Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  This view is confirmed by the following odd-sounding statements of Luther’s:

  Among Christians the sword can have no place, “hence you cannot make use of it on or among Christians, who have no need of it”; still the world “cannot and may not do without it” (this power); in other words, as Christians, both subjects and rulers suffer injustice gladly according to the Gospel, but, for the sake of their neighbours and for the keeping of order in the world, both favour the use of force. Secular rule does not extend beyond “life and limb and what is outward on this earth.” “Our squires, our princes and our bishops, shall see what fools they are,” when they “order us to believe the Church, the Fathers and the Councils though there is no Word of God in them. It is the apostles of the devil who order such things, not the Church.” And yet “our Emperor and the clever princes are doing this now.” Hence the princes must keep to their own outward sphere, viz. only coerce the wicked, and not seek to rule over Christians.

  “Christians can be governed by nothing but the Word of God. For Christians must be ruled by faith, not by outward works.... Those who do not believe are not Christians, nor do they belong to the kingdom of Christ, but to the kingdom of the world, hence they must be coerced and driven with the sword and by the outward government. Christians do everything that is good of their own accord and without being compelled, and God’s Word is enough for them.”

  When Luther contrasts in this way the kingdom of Christ and the true life of a Christian with the temporal kingdom and the functions of the authorities, he goes so far in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” and even in his sermons, as strongly to depreciate the secular or civil power. He teaches, for instance, that the Christian who holds the office of ruler, must do things that are forbidden to Christians as such, for instance, pronounce sentence, put to death and use other strong measures against the unruly. But all this belongs in reality to hell.— “Whoever is under the secular rule,” so we read in a curious sermon in Luther’s Church-Postils, “is still far from the kingdom of heaven, for the place where all this belongs is hell; for instance, the prince who governs his people in such a way as to allow none to suffer injustice, and no evildoer to go unrequited, does well and receives praise.... Nevertheless, as explained above, this is not appointed for those who belong to heaven but merely in order that people may not sink yet deeper into hell and make things even worse. Therefore no one who is under the secular government can boast that he is acting rightly before God; in His sight it is still all wrong”; for of Christians more is required; whoever wishes to act according to the Gospel must ever be ready to suffer injustice. But the secular authority must, either “of its own initiative or at the instance of others, without any complaint, entreaty or exertion of his, help and protect him. Where it does not he must allow himself to be fleeced and abused, and not resist evil, according to the words of Christ. And be assured that this is no counsel of perfection as our sophists lyingly and blasphemously assert, but a strict command binding on all Christians.” There is a huge gulf between the kingdom of such a Christian and that of the “jailers, hangmen, lawyers, advocates and such-like rabble.”

  Such are the epithets Luther flings at the secular power, the State and its ministers, whose task it is to “seek out the wicked, convict them, strangle and put them to death.” These authorities must indeed exist and a Christian must submit to them willingly — not for his own sake but for that of his neighbour, i.e. for the sake of the common good; he himself has no need of them; the behaviour of the Christian towards this secular power must be dictated by his Christian love for his neighbour.

  A Protestant critic writes: “Luther hardly recognises any so-called Christian State.... We find Luther warning his hearers against seeing anything particularly useful or indispensable behind the work of the government. The ruler’s sense of responsibility was to be something purely human.... The Christian in fact has no need of any ruler.” “Luther’s interest in things political (see below) is practically nil; where the State can be of any use to him he welcomes it and even gives it its meed of praise.... His appreciation of the State is usually just a matter of feeling.” We come to see that “he took no independent interest in politics.... He even goes so far as to characterise the outward order of the State as a necessary evil. State organisation in his eyes is simply a kind of enforced charity towards our neighbour.”

  “Luther knows no Christian State,” says another Protestant writer of Luther’s theories. “The State is as worldly a thing as eating and drinking”; indeed its commands and its deeds “all belong to hell.”

  This worldly bond of union is good, when, with God’s help, it follows the dictates of reason. It is the only union that exists, for Luther does not recognise State and Church as two unions. This, says Holl, is now regarded “as an axiom.” We may, it is true, admit with Holl that Luther is not quite consistent in this, but this is only because he reverts inadvertently to the old ideas, and, even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” incidentally speaks of a spiritual authority and of bishops in whom it is invested.

  Some Protestant writers, quite erroneously, extol the “Christendom” equipped with both spiritual and secular authority which Luther substituted for the twin powers of yore. It was only owing to his want of logic, and out of practical considerations for the interests of his religion (see below), that he was able to endow as he did the State with spiritual authority. And, besides, “Christendom,” to which indeed he often enough refers, had, in reality, been completely abrogated by him at least in the traditional sense, viz. of the kingdom of God on earth which embraces as in one family all the baptised. For had he not deprived baptism of its dignity and made membership of the Church dependent on the faith of the adult?

