Thereupon Frederick, the Elector, actually wrote to Rome that Luther was ready to be better instructed from Holy Scripture by learned judges; no one could reproach him, the Prince; he was far from “extending protection to the writings and sermons of Dr. Martin Luther,” or “from tolerating any errors against the Holy Catholic faith.”
At the very last moment before the promulgation of the Bull of Excommunication, Luther made offers of “peace” to the Roman Court through Cardinal Carvajal, professing to be ready to accept any conditions, provided he was left free to teach the Word, and was not ordered to retract. This step was taken to safeguard his public position and his future; Spalatin, and through him the Elector, received due notification of the fact on August 23, 1520.
Yet only a few weeks before, on July 10, he had already expressly assured the same friend privately: “The die is cast; I despise alike the favour and the fury of the Romans; I refuse to be reconciled with them, or to have anything whatever to do with them ... I will openly attack and destroy the whole Papal system, that pestilential quagmire of heresies; then there will be an end to the humility and consideration of which I have made a show, but which has only served to puff up the foes of the Gospel.”
He had also not omitted, at the same time, to bring to the knowledge of the Elector, through his same friend at Court, the promise of a guard of one hundred noblemen, recently made by Silvester von Schauenberg; he likewise begged that an intimation of the fact might be conveyed to Rome, that they might see that his safety was assured, and might then cease from threatening him with excommunication and its consequences. “Were they to drive me from Wittenberg,” he adds, “nothing would be gained, and the case would only be made worse; for my men-at-arms are stationed not only in Bohemia, but in the very centre of Germany, and will protect me should I be driven away, for they are determined to defy any assault.” “If I have these at my back then it is to be feared that I shall attack the Romanists much more fiercely from my place of safety than if I were allowed to remain in my professorship and in the service of the Prince [at Wittenberg], which is what will certainly happen unless God walls otherwise. Hitherto I have been unwilling to place the Prince in any difficulty; once expelled, all such scruples will vanish.”
In conclusion, he extols his great consideration for the Prince. “It is only the respect I owe my sovereign, and my regard for the interests of the University [of Wittenberg] that the Romanists have to thank for the fact that worse things have not been done by me; that they escaped so lightly they owe neither to my modesty, nor to their action and tyranny.”
All the diplomacy which he cultivated with so much calculation did not, however, hinder his giving free course to the higher inspiration with which he believed himself to be endowed; the result was a series of works which may be numbered among the most effective of his controversial writings. He there fights, to employ his own language, “for Christ’s sake new battles against Satan,” as Deborah, the prophetess, fought “new wars” for Israel (Judges v. 8).
In Luther we find a singular combination of the glowing enthusiast and cool diplomatist. Just as it would be wrong to see in him nothing but hypocrisy and deception without a spark of earnestness and self-sacrifice, so too, at the other extreme, we should not be justified in speaking of his success as simply the result of enthusiasm and entire surrender of earthly considerations. History discerns in him a combatant full of passion indeed, yet one who was cool-headed enough to choose the best means to his end.
3. Luther’s Great Reformation-Works — Radicalism and Religion
It was at the time when the Bull of Excommunication was about to be promulgated by the Head of Christendom that Luther composed the Preface to the work entitled: “An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation von des christlichen Standes Besserung.” The booklet appeared in the middle of August, and by the 18th four thousand copies were already in circulation, eagerly devoured by a multitude of readers hungry for books of all kinds. Staupitz’s warning not to publish it had come too late. “Luther’s friends, the Knights, were urging him on, and something had to be done at once.”
This inflammatory pamphlet, so patronised by the rebellious Knights, was, with its complaints against Rome, in part based on the writings of the German Neo-Humanists.
Full of fury at the offences committed by the Papacy against the German nation and Church, Luther here points out to the Emperor, the Princes and the whole German nobility, the manner in which Germany may break away from Rome, and undertake its own reformation, for the bettering of Christianity. His primary object is to show that the difference between the clerical and lay state is a mere hypocritical invention. All men are priests; under certain circumstances the hierarchy must be set aside, and the secular powers have authority to do so. “Most of the Popes,” so Luther writes with incredible exaggeration, “have been without faith.” “Ought not Christians, who are all priests, also to have the right [like them, i.e. the bishops and priests] to judge and decide what is true and what false in matters of faith?”
The work was, as Luther’s comrade Johann Lang wrote to the author, a bugle-call which sounded throughout all Germany. Luther had to vindicate himself (even to his friends) against the charge of “blowing a blast of revolt.” It is not enough to acquit him to point out in his defence that he had merely assigned to the Rulers the right of employing force, and that his intention was to “make the Word triumphant.”
