Chapter XXIX · (continued 4)

Luther’s opposition to this canonisation was, however, by no means dictated by historical considerations but by his hatred of all veneration of the Saints and by his aversion to the ideal of Christian self-denial, submissive obedience to the Church and Catholic activity of which the canonised Saints are models. He himself makes it easy to answer the question whether it was zeal for the moral reformation of the Church which drove him to assail canonisation and the veneration of the Saints; nowhere else is his attempt to destroy the sublime ideal of Christian life which he failed to understand and to drag down to the gutter all that was highest so clearly apparent as here. The real Saints, so he declared, were his Wittenbergers. Striving after great holiness on the part of the individual merely tended to derogate from Christ’s work; the Evangelical Counsels fostered only a mistaken desertion of the world.

Judging others by his own standard, he attempted to drag down the Saints of the past to the level of mediocrity. Real Saints must be “good, lusty sinners who do not blush to insert in the Our Father the ‘forgive us our trespasses.’” It was “consoling” to him to hear, that the Apostles, too, even after they had received the Holy Ghost, had at times been shaky in their faith, and “very consoling indeed” that the Saints of both Old and New Covenant “had fallen into great sins”; only thus, so he fancies, do we learn to know the “Kingdom of Christ,” viz. the forgiveness of sins. Even Abraham, agreeably with Luther’s interpretation of Josue xxiv. 2, was represented to have worshipped idols, in order that Luther might be able to instance his conversion and say: Believe like him and you will be as holy as he.[453]

The Reformation in the Duchy of Saxony considered as typical

In 1539, after the death of Duke George, at Luther’s instance, the protestantising of the duchy of Saxony was undertaken with unseemly haste; to this end Henry, the new sovereign, ordered a Visitation on the lines of that held in the Saxon Electorate and to be carried out by preachers placed at his disposal by the Elector. Jonas and Spalatin now became the visitors for Meissen. Before this, on the occasion of the canonisation of St. Benno, Spalatin, in a letter to Luther, had treated the canonisation as a laughing matter. On July 14, the visitors, alleging the authority of the Duke, summoned the Cathedral Chapter at Meissen to remove the sepulchre of St. Benno. On this being met by a refusal armed men were sent to the Cathedral the following night. “‘They broke into fragments the richly ornamented sepulchre of the Saint, together with the altar,’ to quote the words of the bishop’s report to the Emperor, ‘they decapitated a wooden statue of St. Benno and stuck it up outside as a butt for ridicule.’”[454]

Luther, for his part, in a letter to Jonas of August 14 of the same year, has his little joke about the visitors’ undoing of the canonisation of Benno. “You have unsainted Benno and have shown no fear of Cochlæus, Schmid, nor of the Nausei and Sadoleti, who teach the contrary. They are indignant with you, ultra-sensitive men that they are, knowing so little of grammar and so much less of theology.”[455]

Nor did the progress of the overthrow of the Church throughout the Duchy bear the least stamp of moral reform. The very violence used forbids our applying such a term to the work. The Catholic worship at the Cathedral was at once abolished and replaced by Lutheran services and preaching. The priests were driven into exile, the bishop alone being permitted to carry on “his godless papistical abominations and practices openly in his own residence” (the Castle of Stolpen). At the demand of the Wittenbergers the professors at Leipzig University who refused to conform to the Lutheran doctrine were dismissed. Melanchthon insisted, that, if they refused to hold their tongues, they must be driven out of the land as “blasphemers.” The new preachers publicly abused the friends, clerical and lay, of the late Duke to such an extent that the Estates were moved to make a formal complaint. Churches and monasteries were plundered and the sacred vessels melted down.[456]

Maurice, the son of Duke Henry, who succeeded in 1541, showed himself even more violent and relentless in extirpating the olden system.

The profoundly immoral character of this reformation, the interference with the people’s freedom of conscience, the destruction of religious traditions which the peaceable inhabitants had received a thousand years before from holy missionaries and bishops, merely on the strength of the new doctrines of a man who claimed to have a better Gospel—all this was expressly sanctioned and supported by Luther.

He wrote in a memorandum on the proceedings: “There is not much room here for discussion. If my gracious Duke Henry wishes to have the Evangel, then His Highness must abolish idolatry, or not afford it protection ... otherwise the wrath of heaven will be too great.” As a “sovereign appointed by God” the ruler “owed it to Him to put down such horrible, blasphemous idolatry by every means in his power.” This was nothing more than “defending Christ and damning the devil”; an example had been given by the “former kings of Juda and Israel,” who had abolished “Baal and all his idolatry,” and later by Constantine, Theodosius and Gratian. For it was as much the duty of princes and lords as of other people to serve God and the Lord Christ to the utmost of their power. Away, therefore, with the abbots and bishops “since they are determined to remain blasphemers ... they are blind leaders of the blind; God’s wrath has come upon them; hence we must help in the matter as much as we can.”[457]

Yet the Christian emperors here appealed to could have furnished Luther with an example of forbearance towards heathen Rome and its religious works of art which might well have shamed him. He did not know that at Rome the defacing and damaging of temples, altars or statues was most strictly forbidden, and that, for instance, Pope Damasus († 384) had been formally assured by the city-prefect that never had a Christian Roman appeared before his tribunal on such a charge.[458] Elsewhere, however, such acts of violence were not unknown.

Luther’s spirit of persecution was quite different from the spirit which animated those Roman emperors who came over to Christianity. It was their desire to hasten the end of an outworn religion of superstition, immorality and idolatry. With them it was a question of defending and furthering a religion sent from heaven to renew the world and which had convincingly proved the divinity of its mission by miracles, by the blood of martyrs and by the striking holiness of so many thousands of confessors.

It was against the faithful adherents of this very religion that, on the pretext of the outward corruption under which it groaned, Luther perpetrated so many acts of violence regardless of the testimony of a thousand years of beneficent labours. His ingratitude towards the achievements of the olden Church in the education of the nations, his deliberate ignoring of the great qualities which distinguished her and in his day could still have enabled her to carry out her own moral regeneration from within, are incompatible with his having been a true moral reformer.

The Aims of the Reformation and the Currents of the Age

Looking at the state of the case from the standpoint of the olden Catholic Church a closer historical examination shows that what she needed above all was a strengthening of her interior organisation.[459]

In view of the tendency to split up into separate States, in view of the decay of that outward bond of the nations under the Empire which had once been her stay, and of the rise of all sorts of new elements of culture requiring to be exploited for the glory of God and the spiritual betterment of mankind, a consolidation of the Church’s structure was essential. The Primacy indeed was there, exercised its functions and was recognised, but what was needed was a more direct recognition of a purified Papacy. The bond of unity between the nations within the Church needed to be more clearly put in evidence. This could best be done by allowing the significance of a voluntary submission to the authority appointed by God, and of the Primacy, to sink more deeply into the consciousness of Christendom. This was all the more called for, now that the traditional devotion to Rome had suffered so much owing to the great Schism of the West, to the reforming Councils and the prevalence of Gallican ideas, and that the splendour of the Papacy seemed now on the wane. The excessive concern of the Popes in politics and the struggle they had waged in Italy in the effort to establish themselves more securely had by no means contributed to increase respect for the power of the keys in its own peculiar domain, viz. the spiritual.

Thus any reformer seeking to improve the Church’s condition had necessarily to face this task first of all.—Many other moral requirements arising out of the then state of society had, however, also to be borne in mind.

