Luther often had recourse to prayer, especially when he found himself in difficulty, or in an awkward situation from which he could see no escape; in his letters he also as a rule asks for prayers for himself and for the common cause of the new Evangel. It is impossible to take such requests as a mere formality; his way of making them is usually so full of feeling that they must have been meant in earnest.
In 1534 he wrote a special instruction for the simple and unlearned on the way to pray.[920] Many parts of this booklet recall the teaching of the great masters of prayer, though unfortunately it is imbued with his peculiar tenets.
He urges people to pray fervently against “the idolatry of the Turk, of the Pope, of all false teachers and devil’s snares”; he also mocks at the prayers of the “parsons and monks,”[921] unable to refrain from his bitter polemics even in an otherwise edifying work. Yet the body of the booklet teaches quite accurately, in a fashion recalling the directions given by St. Ignatius, how the Our Father and other daily prayers may be devoutly recited, with pauses after the various petitions or words, so as to form a sort of meditation. He himself, so he assures his readers, was in the habit of “sucking” in this way at the Paternoster, and was also fond of occupying himself with a similar prayerful analysis of the Psalter.
His regular daily prayer he says elsewhere was the Our Father, the Creed and the other usual formulas.[922] “I have daily to do violence to myself in order to pray,” he remarked to his friends, “and I am satisfied to repeat when I go to bed the Ten Commandments, the Our Father and then a verse or two; thinking over them I fall asleep.”[923] “The Our Father is my prayer, I pray this and sometimes intermingle with it something from the Psalms, so as to put to shame the vain scoffers and false teachers.”
It must not be overlooked, however, that on extraordinary occasions, when his hatred of the Papacy was more than usually strong or when troubles pressed, his prayer was apt to assume strange forms. His abomination for the Pope found vent, as he repeatedly tells us, in his maledictory Paternoster.[924] When in great fear and anxiety concerning Melanchthon, who lay sick at Weimar, he, to use his own quaint phraseology, “threw down his tools before our God,” to compel Him, as it were, to render assistance. Another such attempt to do violence to God is the purport of a prayer uttered in dejection during his stay in the fortress of Coburg, which Veit Dietrich, who overheard it, gives us in what he states were Luther’s own words: “I know that Thou art Our God and Father; hence I am certain Thou wilt put to shame all those who persecute Thy children. Shouldst Thou not do so, there will be as much danger for Thee as for us. This is Thy cause, and we only took it up because we knew Thou wouldst defend it,” etc.[925] This intimate friend of Luther’s also tells us, that, in those anxious days, Luther’s conversations concerning God and his hopes for the future bore an even deeper stamp than usual of sincerity and depth of feeling. Dietrich was one of Luther’s most passionately devoted pupils.
“Ah, prayer can do much,” such are Luther’s words in one of the numerous passages of the Table-Talk, where he recommends its use. “By prayer many are saved, even now, just as we ourselves prayed Philip back to life.”[926]
“It is impossible,” he says, “that God should not answer the prayer of faith; that He does not always do so is another matter. God does not give according to a prescribed measure, but heaped up and shaken down, as He says.... Hence James says (v. 16): ‘Pray one for another,’ etc. ‘The continual prayer of a just man availeth much.’ That is one of the best verses in his Epistle. Prayer is a powerful thing.”[927]
Anyone who has followed Luther’s development and understands his character will know where to find the key to these remarkable, and at first sight puzzling, declarations of trust in God and zeal in prayer.
When once the herald of the new religion had contrived to persuade himself of his Divine call, such blindly confident prayer and trust in God no longer involve anything wonderful. His utterances, undoubtedly, have a good side, for instance, his frank admission of his weakness, of his want of virtue and of the parlous condition of his cause, should God forsake it. All his difficulties he casts into the lap of the Almighty and of Christ, in the true Divine sonship of whom he declares he believes firmly. It must, however, strike anyone who examines his prayers that he never once expresses the idea which should accompany all true prayer, viz. resignation into the hands of God and entire willingness to follow Him, to go forward, or turn back whithersoever God wills; never do we find him imploring light so as to know whether the course he is pursuing and the work he has undertaken is indeed right and pleasing to God. On the contrary, in his prayers, in his thoughts and amidst all his inner conflicts, he resolutely sets aside as out of the question any idea of changing the religious attitude he has once assumed.[928] All his striving is directed towards this one end, viz. that God will vouchsafe to further his cause and grant him victory. He, as it were, foists his cause on Heaven. Hence there is lacking a property imperatively demanded by prayer, viz. that holy indifference and readiness to serve God in the way pleasing to Him to which the Psalmist alludes when he says: “Teach me to do Thy Will, O Lord.”
The dominating idea which both animates his confidence and gives it its peculiar stamp, also furnishes him with a sword against the Papacy, with which he lays about him all the more vigorously the more fervently he prays. In praying he blows into a flame his hatred of all who stand up for the ancient Church; in his prayers he seems to find all the monstrous accusations he intends to hurl against her. Yet he himself elsewhere reminds his hearers, that, as a preparation for prayer, they must put away all bad feeling, since our Lord warns the man who is at variance with his brother first to be reconciled to him before coming with his offering. Luther also impresses on the monks and clergy that they must not pray for what is displeasing to God ... for instance, for strength to fulfil their obligation of celibacy or their vows.—Might they not justly have retorted that he, too, should not insist so blindly that God should establish his work? And might not the fanatics and Anabaptists have urged a tu quoque against him when he accused them of spiritual pride and blind presumption because of their fervent prayers?