One of the most powerful arguments in Luther’s work consisted in the full and detailed description of the Roman money traffic, Germany and other countries being exploited on the pretext that contributions were necessary for the administration of the Church. Luther had drawn his information on this subject from the writings of the German Neo-Humanists, and from a certain “Roman courtier” (Dr. Viccius) resident in Wittenberg.
It was, however, the promise he received of material help which spurred Luther on to give a social aspect to his theological movement and thus to ensure the support of the disaffected Knights and Humanists. Concerning Silvester von Schauenberg, he wrote to a confidant, Wenceslaus Link: “This noble man from Franconia has sent me a letter ... with the promise of one hundred Franconian Knights for my protection, should I need them.... Rome has written to the Prince against me, and the same has been done by an important German Court. Our German book addressed to the whole Nobility of Germany on the amelioration of the Church is now to appear; that will be a powerful challenge to Rome, for her godless arts and usurpations are therein unmasked. Farewell and pray for me.”
By the end of August another new book by Luther, which, like the former, is accounted by Luther’s Protestant biographers as one of the “great Reformation-works,” was in the press; such was the precipitancy with which his turbulent spirit drove him to deal with the vital questions of the day. The title of the new Latin publication which was at once translated into German was “Prelude to the Babylonish Captivity of the Church.”
He there attacks the Seven Sacraments of the Church, of which he retains only three, namely, Baptism, Penance, and the Supper, and declares that even these must first be set free from the bondage in which they are held in the Papacy, namely, from the general state of servitude in the Church; this condition had, so he opined, produced in the Church many other perverse doctrines and practices which ought to be set aside, among these being the whole matrimonial law as observed in the Papacy, and, likewise, the celibacy of the clergy.
The termination of this work shows that it was intended to incite the minds of its readers against Rome, in order to forestall the impending Ban.
This end was yet better served by the third “reforming” work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” a popular tract in Latin and German with its dangerously seductive explanation of his teaching on faith, justification and works.
In this work, as a matter of fact, Luther expresses with the utmost emphasis his theological standpoint which hitherto he had kept in the background, but which was really the source of all hi
s errors. As before this in the pulpit, so here also he derives from faith only the whole work of justification and virtue which, according to him, God alone produces in us; this he describes in language forcible, insinuating and of a character to appeal to the people; it was only necessary to have inwardly experienced the power of faith in tribulations, temptations, anxieties and struggles to understand that in it lay the true freedom of a Christian man.
This booklet has in recent times been described by a Protestant as “perhaps the most beautiful work Luther ever wrote, and an outcome of religious contemplation rather than of theological study.” It does, as a matter of fact, present its wrong ideas in many instances under a mystical garb, which appeals strongly to the heart, and which Luther had made his own by the study of older German models.
The new theory which, he alleged, was to free man from the burden of the Catholic doctrine of good works, he summed up in words, the effect of which upon the masses may readily be conceived: “By this faith all your sins are forgiven you, all the corruption within you is overcome, and you yourself are made righteous, true, devout and at peace; all the commandments are fulfilled, and you are set free from all things.” “This is Christian liberty ... that we stand in need of no works for the attainment of piety and salvation.” “The Christian becomes by faith so exalted above all things that he is made spiritual lord of all; for there is nothing that can hinder his being saved.” By faith in Christ, man, according to Luther, has become sure of salvation; he is “assured of life for evermore, may snap his fingers at the devil, and need no longer tremble before the wrath of God.”
It was inevitable that the author should attempt to vindicate himself from the charge of encouraging a false freedom. “Here we reply to all those,” he says in the same booklet, “who are offended at the above language, and who say: ‘Well, if faith is everything and suffices to make us pious, why, then, are good works commanded? Let us be of good cheer and do nothing.’” What is Luther’s answer? “No, my friend, not so. It might indeed be thus if you were altogether an interior man, and had become entirely spiritual and soulful, but this will not happen until the Day of Judgment.”
But in so far as man is of the world and a servant of sin, he continues, he must rule over his body, and consort with other men; “here works make their appearance; idleness is bad; the body must be disciplined in moderation and exercised by fasting, watching and labour, that it may be obedient and conformable to faith and inwardness, and may not hinder and resist as its nature is when it is not controlled.” “But,” he immediately adds this limitation to his allusion to works, “such works must not be done in the belief that thereby a man becomes pious in God’s sight”; for piety before God consists in faith alone, and it is only “because the soul is made pure by faith and loves God, that it desires all things to be pure, first of all its own body, and wishes every man likewise to love and praise God.”
