True to one of his ruling tendencies, he based on the Bible the rights and duties of the authorities in every department of the spiritual sphere. “If the authorities do not wish it, then neither must you.” Nevertheless, almost in the same breath, he scoffs at the claims of the authorities when they did not happen to fall in with his wishes, or when they proved an obstacle to the expulsion of Popery: “Why pay attention to him [the Elector]? He has no right to command except in worldly things.”[2296]
He stood for the Consistories and promoted their establishment in spite of Spalatin’s objections; and yet, on the other hand, he opposed them, saying, that the Courts were after ruling the Churches as they pleased, and that Satan was bent on introducing the secular power into the Church.[2297] Hence, from about 1540, he attempted to set up Protestant bishops as in the case of Nicholas Amsdorf.[2298] The Consistories displeased him and made life unbearable. Still, because the ecclesiastical edifice he had erected could not do without them, he bridled his tongue; very different is the picture of Luther from that of the champions of the Church’s independence in the early days of Christianity, for instance, Ambrose or Chrysostom, who, regardless of self, staked all they had in the struggle against the oppressors of the Church. His habit of making the naughty lawyers of the Court the butt of his complaints is significant enough, for the really responsible party was the Court itself and the Elector in person, who used his newly acquired power to rule more autocratically in Church matters than any Pope had ever done.
Conclusion
The prince did not rule as a member of a religious commonwealth which also had rights of its own, but rather as one holding the highest powers of the episcopate; he nominated the pastors and provided for their support; he watched over the lives and behaviour of the clergy, and, at Luther’s instance, took proceedings against the false teachers and the remnants of Popery; he alone controlled the consistory which acted in his name; matrimonial cases were already being dealt with by his lawyers and the disposal and management of the property which had formerly belonged to the Church depended entirely on the Court. The right of the congregations “to appoint and dismiss preachers and to pronounce on doctrine” seemed now forgotten. If a layman dared to call a preacher to task the authorities were bound to take proceedings against him for disturbance of the public peace and order.
Not that Luther hesitated to complain or express his displeasure with the State-Church system whenever he found it in his way, or when he saw Catholic princes make use of his principles, or when he thought the cause of the new religion compromised. On such occasions we hear him bewailing: “The worldly rulers, the princes, kings and nobles throughout the land, not to speak of the magistrates in the villages, want to wield the sword of the Word and teach the pastors how and what they are to preach and how they must govern their Churches. But do you boldly say to such: You fool, you brainless dolt, look to your own calling and don’t try to preach; leave that to your pastor.” He declares in the same way: “The secular government does not extend over the conscience, though there are many crazy princes who seek to raise their power and influence over the welkin itself and even to rule consciences, also to settle what is to be believed or not; yet, the worldly power has only to do with that which reason grasps.”[2299]
He considered that the interests of his new Church were endangered when, in 1533, the Hessian theologians advocated the enforcement of the greater excommunication by the sovereign; he saw in this a real peril in the then state of things; he wrote: “I would not have the temporal authorities meddle in this office; they should let it be, in order that the real distinction between the two powers be upheld (‘ut staret vera et certa distinctio utriusque potestatis’).”[2300]
But where in the domain of Protestantism at that time, was there to be found any real ecclesiastical ruler who could act with “power”?
The only factor that kept his anger from breaking forth was his consciousness that he owed everything he had achieved to the ruler of the land. But “at heart he saw only too well,” remarks a Protestant Church-historian whom we have repeatedly quoted, “that the Princes, under the cloak of the Christian name which they did not deserve to bear, were solely intent on their own aggrandisement when they laid their hands on ecclesiastical authority. He also saw that he himself, in his ‘Unterricht,’ was to blame for this.”[2301] Hence it is all the stranger to hear Luther declaring when at odds with the officials, that they must never tire of “insisting, impressing, urging and driving home the distinction between the secular and the spiritual rule ... for the troublesome devil will not cease cooking and brewing up the two kingdoms together.” And yet we have heard him say that the two should form “one cake.”[2302]
Concerning his attitude towards the authorities some recent theologians of his own camp have expressed themselves very differently from what might have been expected:
“Thus, with Luther, the end tallies with the beginning,” they write; “everything has been thought out clearly and is in perfect agreement.”