LUTHER
Imprimatur
Edm. Can. Surmont,
Vic. Gen. Westmona stern, die 13 Dccemlris, 1015.
LUTHER
BY
HARTMANN GRISAR, S.J.
PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BY
E. M. LAMOND
EDITED BY
LUIGI CAPPADELTA
Volume V
LONDON ' '
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd.
BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C. 1916
A FEW PRESS OPINIONS OF VOLUMES I-IV.
"His most elaborate and systematic biography ... is not merely a book to be reckoned with; it is one with which we cannot dispense, if only for its minute examination of Luther's theological writings."— The Athenceum (Vol. I).
"The second volume of Dr. Grisar's 'Life of Luther' is fully as interesting as the first. There is the same minuteness of criticism and the same width of survey."
The Athenceum (Vol. II).
" Its interest increases. As we see the great Reformer in the thick of his work, and the heyday of his life, the absorbing attraction of his personality takes hold of us more and more strongly. His stupendous force, his amazing vitality, his super- human interest in life, impress themselves upon us with redoubled effect. We find him the most multiform, the most paradoxical of men. . . . The present volume, which is admirably translated, deals rather with the moral, social, and personal side of Luther's career than with his theology."— The Athenceum (Vol. III).
" Father Grisar has gained a high reputation in this country through the translation of his monumental work on the History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages, and this first instalment of his ' Life of Luther' bears fresh witness to his unwearied industry, wide learning, and scrupulous anxiety to be impartial in his judgments as well as absolutely accurate in matters of fact."— Glasgow Herald.
" This ' Life of Luther ' is bound to become standard ... a model of every literary, critical, and scholarly virtue."— The Month.
"Like its two predecessors, Volume III excels in the minute analysis not merely of Luther's actions, but also of his writings ; indeed, this feature is the outstanding merit of the author's patient labours. "—The Irish Times.
" This third volume of Father Grisar's monumental ' Life ' is full of interest for the theologian. And not less for the psychologist ; for here more than ever the author allows himself to probe into the mind and motives and understanding of Luther, so as to get at the significance of his development."— The Tablet (Vol. III).
torical research owes a debt of gratitude to Father Grisar for the calm un- UMed manner in which he marshals the facts and opinions on Luther which his deep erudition has gathered."— The Tablet (Vol. IV).
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIX. ETHICAL RESULTS OF THE NEW
TEACHING pages 3-164
1. Preliminaries. New Foundations of Morality.
Difficulties involved in Luther's standpoint ; poverty of human reason, power of the devil, etc. How despair may serve to excite humility ..... pages 3-7
2. The two Poles : The Law and the Gospel.
His merits in distinguishing the two ; what he means by " the Gospel " ; his contempt for " the Law " ; the Law a mere gallows ....... pages 7-14
3. Encounter with the Antinomianism of Agricola.
Connection between Agricola's doctrine and Luther's. Luther's first step against Agricola ; the Disputations ; the tract " Against the Antinomians " ; action of the Court ; end of Agricola ; the reaction of the Antinomian movement on Luther ........ pages 15-25
4. The Certainty of Salvation and its relation to
Morality.
Psychology of Luther's conception of this certainty as the very cause and aim of true morality. Luther's last sermons at Eisleben ; notable omissions in these sermons on morality ; his wavering between Old and New . . . pages 25-43
5. Abasement of Practical Christianity.
Faith, praise and gratitude our only duties towards God. " All works, apart from faith, must be for our neighbour's sake." There are " no good works save such as God com- mands." Good works done without faith are mere sins. Annulment of the supernatural and abasement of the natural order. The Book of Concord on the curtailment of free-will. Christianity merely inward. Divorce of Church and World, of Religion and Morals. Lack of obligation and sanction ........ pages 43-66
6. The part played by Conscience and Personality.
Luther's Warfare with his old friend Caspar schwenckfeld.
On Conscience and its exercise ; how to set it to rest. Help of conscience at critical junctures. Conscience in the religious questions of the day. Schwenckfeld . pages 66-84
V
vi CONTENTS
7. Self-Improvement and the Reformation of the Church.
Whether Luther founded a school of godly, Christian life. A Lutheran theologian on the lack of any teaching concerning emancipation from the world. The means of self --reform and their reverse side. Self-reform and hatred of the foe. Com- panion phenomena of Luther's hate. Kindlier traits and episodes : The Kohlhase case in history and legend. The Reformation of the Church and Luther's Ethics ; His work ' ' Against the new idol and olden devil. ' ' The Reforma- tion in the Duchy of Saxony. The aims of the Reformation and the currents of the age pages 84-133
8. The Church Apart of the True Believers.
Luther's earlier theory on the subject ; Schwenckfeld ; the proceedings at Leisnig ; the Popular Church supported by the State ; the abortive attempt to create a Church Apart in Hesse pages 133-144
9. Public Worship. Questions of Ritual.
The " Deudsche Messe " ; the liturgy not meant for^ " true believers " ; place of the sermon . . pages 145-154
10. Schwenckfeld as a Critic of the Ethical Results
of Luther's Life-work.
Schwenckfeld disappointed in his hope of a moral renova- tion. Luther's wrong teaching on Law and Evangel ; on predestination, on freedom and on faith alone, on the inward and outward Word. Schwenckfeld on the Popular Church and the new Divine Service . . pages 155-1G4
CHAPTER XXX. LUTHER AT THE ZENITH OF HIS LIFE AND SUCCESS, FROM 1540 ONWARDS. APPRE- HENSIONS AND PRECAUTIONS . . pages 165-224
1. The Great Victories of 1540-1544.
Success met with at Halle and Naumburg ; efforts made at Cologne, Minister, Osnabriick, Brunswick, and Merseburg. Progress abroad ; the Turkish danger ; the Council pages 165-168
2. Sad Forebodings.
False brethren ; new sects ; gloomy outlook for the future pages 169-174
3. Provisions for the Future.
A Protestant Council suggested by Bucer and Melanchthon. Luther's attitude towards the Consistories. He seeks to re- introduce the Lesser Excommunication. The want of a Hierarchy begins to be felt .... pages 174-191
4. Consecration of Nicholas Amsdorf as " Evangelical
Bishop" of Naumburg (1542).
The Ceremony. Luther's booklet on the Consecration of >ps. Excerpts from his correspondence with the new " BlshoP " pages 192-200
CONTENTS vii
5. Some Further Deeds of Violence. Fate of Ecclesiastical
Works of Art.
End of the Bishopric of Meissen. Destruction of Church Property. Blither's attitude towards pictures and images. Details as to the fate of works of art in Prussia, Bruns- wick, Danzig, Hildesheim, Merseburg, etc. Protest of the Nuremberg artists pages 200-224
CHAPTER XXXI. LUTHER IN HIS DISMAL MOODS,
HIS SUPERSTITION AND DELUSIONS pages 225-318
1. His Persistent Depression in Later Years. Persecu-
tion Mania and Morbid Fancies.
Weariness and pessimism. Grounds of his low spirits ; suspects the Papists ; and his friends. His single-handed struggle with the powers of evil . . . pages 225-241
2. Luther's Fanatical Expectation of the End of the
World. His hopeless Pessimism.
Why he was convinced that the end was nigh. Allusions to the end of the world in the Table-Talk . . pages 241-252
3. Melanchthon under the Double Burden, of Luther's
Personality and his own Life's Work.
Some of Melanchthon's deliverances. His state of servi- tude. His last years. His real character. Unfounded tales about him ...... pages 252-275
4. Demonology and Demonomania.
Luther's devil-lore. On all the evil the devil works in the world. On the devil's dwelling-place, his shapes and kinds. Witchcraft. Connection of Luther's devil-mania with his character and doctrine. The best weapons to use against the devil pages 275-305
5. The Psychology of Luther's Jests and Satire.
His humour in the home and in his writings. He finds relief in it amidst his troubles. Some instances of his jests
pages 306-318
CHAPTER XXXII. A LIFE FULL OF STRUGGLES OF
CONSCIENCE pages 319-375
1. On Luther's " Temptations " in General.
Some characteristic statements concerning his " combats and temptations " . . . . . pages 319-321
2. The Subject-matter of jche " Temptations."
" Supposing you had to answer for all the souls that perish ! " "If you do not penance shall you not likewise perish ? " " See how much evil arises from your doctrine ! "
pages 321-326
3. An Episode. Terrors of Conscience become Tempta-
tions of the Devil.
Schlaginhaufen falls into a faint at Luther's house. Luther persuades himself that his remorse of conscience comes from the devil ..... pages 326-330
viii CONTENTS
4. Progress of his Mental Sufferings until their Flood-
tide in 1527-1528.
" What labour did it not cost me ... to denounce the Pope as Antichrist." The height of the storm ; " tossed about between death and hell " ; "I seek only for a gracious God." Luther pens his famous hymn, " A safe stronghold our God is still " ; the hymn an echo of his struggles pages 330-345
5. The Ten Years from 1528-1538. How to win back Peace
of Conscience.
At the Coburg. " I should have died without a struggle." The waning of the " struggles by day and by night " ; thoughts of suicide ; how to reach peace . pages 346-356
6. Luther on his Faith, his Doctrine, and his Doubts, par-
ticularly in his Later Years.
His notion of faith, (a) the accepting as true, (6) the be- lieving trust. His picture of himself and his difficulties in late years ; he compares his case with that of St. Paul and with that of Christ in the Garden. Some misunderstandings and false reports as to Luther's having himself condemned his own life-work ..... pages 356-375
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT IS CON- VOKED, 1542. LUTHER'S POLEMICS AT THEIR HIGHEST TENSION .... pages 376-431
1. Steps taken and Tracts Published subsequent to 1537
against the council of the church.
The Schmalkalden meeting in 1537. Luther, after having asked for a Council, now opposes such a thing. His " Von den Conciliis." The Ratisbon Interim. The Council is summoned ...... pages 376-381
2. " Wider das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel Gestifft."
The Papacy renews its Strength.
Luther is urged by highly placed friends to thwart the plans of Pope Paul III. The fury of his new book. How to deal with Pope and Cardinals. The " Wittenberg Reforma- tion " drawn up as a counterblast against the Council of Trent pages 381-389
3. Some Sayings of Luther's on the Council and his own
Authority
" If we are to submit to this Council we might as well have submitted twenty-five years since to the lord of the Councils." How Luther would have spoken to the Fathers of the Council had he attended it page8 389-394
4. Notable Movements of the Times accompanied by Luther
wish " Abuse and Defiance down to the very Grave." The Caricatures.
The Brunswick raid and Luther's treatment of Duke Henry. His wrath against the Zwinglians : " A man that is a heretic avoid." The exception Luther made in favour of Cal- vin, the friendly relations between the two, their similarities and divergencies. Luther vents his anger on the Jews in his
CONTENTS ix
" Von den Jiiden " and " Vom Schem Hamphoras " (1543) ; exceptional foulness of his language in these two screeds. An earlier work of his on the Jews ; reason why, in it, he is fairer to the Jews than in his later writings ; some special motives for his later polemics against the Jews ; his " De ultimis verbis Davidis." His crusade against the Turks ; his translation of the work of Richardus against the Alcoran. His last effort against the Papacy : " Popery Pictured " ; some of the abominable woodcuts described ; the state of soul they presuppose. Pirkheimer on " the audacity of Luther's unwashed tongue " ..... pages 394-431
CHAPTER XXXIV. END OF LUTHER'S LITERARY
LABOURS. THE WHOLE REVIEWED pages 432-556
1. Towards a Christianity void of Dogma. Protestant
Opinions.
Harnack, etc., on Luther's abandonment of individual points of Christian doctrine and destruction of the older idea of faith : The Canon and true interpretation of Scrip- ture ; speculative theology. Luther's own admissions that Christian doctrine is a chain the rupture of any link of which involves the rupture of the whole. Luther's inconsistencies in matters of doctrine as instanced by Protestant theologians : Original sin and unfreedom ; Law and Gospel ; Penance ; Justification and good works ; his teaching on merit, on the sacraments and the supper ; on the Church and Divine wor- ship pages 432-469
2. Luther as a Popular Religious Writer. The Catechism.
Collected works : Luther's preface to the Latin and German Collections. The Church-postils and Home- postils ; advantages and shortcomings of his popular works ; his silence regarding self-denial. Origin and charac- ter of the Larger and Smaller Catechisms. His Catechisms compared with the older catechetic works . pages 470-494
3. The German Bible.
The work of translation completed in 1534 ; how it was launched on the public and the extent of its success. The various revisions of the work and the notes of the meetings held under Luther's presidency. His anxiety to use only the best German ; " Chancery German." The language of the German Bible, its scholarship ; its inaccuracies ; Luther's " Sendbrieff " to defend his addition of the word " alone " in Romans iii. 28. The corrections of Emser the Dresden 11 scribbler." How Luther belittled certain books of Scrip- ture. Some sidelights into the psychology of Luther's trans- lation. The Bible in earlier ages ; the " Bible in chains." Luther's indebtedness to earlier German translators pages 494-546
4. Luther's Hymns.
His efforts to interest his friends in the making of hymns. His best-known hymn, " A safe stronghold our God is still." Other hymns ; their character and musical setting. The " Hymn for the Outdriving of Antichrist " once falsely ascribed to Luther . . . . . pages 546-556
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXV. LUTHER'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION (continued in Vol. VI)
pages 557-600
1. Historical Outlines fob Judging of his Social Work.
Luther's " signal services " as they appear to certain modern Protestants. The fell results of his twin principle : 1°, that the Church is alien to the world, and 2°, has no power to make binding laws . . . pages 557-568
2. The State and the State Church.
The State de-Christianised and the Church regarded as a mere union of souls. Luther as " Founder of the modern State." The secular potentate assimilated to King David. The New Theocracy. The Established Church. Significance of the Visitation introduced in the Saxon Electorate. The " Instructions of the Visitors." Luther to the end the plaything of divergent currents . . . pages 568-600
VOL. V.
THE REFORMER (III)
V.— B
LUTHEE
CHAPTER XXIX
ETHICAL RESULTS OF THE NEW TEACHING
1. Preliminaries. New Foundations of Morality
Luther's system of ethics mirrors his own character. If Luther's personality, in all its psychological individuality, shows itself in his dogmatic theology (see vol. iv., p. 387 ff.), still more is this the case in his ethical teaching. To obtain a vivid picture of the mental character of their author and of the inner working of his mind, it will suffice to unfold his practical theories in all their blatant contradiction and to examine on what they rest and whence they spring. First and foremost we must investigate the starting-point of his moral teaching.
To begin with, it was greatly influenced by his theory that the Gospel consisted essentially in forgiveness, in the cloaking over of guilt and in the soothing of " troubled consciences." Thanks to a lively faith to reach a feeling of confidence, is, according to him, the highest achievement of ethical effort. At the same time, however, Luther lets it be clearly understood that we can never get the better of sin. In the shape of original sin it ever remains ; con- cupiscence is always sinful ; and, even in the righteous, actual sin persists, only that its cry is drowned by the voice speaking from the Blood of Christ. Man must look upon himself as entirely under the domination of the devil, and, only in so far as Christ ousts the devil from his human stronghold, can a man be entitled to be called good. In himself he is not even free to do what is right.
To the author of such doctrines it was naturally a matter of some difficulty to formulate theoretically the injunctions of morality. Some Protestants indeed vaunt his system of ethics as the best ever known, and as based on an entirely
3
4 LUTHER THE REFORMER
" new groundwork." Many others, headed by Staudlin the theologian, have nevertheless openly admitted that "no system of Christian morality could exist," granted Luther's principles.1
Of his principles the following must be borne in mind. Man's attitude towards things Divine is just that of the dumb, lifeless "pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was changed " ; " he is not one whit better off than a clod or stone, without eyes or mouth, without any sense and with- out a heart."2 Human reason, which ought to govern moral action, becomes in matters of religion " a crazy witch and Lady Hulda,"3 the " clever vixen on whom the heathen hung when they thought themselves cleverest."4 Like reason, so the will too, in fallen man, behaves quite nega- tively towards what is good, whether in ethics or in religion. " We remain as passive," he says, " as the clay in the hands of the potter " ; freedom there is indeed, " but it is not under our control." In this connection he refers to Melanch- thon's "Loci communes"5 whence some striking statements against free-will have already been quoted in the course of this work.6
It is only necessary to imagine the practical application of such principles to perceive how faulty in theory Luther's ethics must have been. Luther, however, was loath to see these principles followed out logically in practice.
Other theories of his which he applies either not at all or only to a very limited extent in ethics are, for instance, his opinions that the believer, " even though he commit sin, remains nevertheless a godly man," and, that, owing to our trusting faith in Christ, God can descry no sin in us " even when we remain stuck in our sins," because we " have donned the golden robe of grace furnished by Christ's Blood." In his Commentary on Galatians he had said : " Act as though there had never been any law or any sin but only grace and salvation in Christ " ;7 he had declared
1 " Gesch. der Moral," Gottingen, 1908, p. 209.
* Cp. the passages quoted in Mohler, " Symbolik," § 11.
8 " Werke," Weim. ed., 24, p. 516 ; Erl. ed., 34, p. 138
4 lb., 10, 2, p. 295 = 162, p. 532.
6 Lauterbach, " Tagebuch," p. 7.
6 Vol. ii., p. 239 f. and vol. iv., p. 435. Cp. Luther's own words, passim, in our previous volumes.
7 Comm. on Gal., Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 557 ; Irmischer, 2, p. 144.
LACK OF MORAL INCENTIVE 5
that all the damned were predestined to hell, and, in spite of their best efforts, could not escape eternal punishment. (Vol. ii., pp. 268 ff., 287 ff.)
In view of all the above we cannot help asking ourselves, whence the moral incentive in the struggle against the depravity of nature is to come ; where, granted that our will is unfree and our reason blind, any real ethical answer- ableness is to be found ; what motive for moral conduct a man can have who is irrevocably predestined to heaven or to hell ; and what grounds God has for either rewarding or punishing ?
To add a new difficulty to the rest, Luther is quite certain of the overwhelming power of the devil. The devil sways all men in the world to such a degree, that, although we are " lords over the devil and death," yet " at the same time we lie under his heel ... for the world and all that belongs to it must have the devil as its master, who is far stronger than we and clings to us with all his might, for we are his guests and dwellers in a foreign hostelry."1 But because through faith we are masters, "my conscience, though it feels its guilt and fears and despairs on its account, yet must insist on being lord and conqueror of sin . . . until sin is entirely banished and is felt no longer."2 Yea, since the devil is so intent on affrighting us by temptations, " we must, when tempted, banish from sight and mind the whole Decalogue with which Satan threatens and plagues us so sorely."3
Such advice could, however, only too easily lead people to relinquish an unequal struggle with an unquenchable Con- cupiscence and an overwhelmingly powerful devil, or, to lose sight of the distinction between actual sin and our mere natural concupiscence, between sin and mere temptation ; Luther failed to see that his doctrines would only too readily induce an artificial confidence, and that people would put the blame for their human frailties on their lack of freedom, their ineradicable concupiscence, or on the almighty devil.
How, all this notwithstanding, he contrived to turn his back on the necessary consequences of his own teaching, and to evolve a practical system of ethics far better than what his theories would have led us to expect, is plain from his
1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 36, p. 495 ; Erl. ed., 51, p. 90. Cp. our vol. iv., p. 436. * lb., p. 495 = 91.
3 To Hier. Weller (July ?), 1530, " Brief wechsel," 8, p. 159.
6 LUTHER THE REFORMER
warm recommendation of good works, of chastity, neigh- bourly love and other virtues.
In brief, he taught in his own way what earlier ages had also taught, viz. that sin and vice must be shunned ; in his own way he exhorted all to practise virtue, particularly to perform those deeds of brotherly charity reckoned so high in the Church of yore. In what follows we shall have to see how far his principles nevertheless intervened, and how much personal colouring he thereby imparted to his system of ethics. In so doing what we must bear in mind is his own way of viewing the aims of morality and practical matters generally, for here we are concerned, not with the results at which he should logically have arrived, but with the opinions he actually held.
The difficulty of the problem is apparent not merely from the nature of certain of his theological views just stated, but particularly from what he thought concerning original sin and concupiscence, which colours most of his moral teaching.
