The thought of his own infidelity and his abuse of the graces of the religious life was at times quite enough in itself to fill him with fury. At any rate his whole picture of his earlier years is steeped in polemics and the spirit of hate.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
END OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. THE CHURCH-UNSEEN AND THE VISIBLE CHURCH-BY-LAW
1. From Religious Licence to Religious Constraint
Freedom as the Watchword
In the early days of his public protest against the olden Church, when Luther proclaimed the “universal priesthood of all Christians,” there could as yet be no question of any compulsion in matters of doctrine, seeing that he expressly conceded to the Christian congregations the right and power to weigh all doctrines and “to set up or send adrift their teachers and soul-herds.” Every Christian, so he wrote, who saw that a true teacher was lacking, was taught and consecrated by God as a priest and was also bound, “under pain of the loss of his soul and of incurring the Divine displeasure, to teach the Word of God.”[802] It is not necessary after all we have already said[803] to point out how impossible it is to square such far-reaching concessions to freedom with any idea of a positive body of doctrine. The concessions may, however, have appealed to him particularly because he himself was disposed to claim the utmost freedom in respect of the dogmas of Catholicism. In those days he was delighted to hear himself extolled as the champion of freedom and the right of private judgment. The interests of his party made such extravagant toleration commendable, for any attempt at compulsion in doctrinal matters, particularly at the beginning, would have lost him many friends. He was also anxious that it should be said of the new Church that it had spread of its own accord and only owing to the power of the Word.
In the sermon he preached at Erfurt in 1522 in support of the change of religion in that town he had declared, that every Christian, thanks to his kingly priesthood, was an “image of Christ” and a “cleric,” and “able to judge of all things”; to his decision, based on the Word of Christ, “the Pope and all his followers were subject”; “he judges all things and is judged of none.”[804]
Even two years later, in words proclaiming universal freedom of belief, he had dissuaded the Saxon Princes from taking violent measures against the fanatics: “Let the spirits fall upon each other and clash!” What cannot stand must in any case succumb in the fight, and only those who fight rightly are assured of the crown. “Just let them preach as they please!”[805]