A very high esteem for all secular callings is plainly expressed in the sermons of Johann Herolt, the famous and influential Nuremberg Dominican, whose much-read “Sermones de tempore et de Sanctis” (Latin outlines of sermons for the use of German preachers) had, prior to 1500, appeared in at least forty different editions.
“It has been asked,” he says in one sermon, “whether the labour of parents for their children is meritorious. I reply: Yes, if only they have the intention of bringing up their children for the glory of God and in order that they may become good servants of Christ. If the parents are in a state of grace, then all their trouble with their children, in suckling them, bathing them, carrying them about, dressing them, feeding them, watching by them, teaching and reproving them, redounds to their eternal reward. All this becomes meritorious. And in the same way when the father labours hard in order to earn bread for his wife and children, all this is meritorious for the life beyond.”[395]—A high regard for work is likewise expressed in his sermon “To workmen,” which begins with the words: “Man is born to labour as the bird is to fly.”[396] Another sermon praises the calling of the merchant, which he calls a “good and necessary profession.”[397]
Another witness to the Church’s esteem for worldly callings and employments is Marcus von Weida, a Saxon Dominican. In the discourses he delivered on the “Our Father” at Leipzig, in 1501, he says: “All those pray who do some good work and live virtuously.” For everything that a man does to the praise and glory of God is really prayer. A man must always do what his state of life and his calling demands. “Hence it follows that many a poor peasant, husbandman, artisan or other man who does his work, or whatever he undertakes, in such a way as to redound to God’s glory, is more pleasing to God, by reason of the work he daily performs, and gains more merit before God than any Carthusian or Friar, be he Black, Grey or White, who stands daily in choir singing and praying.”[398]
It is evident that Catholic statements, such as that just quoted from Herolt, concerning the care of children being well-pleasing to God, have been overlooked by those who extol Luther as having been the first to discover and teach, that even to rock children’s cradles and wash their swaddling clothes is a noble, Christian work. What is, however, most curious is the assurance with which Luther himself claimed the merit of this discovery, in connection with his teaching on marriage.
The Carthusian, Erhard Gross, speaks very finely of the different secular callings and states of life, and assigns to them an eminently honourable place: “What are the little precious stones in Christ’s crown but the various classes of the Christian people, who adorn the head of Christ? For He is our Head and all the Christian people are His Body for ever and ever. Hence, amongst the ornaments of the house of God some must be virgins, others widows, some married and others chaste, such as monks, priests and nuns. Nor are these all, for we have also Princes, Kings and Prelates who rule the commonwealth, those who provide for the needs of the body, as, for instance, husbandmen and fishermen, tailors and merchants, bakers and shoemakers, and, generally, all tradesmen.” If the general welfare is not to suffer, he says, each one must faithfully follow his calling. “Therefore whoever wishes to please God, let him stick to the order [state] in which God has placed him and live virtuously; he will then receive his reward from God here, and, after this life, in the world to come.”[399]
Although Luther must have been well aware of the views really held on this subject, some excuse for his wild charges may perhaps be found in his small practical experience, prior to his apostasy, of Christian life in the world. His poverty had forced him, even in childhood, into irregular ways; he had been deprived of the blessings of a truly Christian family-life. His solitary studies had left him a stranger to the active life of good Catholics engaged in secular callings; the fact of his being a monk banished him alike from the society of the bad and impious and from that of the good and virtuous. Thus in many respects he was out of touch with the stimulating influence of the world; the versatility which results from experience was still lacking, when, in his early years at Wittenberg, he began to think out his new theories on God and sin, Grace and the Fall.
“Whoever wishes to please God let him stick to the order [state] in which God has placed him.” These words of Gross, the Carthusian, quoted above, remind us of a comparison instituted by Herolt the Dominican between religious Orders and the “Order” of matrimony. Commending the secular calling of matrimony, he says here, that it was instituted by God Himself, whereas the religious Orders had been founded by men: “We must know that God first honoured matrimony by Himself instituting it. In this wise the Order of matrimony excels all other Orders (‘ordo matrimonialis præcellit olios ordines’); for just as St. Benedict founded the Black Monks, St. Francis the Order of Friars Minor and St. Dominic the Order of Friars Preacher, so God founded matrimony.”[400]
True Christian perfection, according to the ancient teaching of the Church, is not bound up with any particular state, but may be attained by all, no matter their profession, even by the married.
Luther, and many after him, even down to the present day, have represented, that, according to the Catholic view, perfection was incapable of attainment save in the religious life, this alone being termed the “state of perfection.” In his work “On Monkish Vows” he declares: “The monks have divided Christian life into a state of perfection and one of imperfection. To the great majority they have assigned the state of imperfection, to themselves, that of perfection.”[401]
As a matter of fact the “state of perfection” only means, that, religious, by taking upon themselves, publicly and before the Church, the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, bind themselves to strive after perfection along this path as one leading most surely to the goal; it doesn’t imply that they are already in possession of perfection, still less that they alone possess it. By undertaking to follow all their life a Rule approved by the Church, under the guidance of Superiors appointed by the Church, they form a “state” or corporation of which perfection is the aim, and, in this sense alone, are said to belong to the “state of perfection.” In addition, it was always believed that equal, in fact the highest, perfection might be attained to in any state of life. Though the difficulties to be encountered in the worldly state were regarded as greater, yet the conquest they involved was looked upon as the fruit of an even greater love of God, the victory as more splendid, and the degree of perfection attained as so much the more exalted.