”[1443]--The page-heading where these words occur

runs: “Luther’s independence of dogma.”

A highly important statement on the interior instruction that goes on

when we read Scripture is contained in Luther’s quite early work “_De

Captivitate Babylonica_” (1520): The soul, he says there, referring

to a misunderstood passage of St. Augustine’s on a well-known fact in

the natural order, is so affected by the truth, that, thanks to it,

it is able to judge rightly and surely of all things; it is forced

to confess with unfailing certitude that this is the truth, just as

reason affirms with unfailing certitude that three and seven make ten;

the same is the case with all real Christians and their spiritual

sense which, according to 1 Cor. ii. 15, judges all things and is

judged of no man.[1444]--The last words of the Apostle refer, however,

to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, bestowed for a while by God

on some few Christians in the early days of the Church, and cannot

apply to the ordinary conditions of later times.

Luther simply ignores the objection, that, if every man is judge,

unutterable discord must ensue. The way in which he contrived so

long to conceal this from himself is psychologically remarkable. For

instance, in one of the principal passages where this objection should

have been faced, viz. in his work against King Henry VIII, he glosses

over the difficulty with the assertion that, even under the Pope,

there was also no unity of doctrine; he then consoles himself with

the words of Christ (John vi.), that all true Christians “shall be

taught of God” and that every one that hath heard the Father cometh

to the Saviour; the Spirit of God makes all to be one and effects an

“_idem docere, idem confiteri, idem sequi_.”--We can only wonder at

the idealism that could expect such results in a world inhabited by

human beings.--In the end, however, since this was scarcely to be

looked for, “external unity would be sufficiently safeguarded by the

one Baptism and one Supper,” whereby all “testify to the oneness of

their faith and spirit.”[1445] At any rate, he is confident that the

true explanation (viz. his own) of the truths of salvation will gain

the upper hand. For the Church cannot perish.

In point of fact Luther really fancies himself justified in appealing

to this entirely new meaning put by him on the promise to the Church

that she shall never perish; she is indestructible because true

believers will always be there to maintain Luther’s interpretation of

revelation and of the imputed righteousness of Christ, and because any

general falling away from the truth is not to be thought of. Even

though very many, indeed the greater number, deny the true Scripture

teaching, still, many others remain, as, of yore, the seven thousand

when Israel fell away from God. According to him even these may be

held captive all their life in some error concerning the faith and

reach the right road and faith in the grace of Christ only on their

death-bed, according to the promise in John x. 28.[1446] In view

of the darkness prevalent in former ages this appears to him to

suffice in order to enable us to say that the Church has not really

perished,[1447] and to save the cause of private enlightenment on the

Bible. For this must stand fast, viz. that the Spirit of God most

surely bears witness to the contents of the Divine Word in the hearts

of the hearers and readers. “Luther,” says a Protestant exponent of

his theology, “laid this down time after time.” “His statements on

this subject cannot fail, however, to raise certain questions in our

minds.”[1448]

They gave rise to questions in his own day, and to something more than

mere questions. The bitter theological dissensions already hinted

at were the result. The inevitable divergency in the interpretation

of the Bible was seen everywhere, and a hundred different opinions,

some based on the inward assurance given by the “Spirit of God,”

some on the reflections of reason, took the field. We know to

what an extent Luther had to suffer from the discord born of his

principle, not merely from such comparatively unimportant persons

as Jacob Schenk[1449] and his “disgracefully arrogant” colleague,

Johann Agricola, not merely from the fanatics and Anabaptists who

found in the Bible a different teaching on Baptism, divine worship

and morality, or from the Zwinglians with their divergent biblical

interpretation of the Eucharist, but even, so to speak, in his own

family, from Melanchthon, who was rash enough to incline to the Swiss

reformed doctrines and to fight shy of the stricter Lutheranism.

“The presumption,” Luther declares, strangely enough, “is really

unbearable, that people should rise up against the authority of the

Church,” despise the teaching of the best and ablest, and only worship

their own views in Holy Scripture. “The name of the Church should be

held in high honour.”[1450] He forbore, however, to specify which

Church he meant, and moreover he had set himself above every Church.

“All other forms of arrogance,” he declares, “can be endured and allow

of improvement, as in the healing art, in philosophy, in poetry,

in mechanics and in the case of the young.... But that shocking

‘_arrogantia theologiæ_’ is the source of all evil, and a consuming

fire.”[1451]

So little did he succeed in repressing “theological arrogance,” but

rather, by his action, threw open the doors to it, that in 1525 he

was forced to lament:[1452] “There are as many sects and beliefs as

there are heads. This fellow will have nothing to do with baptism,

another denies the Sacrament, a third believes that there is another

world between this and the Last Day. Some teach that Christ is not

God, some say this, some that.... There is now no rustic so rude but

that, if he dreams or fancies anything, it must be the whisper of the

Holy Ghost and he himself a prophet.... There is no one who does not

wish to be cleverer than Luther; they all want to try their steel

on me.... They speak like madmen; I have during the year to listen

to many such wretched folk. In no other way can the devil come so

close to me, that I must admit. Formerly the world was full of noisy,

disembodied spirits giving themselves out to be the souls of men; now

it is full of uproarious spirits with bodies, who all declare that

they are real angels.”[1453]

He has this crumb of comfort: The world is the devil’s playground; and

uproars there must be.[1454]

“This is all due,” he says finally, truly and aptly, “to their

bringing their conceit with them to the study of Scripture, which

has to submit to being judged, moulded and led by their head and

reason,”[1455]--surely a bitter punishment for throwing over the

divinely appointed authority of the Church, which decides on the sense

of the Bible.

“By thus making individual experience the test,” remarks a Protestant

theologian, “the door seemed opened wide to neverending dissension....

Luther did not succeed in carrying his theory to its right conclusion.

Indeed we even find him formulating thoughts which seem to tend

back to the old, mechanical authority of Scripture.” According to

this writer, Luther’s conception of Scripture presented certain

“imperfections” which, “even in principle, were practically at

variance with it; these, however, disappeared as the fanatic movement

taught Luther their disastrous effects.” The same writer asks finally:

“But was it really a question merely of ‘imperfections’ which did not

endanger the very essence of his views?”[1456]

“What did Luther set up, instead of tradition, as a principle of

interpretation?” another Protestant theologian recently queried. He

answers: “In theory, that Scripture interprets itself; in practice

however, as it doesn’t, his own theology.”[1457]

_Remedies against Disagreement. The Outward Word._

Since the harmony of the “Spirit,” which Luther had so confidently

looked for, failed to show itself in people’s minds and not a glimmer

of hope of any future agreement was visible, he found it necessary to

insist far more strongly than heretofore on the outward Word;[1458]

this was to check unwelcome inward revelations, to put everything

in order and to be a bulwark against unusual views. “Now that the

Apostles have preached the Word,” so runs one of his most interesting

pronouncements on this subject,[1459] “and left us their writings,

so that there is nothing more to reveal than what they have written,

there is no need of any special new revelation, or miracles. This we

know from the writings of the Apostles.” It would be a different matter

if all were filled with the Holy Ghost and His gifts; “were this so

it would be an easy thing to preach and to govern and all would go

on quite smoothly and well, as indeed it ought. But unfortunately

this is not the case, and those who have the Holy Ghost and a right

understanding are not so common,” but “there are plenty who fancy they

have mastered Scripture and have the Holy Ghost without measure.”

These want to be thought “far more deeply and profoundly initiated”

than Luther himself, and “much more learned than we are.” This he is

not unwilling to allow, but on one thing he must insist, viz. on the

“Word!” “This old and tried doctrine of the Apostles” he has “again

brought to light,” having found “all this darkened by the Pope and

his human teaching”; “by the Grace of God we have brought it to light

once more”; “it is the very same as the Apostles first taught. But it

has not been brought to light again without a revelation of the Holy

Ghost.... He had to illumine our minds that Holy Scripture might be

rightly viewed and understood”; hence “no other word or revelation is

to be expected” “contrary to this doctrine, even were an angel from

heaven visibly to bring” a new doctrine. Everyone can see “that God is

tempting the people, particularly in these latter days of which it is

said, that the devil shall rule mightily over Christendom by means of

Antichrist.”--Here, consequently, his teaching is put on a level with

the “outward Word.”

The outward Word, according to other passages where Luther is rather

more reticent concerning the “revelation” he had received, was that

plain and unassailable Bible teaching on which all “Spirits” must

agree without any danger of divergency. This Word he now identifies

with preaching. Preaching, however, is part of the office, and both

office and preaching were controlled by Luther; indeed the office had

been instituted chiefly by him and his sovereign. Hence, in effect, the

outward Word is still Luther’s word.

“Faith,” we read of the outward Word, seemingly contradicting the

freedom Luther had formerly proclaimed, “comes of hearing, i.e. from

preaching, or from the outward Word. This is the order established by

God and He will not derogate from it. Hence contempt for the outward

Word and for Scripture is rank blasphemy, which the secular authorities

are bound to punish, according to the second Commandment which enjoins

the punishment of blasphemy.” This occurs in the booklet officially

circulated in 1536 among the pastors of the Saxon Electorate.[1460]

A Protestant researcher who has recently made a special study of

the “Inquisition” in the Saxon Electorate has the following remark

concerning this statement, which is by no means without a parallel

in Luther’s works: “Thus even contempt for Scripture--here meaning

contempt for Luther’s interpretation of the Bible text--was already

regarded as ‘rank blasphemy’ which it was the duty of the authorities

to punish. To such a pass had Evangelical freedom already come.”[1461]

In order to uphold his own reading of the Bible against others which

differed from his, Luther incidentally appealed with the utmost vigour,

as the above examples show, to the Church, to tradition and to the

Fathers, whose authority he had nevertheless solemnly renounced.

This was the case especially in the controversies on the Zwinglian

doctrine of the Supper. In defending the Real Presence and the literal

sense of the words of consecration, Luther was in the right. He could

not resist the temptation to adduce the convincing testimony of

tradition, the voice of the “Church” from the earliest ages, which

spoke so loudly in defence of the truth. It was then that he wrote

the oft-quoted words to Albert of Brandenburg, in order to retain

him on his side and to preserve him from Zwinglian contamination:

“That Christ is present in the Sacrament is proved by the books and

writings, both Greek and Latin, of the dear Fathers, also by the daily

usage and our experience till this very hour; which testimony of all

the holy Christian Churches, even had we no other, should suffice to

make us remain by this article.”[1462] It is true that elsewhere we

find him saying of the tradition of the Fathers: “When the Word of God

comes down to us through the Fathers it seems to me like milk strained

through a coal-sack, when the milk must needs be black and nasty.”

