That the devil must be resisted and that his tricks and temptations lead to what is evil, has been insisted upon by few preachers so frequently as by Luther, who in almost every address, every chapter of his works, and every letter treats of the sinister power of the devil. Another favourite, more positive theme of his discourses, whether to the members of his household or to the larger circle of the public, was the domestic virtues and the cheerful carrying out of the duties of one’s calling. He was also fond, in the sermons he was so indefatigable in preaching, of bringing home to those oppressed with the burden of life’s troubles the consolation of certain evangelical truths, and of breaking the bread of the Word to the little ones and the unlearned. With the utmost earnestness he sought to awaken trust in God, resignation to His Providence, hope in His Mercy and Bounty and the confession of our own weakness. One idea on which he was particularly fond of lingering, was, that we must pray because we depend entirely upon God, and that we must put aside all confidence in ourselves in order that we may be filled with His Grace.
Unfortunately such thoughts too often brought him back to his own pet views of man’s passivity and absence of free will and the all-effecting power of God. “The game is always won,” he cries, “and if it is won there is no longer any pain or trouble more; there is no need to struggle and fight, for all has already been accomplished.”[613] “Christ, the Conqueror, has done all, so that there is nothing left for us to do, to root out sin, to slay the devil or to overcome death; they all have been trampled to the ground.... The doing was not, however, our work.”[614]—“The Christian’s work is to sleep and do nothing”; thus does he sum up in one of his sermons the exhortations he had previously given to rest altogether on the merits of Christ; even should a man “fall into sin and be up to the neck in it, let him remember that Christ is no taker, but a most gracious giver”; this is “a very sweet and cheering doctrine; others, it is true, teach that you must do so much for sin, must live in this or that way, since God must be paid to the last farthing before you can appear before Him. Such people make of God a torturer and taskmaster.”[615] After having recommended prayer he inveighs against what he calls its abuse: “They say: I will pray until God gives me His Grace; but nothing comes of it, because God says to them: You cannot and never will be able to do anything; but I shall do everything.” “Everything through Christ: through works, nothing whatever.”[616]
Luther has some remarkable admissions to make, particularly in his private utterances, concerning the manner in which he himself and his chosen circle lived their faith.
“I cannot express in words what great pains I took in the Papacy to be righteous. Now, however, I have ceased entirely to be careful, because I have come to the insight and belief that another has become righteous before God in my stead.”[617]
“My doctrine stands whatever [my] life may be.”[618]
“Let us stick to the true Word that the seat of Moses may be ours. Even should our manner of life not be altogether polished and perfect, yet God is merciful; the laity, however, hate us.”[619]
“Neither would it be a good thing were we to do all that God commands, for in that case He would be cheated of His Godhead, and the Our Father, faith, the article of the forgiveness of sins, etc., would all go to ruin. God would be made a liar. He would no longer be the one and only truth, and every man would not be a liar [as Scripture says]. Should any man say: ‘If this is so, God will be but little served on earth’ [I reply]: He is accustomed to that; He wills to be, and is, a God of great mercy.”[620]
“I want to hand over a downright sinner to the Judgment Seat of our Lord God; for though I myself may not have actually been guilty of adultery, still that has not been for lack of good-will.”[621]—The latter phrase was a saying of the populace, and does not in the least mean that he ever really had the intention of committing the sin.
“I confess of myself,” he says in a sermon in 1532, “and doubtless others must admit the same [of themselves], that I lack the diligence and earnestness of which really I ought to have much more than formerly; that I am much more careless than I was under the Papacy; and that now, under the Evangel, there is nowhere the same zeal to be found as before.” This he declares to be due to the devil and to people’s carelessness, but not to his teaching.[622]
On other occasions he admits of his party as a whole, more particularly of its leaders, viz. the theologians and Princes, that they fell more or less short of what was required for a Christian life; among them he expressly includes himself: “It is certain with regard to ourselves and our Princes that we are not clean and holy, and the Princes have vices of their own. But Christ loves a frank and downright confession.”[623]