In his teaching, as we already know, original sin remains, even after baptism, as a real sin in the guise of con- cupiscence ; by its evil desires and self-seeking it poisons all man's actions to the end of his life, except in so far as his deeds are transformed by the " faith " from above into works pleasing to God, or rather, are accounted as such. Owing to the enmity to God which prevails in the man who thus groans under the weight of sin even " civil justice is mere sinfulness ; it cannot stand before the absolute demands of God. All that man can do is to acknowledge that things really are so and to confess his unrighteous- ness."1 Such an attitude Luther calls " humility." Catholic moralists and ascetics have indeed ever made all other virtues to proceed from humility as from a fertile source, but there is no need to point out how great is the difference between Luther's " humility " and that submission of the heart to God's will of which Catholic theologians speak. Humility, as Luther understood it, was an " admission of our corruption " ; according to him it is our recognition of the enduring character of original sin that leads us to God and compels us " to admit the revelation of the Grace of God bestowed on us in Christ's work of redemption," by means
1 W. Braun, " Die Bedeutung der Concupiscenz in Luthers Leben und Lehre," Berlin, 1908, p. 310.
LAW AND GOSPEL 7
of "faith, i.e. security of salvation." It is possible to speak " only of a gradual restraining of sin," so strongly are we drawn to evil. We indeed receive grace by faith, but of any infused grace or blotting out of sin, Luther refuses to hear, since the inclinations which result from original sin still persist. Hence "by grace sin is not blotted out." Rather, the grace which man receives is an imputed grace ; " the real answer to the question as to how Luther arrived at his conviction that imputed grace was necessary and not to be escaped is to be found in his own inward experience that the tendencies due to original sin remain, even in the regenerate. This sin, which persists in the baptised, . . . forces him, if he wishes to avoid the pitfall of despair ... to keep before his mind the consoling thought . . . ' that God does not impute to him his sin.' '^
2. The two Poles: the Law and the Gospel
One of the ethical questions that most frequently engaged Luther's attention concerned the relation of Law and Gospel. In reality it touched the foundations of his moral teaching.
His having rightly determined how Law and Gospel stood seemed to him one of his greatest achievements, in fact one of the most important of the revelations made to him from on High. " Whoever is able clearly to distinguish the Law from the Gospel," he says, " let such a one give thanks to God and know that he is indeed a theologian."2 Alluding to the vital importance of Luther's theory on the Law with its demands and the Gospel with its assurance of salvation, Friedrich Loofs, the historian of dogma, declares : Here " may be perceived the fundamental difference between the Lutheran and the Catholic conception of Christianity,"3 though he does not fear to hint broadly at the " defects " and " limitations " of Luther's new discovery ; rather he admits quite openly, that some leading aspects of the question " never even revealed themselves clearly " to Luther, but betray a " notable " lack of discernment, and that Luther's whole conception of the Law contained " much that called for further explanation."4
1 Braun, ib., p. 310-312.
2 " Comm. on Gal.," Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 207 ; Irmischer, 1, p. 172,
3 "Leitfaden zum Stud, der DG," Halle, 19G6, p. 722.
4 lb., pp. 770 f., 773 f., 778.
8 LUTHER THE REFORMER
In order to give here a clearer picture of Luther's doctrine on this matter than it was possible to do in the earlier passages where his view was touched upon it may be pointed out, that, when, as he so frequently does, he speaks of the Law he means not merely the Old-Testament ceremonial and judicial law, but even the moral law and commands both of the Old Covenant1 and of the New,2 in short every- thing in the nature of a precept binding on the Christian the infringement of which involves him in guilt ; he means, as he himself expresses it, " everything . . . that speaks to us of our sins and of God's wrath."3
By the Gospel moreover he understands, not merely the promises contained in the New Testament concerning our salvation, but also those of the Old Covenant ; he finds the Gospel everywhere, even previous to Christ : " There is not a book in the Bible," he says, " which does not contain them both [the Law and the Gospel]. God has thus placed in every instance, side by side, the Law and the promises, for, by the Law, He teaches what we are to do, and, by the promises, how we are to set about it." In his church-postils where this passage occurs Luther explains more fully what he means by the " promise," or Gospel, as against the Law : It is the " glad tidings whereby grace and forgiveness of sins is offered. Hence works do not belong to the Gospel, for it is no law, but faith only [is required], for it is simply a promise and an offer of Divine grace. Whoever believes it receives the grace."4
As to the relationship between the Law and the Gospel : Whereas the Law does not express the relation between God and man, the Gospel does. The latter teaches us that we may, nay must, be assured of our salvation previous to any work of ours, in order, that, born anew by such faith, we may be ready to fulfil God's Will as free, Christian men. The Law, on the other hand, reveals the Will of God, on pedagogic grounds, as the foundation of a system of merit or reward. It is indeed necessary as a negative preparation for faith, but its demands cannot be complied with by the natural man, to say nothing of the fact that it seems to make certainty of salvation, upon which everything depends in
1 Cp. Loofs, ib., p. 771, n. 4.
2 But cp. what Loofs says, ib., p. 772, n. 5
" " Werke," Erl. edv 132, p. 153. « ib., 102, p. 96
LAW AND GOSPEL 9
our moral life, contingent on the fulfilment of its pre- scriptions.1
From this one can see how inferior to the Gospel is the Law.
The Law speaks of " facer e, oyerari" of " deeds and works " as essential for salvation. " These words " — so Luther told the students in his Disputations in 1537 on the very eve of the Antinomian controversy — " I should like to see altogether banished from theology ; for they imply the notions of merit and duty (" meritum et debitum "), which is beyond toleration. Hence I urge you to refrain from the use of such terms."2
What he here enjoins he had himself striven to keep in view from the earliest days of his struggle against " self -righteous- ness " and " holiness -by- works." These he strove to under- mine, in the same measure as he exalted original sin and its con- sequences. Psychologically his attitude in theology towards these questions was based on the renegade monk's aversion to works and their supposed merit. His chief bugbear is the meritoriousness of any keeping of the Law. For one reason or another he went further and denied even its binding character (" debitum ") ; caught in the meshes of that pseudo-mystic idealism to which he was early addicted we hear him declaring : the Christian, when he is justified by " faith," does of his own accord and without the Law every- thing that is pleasing to God ; what is really good is per- formed without any constraint out of a simple love for what is good. In this wise it was that he reached his insidious thesis, viz. that the believer stands everywhere above the Law and that the Christian knows no Law whatever.3 In quite general terms he teaches that the Law is in opposition to the Gospel ; that it does not vivify but kills ; and that its real task is merely to frighten us, to show us what we are unable to do, to reveal sin and " increase it." The preaching of the Law he here depicts, not as " good and profitable, but as actually harmful," as " nothing but death and poison."4
That such a setting aside of the specifically Mosaic Law appealed to him, we can readily understand. But does he
1 Cp. Loofs, ib., p. 721 f.
2 || Disput.," ed. P. Drews, p. 159 ; cp. ib., pp. 126, 136 f., 156.
3 " Dixi . . . quod christianus nullam prorsus legem habeat, sed quod tola Mi lex abrogata sit cum suis terroribus et vcxationibus." " Comm. on Gal.," VVeim. ed., 40, 1, p. 668 f. ; Irmischer, 2, p. 263.
4 " Werke," Erl. ed., 92, p. 238 f.
10 LUTHER THE REFORMER
include in his reprobation the whole " lex moralis," the Natural Law which the Old Testament merely confirmed, and which, according to Luther himself, is written in man's heart by nature ? This Law he asserts is implicitly obeyed as soon as the heart, by its acceptance of the assurance of salvation, is cleansed and filled with the love of God.1 And yet " in many instances he applies to this Natural Law what he says elsewhere of the Law of Moses ; it too affrights us, increases sin, kills, and stands opposed to the Gospel."2 Desirous of destroying once and for all any idea of righteous- ness or merit being gained through any fulfilment of any Law, he forgets himself, in his usual way, and says strong things against the Law which scarcely agree with other statements he makes elsewhere.
Owing to polemists taking too literally what he said, he has been represented as holding opinions on the Law and the Gospel which in point of fact he does not hold ; indeed, some have made him out a real Antinomian. Yet we often hear him exhorting his followers to bow with humility to the commandments, to bear the yoke of submission and thus to get the better of sin and death. Nevertheless, par- ticularly when dealing with those whose " conscience is affrighted," he is very apt to forget what he has just said in favour of the Law, and prefers to harp on his pet theology : " Man must pay no heed to the Law but only to Christ." " In dealing with this aspect of the matter we cannot speak too slightingly of so contemptuous a thing [as the Law]."3
His changeableness and obscurity on this point is character- istic of his mode of thought.
• At times he actually goes so far as to ascribe to the Law merely an outward, deterrent force and to make its sole value in ordinary life consist in the restraining of evil. Even when he is at pains to emphasise the " real, theological " use of the Law as prepara- tory to grace, he deliberately introduces statements concerning
1 lb., Weim. ed., 24, p. 10 ; Erl. ed., 33, p. 13. Cp. Loofs, ib., p. 764, ii. _.
2 Loofs, ib., p. 773, where he cites the "Comm. on Gal." (1535), Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 209 ; Irmischer, 1, p. 174.
3 " Quia Paulus hie versatur in loco iustificationis, . . . necessitous postulabat, ut de lege tamquam de re contemptissima loqueretur, neque satis vihter et odiose, cum in hoc argumento versamur, de ea loqui pos- sumus Comm. on Gal.," Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 557 ; Irmischer, 2, p. 144. Conscientia perterrefacta . . . nihil de lege et peccato scire debet, sed tantum de Christo." Ib., p. 207 f.=:p. 173 sq Cp " Werke " Erl. ed., 58, p. 279 f. (" Tischreden ") and " Opp. lat. var." 4, p. 427 '
LAW AND GOSPEL 11
the Law which do not at all help to explain the matter. Accord- ing to him, highly as we must esteem the Law for its sacred character, its effect upon people who are unable to keep it is nevertheless not wholesome but rather harmful, because thereby sin is multiplied, particularly the sin of unbelief, i.e. as seen in want of confidence in the certainty of salvation and in the striving after righteousness by the exact fulfilling of the Law.1 " Whoever feels contrition on account of the Law," he says for instance, " cannot attain to grace, on the contrary he is getting further and further away from it."2
Even for the man who has already laid hold on salvation by the " fides specialis " and has clothed himself in Christ's merits, the deadening and depraving effect of the Law has not yet ceased. It is true that he is bound to listen to the voice of the Law and does so with profit in order to learn " how to crucify the flesh by means of the spirit, and direct his steps in the concerns of this life." Yet — and on this it is that Luther dwells — because the pious man is quite unable to fulfil the Law perfectly, he is only made sensible of his own sinfulness ; against this dangerous feeling he must struggle.3 Hence everything depends on one's ability to set oneself with Christ above the Law and to refuse to listen to its demands ; for Christ, Who has taken the whole load upon Himself, bears the sin and has fulfilled the Law for us.4 That this, however, was difficult, nay, frequently, quite impossible, Luther discovered for himself during his inward struggles, and made no odds in admitting it. He gives a warning against engaging in any struggles with our conscience, which is the herald of the Law ; such contests " often lead men to despair, to the knife and the halter."5 Of the manner in which he dealt with his own con- science we shall, however, speak more in detail below (XXIX, 6).
It is not necessary to point out the discrepancies and contra- dictions in the above train of thought. Luther was untiring in his efforts at accommodation, and, whenever he wished, had plenty to say on the matter. Here, even more plainly than else- where, we see both his lack of system and the irreconcilable con- tradictions lying in the very core of his ethics and theology. Friedrich Loofs says indulgently: "Dogmatic theories he had none ; without over much theological reflection he simply gives expression to his religious convictions."6
It is strange to note how the aspect of the Law changes accord- ing as it is applied to the wicked or to the just, though it was given for the instruction and salvation of all alike. In the New Testament we read : " My yoke is sweet and my burden light,"
1 Cp. Loofs, ib., p. 775. Luther here refers to Rom. v. 20 ; vii. 9, etc.
2 " Contritus lege tantum abest ut perveniat ad gratiam, ut longius ab ea discedat." " Disput.," ed. P. Drews, p. 284.
3 " Comm. on Gal.," Weim. ed., 2, p. 498 ; 40, 1, p. 208 ; Irmischer, 3, p. 236 ; 1, p. 173. * Loofs, ib., p. 775 f.
5 " Quae, (conscientia) scepe ad desperationem, adgladium et ad laqueum homines adigit" " Werke," Weim. ed., 25, p. 330 ; " Opp. lat. exeg.," 23, p. 141 sq. « P. 737, n.
12 LUTHER THE REFORMER
but even in the Old Testament it had been said : " Much peace have they that love thy Law."1 According to Luther the man who is seeking for salvation and has not yet laid hold on faith in the forgiveness of sins must let himself be " ground down [' con- teriy' cp. ' contriiio '] by the Law " until he has learnt " to live in a naked trust in God's Mercy."2 The man, however, who by faith has assured himself of salvation looks at the Law and its transgressions, viz. sin, in quite a different light.
" He lives in a different world," says Luther, " where he must know nothing either of sin or of merit ; if however he feels his sin, he is to look at it as clinging, not to his own person, but to the person (Christ) on whom God has cast it, i.e. he must regard it, not as it is in itself and appears to his conscience, but rather in Christ by Whom it has been atoned for and vanquished. Thus he has a heart cleansed from all sin by the faith which affirms that sin has been conquered and overthrown by Christ. . . . Hence it is sacrilege to look at the sin in your heart, for it is the devil who puts it there, not God. You must say, my sins are not mine ; they are not in me at all ; they are the sins of another ; they are Christ's and are none of my business."3 Elsewhere he describes similarly the firm consolation of the righteous with regard to the Law and its accusations of sin : 's This is the supreme comfort of the righteous, to vest and clothe Christ with my sins and yours and those of the whole world, and then to look upon Him as the bearer of all our sins. The man who thus regards Him will soon come to scorn the fanatical notions of the sophists concerning justification by works. They rave of a faith that works by love {''fides formata caritate'), and assert that thereby sins are taken away and men justified. But this simply means to undress Christ, to strip Him of sin, to make Him innocent, to burden and load ourselves with our own sins and to see them, not in Christ, but in ourselves, which is the same thing as to put away Christ and say He is superfluous."4
The confidence with which Luther says such things concerning the transgression of the Divine Law by the righteous is quite startling ; nor does he do so in mere occasional outbursts, but his frequent statements to this effect seem measured and dispassion- ate, nor were they intended simply for the learned but even for common folk. It was for the latter, for instance, that in his " Sermon von dem Sacrament der Puss " he said briefly : "To him who believes, everything is profitable and nothing harmful, but, to him who believes not, everything is harmful and nothing profitable."5
" Whosoever does not believe," i.e. has failed to lay hold of
1 Mt. xi. 30 ; Ps. cxviii. 165.
2 "Werke," Weim. ed., 1, p. 357; "Opp. lat. var.," 1, p. 392. Luther frequently uses the term " conteri lege"
3 " Dices enim : Peccata mea non sunt mea, quia non sunt in me, sed sunt aliena, Christi videlicet ; non ergo me Icedere poterunt.'''' " Werke " Weim. ed., 25, p. 330 ; " Opp. lat. exeg.," 23, p. 141.
4 " Comm. on Gal.," Weim. ed., 40, 1, p. 436 ; Irmischer, 2, p. 17. 6 " Werke," Weim. ed., 2, p. 723 ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 48.
LAW AND GOSPEL 13
the certainty of salvation, deserves to feel the relentless severity of the Law ; let him learn that the " right understanding and use of the Law " is this, " that it does no more than prove " that all " who, without faith, follow its behests are slaves, stuck [in the Law] against their will and without any certainty of grace." " They must confess that by the Law they are unable to make the slightest progress."
" Even should you worry yourself to death with works, still your heart cannot thereby raise itself to such a faith as the Law calls for."1
Thus, by the Law alone, and without the help of Luther's " faith," we become sheer " martyrs of the devil."
It is this road, according to him, that the Papists tread and that he himself, so he assures us, had followed when a monk. There he had been obliged to grind himself on the Law, i.e. had been forced to fight his way in despair until at last he discovered justification in faith.2 One thing that is certain is his early antipathy — due to the laxity of his life as a religious and to his pseudo-mysticism — for the burdens and supposed deadening effect of the Law, an antipathy to which he gave striking expres- sion at the Heidelberg Disputation.3
Luther remained all his life averse to the Law.4 In 1542, i.e. subsequent to the Antinomian controversy, he even compared the Law to the gallows. He hastens, however, to remove any bad impression he may have made, by referring to the power of the Gospel : " The Law does not punish the just ; the gallows are not put up for those who do not steal but for robbers."5 The words occur in an answer to his friends' questions concerning the biblical objections advanced by the Catholics. They had adduced certain passages in which everlasting life is promised to those who keep the Law (" factor es legis ") and wfcere " love of God with the whole heart " rather than faith alone is represented as the true
1 lb., 10, 1, 1. p. 338 f. = 72, p. 259 ff.
2 See, however, below, vol. vi., xxxvii., 2.
3 Vol. i., p. 317 f. and passim.
4 Cp. Mathesius, " Tischreden," ed. Kroker, p. 260. — Ammon (" Hdb. der chr. Sittenlehre," 1, 1823, p. 76) laments that Luther " regarded the moral law merely as a vision of terror," and that according to him "the essence of the Christian religion consisted, not in moral perfection, but in faith." De Wette, " Christl. Sittenlehre," 2, 2, 1821, p. 280 f., thinks that an ethical system might have been erected on the antithesis set up by Luther between the Law and the Gospel and on his theories of Christian freedom, " but that Luther was not equal to doing so. He was too much taken up with his fight against the Catholic holiness-by-works to devote all the attention he should to the moral side of the question and not enough of a scholar even to dream of any connection between faith and morality being feasible."
5 Mathesius, ib. The Note in question is by Caspar Heydenreich.
14 LUTHER THE REFORMER
source of righteousness and salvation. Luther solves the questions to his own content. Those who keep the Law, he admits, " are certainly just, but not by any means owing to their fulfilment of the Law, for they were already just beforehand by virtue of the Gospel ; for the man who acts as related in the Bible passages quoted stands in no need of the Law. ... Sin does not reign over the just, and, to the end, it will not sully them. . . . The Law is named merely for those who sin, for Paul thus defines the Law : 'The Law is the knowledge of sin' (Rom. iii. 20)."— In reality what St. Paul says is that " By the Law is the know- ledge of sin," and he only means that the Old-Testament ordinances of which he is speaking, led, according to God's plan, to a sense of utter helplessness and therefore to a yearning for the Saviour. Luther's very different idea, viz. that the Law was meant for the sinner and served as a gallows, is stated by W. Walther the Luther researcher, in the following milder though perfectly accurate form : " In so far as the Christian is not yet a believer he lacks true morality. Even in his case therefore the Law is not yet abrogated."1
" A distinction must be made," so Luther declares, " between the Law for the sinner and the Law for the non- sinner. The Law is not given to the righteous, i.e. it is not against them."2
The olden Church had stated her conception of the Law and the Gospel both simply and logically. In her case there was no assumption of any assurance of salvation by faith alone to dis- turb the relations between the Law and the Gospel ; one was the complement of the other ; though, agreeably to the Gospel, she proclaimed the doctrine of love in its highest perfection, yet at the same time, like St. Peter, she insisted in the name of the " Law," that, in the fear of sin and " by dint of good works " we must make sure our calling and election (2 Peter i. 10). She never ceased calling attention to the divinely appointed connec- tion between the heavenly reward and our fidelity to the Law, vouched for both in the Old Testament (" For thou wilt render to every man according to his works," Ps. lxi. 13) and also in the New (" The Son of Man will render to every man according to his works," Mt. xvi. 27, and elsewhere, " For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the proper things of the body according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil," 2 Cor. v. 10).
1 " Christl. Sittlichkeit nach Luther," 1909, p. 91 i.
2 Mathesius, " Tischreden," p. 261.
JOHANN AGRICOLA 15
3. Encounter with the Antinomianism of Agricola
Just as the Anabaptist and fanatic movement had originally been fostered by Luther's doctrines, so Antinomi- anism sprang from the seed he had scattered.
Johann Agricola, the chief spokesman of the Antinomians, merely carried certain theses of Luther's to their logical conclusion, doing so openly and regardless of the conse- quences. He went much further than his master, who often had at least the prudence here and elsewhere to turn back half-way, a want of logic which Luther had to thank for his escape from many dangers in both doctrine and practice. In the same way as Luther, with the utmost tenacity and vigour, had withstood the Anabaptists and fanatics when they strove to put in full practice his own principles, so also he proclaimed war on the Antinomians' enlargement and application of his ideas on the Law and Gospel which appeared to him fraught with the greatest danger. That the contentions of the Antinomians were largely his own, formulated anew, must be fairly evident to all.1
Johann Agricola, the fickle and rebellious Wittenberg professor, seized on Luther's denunciations of the Law, more particularly subsequent to the spring of 1537, and built them up into a fantastic Antinomian system, at the same time rounding on Luther, and even more on the cautious and reticent Melanchthon, for refusing to proceed along the road on which they had ventured. In support of his views he appealed to such sayings of Luther's, as, the Law " was not made for the just," and, was "a gallows only meant for thieves."
