Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  “That most ambitious, lying scribe Dr. Luther,” he says, becomes, “the longer he lives, more of an arrogant fool, shields himself behind Holy Scripture and utilises it to his advantage in the most deceitful manner.”

  The greatest of all crimes is that “no attention is paid to the commands of the Pope of Wittenberg,” Münzer remarks sarcastically; Luther was putting himself up “in place of the Pope,” while at the same time “he curried favour with the Princes”; “you, you new Pope, make them presents of convents and churches.” “You have distracted all Christendom with a false religion and now, when it is necessary, are unable to control it” except with the help of the rulers. He was introducing “a new system of logic-chopping with the Word of God”; he is desirous of “managing everything by the Word” and exalts himself as though he had not come into the world in the ordinary way but had “sprung from the brain.” He speaks of “our safeguard and protection” as though he himself were a Prince; with his “fantastic reason” he was working mischief, while making a great display of humility; he makes much of his own “simplicity,” but this resembled that of the fox, or of an onion which has nine skins. All his adversaries he labelled as “devils,” but he himself raved and ranted like a hound of hell, and if he did not raise an open revolt this was merely because, like the serpent, he glided over the rocks.

  Equally remarkable are the words addressed to Luther by Valentine Ickelsamer, one of the leaders of the fanatics. He tells Luther that his preaching only goes half-way, for it proclaims the right of private judgment in things Divine, but not for all men, and “confuses the people” by its want of logic and instability. Ickelsamer himself is determined to speak, “because the Evangel gives us freedom of belief and the power of judging.” Not only does he find numerous “Scriptural utterances which are against Luther’s views,” but he also inveighs strongly against the gigantic pride which leads Luther to “desire that everyone should look to him”; his self-exaltation leads him to commit the gravest “injustice and tyranny.” “Settle yourself comfortably in the Papal Chair” he cries to Luther, “for after all you only want to listen to your own singing.” Your obstinacy is such, he says, that you would have no scruple in contradicting the statement “Christ is God” “were you unfavourably disposed” towards its author. Would it not be a good thing if “Our Lord God were to smash the idols and set you up in their place?”

  In spite of all remonstrances Luther continued, nevertheless, to compare his adversaries to mere devils. The devil beguiles them to employ their reason, to seek the reason (“Quare”) of the articles of faith. Such words are tantamount to an attack on theology in general. “The ‘Quare,’” he says, “leads us into all the unhappiness and heresy by which our first parents were deceived by the devil in Paradise.... Verily we deserve to be crowned with coltsfoot for being so foolish and falling so readily into the snare when the devil comes along with his old ‘Quare.’”

  “They are lost [the fanatics], they are the devil’s own.”

  On the other hand, Luther makes the devil confirm his own mission. “The devil has been dreading this for years and smelt the roast from afar; he also sent forth many prophecies against it, some of which apply to me so that I often marvel at his great malice. He would also have liked,to kill me.” The devil desired Luther’s death simply in order to rid himself of his fine preaching.

  Another familiar thought which seemed to have an irresistible attraction for him frequently intervenes to confirm this theory. My interior sufferings, he says repeatedly, and my struggles with the devil, set the seal of most certain assurance on my teaching, and this seal the fanatics do not possess.

  Here comes Campanus, he says of a refractory theologian in his ranks, and “makes himself out to be the only man who is sure of everything”; “he prides himself on being certain upon all matters and of never being at a loss”; Campanus condemns him as a “liar and diabolical man,” and of this he was “as sure as that God is God.” And yet this Campanus has “never passed through any struggle, nor had a tussle with the devil, and actually glories in the fact.” On the other hand, he himself, he says, had been “tried by the devil” and proved by “temptation”; that is the true test and is essential for every real “student of theology”; “for as soon as God’s Word dawns upon you, the devil is sure to try you, and in this way you become a doctor in very truth.”

  “But those whom the devil takes captive by false doctrine and a factious spirit, he holds tight. He takes possession of their heart, making them deaf and blind, so that they neither see nor hear anything, and do not pay any heed to the plain, clear and manifest testimony of Holy Scripture; for they are so tightly caught in his clutches that they cannot be torn away.” At first heretics do not see where Satan is taking them. “They put forward the antecedent most devoutly and with a simulated peace of conscience. Thereupon the devil draws a consequence, which they [the factious spirits] had never dreamt of. Johann Agricola, for instance, does not see the consequence. But the devil is a capital dialectician and has already built up the syllogism, antecedent, consequence and all. And yet we still lull ourselves into a false security and think that the devil is not governing the world.” Luther refers the prejudice of heretics in favour of their errors to a kind of bewitchment by the devil, for if the devil is able to bewitch the bodily senses, as Luther was convinced he could, then he will also be able, “expert and dangerous adept” as he is, to take captive the hearts and consciences of men “with still greater ease.” “What is nothing but a lie, heresy and horrid darkness, they take for plain, pure truth and are not to be moved from their ideas by any exhortations or remonstrance.... They behave like those parents in the legend of St. Macarius, who, owing to a delusion of the devil, took their daughter for a cow, until they were at last set free from the spell.... Thus the devil in such people effects by false doctrine what he is otherwise wont to bring about by means of delusive pictures and fancies.”