In spite of all reservations it is very doubtful whether the work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man” was capable of improving the many who joined Luther’s standard in order to avail themselves of the new freedom in its secular sense. “By faith” man became, so Luther had told them, pure and free and “lord of all.” They might reply, and as a matter of fact later on they did: Why then impose the duty of works, especially if the interior man has, according to his own judgment, become strong and sufficiently independent? Such was actually the argument of the fanatics. They added, “to become altogether spiritual and interior,” is in any case impossible, moreover, as, according to the new teaching, works spring spontaneously from the state of one who is justified, why then speak of a duty of performing good works, or why impose an obligation to do this or that particular good work here and now? It is better and easier for us to stimulate the spirit and the interior life of faith in the soul merely in a general way and in accordance with the new ideal.
As a matter of fact, experience soon showed that where the traditional Christian motives for good works (reparation for sin, the acquiring of merit with the assistance of God’s grace, etc.) were given up, the practice of good works suffered.
There is, however, no doubt that there were some on whom the booklet, with its heartfelt and moving exhortation to communion with Christ, did not fail to make a deep impression, more particularly in view of the formalism which then prevailed.
“Where the heart thus hears the voice of Christ,” says Luther with a simple, popular eloquence which recalls that of the best old German authors, “it must needs become glad, receive the deepest comfort and be filled with sweetness towards Christ, loving Him and ever after troubling nothing about laws and works. For who can harm such a heart, or cause it alarm? Should sin or death befall, it merely recollects that Christ’s righteousness is its own, and then, as we have said, sin disappears before faith in the Righteousness of Christ; with the Apostle it learns to defy death and sin, and to say: O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, but thanks be to God Who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. xv. 54 ff.).
Pious phrases, such as these, which are of frequent occurrence, demanded a stable theological foundation in order to produce any lasting effects. In Luther’s case there was, however, no such foundation, and hence they are merely deceptive. The words quoted, as a matter of fact, detract somewhat from the grand thought of St. Paul, since the victory over sin and death of which he speaks refers, not to the present life of the Faithful, but to the glorious resurrection. The Apostle does, however, refer to our present life in the earnest exhortation with which he concludes (1 Cor. xv. 58): “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
Protestants frequently consider it very much to Luther’s credit that he insisted with so much force and feeling in his work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man” upon the dignity which faith and a state of grace impart to every calling, even to the most commonplace; his words, so they say, demonstrate that life in the world, and even the humblest vocation, when illumined by religion, has in it something of the infinite. This, however, had already been impressed upon the people, and far more correctly, in numerous instructions and sermons dating from mediæval times, though, agreeably with the teaching of the Gospel, the path of the Evangelical Counsels, and still more the Apostolic and priestly vocation, was accounted higher than the ordinary secular calling. A high Protestant authority, of many of whose utterances we can scarcely approve, remarks: “It is usual to consider this work of Luther’s as the Magna Charta of Protestant liberty, and of the Protestant ideal of a worldly calling in contradistinction to Catholic asceticism and renunciation of the world. My opinion is that this view is a misapprehension of Luther’s work.”
It was this booklet, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” that the author had the temerity to send to Pope Leo X, with an accompanying letter (see above, ), in which he professed to lay the whole matter in the hands of the Sovereign Pontiff, though in the work itself he denied all the Papal prerogatives. In the latter denial Luther was only logical, for if the foundation of the whole of the hierarchy be upset, what then remains of the position of the Pope?
To appreciate the effects of the three works just mentioned it may be worth our while to examine more closely two characteristics which there appear in singular juxtaposition. One is the deeply religious tone which, as we said, is so noteworthy in Luther’s book “On the Freedom of a Christian Man.” The other is an unmistakable tendency to dissolve all religion based on authority.
Luther, as we said before, positively refused to have anything to do with a religion of merely human character; yet, if we only draw the necessary conclusions from certain propositions which he sets up, we find that he is not very far removed from such a religion; he is, all unawares, on the high road to the destruction of all authority in matters of faith. This fact makes the dep
th of religious feeling evinced by the author appear all the more strange to the experienced reader.
Some examples will make our meaning clearer.
In the work addressed to the Christian nobility, Luther confers on every one of the Faithful the fullest right of private judgment as regards both doctrines and doctors, and limits it by no authority save the Word of God as explained by the Christian himself.
“If we all are priests” — a fact already proved, so he says— “how then shall we not have the right to discriminate and judge what is right or wrong in faith? What otherwise becomes of the saying of Paul in 1 Corinthians ii. , ‘The spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man,’ and again, ‘Having all the same spirit of faith,’ 2 Corinthians iv. ? How then should we not perceive, just as well as an unbelieving Pope, what is in agreement with faith and what not? These and many other passages are intended to give us courage and make us free, so that we may not be frightened away from the spirit of liberty, as Paul calls it (2 Cor. iii. ), by the fictions of the Popes, but rather judge freely, according to our understanding of the Scriptures, of all things that they do or leave undone, and force them to follow what is better and not their own reason.”
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 621