It is quite likely that Emser gave Luther the threefold warning he speaks of above. But that Luther should have replied to the exhortation “to spare the poor people,” etc., by the strange statement that “the matter had not been begun for God’s sake” is so utterly unlikely that he was probably right in denying it in his reply to Emser.[955] We may safely assume that Emser was a little confused in his recollection of the interview; in his conversation in the castle at Leipzig he may have spoken of Luther’s action generally and of the Disputation in particular, whereupon Luther, thinking only of the Disputation, may well have said: “Let the devil,” etc.; which Emser, in the excitement of the dispute, took to refer to Luther’s action as a whole.
At any rate, Luther’s fear of giving scandal, according to his own letters, was not nearly so great as he makes out in his reply to Emser. Here, in the very passage under discussion, he overwhelms Emser with abuse, a fact which does not awaken confidence in his statements: “That man would indeed be a monster, even worse than Emser himself, who did not heartily grieve to cause annoyance to the poor people.” He calls his opponent a “poisonous, shameless liar,” a “murderer,” who spoke contrary to his own “heart and conscience.” “My great and joyful courage cuts you to the quick”; “Ecks, Emsers, Goats, Wolves and Serpents and such-like senseless and ferocious beasts” would have raved even against Christ Himself. In the same breath he declares, that in his behaviour up to that time “he had never once started a quarrel”; everything unfavourable that had been said of him was based merely on lies, which had been invented about him “these three years” and had become a crying scandal.
CHAPTER X
LUTHER’S PROGRESS IN THE NEW TEACHING
1. The Second Stage of his development. Assurance of Salvation
Two elements were still wanting to Luther’s teaching—the very two which, at a later date and till the end of his life, he regarded as the corner-stone of the truth which he had discovered—viz. Faith alone as the means of justification, and the assurance of Divine favour, which was its outcome. Both these elements are most closely connected, and go to make up the Lutheran doctrine of the appropriation of salvation, or personal certainty of faith. In accordance therewith justifying faith includes not only a belief in Christ as the Saviour; I must not merely believe that He will save and sanctify me if I turn to Him with humility and confidence—this the Church had ever taught—but I must also have entire faith in my justification, and rest assured, that without any work whatsoever on my part and solely by means of such a faith, all the demands made upon me are fulfilled, the merits of Christ appropriated, and my remaining sins not imputed to me; such is personal assurance of salvation by faith alone.
The teaching of the Catholic Church, we may remind our readers, never recognised in its exhortation to faith and confidence in God, the existence of this “faith alone” which justifies without further ado, nor did it require that of necessity there must be a special faith in one’s state of salvation. In place of faith alone the Church taught what the Council of Trent thus sums up: “We are said to be justified by faith because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God and reach the blessed company of His children.”[956]
And instead of setting up a special faith in our own state of salvation, her teaching, as expressed by the same Council, had ever been that “no devout person may doubt the mercy of God, the merit of Christ and the power and efficacy of the sacraments,” though, on the other hand, “no one may boast with certainty of the remission of his sins”; “nor may it be said that those who are truly justified must convince themselves beyond all doubt that they are justified and that no one is absolved from sin and justified unless he believe with certainty that he has been so absolved and justified, as though absolution and justification were accomplished by this faith alone”; “but rather everyone, bearing in mind his own weakness and indisposition, may well be anxious and afraid for his salvation, as no one can know, with the certainty of faith which excludes all error, that he has attained to the grace of God.”[957]