The intervention of the prince subsequent to the victory over the peasants in 1525 also greatly promoted the increased devotion with which men of influence, Luther included, attached themselves to the authority of the ruler as a bulwark against revolution. The arrogance of the country folk had to be broken by strengthening the power of the sovereign; this Luther repeated so often and so loudly that his foes began to call him a footlicker of the princes.
Significance of the Visitation and Inquisition held in the Saxon Electorate
The decisive importance, for the inward development of the new Church system and for Luther’s position, of the Visitation of the churches of the Saxon Electorate held in 1528 has already been pointed out cursorily.[2259] The Visitation brought to a head a growth which had long been in process. The princely supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs which then came about and was formally sanctioned in Saxony became, with Luther’s consent, which was partly given freely, partly wrung from him, something permanent in the birthplace of the new Church, the Visitations continuing to be carried out in the same way by the prince of the land. Saxony provided a model which was gradually followed in other districts where Lutheranism prevailed, while the then tendency to strengthen the reigning houses so as to enable them to hold their own against Emperor and Empire also exercised a powerful influence.
The Electoral Visitation which Luther had counselled and to which he most zealously lent his help, had for its aim, according to his own words, which we must take in their most literal sense, “the constituting of the churches” because “everything is now so mangled.”[2260] So much did he expect from it that he even expressed the hope that it would clear up for the future the whole problem of the new “Church” and its organisation, which, strange to say, he had never seen fit to think out theoretically. As a matter of fact it was “cleared up,” and that by the very programme for the Visitation issued by the Court. What was to be instituted was to be neither a Church apart, nor a number of free Congregational Churches, nor a great independent National Church, but a State Establishment, a compulsory Church in fact, though calling itself a National Church upheld by the charity of the State.[2261]
We have the programme of the Visitation in the three documents which follow in chronological order, the “Instructions” for the Visitors themselves issued by the Elector on June 16, 1527,[2262] the “Instructions of the Visitors addressed to the ministers of the Saxon Electorate” and the Preface to the same which Luther composed, both of which appeared in print together in March, 1528.[2263]
It can scarcely be doubted that Luther had a hand in the drafting of the Electoral Instructions, which form a sort of Magna Charta of princely supremacy in Church matters. All his previous written communications with the Court had been tending towards this end. In his earliest efforts to bring about the Visitation he had told the ruler that it pertained to his “office” to see that the Evangelical workers were remunerated, that, into his hands “as the supreme head” had fallen “all the monasteries and foundations” and, with them, the “duty and obligation of seeing into a matter in which no one else could or had a right to interfere.” “Not God’s command alone but our own needs require that some step should here be taken.” Thus he demands that the prince, by virtue of his own authority as “one appointed by God for the matter and empowered to act,” should nominate four persons as Visitors, who by his “orders should arrange for the erection and support of schools and parsonages where this was wanted”; of these persons, two were to attend to the material needs, and two who had had a theological training were to examine into the doctrine, preaching and performance of spiritual duties.[2264]
Such were the “principles which were eventually carried into practice. For ages after, the Lutheran sovereigns asserted their right to draw up rules concerning the doctrine and constitution of their National Churches, and, to this end, not only laid claim to the old ecclesiastical revenues but also to the right to levy special taxes on their subjects.”[2265]
Luther was moved to take up his new standpoint not merely by the needs of the day but also by pious Lutherans, such as Nicholas Hausmann, the pastor of Zwickau, who by examples taken from the Bible had pointed out to the Elector himself what his rights and duties were in this field;[2266] an even stronger influence was, maybe, exerted on him by the lawyers of the Court, who were intent on making the most of the rights of the sovereign, especially by Chancellor Brück, their spokesman, with whom Luther was brought into closer contact when seeking to remedy the existing distress. He himself, as we shall see, hesitated a little about entering upon this new course. The supremacy of the prince nevertheless seemed inevitably called for by the secularisation of Church property, also for the appointment and payment of the pastors, for the removal of incapable preachers and those who excited the mob,—especially those of “fanatic” inclinations—and, lastly, for the final and violent uprooting of Catholic worship where it still lingered.
A Visitation was begun in the Electorate in Feb., 1527, by a very characteristic commission appointed by the sovereign assisted by the University of Wittenberg; it was composed of the following members: the lawyer, Hieronymus Schurff, the two noblemen Hans von der Planitz and Asmus von Haubitz, and Melanchthon. The Electoral Instructions of June, 1527, referred to above were the result of previous experience, and had the approval of both Luther and Melanchthon. The practical experience already gained also proved useful in the drawing up of the “Unterricht der Visitatorn an die Pharhern” which was of a more theological and practical character. It is almost entirely the work of Melanchthon, though it was formally approved and accepted by Luther after some slight alterations. It was sent to Luther by the Elector, who had carefully gone into its details, and who directed him to look through it and also write an historical preface (“narration”) to it, though the work as a whole was to appear to come from the Court. In due time both the “Instructions” and the Preface were sent to the press by the Elector.
What had transpired of the contents of the “Unterricht” had already aroused considerable opposition within the Lutheran camp; it was displeasing to the zealots to find Melanchthon again returning half-way to the Catholic doctrine in the matter of penance, free-will and good works. They openly declared that official Lutheranism was “slinking back.” After its appearance further criticism was aroused among both Protestants and Catholics. Of the Catholic writers, Cochlæus ironically drew attention in his “Lutherus septiceps” to the withdrawal that had taken place from Luther’s former crass assertions. He also incidentally describes the strange appearance of the State Visitors: “Here comes the Visitor wearing a new kind of mitre, setting up a new form of Papacy, prescribing new laws for divine worship, and reviving what had long since fallen into disuse and dragging it forth into the light once more.”[2267] Joachim von der Heyden in his printed letter to Catherine Bora even declared, that, in the rules for the Visitation, Luther “had resumed the Imperial rights,” which he had “for a while discarded.” He is referring to certain of the rules dealing with Church property, which were to Luther’s personal interest.[2268]