It was necessary to counteract, by laying stress on what had been handed down, the false subjectivism and universal scepticism which the schools of philosophy had let loose on the world; also to oppose the cynicism, lack of discipline and love of destruction which characterised Humanism, by infusing into education the true spirit of the Church. Both these tasks could, however, be accomplished only by men filled with respect for tradition who while on the one hand broad-mindedly accepting the new learning, i.e. without questioning or distrusting reason and its rights, on the other hand possessed the power and the will to spiritualise the new culture. The disruptive tendency of the nations, the counterpart in international politics of the prevalent individualism, required to be corrected by laying stress on the underlying common ground. The undreamt-of enlargement of the Church through the discovery of new lands had to be met by organisations, the members of which were filled with love of self-denial and zeal for souls. At the same time the materialism, which was a consequence of the great increase of wealth brought from foreign lands, had to be checked. To oppose the alarming growth of Turkish power it was necessary to preach self-sacrifice, manly courage and above all Christian unity amongst those in power, amongst those who in former times had sallied forth against the East strong in the feeling of being one family in the faith. A still worse foe to Christian society was to be found in moral discouragement and exhaustion; there was need of a new spirit to awaken the motive force of religious life and to stir men to a more active use of the means of grace.

If we compare the moral aims and motives which inspired Luther’s reformation, with the great needs of the times, as just described, we cannot fail to see how far short he fell of the requirements.

Most of the aims indicated were quite strange to him. Judging from the standpoint of the olden Church, he frequently sought the very opposite of what was required. Some few instances may be cited.

So little did Luther’s reformation tend to realise the sublime moral principle of the union and comradeship of the nations, that, on the contrary, he encouraged nationalism and separatist tendencies even in Church matters. Where his idea of a National Church prevailed, there the strongest bond of union disappeared completely.[460] The more the authority of the Empire was subverted by the separatists, by religious Leagues and violent inroads of princes and sovereign towns within the Empire, the more the idea of unity, which at one time had been so great a power for good, had to suffer. He complained that the nations and races were as unfriendly to each other as devils. But for him, the rude Saxon, to abuse all who dwelt outside his borders in the most unmeasured terms, and to pour out the vials of his wrath and vituperation on the Latin nations because they were Catholic could hardly be regarded as conducive to better harmony. When he persistently declared in his writings and sermons that the real Turks were to be found at home, or when he fanned the flames of fraternal hatred against the Papists within the Fatherland, such action could scarcely promote a more effectual resistance to the danger looming in the East. The Bible, according to him, was to serve as the means of uniting the people of God. He flung it amongst the people at a time when everything was seething with excitement; yet he himself, in spite of all his praise of Bible study, was moved to execrate the results. It seemed, so he declared, as though it had been done merely “in order that each one might bore a hole where his snout happened to be.”[461]

As to subjectivism, the dominant evil of the age, he himself carried it to its furthest limits, relentlessly condemning everywhere whatever did not appeal to him and exalting his personal views and feelings into a regular law; subjectivism pervades and spoils his whole theology, and, in the domain of ethics, puts both personality and conscience on a new and very questionable basis.[462] The subjective principle as used by him and exalted into an axiom, might be invoked equally by any religious faction for its own ends. We need only recall Luther’s theory of the lonely isolation of the individual in the matter of faith.

Again, if that transition period between mediæval and modern times was suffering from moral and religious exhaustion and was inclined to be pessimistic concerning spiritual goods, and if, for its moral reform, what was needed was a leader deeply imbued with faith in revelation, able by the very strength of his faith to arouse the world of his day, and to inspire the lame and timid with enthusiasm and delight in the ancient treasures of religion—then, again, one is forced to ask whether such a man as Luther, even apart from his new and erroneous doctrines, had the requisite strong and overbearing devotion to supernatural truths? Is it not Luther who speaks so often of the weakness of his faith, of his doubts and his inward trials, and who, in order to reassure himself, declares that everyone, even the Apostles, the martyrs and the saints, were acquainted with the like?

Not only did he not fight against pessimism, but, as the years went by, he even built it into a truly burdensome system. Towards the end of his life, owing both to his theories and to his experiences, he became a living embodiment of dejection, constituting himself its eloquent advocate. His view of the history of the kingdom of Christ was the gloomiest imaginable. Everywhere he saw the power of the devil predominant throughout the whole course of the world’s history.

Not only is everything in the world outside of Christ Satanic, but even the ancient people of God, chosen with a view to the coming Redeemer, according to Luther, “raged and stormed” against the faith. But “the fury of the Jews” was exceeded by the “malice” which began to insinuate itself into the first Church not very long after its foundation. What the Jews did was “but a joke and mere child’s play” compared with the corruption of the Christian religion by means of “human ordinances, councils and Papistry.” Hardly had the light enkindled by Christ begun to shine before it gradually flickered out, until lighted again by Luther. In the East prevailed the rule of the Turks, those devils incarnate, whilst the West groaned under the Papacy, which far exceeds even the Islam in devilry.[463]

His pessimism sees the origin of the corruption in the Church in the fact, that, already in the first centuries, “the devil had broken into Holy Scripture and made such a disturbance as to give rise to many heresies.” To counteract these the Christians surrendered themselves to human ordinances; “they knew of no other way out of the difficulty than to set up a multitude of Councils side by side with Scripture.” “In short, the devil is too clever and powerful for us; everywhere he is an obstacle and a hindrance. If we go to Scripture, he arouses so much dissension and strife that we grow sick of the Word and afraid to trust to it. Yet if we rely on human councils and counsels, we lose Scripture altogether and become the devil’s own, body and soul.” This evil was not solely due to setting up human ordinances in the place of Scripture, but also to the preference shown in theory to works which arose when people saw, that “works or deeds did not follow” from the preaching of the Apostles, “as they should have done.” “Hence the new disciples set to work to improve upon the Master’s building and proceeded to confuse two different things, viz. works and faith. This scandal has been a hindrance to the new doctrine of faith from the beginning even to the present day.”

From all this one would rather gather that the fault lay more in the nature of Christianity than in the devil.

Luther’s pessimistic tendency also expresses itself in the conviction, that it was the “gruesome, frightful and boundless anger of God” that was the cause of the desolation of Christendom during so many centuries, though he assigns no reason for such anger on the part of God.

His gloomy view of the world, exercising an increasing domination over him, led him to take refuge in fatalistic grounds for consolation, which, according to his wont, he even attributed to Christ who had inspired him with them. Haunted by his diabolical visions he finally became more deeply imbued with pessimism than any present-day representative of the pessimistic philosophy.

“Here you are living,” so he writes to one of his friends, “in the devil’s own den of murderers, surrounded by dragons and serpents. Of two things one must happen; either the people become devils to you, or you yourself become a devil.”[464]

Formerly he had looked forward with some courage and confidence to the possibility of a change. But even his courage, particularly at critical junctures, for instance, at the Coburg and during the Diet of Augsburg, more resembled the wanton rashness of a man who seeks to set his own fears at defiance. At any rate his peculiar form of courage in faith was not calculated to give a fresh stimulus, amid the general relaxation and exhaustion, to religious enthusiasm and the spirit of cheerful self-sacrifice for the highest aims of human life. On the other hand, his success was largely due to the discouragement so widely prevalent. We meet with a mournful echo of this discouragement in the sayings of certain contemporary Princes of the Church, who seem to have given up everything for lost. Many who had been surprised and overwhelmed by the sudden bursting of the storm were victims of this depression.

