In the discussion then held with Schwenckfeld the latter voiced his conviction, that true Christians must be separated from the false, “otherwise there was no hope” of improvement; excommunication, too, must “ever go hand in hand with the Gospel,” otherwise “the longer matters went on the worse they would get, for it was easy to see the trend throughout the world; every man wanted to be Evangelical and to boast of the name of Christ. To this he [Luther] replied: it was very painful to him that no one showed any sign of amendment”; he had, however, already taken steps concerning the separation of the true believers and had announced “publicly in his sermons” his intention of keeping a “register of Christians” and of having a watch set over their conduct, also “of preaching to them in the monastery” while a “curate preached to the others in the parish.”[484] It was a disgrace, remarked Luther, how, without such helps, everything went to rack and ruin. Not even half a gulden had he been able to obtain for the poor.
Concerning the ban, however, “he refused to give a reply” even when repeatedly pressed by Schwenckfeld; he merely said: “Yes, dear Caspar, true Christians are not yet so plentiful; I should even be glad to see two of them together; for I do not feel even myself to be one.” And there the matter rested.[485]
Hence, even then, he still had a quite definite intention of forming such a congregation of true believers at Wittenberg.[486]
During the last months of 1525 Luther concluded a writing entitled “Deudsche Messe und Ordnung Gottis Diensts,” which was published in 1526, in which he speaks at length of the strange scheme which was ever before his mind. Its reaction on his plans for Mass and Divine worship may here be passed over.[487] What more nearly concerns us now is the distinction he makes between those present at Divine worship. If the new Mass, so he says, “is held publicly in the churches before all the people” many are present “who as yet neither believe nor are Christians.” In the popular Church, such as it yet is, “there is no ordered or clearly cut assembly where the Christians can be ruled in accordance with the Gospel”; to them worship is merely “a public incentive to faith and Christianity.” It would be a different matter if we had the true Christians assembled together, “with their names registered and meeting together in some house or other,” where prayer, reading, and the receiving of the Sacrament would be assiduously practised, general almsgiving imposed and “penalties, correction, expulsion or the ban made use of according to the law of Christ.” But here again we find him complaining: “I have not yet the necessary number of people for this, nor do I see many who are desirous of trying it.” “Hence until Christians take the Word seriously, find their own legs and persevere,” the carrying out of the plan must be delayed. Nor did he wish, so he says, to set up “anything new in Christendom.” As he put it in a previous sermon: “It is perfectly true that I am certain I have and preach the Word, and am called; yet I hesitate to lay down any rules.”[488]
This hesitation cannot be explained merely by the anxiety to which he himself refers incidentally lest commands should arouse the spirit of opposition and give rise to “factions,”[489] for the absence of authority was evident; it must also have sprung from the author’s own sense of the indefiniteness of the plan. His pious wish to establish an organisation on the apostolic model was not conspicuous for practical insight, however great the stress Luther laid on the passages he regarded as authoritative (2 Cor. ix., 1 Cor. xiv., Mt. xviii. 2, and Acts vi.). “This much is clear,” rightly remarks Drews, “that Luther was uncertain and wavered in the details of his plan. He had but little bent to sketch out organisations even in his head; to this he did not feel himself called.”[490]
Others, not alone from the ranks of such as inclined to fanatism, were also to some extent to blame for the persistence with which he continued to revert to this pet idea. Nicholas Hausmann, pastor of Zwickau, and an intimate friend, approached him at the end of 1526 on the subject of the ban, which he regarded as indispensable for the cause of order. On Jan. 10, 1527, Luther replied, referring him to the Visitation which the Elector had promised to have held. “When the Churches have been constituted (‘constitutis ecclesiis’) by it, then we shall be able to try excommunication. What can you hope to effect so long as everything is in such disorder?”[491]
Here we reach a fresh stage in the efforts to establish a new system of Church organisation. Luther waited in vain for the birth of the ideal community. Everything remained “in disorder.”[492] The intervention of the State introduced in the Visitation was, however, soon to establish an organisation and thus to improve discipline.
The Church Apart replaced by the Popular Church Supported by the State
Luther hoped much from the Visitation of 1527; it was not merely to constitute parishes but also to serve the cause of the “assembly of Christians” and of discipline; the segregation of the true believers was to be effected within the parishes, at least when the parishes were not prepared to go over as a whole to the true Church, as, for instance, Leisnig had once promised to do. Luther again wrote, on March 29, 1527, to Hausmann, the zealous Zwickau Evangelical: “We hope that it [the ‘assembly of Christians’] will come about through the Visitation.” Then, he fancies, “Christians and non-Christians would no longer be found side by side” as at the ordinary gatherings in church; but, once they were “separated and formed an assembly where it was the custom to admonish, reprove and punish,” church discipline could soon be applied to individuals too.[493]
But the “hope” remained a mere hope even when the Visitation was over.