Luther’s confessions of his faults and general unworthiness are often quite impressive. We may notice that such were not unfrequently made to persons of influence, to Princes and exalted patrons on whom his success depended, and whom he hoped thereby to dispose favourably; others, however, are the natural, communicative outpourings of that “colossal frankness”—as it has been termed—which posterity has to thank for its knowledge of so many of Luther’s foibles. In his conversations we sometimes find him speaking slightingly of himself, for instance, when he says: “Philip is of a better brand than I. He fights and teaches; I am more of a rhetorician or gossip.”[1155]
A passage frequently quoted by Luther’s admirers in proof of his humility is that which occurs in his preface to the “Psalter” published by Eobanus Hessus. The Psalms, he says, had been his school from his youth upwards. “While unwilling to put my gifts before those of others, I may yet boast with a holy presumption, that I would not, as they say, for all the thrones and kingdoms of the world, forgo the benefits, that, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, I have derived from lingering and meditating on the Psalms.” He was not going to hide the gifts he had received from God, and in Him he would be proud, albeit in himself he found reasons enough to make him humble; he took less pleasure in his own German Psalter than in that of Eobanus, “but all to the honour and glory of God, to Whom be praise for ever and ever.”[1156]
In order to know Luther as he really was we should observe him amongst his pupils at Wittenberg, for instance, as he left the Schlosskirche after one of his powerful sermons to the people, and familiarly addressed those who pressed about him on the steps of the church. There were the burghers and students whose faults he had just been scourging; the theologians of his circle crowding with pride around their master; the lawyers, privy councillors and Court officials in the background, probably grumbling under their breath at Luther’s peculiarities and harsh words. His friends wish him many years of health and strength that he may continue his great work in the pulpit and press; he, on the other hand, thinks only of death; he insists on speaking of his Last Will and Testament, of the chances of his cause, of his enemies and of the threatened Council which he so dreaded.[1157]
“Let me be,” Luther cries, turning to the lawyers, “even in my Last Will, the man I really am, one well known both in heaven and on earth, and not unknown in hell, standing in sufficient esteem and authority to be trusted and believed in more than any notary; for God, the Father of Mercies, has entrusted to me, poor, unworthy, wretched sinner that I am, the Gospel of His Dear Son and has made and hitherto kept me faithful and true to it, so that many in the world have accepted it through me, and consider me a teacher of the truth in spite of the Pope’s ban and the wrath of Emperors, Kings, Princes, priests and all the devils.... Dr. Martin Luther, God’s own notary and the witness of His Gospel.”[1158]
I am “Our Lord Jesus Christ’s unworthy evangelist.”[1159]
I am “the Prophet of the Germans, for such is the haughty title I must henceforth assume.”[1160]
“I am Ecclesiastes by the Grace of God”; “Evangelist by the Grace of God.”[1161]
“I must not deny the gifts of Jesus Christ, viz. that, however small be my acquaintance with Holy Scripture, I understand it a great deal better than the Pope and all his people.”[1162]
“I believe that we are the last trump that sounds before Christ’s coming.”[1163]