Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Therefore are they the most worthy who are constantly vexed by death and the devil, and they receive it most opportunely, to remind them and strengthen them in the faith that no harm can come unto them, for He is now with them, from Whom no one can take them away; let come death or devil or sin, they cannot do them harm.

  This is what Christ did, when He prepared to institute the blessed sacrament. He brought anguish upon His disciples and trembling to their hearts when He said that He would go away from them [Matt. 26:2], and again they were tormented when He said: One of you shall betray me [Matt. 26:21]. Think you not that that cut them to the heart? Truly, they received the word with all fear, and sat there as though they were all traitors to God. And after He had made them all tremble with fear and sorrow, then only did He institute the blessed sacrament as a comfort, and consoled them again. For this bread is a comfort for the sorrowing, a healing for the sick, a life for the dying, a food for all the hungry, and a rich treasure for all the poor and needy20.

  Let this be enough at this time concerning the proper use of this sacrament. I commend you to God.

  THE SEVENTH SERMON SATURDAY BEFORE REMINISCERE

  YESTERDAY WE HEARD of the use of the holy and blessed sacrament and saw who are worthy to receive it, even those in whom is the fear of death, who have timid and despairing consciences and who live in fear of hell. All such come prepared to partake of this food for the strengthening of their weak faith and the comforting of their conscience. This is the true and right use of this sacrament, and whoever does not find himself in this state, let him refrain from coming until God also takes hold of him and draws him through His Word.

  Fruit of the Sacrament: Love

  We shall now speak of the fruit of this sacrament, which is love; that is, that we should treat our neighbor even as God has treated us. Now we have received from God naught but love and favor, for Christ has pledged and given us His righteousness and everything that He has, has poured out upon us all His treasures, which no man can measure and no angel can understand or fathom, for God is a glowing furnace of love, reaching even from the earth to the heavens.

  The Lack of Love

  Love, I say, is a fruit of this sacrament. But I do not yet perceive it among you here in Wittenberg, although there is much preaching of love and you ought to practice it above all other things. This is the principal thing, and alone is seemly in a Christian. But no one shows eagerness for this, and you want to do all sorts of unnecessary things, which are of no account. If you do not want to show yourselves Christians by your love, then leave the other things undone, too, for St. Paul says in I Corinthians, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” [1 Cor. 13:1] This is a terrible saying of Paul. And further: “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries of God, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.” [1 Cor. 13:2, 3] You have not got so far as that, although you have received great and rich gifts from God, especially a knowledge of the Scriptures. It is true, you have the pure Gospel and the true Word of God, but no one as yet has given his goods to the poor, no one has yet been burned, and even these things would profit nothing without love. You would take all of God’s goods in the sacrament, and yet not pour them forth again in love. One will not lend the other a helping hand, no one thinks first of another, but every one looks out or himself and his own gain, seeks but his own and lets everything else go as it will, — if anybody is helped, well and good. No one looks after the poor or seeks how to help them. It is pitiful. You have heard many sermons about it and all my books are full of it and have the one purpose, to urge you to faith and love.

  And if you will not love one another, God will send a great plague upon you; let this be a warning to you, for God will not reveal His Word and have it preached in vain. You are tempting God too far, my friends. If some one in times past had preached the Word to our forefathers, they would perchance have acted differently. Or if the Word were preached to-day to many poor children in the cloisters, they would receive it with much greater joy than you. You do not heed it at all, and give yourselves to other things, which are unnecessary and foolish.

  I commend you to God.

  THE EIGHTH SERMON

  A SHORT SUMMARY21 OF THE SERMON OF DR. M. LUTHER DELIVERED ON REMINISCERE SUNDAY ON PRIVATE CONFESSION

  CONFESSION BEFORE the Congregation

  Now we have heard all the things which ought to be considered here, except confession. Of this we shall speak now. In the first place, There is a confession which is founded on the Scriptures; namely, when some one commits a sin publicly, or with other men’s knowledge, and is accused before the congregation. If he abandons his sin, they intercede for him with God. But if he will not hear the congregation, he is excluded from the church and cast out, so that no one will have anything to do with him. And this confession is commanded by God in Matthew xviii, “If thy brother trespass against thee (so that thou and others are offended), go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.” [Matt. 18:15] Of this confession there is no longer even a trace to be found, and in this particular the Gospel is put aside in this place. He who could reestablish it would perform a good work. Here is where you ought to have taken pains and reestablished this kind of confession, and let the other things go. For by this no one would have been offended, and it would have been accomplished without disturbance. It should be done in this way: When you see a usurer, adulterer, thief or drunkard, you should go to him in secret and admonish him to give up his sin. If he will not hear, you should take two others with you and admonish him once more, in a brotherly way, to give up his sin. But if he scorns that, you should tell the pastor before the whole congregation, have your witnesses with you, and accuse him before the pastor in the presence of the people, saying: “Dear pastor, this man has done this and that, and would not receive our brotherly admonition to give up his sin. Therefore I accuse him, together with my witnesses who were present.” And then, if he will not give up and willingly acknowledge his guilt, the pastor should exclude him and put him under the ban before the whole assembly, for the sake of the congregation, until he comes to himself and is received back again. This would be Christian. But I cannot undertake to carry it out single-handed.