  We will here conclude with a family scene. On one occasion, in 1544, Luther, in the presence of Catherine von Bora, poured out his ire against Schwenckfeld for his want of acquiescence in his doctrines: “He is ‘attonitus’ [moonstruck], like all the fanatics,” he says of him. “He spurts the grand name of Christ over the people and wants me to bow low before him. I thank God I am better off, however, for I know my Christ well, and have no need of this man’s filth.” Here Catherine interrupted him: “But, my dear Sir, that is really too rude.” Luther replied: “They are my masters in rudeness. It is necessary to speak so to the devil; he can make an end of this fanaticism,” etc.... “He leads the Churches astray, though from God he has received neither command nor mission! The mad, devil-possessed fool does not even know what he is talking about.... Of the muck the devil spews and excretes through his booklet I have had quite enough.”

  7. Progress of the Apostasy. Diets of Spires (1529) and Augsburg (1530)

  The Imperial Edict, issued after the Diet of Nuremberg and dated February 8, 1523, had decreed, that the Gospel should be preached agreeably to the teaching of the Christian Church.

  At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, it had been enacted that the edict against Luther promulgated at Worms was to stand and to be enforced as far as was possible; the Pope was also to be requested to summon a General Council to meet in Germany, but, before this, it was to be decided at a religious convention, meeting at Spires in the same year, what attitude should be assumed towards the doctrines called into question. Against this decree Luther published an angry, turbulent pamphlet entitled, “Two unequal and contradictory commands.” He therein showed that the orders of the Diet were self-contradictory; for it was absurd to uphold the Edict of Worms in all its severity and yet at the same time to reserve the decision regarding Luther’s doctrine to the assembly at Spires.

  He went, however, much further and attacked the authority of the Estates and of the Emperor. On the other hand, at the conclusion of the Diet, the Dukes William and Lewis of Bavaria, and twelve bishops of So
uth Germany, at the instance of Lorenzo Campeggio, the Papal Legate, and Archduke Ferdinand, had met together and agreed to carry out the Edict of Worms as far as they were able, and at the same time to inaugurate a wholesome reform of morals amongst both clergy and people. “By means of this agreement the temporal and spiritual Princes hoped to maintain unimpaired the religious unity of the German Nation and to insure internal tranquillity in their dominions.” Dissension for a while prevented others from joining the league.

  The indecision of the Diets was due not only to lack of unity among the Catholics, but to a variety of other causes: to political considerations, the state of general unrest, the need of adopting measures against the Turks, the apprehensions of the Estates, and, finally, to religious indifference.

  The Diet of Spires, in 1526, decreed in language no less ambiguous, that the Edict of Worms was to remain in force until a General Council could be summoned, and that the sovereigns and Estates of the Empire should “live, govern and conduct themselves as they hoped to answer for it to God and His Majesty [the Emperor].” This cannot be read “as implying that the evangelicals were given a formal right to separate themselves from the communion with the Church and to set about the work of reformation on their own account.”

  The Diet held subsequently at Spires, in 1529, opposed the anti-Catholic interpretation placed on the resolutions of 1526 and the way in which they had been enforced. It pointed out the inconveniences which had been their result, and sought earnestly to improve the position of affairs. The article of 1526, it declared, had been interpreted, during the time that had since elapsed, in a most regrettable manner, “as an excuse for all sorts of shocking new doctrines and sects” and had served as a cloak for “apostasy, strife, dissension and wickedness”; wherefore it was to be rescinded and certain other enactments put into force.

  Then follow the resolutions of the Diet of Spires, accepted by the Catholic majority and published with the Imperial sanction, against which the Lutheran Princes and Estates raised the “Protest” from which Protestantism took its name.

  Foremost among these resolutions is the following: Those who had previously adhered to the Edict of Worms, “are determined to abide by the same until the future Council shall be convened and to insist upon their subjects doing so too.” Further, it was enacted by the Estates, that, “where the new teaching had been introduced and could not be abolished without notable revolt, trouble and danger,” “novelties” were to be avoided until the assembly of the Council. Thirdly, in places where the new teaching was in force the Blessed Sacrament in particular was not to be assailed or preached against (as it was by the Zwinglians), neither were people to be hindered from attending Mass. After more stringent measures had been sanctioned against the Anabaptists and “those who attempted to stir up the people to revolt against the authorities,” for the preservation of peace in matters of religion it was further determined that, “no ruler might take the subjects of another ruler under his protection whether for reasons of belief or for any other.” What had been enacted at Worms was to remain in full force, but “if any Estate should commit a deed of violence” the Kammergericht was empowered to pronounce sentence of outlawry on the offenders.

  The latter enactments were occasioned by the preparations made by the Lutheran Estates to unite themselves still more closely in a common League.

  Against these resolutions as a whole the party in the Reichstag which sided with the promoters of the innovations raised, on April 19, 1529, the “Protest” which has since become famous; they declared at the same time that it was impossible for them to countenance any alteration in the favourable Edict of 1526. Previous to the departure of their rulers and representatives, the Saxon Electorate, and Hesse, and the cities of Strasburg, Ulm and Nuremberg entered, on April 22, into the “particular secret agreement” concerning mutual armed resistance to any attack which might be made upon them in the “cause of the Word of God” by the Swabian League, the Kammergericht or the Empire.

