Startling, nay, utterly stupefying, is the sharp contrast all this presents to Luther’s later attitude already described above (pp. 241, 251, 262). There we have a rigid, coercive Church held fast in the ban of the Wittenberg doctrine, whereas here, in the days of the early development of Lutheranism, we find an exuberant wealth of individual freedom which scoffs even at the possibility of any ecclesiastical order.
Only a dreamer and hot-head like Luther could have seen in such an individualism, where each one is teacher and priest, anything else than chaos.
Luther’s expectations in those early days were strange indeed and quite incapable of realisation; not only were all delusions to be excluded but everything, as he says of the enduring of opposition, was to be done “decently and piously”! If he is really speaking in earnest, then he shows himself a hermit utterly ignorant of human nature. And yet even in the seclusion of the convent walls, the greatest enthusiast should have seen that this was not the way to form a congregation on earth of believers, or anything resembling a Church.
We can, nevertheless, easily understand, to cite Möhler in confirmation of what has been said, “how the doctrine in question could, nay, had to, arise in Luther’s mind: Since the authority of the existing Church was against him he had perforce to seek for support in the authority of God working directly in him.… He saw no other way than to appeal to an intangible, inward authorisation.”[1142]—This he then proceeded to work out into a system for the other believers. “In the fashion of the true demagogue he flatters every Christian and invests him with such perfection as any unprejudiced mind must repudiate on the most cursory glance into his own heart.”[1143]
The truth is, the doctrine put forward by Luther against the Church, i.e. that Holy Scripture is the sole judge, has no meaning except on the assumption of a certainty through direct divine illumination.
Luther was quite right in declaring Holy Scripture to be the source of the doctrine of salvation; but it was a very different thing to assert that Holy Writ is the judge which determines what is the doctrine of salvation contained therein. He only reached the latter assertion by taking for granted the direct action of God in man for imparting a knowledge of the true sense of Scripture. Hence in his statements on Holy Scripture we frequently find one thing strangely confused with the other, the outward Book with the inward knowledge of the same, so that, as Möhler puts it, “the direct transmission of its contents to the reader is assumed in a quite childish fashion.”[1144] Even Köstlin has to admit this confusion, though he does so with reserve: “In Luther,” he says, “we see in many passages an intermingling of the pure Word and pure doctrine.”[1145]
Luther’s Later Attitude Towards the Idea of the Church. Objections
Henceforward there remained deeply rooted in Luther’s mind the conviction that the individual was taught by God and that this Divine enlightenment was always leading to the adoption of his own chief articles of faith and to the promotion of the Lutheran Church.[1146]
There is no call to follow up this idea through all his various writings. We may, however, call to mind a remarkable and warlike statement with which, towards the end of his life, he sought to justify his attacks on the Pope and the ancient Church, and that, too, at a time when he must long since have been disappointed at the results of the freedom of judging which he had once allowed but had now already in many ways curtailed.
In his “Wider das Bapstum vom Teuffel gestifft,” he quotes the words of Christ which refer to prayer in common: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” This leads him to conclude, strange to say, “that even two or three gathered together in Christ’s name hold all the power of St. Peter and all the Apostles.” And, at once, he proceeds in his old vein to declare that two or three, nay, even a single one, who has been enlightened by Christ, is as good a teacher as the whole Church, and, indeed, in certain cases, even takes precedence of her. “Hence it comes,” he says, “that, often, a man who believes in Christ has withstood a whole crowd … as the prophets withstood the Kings of Israel, the priests and the whole nation [to say nothing of Luther himself who had withstood the whole Church]. In short, God will not be bound as to numbers, greatness, height, power, or anything personal to man, but will only be with those who love and keep His Word even though they be no more than stable boys. What does He care for high, great and mighty lords? He alone is the greatest, highest and mightiest.”[1147] Thus he practically claims a Divine dignity for an undertaking such as his, and paints his career afresh as that of a prophet who had a right to exalt himself even over the topmost hierarchy; only that he invests all the faithful, and even the “stable boy,” with the like high calling.