Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  The letter discussed the objections alleged by Brenz, the influential promoter of the innovations in Suabia, against Luther’s doctrine of Justification, particularly as formulated in the Augsburg Confession, and against Melanchthon’s appeal therein to St. Augustine; Brenz urged that some effort on man’s part certainly intervened in the work of pardon. In the reply Augustine is practically given up. Brenz is told that he is wrong in clinging to Augustine’s fancy (“hæres in Augustini imaginatione”) which puts our righteousness in the fulfilment of the Law. “Avert your eyes from such a regeneration of man and from the Law and look only to the promises and to Christ.... Augustine is not in agreement with the doctrine of Paul [read ‘of Luther’], though he comes nearer to it than do the Schoolmen. I quote Augustine as in entire agreement (prorsus ὁμόψηχος), although he does not sufficiently explain the righteousness of faith; this I do because of public opinion concerning him.” What he means is: Since Augustine is universally held in such high esteem, and has been instanced by us, for this reason I too quote him as though on this point he agreed entirely with Paul, which, as a matter of fact, is not the case.

  Melanchthon next deals more closely with the new idea of righteousness. He hints that, in the Augsburg documents, he had not been able to speak as he was now doing to Brenz, although, so he persuades himself, he was really saying the same then as now. He gives Brenz what, compared with Luther’s blunt words at the end, is a very polished rendering of the Wittenberg doctrine. “Dismiss the fancy of Augustine entirely from your mind,” he concludes, “and then you will readily understand the reason [why only faith can justify]; I hope that then you will find in our ‘Apologia’ [of the Confession] some profit, though in it I was obliged to express many things with that timidity which can only be understood in struggles of conscience (‘in certaminibus conscientiarum’). It is essential to bring to the ears of the people the preaching of the Law and of penance, but the above true doctrine of the Gospel must not be lost sight of.” — To retire with his holed theology into the mystic obscurity of the “struggles of conscience” was an art that the pupil had learnt from his master.

  Luther, unlike Melanchthon, was no adept on the tight-rope; in his postscript he bluntly dismisses the Law, penance and all works so far as they are intended to assist in sanctification as Brenz like the Papists thought; his cry is “Christ alone.” Not even in “love or the gifts that follow from it,” does our salvation lie; in this work nothing within ourselves plays any part, therefore “away with all reference to the Law and to works,” away too, with the thought of “Christ as Rewarder!” “In the stead of every ‘qualitas’ in myself, whether termed faith or love, I simply set Jesus Christ and say: This is my righteousness, this is my ‘qualitas’ and my ‘formalis iustitia,’ as they call it.” Thus only had he everything in himself, thus only did Christ become the “way, the truth and the life” to him, without “effecting this in me from without; in me, not, however, through me, He Himself must remain, live and speak.” Of Augustine Luther indeed says nothing in this passage, but he could not have expressed more strongly the purely mechanical conception of justification, nor have rejected more emphatically every human work, even man’s co-operation under grace.

  With this decision Brenz in his letters to Luther and Melanchthon declared himself satisfied, likewise with the instruction received, “which was worthy of a place in the canon of Scripture.”

  It is unfortunate, however, that Conrad Cordatus, one of Luther’s favourite pupils, when consigning to his Notes the joint declarations of Luther and Melanchthon, should have registered a protest against “Philip’s innovations.” His quarrel with Philip Melanchthon on the doctrine of Justification was one of the many phases of the dissensions called forth in the Protestant camp by the “article on which the Church stands or falls.”

  Against any citation of St. Augustine the Lutheran theologians and preachers in Pomerania protested during the negotiations for the formula of Concord. By thus falsely alleging this Father, they said in their declaration at the Synod of Stettin in 1577, a formidable weapon was placed in the hands of their Catholic opponents of which they had not failed to avail themselves against the Protestants; they were also assuming the responsibility for a public lie: “Augustine’s book ‘De spiritu et littera’ teaches concerning Justification what the Papists teach to-day.” In the following year they declared against the form of the “first ‘Confessio Augustana,’ as published at Wittenberg in 1531 by Luther and our other fathers,” again on the ground that “there Augustine’s ‘consensus’ is alleged.” In Mecklenburg the strictures of the Synods of Pomerania were accepted as perfectly warranted. David Chytræus, Professor at Rostock and once a member of Melanchthon’s household, stated about that time, that Erhard Schnepf, the Würtemberg theologian, who was of the same way of thinking as Johann Brenz, had declared in 1544, i.e. during Luther’s lifetime, in a public discourse at Tübingen, that in the whole of Augustine there was not a syllable concerning the righteousness of Christ being imputed to us by faith. When Chytræus adds that Augustine “was ὁμόψηχος with the Papists,” it is very likely that he was countering the opposite use of this same word by Melanchthon in the passage mentioned above; the latter’s epistle to Brenz had then already been printed.

