Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  In this case the Wittenbergers claim to be no more than a “neighbouring Church”; elsewhere they are more ambitious.

  The fact is, Wittenberg was anxious to stand at the head of the visible Church.

  It was at Wittenberg that Luther, as the leader of the young Church, had first preached the truth of the Gospel urged thereto “by Divine command”; on the strength of such a command he was compelled to defend himself against the Elector’s lawyers who wanted to play havoc with “his Church.”

  “By divine authority we have begun to ameliorate the world.”

  Foes at home twitted him with setting up an “office of the Word” by which an end was made of all freedom; they urged, that, at Wittenberg, people were trying to “breathe new life into despotism, to seat themselves in the chair and to exercise compulsion just as the Pope had done heretofore.” Luther proclaims loudly: “We, who preach the Evangel, have full powers to ordain; the Pope and the bishops can ordain no one.”— “You are a bishop,” said Luther once jokingly to a Superintendent, “just as I am Pope.” Beneath the jest there lay bitter earnest, for the authority of the “Wittenberg school” in Luther’s estimation stood high indeed; whoever “despises it, so long as the Church and school remain as they are, is a heretic and a bad man,” seeing that, in this school, God has “revealed His Word.” — Nevertheless, the Wittenberg theologians complained that this authority was not recognised, that the Church was a “spectacle of woe,” without “oneness either in doctrine or in worship”; “our princes and cities” ought to bring about unity. Moreover things are bound to grow worse, seeing that “each one wants to be his own Rabbi.” Outside Wittenberg, and even within the city walls, and that even in Luther’s time, the prediction of Duke George about the 72 sects of the Protestant Babel seemed about to be fulfilled.

  Yet Luther, in setting up the Wittenberg Primacy, retained his former principles which were altogether at variance with unity and subordination. “Who holds the public office of preacher,” so he declared in 1531, is not “forbidden to judge of doctrine” (before this, as the reader may remember, every “miller’s maid” had been free to do this); but whoever has no such office may not do so, because he would be acting “of his own doctrine and spirit.”

  Where is your office? Such was his question in 1525 to his opponent Carlstadt. The latter appealed to the call he had received from the congregation of Orlamünde. But of this Luther even then refuses to hear. He required from Carlstadt, in addition, the ratification of the sovereign, viz. of the Saxon Elector.

  Even in those days he was most anxious to see Church discipline established and excommunication resorted to, even though this involved making the Church something visible; the disruption and confusion everywhere rampant cried aloud for regulations, laws and penalties. “Such punishment and discipline through the Ban,” so he says, “is utterly odious to the world and causes the faithful ministers much work and danger; for vice has already grown into a habit; it is no longer a sin; the ungodly have power, riches and position on their side. The greater the rascal the better his luck.” Yet, according to him it was impossible for the Church to make laws, otherwise we would again be putting up “snares for consciences” as in Popery. Laws must be made only by the sovereigns — whatever discipline was enforced against the unruly was enforced by the secular authorities. “The most the parsons did for discipline was in following out the Electoral instructions to the Visitors and denouncing offenders to the secular officials and judges.” Of the “blasphemers,” viz. those who were obstinate or opposed the New Evangel, Luther wrote in 1529 to Thomas Löscher, parson of Milau: “They must be forced to attend the preaching,” needless to say by temporal penalties; in this way they will be taught the obedience they owe as citizens and also their duty to the State, “whether they believe in the Evangel or not.… If they wish to live among the people, then they must learn the laws of the people, even though unwillingly.” Hence here and in other instructions it is no longer a question of the Church but only of the sovereigns; these, so he urged, were to be backed by the preachers. He praised the Bohemian Brethren and the Swiss for having better discipline in their Churches, he also admitted that the action of the authorities would not of itself alone be sufficient to correct grave moral disorders.

  “Unless the Court gives its support to our regulations,” Melanchthon once said, the result will be mere “platonic laws.”

  References such as these to the State, which was now seen to be necessary for the support of the Church when once it had become a visible body, are to be met with repeatedly by anyone who follows the history of Lutheranism in its beginnings, more particularly in the years 1525-1528. It was during this period that the union of the new Church with the State, which has been described above, was accomplished. The sovereign arrogated to himself those powers which gradually made him the supreme head of the Church and permanent “emergency-bishop.” The visibility of the Church, or rather Churches — as all claim to catholicity was abandoned save in the credal formularies — rested on the enactments of the rulers, who, not without Luther’s connivance, soon introduced the compulsory element into religion. To make use of the invisible power of the Gospel and to give advice to consciences as to moral conduct, was indeed left to the ministers of the Word. But it was the State that had to establish “the right form of worship and the right ecclesiastical organisation.”

  All heretical communities from the commencement of the Church had looked to the State for help. But no heresiarch ever put himself so completely in the hands of the State in all outward matters as Luther and his fellows did where princes of their own party were concerned. “The common Christian Church” was, according to him, to retain for herself only the true faith and the sacraments which worked by faith.

