Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  41. Apostolical pardons ought to be proclaimed with caution, lest the people should falsely suppose that they are placed before other good works of charity.

  42. Christians should be taught that it is not the mind of the Pope that the buying of pardons is to be in any way compared to works of mercy.

  43. Christians should be taught that he who gives to a poor man, or lends to a needy man, does better than if he bought pardons.

  44. Because, by a work of charity, charity increases, and the man becomes better; while, by means of pardons, he does not become better, but only freer from punishment.

  45. Christians should be taught that he who sees any one in need, and, passing him by, gives money for pardons, is not purchasing for himself the indulgences of the Pope, but the anger of God.

  46. Christians should be taught that, unless they have superfluous wealth, they are bound to keep what is necessary for the use of their own households, and by no means to lavish it on pardons.

  47. Christians should be taught that, while they are free to buy pardons, they are not commanded to do so.

  48. Christians should be taught that the Pope, in granting pardons, has both more need and more desire that devout prayer should be made for him, than that money should be readily paid.

  49. Christians should be taught that the Pope’s pardons are useful, if they do not put their trust in them, but most hurtful, if through them they lose the fear of God.

  50. Christians should be taught that, if the Pope were acquainted with the exactions of the preachers of pardons, he would prefer that the Basilica of St. Peter should be burnt to ashes, than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

  51. Christians should be taught that, as it would be the duty, so it would be the wish of the Pope, even to sell, if necessary, the Basilica of St. Peter, and to give of his own money to very many of those from whom the preachers of pardons extract money.

  52. Vain is the hope of salvation through letters of pardon, even if a commissary — nay, the Pope himself — were to pledge his own soul for them.

  53. They are enemies of Christ and of the Pope, who, in order that pardons may be preached, condemn the word of God to utter silence in other churches.

  54. Wrong is done to the word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or longer time is spent on pardons than on it.

  55. The mind of the Pope necessarily is that, if pardons, which are a very small matter, are celebrated with single bells, single processions, and single ceremonies, the Gospel, which is a very great matter, should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, and a hundred ceremonies.

  56. The treasures of the Church, whence the Pope grants indulgences, are neither sufficiently named nor known among the people of Christ.

  57. It is clear that they are at least not temporal treasures, for these are not so readily lavished, but only accumulated, by many of the preachers.

  58. Nor are they the merits of Christ and of the saints, for these, independently of the Pope, are always working grace to the inner man, and the cross, death, and hell to the outer man.

  59. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church are the poor of the Church, but he spoke according to the use of the word in his time.

  60. We are not speaking rashly when we say that the keys of the Church, bestowed through the merits of Christ, are that treasure.

  61. For it is clear that the power of the Pope is alone sufficient for the remission of penalties and of reserved cases.

  62. The true treasure of the Church is the Holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God.

  63. This treasure, however, is deservedly most hateful, because it makes the first to be last.

  64. While the treasure of indulgences is deservedly most acceptable, because it makes the last to be first.

  65. Hence the treasures of the Gospel are nets, wherewith of old they fished for the men of riches.

  66. The treasures of indulgences are nets, wherewith they now fish for the riches of men.

  67. Those indulgences, which the preachers loudly proclaim to be the greatest graces, are seen to be truly such as regards the promotion of gain.

  68. Yet they are in reality in no degree to be compared to the grace of God and the piety of the cross.

  69. Bishops and curates are bound to receive the commissaries of apostolical pardons with all reverence.

  70. But they are still more bound to see to it with all their eyes, and take heed with all their ears, that these men do not preach their own dreams in place of the Pope’s commission.

  71. He who speaks against the truth of apostolical pardons, let him be anathema and accursed.

  72. But he, on the other hand, who exerts himself against the wantonness and licence of speech of the preachers of pardons, let him be blessed.

  73. As the Pope justly thunders against those who use any kind of contrivance to the injury of the traffic in pardons,

  74. Much more is it his intention to thunder against those who, under the pretext of pardons, use contrivances to the injury of holy charity and of truth.

  75. To think that Papal pardons have such power that they could absolve a man even if — by an impossibility — he had violated the Mother of God, is madness.

