“O, my God,” he said on another occasion, “the article on faith won’t go home; hence so many sad moods arise. Often I have to take myself to task for failing to master such moods when they come, I who have so often taught in lectures, sermons and writings how such temptations are to be overcome.”[1478]
His pupil Mathesius relates the following in his sermons on Luther, the preface to the printed edition of which he wrote in 1565: “Antony Musa, pastor of Rochlitz, told me that he once complained bitterly to the Doctor of being unable to believe himself what he preached to others. ‘Praise and thanks be to God,’ replied the Doctor, ‘that this also happens to others. I fancied it was true only in my case.’ All his life Musa never forgot this consolation.”[1479] So full of admiration for Luther was Mathesius, and probably so well schooled by his master in the theory and practice of a faith which has ever to strive after firmness, that he saw in this statement nothing at all unfavourable to his hero. On the contrary, he includes the story in a list of “all manner of wise sayings” which had fallen from the lips of Luther. He even assures us at the beginning of these notes that, “The man was full of grace and of the Holy Ghost, hence all who went to him for advice as to a prophet of God found what they sought.”[1480] Judging by this Mathesius must have been very easily satisfied in the matter of firmness of faith. Perhaps had his faith been stronger it would have fared better with him in the melancholy which came upon him towards the end of his life.[1481]
“Ah,” said Dr. Martin, so we read elsewhere in Notes made by his pupils, “I used to believe every single thing that the Pope and the monks chose to say, but now I actually cannot believe even what Christ says, Who assuredly does not lie. This is very sad and distressing. Never mind, we must and will keep it for that Day.”[1482]—“When the words of the prophet Hosea, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ set to music by Josquinus, were sung at Dr. Martin Luther’s table, the Doctor said to Dr. Jonas: ‘As little as you believe this singing to be good, so little do I believe theology to be true.... I do indeed love Christ, but my faith ought to be much stronger and warmer.”[1483]—“Many boast of having at their fingers’ ends the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, and I, wretch that I am, find so little comfort in the passion, resurrection, and forgiveness of sins! One thing indeed I can do, viz. eat our Lord God’s bread and drink His beer; but to take that far more necessary treasure which is the free forgiveness of sins, this I cannot succeed in doing.”[1484]
Not merely does he ascribe his own experiences to the first followers of Christ, viz. to Paul and the other Apostles, but again and again he seeks to make them out to be an evil common to all, an heritage of all Christians, nay, something actually involved in the idea of faith. Often he speaks of faith as of something altogether mystical and intangible of the presence of which no man can be conscious. Faith, he thinks, might well not be present at all just when a man fancies he possesses it; again, it might exist in the man who thought he lacked it; or “at any rate such is the case in times of stress and temptation; for it often happens with faith that he who fancies he believes, believes nothing at all, while the man who thinks he believes nothing and lies in despair, really believes the most.... He who has it, has it. We must believe, but we neither must nor can know it for certain” [i.e. whether we really believe]. Thus in 1528.[1485] Needless to say this theory of his was far removed from the strong, simple and perfectly conscious faith of so many thousands even of the humblest followers of the olden religion.
Some years before this, in a work intended for all, he had made a practical application to himself of this curious doctrine of the frequent impossibility of saying whether one really has the faith. Owing to his temptations he admitted that he was not qualified to be reckoned an authority on this question, nor “even a disciple, much less a master.”
“Whoever boasts,” he says in his work on Psalm cxvii., “that he knows very well we must be saved without our works by the grace of God, does not know what he is saying”; “it is an art which keeps us ever schoolboys,” a scent after which we must “sniff and run.” “Let anyone who chooses take me as an example of this, which I admit myself to be. Several times, when I was not thinking of this cardinal doctrine, the devil has caught me and plagued me with texts from Scripture till heaven and earth seemed too tight to hold me. Then human works and laws would seem quite right and not an error would be noticed in the whole of Popery. In short, no one but Luther had ever erred; and all my best works, doctrines, sermons, books were condemned.... You hear now how I am confessing to you and admitting what the devil was able to do against Luther, who of all men ought surely to have been a very adept in this art. For he has preached, told, written, spoken, sung and read so much about it and yet remains a tyro in it, and is at times not even a disciple, much less a master.”[1486]
What he is trying to impress on the reader is, that even if you “can do all things,” take care that “your art does not fail you.”
Thus he did not enjoy the happiness which, according to the testimony of Catholics both learned and unlearned, was shared by all the faithful so long as they paid attention to their religious duties. Guided from their youth by the hand of the Church they were acquainted with no fears and uncertainties, for, thanks to her divine commission and gift of infallibility, she could make up for the insufficiency of human knowledge. Catholics did not look for salvation in a blind and unattainable trust in an imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
Their attitude indeed presents a striking contrast to Luther’s restless struggle after faith.
Not only in the last cold, barren years of his life but even at an earlier period we notice in him a tendency to regard this clutching at faith as the one great matter. In some quite early statements he depicts himself as on the look-out for a believing trust, as violently striving to clasp it to his breast, and, generally, as making this the end of all religious effort.