Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  I must, in my trouble, Luther says elsewhere of Confession, seek for comfort from my brother or neighbour, and “whatever consolation he gives me is ratified by God in heaven [‘erunt soluta in cœlo’ (Mat. xviii. 18)]”; “He consoles me in God’s stead and God Himself speaks to me through him.” “When I receive absolution or seek for comfort from my brother,” then “what I hear is the voice of the Holy Ghost Himself.” “It is a wonderful thing, that a minister of the Church or any brother should be ‘minister regni Dei et vitæ æternæ, remissionis peccatorum....’”

  But all such private exercise of the power of the keys notwithstanding, the public exercise by the ordinary ministers of the Church was also to be held in honour; it was to take place “when the whole body of the Church was assembled.” In spite of the opposition of some he was always in favour of the general absolution being given during the service. In this he followed the older practice which still exists, according to which, out of devotion and not with any idea of imparting a sacrament, the “Misereatur” and “Indulgentiam” were said over the assembled faithful after they had said the “Confiteor.” He also drew up a special form for this general confession and absolution.

  But even such public Confession was not, however, to be made obligatory; the very nature of Luther’s system forbade his setting up rules and obligations. In the present matter Luther could not sufficiently emphasise the Christian’s freedom, although this freedom, as man is constituted, could not but render impossible any really practical results. Hence Confession, private as well as public, was not to be prescribed, so much so that “those who prefer to confess to God alone and thereafter receive the Sacrament” are “quite at liberty to do so.” For Confession was after all merely a general or particular confession of trouble of conscience or sinfulness, made in order to obtain an assurance that the sins were all forgiven.

  It was, however, of the utmost importance that the penitents should declare whether they knew all that was necessary about Christ and His saving Word, and that otherwise they should be instructed. “If Christians are able to give an account of their faith,” Luther says in 1540 of the practice prevailing at Wittenberg, “and display an earnest desire to receive the Sacrament, then we do not compel them to make a private Confession or to enumerate their sins.” For instance, nobody thinks of compelling Master Philip (Melanchthon). “Our main reason for retaining Confession is for the private rehearsal of the Catechism.”

  In 1532, amidst the disturbance caused by Dionysius Melander, the Zwinglian faction gained the upper hand at Frankfort on the Maine, and the preachers, supported by the so-called fanatics, condemned and mocked at the Confession, which, according to the Smaller Catechism, was to be made to a confessor, to be duly addressed as “Your Reverence.” Luther, in his “Brieff an die zu Franckfort am Meyn” (Dec. 1532), accordingly set forth his ideas on Confession, in what manner it was to be retained and rendered useful. “We do not force anyone to go to Confession,” he there writes, “as all our writings prove, just as we do not enquire who rejects our Catechism and our teaching.” He had no wish to drive proud spirits “into Christ’s Kingdom by force.” As against the self-accusation of all mortal sins required in Popery he had introduced a “great and sublime freedom” for the quieting of “agonised consciences”; the penitent need only confess “some few sins which oppress him most,” even this is not required of “those who know what sin really is,” “like our Pastor [Bugenhagen] and our Vicar, Master Philip.” “But because of the dear young people who are daily growing up and of the common folk who understand but little, we retain the usage in order that they may be trained in Christian discipline and understanding. For the object of such Confession is not merely that we may hear the sins, but that we may learn whether they are acquainted with the Our Father, the Creed, the Ten Commandments and all that is comprised in the Catechism.... Where can this be better done, and when is it more necessary than when they are about to approach the Sacrament?”

  “Thus, previously [to the Supper], the common people are to be examined and made to say whether they know the articles of the Catechism and understand what it is to sin against them, and if they will for the future learn more and amend, and otherwise are not to be admitted to the Sacrament.” “But if a pastor who is unable at all times and places to preach God’s Word to the people, takes advantage of such time and place as offers when they come to Confession, isn’t there just the devil of a row! As if, forsooth, he were acting contrary to God’s command, and as if those fanatics were saints, who would prevent him from teaching God’s Word at such a time and place, when in reality we are bound to teach it in all places and at all times when or wheresoever we can.”

