Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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Luther now turned again, on November 22, 1526, to John, 'not having
laid for a long while any supplication before his Electoral
Highness.' The peasants, he said, were so unruly, and so ungrateful
for the Word of God, that he had almost a mind to let them go on
living like pigs, without a preacher, only their poor young
children, at any rate, must be cared for. He laid down in this
letter some important principles concerning the duty of the civil
power and the State. The prince, he declared, was the supreme
guardian of the young, and of all who required his protection. All
towns and villages that could afford the means, should be compelled
to keep schools and preachers, just as they were compelled to pay
taxes for bridges, roads, and other local requirements. In support
of this demand, he appealed to the direct command of God, and to the
universal state of destitution prevailing. If that duty were
neglected, the country would be full of vagrant savages. With regard
to the convents and other religious foundations, he stated that, as
soon as the Papal yoke had been removed from the land, they would
pass over to the prince as the supreme head; and it would then
become his duty, however onerous, to regulate such matters, since no
one else would have the power to do so. He particularly warned the
Elector not to allow the nobles to appropriate the property of the
convents, 'as is talked of already, and as some of them are actually
doing.' They were founded, he said, for the service of God: whatever
was superfluous might be applied by the Elector to the exigencies of
the state or the relief of the poor. To his friends Luther
complained with grief and bitterness of some courtiers of the
Elector, who after having always shut their ears to religion and the
gospel, were now chuckling over the rich spoils in prospect, and
laughing at evangelical liberty.

The work now commenced in real earnest. The Elector had the
necessary regulations prepared at Wittenberg, at a conference
between his chancellor Bruck, Luther, and others. In February 1527
visitors were appointed, and among them was Melancthon. They began
their labours at once in the district to which Wittenberg belonged,
but of their proceedings here nothing further is known. In July the
first visitation on a large scale took place in Thuringia.

Just at this time, however, Luther was overtaken by severe bodily
suffering and also by troubles at home, while the visitation and the
academical life at Wittenberg had to experience an interruption.

Luther's first year of married life had been one of happiness.
Symptoms of a physical disorder, the stone, had appeared, however,
even then, and in after years became extremely painful and
dangerous.

On June 7, 1526, as he announced to his friend Ruhel, his 'dear Kate
brought him, by the great mercy of God, a little Hans Luther,'--her
firstborn. With joy and thankfulness, as he says in another letter,
they now reaped the fruit and blessings of married life, whereof the
Pope and his creatures were not worthy.

Amidst all his various labours in theology and for the Church, and
in preparing for the visitation, he took his share in the cares of
his household, laid out the garden attached to his quarters at the
convent, had a well made, and ordered seeds from Nuremberg through
his friend Link, and radishes from Erfurt. He wrote at the same time
to Link for tools for turning, which he wished to practise with his
servant Wolf or Wolfgang Sieberger, as the 'Wittenberg barbarians'
were too much behind in the art; and he was anxious, in case the
world should no longer care to maintain him as a minister of the
Word, to learn how to gain a livelihood by his handiwork.

Early in January 1527 he was seized with a sudden rush of blood to
the heart. It nearly proved fatal at the moment, but fortunately
soon passed away. An attack of illness, accompanied by deep
oppression and anxiety of mind, and the effects of which long
remained, followed on July 6. On the morning of that day, being
seized with anguish of the soul, he sent for his faithful friend and
confessor Bugenhagen, listened to his words of comfort from the
Bible, and with persevering prayer commended himself and his beloved
ones to God. At Bugenhagen's advice, he then went to a breakfast, to
which the Elector's hereditary marshal, Hans Loser, had invited him.
He ate little at the meal, but was as cheerful as possible to his
companions. After it was over, he sought to refresh himself with
conversation with Jonas in his garden, and invited him and his wife
to spend the evening at his home. On their arrival, however, he
complained of a rushing and singing noise, like the waves of the
sea, in his left ear, and which afterwards shot through his head
with intolerable pain, like a tremendous gust of wind. He wished to
go to bed, but fainted away by the door of his bedroom, after
calling aloud for water. Cold water having been poured upon him, he
revived. He began to pray aloud, and talked earnestly of spiritual
things, although a short swoon came over him in the interval. The
physician Augustin Schurf, who was called in, ordered his body, now
quite cold, to be warmed. Bugenhagen too was sent for again. Luther
thanked the Lord for having vouchsafed to him the knowledge of His
holy Name; God's will be done, whether He would let him die, which
would be a gain to himself, or allow him to live on still longer in
the flesh, and work. He called his friends to witness that up to his
end he was certain of having taught the truth according to the
command of God. He assured his wife, with words of comfort, that in
spite of all the gossip of the blind world she was his wife, and he
exhorted her to rest solely on God's Word. He then asked, 'Where is
my darling little Hans?' The child smiled at his father, who
commended him with his mother to the God who is the Father of the
fatherless and judges the cause of the widow. He pointed to some
silver cups which had been given him, and which he wished to leave
his wife. 'You know,' he added, 'we have nothing else.' After a
profuse perspiration he grew better, and the next day he was able to
get up to meals. He said afterwards that he thought he was dying, in
the hands of his wife and his friends, but that the spiritual
paroxysm which had preceded had been something far more difficult
for him to bear.

