Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Count Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg, son of Count Günther one of Luther’s enemies, wished to see the new church system introduced in his domains, but met with the resistance of the monks to whom his father, legally and in due form, had entrusted the livings. He accordingly approached Luther with the question whether he might deprive them of the livings, rights and property.

  Luther soon came to a decision, replied in the affirmative and proceeded to explain to his questioner how he might quiet his conscience. The Count’s father had made the transfer on the condition that the monks should: “Keep their observance and above all preach the Gospel.” Upon taking over the cure of souls they had assumed the usual obligation of preaching the Catholic faith. Now, he continues, it is only necessary that the Count should summon them before him, and in the presence of witnesses prove from their replies that they had not preached the Gospel (i.e. not according to Luther); thereupon he would have the “right and the power, indeed it would be his duty, to take the livings away from them ... for it is not unjust, but an urgent duty, to drive away the wolf from the sheepfold.... No preacher receives property and emoluments for doing harm, but in order that he may make men pious. If, therefore, he does not make them pious, the goods are no longer his. Such is my brief answer.” This was indeed the principle which he applied throughout the Saxon Electorate. The result of its application to the bishoprics of Germany and to the great ecclesiastical domains in the Empire was to overthrow the very foundation of the law of property. If the bishop, abbot or provost no longer succeeds in making people pious, “then the property no longer belongs to him.”

  Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg at once seized upon the property and rights which his father had made over by charter to the Catholic Church. The monks were ousted, the livings seized, the new teaching was introduced and the Count became the founder of Lutheranism in Schwarzburg.

  In Eilenburg Luther proceeded through the agency at once of his sovereign and the town-councillors, who were no less zealous than the Prince himself in their efforts to extend their sphere of influence. Luther himself had already worked there in person for his cause. On the occasion of his second stay at Eilenburg he found the councillors somewhat lacking in zeal. Those who favoured the innovations were, however, of opinion that if the Elector were to invite them to apply for a preacher, they would do so. There is no doubt that the Catholic consciences of the councillors were still troubled with scruples, and that the demand of a number of the new believers among the people had as yet failed to move them.

  Luther accordingly wrote from Eilenburg to the Court Chaplain, Spalatin, asking him to employ his influence with the Elector in the usual way. He was to obtain from the latter a letter addressed to the town-councillors begging them to “yield to the poor people in this so essential and sacred a matter,” and to summon one of the two preachers whom he at once proposed. The reason he gives in these words: “It is the duty of the sovereign, as ruler and brother Christian, to drive away the wolves and to be solicitous for the welfare of his people.” The change of religion was thereupon actually carried out, under the Elector’s pressure, in true bureaucratic fashion as a matter appertaining to the magistracy. One of the two preachers proposed, Andreas Kauxdorf of Torgau, arrived shortly after, having been dutifully accepted by the councillors. He was permitted to Lutheranise the people, however reluctant and faithful to the Church they might be. He remained there from 1522 to 1543, in which year he died.

  General Phenomena accompanying the Religions Change

  It not infrequently happened that the people were deceived by faithless and apostate clerics who became preachers of the new religion, and were drawn away from the olden faith without being clearly aware of the fact. After having become gradually and most insensibly accustomed to the new faith and worship, not even the bravest had, as a rule, the strength to draw back. The want of religious instruction among the people was here greatly to blame, likewise the lack of organised ecclesiastical resistance to the error, and also, the indolence of the episcopate.

  Mass still continued to be said in many places where Lutheranism had taken root, though in an altered form, a fact which contributed to the deception. One of the chief of Luther’s aims was to combat the Mass as a sacrifice.