He showed that, whereas Luther had formerly refused to recognise any repentance due to fear of the menaces of the Law, he had come to hold up the terrors of the Law before the eyes of sinners. As a matter of fact Luther did, at a later date, teach that justifying faith was preceded by a contrition produced by the Law ; such repentance due to fear was excited by God Almighty in the man deprived of moral freedom, as in a " materia passiva." — The following
1 Cp. the passages cited above, p. 9 ff., and vols. iii. and iv. passim.
16 LUTHER THE REFORMER
theses were issued as Agricola's : "1. The Law [the Decalogue] does not deserve to be called the Word of God. 2. Even should you be a prostitute, a cuckold, an adulterer or any other kind of sinner, yet, so long as you believe, you are on the road to salvation. 3. If you are sunk in the depths of sin, if only you believe, you are really in a state of grace. 4. The Decalogue belongs to the petty sessions, not to the pulpit. 11. The words of Peter : ' That by good works you may make sure your calling and election ' [2 Peter i. 10] are all rubbish. 12. So soon as you begin to fancy that Christianity requires this or that, or that people should be good, honest, moral, holy and chaste, you have already rent asunder the Gospel [Luke, ch. vi.]."1
In his counter theses Luther indignantly rejected such opinions : " the deduction is not valid," he says, for instance, " when people make out, that what is not necessary for justification, either at the outset, later, or at the end, should not to be taught " (as obligatory), e.g. the keeping of the Law, personal co-operation and good works. " Even though the Law be useless to justification, still it does not follow that it is to be made away with, or not to be taught."2
Luther was the more indignant at the open opposition manifest in his own neighbourhood and at the yet worse things that were being whispered, because he feared, that, owing to the friendly understanding between Agricola, Jacob Schenk and others, the new movement might extend abroad. The doctrine, in its excesses, seemed to him as compromising as the teaching of Carlstadt and the doings of the fanatics in former days. In reality it did embody a
1 It was Luther himself who published the Antinomian theses in two series on Dec. 1, 1537. Cp. " Opp. lat. var.," 4, p. 420 sqq. The most offensive of these theses Luther described as the outcome of Agricola's teaching and attributed them to one of the latter's pupils ; Agricola, however, refused to admit that the propositions were his. Cp. Kostlin- Kawerau (2, p. 458), who, after attempting to harmonise Luther's earlier and later teaching on the Law, proceeds : " He paid no heed to the fact that Agricola was seeking to root sin out of the heart of the believer, though in a way all his own, and which Luther distrusted, nor did he make any distinction between what Agricola merely hinted at and what others carried to extremes : in the one he already saw the other embodied. All this was characteristic enough of Luther's way of conducting controversy."
2 " Opp. lat. var.," 4, p. 434 (Thes. 17), 428 (Thes. 10).
JOHANN AGRICOLA 17
fanatical doctrine and an extremely dangerous pseudo- theology ; in Antinomianism the pseudo-mystical ideas concerning freedom and inner experience which from the very beginning had brought Luther into conflict with the " Law," culminated in a sort of up-to-date gnosticism.
We now find Luther, in the teeth of his previous state- ments, declaring that " Whoever makes away with the Law, makes away with the Gospel."1 He says : " Agricola perverts our doctrine, which is the solace of consciences, and seeks by its means to set up the freedom of the flesh " ;2 the grace preached by Agricola was really nothing more than immoral licence.3
The better to counter the new movement Luther at once proceeded to modify his teaching concerning the Law. In this wise Antinomianism exercised on him a restraining influence, and was to some extent of service to his doctrine and undertaking, warning him, as the fanatic movement had done previously, of certain rocks to be avoided.
Luther now came to praise Melanchthon's view of the Law, which hitherto had not appealed to him, and declared in his Table-Talk : If the Law is done away with in the Church, that will spell the end of all knowledge of sin.4
This last utterance, dating from March, 1537, is the first to forebode the controversy about to commence, which was to cause Luther so much anxiety but which at the same time affords us so good an insight into his ethics and, no less, into his character. Even more noteworthy are the two sermons in which he expounds his standpoint as against that of Agricola, whom, however, he does not name.5
The first step taken by Luther at the University against the Antinomian movement was the Disputation of Dec. 18, 1537. For this he drew up a list of weighty theses. When the Disputation was announced everyone was aware that it was aimed at a member of the Wittenberg Professorial staff, at one, moreover, whom Luther himself, as dean, had authorised to deliver lectures on theology at Wittenberg. When Agricola failed even to put in an appearance at the
1 Mathesius, " Tischreden," p. 352. 2 lb. 3 lb., p. 357.
4 lb., p. 403.
5 " Werke," Erl. ed., 132, p. 153, Sermon of July 1, 5th Sunday after Trinity, and ib., 142, p. 178, Sermon of Sep. 30, 18th Sunday after Trinity. Cp. Buchwald, " Ungedruckte Predigten Luthers," 3, p. 108 ft Kostlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 457.
18 LUTHER THE REFORMER
Disputation, as though it in no way concerned him, and also continued to "agitate secretly" against the Wittenberg doctrine, Luther, in a letter addressed to Agricola on Jan. 6, 1538, withdrew from him his faculty to teach, and even demanded that he should forswear theology altogether ("a theologia in Mum abstinere ") ; if he now wished to deliver lectures he would have to ask permission " of the University " (where Luther's influence was paramount).1 This was a severe blow for Agricola and his family. His wife called on Luther, dropped a humble curtsey and assured him that in future her husband would do whatever he was told. This seems to have mollified Luther. Agricola himself also plucked up courage to go to him, only to be informed that he would have to appear at the second Disputation on the subject — for which Luther had drawn up a fresh set of theses — and there make a public recantation. Driven into a corner, Agricola agreed to these terms. At the second Disputation (Jan. 12, 1538) he did, as a matter of fact, give explanations deemed satisfactory by Luther, by whom he was rewarded with an assurance of confidence. He was, nevertheless, excluded from all academical office, and though the Elector of Saxony permitted him to act as preacher this sanction was not extended by Bugenhagen to any preaching at Wittenberg.2 A third and fourth set of theses drawn up by Luther,3 who could not do enough against the new heresy, date from the interval previous to the settlement, though no Disputation was held on them that the peace might not be broken.
Agricola nevertheless was staunch in his contention, that, in his earlier writings, Luther had expressed himself quite differently, and this was a fact which it was difficult to disprove.
On account of Agricola's renewal of activity, Luther, on Sep. 13, 1538, held another lengthy and severe Disputation against him and his supporters, the " hotheads and avowed hypocrites." For this occasion he produced a fifth and last set of theses. He also insisted that his opponent should publicly eat his words. This time Luther admitted that
1 " Brief wechsel," 11, p. 323.
2 Cp. Drews, " Disputationen Luthers," pp. 382, 388, 394 ; G. Kawerau, " Joh. Agricola," 1881, p. 194.
3 " Opp. lat. var.," 4, p. 430 sq.
JOHANN AGRICOLA 19
some of his own previous statements had been injudicious, though he was disposed to excuse them. In the beginning they had been preaching to people whose consciences were troubled and who stood in need of a different kind of language than those whose consciences had first to be stirred up. Agricola, finding himself in danger of losing his daily bread, yielded, and even agreed to allow Luther him- self to pen the draft of his retractation, hoping thus to get off more easily.
Instead of this, and in order, as he said, to " paint him as a cowardly, proud and godless man," Luther wrote a tract (" Against the Antinomians ") addressed to the preacher Caspar Giittel, which might take the place of the retractation agreed upon.1 It was exceedingly rude to Agricola. It represented him as a man of " unusual arrogance and pre- sumption," " who presumed to have a mind of his own, but one that was really intent on self-glorification " ; he was a standing proof that in the world " the devil liveth and reigneth " ; by his means the devil was set on raising another storm against Luther's Evangel, like those others raised by Carlstadt, Munzer, the Anabaptists and so forth.2 In spite of all this the writing, according to a statement made by its author to Melanchthon, was all too mild ('* tarn levis fui"), particularly now that Agricola's great "ob- stinacy " was becoming so patent.3
Luther even spoke of the excommunication which should be launched against so contumacious a man. As a penalty he caused him to be excluded from among the candidates for the office of Dean, and when Agricola complained to the Rector and to Bugenhagen of Luther's " tyranny " both refused to listen to him.4
In the meantime Agricola expressed his complete sub- mission in a printed statement, which, however, was probably not meant seriously, and thereupon, on Feb. 7, 1539, was nominated by the Elector a member of the Consistory. He at once profited by this mark of favour to present at Court a written complaint against Luther,
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 32, p. 1 ff. (publ. early in 1539). Also " Briefe," ed. De Wette, 5, p. 147 ff.
2 " Briefe," ib., p. 154.
3 To Melanchthon, Feb. 2, 1539, " Brief wechsel," 12, p. 84.
4 " Werke," Erl. ed., 61, p. 35 (Table-Talk). Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 462 f.
20 LUTHER THE REFORMER
referring particularly to the scurrilous circular letter sent to Caspar Guttel. He protested that, for wellnigh three years, he had submitted to being trodden under foot by Luther, and had slunk along at his heels like a wretched cur, though there had been no end to the insult and abuse heaped upon him. What Luther reproached him with he had never taught. The latter had accused him of many things which he " neither would, could nor might admit."1
Luther in his turn, in a writing, appealed to the Elector and his supreme tribunal. In vigorous language he ex- plained to the Court, utterly incapable though it was of deciding on so delicate a question, why he had been obliged to withstand the false opinions of his opponent which the Bible condemned. Agricola had dared to call Luther's doctrine unclean, " a doctrine on behalf of which our beloved Prince and Lord wagered and imperilled land and subjects, life and limb, not to speak of his soul and ours." In other words, to differ from Luther was high treason against the sovereign who agreed with him. He sneers at Agricola in a tone which shows how great licence he allowed himself in his dealings with the Elector : Agricola had drawn up a Catechism, best nicknamed a " Cackism " ; Master Grickel was ridden by an angry imp, etc. So far was he from offering any excuse for his virulence against Agricola that he even expressed his regret for having been " so friendly and gentle."2
To the same authority, as though to it belonged judgment in ecclesiastical matters, Melanchthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen and Amsdorf sent a joint memorandum in which they recommended a truce, " somewhat timidly pointing out to the Elector, that Luther was hardly a man who could be expected to retract."3
The Court Councillors now took the whole matter into their hands and it was settled to lodge a formal suit against Agricola. The latter, however, accepted a call from Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, to act as Court preacher, and, in spite of having entered into recognisances not to quit the
1 (In March, 1540) see C. E. Forstemann, " N. Urkundenbuch zur Gesch. der Kirchenreformation," 1, 1842, reprinted, p. 317 ff.
2 16., p. 321 ff.; also in "Werke," ed. Walch, 20, p. 2061 fi\, and " Brief e," ed. De Wette, 6, p. 256 ff.
3 Forstemann, ib., p. 325. The quotation is from G. Kawerau, Joh. Agricola," " RE. f. prot. Theol."
JOHANN AGRICOLA 21
town, he made haste to get himself gone to his new post in Berlin (Aug., 1540). On a summons from Wittenberg, and seeing that, unless he made peace with Luther, he could do nothing at Berlin, he consented to issue a circular letter to the preachers, magistrates and congregation of Eisleben1 " which might have satisfied even Luther's exorbitant demands."2 He explained that he had in the meantime thought better of the points under discussion, and even promised " to believe and teach as the Church at Witten- berg believes and teaches."
In 1545, when he came to Wittenberg with his wife and daughter, Luther, who still bore him a grudge, whilst allowing them to pay him a visit, refused to see Agricola himself. On another occasion it was only thanks to the friendly intervention of Catherine Bora that Luther con- sented to glance at a kindly letter from him, but of any reconciliation he would not hear. Regarding this last inci- dent we have a note of Agricola's own : " Domina Ketha, rectrix cceli et terrce, luno coniunx et soror Iovis, who rules her husband as she wills, has for once in a way spoken a good word on my behalf. Jonas likewise did the same." 3
Luther's hostility continued to the day of his death. He found justification for his harshness and for his refusal to be reconciled in the evident inconstancy and turbulence of his opponent. For a while, too, he was disposed to credit the news that Antinomianism was on the increase in Saxony, Thuringia and elsewhere.
Not only was Agricola's fickleness not calculated to inspire confidence, but his life also left much to be desired from the moral standpoint. Though Luther was perhaps unaware of it, we learn from Agricola's own private Notes, that the " vices in which the young take delight " had assailed him in riper years even more strongly than in his youth. Seckendorff also implies that he did not lead a " regular life."4
In 1547 Agricola, together with Julius Pflug, Bishop of Naumburg, and Helding, auxiliary of Mayence, drew up the Augsburg Interim. As General Superintendent of the
1 Forstemann, ib., p. 349. 2 Kostlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 464.
3 E. Kroker, " Katharina von Bora," 1906, p. 280, from Agricola's Notes, pub. by E. Thiele.
4 Cp. Kawerau in the Article referred to above, p. 20, n. 3.
22 LUTHER THE REFORMER
Brandenburg district and at the invitation of his Elector he assisted in the following year at the religious Conferences of the Saxon theologians. He died at Berlin, Sep. 22, 1566, of a disease resulting from the plague.
Of the feeling called forth in circles friendly to Luther by Agricola's part in the Interim we have proof in the preface which introduces in the edition of 1549 Luther's letter of 1539 to the Saxon Court. Here we read : If the Eisleben fellow (Agricola) " was ever a dissolute sharper, who secretly promoted false doctrine and made use of the favour and applause of the pious as a cloak for his knavery," much more has this now become apparent by his outcry concerning the Interim and the alleged good it does. The editors recall the fact, that " Our worthy father in God, Dr. Martin Luther of happy memory, shortly before his end, in the presence of Dr. Pommer, Philip, Creutziger, Major, Jonas and D. Paulus Benedictus " spoke as follows : " Eisleben (Agricola) is not merely ridden by the devil but the devil himself lodges in him." In proof of the latter statement they add, that trustworthy persons, who had good grounds for their opinion, had declared, that " it was the simple truth that devils had visibly appeared in Eisleben's house and study, and at times had made a great disturbance and clatter ; whence it is clear that he is the devil's own in body and soul." " The truth," they conclude, " is clear and manifest. God gives us warnings enough in the writings of pious and learned persons and also by signs in the sky and in the waters. Let whoever wills be admonished and warned. For to each one it is a matter of life eternal ; to which may God assist us through Christ our Lord, Amen."1
A writing of Melanchthon's, dating from the last months of his life and brought to light only in 1894, gives further information concerning a later phase of the Antinomian controversy as fought out between Agricola and Melanchthon. 2
Melanchthon, for all his supposed kindliness, here empties the vials of his wrath on Johann Agricola because the latter had vehemently assailed his thesis " Bona opera sunt necessaria." As a matter of fact, so he writes, he bothered himself as little about Agricola's " preaching, slander, abuse, insistence and threats " as about the " cackle of some crazy gander." But Christian people were becoming scandalised at " this grand preacher of blasphemy " and were beginning to suspect his own (Melanchthon's) faith. Hence he would have them know that Agricola's component parts were an " asinine righteousness, a superstitious arrogance and an Epicurean belly-service." To his thesis he could not but adhere to his last breath, even were he to be torn to pieces with red-hot pincers. He had refrained from adding the words " ad salutem " after " necessaria " lest the
1 " Luthers Briefe," ed. De Wette, 6, p. 256 ft
2 Melanchthon to Willibald Ransberck (Ramsbeck), Jan. 26, 1560, publ. by Nic. Muller in " Zeitschr. fur KG.," 14, 1894, p. 139.
JOHANN AGRICOLA 23
unwary should think of some merit. The " ad salutem " was an addition of Agricola's, that " foolish man," who had thrust it on him by means of a " shameless and barefaced lie." He is anxious to win his spurs off the Lutherans. Yet donkeys of his ilk d^* understand nothing in the matter, and God will " punish these blasphemers and disturbers of the Churches. But in order that " a final end may at length be put to the evil doing, slander, abuse and cavilling it will," he says, " be necessary for God to send the Turk ; nothing else will help in such a case." Melanchthon com- pares himself to Joseph, who was sold by his brethren. If Joseph had to endure this "in the first Church," what then " will be my fate in the extreme old age of this mad world (' extrema mundi delira senecta ') when licence wanders abroad unrestrained to sully everything and when such unspeakably cruel hypocrites control our destinies ? I can only pray to God that He will deign to come to the aid of His Church and graciously heal all the gaping wounds dealt her by her foes. Amen."
A certain reaction against the Antinomian tendency, is, as already explained, noticeable in Luther's latter years ; at least he felt called upon to revise a little his former stand- point with regard to the Law, the motive of fear, indifference to sin and so forth, and to remove it from the danger of abuse. He was also at pains to contradict the view that his doctrine of faith involved an abrogation of the Law. " The fools do not know," he remarked, for instance, allud- ing to Jacob Schenk, " all that faith has to do."1
In his controversy with Agricola we can detect a tendency on his part " to revert to Melanchthon 's doctrine concerning repentance."2 He insisted far more strongly than before3 on the necessity of preaching the Lawr in order to arouse contrition ; he even went so far along Catholic lines as to assert, that " Penance is sorrow for sin with the resolve to lead a better life."4 He also admitted, that, at the outset, he had said things which the Antinomians now urged against the Law, though he also strove to show that he had taken pains to qualify and safeguard what he had said. Nor indeed can Luther ever have expected that all the strong things he had once hurled against the Law and its demands would ever be used to build up a new moral theology.
And yet, even at the height of the Antinomian contro-
1 Lauterbach, " Tagebuch," p. 90. For other statements of Luther's see our vol. iii., p. 401. 2 Loofs, ib., p. 858.
3 On Luther's attitude towards penance see our vol. iii., pp. 184 fi%. 196. 4 " Opp. lat. var.," 4, p. 424.
£4 LUTHER THE REFORMER
versy, he stood firmly by his thesis regarding the Law, fear and contrition, viz. that " Whoever seeks to be led to repentance by the Law, will never attain to it, but, on the contrary, will only turn his back on it the more " ;x to this he was ever true.
"Luther," says Adolf Harnack, "could never doubt that only the Christian who has been vanquished by the Gospel is capable of true repentance, and that the Law can work no real repentance."2 The fact however remains, that, at least if we take his words as they stand, we do find in Luther a doctrine of repentance which does not claim faith in the forgiveness of sins so exclusively as its source.3 The fact is that his statements do not tally. 4 Other Protestant theologians will have it that no change took place in Luther's views on penance,5 or at least that the attempts so far made to solve the problem are not satisfactory.6 Stress should, however, be laid on the fact, that, during his contest with Anti- nomianism Luther insisted that it was necessary " to drive men to penance even by the terrors of the Law,"7 and that, alluding to his earlier statements, he admits having had much to learn : " I have been made to experience the words of St. Peter, ' Grow in the knowledge of the Lord.' "
Of the converted, i.e. of those justified by the certainty of salvation, he says in 1538 in his Disputations against Agricola : The pious Christian as such " is dead to the Law and serves it not, but lies in the bosom of grace, secure in the righteousness imputed to him by God. . . . But, so far as he is still in the flesh, he serves the law of sin, repulsive as it may sound that a saint should be subject to the law of sin."8 If Luther finds in the saint or devout man such a double life, a free man side by side with a slave, holiness side by side with sin, this is on account of the concupiscence, or as Luther says elsewhere, original sin, which still persists, and the results of which he regarded as really sinful in God's sight.
Elsewhere in the same Disputations he speaks of the Law as contemptuously as ever : " The Law can work in the soul nothing but wanhope ; it fills us with shame ; to lead us to seek God is not in the nature and might of the Law ; this is the doing of
1 See above, p. 11, n. 2. 2 " DG.," 34, p. 842.
3 Cp. Loofs, ib., p. 860, n. 2 and 4 ; 790, n. 7, and Harnack, ib. * Harnack (loc. cit.) points out that Luther's statements on the subject do not agree when examined in detail.
5 E.g., Lipsius, "Luthers Lehre von der Busse," 1892.
6 E.g., Galley, " Die Busslehre Luthers und ihre Darstellung in neuester Zeit," 1900.
7 To the latter passage (" Werke," Erl. ed., 32, p. 7) E. F. Fischer draws attention ("Luthers Sermo de poenitentia von 1518," 1906, p. 36). Galley (loc. cit., p. 20) had also referred to the same as being a further development of Luther's doctrine on penance. — On Luther's shifting attitude in regard to the motive of fear see our vol. iv., p. 455 f.
8 " Disputationes," ed. Drews, p. 452.
