Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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With respect to this second point in particular Luther now gives his
explanation. Those words of Christ were unquestionably commands for
all Christians. They demand of every Christian that he should never
on his own account grasp the sword and employ force; and if only the
world were full of good Christians there would be no need of the,
sword of secular authority. But it is necessary to wield it against
evil for the general welfare, to punish sin and to preserve the
peace; and therefore the true Christian, in order thereby to serve
his neighbour, must willingly submit to the rule of this sword, and,
if God assigns him an office, must wield this sword himself. This
command of Scripture is confirmed by other passages, as for instance
by the words of the Apostle: 'Let every soul be subject unto the
higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be
are ordained of God. For he is the minister of God to thee for good
... for he beareth not the sword in vain.' (Romans xiii.). Luther
thus ranks the vocation of civil government together with the other
vocations of moral life in the world. They are all, he said,
instituted by God, and all of them, no less than the so-called
priestly office, are intended and able to serve God and one's
neighbour. These were ideas which laid the foundation for a new
Christian estimate of political, civic, and temporal life in
general. Thus, later on, the Augsburg Confession rejected the
doctrine that to attain evangelical perfection, a man must renounce
his worldly calling, as also the theory of the Anabaptists, who
would allow no Christian to hold civil office or to wield the sword.

But Luther, while thus determining the province of secular
authority, took care to impose limits on its jurisdiction, and to
guard against those limits being invaded. The true spiritual
government, as instituted by Christ, was intended to make men good,
by working upon the soul by the Word, in the power of the Spirit.
The temporal government, whose duty it was to secure external peace
and order, and to protect men against evil-doers, extends only to
what is external upon earth,'--over person and property. 'For God
cannot and will not allow anyone but Himself alone to rule the
soul.'--'No one can or shall force another to believe.'--'True is
the proverb: "Thoughts are free of taxes."' We must 'obey God rather
than man,' as St. Peter says: these words impose a limit on temporal
power. Luther is aware of the objection, that the temporal power
does not force a man to believe, but only outwardly guards against
heretics, to prevent them from leading the people astray with false
doctrines. But he answers: 'Such an office belongs to bishops, and
not to princes. God's Word must here contend for mastery. Heresy is
something spiritual, that cannot be hewn with steel nor burned with
fire.' And among these invasions of the province and office of the
Word, Luther includes the edict to confiscate books. Herein must
subjects obey God rather than such tyrannical princes. They are to
leave the exercise of outward power, even in this matter, to the
civil authorities, they must never venture to oppose them by force;
they must suffer it, if men invade their houses, and take away their
books or property. But if they attempt to rob them of their Bible,
they must not surrender a page or a letter.

These are the most powerful and comprehensive utterances which we
possess from the mouth of the Reformer, about the demarcation of
these provinces of authority, the independent operation of the Word
and the Spirit, and liberty of conscience. It is doubtful, indeed,
how far they are consonant with those measures which he afterwards
found admissible and advisable for the protection of evangelical
communities and evangelical truth against those who attempted to
lead them astray.

Amidst such active labours the year of Luther's return to Wittenberg
passed away.

CHAPTER IV.

LUTHER AND HIS ANTI-CATHOLIC WORK OF REFORMATION, UP TO 1525

Luther, as we have seen, was able to prosecute his labours at
Wittenberg, undisturbed by the act of the Diet. In other parts of
Germany as well, the imperial power left wide scope for the spread
of his teaching. At the next approaching Diet at Nuremberg no
majority could be looked for again, to give effect to the
consequences demanded by the Edict of Worms. Any such expectation
was the more futile, from the results, already experienced, of
Luther's reappearance in public.

The new Pope, Hadrian VI., whilst adhering strictly to the doctrines
of mediaval Scholasticism and of Church authority, nevertheless, by
his honest avowal of ecclesiastical abuses, and the firmness and
earnestness of his personal character, led men to expect a new era
of energetic reform for the Romish Church, at least in regard to the
discipline of the clergy and monks, and to a conscientious restraint
of Church ordinances, so that even men like Erasmus might rest
content. And yet, he was the very one who sought now to stamp out
with all severity the Lutheran heresy and its innovations. With this
object he broke out into low abuse and slander against Luther
personally, as a drunkard and a debauchee. Libels of this kind were
perpetually repeated by the Romanists, and no doubt Hadrian believed
them, though Luther did not trouble himself much about such personal
attacks, but in his letters to Spalatin, simply called the Pope an
ass. Hadrian also, like so many Romish Churchmen after him, was
extremely zealous to impress upon princes that he who despises the
sacred decrees and the heads of the Church, would cease to respect a
temporal throne.