Luther not only failed to direct the unfavourable tendencies of the age into better channels, but even to some extent allowed himself to be carried away by them.

Even so strong a man as he, was keenly affected by the spirit of the age. In some respects it is true his work exercised a lasting effect on the prevalent currents, but in others he allowed his work to be dominated by the spirit then abroad. To the nominalistic school of Occam he owed not only certain of his doctrines but also his disputatious and subversive ways, and his method of ignoring the general connection between the truths of faith and of making the most of the grounds for doubt. Pseudo-mystic influences explain both his subjectivism and those quietistic principles, traces of which are long met with in his writings. Humanism increased his aversion to the old-time scholasticism, his animosity to the principles of authority and tradition, his contempt for all things mediæval, his lack of appreciation for, and unfairness to, the religious orders no less than the paradox and arrogance of his language. A strain of coarse materialism runs through the Renaissance. In Luther, says Paulsen, “we are reminded of the Renaissance by a certain coarse naturalism with which the new Evangel is spiced, and which, in his attacks on celibacy and the religious life, occasionally leads Luther to speak as though to abstain from carnal works was to rebel against God’s Will and command.”[465] To the tendency of the Princes to exalt themselves Luther yielded, even at the expense of the liberties and well-being of the people, simply because he stood in need of the rulers’ support. The spirit of revolt against the hierarchy which was seething amongst the masses and even among many of the theologians, and which the disorders censured in the Gravamina of the various Diets had brought almost to the point of explosion, carried Luther away; even in those writings which contemporaries and aftercomers were to praise as his greatest achievement and, in fact, in his whole undertaking in so far as it involved separation from Rome, he was simply following the trend of his time.

8. The Church Apart of the True Believers

Luther’s sad experiences in establishing a new Church led him for several years to cherish a strange idea; his then intention was to unite the true believers into a special band and to restrict the preaching of the Gospel to these small congregations which would then represent the real Church.

This idea of his of gathering together the true Christians has already been referred to cursorily elsewhere,[466] but it is of such importance that it may well be dealt with somewhat more in detail.

Luther’s Theory of the Church Apart prior to 1526

On the whole the idea which Luther, previous to 1526, expressed over and over again as clearly as could be desired and never rejected later, viz. of uniting certain chosen Christians—the true believers—in a “congregation apart” and of regarding the remainder, i.e. the ordinary members of the flock which followed him, or popular Church as it was termed, as a mere lump still to be kneaded, gives us a deep insight into the development which his conception of the Church underwent and into his opinion of the position of his congregations generally. The idea was an outcome more of circumstances than of reflection, more a fanciful expedient than a consequence of his theories; thus it was that it suffered shipwreck on the outward conditions which soon showed that the plan was impossible of realisation. It really originated in the moral disorders rampant in the new Church, particularly at Wittenberg. So few of those who followed him allowed their hearts to be touched by the Evangel, and yet all, none the less, claimed not merely to be called Evangelicals but even to share in the Supper. Luther saw that this state of things was compromising the good name of the work he had started.

After the refusal of the Princes and nobles to listen to his appeal to amend the state of Christendom, he determined to take his stand on the congregational principle. He fondly expected that, thanks to the supposed inward power of reform in the new communities, all his proposals would soon be put into execution, the old system of Church government swept away and a new order established more in accordance with his views. Hence in the writing to the magistrates and congregation of Prague, “De instituendis ministris ecclesiæ” (Nov., 1523), which, without delay, he caused to be translated into German,[467] he strove to show, how, everywhere, the new Church system was to be established from top to bottom by the selection of pastors by members of the congregation filled with faith (“iis qui credunt, hæc scribimus”).[468] According to this writing, the Visitors and Archbishop yet to be chosen by the zealous clergy, were to live only for the sake of the pastors and the congregations, whom they had to better by means of the Word. The faithful congregations “will indeed be weak and sinful”—Luther had no hope of setting up a Church of the perfect—but, “seeing they have the Word, they are at least not ungodly; they sin indeed, but, far from denying, they confess the Word.”[469] “Luther’s optimism,” says Paul Drews, “saw already whole parishes converted into congregations of real Christians, realising anew the true Church of the Apostolic ideal.”[470]

In the same year, 1523, on Maundy Thursday, he for the first time spoke publicly, in a sermon delivered at Wittenberg, of the plan he had long cherished of segregating the “believing” Christians from the common herd. This was when publishing a new rule on the receiving of the Supper, making Penance, or at least a general confession of sin, a condition of reception. In future all were no longer to be allowed to approach the Sacrament indiscriminately, but only those who were true Christians; hence communion was to be preceded by an examination in faith, i.e. by the asking of certain questions on the subject. The five questions, and the answers, which were printed with a preface by Bugenhagen, practically constituted an assurance of a sort to the dispensers of the Sacrament that the communicants approached from religious motives and that they received the Body and Blood of Christ as a sign of the forgiveness of their sins.

“It must be a faith,” says Luther in this sermon, “which God works in you, and you must know and feel that God is working this in you.” But did it come to a “serious self-examination you would soon see how few are Christians and how few there would be who would go to the Sacrament. But it might be arranged and brought about, as I greatly wish, for those in every place who really believe to be set apart and distinguished from the others. I should like to have done this long ago, but it was not feasible; for it has not been sufficiently preached and urged as yet.” Meanwhile, instead of “separating” the true believers (later on he speaks of private sermons for them to be preached in the Augustinian minster) he will still address his discourse to all, even though it be not possible to know “who is really touched by it,” i.e. who really accepts the Gospel in faith; but it was thus that Christ and the Apostles had preached, “to the masses, to everyone; ... whoever can pick it up, let him do so.... But the Sacrament ought not thus to be scattered broadcast amongst the people in the way the Pope did.”[471]

In the “Formula missæ” from about the beginning of Dec., 1523, he again speaks of the examination of the communicants, and adds that it was enough that this should take place once a year, while, in the case of educated people, it might well be omitted altogether; the examination by the “bishop” (i.e. the pastor) must however extend also to the “life and conduct” of the communicants. “If he sees a man addicted to fornication, adultery, drunkenness, gambling, usury, cursing or any other open vice he is to exclude him from the Supper unless he has given proof of amendment.” Moreover, those admitted to the Sacrament are to be assigned a special place at the altar in order that they may be seen by all and their moral conduct more easily judged of all. He would, however, lay down no commands on such matters, but leave everything, as was his wont, to the good will of free Christian men.[472]

The introduction of the innovation was, moreover, to depend entirely on the consent of the congregation, agreeably with his theory of their rights. This he said in a sermon of Dec. 6, 1523.[473] It was probably in that same month that the plan was tried.

These preliminary attempts at the formation of an assembly of true Christians were no more crowned with success than his plan for the relief of the poor by means of the so-called common box, or his efforts to establish a new system of penalties. Hence he declared, that, owing to the Wittenbergers’ want of preparation, he was obliged to put off its execution “until our Lord God forms some Christians.” For the time being “we have not got the necessary persons.” In 1524 he told them that “neither charity nor the Gospel could make any headway amongst them.”[474] In the Wittenberg congregation he could “not yet discern a truly Christian one.”[475] He nevertheless permitted the whole congregation to take its share, when, in the autumn of 1523, the town-council appointed Bugenhagen to the office of parish-priest; this he did agreeably with his ideas concerning the rights of the congregation.