CERTAINTY OF SALVATION 25
" another fellow," viz. of the Gospel with its preaching of for- giveness of sins in Christ. l It is true he adds in a kindlier vein : " The Law ought not so greatly to terrify those who are justified (' nee deberet ita terrere iustificatos ') for it is already much chas- tened by our justification in Christ. But the devil comes and makes the Law harsh and repellent to those who are justified. Thus, through the devil's fault, many are filled with fear who have no reason to fear. But [and now follows the repudiation of the extreme theories of the Antinomians], the Law is not on that account abolished in the Church, or its preaching suppressed ; for even the pious have some remnant of sin abiding in their flesh, which must be purified by the Law. ... To them, how- ever, the Law must be preached under a milder form ; they should be admonished in this wise : You are now washed clean in the Blood of Christ. Yield therefore your bodies to serve justice and lay aside the lusts of the flesh that you may not become like to the world. Be zealous for the righteousness of good works." There too he also teaches how the " Law " must be brought home to hardened sinners. In their case no " mitigation " is allowable. On the contrary, they are to be told : You will be damned, God hates you, you are full of unrighteousness, your lot is that of Cain, etc. For, " before Justification, the Law rules, and terrifies all who come in contact with it, it convicts and condemns."2
Among the most instructive utterances touching the Anti- nomians is the following one on sin, more particularly on breach of wedlock, which may be given here as amplifying Luther's statements on the subject recorded in our vol. hi. (pp. 245, 256 f., etc.) : The Antinomians taught, so he says, that, if a man had broken wedlock, he had only to believe (" tantum ut crederet ") and he would find a Gracious God. But surely that was no Church where so horrible a doctrine (" horribilis vox ") was heard. . On the contrary what was to be taught was, that, in the first place, there were adulterers and other sinners who acknowledged their sin, made good resolutions against it and possessed real faith, such as these found mercy with God. In the second place, how- ever, there were others who neither repented of their sin nor wished to forsake it ; such men had no faith, and a preacher who should discourse to them concerning faith (i.e. fiducial faith) would merely be seducing and deceiving them.
4. The Certainty of Salvation and its relation to Morality
How did Luther square his system of morality with his principal doctrine of Faith and Justification, and where did he find any ground for the performance of good works ?
In the main he made everything to proceed from and rest upon a firm, personal certainty of salvation. The artificial
1 lb., p. 402. 2 lb., pp. 402-404.
26 LUTHER THE REFORMER
system thus built up, so far as it is entitled to be called a system at all, requires only to be set forth in order to be appreciated as it deserves. It will be our duty to consider Luther's various statements, and finally his own summary, made late in life, of the conclusions he had reached.
Certainty of Salvation as the cause and aim of True Morality. The Psychological Explanation
Quite early Luther had declared : " The ' fides specialist or assurance of salvation, of itself impels man to true morality." For, " faith brings along with it love, peace, joy and hope. ... In this faith all works are equal and one as good as the other, and any difference between works disappears, whether they be great or small, short or long, few or many ; for works are not pleasing [to God] in them- selves but on account of faith. ... A Christian who lives in this faith has no need to be taught good works, but, what- ever occurs to him, that he does, and everything is well done." Such are his words in his " Sermon von den gut en Wercken " to Duke Johann of Saxony in 1520. 1
He frequently repeats, that " Faith brings love along with it," which impels us to do good.
He enlarges on this in the festival sermons in his Church- Postils, and says : When I am made aware by faith, that, through the Son of God Who died for me, I am able to " resist and flaunt sin, death, devil, hell and every ill, then I cannot but love Him in return and be well disposed towards Him, keeping His commandments and doing lovingly and gladly everything He asks " ; the heart will then show itself full " of gratitude and love. But, seeing that God stands in no need of our works and that He has not commanded us to do anything else for Him but to praise and thank Him, therefore such a man must proceed to devote himself entirely to his neighbour, to serve, help and counsel him freely and without reward."2
All this, as Luther says in his " Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen Menschen," must be performed " by a free, willing, cheerful and unrequited serving of our neighbour " ;3 it
1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 206 f. ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 127.
2 lb., Erl. ed., 152, p. 40.
3 16., Weim. ed., 7, p. 36 ; Erl. ed., 27, p. 196.
CERTAINTY OF SALVATION 27
must be done " cheerfully and gladly for Christ's sake Who has done so much for us."1 " That same Law which once was hateful to free-will," he says in his Commentary on Galatians, " now [i.e. after we have received the faith and assurance of salvation] becomes quite pleasant since love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost. . . . We now are lovers of the Law."2 From the wondrous well-spring of the imputed merits of Christ there comes first and foremost prayer ; if only we cling " trustfully to the promise of grace," then " the heart will unceasingly beat and pulsate to such prayers as the following : O, beloved Father, may Thy Name be hallowed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done."3 But all is not prayer and holy desire ; even when the " soul has been cleansed by faith," the Christian still must struggle against sin and against the body " in order to deaden its wantonness."4 The Christian will set himself to acquire chastity ; "in this work a good, strong faith is of great help, more so here than anything else." And why ? Because whoever is assured of salvation in Christ and " enjoys the grace of God, also delights in spiritual purity. . . . Under such a faith the Spirit without doubt will tell him how to avoid evil thoughts and everything opposed to chastity. For as faith in the Divine mercy persists and works all good, so also it never ceases to inform us of all that is pleasing or displeasing to God."5
Whence does our will derive the ability and strength to wage this struggle to the end ? Only from the assurance of salvation, from its unshaken awareness that it has indeed a Gracious God. For this certainty of faith sets one free, first of all from those anxieties with regard to one's salva- tion with which the righteous-by-works are plagued and thus allows one to devote time and strength to doing what is good ; secondly this faith in one's salvation teaches one how to overcome the difficulties that stand in one's way.6
There was, however, an objection raised against Luther
1 lb., p. 30-189.
2 " Comm. in ep. ad. Gal.," 3, p. 365 (Irmischer).
3 " Werke," Erl. ed., 49, p. 114 f., Exposition of John xiv.-xvi.
4 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 30 f. ; Erl. ed., 27, p. 189 f.
6 lb., 6, p. 269 f. = 162, p. 212, " Sermon von den guten Wercken," 1520.
6 Our account is from Walther (above, p. 14, n. 1), p. 75 ff. His faithful rendering of Luther's thought shows how actual grace is excluded.
28 LUTHER THE REFORMER
by his contemporaries and which even presented itself to his own mind : Why should a lifelong struggle and the per- formance of good works be requisite for a salvation of which we are already certain ? It was re-formulated even by Albert Ritschl, in whose work, " Rechtfertigung und Versohnung," we find the words : " If one asks why God, Who makes salvation to depend on Justification by faith, prescribes good works at all, the arbitrary character of the assumption becomes quite evident."1 In Luther's own writings we repeatedly hear the same stricture voiced : "If sin is forgiven me gratuitously by God's Mercy and is blotted out in baptism, then there is nothing for me to do." People say, " If faith is everything and suffices of itself to make us pious, why then are good works enjoined ? "2
In order to render Luther's meaning adequately we must emphasise his leading answer to such objections. He is determined to insist on good works, because, as he says, they are of the utmost importance to the one thing on which everything else depends, viz. to faith and the assurance of salvation.3
In his " Sermon von den guten Wercken," which deserves to be taken as conclusive, he declares outright that all good works are ordained — for the sake of faith. " Such works and sufferings must be performed in faith and in firm trust in the Divine mercy, in order that, as already stated, all works may come under the first commandment and under faith, and that they may serve to exercise and strengthen faith, on account of which all the other commandments and works are demanded."4 Hence morality is necessary, not primarily in order to please God, to obey Him and thus to work out our salvation, but in order to strengthen our " fides specialis " in our own salvation, which then does all the needful.5 It is necessary, as Luther says else- where, in order to provide a man with a reassuring token of the reality of his " fides specialis " ; he may for instance be tempted to doubt whether he possesses this saving gift of God, though the very doubt already spells its destruction ; hence let him look at his works ; if they are good, they will tell him at the dread hour
1 34, p. 460.
2 "Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 29 f . ; Erl. ed., 27, p. 188. "Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen Menschen." Cp. ib., Erl. ed., 72, p. 257.
a Walther, ib., p. 99.
4 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 249 ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 184.
5 Cp. " Briefe," ed. De Wette, where the idea that faith " then does all the needful," and that works are a natural product of faith is summed up thus : " Opera propter fldem fiunt"
CERTAINTY OF SALVATION 29
of death : Yes, you have the "faith."1 Strangely enough he also takes the Bible passages which deal with works performed under grace as referring to faith, e.g. " If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments " (Mt. xix. 17) and, " By good works make your calling and election sure " (2 Peter i. 10). The latter exhortation of St. Peter signifies according to Luther's exegesis : " Take care to strengthen your faith," from the works " you may see whether you have the faith."2 According to St. Peter you are to seek in works merely " a sign and token that the faith is there " ; his meaning is not that you " are to do good works in order that you may secure your election." " We are not to fancy that thereby we can become pious."3
This thought is supplemented by another frequent exhortation of Luther's which concerns the consciousness of sin persisting even after " justification." The sense of sin has, according to him, no other purpose than to strengthen us in our trustful cling- ing to Christ, for as no one's faith is perfect we are ever called upon to fortify it, in which we are aided by this anxiety concern- ing sin : " Though we still feel sin within us this is merely to drive us to faith and make our faith stronger, so that despite our feeling we may accept the Word and cling with all our heart and conscience to Christ alone," in other words, to follow Luther's own example amidst the pangs of conscience that had plunged him into " death and hell."4 " Thus does faith, against all feeling and reason, lead us quietly through sin, through death and through hell." " The more faith waxes, the more the feeling diminishes, and vice versa. Sins still persist within us, e.g. pride, avarice, anger and so on and so forth, but only in order to move us to faith." He refrains from adducing from Holy Scripture any proof in support of so strange a theory, but proceeds to sing a paean on faith " in order that faith may increase from day to day until man at length becomes a Christian through and through, keeps the real Sabbath, and creeps, skin, hair and all, into Christ."5 The Christian, by accustoming himself to trust in the pardoning grace of Christ and by fortifying himself in this faith, becomes at length " one paste with Christ."6
Hence the "fides specialist as just explained, seems to be the chief ethical aim of life.7 This is why it is so necessary to strengthen it by works, and so essential to beat down all anxieties of conscience.
1 Cp. " Werke," Weim. ed., 12, p. 386 ; Erl. ed., 51, p. 479, in 1523, on 1 Peter iv. 19. Cp. also Erl. ed., 182, pp. 330, 333 f., in 1532, on 1 John iv. 17.
2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 92, p. 273. 3 lb., 132, p. 97.
4 Cp. our vol. iv., p. 442.
5 " Werke," Erl. ed., II2, p. 219 f. 6 lb., 142, p. 257.
7 Cp. Loofs, " DG.," 4, p. 737. Hence Luther also says : " Bum bonus aut malus quisquam efficitur, non hoc ab operibus, sed a fide vel incredulitate oritur." " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 62 ; " Opp. lat. var.," 4, p. 239.
30 LUTHER THE REFORMER
Here Luther is speaking from his own inward experience. He says : " Thus must the conscience be lulled to rest and made content, thus must all the waves and billows subside. . . . Our sins towered mountain-high about us and would fain have made us despair, but in the end they are calmed, and settle down, and soon are seen no longer."1 It was only very late in his life that Luther reached a state of compara- tive calm, a calm moreover best to be compared with the utter weariness of a man worn out by fatigue.2
Luther's Last Sermons at Eisleben on the Great Questions of Morality
In the four sermons he preached at Eisleben — the last he ever delivered — Luther gives utterance to certain leading thoughts quite peculiar to himself regarding morality and the " fides specialist These utterances, under the circum- stances to be regarded as the ripest fruit of his reflection, must be taken in conjunction with other statements made by him in his old age. They illustrate even more clearly than what has gone before the cardinal point of his teaching now under discussion, which, even more than any other, has had the bad luck to be so often wrongly presented by combatants on either side.
Luther's four sermons at Eisleben, which practically constitute his Last Will and Testament of his views on faith and good works, were delivered before a great con- course of people. A note on one delivered on Feb. 2, 1546, tells us : "So great was the number of listeners collected from the surrounding neighbourhood, market-places and villages, that even Paul himself were he to come preaching could hardly expect a larger audience."3 For the reports of his sermons we are indebted to the pen of his pupil and companion on his journey, Johann Aurifaber.4 From their contents we can see how much Luther was accustomed to adapt himself to his hearers and to the conditions prevailing in the district where he preached. The great indulgence
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., II2, p. 220. 2 See below, ch. xxxii., 6.
3 Printed, in " Werke," Erl. ed., 202, 2, p. 524.
4 The first revised by Cruciger. Aurifaber published his notes four months after the sermons, which, as the Preface points out, " might well be taken as a standing witness to his [Luther's] doctrine." " Werke," Erl. ed., 202, 2, p. 501.
THE EISLEBEN SERMONS 31
then extended to the Jews in that territory of the Counts of Mansfeld ; the religious scepticism shared or favoured by certain people at the Court; and, in particular, the moral licence — which, taking its cue from Luther's teaching, argued : " Well and good, I will sin lustily since sin has been taken away and can no longer damn me," as he him- self relates in the third sermon, 1 — all this lends colour to the background of these addresses delivered at Eisleben. In particular the third sermon, on the parable of the cockle (Mt. xiii. 24-30), is well worth notice. It speaks of the weeds which infest the Church and of those which spring up in our- selves ; in the latter connection Luther expatiates on the lead- ing principles of his ethics, on faith, sin and good works, and concludes by telling the Christian how he must live and " grow in faith and the spirit."2 One cannot but acknow- ledge the force with which the preacher, who was even then suffering acutely, speaks on behalf of good works and the struggle against sin. What he says is, however, tainted by his own peculiar views.
" God forgives sin in that He does not impute it. . . . But from this it does not follow that you are without sin, although it is already forgiven ; for in yourself you feel no hearty desire to obey God, to go to the sacrament or to hear God's Word. Do you perhaps imagine that this is no sin, or mere child's play ? " Hence, he concludes, we must pray daily " for forgiveness and never cease to fight against ourselves and not give the rein to our sinful inclinations and lusts, nor obey them contrary to the dictates of conscience, but rather weaken and deaden sin ever more and more ; for sin must not merely be forgiven but verily swept away and destroyed."3
He exhorts his hearers to struggle against sin, whether original or actual sin, and does so in words which place the " fides specialis " in the first place and impose the obligation of a painful and laborious warfare which contrasts strongly with the spontaneous joy of the just in doing what is good, elsewhere taken for granted by Luther.
" Our doctrine as to how we are to deal with our own unclean- ness and sin is briefly this : Believe in Jesus Christ and your sins are forgiven ; then avoid and withstand sin, wage a hand-to- land fight with it, do not allow it its way, do not hate or cheat your neighbour," etc.4
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., ib., p. 551. 2 lb., p. 552.
3 lb., p. 551. * lb., p. 554.
32 LUTHER THE REFORMER
Such admonitions strenuously to strive against sin involun- tarily recall some very different assurances of his, viz. that the man who has once laid hold on righteousness by faith, at once and of his own accord does what is good : " Hence from faith there springs love and joy in God and a free and willing service of our neighbour out of simple love."
Elsewhere too he says, " Good works are performed by faith and out of our heartfelt joy that we have through Christ obtained the remission of our sins. . . . Interiorly everything is sweet and delicious, and hence we do and suffer all things gladly."1 And again, just as we eat and drink naturally, so also to do what is good comes naturally to the believer ; the word is fulfilled : Only believe and you will do all things of your own accord ; 2 as a good tree must bring forth good fruit and cannot do otherwise, so, where there is faith, good works there must also be.3 He speaks of this as a " necessitas immutdbilitatis " and as a " neces- sitas gratuita," no less necessary than that the sun must shine. In 1536 he even declared in an instruction to Melanchthon that it was not right to say that a believer should do good works, because he can't help performing them ; who thinks of ordering " the sun to shine, a good tree to bring forth good fruit, or three and seven to make ten ? "4
Of this curious idealism, first noticed in his "Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen Menschen," we find traces in Luther till the very end of his life. 5 In later life, however, he either altered it a little or was less prone to insist on it in and out of season. This was due to his unfortunate experiences to the contrary ; as a matter of fact faith failed to produce the effects expected, and only in rare instances and at its very best was it as fruitful as Luther wished. The truth is he had overrated it, obviously misled by his enthusiasm for his alleged discovery of the power of faith for justification.
He was also fond of saying — and of this assurance we find an echo in his last sermon — that a true and lively faith should govern even our feeling, and as we are so little conscious of such a feeling and impulse to what is good, it follows that we but seldom have this faith, i.e. this lively certainty of salvation.
When a Christian is lazy, starts thinking he possesses every- thing and refuses to grow and increase, then " neither has he earnestness nor a true faith." Even the just are conscious of sin
1 " Comm. on Gal.," 1, p. 196 (Irmischer).
2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 12, p. 559 ; Erl. ed., 122, p. 175. " Comm. on Gal." (Irmischer), 1, p. 196.
3 lb., Erl. ed., 172, p. 94 ; 49, p. 348. 4 lb., 58, pp. 343, 347. 5 See above, p. 26 f., and vol. ii., p. 27 ff.
THE EISLEBEN SERMONS 33
(i.e. original sin), but they resist it ; but where there is a distaste for the beloved Word of God there can be " no real faith." Luther, to the detriment of his ethics, was disposed to relegate faith tc|o much to the region of feeling and personal experience ; this, however, he could scarcely avoid since his was a " fides specialis " in one's own personal salvation. True religion, in his opinion, is ever to rejoice and be glad by reason of the forgiveness of sins and cheerfully to run the way of God's service ; this idea is prominent in his third sermon at Eisleben. The right faith " is toothsome and lively; it consoles and gladdens."1 "It bores its way into the heart and brings comfort and cheer" ; "we feel glad and ready for anything."2
But because the actual facts and his experience failed to tally with his views, Luther, as already explained, had recourse to a convenient expedient ; towards the close of his life we frequently hear him speaking as follows : Unfortunately we have not yet got this faith, for " we do not possess in our hearts, and cannot acquire, that joy which we would gladly feel " ; thus we become conscious how the " old Adam, sin and our sinful nature, still persist within us ; this it is that forces you and me to fail in our faith."3 " Even great saints do not always feel that joy and might, and we others, owing to our unbelief, cannot attain to this exalted consolation and strength . . . and even though we would gladly believe, yet we cannot make our faith as strong as we ought."4 He vouchsafes no answer to the objection : But why then set up aims that cannot be reached ; why make the starting-point consist in a " faith " of which man, owing to original sin, can only attain to a shadow, except perhaps in the rare instances of martyrs, or divinely endowed saints ?
Luther, when insisting so strongly that good works must follow " faith," as a moral incentive to such works also refers incidentally to our duty of gratitude and love in return for this faith bestowed on us.
Thus in the Eisleben sermons he invites the believer, the better to arouse himself to good works, to address God in this way : " Heavenly Father, there is no doubt that Thou hast given Thy Son for the forgiveness of my sins. There- fore will I thank God for this during my whole life, and praise and exalt Him, and no longer steal, practise usury or be miserly, proud or jealous. ... If you rightly believe," he continues, " that God has sent you His Son, you will, like a fruitful tree, bring forth finer and finer blossoms the older you grow."5 In what follows he is at pains to show that good works will depend on the constant putting into
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 202, 2, p. 553. 2 lb., p. 548.
3 lb. * lb., p. 549. 5 lb., p. 554.
V.— D
34 LUTHER THE REFORMER
practice of the " faith " ; the Justification that is won by the " fides specialis " is insufficient, in spite of all the comfort it brings ; rather we must be mindful of the saying of St. Paul : " If by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh you shall live." " But if your flesh won't do it, then leave it to the Holy Ghost."1
The motive for good works which Luther here advances, viz. " To thank God, to praise and extol Him,"2 is worthy of special attention ; it is the only real one he furnishes either here or elsewhere. Owing to the love of God which arises in the heart at the thought of His benefits we must rouse ourselves to serve Him. The idea is a grand one and had always appealed to the noblest spirits in the Church before Luther's day. It is, however, a very different thing to represent this motive of perfect love as the exclusive and only true incentive to doing what is pleasing to God. Yet throughout Luther's teaching this is depicted as the general, necessary and only motive. " From faith and the Holy Ghost necessarily comes the love of God, and together with it love of our neighbour and every good work."3 When I realise by faith that God has sent His Son for my sake, etc., says Luther, in his Church-Postils, " I cannot do otherwise than love Him in return, do His behests and keep His commandments."4 This love, however, as he expressly states, must be altogether unselfish, i.e. must be what the Old Testament calls a " whole-hearted love," which in turn " presupposes perfect self-denial."5
It is plain that we have here an echo of the mysticism which had at one time held him in thrall ; 6 but his extrava- gant idealism was making demands which ordinary Christians either never, or only very seldom, could attain to.
The olden Church set up before the faithful a number of motives adapted to rouse them to do good works ; such motives she found in the holy fear of God and His chastise- ments, in the hope of temporal or everlasting reward ; in the need of making satisfaction for sin committed, or, finally, for those who had advanced furthest, in the love of God, whether as the most perfect Being and deserving of all our
1 lb., p. 555.
2 Cp. p. 552 : " Help me that I may, with gratitude, praise and exalt Thy Son." 3 Kostlin's summary, ib., p. 206.
4 " Werke," Erl. ed., 152, p. 40. Cp. " Opp. lat. exeg.," 13, p. 144. 6 Kostlin, ib., p. 207. 6 Cp. vol. i., passim.