Luther, after recovering from this attack, still complained of
weakness in the head, and his inward oppression and spiritual
anguish was renewed and became intensified. On August 2 he told
Melancthon, who was then busy with his visitation in Thuringia, that
he had been tossed about for more than a week in the agonies of
death and hell, and that his limbs still trembled in consequence.

Whilst he was still in this state of suffering, news came that the
plague was approaching Wittenberg, nay, had actually broken out in
the town. It is well known how this fearful scourge had repeatedly
raged in Germany, and how ruinous it had been, from the panic which
preceded and accompanied it. The university, from fear of the
epidemic, was now removed to Jena.

Luther resolved, however, together with Bugenhagen, whom he was
assisting as preacher, to remain loyally with the congregation, who
now more than ever required his spiritual aid; although his Elector
wrote in person to him saying, 'We should for many reasons, as well
as for your own good, be loth to see you separated from the
university.... Do us then the favour.' He wrote to a friend, 'We are
not alone here; but Christ, and your prayers, and the prayers of all
the saints, together with the holy angels, are with us.'

The plague had really broken out, though not with that violence
which the universal panic would have led one to suppose. Luther soon
counted eighteen corpses, which were buried near his house at the
Elster Gate. The epidemic advanced from the Fishers' suburb into the
centre of the town: here the first victim carried off by it, died
almost in Luther's arms--the wife of the burgomaster Tilo Denes. To
his friends elsewhere Luther sent comforting reports, and repressed
all exaggerated accounts. His friend Hess at Breslau asked him 'if
it was befitting a Christian man to fly when death threatened him.'
Luther answered him in a public letter, setting forth the whole duty
of Christians in this respect. Of the students, a few at any rate
remained at Wittenberg. For these he now began a new course of
lectures.

Luther's spiritual sufferings continued to afflict him for several
months, and until the close of the year. Though he had known them,
he said, from his youth, he could never have expected that they
would prove so severe. He found them very similar to those attacks
and struggles which he had had to endure in early life. The invasion
of the plague, and the parting from all his intimate friends except
Bugenhagen, must have contributed to increase them.

He was just now deeply shocked and agitated by the news of the death of
a faithful companion in the faith, the Bavarian minister Leonard Kaser
or Kaiser, who was publicly burnt on August 16, 1527, in the town of
Scherding. Luther broke out, as he had done after Henry of Zutphen's
martyrdom, into a lamentation of his own unworthiness compared with
such heroes. He published an account of Leonard and his end, which had
been sent him by Michael Stiefel, adding a preface and conclusion of
his own. About the same time he composed a consolatory tract for the
Evangelical congregation at Halle-on-the-Saale, whose minister Winkler
had been murdered in the previous April.

In the autumn a new controversial treatise was published against him
by Erasmus, which he rightly described as a product of snakes; and
he now stood in the midst of the contest between Zwingli and
Oecolampadius. He exclaimed once in a letter to Jonas, 'O that
Erasmus and the Sacramentarians (Zwingli and his friends) could only
for a quarter of an hour know the misery of my heart. I am certain
that they would then honestly be converted. Now my enemies live, and
are mighty, and heap sorrow on sorrow upon me, whom God has already
crushed to the earth.'