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.[476]

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,[477] and this he did shortly after, adding an introduction of his own.[478]

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,”[479] 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.[480]

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.[481]

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,[482] of which Schwenckfeld took notes which have come down to us.[483] 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.”[484] 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.[485]

Hence, even then, he still had a quite definite intention of forming such a congregation of true believers at Wittenberg.[486]

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.[487] 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.”[488]

This hesitation cannot be explained merely by the anxiety to which he himself refers incidentally lest commands should arouse the spirit of opposition and give rise to “factions,”[489] 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.”[490]

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?”[491]

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.”[492] 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.[493]

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.”[494] 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, p. 139.)

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.[495] 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.[496]

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.”[497]

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.[498] “And yet it was the only practical plan which at all corresponded with the theories of the Reformer prior to 1525.”[499] 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.[500] 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.[501]

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 did 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.”[502]

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.[503] 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.[504]

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

Even when giving his formal consent to the Visitation the Elector says, speaking of the “erection of parishes”: “We have considered and weighed the matter and have come to the conclusion that it becomes us as ruler of the land to see to the business.”[505] Luther, moreover, for the sake of securing some order in the new Church by the only means at his command, outdid himself in assurances to the Elector, that, he, being the principal member of the Church, must take in hand the adjusting of the parishes and the appointment of suitable clergy; that his very love of his country obliged him to this, and, that, owing to the pressing needs of the time, he was a sort of “makeshift bishop” of the Church. This last title is significant of the reserve Luther still maintained; he was loath to see the Church’s authority simply merged in that of the State; he did, nevertheless, speak of the sovereign as the head of the new congregations and, little by little, allowed him so large a share in their government that, even in his own day, the secular sovereign was to all intents and purposes supreme head of the episcopate.[506]

9. Public Worship. Questions of Ritual

The ordering of public worship, particularly at Wittenberg, was a source of much anxiety to Luther. He was not blind to the difficulties which his reformation had to face in this department.

The soul of every religion must be sought in its public worship. Hence, in Catholicism, the bishops, from earliest times, had bestowed the most diligent and pious care on worship. A proof of this is to be found in the grand liturgies of antiquity and the prayers, lessons and outward rites with which they so lovingly surround the eucharistic sacrifice.

To build up a new liturgy from the very foundation was far from Luther’s thoughts. He was not the “creator” of any new form of public worship. He preferred to make the best of the Roman Mass, for one reason, as he so often insists, because of the weak, i.e. so as not needlessly to alienate the people from the new Church by the introduction of novelties.[507] From the ancient rite he merely eliminated all that had reference to the sacrificial character of the Mass, the Canon, for instance, and the preceding Offertory. He also thought it best to retain the word “Mass” in both the writings in which he embodied his adaptation: “Formula missæ et communionis pro ecclesia Wittenbergensi” 1523,[508] and “Deudsche Messe und Ordnung Gottis Diensts” 1526.[509]

By the introduction of the German Mass in the latter year “the whole Pope was flung out of the Church,”[510] to use Spalatin’s words. It is noteworthy that Luther, in announcing this latest innovation to the inhabitants of Wittenberg, admitted that he had been urged by the sovereign to make the change.[511]

In Luther’s “German Mass,” as in his even more traditional Latin one, we find at the beginning the Introit, Kyrie Eleison, Gloria and a Collect; then follows the Epistle for the Sunday together with a Gradual or Alleluia or both; then the Gospel and the Credo, followed by the sermon. “After the sermon the Our Father is to be publicly explained and an exhortation given to those intending to approach the Sacrament,”[512] then comes the Consecration. The Secret was omitted with the Offertory. The Preface was shortened. Of the whole of the hated “Canon”[513] the “priest” was merely to pronounce aloud over the Bread and Wine the words of consecration as given in 1 Cor. xi. 23-25, saying then the Sanctus and Benedictus. The Elevation came during the Benedictus.[514] The Our Father and the Pax follow, then the communion of the officiating clergyman and the faithful, under both kinds. To conclude there was another collect and then the blessing.

Some of the portions mentioned were sung by the congregation and great use was made of German hymns.[515] Whatever had been retained in Latin till 1526 was after that date put into German. For the sake of the scholars who had to learn Latin Luther would have been in favour of continuing to say the Mass in that language. The old ecclesiastical order of the excerpts of the Epistles and Gospels read in church was retained, though the selection was not to Luther’s tastes; it seemed to him that the passages in Holy Scripture which taught saving faith were not sufficiently to the fore; he was convinced that the man who originally made the selection was an ignorant and superstitious admirer of works;[516] his advice was that the deficiency should at any rate be made good by the sermon. The celebration of Saints’ days was abolished, saving the feasts of the Apostles and a few others, and of the feasts of the Virgin Mary only those were retained which bore on some mystery of Our Lord’s life. In addition to the Sunday service short daily services were introduced consisting of the reading and expounding of Holy Scripture; these were to be attended at least by the scholars and those preparing themselves for the preaching office. At these services Communion was not to be dispensed as a general rule but only to those who needed it.

Alb and chasuble continued to be worn by the clergyman at the “Mass” in the parish church of Wittenberg, though no longer in the monastic church. The Swiss who visited Wittenberg were struck by this, and, in their reports, declared that Luther’s service was still half Popish. At Augsburg where Zwinglianism was rampant the “puppet show” of the Saxons, with their priestly vestments, candles, etc., seemed a “foolish” and scandalous thing.[517] Luther wished the use of lights and incense to be neither enjoined nor abolished.

As he frequently declared, the utmost freedom was to prevail in matters of ritual in order to avoid a relapse into the Popish practice of man-made ordinances. Even the adoption of the “Deudsche Messe, etc.,” was to be left to the decision of the congregations and the pastors.[518] If they knew of anything better to set up in its place, this was not to be excluded; yet in every parish-congregation there must at least be uniformity. The chief thing is charity, edification and regard for the weak. Above all, the “Word must have free course and not be allowed to degenerate into singing and shouting, as was formerly the case.”[519]

Of the whole of the Wittenberg liturgical service, he says in his “Deudsche Messe”—to the surprise of his readers who expected to find in it a work for the believers—that it did not concern true believers at all: “In short we do not set up such a service for those who are already Christians.”[520] He is thinking, of course, of the earnest, convinced Christians whom, as stated above (p. 133 f.), he had long planned to assemble in special congregations. They alone in his eyes constituted the true Church, however imperfect and sinful they might be, provided they displayed faith and good-will.

