Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Equally deceptive was the idea, so alluring in itself, that Luther’s doctrine of works bore the stamp of true freedom, viz. the freedom of the Gospel. Here, again, we can only see a new expression of his profound alienation from works and from the sacrifice entailed by self-conquest. He is desirous, so he says, of hoisting on the shield the freedom of the man who is guided solely by God’s Spirit. But will this not serve as an excuse for weakness? Here we seem to find an after-effect of that late-mediæval pseudo-mysticism which had once been a danger to him, which went so far as to demand of the righteous complete indifference to works, and, that, in language apparently most affecting and sublime.

  These two thoughts, that Christ would thus be restored to His place of honour and man secure evangelical freedom, were a great temptation to many hearers of Luther’s call to leave the Catholic Church. In all great intellectual revolutions there are always at work certain impelling ideas, either true ones which rightly prove attractive, or false ones which yet assume the appearance of truth and thus move people’s minds. Without the intervention of the two thoughts just referred to, the spread of the religious movement in the 16th century is not fully to be explained.

  How many of the apostles and followers of the new preaching were really moved by these two thoughts must even then have been difficult to determine. Noble and privileged souls may not have been wanting amongst them. The masses, however, introduced so earthly an element into these better and pious ideals that the ideals only remained as a pretext, a very effective pretext indeed, to allege for their own pacification and in extenuation of their other aims. Great watchwords, once put forward, often serve as a useful cloak for other things. In this respect the demand for the freedom of the Gospel proved very popular. The age clamoured to be set free from bonds which were proving irksome, for instance, to mention but one point, from exorbitant ecclesiastical dues and spiritual penalties. Hence evangelical freedom was readily accepted as synonymous with deliverance, and, in time, ceased to be “evangelical” at all.

  That Luther’s doctrine of works and of the freedom bestowed by Christ the fulfiller of the Law, embodied a great moral danger, is now recognised even by Protestants.

  “How terribly dangerous,” a Protestant Church-historian says, “is that ‘To be for ever and ever secure of life in Christ’ in the sense in which Luther understands it! We Protestants are merely toning it down when we find in it simply the consciousness of being supported by God; to Luther it is much more ... it is a feeling of spiritual mastery.” The author quotes as descriptive of Luther’s attitude the characteristic watchword from his writing “Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen Menschen”: “The Christian is so far exalted above everything by faith that he becomes spiritually lord over all, for there is nothing that can endanger his salvation.” To these we may append Luther’s spoken words: “This is Christian freedom ... to have no need of any work in order to attain to piety and salvation”; a Christian may say: I possess “such a Saviour that I need have no fear of death, and am certain of life for ever and ever; I can snap my fingers at the devil and his hell, and am no longer called upon to tremble before the wrath of God.” The same writer also points out, that, according to Luther, this happy believer “remains for all this inwardly (‘intrinsece’) a sinner and is righteous only outwardly (‘extrinsece’).” From such teaching as this respect for works was bound to suffer: the question of “religion and morality,” whether from the point of view of religion in the process of salvation or from the point of view of morals in social action, could not be satisfactorily solved thereby. “In both cases morality comes short. Theologically no sufficient bulwark is erected against misinterpretation.” “Luther had trouble enough, and through his own fault, in stemming the incroachments of immorality.”

  More strongly, and with the frankness usual in the polemics of his day, Willibald Pirkheimer, Luther’s former friend, voices the same thought when he speaks of the “not evangelical, but rather devilish freedom” which, owing to the preaching of the new “evangelical truth,” had made itself so “shockingly” felt amongst so many apostates, both male and female, and had induced him, after long hesitation, to betake himself back to the Catholic fold.

  Before quoting the opinion of other critics of the preaching against works in his own time, we may give Luther the chance to describe the extent of his opposition to the olden doctrine.