  [Sidneote: Confession to God]

  Secondly, A confession is necessary for us, when we go away in a corner by ourselves, and confess to God Himself and pour out before Him all our faults. And this confession is also commanded. From this comes the familiar word of Scripture: “Facite judicium et justitiam.” [Gen. 18:19] Judicium acere est nos ipsos accusare et damnare; justitiam autem acere est idere misericordiae Dei22. As it is written, “Blessed are they that keep judgment and do righteousness at all times.” [Ps. 106:3] The judgment is nothing else than a man’s knowing and judging and condemning himself, and this is true humility and self-abasement. The righteousness is nothing else than a man’s knowing himself and praying to God or the mercy and help through which God raises him up again. This is what David means when he says: “I have sinned; I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,” [Ps. 32:5 f.] and, “Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin; for this all Thy saints shall pray unto Thee.”

  Confession to a Brother

  Thirdly, There is also a confession when one takes another aside, and tells him what troubles him, so that he may hear from him a word of comfort; and this confession is commanded by the pope. It is this urging and forcing which I condemned when I wrote concerning confession23, and I refuse to go to confession just because the pope wishes it and has commanded it. For I wish him to keep his hands of the confession and not make of it a compulsion or command, which he has not the power to do. Yet I will let no man take private confession away from me, and I would not give it up for all the treasures in th
e world, since I know what comfort and strength it has given me. No one knows what it can do or him except one who has struggled much with the devil. Yea, the devil would have slain me long ago, if the confession had not sustained me. For there are many doubts which a man cannot resolve by himself, and so he takes a brother aside and tells him his trouble. What harm is there, if he humbles himself a little before his neighbor, puts himself to shame, looks or a word of comfort from him, and takes it to himself and believes it, as if he heard it from God himself, as we read in Matthew xviii: “If two of you shall agree as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them.” [Matt. 18:19]

  Many Absolutions

  And we must have many absolutions, so that we may strengthen our timid consciences and despairing hearts against the devil and against God. Therefore no man shall forbid the confession nor keep or drive any one away from it. And if any one wrestles with his sins, is eager to be rid of them and looks or some assurance from the Scriptures, let him go and confess to another in secret, and receive what is said to him there as if it came directly from God’s own lips. Whoever has the strong and firm faith that his sins are forgiven, may ignore this confession and confess to God alone. But how many have such a strong faith? Therefore, as I have said, I will not let this private confession be taken from me. Yet I would force no one to it, but leave the matter to every one’s free will.

  Five Comforts for the Conscience

  For our God is not so miserly that He has left us with only one comfort or strengthening for our conscience, or one absolution, but we have many absolutions in the Gospel, and are showered richly with them. For instance, we have this in the Gospel: “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” [Matt. 6:14] Another comfort we have in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses,” [Matt. 6:12] etc. A third is our baptism, when I reason thus: See, my Lord, I am baptized in Thy name so that I may be assured of Thy grace and mercy. After that we have the private confession, when I go and receive a sure absolution as if God Himself spake it, so that I may be assured that my sins are forgiven. Finally I take to myself the blessed sacrament, when I eat His body and drink His blood as a sign that I am rid of my sins and God has freed me from all my frailties; and in order to make me sure of this, He gives me His body to eat and His blood to drink, so that I shall not and cannot despair: I cannot doubt I have a gracious God. Thus we see that confession must not be despised, but that it is a true comfort. And since we need many absolutions and comforts, because we must fight against the devil, death, hell and sin, we must not allow any of our weapons to be taken away, but keep intact the whole armor and equipment which God has given us or use against our enemies. For you do not yet know what work it is to fight with the devil and to overcome him. I know it well; I have eaten salt with him once or twice24. I know him well, and he knows me well, too. I only you knew him, you would not in this manner drive out confession.

  I commend you to God. Amen.

  ENDNOTES.

  1 Cp. his experiences at the Wartburg. See Köstlin-Kawerau, I, 439 ff.

  2 Carlstadt, without authority, preached, administered the sacrament and brought about the upheaval in the parish church — Luther’s own. He was archdeacon and preacher at the castle church. See Müller, Luther und Karlstadt, 69 and passim.

  3 In the Open Letter to the Christian Nobility and the Babylonian Captivity. See pp. 125 f., 136 f., and 215 f. of this volume.

  4 Right to speak.

  5 Power to do.

  6 Melanchthon.

  7 See above, p. 61.

  8 Justus Jonas, provost at the castle church.

  9 Gabriel Zwilling, an Augustinian, who, next to Carlstadt, was the leader in forcing the reforms which Luther is here discussing. See Introduction, p. 388.

