Protestants have found the essential difference between Protestantism and Catholicism to consist in the fact, that, according to Luther’s directions, Protestantism separates “religion and theology, faith and knowledge, morality and politics, Christianity and art,” whereas Catholicism, according to the motto of Pius X, seeks to “renew all things in Christ.” “We know that revelation has only an inward mission to the individual soul; the Catholic believes in its public mission for universal civilisation.” “We should fear for the purity of our faith and no less for morality and civilised order should these domains ever be christianised.”[2183]
The result of forbidding the “spiritual rule” ever to encroach on the temporal domain was so to enfeeble the precepts of ethics as to deprive them of any real authority for making themselves felt as a power in secular government.
With Luther everything is constructed without any basis of authority; he proffers, as he is fond of saying, “opinions and advice,”[2184] and even this he does without a trace of theory or method; as for binding regulations he has none; nor has he any Church behind him that can set up an obligatory ethical standard; he recognises indeed the universal priesthood, but no Church with any paramount authority in spiritual things, no hierarchy and no social institution such as the Catholic Church is. This is the chief reason why his moral instructions lack any definite and binding force over people’s minds. The great mass of mankind must be guided by clear and fixed rules, counsels which address themselves to man’s good-will are in themselves practically useless for the direction or guidance of the masses, constituted as they are. The Gospel, moreover, in spite of what Luther says to the contrary, though it brings the glad tidings of salvation and forgiveness, also contains a large number of strict moral precepts; the Divine Founder of the Church, in His wisdom, also equipped her with full power to issue, on the lines traced out by Himself, the commands called for by the needs of every age. She disposes of spiritual penalties and has the right to excommunicate offenders when this is necessary to emphasise her laws.
With Luther the last resource lay in the system of the State-Church. The “Christian authorities” became the authorities of the congregations (see below, p. 579 ff.).[2185] Thus the founder of the new religion frequently requires the rulers who had rallied to his system to make use of their power in order to lend their sanction and authority to the ethical regulations he gave to his followers, and which he himself was unable to enforce.
Here we shall only consider one class of cases where it was of great importance to him to see his “opinion and advice” followed. According to him, as Luthardt himself admits in his “Ethik Luthers,”[2186] “The authorities were to serve and promote the cause of the Evangel.... From this Luther went on, however, to give advice which really was at variance with his fundamental views. It is true when he demands that the rulers should not suffer any such sects as deny the rights, etc., of the authorities, he was merely imposing on them the fulfilment of one of the duties of the State,[2187] but when he requires the rulers to make use of their powers to check the scandal of heresy and false worship, which was the most horrible and dangerous form of scandal; or, when heresy had been proved from Scripture, to forbid its preaching; ‘to insist on the true worship, to punish and forbid false doctrine and idolatry and to risk everything rather than allow themselves and their people to be forced into idolatry and falsehood’; or ‘to banish from the land those who deny such articles as the Divinity of Christ and the redemption,’ etc.; or again, when two opposing parties confront each other, as, for instance, the Lutherans and the Papists, to decide according to Scripture and forbid the party that failed to agree with Scripture to preach,[2188]—all these and similar matters are plainly based on the assumption that the ruler had a right to form an independent opinion as to whether a doctrine was or was not in accordance with Scripture, an assumption which Luther, as a matter of fact, strongly deprecates in theory. When Luther speaks in this way he is taking it for granted that he has to do with a Christian ruler, who as such does not merely perform his office of ruler like the heathen Emperor or the Grand Turk, but is influenced by the Gospel and recognises the Word of God.”
Expressed in different words Luthardt’s ideas would amount to this: According to Luther it is imperative that the rulers should be good Lutherans and accept the Evangel and the Word of God as he taught it. No other Christian ruler may venture to put the above measures in force, for the truth is he is no Christian at all.
This leads us to look closer into Luther’s ideas on the secular authority and the State-Church.
[2. The State and the State Church]
Most Protestant writers become very eloquent and go into great detail when dealing with the main ideas Luther is supposed to have expressed on the State and on social order.
He maintained, so they assert, and impressed strongly on all ages to come, that the purpose of the State was to keep the peace and uphold the right against the wicked by means of legislation and penalties: “Magistratus instrumentum, per quod Deus pacem et iura conservat.”[2189] This temporal peace was the best earthly possession and comprised all temporal blessings; in point of fact the “true preaching office” should, so he declared, bring peace, but with the greater number “this is not the case,”[2190] so that the authority of the ruler was necessary for the maintenance of outward peace. “This worldly government,” according to him, “preserves temporal peace, rights and life,” indeed he says it makes wild beasts into men and saves men from becoming wild beasts.[2191] The true Evangelical doctrine, unlike the earlier one, leads to the secular government being regarded as “the great gift of God and His own gracious order,”[2192] notwithstanding that all authority was instituted by God on account of the sin that reigns in man. Human reason and experience, and also the Holy Ghost, must teach the authorities how to fulfil their duty. They must, so far as this is possible, work for the common welfare of their subjects in this world. Since, according to Luther, they must punish what is evil in their subjects’ external behaviour and take care that “all public scandal be banished and removed,”[2193] their task seems to trench on morals and on religion. Good sovereigns instruct their people concerning temporal things, “how to manage their homes and farms, how to rule the land and the people, how to make money and secure possessions, how to become rich and powerful,” further, “how we are to till the fields, plough, sow, reap and keep our house.”[2194] In short the ruler must interest himself in the needs of his subjects as “though they were his very own.”[2195] The worldly rulers must provide for the support of their subjects, and particularly for the poor, the widows and orphans, and extend to them their fatherly protection.