  He is determined, as he says as early as 1516, “to root out utterly the stupid, fleshly affectation that trusts in such works.” “Many graces and merits,” so he taught even then, “lead man from God; we are so ready to rely on good works, more than on God Himself”; yet we should rather, “in absolute nakedness, pay homage to God’s mercy from the bottom of our heart.” “The multitude of our sins must not arouse despair, what should make us distrustful is any striving after good works”; we “ought rather to take refuge in the mercy of God.” The sense of good works is our ruin, for it induces in us “a feeling of self-righteousness.” The latter words portray his own psychological state at that time. It was these lax ideas that led to his quarrel with the Observantines amongst his brethren and with the so-called “Little Saints.” Here also we have an echo from the world of thought already described as the real starting-point of his sad development.

  During this crucial period of his mental growth he preached in 1515 on the glad tidings of the Gospel; it was “glad” because it taught us “that the law had already been fulfilled by Christ, so that it was no longer necessary for us to fulfil it, but only, by faith, to hang it about the Man who had fulfilled it and become conformed to Him, because Christ is our Righteousness, Holiness and Redemption.”

  Later he comes to speak still more strongly. He fully admitted it was natural to all men, himself included, to turn to good works in trouble of conscience; it was beyond reason not to rest on them, yet, according to him, in solacing our conscience we must pay no heed either to sin or to works, but put our whole trust in the righteousness of Christ; we must, to quote him literally, “set up grace and forgiveness, not only against sin, but also against good works.” It is true that he protests that he has no intention to exclude works (other statements of his in favour of good works will be quoted in due time), yet he abases them to a level which fails to explain why Christ and the Apostles so earnestly recommended them and promised an eternal reward for their performance. Luther assures us that good works form “worldly righteousness”; that love of our neighbour is enjoined for the welfare of society and because we live together; yet he steadfastly condemns as a “shameful delusion,” the view “that works are of any value to righteousness in the sight of God.”

  Who of his contemporaries could deny that Luther preached a wonderfully simple and easy road to “life everlasting”? If this and the “forgiveness of sins” were to cost no more than he insists upon elsewhere, viz. “that you hear the Word and believe it when you have heard it; if you believe it, then you have it without any trouble, expense, delay or pains; thus does the Gospel of Christ and the Christian teaching do everything with a few short words, for it is God’s own Word.”

  Worthy of notice in connection with his ideas of evangelical freedom (see above, , and vol. ii., ff.) is the significant use he makes of the term applied in the New Testament to all Christians, viz. members of a “royal priesthood,” which Luther takes as meaning that all believers have a certain supremacy over sin.

  As every Christian, so he teaches, by virtue of the universal priesthood possesses authority to “proclaim the Gospel,” as everyone, “man, woman or maid,” is qualified to “teach” who “knows how to and is able,” so the “Spirit of Christ encourages” all without exception and makes of each one “a great Lord and King of all.” But, “where works are preached, there the right of primogeniture is taken from us,” and this privilege of “royal and priestly dignity disappears completely.” Sometimes the devil tries to force us to sin, for “he is a servant and has his own way. If he forces me to sin then I run to Christ and invoke
His help; then he is ashamed. The more he does, the greater his shame. Thus this power is omnipotent. ‘Thou hast set all things under his feet’ [Ps. viii. 8], we are told. ‘We shall judge the angels,’ says St. Paul [1 Cor. vi. 3]. That is our right of primogeniture which we must ascribe, not to ourselves, but to Christ. But when Christ has cleansed you, then you do what is good, not for yourself [by gaining merit], but for others.” — Such a doctrine he could truly say the Papists failed to understand. But he adds further: They cannot even pray; “with their prayers they merely mock God.”

  If all the faithful are, as the new Evangel teaches, by virtue of their right of primogeniture great Lords and Kings, then that fear of God’s chastisements is no longer justified which the ancient Church had always put forward as one of the motives for performing good works and leading a moral life. On the contrary, we are not to open our hearts too readily to such fear. Luther’s injunctions concerning fear of the Judge go to form a further chapter in the psychological and historical criticism of his doctrine of works. Here we see plainly his instinctive aversion to the views and practice of the olden Church.