  10 Was Luther led by the name of Gabriel to add a last touch by the mention of the other archangel, in the thought of St. Paul, that even an angel from heaven cannot change the Gospel, Gal. 1:8. See note in Weimar Ed., Xc, 438. See also a similar outburst in a letter to Johann Lang in 1516, six years previous, where Gabriel Biel’s name furnished the incitement. Enders, I, 54; Smith, I, 42.

  11 Namely, of the monasteries.

  12 A monastic order, founded 1084, noted or the strictness of its rule.

  13 The Iconoclastic controversy in the Eastern church, which called forth the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nice in 787, whose decrees were favorable to images in the churches. The controversy, which raged for over a century, was finally settled in 843. Since the promulgation of this decree the First Sunday in Lent has been celebrated annually as the “Feast of Orthodoxy.” See Realencyk., III, 222 ff.

  14 See above, p. 309.

  15 i. e., Castor and Pollux.

  16 Luther’s great objection to the mass was its turning of the Sacrament into a sacrifice. This view of the mass was for him an utter perversion of the gospel, and, therefore, comes under the category of essentials. See Vol. I, pp. 309 ff., and above, pp. 211 ff.

  17 See above, p. 407, note 1.

  18 Cf. above, p. 282.

  19 In the canon law, C. 12, X, de poenitentiis.

  20 On the last four paragraphs, cf. above, pp. 15 f.

  21 On this title, see Introduction, p. 389.

  22 “Let there be judgment and righteousness.” To keep judgment is to accuse and condemn ourselves; but to do righteousness is to trust in the mercy of God.

  23 The treatise Von der Beichte, ob die der Papst Macht habe zu gebieten, written during the sojourn on the Wartburg. See Weimar Ed., VIII, 129; Erl. Ed., XXVII, 318.

  24 See above, p. 394.

  That Doctrines of Men are to be Rejected (1522)

  Translated by W. A. Lambert

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  THAT WE ARE TO REJECT THE DOCTRINES OF MEN

  A REPLY TO TEXTS QUOTED IN DEFENSE OF THE DOCTRINES OF MEN

  ENDNOTES.

  INTRODUCTION

  “SILVER AND GOLD have I none: but such as I have give I thee.” Somewhat in the spirit of these words Luther had planned to dedicate a small book to his host of the Wartburg, Hans von Berlepsch. For a time Luther had thought that von Berlepsch himself was bearing the expense of his entertainment in that retreat, and that he was being more royally treated than he deserved. Not only the material comforts with which he was surrounded appealed to him, however. Von Berlepsch was interested in Luther and in Luther’s work. He talked with him seriously on religious questions, and expressed a desire to have more information, particularly concerning the authority of the teachings of the Roman Church which had no direct warrant in Scripture.

  To this desire of von Berlepsch we can trace the origin of our treatise, That the Doctrines of Men are to be Rejected. There is no dedication to von Berlepsch, however, and no reference to the months of companionship on the Wartburg. Luther returned from the Wartburg early in March, 1522, and on the 28th of March sent the first part of the treatise to Spalatin, with the request that it be forwarded to von Berlepsch. The second part, the Reply to Texts Quoted in Defence of the Doctrines of Men, was added in a second edition.

  This was not the only writing forwarded to von Berlepsch in memory of the pleasant days spent on the Wartburg. Perhaps of even greater interest was the gift sent on September 25, 1522 — one of the first complete copies of the German New Testament.

  Buchwald has called our treatise “a model of sound explanation of the Scriptures for the purpose of refuting error.” We must caution the reader, however, not to think of Luther’s occasional statements concerning the authority of Scripture as final. Luther is still largely upon medieval ground, accepting the premise of the Roman Church, and refuting the practice of the popes, priests and monks from the fundamental assumption of the authority of the Scriptures. The succeeding years, the controversies with the leaders of the peasants and with the heavenly prophets, led him to clearer views. Where in this treatise he wrote, “The same things which are found in the Books of Moses are
found in the others. For the other books do no more than show how in the course of history the word of Moses was kept or not kept,” he was thinking of the one Gospel which he found everywhere in the Scriptures. But he distinguished carefully between the permanent and the temporary in the Books of Moses and elsewhere, and speaks of “that which God has decreed” in the Old Testament as having “come to an end, and no longer binding the consciences of men” (p. 442). That which is permanent is the Gospel, “for it is beyond question that all the Scriptures point to Christ alone” (p. 432). Probably the clearest statement of his views is found in a sermon preached in 1527: “The Word was given in many ways from the beginning. We must not only ask whether it is God’s Word, whether God spoke it, but much more, to whom He spoke it, whether it applies to you or to another.” “The false prophets rush in and say, ‘Dear people, this is God’s Word.’ It is true, and we cannot deny it; but we are not the people to whom He speaks” (Erl. Ed., 33, 16.)