Luther’s farewell address where these words occur furnishes at the same time an example of how, throughout his life, when assailed by doubts and fears, or when the Evangel was in danger, as it then was owing to the Emperor’s warlike preparations, he carried out his injunction of “running to Christ.” He seeks to pour into his faith a little of the strengthening cordial of defiance, and calls upon all his followers to do the same: “Christ says.... Obey me; if you have My Word, hold fast to it.... Leave Pope, Emperor, the mighty and learned to be as wise as ever they please, but do not you follow them.... Do not that which even the angels in heaven may not do.... The poor, wretched creatures, the Pope, Emperor, kings and all the sects fear not to presume this; but God has set His Son at His right hand and said, Thou art My Son, I have given Thee all the kings and the whole world for Thy possession, etc. To Him you kings and lords must hearken.” “I will give you courage,” Christ says, “to laugh when the Turk, Pope and Emperor rage and storm their very worst; come ye only to me. Though you be burdened, faced by death or martyrdom, though Pope and Turk and Emperor attack you, fear ye not.”[1495]
It is, in fact, quite characteristic of his faith, that, when in difficulties, the more he becomes conscious of its lack of theological foundation and of its purely emotional character, the more he arms himself with the weapons of defiant violence. On the one hand he can say, as he does in the Table-Talk of Cordatus: “Had I such great faith as I ought to have, I should long ago have slain the Turk and curbed every tyrant.”[1496] “I have indeed tormented myself greatly about them. But my faith is wanting.” And yet on another occasion, with a sadness which does him credit, he expresses his envy of the “pure and simple faith” of the children, and laments: “We old fools torment ourselves and make our hearts heavy with our disputations on the Word, whether this be true, or whether that be possible.”[1497]
Luther’s Pretended Condemnations of his whole Life-work
Certain controversialists have alleged that Luther came outspokenly to disown his doctrine and his work; they tell us that he expressed his regret for ever having undertaken the religious innovation. Words are even quoted as his which furnish “the tersest condemnation of the Reformation by the Reformer himself.”
No genuine utterances of his to this effect exist.
The first abjuration of the whole of his life’s work is supposed to be contained in the statement: “Well, since I have begun it I will carry it through, but, not for the whole world would I begin it again now.”[1498] But why was he disinclined to begin again anew? Not by a single word does Luther give us to understand the reason to be that he regarded what he had done as reprehensible; on the contrary, he explains that he would not begin it again “on account of the great and excessive cares and anxieties this office brings with it.” That he by no means regarded the office itself as blameworthy is plain from the words that immediately follow: “If I looked to Him Who called me to it, then I would not even wish not to have begun it; nor do I now desire to have any other God.” And before this, in the same passage, extolling his office, he had said: Moses had besought God as many as six times to excuse him from so arduous a mission. “Yet he had to go. And in the same way God led me into it. Had I known about it beforehand He would have had difficulty in inducing me to undertake it.” It was Luther’s wont thus to represent the beginning of his undertaking as having been entirely directed by God. He is fond of saying that he had foreseen neither its final aims nor its immense difficulties and then to proceed: My ignorance was a piece of luck and a dispensation of providence, for, otherwise, affrighted by the dangers, I should have drawn back from my labours. Here his idea is much the same, and is as far removed as possible from any self-condemnation. Of course the question, whether his idea that God alone was responsible for his work was based on truth, is quite another one.
The second utterance of Luther’s which has been brought forward against him merely voices anew his disappointment with this wicked world and his complaint of the cold way in which people had received his Evangel though it is the Word of God: “Had I known when I first began to write what I have now seen and experienced, namely that people would be so hostile to the Word of God and would so violently oppose it, I would assuredly have held my tongue, for I should never have been so bold as to attack and anger the Pope and indeed all mankind.”[1499] Here, moreover, we have little more than a rhetorical exaggeration of the difficulties he had overcome.
Nor is it hard to estimate at its true value a third utterance wrung from him: “I can never rid myself of the thought and wish, that I had better never have begun this business.”[1500] The feeling which prompted this deliverance is plainly expressed in what follows immediately: “Item, I would rather be dead than witness such contempt of God’s Word and of His faithful servants.” Here again he is simply giving vent to his ill-temper, that his preaching of the divine truths should receive such scant attention; not in the least can this be read as an admission of the falsehood of his mission.
Two other curious statements which have further been cited, besides having been spoken under the influence of the disappointment above referred to, also bear the stamp of his peculiar rhetoric which alone can explain their tenor. The context at any rate makes it impossible to find in them any repudiation of his previous conduct.
One of these sayings of Luther’s does indeed ring strange: “The tyrants in the Papacy” “plagued the world with their violence”; but the people, now that they have been delivered from them, refuse to lend an ear to those who preach “at God’s command,” but prefer to run after seducers. “Hence I am going to help to set up again the Papacy and raise the monks on high, for the world cannot get along without such clowns and comedians.”—The truth is, however, that Luther never seriously contemplated carrying out such a threat or countenancing the rule of “Antichrist.” People simply misapprehended him when they read into this jest of his a real intention to re-establish “the Papal rule.”