THE EISLEBEN SERMONS 35
love, or on account of the benefits received from Him ; she invited people to weld all these various motives into one strong bond ; those whose dispositions were less exalted she strove to animate with the higher motives of love, so far as the weakness of human nature allowed. Luther, on the contrary, in the case of the righteous already assured of salvation, not only excluded every motive other than love, but also, quite unjustifiably, refused to hear of any love sa^e that arising from gratitude for the redemption and the faith. " To love God," in his eyes, " is nothing more than to be grateful for the benefit bestowed " (through the redemption).1 And, again, he imputes such power to this sadly curtailed motive of love, or rather gratitude, that it is his only prescription, even for those who are so cold- hearted that the Word of God " comes in at one ear and goes out at the other," and who hear of the death of Christ with as little devotion as though they had been told, " that the Turks had beaten the Sultan, or some other such tit-bit of news."2
Some notable Omissions of Luihefs in the above Sermons on Morality
Hitherto we have been considering what Luther had to say on the question of faith and morality in his last sermons. It remains to point out what he did not say, and what, on account of his own doctrines, it was impossible for him to say ; as descriptive of his ethics the latter is perhaps of even greater importance.
In the first place he says nothing of the supernatural life, which, according to the ancient teaching of the Church, begins with the infusion of sanctifying grace in the soul of the man who is justified. As we know, he would not hear of this new and vital principle in the righteous, which indeed was incompatible with his theory of the mere non-imputation of sin. Further, he also ignores the so-called " infused virtues " whence, with the help of actual grace, springs the new motive force of the man received into the Divine sonship. By his denial of the complete renewal of the inner man he placed himself in opposition to the ancient witnesses of Christendom, as Protestant historians of dogma now admit.3
1 Kostlin, ib., p. 204. • In the Eisleben Sermons, p. 548.
3 On Luther's attitude towards the supernatural moral order, see
36 LUTHER THE REFORMER
Secondly, he dismisses in silence the so-called actual grace. Not even in answering the question as to the source whence the believer draws strength and ability to strive after what is good, does he refer to it, so hostile is his whole system to any co-opera- tion between the natural and the supernatural in man.
Thirdly, he does not give its due to man's freedom in co-opera- ting in the doing of what is good ; it is true he does not expressly deny it, but it was his usual practice in his addresses to the people to say as little as possible of his doctrine of the enslaved will.1 Along with faith, however, he extols the Holy Ghost. " Leave it to the Holy Ghost ! " Indeed faith itself, and the strong feeling which should accompany it, are exclusively the work of the Holy Ghost. It is the Holy Ghost alone Who believes, and feels, and works in man, according to Luther's teaching elsewhere. This action of God alone is something different from actual grace. In the instructions he gave to Melanchthon in 1536 concerning justification and works,2 Luther entirely ignores any action on man's part as a free agent, and yet here we have the " clearest expression " of his doctrine of how good works follow on justifi- cation. The Protestant author of " Luthers Theologie in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung " remarks of this work (and the same applies to the above sermons and other statements) : " Luther is always desirous, on the one hand of depreciating man's claim to personal worth and merit, and on the other by his testimony to God's mercy in Christ, of furthering faith and the impulses and desires which spring from faith and the spirit ; here, too, he says nothing of any choice as open to man between the Divine impulses working within him and those of his sinful nature."3
Fourthly, and most important of all, Luther says nothing of the true significance of morality for the attainment of everlasting life.
The best and theologically most convincing reply to the objec- tion of which he spoke : " Well and good, then I shall sin lustily," etc. would have been : No, a good moral life is essential for salvation ! The strongest Bible texts would have been there to back such a statement, and, to his powerful eloquence, it should have proved an attractive task to crush his frivolous opponents by so weighty an argument. Yet we find never a word concern- ing the necessity of good works for salvation, but merely an account of the wonders worked by faith of its own accord alone after it has laid hold on the heart. This is readily understood, if justification is purely passive and effected solely by the Spirit of God which enkindles faith and, with it, covers over sin as with a shield, then the very being of the life of faith must be mere passivity, and there can be no more question of attaining to salvation by means of good deeds performed with the aid of grace. In the instruction for Melanchthon mentioned above we find at
1 Cp. vol. ii., p. 223 ft\, particularly p. 240 ff,
2 See above, p. 32, n. 4. 8 Kostlin, ib., p. 206.
THE EISLEBEN SERMONS 37
the end this clear query : "Is this saying true : Righteousness by works is necessary for salvation ? " Luther answers by a distinc- tion : " Not as if works operate or bring about salvation," he says, " but rather they are present together with the faith that operates righteousness ; just as of necessity I must be present in order to be saved." This distinction, however, leaves the question just where it was before. He concludes his remarks on this vital matter with a jest on the purely external and fortuitous presence of works in the man received into eternal life : "I too shall be in at the death, said the rascal when he was about to be hanged and many people were hurrying to see the scene."1
All the more strongly did Luther in his usual way describe in his last sermon the natural sinfulness which persists in man owing to original sin.
The sin that still dwells within us " forces " man to prevent faith and works coming to their own.2 For " he is not yet with- out sin, though he has the forgiveness of sins and is sanctified by the Holy Ghost." In consequence of the " foulness " within him " the longer he lives the worse he gets." " We cannot get rid of our sinful body."3 For this reason even the "best minds " so often are indifferent to eternal life. On account of the evil taint in our flesh we are unable to rise as high as we ought.4 But if original sin and its workings were declared really sinful in man (for even the very motions against " heartfelt pleasure " in God's service are, so we are told, "sins"5), then it is no wonder that Luther should have been confronted with the question of which he speaks : "If sin be in me, how then can I be pleasing to God ? " — a question which formerly could not have been asked of those whose original sin had been washed away in baptism. The teaching of the olden Church had been, that original sin was blotted out by baptism, but that the inclination to evil per- sisted in man to his last breath, though without any fault on his part so long as consent was lacking. 6
Still less to be wondered at was it, that many, unable to regard themselves as responsible or guilty on account of the involuntary motions of original sin, began to doubt whether any responsi- bility existed for evil actions or whether moral effort was within the bounds of possibility.
Further, according to Luther, our constant exercise of our- selves in faith and our " rubbing " ourselves against sin was finally to lead " not merely to our sins being forgiven but to their
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 58, p. 346. 2 lb., 202, 2, p. 548.
3 lb., p. 545. 4 lb., p. 549 f. 5 lb., p. 551.
6 Luther's opposite doctrine, which is of importance to the matter under consideration, is expressed by Kostlin (ib., p. 126 f.) as follows : Luther " does not make guilt and condemnation follow on the act which is contrary to God's will, nor even on the determination to commit such an act, but on the inward motion, or concupiscence, nay, in the inborn evil propensity [even of the baptised] which exists prior to any conscious motion. . . . We do not find in his writings any further information on the other questions here involved " (e.g. of the children who die unbaptised, etc.).
38 LUTHER THE REFORMER
being altogether rooted up and swept away ; for your shabby, smelly body could not enter heaven without first being cleansed and beautified."1 Taking for granted his mystic assumption that sinful concupiscence can at last be " swept away," he insists on our continuing hopefully " to amend by faith and prayer our weakness and to fight against it until such a change takes place in our sinful body that sin no longer exists therein,"2 though, in his opinion, this cannot entirely be until we reach heaven. Yet experience, had he but opened his eyes to it, here once again contradicted him. The " fomes peccati," as the Catholic Church rightly teaches, cannot be extinguished so long as man is on this earth, though it may be damped, and, by the practice of what is right and the use of the means of grace, be rendered harmless to our moral life. The Church expected nothing unreasonable from man, though her moral standards were of the highest. Luther, however, by abandoning the Church's ethics, came to teach a strange mixture of perverted, unworkable idealism and all too great indulgence towards human frailty.
Luther's Vacillation between the Two Faiths, Old and New, in the Matter of Morality and the Assurance of Salvation
Many discordant utterances, betraying his uncertainty and his struggles, have been bequeathed to us by Luther regarding the main questions of morality and as to how we may insure salvation. First we have his statements with regard to the importance of morality in God's sight.
In 1537 in a Disputation on June 1 he denounced the thesis, " Good works are necessary for salvation."3 In the same way, in a sermon of 1535, he asserted that it was by no means neces- sary for us to perform good works " in order to blot out sin, to overcome death and win heaven, but merely for the profit and assistance of our neighbour." " Our works," he there says, " can only shape what concerns our temporal life and being " ; higher than this they cannot rise. 4
Yet, when thus degrading works, he had again and again to struggle within his own heart against the faith of the ancient Church concerning the merit of good deeds. Especially was this the case when he considered the " texts which demand a good life on account of the eternal reward,"5 for instance, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments " (Mt. xix. 17), or "Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven" (ib., vi. 20). With them he deals in a sermon of 1522. The eternal reward, he here says, follows the works because it is a result of the faith which
1 In the Eisleben sermons, ib., p. 551. 2 lb., p. 546.
3 " Disputationes," ed. Drews, p. 159. Cp. " Corp. ref.," 3, p. 385. Loofs, " DG.," 4, p. 857, n. 4, and 770, n. 4.
* " Werke," Erl. ed., 192, p. 153. 5 lb., 132, p. 307.
GOOD WORKS 39
itself is the cause of the works. But the believer must not " lock to the reward," or trouble about it. Why then does God promise a reward ? — In order that " all may know what the natural result of a good life will be." Yet he also admits a certain anxiety on the part of the pious Christian to be certain of his reward, and the favourable effect of such a certainty on the good man's will.1 Here he exhorts his listeners ; "that you be content to know and be assured that this indeed will be the result," whilst in another sermon of that same year he describes as follows the promise of eternal life as the reward of works : " It is an incentive and in- ducement that makes us zealous in piety and in the service and praise of God. . . . That God should guide us so kindly makes us esteem the more His Fatherly Will and the Mercy of Christ " — but on no account " must we be good as if for the sake of the reward."2 He also quotes incidentally Mt. xix. 29, where our Lord says that all who leave home, brethren, etc. for His name's sake " shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess life ever- lasting " ; also Heb. x. 35 concerning the " great reward " that awaits those who lose not their confidence. Such statements, he refuses, however, to see referred to salvation, which will be the equal portion of all true believers, but, in his arbitrary fashion, explains them as denoting some extra ornament of glory.3
" Good works will be present wherever faith is." As this supposition, a favourite one with Luther from early days, fails to verify itself in practice, and as the expedients he proposed to meet the new difficulty are scattered throughout his writings, an admirer in recent times ventured to sum up these elements into a system under the following headings : " Faulty morality is a proof of a faulty faith." " The fact of morality being present proves the presence of faith." " Moral indolence induces loss of faith." " Zeal for morality causes faith to increase."4 The true explanation would therefore seem always to be in the assumption of a want of " faith," i.e. of a lack of that absolute certainty of personal salvation which should regulate all religious life,5 in other words moral failings should be held to prove the absence of this saving certainty.
Seen in this light good works are of importance, as the outward demonstration that a person possesses the " fides specialis," and in this wise alone are they a guarantee of everlasting happiness. They prove " before the world and before his own conscience " that a Christian really has the " faith." This is what Luther expressly teaches in his Church- Postils : " Therefore hold fast to this, that a man who is inwardly a Christian is justified before God solely by faith and without any works ; but outwardly and publicly, before the people and to himself, he is justified by works, i.e. he becomes known to others as, and certain in himself
1 lb., p. 305 ff. 2 lb., 152, p. 524. Kostlin, ib., p. 213.
3 Cp. ib., 43, p. 362 ff.
4 The headings in W. Walther's " Die Sittlichkeit nach Luther," pp. 100, 106, 120, 125 are as above. 5 Above, p. 32 f.
40 LUTHER THE REFORMER
that, he is inwardly just, believing and pious. Thus you may term one an open or outward justification and the other an in- ward justification."1 Hence Luther's certainty of salvation, however strong it may be, still requires to be tested by something else as to whether it is the true " faith " deserving of God's com- passion ; for " it is quite possible for a man never to doubt God's mercy towards him though all the while he does not really possess it " ; 2 according to Luther, namely, there is such a thing as a fictitious faith.
In Luther's opinion " faith " was a grasping of something actually there. Hence if God's mercy was not there, then neither was there any " faith." Accordingly, an " unwarrantable assur- ance of salvation " was not at all impossible, and works served as a means of detecting it. Walther, to whom we owe our summary, does not, it is true, prove the existence of such a state of " un- warrantable assurance " by any direct quotation from Luther's writings, and, indeed, it might be difficult to find any definite statement to this effect, seeing that Luther was chary of speaking of any failure in the personal certainty of salvation, on which alone, exclusive of works, he based the whole work of justification. And yet, as Luther himself frequently says, moods and feelings are no guarantee of true faith ; what is required are the works, which, like good fruit, always spring from a good tree. — So strongly, in spite of all his predilection for faith alone, is he im- pelled again and again to have recourse to works. In many passages they tend to become something more than mere signs confirmatory of faith. We need not examine here how far his statements concerning faith and works are consistent, and to what extent the sane Catholic teaching continued to influence him.
What is remarkable, however, is, that, in his commendable efforts to urge the performance of works in order to curtail the pernicious results of his doctrine, Luther comes to attribute a saving action to " faith," only on condition that, out of love of God, we " strive " against sin. In one of his last sermons at Eisleben he tells his hearers : Sins are forgiven by faith and " are not imputed so far as you set yourself to fight against them, and learn to repeat the Our Father diligently . . . and to grow in strength as you grow in age ; and you must be at pains to exer- cise your faith by resisting the sins that remain in you ... in short, you must become stronger, humbler, more patient and believe more firmly."3 The conditional " so far as " furnishes a key which has to be used in many other passages where works are demanded as well as faith. Faith, there, is real and whole- some "in so far as " it produces works : " For we too admit it and have always taught it, better and more forcibly than they [the Papists], that we must both preach and perform works, and that they must follow the faith, and, that, where they do not follow there the faith is not as it should be."4
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 132, p. 304 f. 2 Walther, ib., p. 102.
3 " Werke," Erl. ed., 202, 2, p. 553. 4 lb., 122, p. 219.
GOOD WORKS 41
Nor does he merely say that works of charity must follow eventually, but that charity must be infused by the Spirit of God together with faith of which it is the fruit.
;' For though faith makes us righteous and pure, yet it cannot be without love, and the Spirit must infuse love together with faith. In short, where there is true faith, there the Holy Ghost is also present, and where the Holy Ghost is, there love and all good things must also be. . . . Love is a consequence or fruit of the Spirit which comes to us wrapped up in the faith."1 " Charity is so closely bound up [with faith and hope] that it can never be parted from faith where this is true faith, and as little as there can be fire without heat and smoke, so little can faith exist without charity."2 From gratitude (as we have heard him state above, p. 26) the man who is assured of salvation must be " well disposed towards God and keep His commandments." But if he be " sweetly disposed towards God " this must " show itself in all charity."
Taking the words at their face value we might find in these and similar statements on charity something reminis- cent of the Catholic doctrine of a faith working through love.3 But though this is what Luther should logically have arrived at, he was in reality always kept far from it by his idea both of faith and of imputation. It should be noted that he was fond of taking shelter behind the assertion, that his " faith " also included, or was accompanied by, charity. He was obliged to do this in self-defence against the objections of certain Evangelicals — who rushed to con- clusions he would not accept — or of Catholic opponents. Indeed, in order to pacify the doubters, he even went so far as to say, that love preceded the " faith " he taught, and that " faith " itself was simply a work like any other work done for the fulfilling of the commandments.
1 lb., 82, p. 119, in the exposition of 1 Cor. xiii. 2 : " And though I had all faith and could remove mountains and had not charity, I am nothing." 2 lb., 152, p. 40.
3 Willibald Pirkheimer confronted Luther with the following state- ment of the Catholic teaching : " We know that free-will of itself without grace cannot suffice. We refer all things back to the Divine grace, but we believe, that, after the reception of that grace without which we are nothing, we still have to perform our rightful service. We are ever subject to the action of grace and always unite our efforts with grace. . . . But whoever believes that grace alone suffices even without any exercise of our will or subduing of our desire, such a one does nothing else but declare that no one is obliged to pray, watch, fast, take pity on the needy, or perform works of mercy," etc. " Opp.," ed. Goldast, p. 375 sqq., in Drews, " Pirkheimers Stellung zur Reforma- tion," Leipzig, 1884, p. 119.
42 LUTHER THE REFORMER
It was in this sense that he wrote in the " Sermon von den guten Wercken," composed at the instance of his prudent friend Spalatin for the Duke of Saxony : " Such trust and faith brings with it charity and hope ; indeed, if we look at the matter aright, charity comes first, or at least simultaneously with faith. For I should not care to trust God unless I believed He would be kindly and gracious to me, whereby I am well disposed towards Him, trust Him heartily and perform all that is good in His sight." In the same connection he characterises " faith " as a " work of the first Commandment," and as a " true keeping of that command," and as the " first, topmost and best work from which all others flow."1 It might seem, though this is but apparent, that he had actually come to acknowledge the reality and merit of man's works, in the teeth of his denial of free-will and of the possibility of meriting.
Of charity as involved in faith he wrote in a similar strain in 1519 to Johann Silvius Egranus, who at that time still belonged to his party, but was already troubled with scruples concerning the small regard shown for ethical motives and the undue stress laid on faith alone : "I do not separate justifying faith from charity," Luther told him, " on the contrary we believe because God, in Whom we believe, pleases us and is loved by us." To him all this was quite clear and plain, but the new-comers who had busied themselves with faith, hope and charity " under- stood not one of the three."2
We may recall how the enquiring mind of Egranus was by no means entirely satisfied by this explanation. In 1534 he pub- lished a bitter attack on the Lutheran doctrine of works, though he never returned more than half-way from Lutheranism to the olden Church.3
Many, like Silvius Egranus, who at the outset had been won over to the new religion, took fright when they saw that, owing to the preference shown to faith (i.e. the purely personal assurance of salvation), the ethical principles regarding Christian perfection and man's aim in life, received but scant consideration.
Many truly saw therein an alarming abasement of the moral standard and accordingly returned to the doctrine of their fathers. As the ideal to be aimed at throughout life the Church had set up before them progress in the love of God, encouraging them to put this love in practice by fidelity to the duties of their calling and by a humble and confident trust in God's Fatherly promises rather than in any perilous " fides specialist
In previous ages Christian perfection had rightly been thought to consist in the development of the moral virtues, particularly
1 " Werke," Erl. ed„ 162, p. 131.
2 Feb. 2, 1519, " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 408. 3 See vol. iii., p. 462 ff.
LOWERING OF MORALS 43
of charity, the queen of all the others. Now, however, Luther represented " the consoling faith in the forgiveness of sins as the sum of Christian perfection."1 According to him the "real essence of personal Christianity lies in the confidence of the justi- fied sinner that he shares the paternal love of the Almighty of which he has been assured by the work and person of Jesus Christ." In this sense alone can he be said to have " rediscovered Christianity " as a religion. We are told that " the essence of Lutheran Christianity is to be found in Luther's reduction of practical Christianity to the doctrine of salvation."2 He " altered the ideal of religious perfection as no other Christian before his day had ever done." The " revulsion " in moral ideals which this necessarily involved spelt " a huge decline."3
George Wicel, who, after having long been an adherent of Lutheranism, broke away from it in consequence of the moral results referred to, wrote, in 1533, with much bitterness in the defence he addressed to Justus Jonas : " Amongst you one hears of nothing but of remitting and forgiving ; you don't seem to see that your seductions sow more sins than ever you can take away. Your people, it is true, are so constituted that they will only hear of the forgiving and never of the retaining of sin (John xx. 23) ; evidently they stand more in need of being loosed than of being bound. Ah, you comfortable theologians ! You are indeed sharp-sighted enough in all this business, for were you to bind as often as you loose, you, the ringleaders of the party, would soon find yourselves all alone with your faith, and might then withdraw into some hole to weep for the loss of your authority and congregation." "Ah, you rascals, what a fine Evangelical mode of life have you wrought with your preachment on grace."4
5. Abasement of Practical Christianity
To follow up the above statement emanating from a Protestant source, concerning the " huge decline " in moral ideals and practical Christianity involved in Luther's work, we shall go on to consider how greatly he did in point of fact narrow and restrict ethical effort in comparison with what was required by the ethics of earlier days. In so doing he was following the psychological impulse discernible even in the first beginnings of his dislike for the austerity of his Order and the precepts of the Church.
1 Adolf Harnack, " DG.," 34, p. 850.
2 Loofs, " DG.," 4, p. 698, n. 1, p. 737.
3 Harnack, ib., p. 831 f.
4 " Confutatio calumn. resp.," E 2a. Dollinger, " Reformation," 1, p. 39.
44 LUTHER THE REFORMER
Lower Moral Standards
1. The only works of obligation in the service of God are faith, praise and thanksgiving. God, he says, demands only our faith, our praise and our gratitude. Of our works He has no need.1 He restricts our " deeds towards God " to the praise-offering or thank-offering for the good received, and to the prayer-offering " or Our Father, against the evil and badness we would wish to be rid of."2 This service is the duty of each individual Christian and is practised in common in Divine worship. The latter is fixed and con- trolled with the tacit consent of the congregation by the ministers who represent the people ; in this we find the trace of Luther's innate aversion to any law or obligation which leads him to avoid anything savouring of legislative action.3
In the preface to his instructions to the Visitors in 1528 he declares, for instance, that the rules laid down were not meant to " found new Papal Decretals " ; they were rather to be taken asa" history of and witness to our faith " and not as " strict commands."4 This well expresses his antipathy to the visible Catholic Church, her hierarchy and her so-called man-made ordinances for public worship.