  He expressed this quite openly to Henry VIII in 1522: “If I succeed in doing away with the Mass, then I shall believe I have completely conquered the Pope. On the Mass, as on a rock, the whole of the Papacy is based, with its monasteries, bishoprics, colleges, altars, services and doctrines.... If the sacrilegious and cursed custom of Mass is overthrown, then the whole must fall. Through me Christ has begun to reveal the abomination standing in the Holy Place (Dan. ix. 27), and to destroy him [the Papal Antichrist] who has taken up his seat there with the devil’s help, with false miracles and deceiving signs.” In respect of the deception of the Mass, “I oppose all the pronouncements of the Fathers, of men, of angels, of devils, not by an appeal to ‘ancient custom and tradition’ nor to any man, but to the Word of the Eternal Majesty and to the Gospel which even my adversaries are forced to acknowledge.” “This is God’s Word,” he vehemently exclaims of his denial of the sacrifice, “not ours. Here I stand, here I take my seat, here I stay, here I triumph and laugh to scorn all Papists, Thomists, Henryists, sophists, and all the gates of hell, not to speak of all the sayings of men, and the most sacred and deceitful of customs.”

  It was of the utmost importance to him that the Mass should no longer be regarded as a sacrifice and as the centre of worship. He wished to reduce it to a mere “sign and Divine Testament in which God promises us His Grace and assures us of it by a sign.” Nor is the presence of Christ in the sacrament, according to him, to be assumed as the result of a change of substance; Christ is in, with, and beneath the bread. The churches were robbed of their Divine Guest, for only in the actual ceremony of reception was the Supper a sacrament, at all other times it was nothing.

  Yet, in spite of all this, as already pointed out, Luther did not wish to abolish every form of liturgical celebration at once. In the reconstruction of public worship everything depended on not making the change felt by the people in a way that was displeasing to them. The very fact of the change was concealed from many by the form of liturgy Luther advocated, and by the retaining of the ceremonies, vestments, lights, etc. Even the elevation was continued for a long while. But, though the celebration was clothed in a Catholic garb, yet of everything that expressed in words the sacrificial character Luther had already said that it “must and shall be done away with.”

  “The priest,” says Luther thoughtfully, when giving detailed instructions on the subject, “will easily be able to arrange that the common people learn nothing of it, and take no scandal.” “How the priests are to behave with regard to the Canon,” he wrote in his Instruction for the Visitors in the Saxon Electorate, “they know well from other writings, and there is no need to preach much about this to the laity.” One would have thought, nevertheless, that the “common people,” no less than the learned, had a perfect right to the truth and to being instructed.

  Luther was also anxious that the innovation at communion should be introduced in an unobtrusive manner. “Avoid anything unusual or any attempt to oppose the masses.”

  Although to receive under both kinds was regarded as the only “evangelical” way, agreeable “to Christ’s institution,” yet the weak were to be permitted to receive under the form of bread only and the reception of the chalice not to be prescribed “until we make the Evangel better known throughout the world.” “But if anyone is so weak in this matter as rather to omit receiving the Sacrament altogether than to receive under one kind only, he was also to be indulged and allowed to live according to his conscience.” In justification of all this Luther declared that the practice of the new religion must be introduced gently and “without detriment to charity.” That it was really a question of preventing disturbances and preserving charity, Cochlæus and others could not be made to see; this writer,
in his work on Lutheranism, goes so far as to speak of Luther’s “hypocritical deception” of the masses.

  Later, the advocate of this sagacious method of procedure could declare: “Thank God, in indifferent matters our churches are so arranged that a layman, whether Italian or Spaniard, unable to understand our preaching, seeing our Mass, choir, organs, bells, chantries, etc., would surely say that it was a regular papist church, and that there was no difference, or very little, between it and his own.” He rejoiced that, in spite of the hot-heads, no more had been altered in the ritual than was absolutely necessary to conform it to his teaching.

  Such is the course to pursue, he says, “If our churches are not to be shattered and confused and nothing to be effected among the Papists.” As a matter of fact, the system he recommended did in some districts “effect much” among Papists who would otherwise have refused to have anything to do with him, the poor people not dreaming of the wide gulf which separated the new worship from the old. The people would not voluntarily have given up their faith in the truly sacrificial character of the Eucharist, in transubstantiation and sacrifice generally; as Melanchthon himself admitted: “The world is so much attached to the Mass that it seems well-nigh impossible to wrest people from it.”