But the Diet which assembled at Nuremberg in the winter of 1522-23,
replied to the demands of the Pope by renewing the old grievances of
the German nation, and insisting on a free Christian Council, to be
held in Germany.

Nor did even an unfortunate military enterprise, undertaken at this
time against the Archbishop of Treves by Sickingen, who, while
fighting for his own power and the interests of the German nobles,
announced his wish also to break road for the Gospel, produce those
disastrous results for the evangelical cause in Germany which its
enemies had anticipated and hoped for. Sickingen, indeed, after
being defeated by the superior forces of the allied princes, died of
the wounds he received, but it was as clear as noonday that
Frederick the Wise and his evangelical theologians had had nothing
to do with his act of violence. Luther, on hearing of Sickingen's
enterprise, remarked that it would be 'a very bad business,' and
added, on learning the issue, 'God is a just, but a marvellous
judge.'

The next meeting of the Diet, from whom, after Hadrian's early
death, his successor, Clement VII.--another modern Pope of Leo's way
of thinking--demanded anew the execution of the Edict of Worms,
resulted in the imperial decree of April 18, 1524. By this, the
states of the Empire agreed to execute that edict 'as far as
possible,' but stipulated that the Lutheran and the other new
doctrines should first be 'examined with the utmost diligence,' and,
together with the grievances presented by the princes against the
Pope and the hierarchy, should be made the subject of a
representation to the Council now demanded. But the inconsistency
that lurked in this decree caught Luther's eye and aroused his
suspicion. It was scandalous, he declared in a paper upon it, that
the Emperor and the princes should issue 'contradictory orders.'
They were going to deal with him according to the Edict of Worms,
and proclaim him a condemned man, and persecute him, and at the same
moment wait to decide what was good or bad in his doctrines. But the
decree was, in fact, a subterfuge, by which they resigned the idea
of executing that edict. The Lord's Supper could be celebrated at
Nuremberg in the new way before the eyes of the whole Diet. Well
might Frederick the Wise hope that men would still, at least in
Germany, come gradually to agree in peace about the truth contained
in Luther's preaching.

The absent Emperor, indeed, remained insensible to all such
influences. In the Netherlands strict penal laws were in force. In a
letter addressed to the German Empire he condemned the decree of
Nuremberg, and, like Hadrian, compared Luther to Mahomet. Further, a
minority of the German princes, including, in particular, Ferdinand
of Austria, and the Dukes William and Louis of Bavaria, entered into
a league at Ratisbon to execute the Edict of Worms, while agreeing
to certain reforms in the Church, according to a Papal scheme
proposed by his nuncio Campeggio. They too began to persecute and
punish the heretics.

Thus, then, the seed sown by Luther began to germinate throughout
the whole of Germany. The number of Lutheran preachers increased,
and requests were made in many places for their services. Even
Cochlaeus had to confess that, however bad were their ultimate
objects, they showed a remarkable unselfishness and industry in
their calling, and that they avoided even the appearance of pushing
themselves forward in an irregular and arbitrary manner, waiting
rather for their appointment in due course by the nobles or the
various congregations. Among the treatises and other writings on
ecclesiastical and religious questions which inundated Germany at
that time, at least ten were written on the Lutheran, one on the
Romish side. The complaint was that there were not more numerous and
better qualified printers for the work.

Among the nobles who espoused the cause of Luther, the support of
Albert of Mansfeld, one of the Counts of Luther's native place, was
particularly grateful. It was mainly by the nobles that the movement
was represented in Austria.

