In 1525 he told Carlstadt and the Sacramentarians that each one was free to follow his own conscience and to question the Sacrament or refuse to receive it.[806] This agrees with his statement of 1521: “No one must be forced into the faith, but the Gospel must be set before everyone and all be admonished to believe, yet left free to obey or not. All the Sacraments must be free to everyone.”[807]
Luther registered a formal protest against the ancient right of proceeding against heretics by means of temporal penalties, particularly that of death. “To burn heretics is against the will of the Holy Ghost,” so he declared in 1518 and again in 1520.[808] In 1520 he said: “Heretics must be overcome by argument, not by fire.”[809]
Most of what he was to say subsequently on the question of public toleration refers to the bearing of the authorities, especially towards the Anabaptists and Zwinglians. That he himself, however, and every follower of his Evangel, were bound to regard all opinions which diverged from his own as godless heresies and brand them as such, that he had never doubted from the moment he had discovered his new Evangel. In accordance with this he proceeds to demand more and more strongly of the “heretics” within the pale unconditional acceptance of all the articles of faith.[810]
What were the authorities to do faced by teachings so divergent? In 1523, in a writing indeed intended mainly for the Catholic rulers and opponents of his doctrine, Luther is decidedly quite against any interference on the part of the authorities: “To resist heretics, that is the bishops’ duty to whom this office is committed, not the princes’; for heresy can never be overborne by a strong hand.… Here God’s Word must fight.”[811] In April, 1525, in the midst of the Peasant War, in his “Ermanunge,” he enunciates, not without some thought of his personal ends, this general principle—“Yes, the authorities must not oppose what each one chooses to believe and teach, whether it be Gospel or lie; it is enough that they hinder the preaching of feud and lawlessness.”[812]
Boehmer justly points out, that Luther’s standpoint and doctrine as a whole, essentially spelt not only “unfettered freedom of teaching, but also entire freedom of worship.”
Meanwhile, however, Luther had already repeatedly urged those in power, especially his own sovereign, to do their supposed duty, and back up the new Evangel by their authority and by forbidding Catholic worship, the Mass and Catholic sermons.
In what follows we shall deal with Luther’s behaviour towards the Catholics, as distinguished from his attitude towards sectarians within his own camp.
Intolerance Towards Catholics in Theory and Practice
We should be making a serious mistake were we to judge of Luther’s tolerance towards the olden religion from his statements above on behalf of freedom. In Protestant literature, even to the present day, such a one-sided view has found a place, though it has long since been rejected by clear-sighted historians of that faith. In the course of the above narrative instances have been met with repeatedly of Luther’s intolerance in theory and practice with regard to those who thought differently. Here we shall refer concisely to various details already set on record and then draw some new facts and utterances from the abundant store bearing on the matter in hand.