This meant, he says, “that the Word of God was in itself pure and

true, bright and clear, but by the teaching of the Fathers, by their

books and their writings, it was much darkened and corrupted.”[1463]

“And even if the Fathers agreed with you,” he says elsewhere, “that

is not enough. I want Holy Writ, because I too am fighting you in

writing.”[1464]

In his controversy with Zwingli, Luther even came to plead the cause

of the Catholic principle of authority. In his tract of 1527, “Das

diese Wort Christi, ‘Das ist mein Leib’ noch fest stehen,” he declared

that Zwingli’s interpretation of the Bible had already given rise to

“many opinions, many factions and much dissension.” Such arbitrary

exegesis neither can nor may go any further. “And if the world is to

last much longer, we shall on account of such dissensions again be

obliged, like the ancients, to seek for human contrivances and to

set up new laws and ordinances in order to preserve the people in

the unity of the faith. This will succeed as it succeeded before. In

fine, the devil is too clever and powerful for us. He hinders us and

stops the way everywhere. If we wish to study Scripture he raises up

so much strife and dissension that we tire of it.... He is, and is

called, Satan, i.e. an adversary.” He here attributes to the devil

the defects of his own Scriptural system, and puts away as something

wrong even the very thought that it contained faults, another trait

to his psychological picture: “The devil is a conjurer.” “Unless God

assists us, our work and counsel is of no avail. We may think of it as

we like, he still remains the Prince of this world. Whoever does not

believe this, let him simply try and see. Of this I have experienced

something. But let no one believe me until he has himself experienced

it.”[1465] There is no doubt, that, in 1527, Luther did have to go

through some severe struggles of conscience.

The Swiss held fast to “Scripture” and to their own “Spirit.”

H. Bullinger, the leader of the Zwinglians, proved more logical than

Luther in his interpretation of the new principle of Scripture. In his

book on the difference between the Evangelical and Roman doctrines

(Zürich, 1551) he deliberately rejected quite a number of traditional,

Catholic practices which Luther had spared; for instance, the use

of religious pictures in the churches, ceremonies, the liturgical

chants, confession, etc. With this same weapon he attacked not only

Catholicism, but also Luther’s doctrine of the Real Presence in the

Blessed Sacrament and the whole Church system as introduced by the

Wittenbergers.

Luther, for his part, in order to retain the Bible on his side, used

a very arbitrary method of Scripture interpretation both against the

Swiss theologians and against Catholicism and its defenders. In many

cases it was only his peculiar exegesis (to be considered below,

xxviii., 2) that furnished him with the Scriptural arguments he needed.

Thus, in his attitude towards Scripture, the Wittenberg Professor

wavers between tradition, to which he frequently appeals almost

against his will, and that principle of independent study of the Bible

under enlightenment from on high, which is ever obtruding itself

on him. The latter principle he never denied, in spite of his sad

experiences with the doctrine that everyone who is taught by the Holy

Ghost can draw from Scripture his own belief, and, according to St.

Paul, with the help of this light, test the teaching and opinions of

all.[1466] Yet--strange as it may seem on the part of an assailant of

authority--the last word on matters of faith belongs, according to

him, to authority. This is his opinion for practical reasons, because

not everyone can be expected, and but few are able, to undertake the

task of finding their belief for themselves in the Bible. Moreover,

what one may possibly have learnt from Scripture at the cost of toil

and with the help of inspiration, cannot so readily become the common

property of all. On the other hand, according to Luther, the “_exterius

iudicium_” which is supported by the “_externa claritas_” of Scripture,

as interpreted by himself and proclaimed with authority by the

preachers, was intended for all.[1467]

_The Way of Settling Doubts Concerning Faith. Assurance of Salvation

and Belief in Dogma._

When we come to examine Luther’s teaching on the nature of the faith

which is based on the Bible and to enquire how doubts regarding this

Bible teaching were to be quieted, we are again faced by the utmost

waywardness.

In his “Von beider Gestallt des Sacramentes” (1522), Luther says of

belief in the truths of revelation generally: “And it is not enough

for you to say: Luther, Peter or Paul has said it, but you must feel

Christ Himself in your own conscience and be assured beyond all doubt

that it is really the Word of God, even though all the world should be

against it. So long as you have not this feeling it is certain that

you have not tasted the Word of God, but are still hanging by your

ears on the lips or the pen of man and not clinging with all your

heart to the Word.” Since Christ is the one and only teacher it is

plain “what horrid murderers of souls those are [viz. the Papists] who

preach to souls the doctrines of men.”[1468]

The whole passage is of the utmost practical importance, because in

it Luther seeks to solve the question anxiously asked by so many: Who

will assure us that all that we are now told that we must believe if

we do not wish to lose our souls, is really the teaching of Christ?

To this he here gives an answer which is intended to satisfy even one

in danger of death and to instruct him fully on the matter of his

salvation.

The olden Church had given her faithful a clear answer which set every

doubt at rest: The warrant for our belief is the authority of the

Church instituted by Christ and endowed by God with infallibility. In

effect the voice of the General Councils, the decisions of an unbroken

line of vicars of Christ on the Papal throne, the teaching of the

hierarchy everywhere and at every time, the consensus of the faithful,

in brief, the outward testimony of Christ’s whole Church, aroused in

all hearts the happy certainty that the faith offered was indeed the

revelation of God; people, indeed, believed in God and in His Word,

but what they believed was what the Church proposed for belief. The

Church also declared, though not in the same sense as Luther, “_Fides

non ullorum auctoritate sed Spiritu solo Dei oritur in corde_.”[1469]

The Church taught, what the Council of Trent emphasised anew, viz.

that, by the action of the Holy Ghost alone, i.e. by the supernatural

Grace of God which exalts the powers of man, faith attains to what is

requisite for salvation.

Luther, who overthrew the authority of the Church’s teaching office,

was unable to provide the soul in its struggle after faith with any

guarantee beyond his own authority to take the Church’s place. In his

“Von beider Gestallt des Sacramentes” he refers to Christ Himself

the man oppressed by doubt and fear, viz. to a court of appeal

inaccessible to the seeker, and this he did at a time when he himself

had started all kinds of discussions on the sense of the Gospel, and

when Christ was being claimed in support of the most widely divergent

views. He refers the enquirer to Christ, because here he deems it

better not to say plainly “hold fast to me,” though elsewhere such an

admonition was not too bold a one for him to give. “Think rather for

yourself,” such is his advice, “you have death or persecution in front

of you, and I cannot be with you then nor you with me. Each one must

fight for himself and overcome the devil, death and the world. Were

you at such a time to be looking round to see where I was, or I to

see where you were, or were you disturbed because I or anyone else on

earth asserted differently, you would be lost already and have let the

Word slip from your heart, for you would be clinging, not to the Word,

but to me or to some other; in that case there is no help.”[1470]

He thus leaves the anxious man “to himself” at the most awful of

moments; elsewhere, too, he does the same. When he invites every man to

“taste the Word of God” betimes and to “feel” how directly “the Master

speaks within his heart,” this is merely a roundabout way of repeating

the comfortless warning that “each one must fight for himself.” In

other words, what he means is: I have no sure warrant to give in the

stead of the Church’s authority; you must find out for yourself whether

you have received the true Word of Christ by consulting your own

feelings.

In addition to this, in the opinion of many Protestant theologians,

the faith to be derived from the Bible which everyone must necessarily

arrive at was very much circumscribed by Luther. “Man’s attitude

towards Christ and His saving Grace” loomed so large with him, that

it “decided the question whether a man was, or was not, a believer.”

If, in the Protestantism of to-day, Luther’s “idea of faith” is

frequently taken rather narrowly, it must be admitted that in many of

his statements and demands he himself goes even further. We have here

to do with that “two-sidedness in his attitude towards Scripture,”

which “is apparent at every period of his life.”[1471] If we keep to

the earlier and more “liberal” side of his “Evangelical conception of

faith,” then indeed the trusting and confident assumption of such a

relationship with Christ would certainly be “decisive in the question

whether a man was a believer or not, and Luther himself frequently used

this criterion, for instance, when he answers as follows the question:

Who is a member of the Church and whom must one regard as a dear

brother in Christ: ‘All who confess Christ as sent by God the Father

in order to reconcile us by His death and to obtain grace for us’;

or again elsewhere: ‘All those who cling to Christ alone and confess

Him in faith,’ or, yet again: All those ‘who seek the Lord with all

their heart and soul, and trust only in God’s mercy.’[1472] In such

utterances we have the purely religious conception of Evangelical faith

clearly summarised.” (Cp. above, vol. iii., p. 13.)

Agreeably with this conception of faith, some Protestants have

contended that Luther should have been much more broad-minded with

regard to doubts and to doctrines which differed from his own; his

opposition to other views, notably to those of the Zwinglians, brought

him, however, to another conception of faith, to one more closely

related to the Catholic theory. According to Catholic doctrine, faith

is a firm assent to all that God has revealed and the Church proposes

for belief. It is made up of many articles, not one of which can be set

aside without injury to the whole. Luther, so we are told, “owing to

his controversy with Zwingli, ran the risk of exchanging his conception

of faith for this one [the Catholic one], according to which faith is

the acceptance of a whole series of articles of faith.”

In reality he did not merely “run the risk” of reaching such a

doctrine; he had, all along, even in earlier days, been moving on

these same lines, albeit in contradiction with himself. It was in fact

nothing altogether new when he wrote in the Articles of Schwabach:

“Such a Church is nothing else than the faithful in Christ, who

believe, hold and teach the above Articles.”[1473] The faith for

which he wishes to stand always comprised the contents of the oldest

Creeds, and he prefers to close his eyes to the fact that they were

really undermined by his other propositions. By these articles he is

determined to abide. Hence it is hardly fair to appeal to him in favour

of their abrogation, and any such appeal would only serve to emphasise

his self-contradiction. Luther himself, when dealing with opponents,

frequently speaks of the breaking of a single link as being sufficient

to make the whole chain fall apart. “All or nothing” was his cry,

viz. the very same as Catholics had used against his own innovations.