But the gospel gained most ground in German towns, especially among
the burgher class in the free cities of the Empire. Preachers were
invited hither, where none already existed, and the mass was publicly
abolished. This took place during 1523 and 1524 at Magdeburg,
Frankfort-on-the-Main, Schwabish Hall, Nuremberg, Ulm, Strasburg,
Breslau, and Bremen. On Saxon territory also, Lutheran congregations
were formed in various towns, such as Zwickau, Altenburg, and Eisenach.
In many cases Luther's personal friends took part in the movement, and
thus cemented more closely their friendship with the Reformer. He had
already some trusted fellow-labourers at Nuremberg. At Magdeburg his
friend Amsdorf was pastor. Hess, the first evangelical pastor of
Breslau, had formed some years earlier a warm friendship with him and
Melancthon. Link, his old friend, and the successor of Staupitz as
Vicar-General of the Augustines, held office as a preacher at Altenburg,
whence he was recalled, for the same purpose, in 1525, to Nuremberg,
his former place of residence. Wherever Luther heard of evangelical
communities who seemed to need especial help for their strengthening or
consolation under trouble, he addressed to them letters, which were
afterwards circulated in print. These were sent, for instance, to
Esslingen, Augsburg, Worms; also to his 'beloved friends in Christ'
at Wittenberg, who had been harassed by the Romanists, and whose
cause he pleaded to the Archbishop Albert. With particular joy he
sent greetings to the 'chosen and dear friends in God' in the
distant towns of Riga, Reval, and Dorpat; and he sent them also an
exposition of the 127th Psalm.

The Word, rejected and condemned as it had been by bishops and
priests in Germany, met with singular success beyond the eastern
boundary of the Empire, among the Order of Teutonic Knights in
Prussia. The Grand Master of the Order, Albert of Brandenburg,
brother of the Elector of Brandenburg, and cousin of Albert, the
Archbishop and Cardinal, had kept up communication with Luther, both
orally and by letter, and had been advised by him and Melancthon to
make himself familiar with the gospel and the principles of the
Evangelical Church. And, above all, there were here two bishops who
espoused the new teaching, and who were anxious to tend the flocks
committed to their charge as true evangelical bishops or overseers,
in the sense insisted on by Luther, and particularly to minister to
the Word by preaching and by the care of souls. These were George of
Polenz, Bishop of Samland since 1523, and Erhard of Queiss, Bishop
of Pomerania since 1524. The members of the Order, almost without
exception, were on their side: they resolved to establish a temporal
princedom in Prussia and to renounce their vows of 'false chastity
and spirituality.' The King of Poland, under whose suzerainty the
country had long been, solemnly invested the hitherto Grand Master
on April 10, 1525, as hereditary Duke of Prussia. Thus Prussia
became the first territory that collectively embraced the
Reformation, whilst as yet, even in the Electorate of Saxony, no
general measures had been taken in its support. It became, in short,
the first Protestant country. Luther wrote to the new Duke: 'I am
greatly rejoiced that Almighty God has so graciously and wondrously
helped your princely Grace to attain such an eminent position, and
further my wish is that the same merciful God may continue His
blessing to your Grace through life, for the benefit and godly
welfare of the whole country.' And to the Archbishop Albert he held
the new Duke up as a shining example, in saying of him, 'How
graciously has God sent such a change, as, ten years ago, could not
have been hoped for or believed in, even had ten Isaiahs and Pauls
announced it. But because he gave room and honour to the gospel, the
gospel in return has given him far more room and honour--more than
he could have dared to wish for.'

The gospel now received its first testimony in blood. With joyful
confidence Luther beheld what God had done, but could not refrain
from lamenting, with sorrowful humility, that he himself had not
been found worthy of martyrdom. In the Imperial hereditary lands,
where for some years missionaries, chiefly members of Luther's own
Augustine Order, had been actively labouring in the strength of the
convictions derived from Wittenberg, two young Augustine monks,
Henry Voes and John Esch, were publicly burnt, on July 1, 1523, as
heretics. Luther thereupon addressed a letter to 'the beloved
Christians in Holland, Brabant, and Flanders,' praising God for His
wondrous light, that He had caused again to dawn. He spoke out even
stronger in some verses in which he celebrated the young martyrs;
they were published no doubt originally as a broadsheet:

A new song will we raise to Him
Who ruleth, God our Lord;
And we will sing what God hath done,
In honour of His Word.
At Brussels in the Netherlands,
It was through two young lads,
He hath made known His Wonders, &c.

