All too often his exhortations are disfigured by unmeasured vituperation or uncalled-for controversy of the most bitter kind. In the “Vermanunge zum Gebet wider den Türcken,” referred to above, Luther is seen at his worst in the excursion he makes therein against the abuses—then indeed very bad—of the usurers, particularly because they had ventured to say that “Luther does not even know what usury is.”[1879] He, altogether forgetful of meekness, also attacks the ungrateful Evangelicals in a highly unseemly manner, because they refused to submit to the stern reproofs of their preachers: “Let them fare to the devil and die like pigs and dogs, without grace or sacrament, and be buried on the carrion-heap.... Those men who wish to go unreproved thereby admit that they are downright rogues.... They deserve to hear Mahmed, the Turk, the Pope and the devil and his mother rather than God. Amen, Amen, if they will have it so.”[1880] Of the Catholics he says in the same “Vermanunge,” that the foes of the Evangel among the Catholic princes, “traitors, murderers and incendiaries that they are,” knew full well that his was the “true Word of God,” yet, instead of accepting it, they would “much prefer to behave towards us like Turks, or were it possible, like very devils, not to speak of their being ready to serve, aid, counsel and abet the Turks”; they said, “If God in heaven won’t help us, then let us call in all the devils from hell.... This I know to be true.”[1881]
It was no mere passing fit of temper that induced him in his old age so to disfigure his exhortations. In another pious writing, the “Circular Letter to the Pastors,” sent around two years previous, and also dealing with the war against the Turks, he says: “The Papists do not pray and are so bloodthirsty that they cannot pray”; hence let us pray, he says; “but, when they start with their bloodthirsty designs against the Evangel, then all must fall upon them as upon a pack of mad dogs.”[1882] Such words scattered broadcast over Germany could not possibly serve to promote union or to strengthen the resistance to be offered to the danger looming from the East. They merely throw a lurid light on the chasm Luther cleft in the heart of the nation, and on the internal dissensions which were weakening the Empire and making it an object of ridicule to the Turkish unbelievers.
In the preface to his Church-Postils (1543), Luther exhorts the pastors to leave those, who “wish to be left unpunished,” to “die like dogs”; the rooks and ravens, jackdaws and wolves would sing the best vigils and dirges for the souls of such proud wiselings.[1883] He not only wishes them to fulminate against such men but also desires, that, in the sermons, “certain instances of the Papal tyranny under which we once groaned in misery be introduced.”[1884]
Such was his anger with his foes that Luther even goes so far as to say in his exposition of the Hail Mary, that the Papists “cursed” instead of blessed, the fruit of Mary’s womb.[1885]—In the tract “How to pray” “Peter Balbier” is warned to bear in mind the “idolatry of the Turk, the Pope and all false teachers”;[1886] nor is ridicule of the praying priestlings wanting;[1887] he then exhorts Peter in the most pious of language to imitate his example, viz. “to suck at the Paternoster like a baby, and to eat and drink it like a man,” “never wearying of it”; he was also “very fond of the Psalter,” turning “the whole as far as possible into a prayer,”[1888] and, when he had “grown cold and disgusted with saying prayers,” would take his “little Psalter and escape into his own room,” etc.[1889]—But even his homely exposition of the Our Father is not free from a polemical bias.[1890]
With the beautiful and useful thoughts contained in his preface to the Larger Catechism, to the annoyance of the thoughtful reader, he mingles abuse of the “lazy bellies and presumptuous saints” of his own party,[1891] to say nothing of the inevitable outbursts against Catholic practices. Here, too, the thought of the devil, by which he is ever obsessed, makes him represent Satan’s wiles as the best and most powerful incentive to the study of the Catechism.
Even his earlier Exposition of the Magnificat is spoilt by a controversial colouring,[1892] and, moreover, is overclouded by the circumstance that he wrote it at the very time when the menace of the Diet of Worms was at its worse. Looking out for a powerful protector, he dedicated his writing to Duke Johann Frederick of Saxony, the future Elector, who had wished him luck in his crusade against the Papal Ban. Luther extols the Duke’s piety at the beginning of the work. But was he not anxious to make a good impression himself by his Exposition of the Magnificat? To impress his readers that he was a man enlightened by God and living in union with Him? We may notice how pathetically he depicts the righteous man (and we naturally think of him) submitting to be persecuted for the Word of God, and awaiting with heavenly resignation succour from on high, without in the least striving to protect himself. He who is persecuted, he writes, “must humble himself before God as unworthy that such great things should be done through him and commend everything to His mercy with prayer and supplication.”[1893]
Another motive which inspired the publication of his works of edification was, as he himself admits, to wrest the Catholic prayer-books from the people’s hands. It is true, he says, his intention is “simply and honestly” to supply the people with spiritual food. But he also alludes to the “manifold wretchedness arising out of confession and sin,” and the “unchristian stupidity found in the little prayers offered to God and His Saints,” which he is obliged to assail. Even where his peculiar doctrine makes no appearance in his instructions he is not oblivious of its interest, even though he assures us, seemingly with the utmost sincerity, that he was going to see whether, by his writings, “he could not do his very foes a service. For my object is ever to be helpful to all and harmful to none.”[1894] He saw well of what help the mere existence of pious books would prove to his party; the more pious and innocent they were, the more they would promote his cause and smooth the way for him. The simplicity of the dove thus openly flaunted, nevertheless contrasts unpleasantly with the wisdom of the serpent which is only too apparent.
As to what is lacking in Luther’s religious writings: Any reader familiar with the manuals of instruction and piety in use towards the close of the Middle Ages will at once perceive a great difference between the importance they attach to self-denial, self-conquest and the struggle against the evil inclinations of nature and that attached to them by Luther.
In the “Imitation of Christ,” for instance, the great stress laid on self-denial gives an effective spur to every inward virtue. In Luther, with his twin ideas of faith alone and the irresistible power of grace, this main feature of the religious warfare falls decidedly into the background. Is it a mere coincidence that in the Larger Catechism self-denial and penance are not mentioned among the means for preserving chastity?[1895] Chastity itself is there dealt with in a curiously grudging fashion. The so-called Evangelical Counsels, which fell from our Lord’s own lips and had been eagerly pursued in the past by those seeking to lead a life of perfection, are naturally altogether ignored by Luther. With him, too, the wholesome incentive to good provided by the hope of supernatural merit for heaven had also, owing to his theory, to be set aside. The appeals to the motive of holy fear which he makes are too rare and too powerless to be of much avail. He had clipped with a rude hand the two wings of the spiritual life, viz. fear and the hope of reward, which bear it upwards and without which man cannot rise above the things of sense.