It was indeed imperative that Luther should use his reason, for a certain degree of criticism upon the Holy Scriptures was necessary. He did not set an equal value upon all the books of the New Testament: it is known that he had doubts about the Revelations of St. John, and he did not much value the Epistle of St. James; but objections to particular parts never disturbed his faith in the whole; his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (with the exception of a few books) could not be shaken; they were to him what was dearest on earth, the groundwork of his whole knowledge; he was so thoroughly imbued with their spirit, that he lived as it were under their shadow. The more deeply he felt his responsibility, the more intense was the ardour with which he clung to the Scriptures.[[37]] A powerful instinct for what was rational and judicious helped him over many dangers; his penetration had nothing of the hair-splitting sophistry of the old teachers; he despised unnecessary subtleties, and with admirable tact he left undecided what appeared to him not essential. But if he was not to become a frantic or godless man, nothing remained to him but to ground his new doctrines on the words which were spoken and written fifteen hundred years before him, and he fell in some case into what his opponent Eckius called "Black-letter style."
Under these restraints his method was formed. If he had a question to solve, he collected all the passages in Scripture which appeared to him to contain an answer; he examined each passage to understand their mutual bearing, and thus arrived at his conclusions. By this mode of proceeding, he brought the Scriptures within the compass of an ordinary understanding; for example, in the year 1522, he undertook, out of the Holy Scriptures, to place marriage on a new moral foundation; he severely criticised the eighteen reasons given by ecclesiastical law, forbidding and dissolving marriages, and condemned the unworthy favouring of the rich in preference to the poor.
It was this same system which made him so pertinacious in his transactions with the Reformers in the year 1529, when he wrote on the table before him: "This is my body;" and looked gloomily on the tears and outstretched hands of Zwinglius. Never had that formidable man shown more powerful convictions, convictions won in vehement wrestling with his doubts and the devil. It may be considered by some as an imperfect system; but there was a genial strength in it, that made his own view more available to the cultivation and heart-cravings of his time, than even he himself anticipated.
Besides these great trials, the proscribed monk at the Wartburg was exposed to smaller temptations: he had long, by almost superhuman spiritual activity, overcome, what great self-distrust led him to consider as merely sensual inclinations; still nature stirred powerfully in him, and he many times begged of his dear Melancthon to pray for him concerning this.
It happened providentially, that just at this time at Wittenberg the restless spirit of Karlstadt took up the subject of the marriage of priests, in a pamphlet in which he decided that vows of celibacy were not binding upon priests and monks. The Wittenbergers were in general agreed on this question, especially Melancthon, who was perfectly unbiassed, as he himself had never entered into holy orders, and had been married two years.
Thus a web of thoughts and moral problems was cast from the outer world upon Luther's soul, the threads of which enclosed the whole of his later life. Whatever joy of heart and earthly happiness was vouchsafed to him henceforth, rested on the answer to this question. It was the happiness of his home that made it possible for him to bear the trials of his later years; by that the full blossom of his rich heart was first unfolded. So graciously did Providence send to him, just in the time of his loneliness, the message which was to bind him anew, and more firmly than ever to his people. Again, the way in which Luther treated this problem is quite characteristic; his pious spirit and the conservative tendency of his character strove against the hasty and superficial way in which Karlstadt reasoned. It may be assumed, that his own feelings made him suspicious as to whether this critical question was not made use of by the devil, to tempt the children of God; and yet the constraint upon the poor monks in the monasteries grieved him much. He examined the Scriptures, and easily made up his mind as to the marriage of priests; but there was nothing in the Bible about monks: "Where the Scripture is silent, man is unsafe." It appeared to him, withal, a laughable idea that his friends could marry, and he wrote to the cautious Spalatinus: "Good God, our Wittenbergers wish also to give wives to the monks! now they shall not so encumber me;" and he warns him ironically: "Have a care that you also do not get married;" yet this problem occupied him incessantly. Men live fast in great times. Gradually, by Melancthon's reasoning, and we may add by fervent prayer, he arrived at certainty. What, almost unknown to himself, brought about the decision, was the perception that it had become wise and necessary for the moral foundation of social life, that the monasteries should be opened. For nearly three months this question had been struggling in his mind; on the 1st November, 1521, he wrote the afore-mentioned letter to his father.