The pestilence soon reached his friends. The wife of the physician
Schurf, who was then living in the same house with him, was attacked
by it, and only recovered slowly towards the beginning of November.
At the parsonage the wife of the chaplain or deacon George Rorer
succumbed to it on November 2, whereupon Luther took Bugenhagen and
his family from the panic-stricken house into his own dwelling. But
soon after dangerous symptoms showed themselves with a friend,
Margaret Mocha, who was then staying with Luther's family, and she
was actually ill unto death. His own wife was then near her
confinement. Luther was the more concerned about her, as Rorer's
wife, when in the same condition, had sickened and died. But Frau
Luther remained, as he says, firm in the faith, and retained her
health. Finally, towards the end of October his little son Hans fell
ill, and for twelve whole days would not eat. When the anniversary
of the ninety-five theses came round again, Luther wrote to Amsdorf
telling him of these troubles and anxieties, and concluded with the
words: 'So now there are struggles without and terror within.... It
is a comfort which we must set against the malice of Satan, that we
have the Word of God, whereby to save the souls of the faithful,
even though the devil devour their bodies.... Pray for us, that we
may endure bravely the hand of the Lord, and overcome the power and
craft of the devil, whether it be through death or life. Amen.
Wittenberg: All Saints' Day, the tenth anniversary of the death-blow
to indulgences, in thankful remembrance whereof we are now drinking
a toast.'

[Illustration: Fig. 36.--LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in
1528, at Berlin.)]

A short time afterwards Luther was able to send Jonas somewhat
better news about the sickness at home, though he was still sighing
with deep inward oppression; 'I suffer,' he said, 'the wrath of God,
because I have sinned in His sight. Pope, Emperor, princes, bishops,
and all the world hate me, and, as if that were not enough, my
brethren too (he means the Sacramentarians) must needs afflict me.
My sins, death, Satan with all his angels--all rage unceasingly;
and what could comfort me if Christ were to forsake me, for Whose
sake they hate me? But He will never forsake the poor sinner.' Then
follow the words above quoted about Erasmus and the Sacramentarians.

[Illustration: Fig. 37.--LUTHER'S WIFE. (From a Portrait by Cranach
in 1528, at Berlin.)]

Towards the middle of December the plague gradually abated. Luther
writes from home on the tenth of that month: 'My little boy is well
and happy again. Schurf's wife has recovered, Margaret has escaped
death in a marvellous manner. We have offered up five pigs, which
have died, on behalf of the sick.' And on his return home this day
to dinner from his lecture, his wife was safely delivered of a
little daughter, who received the name of Elizabeth.

To his own inward sufferings Luther rose superior by the
strengthening power of the conviction that even in these his Lord
and Saviour was with him, and that God had sent them for his own
good and that of others; that is to say, for his own discipline and
humbling. He applied to himself the words of St. Paul, 'As dying,
and behold we live;' nay, he wished not to be freed of his burden,
should his God and Saviour be glorified thereby.

Luther's famous hymn, _Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott_,
appeared for the first time, as has been recently proved, in a
little hymn-book, about the beginning of the following year. We can
see in it indeed a proof how anxious was that time for Luther. It
corresponds with his words, already quoted, on the anniversary of
the Reformation.

With the cessation of the pestilence and the return of his friends,
the new year seems to have brought him also a salutary change in his
physical condition; for his sufferings, which were caused by impeded
circulation, became sensibly diminished.

Since the outbreak, and during the continuance of the plague, the
work of Church visitation had been suspended. Melancthon, however,
who had followed the university to Jena, was commissioned meanwhile
to prepare provisionally some regulations and instructions for
further action in this matter, and in August Luther received the
articles which he had drafted for his examination and approval.