In short, in his “two-sidedness,” he, quite generally, seeks a sure

foothold against difficulties from within and from without in the

principle of authority in its widest meaning, and, when trying to

safeguard the Apostles’ Creed and the “œcumenical symbols,” he appeals

expressly to the Catholic past. He says that by thus vindicating the

Apostles’ Creed and that of Nicæa he wished to show that he “was true

to the rightful, Christian Church, which had retained them till that

day.”[1474] The Fathers preserved them and, as in the case of the

Athanasian Creed, supplemented and enlarged the traditional formulas,

the better to counter heretics; Luther is even willing to accept

new terms not found in Scripture, but coined by the Church, such as

“_peccatum originale_” or “_consubstantialis_” _ὁμοούσιος_,[1475] since

they might profitably be employed against false teachers.

_Protestant Objections to Luther’s so-called “Formal Principle.”_

“It is not for us to tone down or conceal the contradictions which

present themselves,” writes a Protestant theologian who has made

Luther’s attitude towards Scripture the subject of particular study.

“... Even judged by the standard of his own day Luther does not display

that uniformity which we are entitled to expect.... The psychological

motives in particular are very involved and spring from different

sources. The very fact that throughout his life he exhibited a certain

obstinacy and violence towards both himself and others, must render

doubtful any attempt to trace everything back to a single source.

Obstinacy always points to contradictions.” This author goes so far

as to say: “We might almost give vent to the paradox, that only in

these contradictions is uniformity apparent; such a proposition would,

however, hold good only before the court of psychology.” “To-day it is

not possible to embrace Luther’s view in its entirety.”[1476]

In an historical account of Luther’s teaching (and it is in this that

most Protestant scholars are interested) we must, as we advance,

ever keep in view Luther’s whole individuality with all its warring

elements. The difficulty thus presented to our becoming better

acquainted with his views is, however, apparent from the words already

quoted from one of Luther’s biographers concerning Luther’s wealth of

ideas, which also, to some extent, apply even to his statements on

dogma: “Every word Luther utters plays in a hundred lights and every

eye meets with a different radiance which it would gladly fix.”[1477]

In spite of the difficulties arising from this character of the

Wittenberg Doctor, early orthodox Lutheranism taught that he had set up

the “_sola scriptura_” as the “formal principle” of the new doctrine.

According to eminent authorities in modern Protestantism, however, this

formal principle was stillborn; it was never capable in practice of

supporting an edifice of doctrine, still less of forming a community of

believers. Hence the tendency has been to make it subservient to the

“Evangelical” understanding of the Bible.

Thus F. Kropatscheck, the author of the learned work “Das

Schriftprinzip der lutherischen Kirche” (1904), says candidly,

“that the formal principle of Protestantism [Scripture only] does

not suffice in itself as a foundation for the true Christian life

whether of the individual or of a community.” “Where the Evangelical

content is lacking, the formal principle does not rise above sterile

criticism.”[1478]

Kropatscheck’s examination of the mediæval views on Scripture led him

moreover to recognise, that, in theory at least, the Bible always

occupied its due place of honour; its content was, however, so he

fancies, not understood until Luther rediscovered it as the Gospel

of the “forgiveness of sins through Christ.”[1479] So far, according

to him, did esteem for Scripture as the Word of God go in the Middle

Ages, that he even ventures to characterise the formula “_sola

scriptura_” as “Catholic commonplace”;[1480] this, however, he can

only have intended in the sense in which it was read and supplemented

by another Protestant theologian: “In practice this did not exclude

the interpretation of Scripture on the lines of tradition.”[1481]

“The so-called formal principle,” the above work goes on to say, with

quite remarkable fairness to the past, “was much more utilised in

the Middle Ages than popular accounts would lead us to suppose. To

the Reformation we owe neither the formula (‘_sola scriptura_’) nor

the insisting on the literal sense, nor the theory of inspiration,

nor scarcely anything else demanded on the score of pure scriptural

teaching.”[1482] “Almost all” the qualities attributed to Holy

Scripture in the early, orthodox days of Protestantism “are already to

be met with in the Middle Ages.”[1483]

In the same work Kropatscheck rightly sums up the teaching on the

inspiration of the canonical books, of St. Thomas Aquinas, the

principal exponent of the mediæval biblical teaching, doing so in

a couple of sentences the clearness and conclusiveness of which

contrast strangely with the new doctrine: “The effect of inspiration,”

according to this Doctor of the Church, implies, negatively,

preservation from error, positively, an enlightenment, both for the

perception of supernatural truth and for the right judging of natural

verities. Beyond this, a certain impulse from on high was needed to

move the sacred scribes to write the burden of their message.[1484]

That in the past the doctrine of interpretation was bound up with the

doctrine of inspiration, is, according to the statements of another

Protestant writer, P. Drews,[1485] expressed as follows by the

Catholic voice of Willibald Pirkheimer: “We should have to look on

ourselves as reprobate were we to despise even one syllable of Holy

Scripture, for we know and firmly believe that our salvation rests

solely and entirely on the Gospel. Hence we have it daily in our hands

and read it and regard it as the guide of our lives. But no one can

blame us if we place greater reliance on the interpretation of the

holy, ancient Fathers than on some garbled account of Holy Scripture,

since it is, alas, daily evident that there are as many different

readings of the Word of God as there are men. Herein lies the source

of all the evils and disorders, viz. that every fool would expound

Scripture, needless to say, to his own advantage.”[1486]

Protestant theologians have recently been diligent in studying

Luther’s teaching on the Bible. The conclusions arrived at by O.

Scheel, who severely criticises Luther, have several times been

quoted in this work. K. Thimme, in a scholarly work entitled “Luthers

Stellung zur Heiligen Schrift,”[1487] has pointed out that Luther,

who “affirms the existence of real inaccuracies in Holy Scripture,”

nevertheless, in the very year that he expressed contempt for certain

books of the New Testament, loudly demanded “the firmest belief

(‘_firmissime credatur_’), that nothing erroneous is contained in the

canonical books.”[1488]

A. Galley, a theologian to whom it fell to review the book, declared,

that, unfortunately, in spite of this and other essays on the subject,

no sure and decisive judgment on Luther’s attitude towards Holy

Scripture had yet been arrived at.[1489]--Does this not, perhaps,

amount to saying that any ultimate verdict of harmony, truth and

absence of contradictions is out of the question?

R. Seeberg in one work emphasises “Luther’s independent and critical

attitude towards the books of the Old and New Testament Canon.”

“Scripture is to be believed not on the external authority of the

Church but because it is revelation tested by experience.... Scripture

was to him the standard, test and measure of all ecclesiastical

doctrine, but this it was as the expression of the experienced

revelation of God.”[1490]

This statement Seeberg further explains elsewhere: “Though, in his

controversies, Luther pits Scripture as the ‘Divine law’ against all

mere ecclesiastical law [viz. the Church’s dogma], yet he regarded it

as authoritative simply in so far as it was the original, vigorous

witness to Christ and His salvation. Considered in this light,

Scripture, however, cannot be put side by side with justifying

faith as the second principle of Protestantism. The essential and

fundamental thought is faith.”--What Seeberg here says is quietly

aimed at the later, orthodox, Lutheran theologians who took from

Luther the so-called formal principle of Protestantism, viz. the

doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Bible. “How is it possible,

in view of Luther’s reprobation of certain things in the Bible ...

and his admission that it contained mistakes, to imagine any verbal

inspiration?”[1491]

Seeberg has also a remarkable account of Luther’s views on the

relation to Scripture of that faith which in reality is based on

inward experience: “The specific content of Scripture” is “Christ,

His office and kingdom.” To this content it is that faith bears

witness by inward experience (see above, p. 404 f.). For faith is

“the recognition by the heart of the Almighty love revealed to us in

God.... This recognition involves also the certainty that I am in

the Grace of God.” “The truth of Scripture is something demonstrated

inwardly,” etc. “The external, legal founding of doctrine upon dogma

is thus set aside, and an end is made of the ancient canon of Vincent

of Lerins. Even the legal [dogmatic] application of Scripture is in

principle done away with.” Of the extent to which Luther carried out

these principles the author says in conclusion: “That his practice was

not always exemplary and devoid of contradiction can merely be hinted

at here.”[1492]

It would have been better to say straight away that no

non-contradictory use of contradictory principles was possible.

Dealing with a work by K. Eger (“Luthers Auslegung des Alten

Testamentes”), W. Köhler said: “Any interpretation not limited by

practical considerations ... was quite unknown to Luther, hence we

must not seek such a thing in him.... Our best plan is to break with

Luther’s principle of interpretation.” And, before this: “Luther’s

principle of interpretation is everywhere the ‘_fides_,’ and what

Luther has to offer in the way of sober, ‘historical’ interpretation

is no growth of his own garden but a fruit of Humanism.... Just as

the Schoolmen found their theology in the Old Testament, so he did

his.”[1493]

Luther’s method of interpretation, however, presents much that calls

for closer examination.

2. Luther as a Bible-Expositor

“Luther in his quality of Bible-expositor is one of the most

extraordinary and puzzling figures in the domain of religious

psychology.”[1494]

_Some Characteristics of Luther’s Exegesis._

It is true that some of Luther’s principles of exegesis are excellent,

and that he has a better perception than many of his predecessors

of the need of first ascertaining the literal sense, and, for this

purpose, of studying languages. He is aware that the fourfold sense

of Holy Scripture, so often wrongly appealed to, must retire before

the literal meaning, and that we must ever seek what the sacred writer

really and obviously meant, in whatever dress we find his ideas

clothed. Some quite excellent observations occur in his works on the

danger of having recourse to allegorical interpretations and of not

taking the text literally.

Luther himself, it is true, in his earlier postils, frequently makes

use of the allegory so dear to mediæval writers, often investing what

he says in poetic and fantastic forms. Later on, however, he grew more

cautious. Here again the abuse of allegory by the fanatics had its

effect. In addition to this his constant efforts to prove his doctrine

against theological gainsayers within and without his camp, forced him

in his arguments to use the literal sense of the Bible, or at least

what he considered such. The advantages of his German translation of

the Bible will be spoken of elsewhere (see vol. v., xxxiv., 3).

Yet he lacked one thing essentially required of an expositor, viz.

theological impartiality, nor was he fair to those means by which the

Church’s interpreters were guided in determining the sense of Scripture.

Concerning the latter, it is enough to remember how lightheartedly

he threw overboard the interpretation of the whole of the Christian

past. His wantonness, which led him to esteem as of no account all

the expositions and teachings of previous ages, deprived his exegesis

of much help and also of any stable foundation. Even considered from

the merely natural standpoint, real progress in religious knowledge

must surely be made quietly and without any sudden break with what has

already been won by the best minds by dint of diligent labour.

