Thus we have the famous utterances recorded above (vol. iii., p. 233 and vol. v., p. 229) called forth by the decline of his Church, the carelessness of the rulers and the remissness of the preachers.
“Our Lord God sees,” he declares, “how the dogs [the princes who were against him] soil the pavements, wet every corner and smash the basins and platters; but when He begins to visit them, His anger will be terrible.”[1369]
“To these swine,” so he wrote to Anton Lauterbach of the politicians in the Duchy of Saxony, “we will leave their muck and hell-fire to boot, if they wish. But they shall leave us our Lord, the Son of God, and the kingdom of heaven as well!… With a good conscience we regard them as reprobate servants of the devil; … be brave and cheerfully despise the devil in these devil’s sons, and devil’s progeny until they drive you away. ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof’ (Ps xxiii. 1).… By your joy you will crucify them and, with them, Satan, who seeks to destroy us. To speak plain German, we shall s⸺ into his mouth. Whether he likes it or not he must submit to having his head trodden under foot, however much he may seek to snap at us with his dreadful fangs. The seed of the woman is with us, whom also we teach and confess and Whom we shall help to the mastery. Fare you well in Him and pray for me.”[1370]
The minor State-officials he also handled roughly enough. These “Junkers” take it upon them “to sing the praises of the papal filth.” “They stick to the Pope’s behind like clotted manure.” “I know better what ‘Ius canonicum’ is than you all will ever know or understand. It is donkey’s dung, and, if you want it, I will readily give you it to eat!” “If donkey’s dung be so much to your taste, go and eat it elsewhere and do not make a stench in our churches.”[1371]
The Present and the To-come
On his last birthday, which he kept on Martinmas-Eve, 1545, Luther assembled about him Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Cruciger, George Major and other guests, and to them opened his mind. According to the account left by his friend Ratzeberger he spoke of the coming dissensions: “As soon as he was gone the best of our men would fall away. I do not fear the Papists, he remarked; they are for the most part rude, ignorant asses and Epicureans; but our own brethren will injure the Evangel because they have gone forth from us but were not of us. This will do more harm to the Evangel than the Papists can.” The sad political outlook of Germany led him to add: “Our children will have to take up the spear, for things will fare ill in Germany.” Of the Catholics he said: “The Council of Trent is very angry and means mischief; hence be careful to pray diligently, for there will be great need of prayer when I am gone.” All, he exhorted “to stand fast by the Evangel.”[1372]
“For it is the command of our stern Lord [the Elector],” he says elsewhere, “that we should maintain undefiled the government of the Church, dispense aright the Word, the Absolution and the Sacraments according to the institution of Christ, and also comfort consciences.”[1373]
Towards his end, according to Ratzeberger, he frequently told the faithful at Wittenberg that, in order to fight shy of false doctrines, they must hate reason as their greatest foe. “As soon as he was dead they would preach and teach at Wittenberg a very different doctrine”; hence they must “pray diligently and learn to prove the spirits aright”; they were to keep their eyes open to see whether what was preached agreed with Holy Scripture (here again the right of judging falling on the simple faithful). But if it was “outside of and apart from God’s Word, sweet and agreeable to reason and easy of comprehension, then they were to avoid such doctrine and say: No, thou hateful reason, thou art a whore, thee I will not follow.”[1374]
In a sermon on the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, 1546, published three years later after Luther’s death by Stephen Tucher under the title “The last Sermon of Dr. Martin Luther of blessed memory,”[1375] Luther again speaks at length of the “heresiarchs” who had already arisen and whom more would follow; what the devil had been unable to do by means of the Kaiser and Pope, that he “would do through those who are still at one with us in doctrine”; “there will be a dreadful time. Ah, the lawyers and the wise men at Court will say: ‘You are proud, a revolt will ensue, etc., hence let us give way.’” But, in matters of faith, there must be no talk of giving way, “pride may well please us if it be not against the faith.”[1376]
The picture of reason as a mere prostitute was now once more vividly before him. He hoped to dispose of the variant doctrines of others, who, like himself, interpreted the Bible in their own fashion, simply by urging contempt for reason. The faith in his own teaching, so he declared, “in the doctrine which I have, not from them but from the Grace of God,”[1377] must be preserved by means of a deadly warfare against “reason, the devil’s bride and beautiful prostitute”; “for she is the greatest seductress the devil has. The other gross sins can be seen, but reason no one is able to judge; it goes its way and leads to fanaticism.” The evil that is inherent in the flesh had not yet been completely driven out; “I am speaking of concupiscence which is a gross sin and of which everyone is sensible.” “But what I say of concupiscence, which is a gross sin, is also to be understood of reason, for the latter dishonours and insults God in His spiritual gifts and indeed is far more whorish a sin than whoredom.”[1378] When a Christian hears a Sacramentarian fanatic putting forward his reasonable grounds he ought to say to that reason, which is speaking: “Dear me, has the devil such a learned bride?—Away to the privy with you and your bride; cease, accursed whore,” etc.[1379] Hence some restriction was to be placed on private judgment; it was to be used in moderation and only in so far as it tallied with faith (“secundum analogiam fidei”).[1380] This “faith,” however, was in many instances simply Luther’s own.