These articles or instructions comprised the fundamental principles
of Evangelical doctrine, as they were henceforth to be accepted by
the congregations. They were drawn up with especial regard to the
'rough common man,' who too often seemed deficient in the first
rudiments of Christian faith and life, and with regard also to many
of those confessing the new teaching, who, as Melancthon perceived,
were not unfairly accused of allowing the word of saving faith to be
made a 'cloak of maliciousness,' and who filled their sermons rather
with attacks against the Pope than with words of edifying purport.
Melancthon said on this point, 'those who fancy they have conquered
the Pope, have not really conquered the Pope.' And whilst teaching
that those who were troubled about their sins had only to have faith
in their forgiveness for the merits of Christ, to be justified in
the sight of God and to find comfort and peace, nevertheless, he
would have the people earnestly and specially reminded that this
faith could not exist without true repentance and the fear of God;
that such comfort could only be felt where such fear was present,
and that to achieve this end God's law, with its demands and threats
of punishment, would effectually operate upon the soul.

Luther himself had taught very explicitly, and in accordance with
his own experience of life, that the faith which saves through God's
joyful message of grace could only arise in a heart already bowed
and humbled by the law of God, and, having arisen, was bound to
employ itself actively in fruits of repentance; although, in stating
this doctrine, he had not perhaps so equally adjusted the
conditions, as Melancthon had here done. An outcry, however, now
arose from among the Romanists, that Melancthon no longer ventured
to uphold the Lutheran doctrine; of course it suited their interests
to fling a stone in this manner at Luther and his teaching. But what
was far more important, an attack was raised against Melancthon from
the circle of his immediate friends. Agricola of Eisleben, for
instance, would not hear of a repentance growing out of such
impressions produced by the Law and the fear of punishment. The
conversion of the sinner, he declared, must proceed solely and
entirely from the comforting knowledge of God's love and grace, as
revealed in His message to man: thence, further, and thence alone,
came the proper fear of God, a fear, not of His punishment, but of
Himself. This distinction he had failed to find in Melancthon's
Instructions. It was the first time that a dogmatic dispute
threatened to break out among those who had hitherto stood really
united on the common ground of Lutheran doctrine.

Luther, on the contrary, approved Melancthon's draft, and found
little to alter in it. What his opponents said did not disturb him;
he quieted the doubts of the Elector on that score. Whoever
undertook anything in God's cause, he said, must leave the devil his
tongue to babble and tell lies against it. He was particularly
pleased that Melancthon had 'set forth all in such a simple manner
for the common people.' Fine distinctions and niceties of doctrine
were out of place in such a work. Even Agricola, who wished to be
more Lutheran than Luther himself, was silenced.

Melancthon's work, after having been subjected by the Elector to
full scrutiny and criticism in several quarters, was published by
his command in March 1528, with a preface written by Luther, as
'Instructions of the Visitors to the parish priests in the
Electorate of Saxony.' In this preface Luther pointed out how
important and necessary for the Church was such a supervision and
visitation. He explained, as the reason why the Elector undertook
this office and sent out visitors, that since the bishops and
archbishops had proved faithless to their duty, no one else had been
found whose special business it was, or who had any orders to attend
to such matters. Accordingly, the local sovereign, as the temporal
authority ordained by God, had been requested to render this service
to the gospel, out of Christian charity, since, in his capacity as
civil ruler, he was under no obligation to do so. In like manner,
Luther afterwards described the Evangelical sovereigns as
'Makeshift-bishops' (_Nothbischofe_). At the same time the
instructions for visitation introduced now in the smaller districts
the office of superintendent as one of permanent supervision.

In the course of the summer preparations were made for a visitation
on a large scale, embracing the whole country. The original
intention had been to deal, by means of one commission, with the
various districts in rotation. Such a course would have necessarily
entailed, as was admitted, much delay and other inconveniences. A
more comprehensive method was accordingly adopted, of letting
different commissions work simultaneously in the different
districts. Each of these commissions consisted of a theologian and a
few laymen, jurists, and councillors of state, or other officials.
Luther was appointed head of the commission for the Electoral
district. The work was commenced earlier in some districts than in
others. Luther's commission was the first to begin, on October 22,
and apparently in the diocese of Wittenberg.