  “Luther drags away the corner stone on which the whole edifice [of Christendom] rests,” says Holl. “According to his teaching we are not simply baptised into the Church as was the case according to the Catholic doctrine. Baptism, indeed, even to him, constitutes the foundation of Christianity, but the grace of the sacrament is only effective in those who believe in the promises offered therein (‘Sacramenta non implentur dum fiunt, sed dum creduntur’).... Luther, by making admission into the spiritual society dependent on a personal condition, destroyed the idea of Christendom in the mediæval Catholic sense”; this Holl regards as his chief merit.

  This is undoubtedly so true, that, in the case of the wars against the Turks, Luther refused to hear of any “Christendom” in the traditional sense which might be pitted against the Crescent, and this on the ground that but few of the combatants were real Christians, i.e. real believers in the Evangel he preached. He also reserves the honourable title of Christians, as the headings of many of his writings show, for those who personally professed the new faith.

  Was Luther the Founder of the Modern State?

  The question seems so extraordinary, that we must hasten to say that some of Luther’s more passionate admirers have actually claimed for him that he prepared the way for the modern State.

  The difficulty of proving that he is really entitled to such an honour becomes obvious as soon as we recall that all modern theories of government agree in seeing the ideal community in a well-knit body with equal rights and equal liberties for all, religious freedom included. The same standard of justice applies without exception to every citizen and all religions (such at least is the programme) are esteemed alike; moreover, to this standard of justice, all, even the monarch or the supreme representative of the republic, must bow, seeing that the heads of the State have ceased to be absolute.

  But what, according to Luther’s theory and practice, was the position of the Lutheran ruler in respect of his civil and religious authority? How did it stand with the freedom and independence of his subjects, particularly where different religious practices co-existed?

  It is true that, taking his instructions to the rulers just discussed, which he derived from his principle of the separation of Church and world, we should expect him to
recognise freedom of conscience. The instructions, however, though seemingly addressed to all, sprang from his opposition to the Catholic rulers. The latter, particularly in the infancy of Protestantism, were above all to be urged to grant entire liberty and not to trouble about religion; what Luther wished to impress upon them was that they had no right to interfere with the Lutheran movement within their jurisdiction.

  Luther spoke quite otherwise when dealing with princes who were favourable to his preaching, or who had introduced the new religious system. In proportion as the rulers and municipalities that favoured his cause grew more numerous, he came to confer on them full powers to stamp out the Catholic faith, and even made it their duty so to do. He also perceived all too well the extent to which zealous Protestant princes, such as Johann of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, could further his innovations. From that time forward he promoted the growing authority of the sovereigns over the Churches, above all by warmly defending the principle that in every country uniformity of worship and doctrine must prevail, short of which there would always be “revolts and sects,” as he said in 1526.

  This was, however, to destroy the main groundwork of the modern State theory, viz. the personal freedom of the individual. It was to interfere with the evenness of justice and with the sacred right of conscience. What other rights of the subject would the sovereign regard as sacred once the door had been opened to arbitrary action in the domain of religious practice?

  The argument with which Luther conceals his selfish aim of securing new fields for his own religious system, and veils the real motive of his struggle against Popery, is deserving of special attention in spite of all its frivolity.

  According to Luther’s new modification of his views each locality was to have but one form of worship. Any divergency in preaching or worship must always sow the seeds of dissension, revolt and mob-law; the authorities ought not to permit such a state of things if they valued the preservation of order; so as to insure uniformity of preaching and worship dissenting preachers must be removed. It was for this reason that the inhabitants of Nuremberg had “silenced their monks and shut up their monasteries.” In this way, encouraged by the wisdom of a “prudent” town-council, which did not look beyond the city walls, Luther came to make his notorious request to his sovereign, viz. that Catholics who remained true to their faith should be banished from the country; for “madcaps,” who refuse to take the proposed arrangement in good part and in the spirit of Christian charity, are not to be suffered among Christians but must be swept away like “chaff from the threshing floor.” As though the secular power had not even then ample means at its disposal for checking or punishing any real disturbance of the peace on the part of a congregation. At the present day we can afford to smile at the strange reason assigned for measures so far-reaching against innocent citizens of the State; the assertion that difference of worship gives rise to unendurable discord sounds ridiculous to one used to the principles of liberty paramount in the civilised States of to-day. At any rate, this dictum did not make of Luther the founder of the modern State.

  In strange contrast with the modern ideas of justice is the excuse he brings forward to vindicate the violent conversion to Protestantism so often practised by the magistrates or petty rulers in their own territories. “What is done by the regular authorities is not to be regarded as revolt.” Is it really a fact that subversion and violence cease to be wrong when practised by the regular authorities? The modern State — in theory at any rate — recognises no such principle.

  It must be added, that both Luther and the princes devoted to him were fond of declaring that the really Christian rulers were bound to put an end to insults and blasphemies against God, regardless of any disturbance of civil life which might ensue. Luther made a beginning by exhorting the sovereign and the congregation to abolish the Mass at Wittenberg which, like Catholic worship in general, was a perpetual blasphemy of God. “The regular authorities” must rise up against “such blasphemy.” The scandal given being public, no indulgence was to be shown by Christians. Eventually every false doctrine was accounted a public scandal, i.e. every opinion expressed in writings or sermons which deviated from the true Evangel. “It is the duty” of the authorities, he says, “to punish public blasphemers ... and in the same way they should punish, or at least not brook, those who teach that Christ did not die for our sins, but that each one must make satisfaction for himself.” This, according to him, was notoriously the teaching of the Catholics.