  When, in the State Church thus called into being, the authorities proceeded too vigorously against the preachers and treated Luther without due consideration, the latter had himself a taste of the state of servitude into which he had brought the Church. Döllinger says truly that this restriction must have been “doubly irksome to a man who had known the old episcopal, ecclesiastical rule and who now had to admit to himself that it was he who had brought about the destruction of a system which, in spite of all its defects, had dealt with Church matters in an ecclesiastical spirit, and that it was he who had paved the way for the new and quite unecclesiastical order of things.”

  Not seldom do we hear Luther reproaching himself bitterly for the changes.

  Among the thoughts that chiefly disturbed his conscience was, as he himself repeatedly admits, that of having rent asunder the great Church. How can you justify your revolt against the one great Church of antiquity, the heir to the promises, so the inner voices said to him as he himself relates: “The words ‘sancta ecclesia’ affright a man. They rise up and say: ‘Preach and act as you like and can, the ‘ecclesia christiana’ is still here. Here is the bark of Peter, it may be tossed about on the waves, but perish it will not!…’ What was I to do? And how was I to comfort myself?… And yet I had to do it [i.e. preach against this Church] as here [John viii. 28] the Lord Christ also does and preaches against those who in name are God’s Kingdom and God’s priesthood.”

  Elsewhere he admits: “What am I doing in preaching against such [representatives of the olden Church], like a pupil against his masters? Thoughts such as these storm in upon me: Now I see that I am in the wrong; oh, that I had never begun, never preached a single word! For who is allowed to set himself up against the Church?… It is hard to persist and to preach against such a Ban.” — And yet, in his defiant spirit, he does persist: “This hits one smartly in the face, as has often happened to me … yet the One Man, my Beloved Lord and Healer Jesus Christ, is more to me than all the holiest people on earth.” Since he thinks it is His Evangel he is defending, he is able, though only at great costs, “to rise above the cry of ‘Church, Church,’” though he has to admit that, “this troubles me greatly,” and “it is truly a hard thing … to le
ave the Church herself and not to believe or trust her doctrine any more.”

  It was no real parallel when Luther, in order to justify the State Church, appealed to the conditions in the Middle Ages where the rulers had a share in Church matters, for if then the princes had intervened in Church matters their action, at least in principle, was always subordinate to the ecclesiastical authority which kept the power in its own hands, and concerned moreover only those outward things in which the Church was thankful for their assistance: The two co-ordinate powers, the secular and the spiritual, helped one another mutually — such at least was the ideal of world-government in those days, — acting in Christian agreement in the service of God and for the general welfare of mankind. Now, however, that the olden spiritual authority had been either completely paralysed or reduced to the shadow of its former self, Luther undertook to replace it by the State, and thus the Church ceased to be any longer a co-ordinate power.

  Though the Wittenberg theologians insisted that to them belonged the care of souls and this alone, still the limits between this domain and that of the State became everywhere confused when once the new system had begun to work. Owing to the friction this caused, Luther, in the course of time, came to emphasise merely the duty of the authorities to arrange by law for the establishment of “schools and pulpits,” and to “allow us divergency in preaching or morals.” Otherwise he left those in power, the high-handed nobles and officials, to do as they pleased, or, else, he lashed them ineffectually with violent and abusive language. In 1586 he declared, speaking of the marriage questions: “The peasants and the rude people who seek nothing but the freedom of the flesh, and likewise the lawyers who are always bent on thwarting our decisions, have wearied me so greatly that I have thrown aside the marriage cases and written to some that they may do as they please in the name of all the devils; let the dead bury their dead.” It was chiefly in the matter of these matrimonial cases that he came into conflict with the Court lawyers, e.g. as to the validity of the secret marriage contracts. It was in this connection that he declared that, “in his Church,” which was God’s own institution, he would retain in his own hands the decision on such matters by virtue of his ecclesiastical office. In other strong remonstrances wrung from him by the arbitrary interference of the State officials and the nobles in Church matters, he sometimes spoke so strongly of the inalienable rights of the Church that one might well think that he regarded the Church as essentially an independent institution with an organisation and spiritual authority of its own. More usually, however, he simply sighs. When the Court of Dresden interfered with his plans for the improvement of Church discipline he wrote resignedly: “Satan is still Satan. Under the Pope he pushed the Church into the world’s sphere and now, in our day, he seeks to bring the State system into the Church.”

  Without reverting to the subject of the State and Established Church already dealt with (vol. v., 568 ff.) we may refer to the close connection between Luther’s theology on the Church and the development which was its outcome. His theology, from the outset, had aimed at undermining the authority of the Church, while at the same time enlarging the sphere of the secular power.

  As early as 1520 in his work addressed to the German nobility he had praised the secular lords as “priests like us, equal in all things”; “they were to give free scope to the office and work which they have from God, wherever it is needed or useful.” Of the clergy, without considering their authority in ecclesiastical matters, he writes: “The priests, bishops or popes must deal with the Word of God and the sacraments, this is their work and office.”

  “The direction of the outward business of the Church, i.e. what we now term Church government,” so Sehling, the Protestant Professor of Canon Law, says, “Luther in his writing to the German nobility, and ever after, attributes directly to the worldly authorities.… Nor, above all, does he claim for the Church any power of legislating. The Reformed Canon Law, so far as it was reorganised legislatively, was based entirely on the code of the State.”