  76. We affirm on the contrary that Papal pardons cannot take away even the least of venial sins, as regards its guilt.

  77. The saying that, even if St. Peter were now Pope, he could grant no greater graces, is blasphemy against St. Peter and the Pope.

  78. We affirm on the contrary that both he and any other Pope has greater graces to grant, namely, the Gospel, powers, gifts of healing, etc. (1 Cor. xii. 9.)

  79. To say that the cross set up among the insignia of the Papal arms is of equal power with the cross of Christ, is blasphemy.

  80. Those bishops, curates, and theologians who allow such discourses to have currency among the people, will have to render an account.

  81. This licence in the preaching of pardons makes it no easy thing, even for learned men, to protect the reverence due to the Pope against the calumnies, or, at all events, the keen questionings of the laity.

  82. As for instance: — Why does not the Pope empty purgatory for the sake of most holy charity and of the supreme necessity of souls — this being the most just of all reasons — if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of that most fatal thing money, to be spent on building a basilica — this being a very slight reason?

  83. Again; why do funeral masses and anniversary masses for the deceased continue, and why does not the Pope return, or permit the withdrawal of the funds bequeathed for this purpose, since it is a wrong to pray for those who are already redeemed?

  84. Again; what is this new kindness of God and the Pope, in that, for money’s sake, they permit an impious man and an enemy of God to redeem a pious soul which loves God, and yet do not redeem that same pious and beloved soul, out of free charity, on account of its own need?

  85. Again; why is it that the penitential canons, long since abrogated and dead in themselves in very fact and not only by usage, are yet still redeemed with money, through the granting of indulgences, as if they were full of life?

  86. Again; why does not the Pope, whose riches are at this day more ample than those of the wealthiest of the wealthy, build the one Basilica of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with that of poor believers?

  87. Again; what does the Pope remit or impart to those who, through perfect contrition, have a right to plenary remission and participation?

  88. Again; what greater good would the Church receive if the Pope, instead of once, as he does now, were to bestow these remissions and participations a hundred times a day on any one of the faithful?

  89. Since it is the salvation of souls, rather than money, that the Pope seeks by his pardons, why does he suspend the letters and pardons granted long ago, since they are equally efficacious.

  90. To repress these scruples and arguments of the laity by f
orce alone, and not to solve them by giving reasons, is to expose the Church and the Pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Christian men unhappy.

  91. If then pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of the Pope, all these questions would be resolved with ease; nay, would not exist.

  92. Away then with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ: “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace.

  93. Blessed be all those prophets, who say to the people of Christ: “The cross, the cross,” and there is no cross.

  94. Christians should be exhorted to strive to follow Christ their head through pains, deaths, and hells.

  95. And thus trust to enter heaven through many tribulations, rather than in the security of peace.

  PROTESTATION.

  I, MARTIN LUTHER, Doctor, of the Order of Monks at Wittemberg, desire to testify publicly that certain propositions against pontifical indulgences, as they call them, have been put forth by me. Now although, up to the present time, neither this most celebrated and renowned school of ours, nor any civil or ecclesiastical power has condemned me, yet there are, as I hear, some men of headlong and audacious spirit, who dare to pronounce me a heretic, as though the matter had been thoroughly looked into and studied. But on my part, as I have often done before, so now too I implore all men, by the faith of Christ, either to point out to me a better way, if such a way has been divinely revealed to any, or at least to submit their opinion to the judgment of God and of the Church. For I am neither so rash as to wish that my sole opinion should be preferred to that of all other men, nor so senseless as to be willing that the word of God should be made to give place to fables, devised by human reason.

  Treatise on Baptism (1519)

  Translated by C. M. Jacobs

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  TREATISE ON BAPTISM

  INTRODUCTION

  This treatise is not a sermon in the ordinary acceptation of the term. It was not preached, but, according to the Latin usage of the word “sermo,” was rather “a discourse,” “a discussion,” “a disputation” concerning baptism. Even in popular usage, the term “sermon” implies careful preparation and the orderly arrangement of thought. Here, therefore, we have a carefully prepared statement of Luther’s opinion of the real significance of baptism. Published in November, 1519, and shortly afterward in a Latin translation, it shows that the leading features of his doctrine on this subject were already fixed. With it should be read the chapter in the Large Catechism (1519), and the treatise Von der Wiedertaufe (1538). The treatment is not polemical, but objective and practical. The Anabaptist controversy was still in the future. No objections against Infant Baptism or problems that it suggested were pressing for attention. Nothing more is attempted than to explain in a very plain and practical way how every one who has been baptised should regard his baptism. It commits to writing in an entirely impersonal way a problem of Luther’s own inner life, for the instruction of others similarly perplexed.