The rock on which Luther suffered shipwreck was however above all his

complete lack of impartiality. In his work as expositor his concern was

not to do homage to the truth in whatever shape he might encounter it

in the texts he was interpreting, but to introduce into the texts his

own ideas. Bearing in mind his controversy and his natural temperament,

this cannot, however, surprise us. Hence it is not necessary to take

too tragically the tricks he occasionally plays with Bible texts. Some

of these have been most painstakingly examined,[1495] and, indeed, it

was not without its advantages to have the general complaints raised

thus verified in individual instances. Thanks to his investigations

Döllinger was able to write: “False interpretations of the most obvious

and arbitrary kind are quite the usual thing in his polemics. It would

hardly be possible to carry this further than he did in his writings

against Erasmus in the instances quoted even by Planck. Indeed,

examples of utter wilfulness and violence to the text can be adduced in

great number from his writings.” Most frequently, as Döllinger points

out, “his interpretation is false, because he foists his own peculiar

ideas on the biblical passages, ideas which on his own admission he

reached not by a calm and dispassionate study of the Bible, but under

conditions of painful mental disturbance and anxiety of conscience.”

To this he was urged by the unrest certain Bible-sayings excited in

him; in such cases, as Döllinger remarks, he knew how “to pacify his

exegetical conscience by telling himself, that all this disquiet

was merely a temptation of the devil, who wanted to puzzle him with

passages from Scripture and thus drive him to despair.”[1496]

The whole of his exegesis is pervaded by his doctrine of Justification.

In this sense he says in the preface to Galatians, the largest of his

exegetico-dogmatic works: “Within me this one article of faith in

Christ reigns supreme. Day and night all my ideas on theology spring

from it and return thereto.”[1497]

“The article of Justification,” he declares, in a disputation in 1537,

“is the master and prince, the lord, regent and judge of every form of

doctrine, which preserves and rules all ecclesiastical knowledge and

exalts our consciousness before God.”[1498]

Two years before this (1535) he expressed himself still more strongly

in a disputation: “Scripture is not to be understood against, but

for, Christ. Hence it must either be made to apply to Him--or not be

regarded as true Scripture at all.”[1499]

His highly vaunted idea of Justification he sought to apply first

and foremost to those books or passages of the Bible which, as he

expressed it, “preach Christ.” Though giving the first place in the

canonical regard to those writings where Christ is most strongly and

fully preached and but scant favour (when he does not reject them

entirely) to those where this is not the case, he yet contrives to

introduce his own particular Christ into many parts of Scripture which

really say nothing about Him. Everything that redounds to the honour

of Christ, i.e. to the exaltation of His work of grace in man, as

Luther understood it, must be forced into Scripture, while everything

that tends to assert man’s powers and the need of his co-operation

must be expunged, since Christ cannot arrive at His right which He

has from the Father except through the utter helplessness of man. The

Bible must nowhere know of any inner righteousness on man’s part that

is of any value in God’s sight; it must never place on the lips of

Christ any demand, any praise or reward for human effort. All sacred

utterances which contradict this are, so he says, in spite of his

preference for the literal sense, not to be taken literally. Thus,

when the Bible says man _shall_, it does not follow that he _can_;

God rather wishes thereby to convince man of his helplessness; nay,

what is said in this connection of man and his works really applies

to Christ, Who has done everything for us and makes it all ours by

faith.[1500]

“There were times in his life when the antithesis between faith and

works so dominated him and filled his mind, that the whole Bible

seemed to him to have been written simply to illustrate and emphasise

this doctrine of Justification.”[1501]

Two portions of Holy Scripture, viz. the Epistles to the Romans and to

the Galatians, according to him, hold the first place in their eulogy

of Christ, by their recommendation of faith in Him alone. Hence “all

questions and all the more obscure passages of Scripture are to be

solved and explained by these two epistles.”[1502] If, in the Bible,

good works are extolled or almsgiving praised, the word “_fide_” must

always be understood, since the meaning cannot but be that such works

are profitable by faith.[1503]

In the case of the Evangelists, Matthew and Luke in particular,

we must expound their writings in accordance with the doctrine of

Justification through Christ and man’s own helplessness. “Scripture

must be interpreted according to this article.... When Matthew and

Luke speak of good works, they are to be understood and judged

according to this rule.”[1504]

Thus, in all questions of exegesis the “preaching of Christ” is

conclusive. We must, first of all, see whether each book commonly

reckoned to form part of the Bible really “preaches Christ,” and, where

this is so, the same thoughts will control everything else.[1505]

In the question of the relation of faith to the interpretation of

Scripture, Luther hobbles strangely. On the one hand the Bible is to

be interpreted strictly according to faith, on the other, faith is to

be won solely from the Bible. The former proposition he thus explains

in a sermon: It is a command that the interpretation of Scripture must

“rhyme with faith and not teach anything contrary to or differing from

what faith teaches.” True faith, however, is that which is directed

against the power of works, so that any interpretation of the Bible

which contradicts this is wrong. Whatever teaches us “to have a good

conscience towards God, except by faith alone and without any works,

neither resembles nor rhymes with faith.”[1506] Of the content of faith

we are assured above all by inward experience and the Spirit. It is

indeed on the “feeling and sentiment” that, in the case of faith, i.e.

the acceptance of the Gospel message of salvation, Luther lays the

chief stress.[1507] “If you feel it not, you have not the faith, the

Word merely rings in your ears and hovers on your lips like foam on

water.”[1508]

Luther is just as determined in proving faith from Scripture as

he is in making Scripture subservient to and dependent on faith.

“Without Scripture faith soon goes,” he exclaims after labouring to

bring forward arguments from the Bible in support of the new faith

in Christ.[1509] “Whatever is advanced without being attested by

Scripture or a revelation need not be believed.”[1510] “To this wine

no water must be added”;[1511] to this sun no lantern must be held

up![1512] “You must take your stand on a plain, clear and strong word

of Scripture, which will then be your support.”[1513]

The worst of it is, as O. Scheel aptly remarks, that Luther pits his

Christ against Scripture and thus makes the latter void.[1514]

On the one hand, according to Adolf Harnack, Luther, when making

faith the rule of Bible interpretation, becomes a “mediæval exegete”

and borrows from the past even his types and allegories. Yet he cuts

himself adrift in the most decided fashion from the mediæval exegesis,

“not merely when it is a question of Justification,” but even “in

regard to such Scripture passages as contain nothing whatever about the

doctrine of Justification and faith, or only alien matter.”[1515]

For instance, he finds righteousness by works condemned and faith

exalted in the very first pages of the Bible; for Cain, his brother’s

murderer, “clung to works and lost the faith,” that was his misfortune;

whereas Abel held aloof “from free-will and the merit of works” and

“kept the faith in a pure conscience.” “The same thing happened later

with Isaac and Ismael, Jacob and Esau, and others.”--Yet, in spite of

such condemnation of works, many passages, particularly in the New

Testament, seem to tell in favour of works. This, however, is only

due to the fact that at the time of the New Testament writers it was

desirable to raise up a bulwark against any too great esteem for faith.

Thus it was really not meant quite seriously; in the same way even he

himself, so he says, had been obliged to oppose this excessive esteem

for faith, because, in his day, and owing to his preaching, the people

“wanted merely to believe, to the neglect of the power and fruit of

faith” (in good actions).[1516]

Owing to his habit of ever reading the Bible through the glass of his

doctrine of Justification, his handling of Rom. xi. 32 (in the Vulgate:

“_Conclusit Deus omnia in incredulitate ut omnium misereatur_”) was

such that Döllinger found in it no less than “three falsifications of

the words of Paul.”[1517]

Luther’s marginal glosses to his translation of the Bible are open to

plentiful objections, for their purpose is to recall the reader as

often as possible to the basic theories of his doctrine.[1518]

Some Protestants have been exceedingly frank in characterising the

strained relations often noticeable between Luther’s exegesis and true

scholarship.

Friedrich Paulsen, in his “Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts,” when

dealing with the demand made by the “exegesis of the Reformation,”

viz. that the reader must cling to the plain text and letter of

Scripture, says: “Luther by no means considered himself bound to

the letter and the grammatical sense of the text of Scripture. Where

the letter was in his favour, he indeed used it against others, the

Swiss, for instance, but, where it was not, he nevertheless stands

by his guns and knows what Scripture _ought_ to have said. Everybody

knows with what scant regard he handled certain books of Scripture,

estimating their value according as they agreed more or less with his

teaching, and even amending them a little when they failed to reach

his standard or to present the pure doctrine of justification by faith

‘alone’ in a light sufficiently strong.... In order to understand

Scripture it is necessary [according to Luther] to know beforehand

what it teaches; Scripture is indeed the rule of doctrine, but,

_vice versa_, doctrine is also the rule of Scripture which must be

interpreted ‘_ex analogia fidei_.’”[1519]

Referring to Luther’s interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans,

Adolf Hausrath pithily observes: “Luther read this Epistle to the

Romans into everything and found it everywhere.” Though Hausrath makes

haste to add that this was because “his personal experiences agreed

with those of the Epistle to the Romans,” still, his reference to the

psychological basis of the phenomenon is quite in place. “He had been

led to draw from Scripture one basic principle which to him was the

embodiment of truth, viz. Justification by Faith. That only which ran

counter to this ‘faith alone’ was to be set aside.”[1520]

_Luther’s Exegesis in the Light of His Early Development._

With the help of the newly published Commentary on Romans, written by

Luther in his youth (vol. i., p. 184 ff.), we can trace the beginnings

of his curious exegesis more easily than was possible before.

What we want first of all is a key to that more than human confidence

which prompts the new teacher to blend in one his own interpretation

and the actual text of the Bible and to say, “_My_ word is the truth.”

This key is to be found in his early history. It was then, in those

youthful days when he began morbidly to brood over the mysteries of the

Epistle to the Romans, all unable to grasp the profound thoughts it

contained, that the phenomenon in question made its first appearance.

We must call to mind that the young and ardent University professor,

though deficient in humility and in the capacity to assimilate the

sublime teachings of the Epistle to the Romans, stood all the more

under the spell of two misleading ideas which had long dominated him,

viz. on the one hand, the supposed depth and transforming power of

the knowledge of Scripture he had already acquired and, on the other,

the need of assailing the self-righteous and hypocritical Little

Saints and all excessive esteem for good works. In the latter respect

the passages in Romans on works, faith and merit--of which he failed

to see the real meaning--became dangerous rocks on which Luther’s

earlier religious convictions suffered hopeless shipwreck. So greatly

was he attracted and, as it were, fascinated by the light that seemed

to him to stream in on his soul from this Epistle, that he came to

see the same thing everywhere. Its suggestive power over him was all

the greater because in his then pseudo-mystical train of thought he

was fond of comparing himself to the Apostle and of fancying, that,

as in that case so in his, inner self-annihilation would lead to his

receiving similar favours from God. This self-annihilation in Luther’s

case was, however, a morbid one.