They conclude as follows:--

So let us thank our God to see
His Word returned at last.
The Summer now is at the door,
The Winter is forepast,
The tender flowerets bloom anew,
And He, who hath begun,
Will give His work a happy end.

He was, later on, deeply grieved by the death of his brother-Augustine
and friend Henry Moller of Zutphen, who, after having been forced to
fly from the Netherlands, had begun a blessed work at Bremen, and was
now murdered in the most brutal manner on December 11, 1524, by a mob
instigated by monks, near Meldorf, whither he had gone in response to
an invitation from some of his companions in the faith. Luther informed
his Christian brethren in a circular of the end of this 'blessed
brother' and 'Evangelist.' He mentions, with him, the two martyrs of
Brussels, as well as other disciples of the new doctrine; one Caspar
Tauber, who was executed at Vienna, a bookseller named Georg, who was
burnt at Pesth, and one who had been recently burnt at Prague. 'These
and such as these,' he adds, 'are they whose blood will drown the
popedom, together with its god, the devil.'

With regard to his work of reformation, which had now spread so
widely and found so many coadjutors, Luther at present thought as
little about the outward constitution of a new Church as he had
thought about any outward organisation of the war itself, or an
external alliance of his adherents, or of a cleverly devised
propaganda. Just as here the simple Word was to achieve the victory,
so his whole efforts were devoted solely to restoring to the
congregations the possession and enjoyment of that Word in all its
purity, that they might gather round it, and be thereby further
edified, sustained, and guided.

Wherever this privilege was denied to Christians, Luther claimed for
them the right, by virtue of their universal priesthood, to ordain a
priest for themselves, and to reject the ensnaring deceits of mere
human doctrine. He declared himself to this effect, in a treatise
written in 1523, and intended in the first instance for the
Bohemians--that is to say, for the so-called Utraquists who were
then the leading party in Bohemia. These sectaries, whose only
ground of estrangement from Rome was the question of administering
the cup to the laity, and who had never thought of separating
themselves from the so-called Apostolical succession of the
episcopate in the Catholic Church, Luther then hoped, albeit in
vain, to win over to a genuine evangelical belief and practice of
religion. In this treatise he went a step beyond the election of
pastors by their congregations, by maintaining that a whole
district, composed of such evangelical communities, might appoint
their own overseer, who should exercise control over them, until the
final establishment of a supreme bishopric, of an evangelical
character, for the entire national Church. But of any such
ecclesiastical edifice for Germany, wholly absorbed as he was in her
immediate needs, he had not yet said a word. Congregations of such a
kind, and suitable for such a purpose, could only be created by
preaching the Word; nor had Luther yet abandoned the hope that the
existing German episcopate, as already had been the case in Prussia,
would accept an evangelical reconstruction on a much larger scale.
With regard to individual congregations, moreover, it was the
opinion of Luther and his friends that, where the local magistrates
and patrons of the Church were inclined to the gospel, the
appointment of pastors might be made by them in a regular way. A
separation of civil communities, each represented by their own
magistrate, from the ecclesiastical or religious units, was an idea
wholly foreign to that time.

That the word of God should be preached to the various congregations
in a pure and earnest manner, that those congregations themselves
should be entrusted with the work, should make it their own, and, in
reliance thereon, should lift up their hearts to God with prayer,
supplication, and thanksgiving,--this was the fixed object which
Luther held in view in all the regulations which he made at
Wittenberg, and wished to institute in other places. In this spirit
he advanced cautiously and by degrees in the changes introduced in
public worship,--changes which, as he admits, he had commenced with
fear and hesitation. 'That the Word itself,' he says, 'should
advance mightily among Christians, is shown by the whole of
Scripture, and Christ Himself says (Luke x.) that "one thing is
needful," namely, that Mary should sit at the feet of Christ, and
hear His Word daily. His Word endures for ever, and all else must
melt away before it, however much Martha may have to do.' He points
out as one of the great abuses of the old system of worship, that
the people had to keep silence about the Word, while all the time
they had to accept unchristian fables and falsehoods in what was
read, and sung, and preached in the churches, and to perform public
worship as a work which should entitle them to the grace of God. He
now set vigorously about separating the mere furniture of worship.
As to the Word itself, on the contrary, he was anxious to have it
preached to the congregation, wherever possible, every Sunday
morning and evening, and on week-days, at least to the students and
others, who desired to hear it: this was actually done at
Wittenberg. Innovations, not apparently required by his principles,
he shunned himself, and warned others to do so likewise. Nor was he
less diligent to guard against the danger of having the new forms of
worship, now practised at Wittenberg, made into a law for all
evangelical brethren without distinction. He gave an account and
estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend Hausmann, the
priest at Zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for
Christ's sake,' that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these
matters, he should make it known. No one, he declared, durst condemn
or despise different forms practised by others. Outward customs and
ceremonies were, indeed, indispensable, but they served as little to
commend us to God, as meat or drink (1 Cor. viii. 8) served to make
us well pleasing before Him.

