Luther, vol. 4 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

This is not the place to point out anew the dangers inherent in Luther’s doctrine of justification, for we have already seen the necessary result of one of its presuppositions, viz. the denial of free-will, and how right Erasmus was when he urged against Luther, that, on this assumption, all laws and commandments, even those of Scripture, were simply superfluous. A Protestant has aptly remarked, that, in the last instance, “the difference between good and evil becomes quite illusory”; we might well ask: “How can we feel ourselves responsible towards God ... if we do nothing and God works all in all?” Luther himself even goes so far as to make Scripture teach that “the will not only desires nothing good, but is even unaware of how much evil it does and of what good is.”[1663] Since the imputed merits of Christ are, as a matter of fact, merely like a screen set up in front of the soul, many might naturally feel tempted to extenuate and excuse all that the sin which persists in man still does behind it.

To appreciate the peculiar nature of the danger it is necessary to take Luther’s teaching, not by itself, but in conjunction with the mental atmosphere of the day. We must of course take it for granted that many of his followers refrained from putting into practice Luther’s teaching in its entirety, for instance, his peculiar doctrine of the lack of free-will. Many well-disposed Lutherans whose good faith was above suspicion, doubtless remained more or less outside the influence of such ideas, were actuated by good religious motives and expressed them in Christian works. Assisted by the grace of God, which is at the disposal of all men of good-will, they, all unknowingly, were gaining merit in heaven. On the other hand, the ill-disposed, those who sought the enjoyments of life—and of such there were thousands—found a sanction in the Wittenberg doctrine for neglecting good works. In the case of many the “joyful tidings” could not under the circumstances of the age be expected to produce any other result. We have only to think of what was going on all about; of the prevalent yearning after release from irksome bonds; of the unkindly feeling towards rulers, both ecclesiastical and secular; of the seething discontent among the peasants on account of their oppression and toilsome duties; of the spirit of independence so vigorous in the towns; of the boundless ambition of the mighty; of the influence, sometimes sceptical, sometimes immoral, of Humanism, and of the worldliness and degradation of so many of the clergy and monks, to be able to understand how momentous was the effect of Luther’s doctrine of justification and his preaching concerning works.

We know on the one hand from many examples with what zest the newly-won promoters of Lutheranism—for the most part former ministers of the Church who had discarded their calling—concentrated their attacks on the practice of good works, and, on the other, how the better-disposed followers of the new doctrine admitted the danger to works accruing from Luther’s views and even their actually evil consequences.

The declamation of the preachers against works was partly intended to silence their own scruples. At any rate it was the speediest method of obtaining a numerous following. The preachers were obliged to deal in some way with the objection constituted by the existence of far greater religious zeal in the olden Church than amongst the new believers; they solved it by denouncing zeal for “outward works.” They were also frequently obliged to extenuate their own laxity of morals, and this they did in the most convenient fashion by branding moral strictness as pharisaical holiness-by-works.

Thus it came about that some, even of the more cautious and moderate Lutherans, for instance Urban Rhegius, complained that the preachers were confining themselves to the denunciation of works and to proclaiming the power of faith alone, as though the great gift of the new religious system merely spelt release from everything displeasing to the flesh; there they came very near justifying the constant assertion to this effect of the defenders of Catholicism, indeed the Catholics’ most effective weapon.

Rhegius, who died in 1541, as General Superintendent of Lüneburg, summed up his experiences of the effect on the people of Luther’s doctrine of Evangelical freedom, in the sermons he delivered at Hall in the Tyrol: “The rude, carnal people here think that the Law has been abolished and that we are released from it, so that we can do as we please; hence, quite shamelessly and to the disgrace of the Evangel, they say: To steal and to commit adultery is no longer sinful, for the Law is no more of any account. Alas, what crass blindness has fallen upon this people, that they think the Son of God came into the world and suffered so much on account of sin in order that we might lead a shameful, dissolute and bestial life.”[1664]

A man of no great firmness of character, he had previously been episcopal vicar at Constance, and could speak from experience of the condition of things amongst the preachers of both Southern and Northern Germany.

He accused them of being responsible for the disastrous consequences, but forgot to seek the real cause in the doctrine itself. According to him not only did no two preachers agree in their preaching, so that the people complained they did not know which religion to follow, but too many were in the habit of speaking, “as though it were possible without doing penance and without any contrition or sorrow for sin to believe Christ’s Gospel and rest secure in the proffered forgiveness.”[1665] They gave vent to utterances such as these: “Our works are no good and stink in God’s nostrils. He does not want them. They only make hypocrites. Faith alone does all. If only you believe, you will become pious and be saved.”[1666]

In 1535 he had recourse to the pen in order to impress on the preachers “How to speak with caution,” as the title of his work runs. In this tract, published in German and Latin, he attempts to show from a number of instances “how the preachers run off the track on one side or the other,” and how many of them “merely destroy and fail to build.”[1667] Anxious to drive home Luther’s doctrine of good works, in the chapter devoted to this subject,[1668] he mentions six different ways in which good works were profitable, which the preachers were not to forget. In all six, however, the real advantage and necessity of good works is not established on its true foundation. The curious tract was an imitation and enlargement of a work published in 1529 under the title: “Anweisung wie und was wir Ernst von Gots Gnaden Hertzog zu Braunswick und Leuneburg unseres Fürstenthumbs Pfarhern und Predigern zu predigen befohlen.”[1669] The secular rulers were often obliged, as in this instance, to intervene in order to safeguard the new faith from preachers who were either thoughtless, or too logical, or in some cases half crazy.