“They” (the true believers), he here says of his regulations, “need none of these things, for which indeed we do not live, but rather they for the sake of us who are not yet Christians, in order that we may become Christian; true believers have their service in the spirit.”[521] In the case of the particular assemblies he had in mind for the latter, they would have to “enter their names and meet in some house or other for prayer, reading, baptism, receiving of the Sacrament and other Christian works.” “Here there would be no need of loud or fine singing. They could descant a while on baptism and the Sacrament, and direct everything towards the Word and prayer and charity. All they would need would be a good, short catechism on faith, the Ten Commandments and the Our Father.” Amongst them ecclesiastical discipline and particularly excommunication would be introduced; such assemblies would also be well suited for “common almsgiving,” all the members helping in replenishing the poor-box.[522]

Until such “congregations apart” had come into being the service, and particularly the sermon, according to Luther, must needs be addressed to all. “Such a service there must be for the sake of those who are yet to become Christians, or need strengthening ... especially for the sake of the simple-minded and young ... on their account we must read, sing and preach ... and, where this helps at all, I would have all the bells rung and all the organs played.” He boasts of having been the first to impart to public worship this aim and character, “to exercise the young and to call and incite others to the faith”; the “popish services,” on the other hand, were “so reprehensible” because of the absence of any such character.—In his Churches he sees “many who do not yet believe and are no Christians; the greater part stand there gaping at the sight of something new, just as though we were holding an open-air service among the Turks or heathen.” Hence it seems to him quite necessary to regard the worship in common as simply a public encouragement to faith and Christianity.[523]

As for those Christians who already believed, Luther cannot loudly enough assert their freedom.

As his highest principle he sets up the following, which in reality is subversive of all liturgy: In Divine worship “it is a matter for each one’s conscience to decide how he is to make use of such freedom [the freedom of the Christian man given by the Evangel]; the right to use it is not to be refused or denied to any.... Our conscience is in no way bound before God by this outward order.”[524] This has the true Lutheran ring. Beside this must be placed his frequently repeated assertion, that we can give God nothing that tends to His honour, and that every effort on our part to give Him anything is merely an attempt to make something of man and his works, which works are invariably sinful.[525] He also teaches elsewhere that not only does real and true worship consist in a life of faith and love, but that the outward worship given in common is in reality a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving (a gift to God after all) made in common solely because of all people’s need to express their faith and love;[526] he also calls it a “sacrificium,” naturally, not in the Catholic, but in the widest sense of the word. Even the expression “eucharistic sacrifice,” i.e. sacrifice of praise, is not inacceptable to him; but at least the sacrifice must be entirely free.

With such a view the form of worship described above seems scarcely to tally. A well-defined outward order of worship was first proposed, and then prescribed; it would, according to Luther’s statement, have imposed itself even on the assemblies of true believers. It is true, he says, that only considerations of charity and public order compel such outward regulations, that it was not his doing nor that of any other evangelical authority. Still it is a fact that they were enjoined, that a service according to the choice of the individual was, even in Luther’s day, regarded with misgivings, and that even in the 16th century it fell to the secular prince to sanction the form of worship in church and to punish those who stayed away, those who failed to communicate and those who did not know their catechism.[527] We have here another instance of the same contradiction apparent in matters of dogma, where Luther bound down the free religious convictions of the individual—supposed to be based on conscience and the Bible—in cast-iron strands in his catechism and theological hymns. The catechism, even in the matter of confession, and likewise the theology of the hymns, closely trenched on the regulations for Divine worship. The Ten Commandments, the Our Father, etc., were also put into verse and song. Moreover, those who presented themselves for communion had to submit at least to a formal examination into their faith and intentions, and also to a certain scrutiny of their morals—a strange limitation surely of Evangelical freedom and of the universal priesthood of all believers.

According to Kawerau, the best Protestant liturgical writers agree, that a “false, pedagogic conception of worship” finds expression in Luther’s form of service.[528] To make the aim of the public worship of the congregation—whatever elements the latter might comprise—a mere exercise for the young and a method of pressing “Christianity” on non-believers was in reality to drag down the sublime worship of God, the “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” as Luther himself sometimes calls it, to an undeservedly low level.

This degradation was, however, intimately bound up with the fact, that Luther had robbed worship of its most precious and essential portion, the eucharistic sacrifice, which, according to the Prophet Malachias, was to be offered to the Lord from the rising till the going down of the sun as a pure and acceptable oblation. To the Catholic observer his service of the Mass, owing to the absence of this all-important liturgical centre, appears like a blank ruin. As early as 1524 he was told at Wittenberg that his service was “dreary and all too sober.” Although it was his opposition to the Holy Sacrifice and its ceremonies which called forth this stricture, yet at the same time his objection to any veneration of the Saints also contributed to the lifeless character of the new worship. It was, however, above all, the omission of the sacrifice which rendered Luther’s clinging to the ancient service of the Mass so unwarrantable.[529]

Older Protestant liturgical writers like Kliefoth spoke of the profound, mystical value of Luther’s liturgy and even of certain elements as being quite original. Recourse to the old scheme of the Mass, duly expurgated, was, however, a much simpler process than they imagined. We must also bear in mind, that Luther himself was not so rigid in restricting the liturgy to the forms he himself had sketched out as they assumed. On the contrary, he left room for development, and allowed the claims of freedom. Hence it is not correct to say, that he curtailed the tendency towards “free liturgical development,” as has been asserted of him by Protestants in modern times.[530] For it was no mere pretence on his part when he spoke of freedom to improve. The progress made in hymnology owing to this freedom is a proof that better results were actually arrived at.

How easy it was, on the other hand, for liberty to lead to serious abuses is plain from the history of the Evangelical churches in Livonia. Melchior Hofmann, the preacher, had come from that country to Wittenberg complaining that the reformed service had given rise to the worst discord among both people and clergy. Luther composed a circular letter addressed to the inhabitants of Livonia, entitled “Eyne christliche Vormanung von eusserlichem Gottis Dienste unde Eyntracht an die yn Lieffland,” which was printed together with a letter from Bugenhagen and another from Hofmann.[531] Therein he admits with praiseworthy frankness his embarrassment with regard to ceremonial uniformity.

“As soon as a particular form is chosen and set up,” he says, “people fall upon it and make it binding, contrary to the freedom brought by faith.” “But if nothing be set up or appointed, the result is as many factions as there are heads.... One must, however, give the best advice one can, albeit everything is not at once carried out as we speak and teach.” He accordingly encourages those whom he is addressing to meet together amicably “in order that the devil may not slink in unawares, owing to this outward quarrel about ceremonies.” “Come to some agreement as to how you wish these external matters arranged, that harmony and uniformity may prevail among you in your region,” otherwise the people would grow “confused and discontented.” Beyond such general exhortations he does not go and thus refuses to face the real difficulty.

When seeking to introduce uniformity nothing was to be imposed as “absolute command,” but merely to “ensure the unity of the Christian people in such external matters”; in other words, “because you see that the weak need and desire it.” The people, however, were “to inure themselves to the breaking out of factions and dissensions. For who is able to ward off the devil and his satellites?” “When you were Papists the devil, of course, left you in peace.... But now that you have the true seed of the divine Word he cannot refrain from sowing his own seed alongside.”

The writing did no good, for the confusion continued. It was only in 1528 that the Königsberg preacher, Johann Briesmann, at the request of the authorities and with Luther’s help, established a new form of church government in Livonia.

Were one to ask which was the principal point in Luther’s Mass, the Supper or the sermon, it would not be easy to answer.