  This instruction, which is the “main reason” for retaining Confession, is to be followed, according to the same letter, by “the Absolutio” pronounced by the preacher in God’s stead, i.e. by the word of the confessor which may “comfort the heart and confirm it in the faith.” Of this same word Luther says: “Who is there who has climbed so high as to be able to dispense with or to despise God’s Word?”

  It is in the light of such explanations that we must appreciate the fine things in praise of Confession, so frequently quoted, which Luther says in his letter to Frankfurt.

  Luther goes on to make an admission which certainly does him honour: “And for this [the consolation and strength it affords] I myself stand most in need of Confession, and neither will nor can do without it; for it has given me, and still gives me daily, great comfort when I am sad and in trouble. But the fanatics, because they trust in themselves and are unacquainted with sadness, are ready to despise this medicine and solace.”

  He had already said: “If thousands and thousands of worlds were mine, I should still prefer to lose everything rather than that one little bit of this Confession should be lost to the churches. Nay, I would prefer the Popish tyranny, with its feasts, fasts, vestments, holy places, tonsures, cowls and whatever I might bear without damage to the faith, rather than that Christians should be deprived of Confession. For it is the Christian’s first, most necessary and useful school, where he learns to understand and to practise God’s Word and his faith, which cannot be so thoroughly done in public lectures and sermons.”

  “Christians are not to be deprived of Confession.” On this, and for the same reasons, Luther had already insisted in the booklet on Confession he had published in 1529. The booklet first appeared as an appendix to an edition of his Greater Catechism published in that year, and is little more than an amended version of Rörer’s notes of his Palm Sunday sermon in 1529.

  In this booklet on Confession, also entitled “A Short Exhortation to Confession,” he says of the “secret Confession made to a brother alone”: “Where there is something special that oppresses or troubles us, worries us and will give us no rest, or if we find ourselves halting in our faith,” we should “complain of this to a brother and seek counsel, consolation and strength.” “Where a heart feels its sinfulness and is desirous of comfort, it has here a sure refuge where it may find and hear God’s Word.” “Whoever is a Christian, or wishes to become one, is hereby given the good advice to go and fetch the precious treasure.” “Thus we teach now what an excellent, costly and consoling thing Confession is, and admonish all not to despise so fine a possession.” As the “parched and hunted hart” panteth after the fountains, so ought our soul to pant after “God’s Word or Absolution.” — The zeal expected of the penitent is well described, but here, as is so often the case with Luther, we again find the mistake resulting from his false idealism, viz. that, after doing away with all obligation properly so called, personal fervour and the faith he preached would continue to supply the needful.

  Before Luther’s day Confession had been extolled on higher grounds than merely on account of the comfort and instruction it afforded. It had been recognised as a true Sacrament instituted by Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and committed by Him with the words “Whose sins you shall forgive,” etc. (John xx
. 22 f.), to the exercise of duly appointed ministers. Yet the earlier religious literature had not been behindhand in pointing out how great a boon it was for the human heart to be able to pour its troubles into the ears of a wise and kindly guide, who could impart a true absolution and pour the balm of consolation and the light of instruction into the soul kneeling humbly before him as God’s own representative.

  As regards the instruction, on which Luther lays such stress as the “main reason” for retaining the practice, the Catholic Confession handbooks of that period, particularly some recently re-edited, show how careful the Church was about this matter.