  He is confronted with a rite universally found in Christendom and nowhere else, the one distinctive mark of a Christian, the seal of a divine covenant. What it means is proclaimed by its very external form. But it is more than a mere object-lesson pictorially representing a great truth. With Luther, Word and Spirit, sign and that which is signified, belong together. Wherever the one is present, there also is the efficacy of the other. The sign is not limited to the moment of administration, and that which is signified is not projected far into the distant future of adult years.

  The emphatic preference here shown for immersion may surprise those not familiar with Luther’s writings. He prefers it as a matter of choice between non-essentials. To quote only his treatise of the next year on the Babylonian Captivity: “I wish that those to be baptised were entirety sunken in the water; not that I think it necessary, but that of so perfect and complete a thing, there should be also an equally complete and perfect sign.” It was a form that was granted as permissible in current Orders approved by the Roman Church, and was continued in succeeding Orders. Even when immersion was not used, the copious application of the water was a prominent feature of the ceremony. No one is better qualified to speak on this subject than Prof. Rietschel, himself formerly a Wittenberger: “The form of baptism at Wittenberg is manifest from the picture by L. Cranach on the altar of the Wittenberg Pfarrkirche, in which Melanchthon is administering baptism. At Melanchthon’s left hand lies the completely naked child over the foot. With his right hand he is pouring water upon the child’s head, from which the water is copiously flowing.”

  Nor should it be forgotten that the immersion which Luther had in mind was not that of adults, almost unknown at the time, and as he himself says, practically unknown for about a thousand years, but that of infants. In the immersion of infants, he finds two things: first, the sinking of the child beneath the water, and, then, its being raised out, the one signifying death to sin and all its consequences, and the other, the new life into which the child is introduced. Four years later Luther introduced into the revised Order of Baptism which he prepared, the Collect of ancient form, but which the most diligent search of liturgical scholars has thus far been unable to discover in any of the prayers of the Ancient or Mediæval Church, expressing in condensed form this thought. We quote the introduction, as freely rendered by Cranmer in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI: “Almighty and Everlasting God, Which, of Thy justice, didst destroy by floods of water the whole world for sin, except eight persons, whom of Thy mercy Thou didst save, the same time, in the ark; and when Thou didst drown in the Red Sea wicked King Pharaoh with all his army, yet, the same time, Thou didst lead Thy people, the children of Israel, safely through the midst thereof; whereby Thou didst figure the washing of Thy holy baptism, and by the baptism of Thy well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ, didst sanctify the flood of Jordan, and all other waters, to the mystical washing away of sin,” etc.

  The figure is to him not that of an act, but of a process extending throughout the entire earthly life of the one baptised. Sin is not drowned at once, or its consequences escaped in a moment. It is a graphic presentation in epitome of the entire work of grace with this subject. Life, therefore, in the language of this treatise, is “a perpetual baptism.” As the mark of our Christian profession, as the sacramental oath of the soldier of the cross, it is the solemn declaration of relentless warfare against sin, and of life-long devotion to Christ our Leader. As the true bride is responsive to no other love than that of her husband, so one faithful to his baptism is dead to all else. It is as though all else had been sunk beneath the sea.

  In the distinction drawn between the sacramental sign and the sacramental efficacy in paragraphs seven and eight, the Protestant distinction between justification and sanctification is involved. The one baptised, becomes in his baptism, wholly dead to the condemning power of sin; but so far as the presence of sin is concerned, the work of deliverance has just begun. This is in glaring contrast with the scholastic doctrine that original sin itself is entirely eradicated in baptism. For baptism but begins the constant struggle against sin that ends only with the close of life. Hence the warning against making of baptism a ground for presumption, and against relaxing the earnestness of the struggle upon the assumption that one has been baptised. For unless baptism be the beginning of a new life, it is without meaning.