The term Mass and the adaptation of the olden ritual would seem to speak in favour of the Supper.[532] If, however, the service was to consist principally of the celebration of the Supper it was necessary there should always be communicants. Without communions there was, according to Luther, no celebration of the Sacrament. Now at Wittenberg there were not always communicants, nor was there any prospect of the same presenting themselves at every Sunday service, or that things would always remain as in 1531 when Luther boasted, that “every Sunday the hundred or so communicants were always different people.”[533]

At the weekly services, communion in any case was very unusual. The custom had grown up under Luther’s eyes that, on Sundays, as soon as the sermon was over, the greater part of the congregation left the church.[534] From this it is clear that the ritual involved a misunderstanding. In practice the celebration of the Supper became something merely supplementary, whereas, according to Luther himself, it ought to have constituted either the culmination of the service, or at least an organic part of Divine worship; under him, however, it was soon put on the same level with the sermon though the organic connection between the two is not clear. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that predominance was assigned to the sermon,[535] which undoubtedly was only right if, as Luther maintains, worship was intended only for instruction.

In our own day some have gone so far as to demand that the sermon should be completely sundered from the Supper; and also to admit, that the creation of a real Lutheran liturgy constitutes “a problem still to be solved.”[536]

It is a fact of great ethical importance, that, what was according to Luther the Sacrament of His Real Presence instituted by Christ Himself, had to make way for preaching and edification by means of prayers and hymns. Even the Elevation had to go. From the beginning its retention had aroused “misgivings,”[537] and, to say the least, Luther’s reason for insisting on it, viz. to defy Carlstadt who had already abolished it, was but a poor one. It was abrogated at Wittenberg only in 1542; elsewhere, too, it was discontinued.[538] Thus the Sacrament receded into the background as compared with other portions of the service. But, like prayer and hymn-singing, preaching too is human and subject to imperfections, whereas the Sacrament, even though it be no sacrifice, is, even according to Luther, the Body of Christ. Luther was, indeed, ready with an answer, viz. that the sermon was also the Word of God, and, that, by means of both Sacrament and sermon, God was working for the strengthening of faith. Whether this reply gets rid of the difficulty may here be left an open question. At any rate the ideal Word of God could not be placed on the same footing with the sermons as frequently delivered at that time by expounders of the new faith, capable or otherwise, sermons, which, according to Luther’s own loud complaints, contained anything but the rightful Word of God, and were anything but worthy of being classed together with the Sacrament as one of the two component parts of Divine worship.

Three charges of a general character were made by Luther against Catholic worship. First, “the Word of God had not been preached ... this was the worst abuse.” Secondly, “many unchristian fables and lies found their way into the legends, hymns and sermons.” Finally, “worship was performed as a work whereby to win salvation and God’s grace; and so faith perished.”[539]

Of these charges it is hard to say which is the most unjust. His assertion that the Word of God had not been preached and that there was no Bible-preaching, has been refuted anew by every fresh work of research in the history of preaching at that time. Nor was the Bible-element in preaching entirely lacking, though it might not have been so conspicuous. The truth is, that, in many places, sermons were extremely frequent.[540]

Luther’s second assertion, viz. that Catholic worship was full of lying legends, does not contain the faintest trace of truth, more particularly there where he was most radical in his work of expurgation, i.e. in the Canon. The Canon was a part of the Mass-service, which had remained unaltered from the earliest times. It was only into the sermons that legends had found their way to a great extent.

If finally, as seems likely, Luther, by his third charge, viz. that the olden Church sought to “win salvation and God’s Grace” through her worship, means that this was the sole or principal aim of Catholic worship, here, too, he is at sea. The real object had always been the adoration and thanksgiving which are God’s due, offered by means of the sublime sacrifice united with the spiritual sacrifice of the whole congregation. Adoration and thanksgiving found their expression above all in the sublime Prefaces of the Mass. The thought already appears in the “Sursum corda, Gratias agamus, etc., Dignum et iustum est,” whereupon the priest, taking up again the “Dignum et iustum est,” proceeds: “Æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere ... per Christum Dominum nostrum.” It is not without significance that “dignum,” “iustum” and “æquum” stand first, and that “salutare” comes after; praise and thanksgiving are what it becomes us first of all to offer in presence of God’s Majesty, but they are also profitable to us because they render God gracious to us.[541]

The ritual of the Catholic sacrifice, dating as it does from the Church’s remotest past, expresses adequately the highest thoughts of Christian ethics, viz. the adoration of the Creator by the creature through the God-man Christ, Who alone worthily honours Him. To this idea Luther’s attempt at a liturgy does not do justice.

10. Schwenckfeld as a Critic of the Ethical Results of Luther’s Life-work

Caspar Schwenckfeld, the Silesian nobleman (see above, p. 78 ff.), is a type of those men who attached themselves to Lutheranism with the utmost enthusiasm, but, who, owing to the experience they met with and in pursuance of those very principles which Luther himself had at first advocated, came to strike out new paths of their own.

In spite of his pseudo-mystical schemes for the establishment of a Church on the Apostolic model; in spite of his abandonment of doctrines to which Luther clung as to an heirloom of the ancient Church; regardless of his antagonism to Luther—which the latter repaid with relentless persecution—this cultured fanatic expressed in his numerous writings and letters his lasting gratitude to, and respect for, Luther on account of the services which the latter had in his opinion rendered in the restoration of truth. He extols his “wonderful trumpet-call,”[542] and without any trace of hypocrisy, says: “What Martin Luther and others have done aright, for instance in the expounding of Holy Scripture ... I trust I will, with God’s help, never underrate.”[543]

At the same time, however, he is not slow to express it as his conviction, that, “At the beginning of the present Evangel the said [Lutheran] doctrine was far better, purer and more wholesome than it is now.”[544] “Dr. Martin led us out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, and there he left us to lose ourselves on the rough roads; yet he seeks to persuade everybody that we are already in the Promised Land.” This he said in 1528.[545]

“Although Luther has written much that is good,” “that has been and still may be profitable to believers, for which we give praise and thanks to God the Lord, still he has also written much that is evil, and in the end it will be proved that his and his people’s doctrine or theologia was neither apostolic, nor pure, nor perfect ... which certainly might have been seen long since by its fruits.”[546]

His criticisms of Luther, which, in spite of his harsh treatment at the latter’s hands, are throughout temperately expressed and with a certain aristocratic reticence, deal on the one hand with the fruits of the Wittenberg Reformation, and, on the other, with certain main features of the ethical teaching of his master and one-time friend; his strictures thus form a recapitulation of what has gone before.

On the hoped-for Moral Revival

“The reformation of life has not taken place,” this is what Carl Ecke, Schwenckfeld’s latest biographer, represents as the honest conviction of the “apostolic” preacher of the faith in Silesia.[547] “The religion of Lutheranism as it then was did not, in Schwenckfeld’s opinion, as a whole reach the standard of Bible Christianity.”[548] “The greater part of the common herd,” says Schwenckfeld, “who are called Lutherans do not know to-day how they stand, whether with regard to works, or in relation to God and to their own conscience.”[549]

Schwenckfeld’s own standard was certainly somewhat one-sided and his own Apostolic Church, so far as it ever saw the light, fell considerably short of the ideal. His insight into the ethical conditions and doctrines was, however, keen enough and his judgment was at least far calmer and clearer than that of Carlstadt and Luther’s other more hot-headed antagonists. He was also able to base his definite and oft-repeated statements on the experience he had gained during his wide travels and in intercourse with all sorts of men.