Luther, in his younger days, had also been grievously tormented with

thoughts on predestination. He now fancied, according to what he

supposed was Paul’s teaching, that to abandon oneself in the hands of

God, without will, strength or wish, was the sole means by which he

and all other men could find tranquillity. Thus, on the strength of

misunderstood inward experiences, he hailed the Epistle to the Romans

and, a little later, the Epistle to the Galatians, as the only guide

along the strange paths of his future exegesis.

His supposed “experiences of God” became the ruling power by which,

thanks to an exegesis entirely new, he was to bring salvation to the

whole of mankind.

Hitherto, in spite of all his diligence in the study of the Bible,

any idea of upholding his own new interpretation against the existing

doctrines of the Church had been altogether foreign to him. In his

first manuscript notes and in the Commentary on the Psalms which has

only recently come to light, likewise in his earlier sermons, he

still looks at everything from the Catholic standpoint; the Church’s

authority is still the appointed guardian and interpreter of Holy

Scripture. There the Bible is to him unquestionably the divinely

inspired book and the true Word of God, though it is, not the

individual’s, but the Church’s duty to draw from its inexhaustible

treasures arguments in her own defence and in refutation of the

teaching of the heretics. To the teaching of Scripture and to the

infallible interpretation of the Church based on the tradition of the

Fathers, everyone, so he then held, must submit as Christ Himself had

ordained.

Even then, however, he was already convinced that he had received an

extraordinary call to deal with Holy Scripture. The very admiration

of his fellow-monks for his familiarity with his red leather copy

of the Bible, fostered the self-love of the youthful student of the

Scriptures. This Staupitz increased by his incautious reference to

the future “great Doctor,” and by his general treatment of Luther.

The written Word of God in which the wide-awake and quick-witted monk

felt himself at home more than any of his fellows quite evidently

became so much his own peculiar domain, that, in his opinion, Bible

scholarship was the only worthy form of theological learning and ruled

every branch of Divine knowledge. He even went further, attributing

all the corruption in the Church to “neglect of the Word,” i.e. to

ignorance of and want of compliance with the Bible Word. On the

strength of his accounted profounder knowledge of the “Word,” he also

reproves the “holy-by-works.” Even previous to the lectures on Romans,

his conviction of the antithesis between human works and Christ’s

grace made him read everywhere Christ into Scripture; the Bible, so he

says, must be taken to the well-spring, i.e. to the Cross of Christ,

having done which we may then be “quite certain to catch” its true

meaning. Before Luther’s day others in the Church had done the same,

though within lawful limits. Among contemporary Humanists even Erasmus

had insisted on Christ’s being made the centre of Scripture.[1521]

Widely as Luther, in his Commentary on Romans, already diverges

from the Church’s interpretation of St. Paul regarding the doctrine

of Justification, yet he still admits, at least in theory, the

principle of authority both in the interpretation of the Bible and in

general.[1522] He rejects without compunction all those heresies which

deviate from the Church’s guidance. In practice, however, he sets

himself above the teaching of the Fathers where-ever this runs counter

to his views; St. Augustine is forced to witness in his favour even

at the expense of the other representatives of tradition, and, as for

mediæval scholasticism, it is treated as though it were not at all one

of the links in the venerable chain of tradition. On the other hand,

Luther allows his exegesis to be influenced by those later and less

reputable exponents of scholasticism with whom alone he was acquainted.

On such lines as these did his exegesis of the Bible proceed; on the

one hand there was his excessive regard for his own acquaintance

with Scripture, and, on the other, his pseudo-mysticism leaning for

its support on misunderstood interior revelations and illuminations.

A certain sense of his vocation as the Columbus of the Bible ever

accompanies him from that time forward.

This psychological condition manifests itself in utterances contained

in the lectures on Romans and in later works.

“Here,” so he writes in the lectures, “a great stride has been made

towards the right interpretation of Holy Scripture, by understanding

it all as bearing on Christ ... even when the surface-sense of the

letter does not require it.”[1523] “All Scripture deals everywhere

with Christ alone.”[1524] “All this is said, written or done that

human presumption may be humbled and the grace of God exalted.”[1525]

He is ever reading his own thoughts into the oftentimes obscure words

of St. Paul, though, that he is so doing is evident neither to his

hearers nor to himself. That same eloquence and wealth of imagery are

to be found here which are to characterise his later expositions.

“Quite unmistakably his language, thought and imagery throughout the

work is that of the mystic,” remarks the editor of the Commentary.

“How much Tauler--whom Luther extols so highly, even when as yet he

was so little acquainted with him--has taken possession of Luther’s

mind and influences his language, would be clear from the Commentary

on Romans, even were Tauler’s name not mentioned in it.”[1526]

With the mental attitude assumed quite early in his career the scant

regard for Humanism and philosophy he evinces in this Commentary well

agrees; further, his use of the Bible as a whip with which to lash

unsparingly the abuses rampant in the Church, another peculiarity

which was to remain in his treatment of Scripture. The better to

appreciate his first attempts at exegesis we may recall, that, even

then, he was concerned for the text and its purity, and that, no

sooner was Erasmus’s Greek edition of the New Testament published,

than Luther, who had now reached chapter ix. of the Epistle, began to

use it for his lectures.[1527]

That Luther’s first attempts in the exegetical field were so

successful was in great part due to his personal gifts, to his

eloquence and to his frankness. Oldecop, a pupil of his, who remained

true to the Church, wrote as an old man, that, being as he was then

twenty-two years of age, he “had taken pleasure in attending Martin’s

lectures.”[1528] The lectures on Romans commenced immediately after

Oldecop’s matriculation. Christopher Scheurl, the Humanist Professor

of Law, reckoned the new exegete among the best of the Wittenberg

theologians and said: “Martin Luther, the Augustinian, expounds St.

Paul’s Epistles with marvellous talent.”[1529]

In the matter of private interpretation as against the Church’s, in

these earliest exegetical efforts, he remained, outwardly at least,

true to the traditional standpoint, until, little by little, he forsook

it, as already described (above, p. 387 ff.). Even his academic Theses

of Sept., 1517 (“Against the Theology of the Schools”), based though

they were on a misapprehension of Scripture, conclude with the

assurance, that, “throughout, he neither intended nor had said anything

contrary to the Church or at variance with her doctrines.”[1530]--Then,

however, with startling suddenness the change set in.

When, after the storm aroused by the publication of the Indulgence

Theses, he wrote his German “Sermon von dem Ablass und Gnade,”[1531] he

appealed in it repeatedly to the Bible as against the “new teachers,”

i.e. the Schoolmen, and indeed in as confident a manner as though he

alone were learned in Scripture. He says on the first page: “This I

say: That it cannot be proved from any Scripture, etc. Much should I

like to hear anyone who can testify to the contrary in spite of the

fact that some doctors have thought so.” And at the end he sums up as

follows: “On these points I have no doubt, and they have sufficient

warrant in Scripture. Therefore you too should have no doubt and send

the Scholastic doctors about their business!” Shortly before this, in a

letter about the Scholastic theologians of his day, particularly those

of Leipzig, he declares: “I could almost swear that they understand

not a single chapter of the Gospel or Bible.”[1532] He was, however,

greatly cheered to hear that, thanks to his new interpretation of the

Bible, prelates, as well as the burghers of Wittenberg, were all saying

“that formerly they had neither known nor heard anything of Christ or

of His Gospel.”[1533]

After Tetzel had attacked his Sermon and accused Luther of falsifying

the sacred text, and of cherishing heretical opinions, the latter

indited his “Eyn Freiheyt dess Sermons Bepstlichen Ablass und Gnad

belangend,” where he emphasises even more strongly and pathetically

the supremacy of Holy Scripture over all outward authority: “Even

though all these and a thousand others of the holiest of doctors had

held this or that, yet their opinion is of no account compared with a

single verse of Holy Writ.... They are not in the least to be believed,

because the Scripture says: The Word of God no one may set aside or

alter.”[1534]

Carlstadt, whom Luther himself had instructed, outdid his master and

advocated entire freedom for the private interpretation of Scripture

before Luther could make up his mind to do this. He did not shrink

from making his own the following defiant Thesis: “The text of the

Bible does not take precedence merely of one or several Doctors of

the Church, but even of the authority of the whole Church.”[1535] It

was only after Luther, thanks to his obstinacy and curious methods of

reasoning, had extricated himself from his examination at Augsburg,

and fled, that he admitted in the statements already given (p. 388)

that the word of Scripture was to be set in the first place, and,

that, in its interpretation, no account need be made of ecclesiastical

authority.[1536] This prelude to Luther’s new exegetical standpoint,

more particularly towards the end, was marked by much fear, doubt and

anxiety of conscience. He was worried, to such an extent that his

“heart quaked for fear,” by a number of Scripture passages and still

more by the question: Could the Author of Scripture hitherto have

really left His work open to such dire misunderstanding?

While his powerful rhetoric, particularly when it came to polemics,

was able to conceal all the failings of his exposition of the Bible,

his real eloquence, his fervour and his popular ways of dealing with

non-controversial things imparted to his pulpit-commentaries no less

than to his written ones a freshness of tone which improved, stimulated

and inspired his followers with love for Holy Scripture and also

brought them Bible consolation amidst the trials of life.

3. The Sola Fides. Justification and Assurance of Salvation

The two propositions considered above, fundamental though they are, of

the Bible being under the enlightenment of the Spirit the sole rule of

faith, and of the untrustworthiness of ecclesiastical authority and

tradition, far from having been the first elements to find their place

in Luther’s scheme, were only advanced by him at a later date and in

order to protect his pet dogma.

His doctrine of Justification was the outcome of his dislike for

“holiness-by-works,” which led him to the theory of salvation by

faith alone, through the imputation of the merits of Christ without

any co-operation on man’s part, or any human works of merit. This

doctrine, from the very first as well as later, was everything to

him. This it was which he made it his earliest task to elaborate, and

about it he then proceeded to hang the other theories into which he

was forced by his conflict with the Church and her teaching, some of

which were logically connected with his main article, whilst, in the

case of others, the connection was only artificial. Later exponents of

Lutheranism termed his doctrine of Justification the material principle

of his theology, no doubt in the same sense as he himself reckons it,

in a sermon of 1530 in his postils, as: “the only element, article or

doctrine by which we become Christians and are called such.”