  The real teaching of St. Augustine is best seen in his anxiety that man should co-operate with all the power furnished by the assistance of God’s grace, in the attainment of his salvation. The wholesome fear of God he reckons first, after the necessary condition of faith has been fulfilled. Of the acts of moral preparation (fear, hope, love, penance and good resolutions) for obtaining the grace of Justification from God, he regards fear as the element, without which a man “never, or hardly ever,” reaches God. To show the necessity of works and a good intention he appeals to texts in the Epistle of St. James rejected by Luther, where we read: “You see that by works a man is justified and not by faith only” (ii. 24). Here he goes so far as to suggest that James probably spoke so explicitly of works because the passages on faith in Paul’s Epistles had been misunderstood by some.

  “We say,” so he teaches in opposition to Luther concerning the destruction of sin in man by baptism, “that baptism brings the remission of all sins, and not merely erases them, but actually removes them (‘auferre crimina non radere’); the roots of sin do not remain in the corrupt flesh, so that the sins have not to grow again and be again cut off like the hair of our heads.”

  The righteousness which is bestowed on the sinner is, in his view, no imputed righteousness of Christ but a personal righteousness actually residing in man. Hence he explains that the “Justice of God,” referred to in Rom. iii. 21 f., is not that whereby God is just, but that with which He provides the impious man when justifying him; in the same way the “faith of Christ” mentioned there is “not a faith by which Christ believes, but the faith that is in us.” “Both are ours, but they are ascribed to God and Christ because bestowed on us by the Divine favour.” The righteousness bestowed on us is “that which Adam lost by sin”; Adam’s righteousness was a quality inherent in him, not the imputed righteousness of Christ. It is also the same grace which is infused into adults in Justification and which children receive in baptism. By sanctifying grace the soul is inwardly ennobled, “for when nature’s Creator justifies it by grace, it ceases to be an object of horror and becomes a thing of beauty.” The Holy Ghost dwells in us and “God gives us therewith no less a gift than Himself.” Thus “as the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul.”

  Our state of grace may, however, be dimmed, and that not only by lack of faith; for it has its enemies in imperfections and sins. “Though our righteousness is a true one, yet in this life the forgiveness of sins plays a greater part than the perfection of virtue.” “If our will turns against God, we separate ourselves from Him, and the light which enlightened us during His presence at once changes into darkness.” In order to prevent any such danger on the part of the will, August
ine frequently reminds his readers of such exhortations of our Saviour, as: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.”

  Man is also spurred to be faithful, so he says, by the merit of good works. “God Himself has become our debtor,” so he said when preaching to the assembled faithful; “not as though He had received something from us, but because He has promised what He pleased. To a man we speak differently and say: You are my debtor because I have given to you. To God we say, on the contrary: Thou art my debtor because Thou hast made me promises; ... in this sense therefore we may urge on God our demands and say: Give what Thou hast promised, for we have done what Thou didst command.”

  To recommend the practice of good works out of love of God and zeal for His honour, and to heap up merit for heaven, is the purpose of long and eloquent portions of the literary legacy which Augustine left behind him. The whole of the book “De fide et operibus” and long chapters of his “Enchiridion” were written with this object. In the former work he introduces, for instance, the Judgment scene described by our Saviour, and says: “Those who are placed on the left hand of Christ, according to this passage (Mat. xxv. 41), He will reproach not for not having believed in Him, but for not having performed good works. How could this be true if we were to attain to salvation without keeping the commandments or by faith alone (‘per solam fidem’), which without works is dead? Christ wished to impress on us that no one can promise himself eternal life by a dead faith, minus works. Hence He causes all the nations who have received the same spiritual food [of faith] to be separated out before Him, and clearly it is such as have believed but have not performed good works who will say: When did we see Thee suffering this and that [and did not minister to Thee]? They had fancied that by a dead faith they could attain to everlasting life.”

  The voice of the bishop of Hippo, supported by the whole Church whose doctrine was also his, was re-echoed by later ecclesiastical writers who made greedy use of his works; nor were the exhortations of the Fathers without result among the faithful. Later Fathers frequently discourse on the testimony of Holy Writ in favour of works just as Augustine had done; the following texts were frequently adduced: “God will render to every man according to his works”; “Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified”; “The Son of Man will come and render to every man according to his works” (Rom. ii. 6, 13; Mat. xvi. 27).

  Gregory the Great, who trained himself on Augustine’s model, states, in a homily to his congregation: “Possibly we may say to ourselves: I believe, hence I shall be saved. This is only true when we prove our faith by our works.” “Then are we true believers when we execute in work what we confess in our faith.”

  A faith proved by works was the sign manual of the Middle Ages. Nor did Luther and his preachers ever complain of the lack of works of piety in the days previous to the Reformation, although they thought it their duty to blame the spirit in which those works had been performed.

  What, however, did Luther and his followers think of the moral consequences of the preaching directed against all merit of good works?

  The New Doctrine of Works in Practice, as Judged by Lutheran Opinion in the 16th Century.