Since, to his mind, it is impossible to offer God anything but love, thanksgiving and prayer, it follows that, firstly, the Eucharistic Sacrifice falls, and, with it, all the sacrifices made to the greater glory of God by self-denial and abnega- tion, obedience or bodily penances, together with all those works — practised in imitation of Christ by noble souls — done over and above the bounden duties of each one's calling. He held that it was wrong to say of such sacrifices, made by contrite and loving hearts, that they were both to God's glory and to our own advantage, or to endeavour to justify them by arguing that : Whoever does not do great things for God must expect small recompense. Among the things which fell before him were : vows, processions, pilgrimages, veneration of relics and of the Saints, ecclesi-
1 Kostlin, " Luthers Theol.," 22, p. 208.
2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 92, p. 33. 3 Kostlin, ib., pp. 284, 295.
4 " Werke," Weim. ed., 26, p. 200 ; Erl. ed., 23, p. 9. Kostlin, however (p. 275 f.), points out that Luther nevertheless threatens those who refuse to accept his injunctions. Cp. below, xxix., 9.
LOWERING OF MORALS 45
astical blessings and sacramentals, not to speak of holy days and prescribed fasts. With good reason can one speak of a " huge decline."
He justifies as follows his radical opposition to the Catholic forms of Divine worship : " The only good we can do in God's service is to praise and thank Him, in which in fact the only true worship of God consists. ... If any other worship of God be proposed to you, know that it is error and deception."1 " It is a rank scandal that the Papists should encourage people to toil for God with works so as thereby to expiate their sins and secure grace. ... If you wish to believe aright and really to lay hold on Christ, you must discard all works whereby you may think you labour for God ; all such are nothing but scandals leading you away from Christ and from God ; in God's sight no work is of any value except Christ's own ; this you must leave to toil for you in God's sight ; you yourself must perform no other work for Him than to believe that Christ does His work for you."2
In the same passage he attempts to vindicate this species of Quietism with the help of some recollections from his own earlier career, viz. by the mystic .principle which had at one time ruled him : " You must be blind and lame, deaf and dead, poor and leprous, or else you will be scandalised in Christ. This is what it means to know Christ aright and to accept Him ; this is to believe as befits a true Christian."3
2. " All other works, apart from faith, must be directed towards our neighbour."4 As we know, besides that faith, gratitude and love which are God's due, Luther admits no good works but those of charity towards our neighbour. By our faith we give to God all that He asks of us. " After this, think only of doing for your neighbour what Christ has done for you, and let all your works and all your life go to the service of your neighbour."5 — God, he says elsewhere, asks only for our thank-offering ; " look upon Me as a Gracious God and I am content " ; " thereafter serve your neigh- bour, freely and for nothing."6 Good works in his eyes are only " good when they are profitable to others and not to
1 " Werke," ib., 72, p. 68. 2 lb., 102, p. 108.
3 On dying spiritually, cp. vol. i., p. 169 and passim.
4 " Werke," Erl. ed., 102, p. 108. 6 Ib. 6 " Werke," Erl. ed., 132, p. 206.
46 LUTHER THE REFORMER
yourself." Indeed he goes so far as to assert : " If you find yourself performing a work for God, or for His Saints, or for yourself and not alone for your neighbour, know that the work is not good."1 The only explanation of such sentences, as already hinted, is to be found in his passionate polemics against the worship and the pious exercises of the Catholics. It is true that such practices were sullied at that time by certain blemishes, owing to the abuses rampant in the Church ; yet the Catholic could confidently answer in self- defence in the words Luther proceeds to put on his lips : Such " works are spiritual and profitable to the soul of our neighbour, and God thereby is served and propitiated and His Grace obtained."
Luther rudely retorts : " You lie in your throat ; God is served not by works but by faith ; faith must do everything that is to be done as between God and ourselves." That the priests and monks should vaunt their religious exercises as spiritual treasures, he brands asa " Satanic lie." " The works of the Papists such as organ-playing, chanting, vesting, ringing, smoking [incensation], sprinkling, pilgrim- ing and fasting, etc., are doubtless fine and many, grand and long, broad and thick works, but about them there is nothing good, useful or profitable."
3. " Know that there are no good works but such as God has commanded." What, apart from faith, makes a work a good one is solely God's express command. Luther, while finding fault with the self-chosen works of the Catholics, points to the Ten Commandments as summing up every good work willed by God. " There used to be ecclesiastical precepts which were to supersede the Decalogue." " The commandments of the Church were invented and set up by men in addition to and beyond God's Word. Luther there- fore deals with the true worship of God in the light of the Ten Commandments."2 As for the Evangelical Counsels so solemnly enacted in the New Testament, viz. the striving after a perfection which is not of obligation, Luther, urged on by his theory that only what is actually commanded
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 102, p. 25. Cp. on Luther's restriction of good works to practical love of our neighbour, vol. iv., p. 477 ff., and above, p. 26, 38 f.
2 Chr. E. Luthardt, " Die Ethik Luthers in ihren Grundzugen," 2, 1875, p. 70.
THE EVANGELICAL COUNSELS 47
partakes of the nature of a good work, came very near branding them as an invention of the Papists.
They have " made the Counsels twelve" in number,1 he says, 11 and twist the Gospel as they please." They have split the Gospel into two, into " Consilia et prcecepta." " Christ," so he teaches, " gave only one Counsel in the whole of the Gospel, viz. that of chastity, which even a layman can preserve, assuming him to have the grace." He sneers at the Pope and the Doctors because they had established not only a clerical order which should be superior to the laity, but also an order of the counsels the duty of whose members it was to portray the Evangelical perfection by the keeping of the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. " By this the common Christian life and faith became like flat, sour beer ; everyone rubbed his eyes, despised the commandments and ran after the counsels. And after a good while they at last discovered man-made ordinances in the shape of habits, foods, chants, lessons, tonsures, etc., and thus God's Law went the way of faith, both being blotted out and forgotten, so that, henceforth, to be perfect and to live according to the counsels means to wear a black, white, grey or coloured cowl, to bawl in church, wear a tonsure and to abstain from eggs, meat, butter, etc."2
In the heat of his excitement he even goes so far as to deny the necessity of any service in the churches, because God demands only the praise and thanks of the heart, and " this may be given . . . equally well in the home, in the field, or anywhere else." " If they should force any other service upon you, know that it is error and deception ; just as hitherto the world has been crazy, with its houses, churches and monasteries set aside for the worship of God, and its vestments of gold and silk, etc. . . . which expenditure had better been used to help our neighbour, if it was really meant for God."3
It was of course impossible for him to vindicate in the long run so radical a standpoint concerning the churches, and, else- where, he allows people their own way on the question of litur- gical vestments and other matters connected with worship.
4. The good works which are performed where there is no " faith " amount to sin. This strangely unethical assertion Luther is fond of repeating in so extravagant a form as can only be explained psychologically by the utter blindness of his bias in favour of the " fides specialis " by him discovered. True morality belongs solely to those who have been justified after his own fashion, and no others have the slightest right to credit themselves with anything of the sort.
1 Cp. " Compend. totiustheol. Hugonis Argentorat. o.p.," V. cap. ult.
2 Quoted from Luthardt, ib., pp. 70-73.
3 " Werke," Erl. ed., 72, p. 68.
48 LUTHER THE REFORMER
When, in 1528, in his " Great Confession " he expounded his " belief bit by bit," declaring that he had " most diligently- weighed all these articles " as in the presence of death and judgment, he there wrote : " Herewith I reject and condemn as rank error every doctrine that exalts our free-will, which is directly opposed to the help and grace of our Saviour Jesus Christ. For seeing, that, outside of Christ, death and sin are our masters and the devil our God and sovereign, there can be no power or might, no wit or understanding whereby we could make ourselves fit for, or could even strive after, righteousness and life, but on the contrary we must remain blind and captive, slaves of sin and the devil, and must do what pleases them and runs counter to God and His Commandments."1 Even the most pious of the Papists, he goes on to say, since they lack Christ and the " Faith," have " merely a great semblance of holiness," and although " there seem to be many good works " among them, " yet all is lost " ; chastity, poverty and obedience as practised in the convents is nothing but " blasphemous holiness," and " what is horrible is that thereby they refuse Christ's help and grace."2
This, his favourite idea, finds its full expression in his learned Latin Commentary on Galatians (1535) : " In the man who does not believe in Christ not only are all sins mortal, but even his good works are sins " ;3 for the benefit of the people he enunciates the same in his Church-Postils. " The works performed without faith are sins . . . for such works of ours are soiled and foul in God's eyes, nay, He looks on them with horror and loathing." As a matter of course he thinks that God looks upon concupis- cence as sin, even in its permissible manifestations, e.g. in the " opus conjugalis." Amongst the heathen even virtues such as patriotism, continence, justice and courage in which, owing to the divine impulses (" divini motus "), they may shine, are tainted by the presence in them of original sin ("in ipsis heroicis virtutibus depravata ").4 As to whether such men were saved, Luther refuses to say anything definite ; he holds fast to the text that without faith it is impossible to please God. Only those who, in the days of Noe, did not believe may, so he declares, be saved in accordance with his reading of 1 Peter iii. 19 by Christ's preaching of salvation on the occasion of His descent into hell. He is also disposed to include among those saved by this supposed course of sermons delivered "in inferis," such fine men of every nation as Scipio, Fabius and others of their like. 5
In general, however, the following holds good : Before " faith and grace " are infused into the heart " by the Spirit alone," " as the work of God which He works in us " — everything in
1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 26, p. 502 f. ; Erl. ed., 30, p. 365.
2 lb., pp. 507, 509 = 370, 372.
3 Ed. Irmischer, 3, p. 25. Cp. Loofs, " DG.," 4, p. 705.
4 " Werke," Erl. ed. 152, p. 60. " Opp. lat. exeg.," 2, p. 273 sqq. ; 19, p. 18; 24, p. 463, sq. "Disputationes," ed. Drews, pp. 115, 172.
6 Cp. Kostlin, " Luthers Theol.," 22, p. 169 f., the passages quoted.
THE SUPERNATURAL 49
man is the " work of the Law, of no value for justification, but unholy and opposed to God owing to the unbelief in which it is performed."1
Annulment of the Supernatural and Abasement of the Natural Order
From the above statements it is clear that Luther, in doing away with the distinction between the natural and supernatural order, also did away with the olden doctrine of virtue, and without setting up anything positive in its place. He admits no naturally good action different from that per- formed " by faith and grace " ; no such thing exists as a natural, moral virtue of justice. This opinion is closely bound up with his whole warfare on man's natural character and endowments in respect of what is good. Moreover, what he terms the state of grace is not the supernatural state the Church had always understood, but an outward imputa- tion by God ; it is indeed God's goodness towards man, but no new vital principle thanks to which we act justly.2
Not only does he deny the distinction between natural and supernatural goodness, essential as it is for forming an ethical estimate of man, but he practically destroys both the natural and supernatural order. Even in other points of Luther's doctrine we can notice the abrogation of the fundamental difference between the two orders ; for instance in his view of Adam's original state, which, accord- ing to him, was a natural not a supernatural one, " no gift," as he says, " apart from man's nature, and bestowed on him from without, but a natural righteousness so that it came natural to him to love God [as he did], to believe in Him and to acknowledge Him."3 It is, however, in the moral domain that this peculiarity of his new theology comes out most glaringly. Owing to his way of proceeding and the heat of his polemics he seems never to have become fully conscious of how far-reaching the consequences were of his
1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 1, 1, p. 340 ; Erl. ed., 72, p. 261. — For the theological and psychological influences which led him to these statements, see vol. i., pp. 72 ft\, 149 ft\
2 Cp. what Luther says in his Comm. on Romans in 1515-16 : It depends entirely " on the gracious Will of God whether a thing is to be good or evil," and " Nothing is of its own nature good, nothing of its own nature evil," etc., vol. i., p. 211 f.
3 " Opp. lat. exeg.," 1, p. 109, " In Genesim," c. 3,
V.— E
50 LUTHER THE REFORMER
destruction of all distinction between the natural and the supernatural order.
Natural morality, viz. that to which man attains by means of his unaided powers, appears to him simply an invention of the pagan Aristotle. He rounds on all the theologians of his day for having swallowed so dangerous an error in their Aristotelian schools to the manifest detriment of the divine teaching. This he does, for instance, at the commencement of his recently published Commentary on Romans. He calls it a " righteousness of the philosophers and lawyers " in itself utterly worthless.1 A year later, in his manuscript Commentary on Hebrews, he has already reached the opinion, that, " the virtues of all the philosophers, nay, of all men, whether they be lawyers or theologians, have only a semblance of virtue, but in reality are vices (* vitia ')." 2
But what would be quite incomprehensible, had he actually read the scholastic theologians whose " civil, Aristotelian doctrine of justice " he was so constantly attacking, is, that he charges them with having stopped short at this natural justice and with not having taught any- thing higher ; this higher justice was what he himself had brought to light, this was the " Scriptural justice which depended more on the Divine imputation than on the nature of things,"3 and was not acquired by deeds but bestowed by God. The fact is, however, that the Schoolmen did not rest content merely with natural justice, but insist that true justice is something higher, supernatural and only to be attained to with the help of grace ; it is only in some few later theologians with whom Luther may possibly have been acquainted, that this truth fails to find clear expression. Thomas of Aquin, for instance, distinguishes between the civil virtue of justice and the justice infused in the act of justification. He says expressly : " A man may be termed just in two ways, on account of civil [natural] justice and on account of infused justice. Civil justice is attained to with- out the grace which comes to the assistance of the natural powers, but infused justice is the work of grace. Neither the one nor the other, however, consists in the mere doing of
1 See vol. i., p. 148 f. Cp. Denifle- Weiss, l2, p. 527, n. 1.
2 Denifle-Weiss, ib., p. 528, n. 2.
:! Denifle-Weiss, ib., p. 527. Cp. our vol. i., p. 148 f,
THE SUPERNATURAL 51
what is good, for not everyone who does what is good is just, but only he who does it as do the just."1
With regard to supernatural (infused) justice, the Church's representatives, quite differently from Luther, had taught that man by his natural powers could only attain to God as the Author of nature but not to God as He is in Himself, i.e. to God as He has revealed and will communicate Himself in heaven ; it is infused, sanctifying grace alone that places us in a higher order than that of nature and raises us to the status of being children of God ; in it we love God, by virtue of the " habit " of love bestowed upon us, as He is in Himself, i.e. as He wills to be loved ; sanctifying grace it is that brings us into a true relation with our supernatural and final end, viz. the vision of God in heaven, in which sense it may be called a vital principle infused into the soul. 2
This language Luther either did not or would not understand. On this point particularly he had to suffer for his ignorance of the better class of theologians. He first embraced Occam's hypothesis of the possibility of an imputation of justice, and then, going further along the wrong road, he changed this possi- bility into a reality ; soon, owing to his belief in the entire cor- ruption of the natural man, imputed justice became, to him, the only justice. In this way he deprived theology of supernatural as well as of natural justice ; for imputed justice is really no justice at all, but merely an alien one. " With Luther we have the end of the supernatural. His basic view, of justifying faith as the work of God in us performed without our co-operation, bears indeed a semblance of the supernatural. . . . But the supernatural is ever something alien."3
What he had in his mind was always a foreign righteousness produced, not by man's own works and acts performed under the help of grace, but only by the work of another ; this we are told by Luther in so many words : " True and real piety which is of worth in God's sight consists in alien works and not in our own."4 "If we wish to work for God we must not approach Him with our own works but with foreign ones." " These are the works of Our Lord Jesus Christ." " All that He has is ours. ... I may attribute to myself all His works as though I had actually done them, if only I believe in Christ. . . . Our works
1 " In 2 Sent.," dist. 28, a. 1 ad 4. Denifle- Weiss, ib., p. 482, n. 1. Cp. Luther's frequent statement, already sufficiently considered in our vol, iv., p. 476 f., in which he sums up his new standpoint : Good works never make a good man, but good men perform good works.
2 Cp. Denifle-Weiss, ib., p. 598.
3 Denifle-Weiss, p. 604. Cp. also p. 600, n. 2, where Denifle remarks : " Being an Occamist he never understood actual grace."
4 " Werke," Erl. ed., 152, p. 60. After the words quoted above follows the remarkable passage : One builds churches, another makes pilgrimages, etc. " These are self-chosen works which God has not commanded. . . . Such self-chosen works are nought . . . are sin."
52 LUTHER THE REFORMER
will not suffice, all our powers together are too weak to resist even the smallest sin. . . . Hence when the Law comes and accuses you of not having kept it, send it to Christ and say : There is the Man who has fulfilled it, to Him I cling, He has fulfilled it for me and bestowed His fulfilment of it upon me ; then the Law will have to hold its tongue."1
The Book of Concord on the Curtailment of Free-Will.
When orthodox Lutheranism gained a local and temporary victory in 1580 with the so-called Book of Concord, the authors of the book deplored the inferences drawn from Luther's moral teaching, particularly from his denial of free-will, the dangers of which had already long been apparent.
" It is not unknown to us," they say, " that this holy doctrine of the malice and impotence of free-will, the doctrine whereby our conversion and regeneration is ascribed solely to God and in no way to our own powers, has been godlessly, shamelessly and hatefully abused. . . . Many are becoming immoral and savage and neglectful of all pious exercises ; they say : ' Since we can- not turn to God of our own natural powers, let us remain hostile to God or wait until He converts us by force and against our will.' " " It is true that they possess no power to act in spiritual things, and that the whole business of conversion is merely the work of the Holy Ghost. And thus they refuse to listen to the Word of God, or to study it, or to receive the Sacraments ; they prefer to wait until God infuses His gifts into them directly from above, and until they feel and are certain by inward experience that they have been converted by God."
" Others," they continue, speaking of the case as a possibility and not as a sad reality, " may possibly give themselves up to sad and dangerous doubts as to whether they have been pre- destined by God to heaven, and as to whether God will really work His gifts in them by the help of the Holy Ghost. Being weak and troubled in mind they do not grasp aright our pious doctrine of free-will, and they are confirmed in their doubts by the fact that they do not find within themselves any firm and ardent faith or hearty devotion to God, but only weakness, misery and fear." The authors then proceed to deal with the widespread fear of predestination to hell. 2
We have as it were a sad monument set up to the morality of the enslaved will and the doctrine of imputation, when the Book of Concord, in spite of the sad results it has just
1 lb., p. 61 f.
2 " Symb. Biicher," ed. Muller-Kolde, 10, p. 599 f.
THE SYNERGISTS 53
admitted, goes on in the same chapter to insist that all Luther's principles should be preserved intact. " This matter Dr. Luther settled most excellently and thoroughly in his * De servo arbitrio ' against Erasmus, where he showed this opinion to be pious and irrefutable. Later on he repeated and further explained the same doctrine in his splendid Commentary on Genesis, particularly in his exposition of ch. xxvi. There, too, he made other matters clear — e.g. the doctrine of the 4 absoluta necessitas ' — defended them against the objections of Erasmus and, by his pious explanations, set them above all evil insinuations and misrepresentations. All of which we here corroborate and commend to the diligent study of all."1
Melanchthon's and his school's modifications of these extreme doctrines are here sharply repudiated, though Luther himself " never spoke with open disapproval " of Melanchthon's Synergism.2
" From our doctrinal standpoint," we there read, " it is plain that the teaching of the Synergists is false, who allege that man in spiritual things is not altogether dead to what is good but merely badly wounded and half dead. ... They teach wrongly, that after the Holy Spirit has given us, through the Evangel, grace, forgiveness and salvation, then free-will is able to meet God by its natural powers and . . . co-operate with the Holy Ghost. In reality the ability to lay hold upon grace ( ' facultas applicandi se ad gratiam ') is solely due to the working of the Holy Ghost."
What then is man to do, and how are the consequences de- scribed above to be obviated, on the one hand libertinism, on the other fear of predestination to hell ?
Man still possesses a certain freedom, so the Book of Concord teaches, e.g. " to be present or not at the Church's assemblies, to listen or close his ears to the Word of Gcd."
" The preaching of the Word of God is however the tool whereby the Holy Ghost seeks to effect man's conversion and to make him ready to will and to work (' in ipsis et velle et perficere operari vult ')." "Man is free to open his ears to the Word of God or to read it even when not yet converted to God or born again. In some way or other man still has free-will in such out- ward things even since Adam's Fall." Hence, by the Word, " by
1 lb. The Thesis of man's lack of freedom is bluntly expressed on p. 589, and in the sequel it is pointed out that in Luther's larger Catechism not one word is found concerning free-will. Reference is made to his comparison of man with the lifeless pillar of salt (p. 593), and to Augustine's " Confessions " (p. 596).