This Evangel, Luther’s consoling doctrine, as a matter of fact was

simply the record of his own inner past, the most subjective doctrine

assuredly that ever sought to enlist followers. As we know, it is

already found entire in his Commentary on Romans of 1515-1516.

In order to strengthen, in himself first and then in others, the

assurance of salvation it comprised, he amplified it by asserting

the believer’s absolute certainty of salvation; this was lacking in

his Commentary on Romans, though even then he was drifting towards

it. It was only in 1518-1519 that he developed the doctrine of the

so-called “special faith,” by which the individual assures himself of

pardon and secures salvation. Thereby he transformed faith into trust,

for what he termed fiducial faith partook more of the nature of a

strong, artificially stimulated hope; it really amounted to an intense

confidence that the merits of Christ obliterated every sin.

Of faith in this new sense he says that it is _the_ faith. “To have

the Faith is assentingly to accept the promises of God, laying hold

on God’s gracious disposition towards us and trusting in it.”[1537]

In spite of this he continues in the old style to define faith as

the submission of reason to all the truths revealed, and even to

make it the practical basis of all his religious demands: Whoever

throws overboard even one single article of faith will be damned;

faith being one whole, every article must be believed.[1538] We can

understand how opponents within his own camp, of whom he demanded

faith in the doctrines he had discovered in the Bible, when they

themselves failed to find them there, ventured to remind him of his

first definition of faith, viz. the fiducial, and to ask him whether a

trustful appropriation of the merits of Christ did not really meet all

the demands of “faith.” Recent Protestant biographers of Luther point

out that Zwingli was quite justified in urging this against Luther.

Attacked by Luther on account of his discordant teaching on the Lord’s

Supper, and that on the score of faith, Zwingli rudely retorted: “It is

a pestilential doctrine, by a perversion of the word faith which really

means trust in Christ, to lower it to the level of an opinion”; with

this behaviour on Luther’s part went “hand in hand a similar change in

his conception of the Church founded on faith.”[1539]

_Some Characteristics of the New Doctrine of Justification._

If we take Luther’s saving faith we find that, according to him, it

produces justification without the help of any other work or act on

man’s part, and without contrition or charity contributing anything

to the appropriation of righteousness on the part of the man to be

justified.

Any contrition proceeding from the love of God, or at least from

that incipient love of God such as Catholicism required agreeably

with both revelation and human psychology, appeared to Luther

superfluous; in view of the power of man’s ingrained concupiscence it

amounted almost to a contradiction; only the fear of God’s Judgments

(“_timor servilis_”), so he declares (vol. i., p. 291), with palpable

exaggeration, had ruled his own confessions made in the monastery.

At any rate, he was in error when he declared that this same fear

had been the motive in the case of Catholics generally. He persuaded

himself that this fear must be overcome by the Evangel of the imputed

merits of Christ, because otherwise man can find no peace. The part

played by the law is, according to him, almost confined to threatening

and reducing man to despair, just as he himself had so often verged on

hopelessness through thinking of his own inevitable reprobation; the

assurance of salvation by faith, however, appears to every Christian as

an angel of help and consolation even minus any repudiation of sin on

the part of man’s will, for, owing to the Fall, sin cannot but persist.

When he attempts to prove this by his “experiences,” we must remind the

reader how uncertain his statements are, concerning his own “inward

feelings” during his monastic days. It will be pointed out elsewhere

(vol. vi., xxxvii.) that these “recollections,” with their polemical

animus, were of comparatively late growth, though they would have been

of far greater service at the outset when still quite fresh.

A more solid basis for estimating the value of his doctrine of

Justification is afforded by its connection with his other theological

views. As we know, he regarded original sin and the concupiscence

resulting from it as actual sin, still persisting in spite of baptism;

he exaggerated beyond measure man’s powerlessness to withstand

the concupiscence which remains with him to the end. Owing to the

unfreedom of the will, the devil, according to Luther, holds the

field in man’s heart and rules over all his spiritual faculties. The

Divine Omnipotence alone is able to vanquish this redoubtable master

by bestowing on the unhappy soul pardon and salvation; yet sin still

reigns in the depths of the heart. No act of man has any part in

the work of salvation. Actual grace is no less unknown to him than

sanctifying grace. Good works are of no avail for salvation and of no

importance for heaven, though, accidentally, they may accompany the

state of grace, God working them in the man on whom He has cast His eye

by choosing him to be a recipient of faith and salvation. Such election

and predestination is, however, purely God’s work which man himself can

do absolutely nothing to deserve.--Thanks to these errors, the “_sola

fides_” and assurance of salvation stand bereft of their theological

support.

We must, however, revert to one point again and examine it more closely

on account of its historical and psychological importance. This is

Luther’s doctrine of the slavery of the will, and of God’s being the

sole agent in man.

This doctrine, already expressed in his Commentary on Romans in

connection with his opinion on unconditional predestination,[1540]

he was afterwards to expound with increasing vehemence.[1541] He

was delighted to find his rigid views expressed in the Notes of the

lectures on Romans and 1 Corinthians, which Melanchthon delivered in

1521 and 1522. These Notes he caused to be printed, and sent them to

the author with a preface cast in the form of a letter.[1542]

In this letter he assumes the whole responsibility for the

publication, and assures Melanchthon that “no one has written better

than you on Paul.” “I hold that the Commentaries of Jerome and Origen

are the merest nonsense and rubbish compared with your exposition....

They, and Thomas too, wrote commentaries that are filled with their

own conceits rather than with that which is Paul’s or Christ’s,

whereas on the contrary yours teaches us how to read Scripture and to

know Christ, and thus excels any mere commentary, which is more than

one can say of the others hitherto in vogue.”

Such praise for Melanchthon’s work, indirectly intended to recoil upon

his own doctrine, caused Erasmus to remark of the Preface: “How full

of pride it is!”[1543]

The doctrine of the unfreedom of the will as here expressed by

Melanchthon who then was still the true mouthpiece of Luther, though

free from Luther’s rhetorical exaggerations, remains extremely harsh.

It contains, for instance, the following propositions: “Everything in

every creature occurs of necessity.... It must be firmly held that

everything, both good and bad, is done by God.” “God does not merely

allow His creatures to act, but it is He Himself Who acts.” As He

does what is good, so also He does what is indifferent in man, such

as eating and drinking and the other animal functions, and also what

is evil, “such as David’s adultery and Manlius’s execution of his

son.” The treason of Judas was not merely permitted of God, but, as

Augustine says, was the effect of His power. “It is a huge blasphemy

to deny predestination, the actuality of which we have briefly proved

above.”[1544]

Ten years later Melanchthon had grown shy of views so monstrous;

he thought it advisable to repudiate this book, and, in 1532, he

dedicated a new Commentary on Romans to the Archbishop of Mayence,

whom he was anxious to win over. In the preface he says, that he no

longer acknowledged (“_plane non agnosco_”)[1545] the earlier work

which had appeared under his name. Later, after Luther’s death, he

went so far as to demand the severe punishment of those who denied

free-will and questioned the need of good works for salvation.[1546]

Luther, on the other hand, as we know, never relinquished his

standpoint on the doctrine of free-will. Beside his statements

already quoted may be put the following: The will is not only unfree

“in everything,”[1547] but is so greatly depraved by original sin,

that, not content with being entirely passive in the matter of

Justification, it actually resists God like the devil. “What I say

is, that the spiritual powers are not merely depraved, but altogether

annihilated by sin, not less in man than in the devils.... Their

reason and their will seek those things alone which are opposed to

God. Whatever is in our will is evil and whatever is in our reason is

mere error and blindness. Thus, in things Divine, man is nothing but

darkness, error and depravity, his will is evil and his understanding

nowhere.”[1548]

From such a standpoint all that was possible was a mere outward

imputation of the merits of Christ, no Justification in the sense

in which it was taken by the ancient Church, viz. as a supernatural

regeneration by means of sanctifying grace.

Any reliable proofs, theological or biblical, in support of this

altogether novel view of Justification will be sought for in vain in

the works of Melanchthon and Luther. When Luther speaks of the power of

faith in the merits of Christ and of the promises of faith concerning

eternal life, as he does, for instance, in the written defence which

he handed to Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, his words and the Bible

passages he quotes merely express what the Church had always taught

concerning the necessity and efficacy of faith as the condition of the

supernatural life to be further developed in the soul by God’s Grace

and man’s co-operation.[1549] In spite of this, in that very writing

he alleges that he has satisfactorily proved that Justification is

effected by fiducial faith.

“No one can be justified,” he there writes, “but by faith, in the sense

that he must needs believe with a firm faith (‘_certa fide credere_’)

that he _is_ justified, and not doubt in any way that he is to attain

to grace; for if he doubts and is uncertain, he will not be justified,

rather he spits out the grace.”[1550]

His doctrine of faith alone and of the imputed merits of Christ, was,

of all his theological opinions, the one which underwent the least

change during his lifetime.[1551] Until old age he continued to lay

great stress on it both in the University Disputations and in his

sermons and writings.[1552] Even the inferences drawn from it by Johann

Agricola in his Antinomian theses did not cause Luther to waver in the

least.

In the Schmalkalden Articles he declares explicitly that Justification

consists merely in God’s “looking upon” the sinner “as righteous

and holy.”[1553] According to one of his sermons our righteousness

comes “altogether from without and rests solely on Christ and His

work”;[1554] elsewhere he says, with the utmost assurance: The

Christian is “righteous and holy by virtue of a foreign or outward

holiness.”[1555]

In view of such statements undue stress must not be laid on that

Luther says in another passage, which recalls the teaching of the

olden Church, viz. that the Spirit of God dwells in the righteous, and

fills him with His gifts, nay, with His very “substance,”[1556] and

that it was this Spirit which gave him the “feeling and the certainty”

of being in a state of grace.[1557] This is much the same as when

Luther describes man’s active love of God whereby he becomes united

and “one kitchen” with God,[1558] whilst, nevertheless, insisting that

the strength of the _sola fides_ must never be the least diminished

by work. “No work must be added to this” (to faith), he says in his

postils, “for whoever preaches that guilt and penalty can be atoned for

by works has already denied the Evangel.”[1559] Only at times does he

allow himself to follow the voice of nature speaking on behalf of man’s

co-operation; this he does, for instance, in the passage just referred

to, where he admits that human reason is ever inviting man to take a

share in working out his salvation by means of his own works.[1560]

The forgiveness which God offers “must be seized and believed. If you

believe it you are rid of sin and all is right.” “This all the Gospels

teach.”[1561] Unfortunately there are “many abandoned people who misuse

the Gospel ... who think that no one must punish them because the

Gospel preaches nothing but forgiveness of sins. To such the Gospel

is not preached.... To whom is it preached? To those who feel their

misery,” i.e. to those who are sunk in remorse of conscience and in

fears, similar to, or at least faintly resembling, those he had himself

once endured. When he applies the words of Psalm 50 to the yearning,

the prayers and the struggles of those who thirst for salvation: “A

contrite and humbled heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise,” he finds

himself again, all unconsciously, on the road to the Church’s olden

view on man’s share in repentance.