  But if the Papists and the Lutherans as they are called, “preach against each other in a parish, town or district” and neither party will yield, “then let the authorities step in and try the case, and whichever party does not agree with Scripture, let him be ordered to hold his tongue.” Thus the official delegated by the prince — where the prince himself was loath to take the chair — is to decide which is the true meaning of the Bible, and which party really conforms to it.

  How opposed this was to the ground principles of the modern State it is scarcely necessary to point out here. The freedom postulated by the latter was absolutely unknown to Luther; had his mind ever risen to such heights he would never have proposed the farcical Bible examination to be held by the authorities.

  The relation between such demands as these and Luther’s own former attitude has not escaped the censure of Protestant writers.

  “Luther here contradicts himself,” remarks Drews; “as late as 1524 he had said that men must be allowed to disagree, and a year later that the authorities have no right to prevent every man from ‘teaching and believing whatever he wished, whether it be Gospel or lie’; it was sufficient if they checked the preaching of rebellion and any disturbance of the peace.”

  The Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony adopted the view that uniformity of doctrine was called for. He would, so he declared, “recognise or tolerate no sects or divisions in his lands or principalities,” in order the better “to prevent harmful revolt and other unrighteousness.” But at the same time he assured his subjects that it was not his intention to “prescribe to anyone what he should hold or believe.”

  The Prince as Absolute Patriarch

  Things drifted, thanks to Luther’s own action, slowly but surely towards an entire control of the Church by the State. Luther knew of no better means of stimulating the Evangelical rulers to take action in ecclesiastical things than by setting up before them the example of King David.

  He describes in 1534, in his exposition of Psalm ci. (c.), how, in order to exterminate false doctrine, David “made a visitation of the whole of his kingdom.” “He always checked any public inroads of heresy. For the devil never idles or sleeps, hence neither must the spiritual authorities be idle or slumber.” “Oh what a great number of false teachers, idolaters and heretics was he not obliged to expel, or in other ways stop their mouths.... The true teachers on the other hand he had everywhere sought out, promoted, called, appointed and commanded to preach the Word of God purely and simply.... He himself diligently instituted, ordered and appointed true teachers everywhere, himself writing Psalms in which he points out how they are to teach and praise God.” “David in this was a pattern and masterpiece to all pious kings and lords ... showing them how they must not allow wicked men to lead souls astray.” “I say again, let whoever can, be another David and follow his example, more particularly the princes and lords.” David, so he continues later, led “pious kings and princes rightly and in a Christian manner to the churches,” but he was also a “model in secular government,” which “can have its own rule apart from the kingdom of God”; to this all Popish princes should restrict themselves and not try to instruct Christ how to rule His Church and spiritual realm.

  Hence all that he had once written quite generally of the separation of the kingdom of God with “its own rule” from the “worldly government” was in fact, as he now says more outspokenly, only to apply to the “false priestlings,” and their princes.

  But when according to David’s example
a Lutheran preacher “by virtue of his office,” or a Lutheran prince, demanded the suppression of the false teaching, this “spiritual rule is nothing more than a service offered to God’s own supremacy”; the Lutheran prince is not thereby intruding on the “spiritual or divine authority but remains humbly submissive to it and its servant.”

  “For, when directed towards God and the service of His Sovereignty, everything must be equal and made to intermingle, whether it be termed spiritual or secular.” “Thus they must be united in the same obedience and kneaded together as it were in one cake.” — It is hardly possible to believe our eyes when we meet with such phrases coming from the same pen that had formerly so strongly championed the complete sundering of the spiritual from the temporal. Yet Luther even seeks to justify the contradiction on more serious grounds. When it was a case of the true Word of God and of the Evangel, then matters stood quite otherwise.

  “The secular and spiritual government” are most improperly confused, so he declares, when “spiritual or secular princes and lords seek to change and control the Word of God and to lay down what is to be taught or preached”; here he is referring to the non-Lutheran authorities. Quite a different thing is it “when David concerns himself with the divine or spiritual government,” and really restores God’s glory. Had David said: “My good people, act differently from what God has taught you,” then this would indeed have spelt a “confusion of the spiritual and temporal, of the divine and human government” — such as Luther’s opponents are now guilty of. But David, the servant of God and pattern of all pious princes and kings, because he acted otherwise, was adorned with such high and kingly virtues even in his temporal government that it must have been the work of God, i.e. His peculiar grace; but this same grace is with all pious princes in order that, under their sway and in spite of the hatred of the devil, the temporal rule and “God’s own Rule” may prosper. Supported by such grace David could say of the two authorities he combined: “I suffer neither ungodly men in the spiritual domain nor yet evildoers in the temporal.”