Luther, vol. 2 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg at once seized upon the property and rights which his father had made over by charter to the Catholic Church. The monks were ousted, the livings seized, the new teaching was introduced and the Count became the founder of Lutheranism in Schwarzburg.

In Eilenburg Luther proceeded through the agency at once of his sovereign and the town-councillors, who were no less zealous than the Prince himself in their efforts to extend their sphere of influence. Luther himself had already worked there in person for his cause. On the occasion of his second stay at Eilenburg he found the councillors somewhat lacking in zeal. Those who favoured the innovations were, however, of opinion that if the Elector were to invite them to apply for a preacher, they would do so. There is no doubt that the Catholic consciences of the councillors were still troubled with scruples, and that the demand of a number of the new believers among the people had as yet failed to move them.

Luther accordingly wrote from Eilenburg to the Court Chaplain, Spalatin, asking him to employ his influence with the Elector in the usual way. He was to obtain from the latter a letter addressed to the town-councillors begging them to “yield to the poor people in this so essential and sacred a matter,” and to summon one of the two preachers whom he at once proposed. The reason he gives in these words: “It is the duty of the sovereign, as ruler and brother Christian, to drive away the wolves and to be solicitous for the welfare of his people.”[942] The change of religion was thereupon actually carried out, under the Elector’s pressure, in true bureaucratic fashion as a matter appertaining to the magistracy. One of the two preachers proposed, Andreas Kauxdorf of Torgau, arrived shortly after, having been dutifully accepted by the councillors. He was permitted to Lutheranise the people, however reluctant and faithful to the Church they might be. He remained there from 1522 to 1543, in which year he died.

General Phenomena accompanying the Religions Change

It not infrequently happened that the people were deceived by faithless and apostate clerics who became preachers of the new religion, and were drawn away from the olden faith without being clearly aware of the fact. After having become gradually and most insensibly accustomed to the new faith and worship, not even the bravest had, as a rule, the strength to draw back. The want of religious instruction among the people was here greatly to blame, likewise the lack of organised ecclesiastical resistance to the error, and also, the indolence of the episcopate.

Mass still continued to be said in many places where Lutheranism had taken root, though in an altered form, a fact which contributed to the deception. One of the chief of Luther’s aims was to combat the Mass as a sacrifice.

He expressed this quite openly to Henry VIII in 1522: “If I succeed in doing away with the Mass, then I shall believe I have completely conquered the Pope. On the Mass, as on a rock, the whole of the Papacy is based, with its monasteries, bishoprics, colleges, altars, services and doctrines.... If the sacrilegious and cursed custom of Mass is overthrown, then the whole must fall. Through me Christ has begun to reveal the abomination standing in the Holy Place (Dan. ix. 27), and to destroy him [the Papal Antichrist] who has taken up his seat there with the devil’s help, with false miracles and deceiving signs.”[943] In respect of the deception of the Mass, “I oppose all the pronouncements of the Fathers, of men, of angels, of devils, not by an appeal to ‘ancient custom and tradition’ nor to any man, but to the Word of the Eternal Majesty and to the Gospel which even my adversaries are forced to acknowledge.” “This is God’s Word,” he vehemently exclaims of his denial of the sacrifice, “not ours. Here I stand, here I take my seat, here I stay, here I triumph and laugh to scorn all Papists, Thomists, Henryists, sophists, and all the gates of hell, not to speak of all the sayings of men, and the most sacred and deceitful of customs.”[944]

It was of the utmost importance to him that the Mass should no longer be regarded as a sacrifice and as the centre of worship. He wished to reduce it to a mere “sign and Divine Testament in which God promises us His Grace and assures us of it by a sign.”[945] Nor is the presence of Christ in the sacrament, according to him, to be assumed as the result of a change of substance; Christ is in, with, and beneath the bread. The churches were robbed of their Divine Guest, for only in the actual ceremony of reception was the Supper a sacrament, at all other times it was nothing.[946]

Yet, in spite of all this, as already pointed out, Luther did not wish to abolish every form of liturgical celebration at once. In the reconstruction of public worship everything depended on not making the change felt by the people in a way that was displeasing to them. The very fact of the change was concealed from many by the form of liturgy Luther advocated,[947] and by the retaining of the ceremonies, vestments, lights, etc. Even the elevation was continued for a long while. But, though the celebration was clothed in a Catholic garb, yet of everything that expressed in words the sacrificial character Luther had already said that it “must and shall be done away with.”[948]