What we read in the important notes “_De iustificatione_,” written

during Luther’s stay in the fortress of Coburg and only recently

published, differs not at all from his ordinary, purely mechanical

view of Justification.[1562] These notes are from Luther’s amanuensis,

Veit Dietrich, and record some conversations concerning a work Luther

had planned in reply to the objections against the new doctrine of

Justification. Dietrich entitled the collection “_Rhapsodia_.”[1563]

It is not surprising that at a later date Luther hesitated to appeal

to St. Augustine in support of his doctrine so confidently as he once

had done. Augustine and all the Doctors of the Church are decidedly

against him. On the publication of the complete edition of his works

in Latin Luther expressed himself in the preface very diplomatically

concerning Augustine: “In the matter of imputation he does not explain

everything clearly.”[1564] Naturally the greatest teacher on grace,

who lays such stress on its supernatural character and its gifts in

the soul of the righteous, could not fail to disagree with him, seeing

that Luther’s system culminates in the assurance, that grace is the

merest imputation in which man has no active share, a mere favour on

God’s part, “_favor Dei_.”[1565]

Augustine’s views of the powers and the end of man in the natural as

well as the supernatural order have been clearly set forth in their

connection with the trend of present-day scholarship by an eminent

Catholic researcher. The latter points out that a strong revulsion

against Luther’s idea of outward imputation has shown itself in

Protestantism, and that the “historical theology” of our day largely

acknowledges the existence of the Catholic doctrine “in the olden

ecclesiastical and, indeed, even in the New-Testament world.” The same

holds good of Augustine as of Paul. “Not the ‘_sola fides_,’ but the

renewal of the interior man, a ‘true and real new creation,’ was the

essence of Paul’s doctrine of justification.”[1566]

_The Striving after Absolute Certainty of Salvation._

Luther was chiefly concerned in emphasising the indispensable necessity

of particular faith in personal justification and personal salvation.

Whereas the Church had required faith in our real, objective redemption

by Christ, Luther demanded over and above a further faith in one’s

subjective redemption, in spite of the difficulty which circumstances

might present to the attaining of this assurance. It was something

very different when the olden theologians taught that there were

signs from which the good man’s state of grace might be inferred

with moral certainty, and that such signs were, for instance, the

determination to commit no grievous sin, the desire to perform good

works more especially such as were difficult, joy and peace of soul

in God, and, above all, the consciousness of having done everything

that was necessary for reconciliation with God. That, by such marks,

it was “possible to arrive at the practical certainty of being in a

state of grace” had been taught by Gabriel Biel, with whom Luther

was acquainted.[1567] Later on, the Council of Trent laid down as

the Catholic doctrine, against the Lutheran theory of absolute faith

in personal justification, “that no good Christian may doubt of the

mercy of God, of the merits of Christ or the efficacy of grace,” but

that at the same time “no one can know with the certainty of faith

which precludes all possibility of error that he has attained to God’s

grace.”[1568]

Luther’s teaching was quite different.

He writes, for instance, in the larger Commentary on Galatians, which,

as we know, he regarded next to his work “_De servo arbitrio_” as

his principal legacy to posterity: “We must perceive and recognise

it as certain that we are the temple of the Holy Ghost.”[1569] “The

heart must be quite certain that it is in a state of grace and that

it has the Holy Ghost.”[1570] It is true, he says, that, “because

we feel the opposite sentiments of fear, doubt, sadness, etc., we

fail to regard this as certain.”[1571] Yet do this we must: “We must

day by day struggle (‘_luctari_’)[1572] towards greater and greater

certainty.” We should exercise ourselves in the feeling of certainty,

risk something to secure it; for it rests with our own self-acquired

ability to believe ever firmly and steadfastly, even as we believe

the truths of faith, that we are really justified. All depends on

the practice and experience just referred to. “This matter, if it is

to be achieved, cannot be learnt without experience. Everyone should

therefore accustom himself resolutely to the persuasion that he is in

a state of grace and that his person and deeds are pleasing [to God].

Should he feel a doubt, then let him exercise faith; he must beat down

his doubts and acquire certainty, so as to be able to say: I know that

I am pleasing [to God] and have the Holy Ghost, not on account of any

worth or merits of my own, but on account of Christ, Who for our sakes

submitted Himself to the law and took away the sins of the world.

In Him I believe.”[1573] “The greatest art consists in this, that,

regardless of the fact that we commit sin, we can yet say to the law:

I am sinless.”[1574]

“And even when we have fought very hard for this, it will still cost

us much sweat.”

It is thus that Luther was led to speak from his own inner experience,

of which we have plentiful corroboration. In the passage last quoted,

he proceeds: “The matter of justification is difficult and delicate

(‘_causa iustificationis lubrica est_’), not indeed in itself, for in

itself it is as certain as can be, but in our regard; of this I have

frequent experience.”[1575]

We are already acquainted to some extent with the struggle against

himself, and the better voices within him, which the unhappy man had

to wage; this distress of soul remains to be treated of more in detail

later (vol. v., xxxii.). It may, however, be pointed out here that he

knew how to make this struggle part of his system; even when depressed

by one’s painful inability to reach this unshaken consciousness of

salvation he still insists that one must feel certain; faced by doubts

and fears on account of his sins, man must summon defiance to his aid,

then, finally, he will come to rest secure of his personal salvation.

“We must cling with all sureness to the belief that not merely our

office but also our person is well-pleasing to God.”[1576] It is true

that men see, “how weak is the faith even of the pious. We would

assuredly joyfully give thanks to God for His unspeakable gift could

we but say with entire certainty: Yes, indeed, I am in a state of

grace, my sin is forgiven me, I have the Spirit of Christ and I am the

son of God. We feel, however, in ourselves emotions quite contrary,

viz. fear, doubt, sadness, etc., hence we do not venture to make the

assertion.”[1577] Others might infer from this the uselessness of all

such vain efforts. Luther, however, would not be the man he is were he

not to declare: On the contrary, “we must daily struggle more and more

from uncertainty to certainty!” “Christ Himself,” so he argues, “is

quite certain in His Spirit that He is pleasing to God.... Hence we

too, seeing that we have the Spirit of Christ, must be certain that we

too stand in grace ... on account of Him Who is certain.”[1578]

The last argument is the more noteworthy in that it demonstrates so

well the vicious circle involved in Luther’s conclusion.

It amounts to this: In order to possess grace and reconciliation you

must believe that you have grace and reconciliation. What guarantee

has one of the certainty of this belief? Nothing but the inward

consciousness to be evolved in the soul that it has indeed the grace

of Christ which covers over all that is evil in it.

As Luther says, “If you are to be saved you must be so sure within

yourself of the Word of grace, that even were all men to say the

contrary, yea all the angels to deny it, you could yet stand alone and

say: I know this Word is true.”[1579]

In practice, nevertheless, Luther was content with very little in the

matter of this strength of certitude: “If I have Him [Christ], I am

sure that I have everything.... What is still wanting in me is, that I

cannot yet grasp it or believe it perfectly. So far as I am able now

to grasp it and believe it, so far do I possess it, and if I stick to

it this will go on increasing.” But “still there remains an outward

feeling of death, of hell, of the devil, of sin and of the law. Even

though you feel this, it is merely a warfare that seeks to hinder you

from attaining to life everlasting.... We should say: I believe in

Christ Jesus, He is mine, and so far as I have Him and believe in Him,

thus far am I pious.”[1580]--“Yet believe it I cannot.”[1581]

Luther, according to the legend which he evolved later when defending

his doctrine of faith alone and Justification, had started from the

intense inward need he felt of certainty of salvation, and with the

object, as he says, of “finding a Gracious God.” By his discovery

regarding Justification, so his admirers say, he at last found and

retained for the rest of his life the sense of a merciful God. The

strange thing is, however, that in his severe and protracted struggles

of conscience he should, at a later date, have again arrived at this

very question: “How can I find a Gracious God?”

He writes in 1527 to Melanchthon: “Like a wretched, reprobate worm

I am molested by the spirit of sadness.... I desire nothing and

thirst after nothing but a Gracious God.” So greatly was he involved

in inward contests that he says: “I am scarce able to drag on my

existence; of working or writing I dare not think.”[1582] “Satan is

busy,” he exclaims to his friend Wenceslaus Link during these storms,

“and would fain make it impossible for me to write; he wants to drag

me down to him in hell. May God tread him under foot. Amen!”[1583]

With very many of his followers the assurance of salvation failed

to hold good in the presence of death. “We not only do not feel it

[this assurance],” so he makes them say, “but rather the contrary.”

He admits the phenomenon and seeks to account for it; nay, in his

usual way, he makes capital out of it. “In God’s sight,” he says,

“the matter is indeed so [i.e. as promised by his doctrine of

Justification], but not yet in our eyes and in those of the world;

hence our fears still persist until we are released by death.”[1584]

“Whoever feels weak let him console himself with this, that no one

succeeds perfectly in this [in the attainment of certainty].” “That

is one of the advantages enjoyed by heretics,” he cries, “to lull

themselves in security.... Nothing is more pestilential than security.

Hence, when you feel weak in the faith you must rouse yourself; it is

a sign of a good disposition and of the fear of God.”[1585]--Readers

of Luther must be prepared for surprising statements.