  We may here mention what occurred at a later date within the Lutheran fold. At the instigation of Wittenberg the adaptation of the Catholic worship was carried out very thoroughly in some places, the principle proving highly conducive to the acceptance of the new church system. In few countries, however, was this the case to such an extent as in Denmark, where Luther’s friend Bugenhagen was responsible for the change of religion. Even to-day, in the Protestant worship established in Denmark, Norway and the duchies formerly united to the Danish crown, there is to be found a surprising number of Catholic reminiscences, from the solemn Eucharistic service down to the ringing of the bells thrice daily for prayer. In the celebration of the solemn Eucharist the preachers even vest in a white linen alb and chasuble of red velvet; the elevation, too, is still preserved, for, after the “consecration,” which is pronounced from the middle of the altar according to immemorial custom, the Bread and Wine are shown to the people.

  Martin Weier, a young student of good family from Pomerania, took counsel of Luther as to how, on his return from Wittenberg, he was to behave with regard to his old father in the matter of Divine worship. Luther, according to his own account, told him “to conform to his father’s wishes in every way in order not to offend him; follow his example concerning fasting, prayer, hearing Mass and the veneration of the Saints, but at the same time instruct him in the Word of God and on the subject of justification, so as, if possible, to become his spiritual father without giving any offence.” Luther had declared concerning himself that he had offended God most horribly by his former celebration of Mass, more so than if he had been “a highwayman or kept a brothel”; yet he tells his aristocratic pupil that he will be committing no sin, if, “for the sake of his father, he is present at Mass and other acts by which God is dishonoured.”

  A contrast to this system of accommodation and the gentle introduction of innovations is presented by the acts of violence which too often occurred on German soil at the time of the religious revolution. The excesses perpetrated by the people were, as can be proved, encouraged by the inflammatory speeches of the preachers, Luther’s own words being frequently appealed to; their effect in such times of popular commotion was like that of oil poured on the flames. In “the streets and at every corner,” on all the walls, on placards, in broadsides, and even on playing cards the clergy and the monks were abused, to quote Luther’s own testimony. “Turks” and “worse than Turks,” such were the descriptions applied to them by the populace in imitation of Luther. “We shall never be successful against the Turks,” he says later, reverting to his earlier style of language, “unless we fall upon them and the priests at the right moment and smite them dead.”

  In the case of Luther himself such expressions were empty words, but the mob scrupled little about carrying them into effect. In many instances, however, lust for riches on the part of the great, who longed to possess themselves of Church property, and the long-standing antagonism of towns and Princes to the rights claimed by bishops and abbots, led to violence. The exaltation of their own power was for many of the authorities their principal reason for taking sides against the older Church. It must be borne in mind that, subsequent to 1525, Luther himself was no longer the sole head of the movement of apostasy. More and more he began to hand over the actual guidance of the movement to the secular power, a condition of things which had been preparing since the Diet of Worms. The direction of so far-reaching an undertaking was scarcely suited to his talents, which were not of the administrative order. To his followers, however, he remained the chief authority as pastor, preacher and writer; he continued to take an active part in all public affairs, and, on many occasions, exercised a direct and profound influence on the spread of the new Church.

  Many well-meaning and highly respected men supported the new establishment from no selfish motives, and became open and genuine promoters of Luther’s cause, because they looked upon it as just and true. The ideal character, which Wittenberg was successful in stamping on Luther’s aims, proved very seductive, especially in the then prevailing ignorance of the real state of things, and in many places won for the cause devoted and enthusiastic workers.

  To take but one example: A knight, Hartmuth (Hartmann) von Cronberg, in the Taunus, glowing with zeal for the new Evangel, wrote a letter recommending the Lutheran congregational system to the inhabitants of Cronberg and Frankfurt.