  Luther, in fact, recognised no other authority throughout the whole of the social order than that of the State; nowhere excepting amongst the secular authorities was there, according to him, any real power; there is on earth only one power, viz. the secular. “Worldly superiors, by virtue of their calling, maintain order and rule according to law and equity; as for the Church she has, by God’s ordinance, her common ministry of Word and Sacrament.” “The power of the Churches,” says the Schwabach Visitation Convention of 1528, “only extends to the choosing of ministers and the enforcing of the Christian Ban”; besides this they may also provide for the care of the poor; “all other power belongs either to Christ in heaven or to the secular authorities on earth.”

  Nor could he well recognise any apostolic teaching authority in the “higher orders of the Church,” seeing that a “little maid of seven years” on the side of the New Faith “knows more than the Apostles, Evangelists and Prophets” on the other side; the latter are but the “devil’s apostles, evangelists and prophets.”

  How he casts aside all the authority of the Church is perhaps shown most plainly in the short Theses of 1530 in his writing “Ettlich Artickelstück, so M. L. erhalten wil wider die gantze Satans Schüle uñ alle Pforten der Hellen”: “The Christian Church has no power to issue the least order concerning good works, never has done so and never will.” “The parson or bishop [i.e. the Evangelical ministers] has not the right to assert his authority everywhere for he is not the Christian Church. Such parson or bishop may exhort his Church to sanction certain fasts, prayers, holidays, etc., on account of the present needs, to be observed for a time and then be allowed to drop.” — But what the Evangelical ministers cannot do, that the secular authorities may do, for, in another passage, Luther points out expressly the binding character of the rules which the authorities might draw up, for instance regarding fasts; should the sovereign order fast-days, everyone must obey. In the same way if the German Prince-Bishops gave such an order it was to be obeyed, but only because they were Princes, not because they were bishops. During the Diet of Augsburg he refused to admit that, in future, there should be bishops having at the same time princely powers. On the other hand, however, he himself made the princes to all intents and purposes bishops.

  The contradiction in which he here involves himself has been brought out very strongly by a recent historian and theologian who as a rule is on Luther’s side: “To our mind there is a glaring contradiction between Luther’s theses on the spirituality of faith and the rights of the Christian authorities. Luther never noticed this contradiction, and, all his life, stood for both simultaneously. … From the religious standpoint he advocates the principle of unlimited freedom as inherent in the nature of faith; in the secular sphere, i.e. in the domain of the State, he is unwilling to overthrow the principle shared by all [?] in his day, viz. that the authorities have a right to assist in deciding on public worship and doctrine; in the rightful domain of the worldly authorities his controversies have no right to intervene. Hence the contradiction.” “Luther, who, where the peasants are concerned, plays the part of Evangelist, refuses to tamper anywhere with the existing [?] laws of the State where it is a question of their lords.”

  Here Luther’s fundamental idea of the separation between Church and world also comes into play.

  The Church of his theology must necessarily be absorbed by the State, because, being a stranger to the world, it was not conversant with the conditions and, even with the best will in the world, was unable to hold its own against the visible powers. The spiritual rule, according to him, was to be as widely sundered from the secular “as the heavens are from the earth.” Thus the Church fled into a spirit realm and left the world to the tender mercies of the secular power. She thus became herself the cause of her “alienation and isolation from real life.” It naturally, indeed necessarily, followed that the sovereign set up government departments, which called themselves spiritual, but which in reality were secular
and derived all their jurisdiction from him alone. Such were the consistories.

  The relations between State and Church in Lutheranism may be regarded as an indirect justification of the Catholic doctrine of the Church’s nature. According to the Catholic view Christ founded the sublime structure of the Church as a free spiritual society. He willed that the saving grace he had won by His Death should be applied to the souls of men by means of a visible and independent institution, which, inspired by Him with His own ideal and holy aims and equipped with her own peculiar rights, should work for the salvation of mankind until the end of the world. Hence, the advocates of the olden Church not only set the idea of the Church in the foreground of the struggle, but they also explored, enlarged on and illumined this idea with the help of Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers. Such was the work of men like Eck, Cochlæus, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, and Catharinus, and, in the same century, of Melchior Canus, Peter Canisius, Bellarmine and Stapleton. They indeed allowed the inward side of the Church — its soul as it has been called — to come into its rights, but, at the same time, they maintained with equal firmness its thoroughly visible character, above all they insisted on the hierarchy with the successor of St. Peter at its head as the holder of the threefold spiritual power — which Luther denied — of shepherd, teacher and priest. On this point there could be no yielding.

  To those adherents of Luther’s who fancied they could reach union without the Church’s help and without an entire acceptance of the Catholic doctrine, Eck addressed the following: “There is no middle course and words are of no avail; whoever wishes to make himself one in faith with the Catholic Church must submit to the Pope and the Councils and believe what the Roman Church teaches; all else is wind and vapour, though one should go on disputing for a hundred years.”