Thus he writes: “If by God’s grace I see the great common herd and the poor folk on both sides, as they really are, then I must fain admit, that, under the Papacy and in spite of all its errors, there are more pious, godfearing men than in Lutheranism. I also believe that they might more easily be improved than some of our Evangelicals who are now trying to hide themselves and their sinful life behind Holy Scripture, nay, behind a fictitious faith and Christ’s satisfaction, and in whom no fear of God is left.”[550]

Many of Schwenckfeld’s more specific complaints are supported by other witnesses. We may compare what Luther himself and his friends report of the conditions at Wittenberg[551] with what Schwenckfeld says a little later: “It is credibly asserted concerning their Church at Wittenberg, that there such a mad, dissolute life prevails as is woeful to see; there is no discipline whatever, no fear of God, and the people are wild, impudent and unmannerly, particularly Philip’s students, so that even Dr. Major not long since (1556) is himself said to have complained of it there in a sermon, saying: Our Wittenberg is so widely talked of that strangers fancy there are only angels here; when, however, they come they find only devils incarnate. If Philip, who sends out his disciples as Apostles ‘in omnem terram’ does not found any better Churches than these, he has but little to boast of before God.”[552]

“What harm and damage to consciences such Lutheran teaching has brought into Christendom it is easier to bewail with many tears than to describe.” Though Luther’s “Evangel and office has discovered and made an end of much false worship and a great apostasy, for which we give thanks to God the Lord,” yet “it has but little of the power of grace, of the Holy Spirit, or of blessing, for bringing sinners to repentance and true conversion.”[553]

“Thus we have Schwenckfeld’s witness that he had seen nothing of any real awakening or revival among the people generally. Whole classes, the merchant class, for instance, remained inwardly untouched by the glad tidings; even where the ‘Word’ was preached, there the bad sermons, of which Schwenckfeld had complained as early as 1524, often produced evil fruits.” Thus writes Ecke.[554] Schwenckfeld, however, does not lay all the blame on the preachers, but rather directly on the ethical principles resulting from Luther’s doctrines, which had filled the utterances of the new preachers with so much that was dangerous and misleading. “Oh, how many of our nobles have I heard say: ‘I cannot help it,’ ‘it is God’s Will,’ ‘God does all, even my sin, and I am not answerable’; ‘if He has predestined me I shall be saved.’” “How many have I heard, who all appealed to the Wittenberg writings, and, who, alas, to-day, are ten times worse than before the Evangel began to be preached.”[555]

Whenever he exhorted his Lutheran co-religionists to conversion and holiness of life, so he declares in 1543, he always received some reply such as the following: “We are poor sinners and can do nothing good.” “Faith alone without works saves us.” “We cannot keep God’s law”; “have no free-will.” “Amendment is not in our power.” “Christ has done enough for us; He has overthrown sin, death, hell and the devil; that is what we have to believe.”[556] When he preached sanctification he was dubbed a “Papist.” “That the Lutherans accuse me of being more a Papist than a Lutheran is due mainly to good works and the stress I lay on them.”[557]

Even in 1524 he had published an essay on practical ethics entitled, “An Exhortation regarding the misuse of sundry Articles of the Evangel, etc.” (Above, 79 f.) In 1547 he found it necessary to publish another work on the “Misuse of the Evangel.” To this misuse he attributes most of the above excuses of his “Lutheran co-religionists.” Luther himself, so he declares here, was much to blame for the confusion that prevailed. He quotes many passages from Luther’s Church-postils, from the edition printed at Wittenberg in 1526 with prefaces by Luther and Stephen Roth. He also makes use of the same work in another book, “On Holy Scripture,” which he also wrote in 1547.[558] Many of the incriminated passages were “wickedly omitted” in the next editions of the Church-postils.[559]

Further Complaints of Schwenckfeld’s. The Ethical Doctrines

Schwenckfeld, in his strictures on Luther’s preaching and its results, deals with the ethical side of the new teaching concerning the Law and the Gospel.

Luther had said, that, with the law, God “wished to do no more than make us feel our helplessness, our weakness and our sickness.”[560] The critic asks: “Why not also to make us eschew evil and do good, 1 Peter iii.?” On the other hand, Luther will have it that the “Law makes all of us sinners so that not even the smallest tittle of these commandments can be kept even by the most holy.” “Such is in short Luther’s doctrine concerning the Law and the Commandments of God. There he lets it rest, as though the ground and contents of the Law and God’s intention therein—which was centred on Christ—were nothing.... Of this doctrine, particularly, the common people can make nothing save that God has given us His commandments, not in order that we may keep them by means of His Grace, but only that we may thereby come to the knowledge of sin.”[561]

“Why should we hate our life in this world ... and follow Christ? Nay, why take pains at all to enter in at the narrow gate and to seek the strait way to life everlasting (Mt. vii.) if it is possible to reach heaven along the broad way on which so many walk who are called Lutherans, and to enter in through the wide gate which they make for themselves!”[562]

Two other points of doctrine which in the same connection Schwenckfeld censures in the strongest terms as real stumbling blocks in ethics, are the preaching of predestination and the denial of free-will.

How, at the outset, the “learned had soared far too high” with their article of predestination “and, by means of their human wisdom, reached a philosophical, heathen conception [presumably the ancient ‘fatum’] can readily be seen from their books, especially from Luther’s against free-will and Melanchthon’s first Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.”[563]

“Luther writes that no one is free to plan either good or evil, but only does as he is obliged; that, as God wills, so we live.... Item, that the man who does evil has no control over himself, that it is not in man’s power to do evil or not, but that he is forced to do it, ‘nos coacti facimus.’” “God,” so Philip tells us, “does all things by His own power.”[564]

“They have treated of predestination in accordance with heathen philosophy, forgetful of Christ and the Grace of the Gospel now made manifest; they wrote of it from a human standpoint; and though Luther and Philip, after they had seen the evil results, would gladly have retracted it, yet because what they had formerly taught was very pleasing to the flesh, it took root in men’s hearts so deeply that what they afterwards said passed almost unheard.”[565]

“This aberration,” says Ecke, “was to Schwenckfeld a further sign that their method of reformation was not that of good missionaries.”[566]

Schwenckfeld complains rightly: “Instead of beginning, after the Apostles’ example, by preaching penance in the name of Christ ... they preferred vehemently to urge such lofty matters as predestination and the Divine election together with the denial of free-will.”[567]

The universal priesthood as commonly preached and understood by the people furnishes Schwenckfeld with a further cause for grumbling. “They have also been in the habit of preaching and shouting to the multitudes that all of them were already Christians, children of God and spiritual kings and princes. What corruption of conscience and abuse of the Evangel has resulted from all this we see and hear to-day from many ... who thereby have fallen into a bold and godless manner of life.”[568]

Finally there was Luther’s ethical attitude towards sin. “Look at the second sermon for Easter Day in Luther’s Church-sermons [where he says]: ‘Where now is sin? It is nailed to the cross.... If only I hold fast to this, I shall have a good conscience of being, like Christ Himself, without sin; then I can defy death, devil, sin and hell.’”