  Franz Falk has recently made public three such handbooks, of which very few copies were hitherto known. One of these is the work of a priest of Frankfurt a. M., Magister Johann Wolff (Lupi), and was first published in 1478; the second is a block-book containing a preparation for Confession, probably printed at Nuremberg in 1475; the third an Augsburg manual of Confession printed in 1504. The last two were intended more for popular use and give the sins in the order of the Decalogue. The first, by Wolff, pastor of St. Peter’s at Frankfurt, consists of two parts, one for children, the other for “older people, learned or unlearned,” containing examinations of conscience, very detailed and explicit in some parts, into the sins against the Ten Commandments, the seven capital sins, and, finally, the sins committed with “the five outward senses.” The examination of conscience for children, for the sake of instruction also includes the Our Father, Hail Mary, Creed and Decalogue, also the list of capital sins, Sacraments and Eight Beatitudes. The copious Latin tags from Peter Lombard, Scotus, Gerson, etc., point to the manual having been meant primarily as a guide for the clergy, on whom an appendix also impresses the advantages of a frequent explanation of the Ten Commandments from the pulpit. Schoolmasters too, so the manual says, should also be urged to instruct on the Commandments those committed to their care. Luther’s manual on Confession contains so many echoes of Wolff’s work (or of other Catholic penitential handbooks) that one of Wolff’s Protestant editors remarks: “Such agreement is certainly more than a mere chance coincidence,” and, further: “It is difficult in view of the great resemblance of thought, and in places even of language, not to assume that the younger man is indebted to his predecessor.” However this may be, Wolff’s work, though holding no very high place as regards either arrangement or style, clearly expresses the general trend of the Catholic teaching on morality at that time, and refutes anew the unfounded charge that religious instruction for the people was entirely absent.

  “We see how mature and keen in many particulars was the moral sense in that much-abused period.... The author is not satisfied with merely an outward, pharisaical righteousness, but the spirit is what he everywhere insists on.... He also defines righteousness ... as absolute uprightness of spirit, thankful, devoted love of God and pure charity towards our neighbour, free from all ulterior motive.” These words, of the “Leipziger Zeitung” (“Wissenschaftliche Beilage,” No. 10, 1896), regarding the Leipzig “Beichtspiegel” of 1495, Falk applies equally to Wolff’s handbook for Confession.

  This latter instruction dwells particularly on the need of “contrition, sorrow and grief for sin” on the part of the penitent. N. Paulus, in several articles, has furnished superabundant proof, that in those years, which some would have us believe were addicted to the crassest externalism, the need of contrition in Confession was earnestly dwelt upon in German religious writings.

  Luther, however, even in the early days of his change, under the influence of a certain distaste and prejudice in favour of his own pet ideas, had conceived an aversion for Confession. Here again his opposition was based on purely personal, psychological grounds. The terrors he had endured in Confession owing to his curious mental constitution, his enmity to all so-called holiness-by-works — leading him to undervalue the Church’s ancient institution of Confession — and the steadily growing influence of his prejudices and polemics, alone explain how he descended so often to the most odious and untrue misrepresentations of Confession as practised by the Papists.

  What in the depths of his heart he really desired, and what he openly called for, viz. a Confession which should heal the wounds of the soul and, by an enlightened faith, promote moral betterment — that, alas, he himself had destroyed with a violent hand.

  In his letter to Frankfurt quoted above he abuses the Catholic system of Confession because it requires the admission of all mortal sins, and calls it “a great and everlasting martyrdom,” “trumped up as a good work whereby God may be placated.” He calumniates the Catholic past by declaring it did nothing but “count up sins” and that “the insufferable burden, and the impossibility of obeying the Papal law caused such fear and distress to timorous souls that they were driven to despair.” And, in order that the most odious charge may not be wanting, he concludes: “This brought in money and goods, so that it became an idol throughout the whole world, but it was no doctrine, examination or exercise leading to the confession and acknowledgment of Christ.” The fables which he bolstered up on certain abuses, of which even the Papal penitentiary was guilty, were only too readily believed by the masses.

  Church Music.