Unbounded was the effect of his words on the people; they produced a general excitement: out of almost all the cloister doors monks and nuns slipped away; it was at first singly and by stealth, but soon whole monasteries and convents dissolved themselves. When Luther in the following spring returned to Wittenberg, his heart full of anxious cares, the fugitive monks and nuns caused him a great deal of trouble. Secret letters were forwarded to him from all quarters, chiefly from excited nuns who had been placed as children in convents by harsh parents, and being now without money or protection, looked to the great Reformer for help; it was not unnatural that they should throng to Wittenberg. Nine nuns came from the foundation for noble ladies at Nimpschen, amongst them were a Staupitz, two Zeschau, and Catherine von Bora; besides these there were sixteen other nuns to take care of, and so forth. He was much grieved for these poor people, and hastened to place them under the protection of worthy families. Sometimes, indeed, it became too much of a good thing, and the crowd of runaway monks especially annoyed him. He complains: "They desire immediately to marry, and are unfit for every kind of work." He gave great scandal by his bold solution of this difficult question; and there was much that was very painful to his feelings; for amongst those who now returned in tumult to social life, though there were some high-minded men, others were coarse and dissolute. Yet all this did not for one moment make him turn aside; he became, according to his nature, more decided from opposition. When, in 1524, he published the history of the sufferings of a nun, Florentina von Oberweimar, he repeated in the dedication what he had so often preached: "God often testifies in the Scriptures that He desires no compulsory service, and no one can become his, who is not so in heart and soul. God help us! Is there nothing in this that speaks to us? Have we not ears and understanding? I say it again, God will not have compulsory service; I say it a third time, I say it a hundred thousand times, God will have no compulsory service."[[38]]
Thus Luther entered the last period of his life. His disappearance in the Thuringian forest had made an immense sensation. His opponents, who were accused of his murder, trembled before the indignation which was roused against them, both in city and country. The interruption, however, of his public activity was pregnant with evil to him; as long as he was at Wittenberg, the centre of the struggle, his word and his pen could dominate the great spiritual movement both in the north and south, but in his absence it worked arbitrarily in different directions, and in many heads. One of Luther's oldest associates began the confusion, and Wittenberg itself was the scene of action of a wild commotion. Luther could no longer bear to remain at the Wartburg; he had already been once secretly to Wittenberg; he now returned there publicly, against the will of the Elector. Then began an heroic struggle against old friends, and against conclusions drawn from his own doctrines. His activity was superhuman; he thundered incessantly from the pulpit, and his pen flew over the pages, in his cell. But he was not able to bring back all the erring minds, neither could he prevent the excitement of the people from gathering into a political storm. What was more, he could not hinder the spiritual freedom which he had won for the Germans, from producing, even in pious and learned men, an independent judgment upon faith and life, which was often opposed to his own convictions. Then came the dark years of the Iconoclastic and Anabaptist struggle, the Peasant war; and the sad dispute about the Sacrament. How often at this time did the figure of Luther arise gloomy and powerful above the disputants! how often did the perversity of men and his own secret doubts, fill him with anxious cares about the future of Germany!
In this wild time of fire and sword, the spiritual struggle was carried on more nobly and purely by him than by any one else. Every interference of earthly power was hateful to him; he did not choose to be protected even by his own sovereign, and would not have any human support for his teaching. He fought with a sharp pen, alone against his enemies; the only pile that he lighted was for a paper: he hated the Pope as he did the devil, but he had always preached toleration and Christian forbearance towards papists; he suspected many of having a secret compact with the devil, but he never burnt a witch. In all the Roman Catholic countries the stake was lighted for the confessors of the new faith, and even Hutten was strongly suspected of having cut off the ears of some monks; but so benevolent were Luther's feelings, that he had heartfelt compassion for the humbled Tetzel, and wrote him a consolatory letter. His highest political principle was obedience to the authorities ordained by God, and he never rose in opposition to them except when necessary for the service of God. On his departure from Worms, although on the point of being declared free from interdict, he was forbidden to preach; he did not, however, desist from doing so, but suffered great anxiety lest it should be imputed to him as disobedience. His conception of the unity of the Empire was quite primitive and popular; the reigning princes and electors, according to the laws of the Empire, owed the same obedience to the Emperor that their own subjects did to them.
During the whole course of his life he took a heartfelt interest in Charles V., not only in that early period when he greeted him as the "Dear youth," but even later, when he knew well, the Spanish Burgundian only tolerated the German reformation for political reasons: he said of him, "He is good and quiet; he does not speak as much in one year as I do in a day; he is the favourite of fortune:" he had pleasure in extolling the Emperor's moderation, discretion, and long sufferance; and after he had begun to condemn his policy, and to distrust his character, he still insisted upon his companions talking with reverence of the sovereign of Germany; for he said, apologetically, "A politician cannot be as candid as we ecclesiastics." In 1530 he gave it as his opinion, that it would be wrong in the Elector to arm in opposition to the Emperor: it was not till 1537 that he unwillingly adopted a more enlarged view; but even then, the threatened Prince was not to take up arms first. So strongly in this man of the people still dwelt the honourable tradition of a firm well-ordered state, at a time when the proud edifice of that old Saxon and Frank empire was crumbling into ruin; but there was no trace of servile feeling in this loyalty: when the Elector on one occasion desired him to write a plausible letter, his truthful feeling revolted against the Emperor's title of "Most Gracious Sovereign," for the Emperor was not graciously disposed towards him; and in his intercourse with people of rank he showed a careless frankness that shocked the courtiers. To his own sovereign he had with all submission spoken truths as only a great character can speak, and to which only a good heart will listen. He had in general a poor opinion of the German princes, though he esteemed individuals among them; frequent and just are his complaints of their incapacity, licentiousness, and other vices:[[39]] the nobles too he treated with irony; the coarseness of most of them displeased him extremely.[[40]] He felt a democratic aversion to the hard and selfish lawyers who conducted the affairs of the princes, courted favour, and tormented the poor; to the best of them he allowed only a doubtful prospect of the grace of God: his whole heart, on the other hand, was with the oppressed: he blamed the peasants sometimes for their obduracy and their usuriousness, but he commended their class, regarded their vices with heartfelt compassion, and remembered that he sprang from them. These were his views on worldly government, but he served the spiritual: he held firmly the popular idea, that there should be two ruling powers,--the Church, and the princes, and he thought he was justified in proudly placing the domination of the former above that of worldly politics. He strove indignantly to prevent the governing powers from assuming the control in matters pertaining to the care of souls and to the autonomy of his communities. He estimated all politics with reference to the interests of his faith and according to the laws of his Bible. When the Scripture seemed to be endangered by worldly politics, he raised his voice, indifferent where it hit: it was not his fault that he was strong and the princes weak, and it ought to be no reproach to him, the monk, the professor, and the shepherd of souls, if the allied Protestant princes withstood the cunning statesmancraft of the Emperor, like a herd of deer; he himself was so conscious that politics were not his business, that when on one occasion the active Landgrave of Hesse would not follow ecclesiastical advice, he was the more esteemed for it by Luther: "He has a good head of his own; he will be successful; he thoroughly understands the world."