  The Catholic doctrine of fear had been expressed with wonderful simplicity in the “Imitation of Christ,” already widely read in the years previous to the Reformation: “It is well, my son, that so long as love avails not to restrain thee, fear of eternal punishment should at least affright thee from evil. Whoever disregards fear will not long be able to persevere in good.”— “Consider how thou mayest answer for thyself before the stern judge”: “Now thy labour is still fruitful, now thy contrition still cleanses and makes satisfaction.” “At the day of judgment the man who has mortified his flesh here below will rejoice more than he who has indulged it in luxury.” — The “Imitation” desires, however, that fear should be allied with confidence and love. “Look on Me,” it makes Christ say, “let not thy heart be troubled nor afraid. Believe in Me and trust in My mercy. When thou thinkest thou art far from Me, I am often closest to thee.” “If thou but trust in the Lord,” it says again, “strength will be given thee from above.” “Thou hast no need to fear the devil if thou art armed with the cross of Christ.” Nor do we meet in this book with any trace of that frozen fear which Luther represented as prevalent in the monasteries, on the contrary it insists no less on love: “In the cloister no one can persevere unless he be ready for the love of God to humble himself from the bottom of his heart.”

  In order to supply a suitable background for his new doctrine, Luther made out Catholic antiquity to have fostered both in theory and in practice a craven fear, of which in reality it knew nothing at all. By excluding the elements of trust and love, he reduced Catholic life to the merest state of fear, as though this had actually been the sphere in which it moved; he charges it with having cultivated that servile fear which would at once commit sin were there no penalty attached; he also finds in monastic life an element of excitement and confusion which, as our readers already know, was really peculiar to his own personal temperament at one time.

  Far more characteristic than such calumnies is his own attitude to that fear of God’s judgments which is just and indispensable.

  Not as though, generally, he did not recommend and praise the “fear of God.” This, however, falls beside the mark since such a fear may exist without any adverting to the punishments of the judge, and, as Luther himself puts it, not altogether incorrectly, is more “an awe that holds God in honour and which is always expected of the Christian, just as a good child should fear his father.” This is the “timor reverentialis,” to use the earlier theological term. But to the actual fear of the Divine judgments as an expiatory and saving motive, Luther gives no place whatever; neither in the justification of the sinner, seeing that he makes faith the one condition for its attainment, or subsequent to justification and in the state of grace, because there all that obtains is confidence in the covering over of sin by grace, while the state of grace, in his opinion, of its own nature necessarily works what is good. The Law and its threats, is, in his opinion, useful “for revealing sin” in order that, knowing this, “grace may be sought and obtained”; “thus the Law works fear and wrath, whereas grace works hope and mercy.”

  Fear, in reality, is contemptible; it “is there because sin prevails,” hence it is not found in the pious, not even in Old-Testament times. “Let us,” he cries, “cast at our feet all free-will.... Nature and free-will cannot stand before God, for they fear lest He should fall upon them with His club.... Where the Holy Spirit does not whisper to the heart the Evangelical promises, man looks upon God as a devil, executioner, taskmaster and judge.... To the devil with such holiness!” The above is no mere momentary outburst; it is a theological system and the expression of his deep psychological prejudice. We are carried back to his monastic days and to the theory which fear led him to invent to allay his own personal agitation, but to which he could hold fast only by dint of doing violence to himself.

  When he came to see, that, to preserve the people from moral degradation, fear of the Judgments of God had to be preached, he urged that it should be emphasised and declared it quite essential. This he did particularly in his instructions for the Visitation of the Saxon Electorate, which accordingly contain what is practically a repudiation of his teaching. The reasonable and wholesome fear of the judge, which he would have preached to the “simple people” for the moving of their hearts, in spite of all his protests has surely a right and claim to work on the minds not merely of the “simple” but even of the educated, and accordingly to be urged even by the theologians.