  In order to enliven the church services Luther greatly favoured congregational singing. Of his important and successful labours in this direction we shall merely say here, that he himself composed canticles instinct with melody and force, which were either set to music by others or sung to olden Catholic tunes, and became hugely popular among Protestants, chiefly because their wording expresses so well the feelings of the assembled congregation. One of Luther’s Hymnbooks, with twenty-four hymns composed by himself, appeared in 1524.

  Music, particularly religious music, he loved and cherished, yielding himself entirely to the enjoyment of its inspiring and ennobling influence. As a schoolboy he had earned his bread by singing; at the University he delighted his comrades by his playing on the lute; later he never willingly relinquished music, and took care that the hours of recreation should be gladdened by the singing of various motets. Music, he said, dispelled sad thoughts and was a marvellous cure for melancholy. In his Table-Talk he describes the moral influence of music in language truly striking. “My heart overflows and expands to music; it has so often refreshed and delivered me amidst the worst troubles,” thus to the musician Senfl at Munich when asking him to compose a motet. He supplied an Introduction in the shape of a poem entitled “Dame Music” to Johann Walther’s “The Praise and Prize of the lovely art of Music” (1538). It commences: There can be no ill-will here — Where all sing with voices clear — Hate or envy, wrath or rage, — When sweet strains our minds engage. Being himself conversant with musical composition, he took pleasure in Walther’s description of counterpoint and in his ingenious comparison of the sequence of melodies to a troop of boys at play.

  Grauert admirably groups together “Luther’s poetic talent, the gift of language, which enabled him so to master German, his work for German hymnology, his enthusiastic love of music, of which he well knew the importance as a moral factor, and his familiarity with the higher forms of polyphonic composition.” He also remarks quite rightly that these favourable traits had been admitted unreservedly by Johannes Janssen.

  2. Emotional Character and Intellectual Gifts

  The traits mentioned above could hardly be duly appreciated unless we also took into account certain natural qualities in Luther from which his depth of feeling sprang.

  A Catholic has recently called him an “emotional man,” and, so far as thereby his great gifts of intellect and will are not called into question, the description may be allowed to stand. Especially is this apparent in his peculiar humour, which cannot fail to charm by its freshness and spontaneity all who know his writings and his Table-Talk, even though his witticisms quite clearly often served to screen his bitter vexation, or to help him to react against depression, and were frequently disfigured by obscenity and malice. It is a more grateful task to obs
erve the deep feeling expressed in his popular treatment of religious topics. Johannes Janssen declares that he finds in him “more than once a depth of religious grasp which reminds one of the days of German mysticism,” while George Evers, in a work otherwise hostile to Luther, admits: “We must acknowledge that a truly Christian credulity peeps out everywhere, and, particularly in the Table-Talk, is so simple and childlike as to appeal to every heart.” Evers even adds: “His religious life as pictured there gives the impression of a man of prayer.”

  The circumstantial and reliable account given by Johann Cochlæus of an interview which he had with Luther at Worms in 1521 gives us a certain glimpse into the latter’s feelings at that critical juncture. After holding a lengthy disputation together, the pair withdrew into another room where Cochlæus implored his opponent to admit his errors and to make an end of the scandal he was giving to souls. Both were so much moved that the tears came to their eyes. “I call God to witness,” writes Cochlæus, “that I spoke to him faithfully and with absolute conviction.” He pointed out to him as a friend how willing the Pope and all his opponents were to forgive him; he was perfectly ready to admit and condemn the abuses in connection with the indulgences against which Luther had protested; his religious apostasy and the revolt of the peasants whom he was leading astray were, however, a different matter. The matter was frankly discussed between the two, partly in German, partly in Latin. Luther finally mastered the storm obviously raging within and brought the conversation to an end by stating that it did not rest with him to undo what had been done, and that greater and more learned men than he were behind it. On bidding him farewell, Cochlæus assured him with honest regret that he would continue the literary feud; Luther, for his part, promised to answer him vigorously.