  In a Memorandum of the same year, also signed by Melanchthon, Luther approved the action of his Elector and sought to justify it from the theological point of view; “first, and principally, on the ground, that His Princely Highness [by accepting the Edict of Spires of 1529] would have been acting contrary to His Highness’ conscience and condemning the doctrines which he acknowledged before God to be both Christian and wholesome.” He also seeks to pacify the Prince by instancing the terrible abuses of the Papal Church in Germany, which had been so happily removed by the new teaching and which he ought not to use his authority to “re-establish or maintain.”

  In the Reichstagsabschied there was, however, no question of the maintenance of abuses, and, only to Luther, could the retention of the Mass appear as the maintenance of an “abuse”; it was much more a question of checking, for a time, the advance of the innovations and the propaganda of the Lutherans and of securing the legal rights of Catholics, more particularly in those districts where the new religious system was already in being.

  The protesters might have accepted such a settlement without in any way sacrificing their claims to equity, had they really been desirous of justice and of coming to an agreement. Melanchthon himself, in his own name and that of his friends, could well write: “The Articles in the Imperial resolution do not press hard upon us.” Luther’s opinion, on the other hand, was quite different; it was only his defiant attitude and their own obstinate determination to resist the terms offered them which prevented the protesters from accepting the resolution in question. Their action, however, tended to excite men’s minds still further. They appealed to their conscience: “What would our assent be,” they declared in the Protest, “but a public denial of our Lord and Saviour Christ and His sacred Word, which there is no doubt we now possess in all its purity, simplicity and justice?”

  They then made the attitude they had thus assumed an excuse for refusing assistance against the Turks, notwithstanding the fact that news had already reached Spires that the Turkish fleet was cruising off the coasts of Sicily and threatening Western Christendom. “It is an undeniable fact, that they would not promise to render aid against the Turks unless the Catholic Estates of the Empire arrived at some other conclusion concerning the religious question than that under discussion, which they declared it was impossible for them to accept.”

  Such was the position of affairs when, in the summer of 1530, the much-talked-of Reichstag at Augsburg was entrusted with the task of bringing about the practical reconciliation of those who had separated from communion with the Church. In the event of failure the Emperor held out the prospect of the employment of sterner measures.

  Luther and his followers agreed to the negotiations, but with the so-called “proviso of the Gospel,” i.e. stipulating that the plain Gospel, the Word of God, should not be tampered with.

  What a grand temple of peace the old Augsburg Rathaus, with its assembly-room for the forty-two members of the Reichstag, might have become! In that case what significance the solemn procession of the Blessed Sacrament, which, accompanied by the Catholic Princes and Estates, passed through the streets of the city on the Feast of Corpus Christi, would have possessed. Intentionally the feast had been celebrated with a pomp and concourse of people such as had never before been witnessed in the city, for was it not to symbolise the establishment of religious unity? As it was, however, the work of pacification completely miscarried, owing to the stubbornness of Luther and his party.

  Luther himself remained in the background during the proceedings. He stayed in a place of safety at the Castle of Coburg, situated on the Elector’s territory but sufficiently near to the city where the Reichstag was held. His principal representative at Augsburg was Melanchthon, who distinguished himself by his supple and politic behaviour. In the afternoon of June 25, he caused the famous “Augsburg Confession,” of which he was himself the author, to be read in the Rathaus in the presence of the Estates of the Empire. The names of the Elector and Prince Johann Frederic
k of Saxony, of Margrave George of Brandenburg, of Dukes Franz and Ernest of Lüneburg, of Landgrave Philip of Hesse, of Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt and of the representatives of the Imperial cities of Nuremberg and Reutlingen were appended to the document.

  When, during the sessions, the new faith and the steps to be taken towards peace came to be discussed, Melanchthon, greatly to the surprise of the Catholics, spoke as though the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops was to be recognised by the Protestant party. The Papal Legate wrote letters to Rome which aroused high hopes, at least in the minds of the more sanguine. It was only gradually that the Catholic party at Augsburg became convinced of the fact that they must exercise the utmost caution. The ambiguity of the promises made by Melanchthon rested on the fact, that acknowledgment of jurisdiction was tacitly restricted to those bishops who should declare themselves in favour of the new faith.

  Melanchthon also made use of equivocation in the official document just referred to, i.e. in the Augsburg Confession of Faith (cp. vol. iii., xviii. 1). In the further negotiations with his opponents he was “only too much inclined to agree to ambiguous formularies and to make concessions not honestly compatible with the constantly repeated ‘proviso,’ that nothing contrary to the Gospel was to be conceded.” When, however, he showed himself shaky even with regard to the sacrificial character of the Mass, the anxious Lutherans at Augsburg thought it time to draw Luther’s attention to the matter. It was pointed out to him by Lazarus Spengler that “our representatives at Augsburg are going rather too far” in their concessions to the demands of the Catholics.