In order to enable the congregations themselves to take an active
part in the service, he now longed for genuine Church hymns, that is
to say, songs composed in the noble popular language, verse, and
melody. He invited friends to paraphrase the Psalms for this
purpose; he had not sufficient confidence in himself for the work.
And yet he was the first to attempt it. With fresh impulse and with
the exuberance of true poetical genius, his verses on the Brussels
martyrs had flowed forth spontaneously from his inmost soul. They
were the first, so far as we know, that Luther had ever written,
though he was now forty years of age. With the same poetic impulse
he composed, probably shortly after, a hymn in praise of the
'highest blessing' that God had shown towards us in the sacrifice of
His beloved Son.

Rejoice ye now, dear Christians all,
And let us leap for joy,
And dare with trustful, loving hearts,
Our praises to employ,
And sing what God hath shown to man,
His sweet and wondrous deed,
And tell how dearly He hath won. etc.

The full tone of a powerful, fresh, often uncouth, but very tender
popular ballad no other writer of the time displayed like Luther.
And whilst seeking to compose or re-arrange hymns for congregational
use in church, he now busied himself with the Psalter, paraphrasing
its contents in an evangelical spirit and in German metre.

Thus now, early in 1524, there appeared at Wittenberg the first
German hymn-book, consisting at first, of only eight hymns, about
half of them, such as that beginning _Nun freut euch_, being
original compositions of Luther, and three others adapted from the
Psalms. In the course of the same year he brought out a further
collection of twenty hymns, written by himself for the evangelical
congregation there: among these is the one on the Brussels martyrs.
It was, in fact, the year in which German hymnody was born. Luther
soon found the coadjutors he had wished for.

These twenty-four hymns by Luther were followed in after years by
only twelve more from his own pen, among the latter being his grand
hymn, _Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott_, written probably in
1527. Of these later compositions, comparatively few expressed
entirely his own ideas; most of them had reference to subjects
already in the possession and use of the Christian world, and of
German Christians in particular; that is to say, some referred to
the Psalms and other portions of the Bible, others to parts of the
Catechism, others again to short German ballads, sung by the people,
and even to old Latin hymns. In all of them he was governed by a
strict regard to what was both purely evangelical, and also suitable
for the common worship of God. And yet they differ widely, one from
another, in the poetical form and manner in which he now gives
utterance to the longings of the heart for God, now seeks to clothe
in verse suited for congregational singing words of belief and
doctrine, now keeps closely to his immediate subject, now vents his
emotions freely in Christian sentiments and poetical form, as for
example in _Ein' feste Burg_, the most sublime and powerful
production of them all.

The new hymns went forth in town and country, in churches and homes,
throughout the land. Often, far more than any sermons could have
done, they brought home to ears and hearts the Word of evangelical
truth. They became weapons of war, as well as means of edification
and comfort.

In his preface to a small collection of songs, which Luther had
published in the same year, he remarks: 'I am not of opinion that
the gospel should be employed to strike down and destroy all the
arts, as certain high ecclesiastics would have it. I would rather
that all the arts, and especially music, should be employed in the
service of Him who has created them and given them to man.' What he
says here about music and poetry, he applied equally to all
departments of knowledge. He saw art and learning now menaced by
wrong-minded enthusiasts. For this reason he was particularly
anxious that they should be cultivated in the schools.