It is true that he laments bitterly the increase of the fear of death

among the new believers. In the case of epidemics he sees to his

regret that everybody is “scared and takes to flight.” Far greater

than ever under Popery, so he says, “is now, under the strong light of

the Evangel, men’s fear of losing their life.”[1586] For this again he

has an explanation to hand. When, for instance, the plague spread to

Wittenberg in 1538 he wrote: Whence comes all this fear? “Formerly,

under Popery, the people were not so much afraid. The reason is this:

In Popery we trusted in the merits of the monks and of others, but

now each one has to trust to and depend on himself.”[1587] Elsewhere,

with the same object of reassuring himself and others, he says: The

Evangel with its clear light of truth causes the holiness of God

to be better perceived and thus leaves more room for the sense of

fear. This he here reckons as an advantage over Popery, though, as

a rule, his grievance against Catholicism had been that it excited

fearsomeness by the gloomy legal spirit which prevailed in it and by

its ignoring of God’s mercy.--We shall not be far wrong if we regard

such statements as dictated more by psychological than by theological

considerations.

“It is a great thing,” says Luther, referring to his doctrine of

faith alone, “to lay claim to righteousness; then man dares to say:

I am a son of God; whereas the state of grace affrights him....

Without practice (‘_sine practica_’) no one is able to repudiate

righteousness-by-works and to preach faith alone.”[1588] He bewails

“that we are too blind to be able to seize upon the treasure of

grace.... We refuse to call ourselves holy,” in spite of the certainty

which faith brings us. Here our opponents, the Papists and the

Sacramentarians, are not nearly so well off; at least they could not

“quiet their conscience” as he could do by his method, because, owing

to their works, they were always in doubt as to their own salvation.

(At any rate, they were in no state of “pestilential security.”)

“They are always in doubt and wondering: Who knows whether it is

really pleasing to God?” Yet they cling to works and “say Anathema to

Jesus.”[1589]

“I have to labour daily,” he says, “before I can lay hold on Christ”;

he adds: “That is due to force of habit, because for so many years [in

Popery] I looked upon Christ as a mere judge. It is an old, rotten

tree that is rooted in me.... We have, however, now again reached the

light; in my case this occurred when I was made a Doctor.... But know

this, that Christ is not sent to judge and to punish, not to bite and

to slay sinners as I used to fancy and as some still think.”[1590]

His extraordinary esteem for the new doctrine of the power of faith

alone and the assurance of salvation, would furnish quite a riddle to

one not aware of the constitution of his mind.

So greatly did he prize this doctrine, that, according to the

testimony of Melanchthon, he referred to it all other articles of

faith, even that of creation. “The article of the forgiveness of

sins,” he says, “is the foundation on which the article of the

creation of the world rests.”[1591] “If we drop this article then we

may well despair. The reason why heretics and fanatics [Papists and

sectarians] go astray is simply their ignorance of this doctrine.

Without it it is impossible to contend with Satan and with Popery,

still less to be victorious.”[1592]--Thanks to such statements as

these Luther’s article of Justification came to be termed the article

on which the Church stands or falls.

_The “Article on which the Church Stands or Falls”: According to Modern

Protestants._

Protestant scholars are far from sharing Luther’s high regard for his

dogma of Justification, and what they say throws a curious light on the

fashion in which he deceived himself.

Amongst the Protestant voices raised in protest against this doctrine,

the following deserve to be set on record. It is clear, says K. Hase,

that the Catholic doctrine is more closely related to the “Protestant

view now prevailing”; he avers, that the “Protestant theologians of

our day, even those who are sticklers for the purity of Lutheranism,

have described saving faith as that which works by love, quite

agreeably to the scholastic conception of the ‘_fides formata_,’ and

have opposed to it a pretended Catholic dogma of Justification by good

works.”[1593]

This well-known controversial writer when expressing it as his opinion

that Luther’s doctrine of Justification is now practically discarded,

was not even at pains to exclude the conservative theologians of his

party: “Döllinger[1594] is quite right in charging the so-called ‘old

believers’ amongst us with having fallen away from the Reformer’s

dogma of Justification as strictly and theologically defined.”[1595]

Thus oblivion seems to be the tragic fate of Luther’s great

theological discovery, which, if we are to believe what he says, was

to him the light of his existence and his most powerful incentive in

his whole work, and which figured so prominently in all his attacks

on Rome. Was it not this doctrine which played the chief part in his

belief in the utter corruption of the Church of earlier days, when,

instead of prizing the grace of Christ, everything was made to depend

on works, which had led to the ruin of Christendom, to the debasement

of the clergy and to the transformation of the Pope into Antichrist?

The sole authority of Scripture, Luther’s other palladium, had

already suffered sadly since the Revolution period, and now the

doctrine of Justification seems destined to a like fate. Albert

Ritschl was pronouncing a severe censure when he declared, “that,

amongst the differences of opinion prevalent in the ranks of the

evangelical theologians, the recognition of two propositions [the

sole authority of Scripture and Justification by imputation] was the

minimum that could be expected of anyone who wished to be considered

Evangelical.”[1596] For the fact is that the minimum required by

Ritschl, is, according to the admission of Protestant critics

themselves, frequently no longer held by these theologians.

Of the Lutheran doctrine of Justification here in question, P.

Genrich, a theologian, in his work on the idea of regeneration,

says: “If we glance at the process of salvation as described in

the evangelical theological handbooks of the 19th century, we may

well be astonished at the extraordinary divergencies existing as

regards both the conception of regeneration, and the place it is to

occupy in the system of doctrine. There are hardly two theologians

who entirely agree on the point.”[1597]--Of the practical side of

the Lutheran doctrine in question the same writer states: “It is an

almost universal complaint that this chief article of Evangelical

faith is not of much use when it is a question of implanting and

fostering piety, in the school, the church or in parish-work. Perhaps

the preacher says a few words about it ... the teacher, too, feels

it his duty to deal with it in his catechetical instructions....

Justification by faith is extolled in more or less eloquent words as

the treasure of the Reformation, because Church history and theology

have taught us so to regard it. But at heart one is glad to be

finished with it and vaguely conscious that all one said was in vain,

and that, to the children or congregation Justification still remains

something foreign and scarcely understood.”[1598] Genrich himself lays

the blame on the later formularies of Lutheranism for the mistaken

notion of a righteousness coming from without; yet the formularies of

Concord surely voiced Luther’s teaching better than the new exponents

who are so disposed to tone it down.[1599]

Of the actual theory of Luther, de Lagarde wrote some fifty years

ago: “The doctrine of Justification [Luther’s] is not the Evangel....

It was not the basic principle of the Reformation, and to-day in

the Protestant Churches it is quite dead.” De Lagarde did not allow

himself to be misled by the flowery language concerning personal

religious experience which is all that remains of Luther’s doctrine in

many modern expositions of it.[1600]

“Research in the domain of New-Testament history and in that of

the Reformation,” says K. Holl, “has arrived at conclusions closely

akin to de Lagarde’s.... It has been made impossible simply to set

the Protestant doctrine of Justification on the same level with the

Pauline and with that of the Gospel of Jesus.” Amongst the Protestant

objections to the doctrine, he instances “its narrowness, which

constitutes a limitation of the ethical insupportable to present-day

tastes.” He attempts to explain, or rather to amend, Luther’s theory,

so as to give ethics its due and to evade Luther’s “paradox of a God,”

Who, though inexorable in His moral demands, Himself procures for the

offender salvation and life. As the new dogma originally stood “both

its Catholic opponents and the Anabaptists were at one in contending

that Luther’s doctrine of Justification could not fail to lead to

moral laxity. Protestant theologians were not able to deny the weight

of this objection.” In point of fact it involves an “antinomy, for

which there is no logical solution.”[1601]

The same author writes elsewhere concerning the assurance of salvation

which, according to Luther, accompanies justifying faith: Luther,

standing as he did for predestinarianism, “clearly abolished thereby

the possibility of attaining to any certainty of salvation. All his

life Luther allowed this remarkable contradiction to remain, not

because it escaped his notice, but because he had no wish to remove

it.” Holl finds, moreover, in Luther’s opinions on Predestination “the

climax of the thoughts underlying his doctrine of Justification”; “the

strength of [justifying] faith has to be tested by one’s readiness to

submit even to the sentence [of damnation].”[1602]

In conclusion we may cite what W. Köhler says of the unreasonableness

of Luther’s denial of free-will, according to which either God or the

devil sits astride man’s back.

“With the rejection of man’s pure passivity, or, as Luther says,

of his being ridden by the Lord God, Luther’s theology suffers a

set-back, and the Catholic polemics of the 16th century receive a

tardy vindication.” Only owing to his “lucky lack of logic” did Luther

steer clear of the disastrous moral consequences of such a view; “in

practice” he still laid stress on good works in spite of the danger

that the “feeling of security” and the idea of “sinlessness” might

lead people “to sink into the mire.” His doctrine, however, in itself

leads “either to his usual thought: We are sinners after all, or to

extravagant praise of the Divine mercy which flings ‘black sheep’ into

the ‘kingdom of grace.’”[1603]

Evangelical theologians generally are, however, full of admiration

for the spirit in which Luther, thanks to his “inward experiences,”

convinced both himself and others of the certainty of Justification.

His “experience of God” had at any rate made him capable of an “heroic

faith” and, by his “risking all for God,” he pointed out to the

religion of the heart the true road to contentment for all future

time. Luther’s doctrine of Justification was the “final deepening of

the sense of personal religion” (K. Holl).

The objections on this point, raised against Luther in his own camp,

are all the more significant seeing he made all religion to consist in

the cloaking of sin and the pacifying assurance of forgiveness; his

Evangel had come as a “solace for troubled consciences”; it is “nothing

else but forgiveness, and is concerned only with sin, which it blots

out, covers over, sweeps away and cleanses so long as we live.”[1604]

Thanks to it the long-forgotten true conception of the Kingdom of God

had at last been happily brought again to light.

The title of a sermon of Luther’s printed in 1525 expresses this idea

as follows: “A Sermon on the Kingdom of Christ, which consists in the

Forgiveness of Sins,” etc. The words of Christ to the man sick of the

palsy (Mat. ix. 2) form the subject: “Be of good heart, son, thy sins

are forgiven thee.” “These words,” the preacher says, “indicate and sum

up shortly what the Kingdom of Christ is.” Since the Kingdom of Christ

must be defined in relation to the question: “How must we behave with

regard to God?” it cannot and must “not be regarded otherwise” than

according to these words: “Thy sins are forgiven thee”; for “this is

the chief thing, viz. that which can quiet the conscience.” “Whence it

follows that the Kingdom of Christ is so constituted that it contains

nothing but comfort and forgiveness of sins.” The chief fault of our

reason is its “inclination, everywhere manifest, to forsake this faith

and knowledge and to fall back upon works.”