Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Meanwhile, however, the ideal of a whole parish of true believers seemed about to be realised elsewhere. Full of apparent zeal for the new Evangel, the magistrates and burghers of Leisnig on the Mulde drafted a scheme for a “common box” and begged Luther to send them something confirming their right to appoint a minister — the town having refused to accept the lawfully presented Catholic priest — and also a reformed order for Divine worship. The instructive incident has already been mentioned.

  Luther seized eagerly on the opportunity of calling into existence at Leisnig a community which might in turn prove a model elsewhere. From the establishment of such congregations he believed there would result a system of new Churches independent indeed, though supported by the authorities, which might then take the place of the Papal Church now thought on the point of expiry. The idealistic dreams with which, as his writings show, the proceedings at Leisnig filled his mind would seem to have been responsible both for his project for Wittenberg and for his letter to the Bohemians previously referred to. The fact that they belonged to the same time is at any rate a remarkable coincidence.

  He promised the town-council of Leisnig (Jan. 29, 1523) that he would have their scheme for the establishment of a common fund printed, and this he did shortly after, adding an introduction of his own.

  In the introduction he expresses his conviction that true Christianity, the right belief such as he desiderated, had taken up its abode with them. For had they not made known their willingness to enforce strict discipline at Leisnig? “By God’s grace,” he tells them, “you are yourselves enriched by God,” hence you have “no need of my small powers.” Still, he was far from loath to draw up for them and for others, too, first the writing which appeared in print in 1523 (possibly at the beginning of March), “Von Ordenung Gottes Dienst ynn der Gemeyne,” and then, about Easter, 1523, another booklet destined to become particularly famous and to which we have already frequently referred, “Das eyn Christliche Versamlung odder Gemeyne Recht und Macht habe, alle Lere zu urteylen,” etc.

  In the first, speaking of public worship “to real, heartfelt, holy Christians,” he says the model must surely be sought in the “apostolic age”; at least the clergy and the scholars, if not the whole congregation, were to assemble daily, and on Sundays all were to meet; then follow his counsels — he took care to lay down no actual rules — for the details of public worship, where the Word and the awakening of faith were to be the chief thing. These matters the congregation were to arrange on their own authority.

  The second booklet lays it down that it is the congregation and not the bishops, the learned or the councils who have the right and duty of judging of the preacher and of choosing a true preacher to replace him who does not proclaim the Word of God aright — needless to say, regardless of the rights of church patronage. A minority of true “Christians” is at liberty to reject the parish priest and appoint a new one of the right kind, whom it then becomes their duty to support. Even “the best preachers” might not be appointed by the bishops or patrons “without the consent, choice and call of the congregation.” — There can be no doubt, that, if every congregation acted as was here proposed, this would have spelt the doom of the old church system. This too was what Luther’s vivid fancy anticipated from the power of that Word which never returns empty-handed, though he preferred simply to ignore the huge inner difficulties which the proposal involved. The tidings that new congregations and town-councils were joining his cause strengthened him in his belief. His statements then, concerning the near overthrow of the Papacy by the mere breath of Christ’s mouth, are in part to be explained by this frame of mind.

  At Leisnig, however, events did not in the least justify his sanguine expectations.

  The citizens succeeded in making an end of their irksome dependence on the neighbouring Cistercian monastery, and the town-council promptly sequestrated all the belongings and foundations of the Church; it then became apparent, however, that, particularly on the side of the council, the prevalent feeling was anything but evangelical; the councillors, for instance, refused to co-operate in the establishment of a common poor-box or to apply to this object the endowments it had appropriated. Grave dissensions soon ensued and Luther sought in vain the assistance of the Elector. Of any further progress of the new religious-community ideal we hear nothing. The fact is, the fate at Leisnig of the model congregation and “common fund” scheme was a great disappointment to Luther. Elsewhere, too, attempts at establishing a common poor-box were no less unsuccessful. Of these, however, we shall treat later.

  Luther’s next detailed statements concerning the “assembly of true Christians” are met in 1525. Towards the end of that year Caspar Schwenckfeld, a representative of the innovations in Silesia, visited him, and various theological discussions took place in the presence of Bugenhagen and Jonas, of which Schwenckfeld took notes which have come down to us. With the help of what Luther said then, supplemented by some later explanations, the history of the remarkable plan can be followed further.

  In the discussion then held with Schwenckfeld the latter voiced his conviction, that true Christians must be separated from the false, “otherwise there was no hope” of improvement; excommunication, too, must “ever go hand in hand with the Gospel,” otherwise “the longer matters went on the worse they would get, for it was easy to see the trend throughout the world; every man wanted to be Evangelical and to boast of the name of Christ. To this he [Luther] replied: it was very painful to him that no one showed any sign of amendment”; he had, however, already taken steps concerning the separation of the true believers and had announced “publicly in his sermons” his intention of keeping a “register of Christians” and of having a watch set over their conduct, also “of preaching to them in the monastery” while a “curate preached to the others in the parish.” It was a disgrace, remarked Luther, how, without such helps, everything went to rack and ruin. Not even half a gulden had he been able to obtain for the poor.