Luther had already, since May 12, voluntarily undertaken a new and
onerous labour. Bugenhagen had left Wittenberg that day for the town
of Brunswick, where, at the desire of the local magistracy, he
carried out the work of reform in the Church, until his departure in
October for the same purpose to Hamburg, where he remained until the
following June. Luther undertook his pastoral duties in his absence,
and preached regularly three or four times in the week.
Nevertheless, he took his share also in the work of visitation; the
district assigned to him did not take him very far away from
Wittenberg. He remained there, actively engaged in this work, during
the following months, and with some few intervals, up to the spring.
From the end of January 1529 he again suffered for some weeks from
giddiness and a rushing noise in his head; he knew not whether it
was exhaustion or the buffeting of Satan, and entreated his friends
for their prayers on his behalf, that he might continue steadfast in
the faith.

The shortcomings and requirements brought to light by the visitation
corresponded to what Luther had expected. In his own district the
state of things was comparatively favourable; happily, a third of
the parishes had the Elector for their patron, and in the towns the
magistrates had, to some extent at least, fulfilled their duties
satisfactorily. The clergy, for the most part, were good enough for
the slender demands with which, under existing circumstances, their
parishioners had to be content. But things were worse in many other
parts of the country. A gross example of the rude ignorance then
prevailing, not only among the country people, but even among the
clergy, was found in a village near Torgau, where the old priest was
hardly able to repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, but was in
high reputation far and near as an exorcist, and did a brisk
business in that line. Priests had frequently to be ejected for
gross immorality, drunkenness, irregular marriages, and such like
offences; many of them had to be forbidden to keep beer-houses, and
otherwise to practise worldly callings. On the other hand, we hear
of scarcely any priests so addicted to the Romish system as to put
difficulties in the way of the visitors. Poverty and destitution, so
Luther reports, were found everywhere. The worst feature was the
primitive ignorance of the common people, not only in the country
but partly also in the towns. We are told of one place where the
peasants did not know a single prayer; and of another, where they
refused to learn the Lord's Prayer, because it was too long. Village
schools were universally rare. The visitors had to be satisfied if
the children were taught the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten
Commandments by the clerk. A knowledge of these at least was
required for admission to the Communion.

Luther in the course of his visitations mixed freely with the
people, in the practical, energetic, and hearty manner so peculiar
to himself.

For the clergy, who needed a model for their preaching, and for the
congregations to whom their pastors, owing to their own incompetence,
had to preach the sermons of others, nothing more suitable for this
purpose could be offered than Luther's Church-Postills. Its use,
where necessary, was recommended. It had shortly before been
completed; that is to say, after Luther in 1525 had finished the
portion for the winter half-year, his friend Roth, of Zwickau,
brought out in 1527 a complete edition of sermons for the Sundays
of the summer half-year, and all the feast-days and holidays,
compiled from printed copies and manuscripts of detached sermons.

The most urgent task, however, that Luther now felt himself bound to
perform, was the compilation of a Catechism suitable for the people,
and, above all, for the young. Four years before, he had endeavoured
to encourage friends to write one. His 'German Mass' of 1526 said:
'The first thing wanted for German public worship is a rough,
simple, good Catechism;' and further on in that treatise he declared
that he knew of no better way of imparting such Christian
instruction, than by means of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and
the Lord's Prayer, for they summed up, briefly and simply, almost
all that was necessary for a Christian to know.

He now took in hand at once, early in 1529, and amidst all the
business of the visitations, a larger work, which was intended to
instruct the clergy how to understand and explain those three main
articles of the faith, and also the doctrines of Baptism and the
Lord's Supper. This work is his so-called 'Greater Catechism,'
originally entitled simply the 'German Catechism.'

Shortly afterwards followed the 'Little Catechism,'--called also the
'Enchiridion'--which contains in an abbreviated form, adapted to
children and simple understandings, the contents of his larger work,
set out here in the form of question and answer. 'I have been
induced and compelled,' says Luther in his introduction, 'to
compress this Catechism, or Christian teaching, into this modest and
simple form, by the wretched and lamentable state of spiritual
destitution which I have recently in my visitations found to prevail
among the people. God help me! how much misery have I seen! The
common folk, especially the villagers, know absolutely nothing of
Christian doctrine, and alas, many of the parish priests are almost
too ignorant or incapable to teach them!' He entreats therefore his
brother clergymen to take pity on the people, to assist in bringing
home the Catechism to them, and more particularly to the young; and
to this end, if no better way commended itself, to take these forms
before them, and explain them word by word.