  In 1522 he published a letter, addressed to Luther, in which he expresses his readiness to work faithfully with him in order that “all may awake from the sleep and prison of sin.” I have heard, with heartfelt sympathy”, he says to Luther, of “your great pains and crosses arising from the ardent charity you bear towards God and your neighbour, for I am thoroughly aware, from sad observation, of the misery and dreadful ruin of the whole German nation.” “It is no wonder that a true Christian should tremble in every limb with horror when he considers the desolation and how awful the fall of Germany must be unless a Merciful God enlightens us by His Grace so that we may come to the knowledge of Him.” “Fain would I speak to the German lands and say: O Germany! rejoice in the visitation of your heavenly Father, accept with humble thanksgiving the heavenly light, the Divine Truth and the Supreme Condescension, avail yourself of the great clemency of God, Who of His Mercy is ready to forgive you your great sin.... Throw off the heavy yoke of the devil and accept the sweet yoke of Christ.” The writer beseeches God to grant “that we may not trust in ourselves or our works; rather do Thou justify us by a strong faith and confidence in Thee alone, and Thy Divine promises, in order that Thy Divine, Supreme Name, Grace and Clemency may be increased, praised and magnified throughout the world.”

  The same enthusiastic man of the sword had, even before this, expressed himself in favour of Luther in other writings in language almost fanatical. Luther, while at the Wartburg, had received two pamphlets from him, one addressed to the Emperor and the other to the Mendicant Orders. Luther had thanked him in similar tones for his zeal, and encouraged him to stand fast in spite of persecution. The above-quoted letter, addressed by Cronberg to Luther, was his answer to Luther’s from the Wartburg; both were printed together and made the round of Germany under the title “A missive to all those who suffer persecution for the Word of God.”

  Luther there says to his admirer: “It is plain that your words spring from the depths of your heart and soul,” and this testimony seemed no exaggeration in the eyes of many who were also working for the spread of Lutheranism with all their heart, and in the best of faith. Cronberg and all these were animated by the spirit which Luther by his writings had sought to instil into all, and which he had once expressed in his own powerful, defiant fashion: “And even should Satan attempt greater and worse things he shall not weary
us; he may as well attempt to drag Christ down from the right hand of God. Christ sits there enthroned, and we too shall remain masters and lords over sin, death, the devil and every thing.”

  The earnestness with which Cronberg espoused the Lutheran ideas is shown by the fact of his resigning, after the Diet of Worms, a yearly stipend of 200 gold gulden, promised him by the Emperor, when he entered his service with Sickingen in 1519. The assistance he lent to Sickingen’s treacherous machinations against the Empire proved his undoing. His castle of Cronberg was seized on October 15, 1522. He sought to console himself for the loss of his property by a passionate devotion to his religious and political aims. After a life of “undismayed attachment to what he deemed his duty,” says H. Ulmann, this man, “whose fidelity to conviction verged on puritanism,” died at Cronberg on August 7, 1549.

  This Lutheran had demanded of the Emperor that he should convince the Pope by “irrefragable proofs” that he was the viceroy of the devil, nay, himself Antichrist. But should the Pope, owing to demoniacal possession, not admit this, then the Emperor had full right and authority and was bound before God to proceed against him by force, as against “an apostate, heretic and Antichrist.” Some of his admirers, and likewise a eulogist of modern times, have extolled Hartmuth von Cronberg as a “Knight after God’s own heart.” His fanaticism, however, went so far that few dared to follow. The most unjust acts of violence, not merely against the Papal Antichrist, but also against church property which he declared everyone free to appropriate, were exalted by him to principles. In a circular-letter to Sickingen he wrote: “All ecclesiastical property has been declared free [i.e. ownerless] by God Himself, so that whoever by the grace of God can get some of it may keep it with God’s help, and no creature whether Pope or devil can harm such property.” He warns the Frankfurt priest, Peter Meyer, in a printed letter, that unless he is converted to the “Evangel” any man may, with a good conscience, take action against him, “just as it is lawful to fall upon a ravening wolf, a sacrilegious thief and murderer, with word and deed.”