  Concerning the ban, however, “he refused to give a reply” even when repeatedly pressed by Schwenckfeld; he merely said: “Yes, dear Caspar, true Christians are not yet so plentiful; I should even be glad to see two of them together; for I do not feel even myself to be one.” And there the matter rested.

  Hence, even then, he still had a quite definite intention of forming such a congregation of true believers at Wittenberg.

  During the last months of 1525 Luther concluded a writing entitled “Deudsche Messe und Ordnung Gottis Diensts,” which was published in 1526, in which he speaks at length of the strange scheme which was ever before his mind. Its reaction on his plans for Mass and Divine worship may here be passed over. What more nearly concerns us now is the distinction he makes between those present at Divine worship. If the new Mass, so he says, “is held publicly in the churches before all the people” many are present “who as yet neither believe nor are Christians.” In the popular Church, such as it yet is, “there is no ordered or clearly cut assembly where the Christians can be ruled in accordance with the Gospel”; to them worship is merely “a public incentive to faith and Christianity.” It would be a different matter if we had the true Christians assembled together, “with their names registered and meeting together in some house or other,” where prayer, reading, and the receiving of the Sacrament would be assiduously practised, general almsgiving imposed and “penalties, correction, expulsion or the ban made use of according to the law of Christ.” But here again we find him complaining: “I have not yet the necessary number of people for this, nor do I see many who are desirous of trying it.” “Hence until Christians take the Word seriously, find their own legs and persevere,” the carrying out of the plan must be delayed. Nor did he wish, so he says, to set up “anything new in Christendom.” As he put it in a previous sermon: “It is perfectly true that I am certain I have and preach the Word, and am called; yet I hesitate to lay down any rules.”

  This hesitation cannot be explained merely by the anxiety to whic
h he himself refers incidentally lest commands should arouse the spirit of opposition and give rise to “factions,” for the absence of authority was evident; it must also have sprung from the author’s own sense of the indefiniteness of the plan. His pious wish to establish an organisation on the apostolic model was not conspicuous for practical insight, however great the stress Luther laid on the passages he regarded as authoritative (2 Cor. ix., 1 Cor. xiv., Mt. xviii. 2, and Acts vi.). “This much is clear,” rightly remarks Drews, “that Luther was uncertain and wavered in the details of his plan. He had but little bent to sketch out organisations even in his head; to this he did not feel himself called.”

  Others, not alone from the ranks of such as inclined to fanatism, were also to some extent to blame for the persistence with which he continued to revert to this pet idea. Nicholas Hausmann, pastor of Zwickau, and an intimate friend, approached him at the end of 1526 on the subject of the ban, which he regarded as indispensable for the cause of order. On Jan. 10, 1527, Luther replied, referring him to the Visitation which the Elector had promised to have held. “When the Churches have been constituted (‘constitutis ecclesiis’) by it, then we shall be able to try excommunication. What can you hope to effect so long as everything is in such disorder?”

  Here we reach a fresh stage in the efforts to establish a new system of Church organisation. Luther waited in vain for the birth of the ideal community. Everything remained “in disorder.” The intervention of the State introduced in the Visitation was, however, soon to establish an organisation and thus to improve discipline.

  The Church Apart replaced by the Popular Church Supported by the State

  Luther hoped much from the Visitation of 1527; it was not merely to constitute parishes but also to serve the cause of the “assembly of Christians” and of discipline; the segregation of the true believers was to be effected within the parishes, at least when the parishes were not prepared to go over as a whole to the true Church, as, for instance, Leisnig had once promised to do. Luther again wrote, on March 29, 1527, to Hausmann, the zealous Zwickau Evangelical: “We hope that it [the ‘assembly of Christians’] will come about through the Visitation.” Then, he fancies, “Christians and non-Christians would no longer be found side by side” as at the ordinary gatherings in church; but, once they were “separated and formed an assembly where it was the custom to admonish, reprove and punish,” church discipline could soon be applied to individuals too.

  But the “hope” remained a mere hope even when the Visitation was over.

  Nothing whatever is known of any further attempt of Luther in this direction, though, as Drews points out, “it is evident that he was unable to understand how Christians who had reached the faith could fail to feel themselves impelled to assemble in communities organised on the Apostolic model.” He had to look on helplessly while the followers of the new preaching formed a great congregation, of which many of the members were, as he had said, “not Christians at all,” and whose prayer-gatherings were no more than “an incentive to faith and Christianity.” (Above, .)

