Luther, vol. 5 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

Nothing whatever is known of any further attempt of Luther in this direction, though, as Drews points out, “it is evident that he was unable to understand how Christians who had reached the faith could fail to feel themselves impelled to assemble in communities organised on the Apostolic model.”[494] He had to look on helplessly while the followers of the new preaching formed a great congregation, of which many of the members were, as he had said, “not Christians at all,” and whose prayer-gatherings were no more than “an incentive to faith and Christianity.” (Above, p. 139.)

In Hesse alone had steps been taken—independently of the Visitation in the Saxon Electorate and previous to it—to bring about a condition of things more in accordance with Luther’s ideal. Moreover, Luther himself preferred to remain entirely neutral in respect of this novel attempt, destined to become famous in the history of Protestant church-organisation. The prime mover in the Hessian plan was the preacher, Lambert of Avignon, an apostate Friar Minor; his draft was submitted to Landgrave Philip by a Synod held at Homberg at the end of 1526.[495] Philip forwarded it to Luther in order to hear his opinion. Among the proposals made in the draft were the following: After preaching for a while to the whole of the people, they were to be asked individually whether they wished to join the assembly of true believers and submit themselves to the discipline prevailing amongst them; those, however few in number, who give in their names are the Christians; as for the others they must be looked upon as pagans; the former have their meetings and choose their pastors because it is the duty of the flock to decide in what voice the shepherds shall speak. All the clergy were annually to meet the delegates of the congregations, nobles and princes in synod and to elect a committee and three Visitors for the direction and supervision of the whole Church of the land; these were also to ratify the election of all the clergy chosen by the people.[496]

Luther advised the Landgrave “not as yet to allow this order to appear in print, for I,” he adds, “dare not yet be so bold as to introduce so great a number of laws amongst us and with such high-sounding words.” He did not, however, by any means reject the plan absolutely. On the contrary he writes, that, in his opinion, it were better to allow the project to grow up gradually “from force of habit”; a few of the pastors, “say one, three, six, or nine” might well make a beginning; otherwise they were sure to find that “the people were not yet ripe for it,” and that “much would have to be altered.”[497]

As Landgrave Philip, after receiving from Luther this rather discouraging reply, proceeded no further, the “plan for the realisation of Luther’s ideas” was carried stillborn to the grave.[498] “And yet it was the only practical plan which at all corresponded with the theories of the Reformer prior to 1525.”[499] Later on Philip adopted the Saxon Reformation-book for the organising of the Church of Hesse.

That the project of esoteric congregations of true believers still survived in Luther’s mind long after, in spite of the consolidation of the popular Church in the form of a State Church, is plain from a letter of his on June 26, 1533, to Tilemann Schnabel and the other Hessian clergy (“episcopi Hassiæ”), again sitting in assembly at Homberg. Schnabel was a whilom Provincial of the Saxon Augustinians and had taken part in the abortive attempt to establish a community of true Christians at Leisnig of which he was pastor. Finally, want, misery and his own instability of character drove him from the country.[500] From 1526 onwards he had been living at Alsfeld in Hesse. The new assembly at Homberg had submitted to Luther, for his approval, the draft of a scheme of church discipline, most probably inspired by Schnabel himself. Luther’s reply is of the utmost importance for the understanding of his opinion of the conditions then prevailing in the Church.[501]

He is, at bottom, quite at one with the Hessian preachers, but, on practical grounds, chiefly on account of the lack of the “veri Christiani,” he rejects the well-meant proposals as too far-reaching and incapable of execution.

The time, according to him, “is not yet ripe for the introduction of discipline.” “Verily one must let the peasants run riot a little ... and then things will right themselves.” We have not as yet taken root in the earth; when the branches and leaves shall have appeared, then we shall be better able to oppose the mighty. The Hessian preachers, so he tells them, instead of rushing in with the Greater Excommunication involving such serious civil consequences, would do better to begin with the so-called “Lesser Excommunication” in use at Wittenberg, simply excluding the unworthy from Communion and from the right to stand as sponsors; for “the Greater Excommunication does not come within our jurisdiction (‘quod non sit nostri iuris’), and, moreover, concerns only those who desire to be real Christians; nor are we in these times in a position to make use of the Greater Excommunication; it would merely make us look silly were we to attempt it before we have the necessary power. You seem to hope that the Prince will take the enforcing of it into his own hands; but this is very uncertain, and it is better he should have nothing to do with it.”

Thus, though Luther did not believe in the feasibility of a community of real Christians there and then, or that it was likely soon to be realised, yet the idea had not quitted his mind. The great mass of those belonging to his party meanwhile constituted a sort of popular Church. But such a popular Church was not in Luther’s eyes the real institution intended by the Gospel. It consisted of the masses “who must first be left their own way for a while” before the Church can be established. Drews justly observes of the above statement: “Luther did not relinquish the ideal of a really Christian congregation because he had come to see that it was mistaken, the ideal had simply lost its practical value in his eyes because it now seemed impossible of realisation. Luther resigned himself to take things as they were. As he had always regarded it as his mission, not to organise, but merely to preach the Evangel, he was easily able to console himself. At any rate it would be quite wrong to say that the popular Churches which now grew up at all corresponded with his ideal.”[502]