  Nor is the error less fatal which resorts to satisfactions, self-chosen or ecclesiastically appointed, for the forgiveness of sin committed after baptism. For as every sin committed after baptism is a falling away from baptism, all repentance is a return to baptism. No forgiveness is to be found except upon the terms of our baptism. Never changing is God’s covenant. If broken on our part, no new covenant is to be sought. We must return to the faith of our childhood or be lost. The Mediæval Church had devised a sacrament of penance to supplement and repair the alleged broken down and inoperative sacrament of baptism. Baptism, so ran the teaching, blotted out the past and put one on a plane t
o make a new beginning; but, then, when he fell, there was this new sacrament, to which resort could be taken. It was the “second plank,” wrote Jerome, “by which one could swim out of the sea of his sins.” “No,” exclaimed Luther, in the Large Catechism, “the ship of our baptism never goes down. If we fall out of the ship, there it is, ready for our return.”

  There are, then, no vows whatever that can be substitutes for our baptism, or can supplement it. The baptismal vow comprehends everything. Only one distinction is admissible. While the vow made in baptism is universal, binding all alike to complete obedience to God, there are particular spheres in which this general vow is to be exercised and fulfilled. Not all Christians have the same office at the same calling. When one answers a divine call directing him to some specific form of Christian service, the vow made in response to such call is only the re-affirmation and application to a peculiar relation of the one obligatory vow of baptism.

  While the divine institution and Word of God in baptism are of prime importance, the office of faith must also be made prominent. Faith is the third element in baptism. Faith does not make the sacrament; but faith appropriates and applies to self what the sacrament offers. Non sacramentum, sed fides sacramenti justificat. Nor are we left in doubt as to what is here meant by the term “faith.” In paragraph fourteen it is explicitly described. Faith, we are then taught, is nothing else than to look away from self to the mercy of God, as He offers it in the word of His grace, whereof baptism is the seal to every child baptised.

  Luther’s purpose, in this discussion, being to guard against the Mediæval theory of any opus operatum efficacy in the sacrament, he would have wandered from his subject, if he had entered at this place into any extended discussion of the nature of the faith that is required. A few years later (1528), the Anabaptist reaction, which over-emphasised the subjective, and depreciated the objective side of the sacraments, necessitated a much fuller treatment of the peculiar office of faith with respect to baptism. To complete the discussion, the citation of a few sentences from his treatise, Von der Wiedertaufe, may, therefore, not be without use. Insisting that, important as faith is, the divine Word, and not faith, is the basis of baptism, he shows how one who regards faith, on the part of the candidate for baptism, essential to its validity, can never, if consistent, administer baptism; since there is no case in which he can have absolute certainty that faith is present. Or if one should have doubts as to the validity of his baptism in infancy, because he has no evidence that he then believed, and, for this reason, should ask to be baptised in adult years, then if Satan should again trouble him as to whether, even when baptised the second time, he really had faith, he would have to be baptised a third, and a fourth time, and so on ad infinitum, as long as such doubts recurred. “For it often happens that one who thinks that he has faith, has none whatever, and that one who thinks that he has no faith but only doubts, actually believes. We are not told: ‘He who knows that he believes,’ or ‘If you know that you believe,’ but: ‘He that believeth shall be saved.’ In other words, it is not faith in our faith that is asked, but faith in the Word and institution of God. Again: “Tell me: Which is the greater, the Word of God or faith? Is not the Word of God the greater? For the Word does not depend upon faith, but it is faith that is dependent on God’s Word. Faith wavers and changes; but the Word of God abides forever.” “The man who bases his baptism on his faith, is not only uncertain, but he is a godless and hypocritical Christian; for he puts his trust in what is not his own, viz., in a gift which God has given him, and not alone in the Word of God; just as another builds upon his strength, wisdom, power, holiness, which, nevertheless, are gifts which God has given us.” Even though at the time of baptism there be no faith, the baptism, nevertheless, is valid. For if at the time of marriage, a maiden be without love to the man whom she marries, when, two years later, she has learned to love her husband, there is no need of a new betrothal and a new marriage; the covenant previously made is sufficient.