  Luther’s attitude here was as ambiguous as elsewhere, for instance, in the case of his whole doctrine of grace and justification, no less than in its premises, viz. unfreedom, concupiscence and original sin. Everywhere we meet with contradictions, which make it almost impossible to furnish any connected description of his doctrinal system.

  Augustine as the Authority for the New Doctrine of Works.

  We have an example of Luther’s want of theological acumen in his appeal to Augustine in support of his doctrine of works.

  In order to understand this we must recollect that, from the beginning, Luther had described his new theology as simply that of Augustine the great Father of the Church. Of Augustine’s — of whom he said in 1516 that he had not felt the slightest leaning towards him until he had “tumbled on” his writings — he had merely read in 1509 a small number of works, and he became acquainted with what were for him the more important of this Father’s writings only after he had already largely deviated from the Church’s doctrine. Even later, his knowledge of Augustine was scanty. He was, however, as a monk, fond of identifying his own new doctrine of grace with Augustine’s; he tried to enlist the help of his colleague, Amsdorf, by a present of St. Augustine’s works; in this he was completely successful. On May 18, 1517, he wrote to Lang on the state of things at Wittenberg, the triumphant words already quoted: “Our theology and St. Augustine are making happy progress with God’s help and are now paramount at the University,” etc. From that time forward he was fond of saying, that Augustine was opposed “to Gabriel Biel, Thomas of Aquin and the whole crowd of Sententiaries, and would hold the field against them because he was grounded on the pure Gospel, particularly on the testimony of Paul.” To what extent he really in his heart believed this of Augustine must remain a moot question.

  “Luther,” says Julius Köstlin, one of the best-known authorities on Luther’s theology, “could, indeed, appeal to St. Augustine in support of the thesis that man becomes righteous and is saved purely by God’s gracious decree and the working of His Grace and not by any natural powers and achievements [which is the Catholic doctrine], but not for the further theory that man is regarded by God as just purely by virtue of faith ... nor that the Christian thus justified can never perform anything meritorious in God’s sight but is saved merely by the pardoning grace of God which must ever anew be laid hold of by faith” [i.e. the specifically Lutheran theses on faith and wo
rks]. The same author adds: “Only gradually did the fundamental difference between the Augustinian view, his own and that of Paul become entirely clear to Luther.”

  When this happened it is hard to say; at any rate, his strictures on Augustine and the Fathers in his lectures of 1527 on the 1st Epistle of St. John, and in his later Table-Talk prove, that, as time went on he had given up all idea of finding in these authorities any confirmation of his doctrine on faith alone and works.

  However his convictions may have stood, he certainly, in his earlier writings, claimed Augustine in support of his doctrine of the absence of free-will, particularly on account of a passage in the work “Contra Julianum,” which Luther repeats and applies under various forms. There can, of course, be no question of St. Augustine’s having actually been a partisan, whether here or elsewhere, of the Lutheran doctrine of the “enslaved will.” “These and other passages from St. Augustine which Luther quotes in proof of the unfreedom of the will really tell against him; he either tears them from their context or else he falsifies their meaning.” He is equally unfair when, in his Commentary on Romans and frequently elsewhere, he appeals to this Doctor of the Church in defence of his opinion, that, after baptism, sin really still persists in man, likewise in his doctrine of concupiscence in general, where he even fails to quote his texts correctly. He alters the sense of Augustine’s words with regard to the keeping of God’s commandments, the difference between venial and mortal sin, and the virtues of the just. Denifle, after patiently tracing Luther’s patristic excursions, angrily exclaims: “He treats Augustine as he does Holy Scripture.”

  Deserving of notice, because it explains both his repeated quotations from Augustine and his advocacy of the motive of fear, is a lengthy admonition of 1531 couched in the form of a letter on the defence of the new doctrine of faith alone and of works. The letter was written by Melanchthon to Johann Brenz, but it had the entire approval of Luther, who even appended a few words to it. While clearly throwing overboard Augustine, it is nevertheless anxious to retain him.