Schwenckfeld continues: “And again: ‘Seeing that Christ allowed Himself to be put to death for sin, it cannot harm me. Thus does faith work in the man who believes that Christ has taken away sin; such a one feels himself to be without sin like Christ, and knows that death, devil and hell have been conquered and cannot harm him any more.’ Hæc ille. This has proved a scandal to many.”[569]

He is angered by what Luther says in his sermon for the 8th Sunday after Trinity, that “no work can condemn a man, that unbelief is the only sin, and that it was the comfort of Christians to know that sins do not harm them. Item, that only sinners belong to the Kingdom of God.”—He is much shocked at such sayings as, “If you but believe you are freed from sin.... If we believe then we have a Gracious God and only need to direct our works to the advantage of our neighbour so that they may be profitable to him.”[570]

Such a form of neighbourly love does not suffice to reassure Schwenckfeld as to the method of justification taught by Luther. “We see here that repentance, the renewal of the heart and the crucifixion of the flesh with its lusts and concupiscences, as well as the Christian combat ... are all forgotten.” “How is it possible that such easy indulgence and soft and honeyed sermons should not lead to little account being made of sin, seeing the people are told that God winks at the sins of all those who believe?”[571]

Again and again he returns to the patent fact that “the result of such shameless preaching and teaching is nothing but a grave and damnable abuse of the Evangel of Jesus Christ, since people now make but little account even of many and great sins.”[572]

For Luther to point to the Crucified and tell the believer that “sin is nothing but a devilish spectre and a mere fancy,” was to speak “fanatically.” Luther might write what he pleased, but here, at any rate, he was himself guilty of that fanatism of which he was fond of accusing others.[573] Schwenckfeld himself had been numbered by the preachers among the crazy fanatics.

The Silesian also ruthlessly attacked the imputation of the merits of Christ by means of the Sola Fides.

The Lutherans, even the best of them, imagine their righteousness to be nothing else “but the bare faith, since they believe God accounts them righteous, even though they remain as they were before.” “They should, however, be exhorted to search Holy Scripture and to ask themselves in their hearts whether such faith and righteousness are not rather a human persuasion, mere imposition and self-delusion ... which men invent to justify an impenitent life; not a true, living faith, the gift of the Holy Ghost ... which, as Scripture says, purifies the heart, Acts xv. ..., reconciles consciences, Rom. v. ..., and brings Christ into our hearts, Eph. iii., Gal. ii.”[574]

An instructive parallel and at the same time a severe censure on Luther’s method of building up “faith” on inward assurance is afforded by Schwenckfeld’s account of the experiences and spiritual trials on which he himself had founded his faith. The preachers, insisting on the outward Word, urged that he had no right to appeal to his mere feelings; yet, as he points out, this very thing had been proclaimed from Wittenberg as the right, nay the duty of all.

“In addition to all this they reject the ghostly feeling and that inward sense of the Grace of God which Luther at the outset ... declared to be necessary for salvation, writing that: ‘No one can rightly understand God or the Word of God unless he has it direct from the Holy Ghost.’ No one, however, can receive it from the Holy Ghost unless he experiences it, makes trial of it and feels it; in this experience the Holy Ghost is teaching us as in His own school, outside of which nothing is learned but all is mere delusion, words and vapouring.”[575]

“How would Dr. Luther’s own gloss stand,” Schwenckfeld asks elsewhere, “which he gives on the words of the New Testament, 1 Cor. xi.: ‘Let a man prove himself,’ and where he says: ‘to prove oneself is to feel one’s faith,’ etc.? But the man who feels his faith will assuredly by such a faith—which is a power of God and the very being of the Holy Ghost—have forgiveness of sins and bear Christ in his believing heart.”[576]

He reproaches Luther with having in later days failed to distinguish between the outward Word or preaching and the inward living Word of God. The blunt assertion of the preachers—which was encouraged by “Luther’s unapostolic treatment of the problem of Christian experience”[577]—that faith referred solely to the written Word and was elicited merely by preaching,[578] leads in practice to neglect of those passages of Scripture which speak of the Divine character of faith and of its transmission by the Holy Ghost; owing to the lack of a faith really felt, there was also wanting any “holiness of life worked by the Spirit, and any moral justice and sanctification.”[579]

Schwenckfeld on the Popular Church and the New Divine Service

The system of a State Church then being set up, the externalism of the Lutheran Popular Church and the worship introduced were naturally looked at askance by the promoter of the Church Apart of true believers; at the same time his strictures are not unduly biassed.[580]

He looks at the matter from the standpoint of Lutheran freedom, or as Carl Ecke expresses it, of “the early Christian individualism rediscovered by Luther.”[581] From this point of view Schwenckfeld can detect in the official Lutheran Church only a shadow of the Apostolic Church. Not merely the principle of the multitude, but also the appeal to the authorities for help and coercion was opposed to the spirit of Christ, at least according to all he had learnt from Luther.

“He raises the question whether that can possibly be the true Church of Christ where human coercion, force, commands and prohibitions, rather than Christian freedom and willingness, rule over faith and conscience.... The secular sword has no place in the Churches of Christ, but belongs to the secular authorities for the punishment of the wicked.... As little as it is in the power of the authorities to bestow the faith on anyone, to strengthen or increase it, so little does it befit it to force, coerce or urge.... What the authorities do here [in matters of faith] is nothing but violence, insolence and tyranny.”[582]

But “we always want to attract the great crowd!”[583] “They saw the great multitude and feared lest the churches should dwindle away.”[584] How were they to keep “Mr. Omnes, the common people, faithful to their churches without the help of the secular arm?”[585] They do not even think of first honestly instructing the magistrates how to become Christians and what the duty of a Christian is.... I am unable in conscience to agree with those who make idols of them so speedily and persuade them that they already have that, which their own conscience tells them they have never received.[586]

At the Supper, too, so he complains, owing to the want of proper discrimination between the converted and unconverted, “a false security of conscience is aroused, whereby people are led away from true repentance; for they teach that it is a source of grace, indulgence, ablution of sin, and salvation, whereas it is plain that no one receives anything of the kind.”[587] In his view it is not right to say that the Supper leads man to reconciliation with God by enlivening his faith, and that even that man “who is full of sin or has a bad conscience gnawed and bitten by his sins” should receive it, as the preachers teach;[588] on the contrary, only those who are reconciled have the right to approach. “Not the man who wants to be holy [the unjustified], but he who has already been hallowed by Christ, is fit for the Supper.”[589]

From the standpoint of his own peculiar doctrine he characterises it as a downright error on Luther’s part to have “put Justification even into the Sacrament”—Schwenckfeld himself had thrown all the sacraments overboard.—He also reproaches Luther with teaching, that: “Forgiveness of sins, which is only to be found in Christ as ruler, is to be sought in the Sacrament.”[590]

Now, Schwenckfeld was far from advising people to forsake the official Church; he did not recommend that the church service and its ceremonies and sermons should be shunned, he feared lest such advice might play into the hands of the Anabaptists. He recommends as necessary an “external practice of godliness.”[591] Yet, according to him, this was more readily carried out in private conventicles, i.e. in some sort of congregation apart of the true believers such as Luther himself had long dreamt of, and in conversation with Schwenckfeld, in 1525, regretted his inability to establish owing to the fewness of true Christians. (Above, p. 138 f.)

Luther in the meantime had become reconciled to the outer, Popular, Church, and, with his preachers’ help, had made of the outward Word a law.

The imperious behaviour of Luther and the preachers in the matter of the outward Word was, however, odious to Schwenckfeld. He protested strongly against being tied down to professions of faith liable at any moment to be rendered obsolete by new discoveries in Scripture truth.[592] Interest in things Divine was regarded as a privilege of the pastor’s office and the layman was kept in ignorance on the ground, that “one must believe blindly.”[593] Luther “is setting up a new tyranny, and wishes to tie men to his doctrine.”[594]