2 The last remark is from Loofs, " DG.," 4, p. 857. Cp. our vol. iii., p. 348 ft", and passim.
54 LUTHER THE REFORMER
the preaching and contemplation of the sweet Evangel of the forgiveness of sins, the spark of ' faith ' is enkindled in his heart."1
" Although all effort without the power and work of the Holy Spirit is worthless, yet neither the preacher nor the hearer must doubt of this grace or work of the Holy Spirit," so long as the preacher proceeds according to God's will and command and " the hearer listens earnestly and diligently and dwells on what he hears." We are not to judge of the working of the Holy Ghost by our feelings, but " agreeably with the promises of God's Word." We must hold that " the Word preached is the organ of the Holy Ghost whereby He truly works and acts in our hearts."2
With the help of this queer, misty doctrine which, as we may notice, makes of preaching a sort of Sacrament working " ex opere operato," Luther's followers attempted to construct a system out of their master's varying and often so arbitrary statements. At any rate they upheld his denial of any natural order of morality distinct from the order of grace. It was to remain true that man, " previous to conversion, possesses indeed an understanding, but not of divine things, and a will, though not for anything good and wholesome." In this respect man stands far below even a stock or stone, because he resists the Word and Will of God (which they cannot do) until God raises him up from the death of sin, enlightens and creates him anew. 3
Nevertheless several theses, undoubtedly Luther's own, are here glossed over or quietly bettered. If, for instance, according to Luther everything takes place of absolute necessity (a fact to which the Formula of Concord draws attention), if man, even in the natural acts of the mind, is bound by what is fore-ordained, 4 then even the listening to a sermon and the dwelling on it cannot be matters of real freedom. Moreover the man troubled with fears on predestination, is comforted by the well-known Bible texts, which teach that it is the Will of God that all should be saved; whilst nothing is said of Luther's doctrine that it is only the revealed God who speaks thus, whereas the hidden God acts quite otherwise, plans and carries out the very opposite, " damns even those who have not deserved it — and, yet, does not thereby become unjust."5 Reference is made to Adam's Fall, whereby nature has been depraved ; but nothing is said of Luther's view that Adam himself simply could not avoid falling because God did not then " bestow on him the spirit of obedience."0 But, though these things are passed over in silence, due prominence is given to those ideas of Luther's of which the result is the destruction of all moral order, natural as well as
1 " Symb. Biicher," ib., p. 601. 2 Ib.
3 lb., p. 602. 4 Cp. vol. ii., pp. 232, 265 f., 290.
5 Quoted from Loofs, " DG.," 4, p. 758. On the statement " with- out on that account being unjust " see vol. i., p. 187 ff., vol. ii, p. 268 f.
6 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 675 ; " Opp. lat. var.," 7, p. 207. Cp. Loofs, ib., p. 757.
CHRISTIANITY INWARD 55
supernatural. According to the Formula of Concord the natural order was shattered by Adam's Fall ; as for the supernatural order it is replaced by the alien, mechanical order of imputation.
Christianity merely Inward. The Church Sundered from the World
Among the things which Luther did to the detriment of the moral principle must be numbered his merciless tearing asunder of spiritual and temporal, of Christian and secular life.
The olden Church sought to permeate the world with the religious spirit. Luther's trend was in a great measure towards making the secular state and its office altogether independent ; this, indeed, the more up-to-date sort of ethics is disposed to reckon among his greatest achievements. Luther even went so far as to seek to erect into a regular system this inward, necessary opposition of world and Church. Of this we have a plain example in certain of his instructions to the authorities.1 Whereas the Church had exhorted people in power to temper with Christianity their administration of civil justice and their use of physical force — urging that the sovereign was a Christian not merely in his private but also in his official capacity, — Luther tells the ruler : The Kingdom of Christ wholly belongs to the order of grace, but the kingdom of the world and worldly life belong to the order of the Law ; the two kingdoms are of a different species and belong to different worlds. To the one you belong as a Christian, to the other as a man and a ruler. Christ has nothing to do with the regulations of worldly life, but leaves them to the world ; earthly life stands in no need of being outwardly hallowed by the Church.2 Certain statements to a different effect will be considered elsewhere.
" A great distinction," Luther said in 1523, " must be made between a worldling and a Christian, i.e. between a Christian and a worldly man. For a Christian is -neither man nor woman . . . must know nothing and possess nothing in the world. . . . A prince may indeed be a Christian, but he must not rule as a Christian, and when he rules he does so not as a Christian but as a prince. As an individual he is indeed a Christian, but his
1 Cp. vol. ii., p. 294 ft", and below, xxxv., 2.
2 The above largely reproduces Luthardt, " Luthers Ethik," 2, p. 81 ff.
56 LUTHER THE REFORMER
office or princedom is no business of his Christianity." This seems to him proved by his mystical theory that a Christian " must not harm or punish anyone or revenge himself, but for- give everyone and endure patiently all injustice or evil that befalls him." The theory, needless to say, is based on his mis- apprehension of the Evangelical Counsels which he makes into commands.1 On such principles as these, he concludes, it was impossible for any prince to rule, hence " his being a Christian had nothing to do with land and subjects."2
For the same reason he holds that " every man on this earth " comprises two " practically antagonistic personalities," for "each one has at the same time to suffer, and not to suffer, everything."3 The dualism which Luther here creates is due to his extravagant over-statement of the Christian law. The Counsels of Perfection given by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, with which Luther is here dealing (not to resist evil, not to go to law, etc., Mt. v. 19 ff. ), are not an invitation addressed to all Christians, and if higher con- siderations or some duty stands in the way it would certainly denote no perfection to follow them. Luther's misinterpretation necessarily led him to make a cleavage between Christian life and life in the world.
The dualism, however, in so far as it concerned the authorities had, however, yet another source. For polemical reasons Luther was determined to make an end of the great influence that the olden Church had acquired over public life. Hence he absolves the secular power from all dependence as the latter had itself sought to do even before his time. He refused to see that, in spite of all the abuses which had followed on the Church's interference in politics during the Middle Ages, mankind had gained hugely by the guidance of religion. To swallow up the secular power in the spiritual had never been part of the Church's teaching, nor was it ever the ideal of her enlightened representatives ; but, for the morality of the great, for the observance of maxims of justice and for the improvement of the nations the principle that religion must not be separated from the life of the State and from the office of those in authority, but must permeate and spiritualise them was, as history proved, truly vital. Subsequent to Luther's day the tendency to separate the two undoubtedly made un- checked progress. He himself, however, was not consistent in his attitude. On the contrary, he came more and more to desiderate the establishment of the closest possible bond between the civil authorities and religion — provided only that the ruler's faith was the same as Luther's. Nevertheless, generally speaking, the separation he had advocated of secular from spiritual became the rule in the Protestant fold.
1 See our vol. ii., p. 298 f.
2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 32, p. 439 ; Erl. ed., 43, p. 211. Exposition of Mt. v.-vii. Cp. our vol. ii., p. 297 f., and vol. iii., pp. 52 f., 60 : A prince, as a Christian, must not even defend himself, since a Christian is dead to the world.
3 " Werke," ib.
COUNSEL AND PRECEPT 57
11 Lutheranism," as Friedrich Paulsen said on the strength of his own observations in regions partly Catholic and partly Protestant, " which is commonly said to have introduced religion into the world and to have reconciled public worship with life and the duties of each one's calling has, as a matter of fact, led to the complete alienation and isolation of the Church from real life ; on the contrary, the older Church, despite all her ' over- worldliness,' has contrived to make herself quite at home in the world, and has spun a thousand threads in and around the fabric of its life." He thinks himself justified in stating : "Protestant- ism is a religion of the individual, Catholicism is the religion of the people ; the former seeks seclusion, the latter publicity. In the one even public worship bears a private character and appears as foreign to the world as the pulpit rhetoric of a Lutheran preacher of the old school ; the [Protestant] Church stands out- side the bustle of the workaday world in a world of her own."1
We may pass over the fact, that, Luther, by discarding the so-called Counsels reduced morality to a dead level. In the case of all the faithful he abased it to the standard of the Law, doing away with that generous, voluntary service of God which the Church had ever approved and blessed. We have already shown this elsewhere, more particularly in connection with the status of the Evangelical Counsels and the striving after Christian perfection in the monastic life. According to him there are practically no Counsels for those who wish to pass beyond the letter of the Law ; there is but one uniform moral Law, and, on the true Christian, even the so-called Counsels are strictly binding.2
Life in the world, however, according to his theory has very different laws ; here quite another order obtains, which is, often enough, quite the opposite to what man, as a Christian, recognises in his heart to be the true standard. As a Christian he must offer his cheek to the smiter ; as a member of the civil order he may not do so, but, on the contrary, must everywhere vindicate his rights. Thus his Christianity, so long as he lives in the world, must perforce be reduced to a matter of inward feeling ; it is constantly exposed to the severest tests, or, more accurately, constantly in the need of being explained away. The believer is faced by a twofold order of things, and the regulating of his moral conduct becomes a problem which can never be satis- factorily solved.
1 " Jugenderinnerungen aus seinem Nachlasse," Jena, 1909, p. 155 f.
2 Cp. vol. ii., p. 140 ff. ; vol. iii., p. 187 ff. ; vol. iv., p. 130 f.
58 LUTHER THE REFORMER
" Next to the doctrine of Justification there is hardly any other doctrine which Luther urges so frequently and so diligently as that of the inward character and nature of Christ's kingdom, and the difference thus existing between it and the kingdom of the world, i.e. the domain of our natural life."1
Let us listen to Luther's utterances at various periods on the dualism in the moral life of the individual : " The twin kingdoms must be kept wide asunder : the spiritual where sin is punished and forgiven, and the secular where justice is demanded and dealt out. In God's kingdom which He rules according to the Gospel there is no demanding of justice, but all is forgiveness, remission and bestowal, nor is there any anger, or punishment, but nothing save brotherly charity and service."2 — "No rights, anger, or punishment," this certainly would have befitted the invisible, spiritual Church which Luther had originally planned to set up in place of the visible one. 3
" Christ's everlasting kingdom ... is to be an eternal spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men by the preaching of the Gospel and by the Holy Spirit."4 "For your own part, hold fast to the Gospel and to the Word of Christ so as to be ready to offer the other cheek to the smiter, to give your mantle as well as your coat whenever it is a question of yourself and your cause."5 It is a strict command, though at utter variance with the civil law, in which your neighbour also is greatly concerned. In so far, therefore, you must resist. " Thus you manage perfectly to satisfy at the same time both the Kingdom of God and that of the world, both the outward and the inward ; you suffer evil and injustice and yet at the same time punish evil and injustice ; you do not resist evil, and yet at the same time you resist it ; for according to the one you look to yourself and to yours, and, according to the other, to your neighbour and to his rights. As regards yourself and yours, you act according to the Gospel and suffer injustice as a true Christian ; as regards your neighbour and his rights, you act in accordance with charity and permit no injustice."6
If, as is but natural, we ask, how Christ came so strictly to enjoin what was almost impossible, Luther replies that He gave His command only for Christians, and that real Christians were few in number : "In point of fact Christ is speaking only to His dear Christians [when He says, ' that Christians must not go to
1 Luthardt, " Luthers Ethik," 2, p. 81.
2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 142, p. 280 f.
3 Cp. vol. ii., p. 107 for Luther's earlier idea of the " holy brother- hood of spirits," in which " omnia sunt indifferentia et libera." See also vol. vi., xxxviii., 3.
4 "Werke," Erl. ed., I2, p. 108.
5 lb., Weim. ed., 11, p. 255 ; Erl. ed., 22, p. 73. " Von welltlicher Uberkeytt," 1523. 6 lb.
COUNSEL AND PRECEPT 59
law,' etc.], and it is they alone who take it and carry it out ; they make no mere Counsel of it as the Sophists do, but are so transformed by the Spirit that they do evil to no one and are ready willingly to suffer evil from anyone." But the world is full of non-Christians and " them the Word does not concern at all."1 Worldlings must needs tread a very different way : " All who are not Christians belong to the kingdom of the world and are under the law." Since they know not the command " Resist not evil," " God has given them another government different from the Christian estate, and the Kingdom of God." There ruleth coercion, severity, and, in a word, the Law, " seeing, that, amongst a thousand, there is barely one true Christian." " If anyone wished to govern the world according to the Gospel . . . dear heart, what would the result be ! He would be loosening the leashes and chains of the wild and savage beasts, and turn- ing them astray to bite and tear everybody. . . . Then the wicked would abuse the Christian freedom of the Gospel and work their own knavery."2
Luther clung to the very end of his life to this congeries of contradictory theories, which he advocated in 1523, in his passionate aversion to the ancient doctrine of perfection. In 1539 or 1540 he put forth a declaration against the " Sophists " in defence of his theory of the " Counsels," directed more par- ticularly against the Sorbonne, which had insisted that the " consilia evangelica," " were they regarded as precepts, would be too heavy a burden for religion."3 " They make out the Counsels," he says, "i.e. the commandments of God, to be not necessary for eternal life and invite people to take idolatrous, nay, diabolical vows. To lower the Divine precepts to the level of counsels is a horrible, Satanic blasphemy." As a Christian " you must rather forsake and sacrifice everything" ; to this the first table of the Law (of Moses, the Law of the love of God) binds you, but, on account of the second table (the law of social life), you may and must preserve your own for the sake of your family. As a Christian, too, you must be willing to suffer at the hands of every man, " but, apart from your Christian profession, you must resist evil if you wish to be a good citizen of this world."4
" Hence you see, O Christian brother," he concludes, " how much you owe to the doctrine which has been revived in our day, as against a Pharisaical theology which leaves us nothing even of Moses and the Ten Commandments, and still less of Christ."
" Such honour and glory have I by the grace of God — whether it be to the taste or not of the devil and his brood — that, since the days of the Apostles, no doctor, scribe, theologian or lawyer has confirmed, instructed and com- forted the consciences of the secular Estates so well and
1 lb., p. 252 = 70. * lb., p. 251 = 68.
3 " Opp. lat. var.," 4, p. 451. * lb., p. 445.
60 LUTHER THE REFORMER
lucidly as I have done by the peculiar grace of God. Of this I am confident. For neither St. Augustine nor St. Ambrose, who are the greatest authorities in this field, are here equal to me. . . . Such fame as this must be and remain known to God and to men even should they go raving mad over it."1
It is true that his theories contain many an element of good and, had he not been able to appeal to this, he could never have spoken so feelingly on the subject.
The good which lies buried in his teaching had, however, always received its due in Catholicism. Luther, when contrasting the Church's alleged aversion for secular life with his own exaltation of the dignity of the worldly calling, frequently speaks in language both powerful and fine of the worldly office which God has assigned to each one, not only to the prince but even to the humble workman and tiller of the field, and of the noble moral tasks which thus devolve on the Christian. Yet any aversion to the world as he conceives it had never been a principle within the Church, though individual writers may indeed have erred in this direction. The assertion that the olden Church, owing to her teaching concerning the state of perfection and the Counsels, had not made sufficient allowance for the dignity of the secular calling, has already been fully dealt with.
It is true that Luther, to the admiration of his followers, confronted the old Orders founded by the Church with three new Orders, all Divinely instituted, viz. the home, the State and the Church.2 But, so far from " notably improving " on the " scholastic ethics " of the past, he did not even contrive to couch his thoughts on these " Orders " in language as lucid as that used long before his day by the theologians and moralists of the Church in voicing the same idea ; what he says of these " Orders " also falls short of the past on the score of wealth and variety.3 Nevertheless the popular ways he had of depicting things as he fain would see them, proved alluring, and this gift of appealing to the people's fancy and of charming them by the contrast of new and old, helped to build up the esteem in which he has
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 31, p. 236. Verantwortung der auffgelegten Auffrur, 1533. Cp. our vol. ii., p. 294, and vol. iv., p. 331.
2 Luthardt, " Luthers Ethik," 2, pp. 93-96.
3 Cp. vol. iv., p. 127 ff., on the high esteem of worldly callings in the period previous to Luther's. Cp. N. Paulus, " Die Wertung der weltlichen Berufe im MA." (" Hist. Jahrb.," 1911, p. 725 ff.).
RELIGION AND MORALS 61
been held ever since ; his inclination, moreover, to promote the independence of the individual in the three " Orders," and to deliver him from all hierarchical influence must from the outset have won him many friends.
Divorce of Religion and Morals
Glancing back at what has already been said concerning Luther's abasement of morality and considering it in the light of his theories of the Law and Gospel, of assurance of salvation and morality, we find as a main characteristic of Luther's ethics a far-reaching, dangerous rift between religion and morals. Morality no longer stands in its old position at the side of faith.
Faith and the religion which springs from it are by nature closely and intimately bound up with morality. This is shown by the history of heathenism in general, of modern unbelief in particular. Heathenism or unbelief in national life always signifies a moral decline ; even in private life morality reacts on the life of faith and the religious feeling, and vice versa. The harmony between religion and morality arises from the fact that the love of God proceeds from faith in His dominion and Fatherly kindness.
Luther, in spite of his assurances concerning the stimulus of the life of faith and of love, severed the connection between faith and morality and placed the latter far below the former. His statements concerning faith working by love, had they been more than mere words, would, in themselves, have led him back to the very standpoint of the Church he hated. In reality he regards the " Law " as something utterly hostile to the " pious " soul ; before the true " believer " the Law shrinks back, though, to the man not yet justified by " faith," it serves as a taskmaster and a hangman. The " Law " thus loses the heavenly virtue with which it was stamped. In Luther's eyes the only thing of any real value is that religion which consists in faith in the forgiveness of sins.
" This," he says, " is the ' Summa Summarwn of a truly Christian life, to know that in Christ you have a Gracious God ready to forgive you your sins and never to think of them again, and that you are now a child of everlasting happiness, reigning with Christ over heaven and earth."
62 LUTHER THE REFORMER
It is true he hastens to add, that, from this saving faith, works of morality would " assuredly " flow.1
" Assuredly " ? Since Albert Ritschl it has been repeated countless times that Luther did no more than " assert that faith by its very nature is productive of good works." As a matter of fact "he is wont to speak in much too uncertain a way of the good works which follow faith " ; with him " faith " is the whole man, whereas the Bible says : " Fear God and keep His commandments [i.e. religion plus morality] ; this is the whole man."2
Luther's one-sided insistence on a confiding, trusting faith in God, at the cost of the moral work, has its root in his theory of the utter depravity of man and his entire lack of freedom, in his low esteem for the presuppositions of morality, in his con- viction that nature is capable of nothing, and, owing to its want of self-determination, is unable on its own even to be moral at all. If we desire, so he says frankly, to honour God's sublime majesty and to humble fallen creatures as they deserve, then let us recognise that God works all in all without any possibility of any resistance whatsoever on man's part, God's action being like to that of the potter on his clay. Just as Luther was unable to recognise justification in the sense in which it had been taught of yore, so also he entirely failed to appreciate the profounder conception of morality.
His strictures on morality — which had ever been esteemed as the voluntary keeping of the Law by man, who by a generous obedience renders to God the freedom received — point plainly to the cause of his upheaval of the whole field of dogma. At the outset he had set himself to oppose self-righteousness, but in doing so he dealt a blow at righteousness itself ; he had attacked justice by works, but justice itself had suffered ; he declared war on the wholly imaginary phantom of a self-chosen morality based on man-made ordinances and thereby degraded morality, if he did not indeed undermine its very foundations.
What Mohler says of the reformers and their tendency to set aside the commands of morality applies in particular to Luther and his passionate campaign. It is true he writes, that " the moral freedom they had destroyed came to involve the existence of a freedom from that moral law which concerns only the seen, bounded world of time, but fails to apply in the eternal world, set high above all time and space. This does not mean, however,
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 152, p. 42 f.
2 Cp. W. Walther, " Die christliche Sittlichkeit nach Luther," 1909, p. 50, where Ritschl's opinion is disputed. The above complaint of Luther's " uncertain way " is from Ritschl, who was not the first to make it ; the Bible objection is also much older. It matters nothing that in addition to the faith usually extolled as the source of works, Luther also mentions the Holy Ghost (see passages in Walther, p. 46 f.) and once even speaks of the new feeling as though it were a gift of the Spirit dwelling in His very substance in the believer. (" Opp. lat. exeg,." 19, p. 109 sq.) These are reminiscences of his Catholic days and have in reality nothing to do with his doctrine of Imputation.
RELIGION AND MORALS 63
that the reformers were conscious of what lay at the base of their system ; on the contrary, had they seen it, had they perceived whither their doctrines were necessarily leading, they would have rejected them as quite unchristian."1
The following reflection of the famous author of " Catholic Symbolism " may also be set on record, the better to safeguard against misapprehension anything that may have been said, particularly as it touches upon a matter to which we repeatedly have had occasion to allude.