  In Hesse alone had steps been taken — independently of the Visitation in the Saxon Electorate and previous to it — to bring about a condition of things more in accordance with Luther’s ideal. Moreover, Luther himself preferred to remain entirely neutral in respect of this novel attempt, destined to become famous in the history of Protestant church-organisation. The prime mover in the Hessian plan was the preacher, Lambert of Avignon, an apostate Friar Minor; his draft was submitted to Landgrave Philip by a Synod held at Homberg at the end of 1526. Philip forwarded it to Luther in order to hear his opinion. Among the proposals made in the draft were the following: After preaching for a while to the whole of the people, they were to be asked individually whether they wished to join the assembly of true believers and submit themselves to the discipline prevailing amongst them; those, however few in number, who give in their names are the Christians; as for the others they must be looked upon as pagans; the former have their meetings and choose their pastors because it is the duty of the flock to decide in what voice the shepherds shall speak. All the clergy were annually to meet the delegates of the congregations, nobles and princes in synod and to elect a committee and three Visitors for the direction and supervision of the whole Church of the land; these were also to ratify the election of all the clergy chosen by the people.

  Luther advised the Landgrave “not as yet to allow this order to appear in print, for I,” he adds, “dare not yet be so bold as to introduce so great a number of laws amongst us and with such high-sounding words.” He did not, however, by any means reject the plan absolutely. On the contrary he writes, that, in his opinion, it were better to allow the project to grow up gradually “from force of habit”; a few of the pastors, “say one, three, six, or nine” might well make a beginning; otherwise they were sure to find that “the people were not yet ripe for it,” and that “much would have to be altered.”

  As Landgrave Philip, after receiving from Luther this rather discouraging reply, proceeded no further, the “plan for the realisation of Luther’s ideas” was carried stillborn to the grave. “And yet it was the only practical plan which at all corresponded with the theories of the Reformer prior to 1525.” Later on Philip adopted the Saxon Reformation-book for the organising of the Church of Hesse.

  That the project of esoteric congregations of true believers still survived in Luther’s mind long after, in spite of the consolidation of the popular Church in the form of a State Church, is plain from a letter of his on June 26, 1533, to Tilemann Schnabel and the other Hessian clergy (“episcopi Hassiæ”), again sitting in assembly at Homberg. Schnabel was a whilom Provincial of the Saxon Augustinians and had taken part in the abortive attempt to establish a community of true Christians at Leisnig of which he was pastor. Finally, want, misery and his own instability of character drove him from the country. From 1526 onwards he had been living at Alsfeld in Hesse. The new assembly at Homberg had submitted to Luther, for his approval, the draft of a scheme of church discipline, most probably inspired by Schnabel himself. Luther’s reply is of the utmost importance for the understanding of his opinion of the conditions then prevailing in the Church.

  He is, at bottom, quite at one with the Hessian preachers, but, on practical grounds, chiefly on account of the lack of the “veri Christiani,” he rejects the well-meant proposals as too far-reaching and incapable of execution.

  The time, according to him, “is not yet ripe for the introduction of discipline.” “Verily one must let the peasants run riot a little ... and then things will right themselves.” We have not as yet taken root in the earth; when the branches and leaves shall have appeared, then we shall be better able to oppose the mighty. The Hessian preachers, so he tells them, instead of rushing in with the Greater Excommunication involving such serious civil consequences, would do better to begin with the so-called “Lesser Excommunication” in use at Wittenberg, simply excluding the unworthy from Communion and from the right to stand as sponsors; for “the Greater Excommunication does not come within our jurisdiction (‘quod non sit nostri iuris’), and, moreover, concerns only those who desire to be real Christians; nor are we in these times in a position to make use of the Greater Excommunication; it would merely make us look silly were we to attempt it before we have the necessary power. You seem to hope that the Prince will take the enforcing of it into his own hands; but this is very uncertain, and it is better he should have nothing to do with it.”

  Thus, though Luther did not believe in the feasibility of a community of real Christians there and then, or that it was likely soon to be realised, yet the idea had not quitted his mind. The great mass of those belonging to his party meanwhile constituted a sort of popular Church. But such a popular Church was not in Luther’s eyes the real institution intended by the Gospel. It consisted of the masses “who must first be left their own way for a while” before the Church can be established. Drews justly observes of the above statement: “Luther di
d not relinquish the ideal of a really Christian congregation because he had come to see that it was mistaken, the ideal had simply lost its practical value in his eyes because it now seemed impossible of realisation. Luther resigned himself to take things as they were. As he had always regarded it as his mission, not to organise, but merely to preach the Evangel, he was easily able to console himself. At any rate it would be quite wrong to say that the popular Churches which now grew up at all corresponded with his ideal.”

  The popular Church throve, nevertheless, and, soon, owing to the co-operation of numerous factors, became a State institution.

  The result was the Lutheran State-Church, to be considered later in another connection, was something widely different from the original idea of its founder; he frequently grumbled about it, without, however, being able to check its development, which, indeed, he himself had been the first to urge. The sovereigns on their side, particularly the Saxon Elector in the very birthplace of the innovations, did their best to make ecclesiastical order, so far as externals, its organisation and control went, depend upon themselves.

  The Visitation of 1527, for which Luther himself had asked, furnished the Elector Johann with a welcome pretext for such action.