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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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]