" No one can fail to see the religious element in Protestantism," he says, " who calls to mind the idea of Divine Providence held by Luther and Melanchthon when they started the work of the Reformation. . . . All the phenomena of this world [according to it] are God's own particular work and man is merely His instrument. Everything in the history of the world is God's invisible doing which man's agency merely makes visible. Who can fail to see in this a truly religious outlook on all things ? All is referred back to God, Who is all in all. . . . In the same way the Redeemer also is all in all in the sense that He and His Spirit are alone active, and faith and regeneration are solely due to Him."2
Mohler here relates how, according to Luther, Staupitz had said of the new teaching at its inception, " What most consoles me is that it has again been brought to light how all honour and praise belong to God alone, but, to man, nothing at all." This statement is quite in keeping with the vague, mystical world of thought in which Staupitz, who was no master of theology or philosophy, lived. But it also reflects the impression of many of Luther's contemporaries who, unaware of his misrepresentation of the subject, were attracted by the advantage to religion and morality which seemed to accrue from Luther's effort to ascribe all things solely to God.
Where this tendency to subordinate all to God and to exalt the merits of Christ finds more chastened expression in Luther's writings, when, in his hearty, homely fashion, he paints the love of the Master or His virtues as the pattern of all morality, or pictures in his own peculiar realistic style the conditions of everyday life the better to lash abuses, then the reader is able to appreciate the better side of his ethics and the truly classic example he sometimes sets of moral exhortations. It would surely be inexplicable how so many earnest Protestant souls, from his day to our own, should have found and still find a stimulus in his practical works, for instance, in his Postils, did these works not really contain a substratum of truth, food for thought and a
1 " Symbolik," § 25. 2 lb., § 26.
64 LUTHER THE REFORMER
certain gift of inspiration. Even the man who studies the long list of Luther's practical writings simply from the standpoint of the scholar and historian — though he may not always share Luther's opinions — cannot fail to acknowledge that the warmth with which Luther speaks of those Christian truths accepted by all, leaves a deep impression and re- echoes within the soul like a voice from our common home.
On the one hand Luther rightly retained many profoundly religious elements of the mediaeval theology, indeed, owing to his curious way of looking at things, he actually outdid in medievalism the Middle Ages themselves, for he merged all human freedom in the Divine action, a thing those Ages had not dared to do.
And yet, on the other hand, to conclude our survey of his " abasement of practical Christianity," he is so ultra- modern on a capital point of his ethics as to merit being styled the precursor of modern subjectivism as applied to morals. For all his new ethical precepts and rules, beyond the Decalogue and the Natural Law, are devoid of ob- jective obligation ; they lack the sanction which alone would have rendered them capable of guiding the human conscience.
The Lack of Obligation and Sanction
Luther's moral instructions differed in one weighty par- ticular from those of the olden Church.
As he himself insists at needless length, they were a collection of personal ftpinions and exhortations which appeared to him to be based on Holy Scripture or the Law of Nature — -and in many instances, though not always, actually did rest on this foundation. When he issued new pronouncements of a practical character, for instance, concerning clandestine espousals, or annulled the olden order of public worship, the sacraments, or the Command- ments of the Church, he was wont to say, that, it was his intention merely to advise consciences and to arouse the Evangelical consciousness. He took this line partly because he was conscious of having no personal authority, partly because he wished to act according to the principles pro- claimed in his " Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen Menschen," or, again, in order to prevent the rise of dissent and the
LACK OF SANCTION 65
resistance he always dreaded to any attempt to lay down categorical injunctions. Thus his ethical regulations, so far as they differed from the olden ones, amounted merely to so many invitations to act according to the standard set up, whereas the character of the ethical legislation of Catholicism is essentially binding. Having destroyed the outward authority of the Church, he had nothing more to count upon than the " ministry of the Word," and everything now depended on the minister's being able to convince the believer, now freed from the ancient trammels.
He himself, for instance, once declared that he would " assume no authority or right to coerce, for I neither have nor desire any such. Let him rule who will or must ; I shall instruct and console consciences as far as I am able. Who can or wants to obey, let him do so ; who won't or can't, let him leave it alone."1
He would act " by way of counsel," so he teaches, "as in conscience he would wish to serve good friends, and whoever likes to follow his advice must do so at his own risk."2 "He gives advice agreeably to his own conscience," writes Luthardt in " Luthers Ethik," " leaving it to others to accept his advice or not on their own responsibility."3
• Nor can one well argue that the requisite sanction for the new moral rules was the general sanction found in the Scriptural threats of Divine chastisements to overtake transgressors. The question is whether the Law laid down in the Bible or written in man's heart is really identical with Luther's. Those who were unable of themselves to prove that this was the case were ulti- mately (so Luther implies) to believe it on his authority and conform themselves to his " Evangelical consciousness " ; thus, for instance, in the matter of religious vows, held by Luther to be utterly detestable, and by the Church to be both permissible and praiseworthy.
In but few points does the purely subjective character of the new religion and morality advocated by Luther stand out so clearly as in this absence of any objective sanction or higher authority for his new ethics. Christianity hitherto had appealed to the divine, unchangeable dignity of the Church, which, by her infallible teaching, her discipline and power to punish, insured the observance of law and order in the religious domain. But, now, according to the new teaching, man — who so sadly needs a clear and definite lead for his moral life — besides the Decalogue, " clear " Bible
1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 30, 3, p. 206 ; Erl. ed., 23, p. 95.
2 lb. » p. 111.
66 LUTHER THE REFORMER .
text and Natural Law, is left with nothing but " recom- mendations " devoid of any binding force ; views are dinned into his ears the carrying out of which is left solely to his feelings, or, as Luther says, to his " conscience."
Deprived of the quieting guidance of an authority which proclaims moral obligations and sees that they are carried out, conscience and personality tend in his system to assume quite a new role.
6. The part played by Conscience and Personality. Luther's warfare with his old friend Caspar Schwenckfeld
Protestants have confidently opined, that " Luther mastered anew the personal foundation of morality by reinstating conscience in its rights " ; by insisting on feeling he came to restore to " personality the dignity " which in previous ages it had lost under the ban of a " legalism " devoid of " morality."
To counter such views it may be of use to give some account of the way in which Luther taught conscience to exercise her rights. The part he assigns to the voice within which judges of good and evil, scarcely bears out the con- tention that he really strengthened the " foundation of morality." The vague idea of " personality " may for the while be identified with conscience, especially as in the present connection " person " stands for the medium of conscience.1
On Conscience and its Exercise in General
To quiet the conscience, to find some inward support for one's actions in the exercise of one's own will, this is what Luther constantly insists on in the moral instructions he gives, at the same time pointing to his own example.2 What
1 Owing to his assertion of man's unfreedom and passivity, Luther found it very difficult to retain the true meaning of conscience. So long as he thought in any way as a Catholic he recognised the inner voice, the " synteresis," that urges us to what is good and reproves what is evil, leaving man freedom of choice ; this we see from his first Commentary on the Psalms, above, vol. i., p. 76 f. But already in his Commentary on Romans he characterised the " synteresis," and the assumption of any freedom of choice on man's part, as the loophole through which the old theology had dragged in its errors concerning grace. (Above, vol. i., p. 233 f.)
2 Cp. W. Walther, " Die christl. Sittlichkeit," p. 31.
ON CONSCIENCE 67
was the nature of his own example ? His rebellion against the Church's authority was to him the cause of a long, fierce struggle with himself. He sought to allay the anxiety which stirred his soul to its depths by the reassuring thought, that all doubts were from the devil from whom alone all scruples come ; he sternly bade his soul rest secure and as resolutely refused to hearken to any doubts regarding the truth of his new Evangel. His new and quite subjective doctrines he defended in the most subjective way imaginable and, to those of his friends whose consciences were troubled, he recommends a similar course of action ; he even on several occasions told people thus disturbed in mind whom he wished to reassure, that they must listen to his, Luther's, voice as though it were the voice of God. This was his express advice to his pupil Schlaginhaufen1 and, in later days, to his friend Spalatin, who also had become a prey to melancholy."2 He himself claimed to have been delivered from his terrors by having simply accepted as a God-sent message the encouraging words of Bugenhagen.3
" Conscience is death's own cruel hangman," so he told Spalatin ; from Ambrose and Augustine the latter should learn to place all his trust not in conscience but in Christ. 4 It scarcely needs stating that here he is misapplying the fine sayings of both these Fathers. They would have repudiated with indignation the words of consolation which not long after he offered the man suffering from remorse of conscience, assuring him that he was as yet a novice in struggling against conscience, and had hitherto been " too tender a sinner " ; "join yourself to us real, big, tough sinners, that you may not belittle and put down Christ, Who is the Saviour, not of small, imaginary sinners, but of great and real ones " ; thus it was that he, Luther, had once been consoled in his sadness by Staupitz. 5 Here he is applying wrongly a perfectly correct thought of his former Superior. Not perhaps quite false, but at any rate thoroughly Lutheran, is the accompanying assurance : "I stand firm [in my conscience] and maintain my attitude, that you may lean on me in your struggle against Satan and be supported by me."
1 Above, vol. iv., p. 227. " You are to believe without doubting what God Himself has spoken to you, for I have God's authority and commission to speak to and to comfort you."
2 Letter of Aug. 21, 1544, " Briefe," ed. De Wette, 5, p. 680 : : Believe me, Christ speaks through me."
3 " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 3, p. 220 : " persuasi mihi, esse de coelo vocem Dei."
* Letter of March 8, 1544, " Briefe," ib., p. 636. 5 In the letter quoted in n. 2, ib., p. 679 f.
68 LUTHER THE REFORMER
Thus does he direct Spalatin, who was tormented by remorse, to comfort himself against his conscience."1
" To comfort oneself against one's conscience," such is the task which Luther, in many of his writings, proposes to the believer. Indeed, in his eyes the chief thing of all is to " get the better of sin, death, hell and our own conscience " ; in spite of the opposition of reason to Luther's view of Christ's satisfaction, we must learn, " through Him [Christ] to possess nothing but grace and forgiveness," of course, in the sense taught at Witten- berg. 2
A former brother monk, Link, the apostate Augustinian of Nuremberg, Luther also encourages, like Spalatin the fallen priest, to kick against the prick of conscience : " These are devil's thoughts and not from us, which make us despair," they must be " left to the devil," the latter always " keeps closest to those who are most pious " ; to yield to such despairing thoughts " is as bad as giving in and leaving Satan supreme."3
When praising the " sole " help and consolation of the grace of Christ he does not omit to point out, directly or otherwise, how, " when in despair of himself," and enduring frightful inward " sufferings " of conscience, he had hacked his way through them all and had reached a firm faith in Christ minus all works, and had thus become a " theologian of the Cross."4
Even at the commencement of the struggle, in order to en- courage wavering followers, he allowed to each man's conscience the right to defy any confessor who should forbid Luther's writings to such of his parishioners who came to him : " Absolve me at my own risk," they were to say to him, " I shall not give up the books, for then I should be sinning against my conscience." He argues that, according to Rom. xiv. 1, the confessor might not " urge them against their conscience." Was it then enough for a man to have formed himself a conscience, for the precept no longer to hold ? His admonition was, however, intended merely as a counsel for " strong and courageous consciences." If the confessor did not prove amenable, they were simply to " go without scruple to the Sacrament," and if this, too, was refused them then they had only to send " Sacrament and Church " about their business. 5 Should the confessor require contrition for sins committed, this, according to another of his statements, was a clear attack on conscience which does not require contrition for absolution, but merely faith in Christ ; such a priest ought to have the keys taken out of his hands and be given a pitchfork instead." 6
i lb. 2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 182, p. 337.
3 On July 14, 1528, " Brief wechsel," ed. Enders, 6, p. 300 f.
4 Cp. " Werke," Weim. ed., 1, p. 354 ; " Opp. lat. var.," 1, p. 388. Cp. vol. i., p. 319.
5 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 290 f. ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 209, For fuller quotations see vol. ii., p. 58 f.
6 lb., Weim. ed., 4, p. 658.
ON CONSCIENCE 69
In the above instances the Catholic could find support for his conscience in the infallible authority of the Church. It was this authority which forbade him Luther's writings as heretical, and, in the case of contrition — which Luther also brings forward — it was likewise his religious faith, which, consonantly with man's natural feeling, demanded such sorrow for sin. In earlier days authority and faith were the reliable guides of conscience without which it was impossible to do. Luther left conscience to itself or referred it to his own words and his reading of Scripture, though this again, as he himself acknowledged, was not an absolute rule ; thus he leaves it a prey to a most unhappy uncertainty — unless, indeed, it was able to " find assurance " in the way he wishes.
Quite early in his career he also gave the following instruction to those of the clergy who were living in concubinage on how to form their conscience ; they were " to salve their conscience " and take the female to their " wedded wife," even though this were against the law, fleshly or ghostly. " Your soul's salva- tion is of more account than any tyrannical laws. . . . Let him who has the faith to take the risk follow me boldly." " I will not deceive him," he adds apologetically, but at least he had " the power to advise him regarding his sins and dangers " ; he will show them how they may do what they are doing, "but with a good conscience."1 For as Luther points out in another passage, even though their discarding of their supposed obligation of celibacy had taken place with a bad conscience, still the Bible- texts subsequently brought forward, read according to the inter- pretation of the new Evangelist, avail to heal their conscience.2 At any rate, so he tells the Teutonic Knights when inviting them to break their vow of chastity : "on the Word of God we will risk it and do it in the teeth of and contrary to all Councils and Churches ! Close eyes and ears and take God's Word to heart."3 Better, he cries, go on keeping two or three prostitutes than seek of a Council permission to marry ! 4
These were matters for " those to risk who have the faith," so we have heard him say. In reality all did depend on people's faith ... in Luther, on their conviction that his doctrine and his moral system were right.
But what voice was to decide in the case of those who were wavering ?
On the profoundest questions of moral teaching, it is, ac-
1 lb., Erl. ed., 21, p. 324. 2 76., 28, p. 224.
3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 12, p. 237 ; Erl. ed., 29, p. 25.
4 lb., Erl. ed., 29, p. 23 ; cp. above, vol. iii., p. 262 it
70 LUTHER THE REFORMER
cording to Luther, the "inward judgment " that is to decide what " spirit " must be followed. " For every Christian," he writes, " is enlightened in heart and conscience by the Holy Ghost and by God's Grace in such a way as to be able to judge and decide with the utmost certainty on all doctrines." It is to this that the Apostle refers when he says : " A spiritual man judges all things " (1 Cor. iii. 15). Beyond this, moreover, Scripture constitutes an " outward judgment " whereby the Spirit is able to convince men, it being a "ghostly light, much brighter than the sun."1 It is highly important " to be certain " of the meaning of the Bible,2 though here Luther's own interpretation was, needless to say, to hold the field. The preachers instructed by him were to say : "I know that the doctrine is right in God's sight " and " boast " of the inward certainty they shared with him.3
Luther's rules for the guidance of conscience in other matters were quite similar. Subjectivism becomes a regular system for the guidance of conscience. In this sense it was to the person that the final decision was left. But whether this isolation of man from man, this snatching of the individual from dutiful submission to an authority holding God's place, was really a gain to the individual, to religion and to society, or not rather the reverse, is only to be settled in the light of the history of private judgment which was the outcome of Luther's new principle.
Of himself Luther repeats again and again, that his knowledge and conscience alone sufficed to prove the truth of his position ; 4 that he had won this assurance at the cost of his struggles with conscience and the devil. Ulenberg, the old writer, speaking of these utterances in his " Life of Luther,"5 says that his hero mastered his conscience when at the Wartburg, and, from that time, believed more firmly than ever that he had gained this assurance by a Divine revelation (" ccelesti quadam revelatione"), for which reason he had then written to his Elector that he had received his lead solely from heaven.6
In matters of conscience wherever the troublesome " Law "
1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 653 ; " Opp. lat. var.," 7, p. 176 sq.
2 lb., Erl. ed., 58, pp. 394-398.
3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 17, 1, p. 232 ; Erl. ed., 39, p. 111. Should a preacher be unable thus to " boast," he is to " hold his tongue," so we read there.
4 See, e.g., vol. iii., pp. 110 ff.-158 f.
5 " Vita Lutheri," Colonise, 1622, p. 141.
6 Above, vol. iii., p. 111.
ON CONSCIENCE 71
comes in we can always trace the devil's influence ; we " must come to grips with him and fight him,"1 only the man who has been through the mill, as he himself had, could boast of having any certainty : " The devil is a juggler. Unless God helps us, our work and counsel is of no account ; whether we turn right or left he remains the Prince of this world. Let him who does not know this just try. I have had some experience of this. But let no one believe me until he too has experienced it."2
Not merely in the case of his life-work in general, but even in individual matters of importance, the inward struggles and " agonies " through which he had passed were signs by which to recognise that he was in the right. Thus, for instance, referring to his hostile action in Agricola's case, Luther says : " Oh, how many pangs and agonies did I endure about this business. I almost died of anxiety before I brought these propositions out into the light of day."3 Hence it was plain, he argued, how far he was from the palpable arrogance displayed by his Antinomian foe, and how evidently his present conduct was willed by God.
The Help of Conscience at Critical Junctures
It was the part played by subjectivism in Luther's ethics that led him in certain circumstances to extend suspiciously the rights of " conscience."
In the matter of the bigamy of Philip of Hesse he soothed the Elector of Saxony by telling him he must ignore the general outcry, since the Landgrave had acted " from his need of conscience " ; in his " conscience " the Prince regarded his " wedded concubine " as " no mere prostitute." " By God's Grace I am well able to distinguish between what by way of grace and before God may be permitted in the case of a troubled conscience and what, apart from such need of conscience, is not right before God in outward matters."4 In his extreme embarrassment, consequent on this matrimonial tangle, Luther deemed it necessary to make so hair-splitting a distinction between lawfulness and per- missibility when need of conscience required it. The explanation — that, in such cases, something must be con- ceded "before God and by way of grace" — which he offers together with the Old-Testament texts as justifying the bigamy, must look like a fatal concession to laxity.
1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 23, p. 69 f. ; Erl. ed., 30, p. 19.
2 lb., p. 70 = 20. 3 Lauterbach, " Tagebuch," p. 22.
4 On July 24, 1540, " Briefe," ed. De Wette, 6, p. 274. Above, vol. iv., p. 13 ff.
72 LUTHER THE REFORMER
He also appealed to conscience in another marriage question where he made the lawfulness of bigamy depend entirely on the conscience.
A man, who, owing to his wife's illness was prevented from matrimonial intercourse, wished, on the strength of Carlstadt's advice, to take a second wife. Luther thereupon wrote to Chancellor Briick, on Jan. 27, 1524, telling him the Prince should reply as follows : " The husband must be sure and convinced in his own conscience by means of the Word of God that it is lawful in his case. Therefore let him seek out such men as may convince him by the Word of God, whether Carlstadt [who was then in dis- grace at Court], or some other, matters not at all to the Prince. For if the fellow is not sure of his case, then the permission of the Prince will not make him so ; nor is it for the Prince to decide on this point, for it is the priests' business to expound the Word of God, and, as Zacharias says, from their lips the Law of the Lord must be learned. I, for my part, admit I can raise no objection if a man wishes to take several wives since Holy Scripture does not forbid this ; but I should not like to see this example introduced amongst Christians. ... It does not beseem Christians to seize greedily and for their own advantage on every- thing to which their freedom gives them a right. . . . No Chris- tian surely is so God-forsaken as not to be able to practise con- tinence when his partner, owing to the Divine dispensation, proves unfit for matrimony. Still, we may well let things take their course."1
On the occasion of his own marriage with Bora we may re- member how he had declared with that defiance of which he was a past master, that he would take the step the better to with- stand the devil and all his foes. (Vol. ii., p. 175 ff.)
A curious echo of the way in which he could set conscience at defiance is to be met with in his instructions to his assistant Justus Jonas, who, as soon as his first wife was dead, cast about for a second. Luther at first was aghast, owing to Biblical scruples, at the scandal which second marriages on the part of the regents of the Church would give and entreated him at least to wait a while. When he found it impossible to dissuade Jonas, he warned him of the " malicious gossip of our foes," " who are ever eager to make capital out of our example " ; nevertheless, he goes on to say that he had nothing else to urge against another union, so long as Jonas " felt within himself that spirit of defiance which would enable him, after the step, to ignore all the outcry' and the hate of all the devils and of men, and not to attempt, nay, to scorn any effort to stop the mouths of men, or to crave their favour."2
1 To Chancellor Briick, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 282 : " Oportere ipsum maritum sua propria conscientia esse firmum ac certum per verbum Dei, sibi haze licere.^ Cp. above, vol. iii., p. 259 f.
2 Letter to Jonas, May 4, 1543, " Briefe," 5, p. 556.
ON CONSCIENCE 73
The " spirit of defiance " which he here requires as a condition for the step becomes elsewhere a sort of mystical inspiration which may justify an action of doubtful morality.
Granted the presence of this inspiration he regards as per- missible what otherwise would not be so. In a note sent to the Elector of Saxony at the time of the Diet of Augsburg regarding the question whether it was allowed to offer armed resistance to the Emperor, we find this idea expressed in remarkable words. Till then Luther had looked upon resistance as forbidden. The predicament of