  We have already listened to Luther’s own complaints and those of many of his contemporaries concerning the parlous state of morals amongst the adherents of the new teaching, and the almost entire absence of any practical fruits of piety under the amended Gospel. Since the mainstay of the innovations was the doctrine of grace and works it is necessary to seek out more closely the connection between the new doctrine of works and the sad moral results of the revolt against the Church. Luther himself makes no odds about referring to these results and their real cause: “The surer we are of the freedom won by Christ, the more indolent do we become”; “because we teach that man attains to grace without any works whatever, we grow lazy”; he almost wishes “that the old teaching again came into its own.” Only his shortsightedness and the psychological effect of his passionate temper prevented his foreseeing the inevitable consequences of his theory of the all-sufficiency of faith and of his reckless denunciation of the regard for commandments and works previously obtaining. How little his own frequent exhortations to lead a moral life and to perform works of Christian charity (see below, ff.) could prevail against the fell charm of the doctrine of Evangelical freedom, remained hid from his eyes, until the extent of the moral corruption and the growing savagery of the people in certain regions began to frighten him and to cause him to long ardently for the end of the world and even to predict its imminence.

  There was some truth in what he said, viz. that, as the world was constituted, if one preached faith (i.e. the justifying faith so much belauded by him) works went to the wall, and that, on the other hand, “faith” must needs perish wherever works were preached. The two were indeed self-exclusive, however much, in his recommendation of works, he might affirm the contrary.

  This is not the place to point out anew the dangers inherent in Luther’s doctrine of justification, for we have already seen the necessary result of one of its presuppositions, viz. the denial of free-will, and how right Erasmus was when he urged against Luther, that, on this assumption, all laws and commandments, even those of Scripture, were simply superfluous. A Protestant has aptly remarked, that, in the last instance, “the difference between good and evil becomes quite illusory”; we might well ask: “How can we feel ourselves responsible towards God ... if we do nothing and God works all in all?” Luther himself even goes so far as to make Scripture teach that “the will not only desires nothing good, but is even unaware of how much evil it does and of what good is.” Since the imputed merits of Christ are, as a matter of fact, merely like a screen set up in front of the soul, many might naturally feel tempted to extenuate and excuse all that the sin which persists in man still does behind it.

  To appreciate the peculiar nature of the danger it is necessary to take Luther’s teaching, not by itself, but in conjunction with the mental atmosphere of the day. We must of course take it for granted that many of his followers refrained from putting into practice Luther’s teaching in its entirety, for instance, his peculiar doctrine of the lack of free-will. Many well-disposed Lutherans whose good faith was above suspicion, doubtless remained more or less outside the influence of such ideas, were actuated by good religious motives and expressed them in Christian works. Assisted by the grace of God, which is at the disposal of all men of good-will, they, all unknowingly, were gaining merit in heaven. On the other hand, the ill-disposed, those who sought the enjoyments of life — and of such there were thousands — found a sanction in the Wittenberg doctrine for neglecting good works. In the case of many the “joyful tidings” could not under the circumstances of the age be expected to produce any other result. We have only to think of what was going on all about; of the prevalent yearning after release from irksome bonds; of the unkindly feeling towards rulers, both ecclesiastical and secular; of the seething discontent among the peasants on account of their oppression and toilsome duties; of the spirit of independence so vigorous in the towns; of the boundless ambition of the mighty; of the influence, sometimes sceptical, sometimes immoral, of Humanism, and of the worldliness and degradation of so many of the clergy and monks, to be able to understand how momentous was the effect of Luther’s doctrine of justification and his preaching concerning works.

  We know on the one hand from many examples with what zest the newly-won promoters of Lutheranism — for the most part former ministers of the Church who had discarded their calling — concentrated their attacks on the practice of good works, and, on the other, how the better-disposed followers of the new doctrine admitted the danger to works accruing from Luther’s views and even their actually evil consequences.

  The declamation of the preachers against works was partly intended to silence their own scruples. At any rate it was the speediest method of obtai
ning a numerous following. The preachers were obliged to deal in some way with the objection constituted by the existence of far greater religious zeal in the olden Church than amongst the new believers; they solved it by denouncing zeal for “outward works.” They were also frequently obliged to extenuate their own laxity of morals, and this they did in the most convenient fashion by branding moral strictness as pharisaical holiness-by-works.

  Thus it came about that some, even of the more cautious and moderate Lutherans, for instance Urban Rhegius, complained that the preachers were confining themselves to the denunciation of works and to proclaiming the power of faith alone, as though the great gift of the new religious system merely spelt release from everything displeasing to the flesh; there they came very near justifying the constant assertion to this effect of the defenders of Catholicism, indeed the Catholics’ most effective weapon.

  Rhegius, who died in 1541, as General Superintendent of Lüneburg, summed up his experiences of the effect on the people of Luther’s doctrine of Evangelical freedom, in the sermons he delivered at Hall in the Tyrol: “The rude, carnal people here think that the Law has been abolished and that we are released from it, so that we can do as we please; hence, quite shamelessly and to the disgrace of the Evangel, they say: To steal and to commit adultery is no longer sinful, for the Law is no more of any account. Alas, what crass blindness has fallen upon this people, that they think the Son of God came into the world and suffered so much on account of sin in order that we might lead a shameful, dissolute and bestial life.”

  A man of no great firmness of character, he had previously been episcopal vicar at Constance, and could speak from experience of the condition of things amongst the preachers of both Southern and Northern Germany.