Luther, vol. 4 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

On such principles as these, what was there that Luther could not justify in his polemics with the older Church?

In his eyes everything he undertook was done for “God’s glory.” “For the sake of the Christian Church,” he was ready, to tell “a downright lie” (above, p. 51) in the Hessian affair. “Against the deception and depravity of the Papal Antichrist,” he regarded everything “as permissible” for the salvation of souls (above, p. 95); moreover, was not the war he was waging part of his divine mission? The public welfare and the exalted interests of his work might therefore at any time call for a violation of the truth. Was he to be deterred, perhaps, by the injury his opponents might thereby suffer? By no means. They suffered no real injury; on the contrary, it all redounded to their spiritual good, for by ending the reign of prejudice and error their souls would be saved from imminent peril and the way paved for the accomplishment of the ancient promises “to the glory and furtherance of the Word.”

We do not mean to say that Luther actually formed his conscience thus in any particular instance. Of this we cannot judge and it would be too much to expect from him any statement on the subject. But the danger of his doing so was sufficiently proximate.

The above may possibly throw a new light on his famous words: “We consider everything allowable against the deception and depravity of the Papal Antichrist.”[349]

Luther’s Influence on His Circle.

Our remarks on Luther and lying would be incomplete were we not to refer to the influence his example and theory exercised on his surroundings and on those who assisted him in establishing the new Church system.

Melanchthon not only incurred, and justly too, the reproach of frequently playing the dishonest diplomatist, particularly at the Diet of Augsburg,[350] but even advocated in his doctrinal works the Lutheran view that lying is in many cases lawful.

“The lie of convenience,” he says, “is praiseworthy, it is a good useful lie and proceeds from charity because one desires thereby to help one’s neighbour.” Hence, we may infer, where the object was to bring the Evangel home to a man, a lie was all the less reprehensible. Melanchthon appeals to Abraham’s statement that Sarah was his sister (Gen. xii. and xx.), and to the artifice of Eliseus (4 Kings vi. 19), but overlooks the fact that these instances prove nothing in his favour since there no “neighbour was helped,” but, on the contrary, untruth was dictated purely by self-love.[351]

During the negotiations carried on between England, Hesse and Saxony in view of an ecclesiastical understanding, Melanchthon, at the instance of the Elector of Saxony, drew up for him and the Landgrave, a document to be sent to Henry VIII of England, giving him information concerning the Anabaptist movement. His treatment of the matter has already been referred to (vol. iii., p. 374), but it now calls for more detailed consideration.

In this writing Melanchthon, to serve the interests of the new Evangel, had the courage to deny that the movement had made its appearance in those parts of Germany “where the pure Gospel is proclaimed,” but was only to be met with “where the people are not preserved from such errors by sound doctrine,” viz. “in Frisia and Westphalia.”[352] The fact is that the Anabaptists were so numerous in the Saxon Electorate that we constantly hear of prosecutions being instituted against them. P. Wappler, for instance, quotes an official minute from the Weimar archives, actually dated in 1536, which states, that the Elector “caused many Anabaptists to be punished and put to death by drowning and the sword, and to suffer long terms of imprisonment.”[353] Shortly before Melanchthon wrote the above, two Anabaptists had been executed in the Saxon Electorate. Beyond all doubt these facts were known to Melanchthon. The Landgrave of Hesse refused to allow the letter to be despatched. Feige, his Chancellor, pointed out the untruth of the statement, “that these errors only prevailed in places where the pure doctrine was lacking”; on the contrary, the Anabaptist error was unfortunately to be found throughout Germany, and even more under the Evangel than amongst the Papists.[354] An amended version of the letter, dated Sep. 23, 1536, was eventually sent to the King. Wappler, who relates all this fully, says: “Melanchthon was obviously influenced by his wish to warn the King of the ‘plague’ of the Anabaptist heresy and to predispose him for the ‘pure doctrine of the Evangel.’” “What he said was glaringly at variance with the actual facts.”[355]