Repentance—The Pope—Leo X—Luther to his Bishop—Luther to the Pope—Luther to the Vicar-General—Rovere to the Elector—Discourse on Excommunication—Influence and Power of Luther.
Truth had at length raised her head in the bosom of Christendom. Victorious over the inferior organs of the papacy, she behoved to have a struggle with its chief. We are going to see Luther at close quarters with Rome.
This step was taken on his return from Heidelberg. His first theses on indulgences had been misunderstood, and he determined to explain their meaning with greater clearness. The outcry raised by the blind hatred of his enemies had convinced him how important it was to gain the most enlightened part of the nation in favour of truth, and he resolved to appeal to its judgment by calling attention to the foundation on which his convictions rested. It was, indeed, necessary for once to appeal to the decision of Rome; and he hesitates not to send all his explanations. Presenting them with one hand to the enlightened and impartial among his countrymen, he with the other lays them before the throne of the sovereign pontiff.
These explanations of his theses, which he denominated Solutions,[478] were written with great moderation. Luther tried to soften the passages which had caused most irritation, and gave proof of genuine modesty. At the same time, he showed that his convictions were immovable; and he courageously defended all the propositions which truth obliged him to maintain. He again repeated, that every Christian who truly repents possesses the remission of sins without indulgence; that the pope, like the humblest of priests, can only declare simply what God has already pardoned; that the treasure of the merits of the saints administered by the pope was a chimera, and that Holy Scripture was the only rule of faith. Let us hear himself on some of these points.
He begins with establishing the nature of true penitence, and contrasts the divine act, which renews man, with the mummery of the Romish Church. "The Greek word μετανοειτε," says he, "signifies—be clothed with a new spirit and new feelings; have a new nature; so that, ceasing to be earthly, you may become heavenly.... Christ is a teacher of the spirit and not of the letter, and his words are spirit and life."[479] He, therefore, inculcates, not those external penances which the proudest sinners can perform without being humbled, but a repentance according to spirit and truth—a repentance which may be fulfilled in all the situations of life, under the purple of kings, the cassock of priests, and the coronet of princes, amid the magnificence of Babylon, where a Daniel lived, as well as under a monk's frock and a beggar's tatters.
Farther on we meet with these bold words, "I give myself no trouble as to what pleases or displeases the pope. He is a man like other men. There have been several popes who loved not only errors and vices, but even things still more extraordinary. I listen to the pope as pope, that is when he speaks in the canons, according to the canons, or when he decides some article with a council, but not when he speaks out of his own head. If I did otherwise, would I not be bound to say with those who know not Jesus Christ, that the horrible massacres of Christians of which Julius II was guilty, were the kind acts of an affectionate shepherd towards the Lord's sheep?"[480]
"I cannot but be astonished," continues he, "at the simplicity of those who have said that the two swords of the gospel represent, the one the spiritual power, and the other the temporal. Yes, the pope holds a sword of steel, and so exhibits himself to Christendom, not as a tender father, but as a formidable tyrant. Ah! God in his anger has given us the sword we wished, and withdrawn that which we despised. In no quarter of the world have there been more dreadful wars than among Christians.... Why did the ingenious intellect which discovered this fine commentary, not with equal subtlety interpret the history of the two keys committed to St. Peter, and in that way make it an established dogma of the Church, that the one serves to open the treasures of heaven, and the other the treasures of the world."[481]
"It is impossible," he again says, "that a man can be a Christian without having Christ; and if he has Christ, he at the same time has all that belongs to Christ. The thing which gives peace to our conscience is, that by faith our sins are no longer ours, but Christ's, on whom God has laid them; and that, on the other hand, all the righteousness of Christ is ours, to whom God has given it. Christ puts his hand upon us, and we are cured. He throws his mantle over us and we are covered; for he is the glorious Saviour, blessed for ever and ever."[482]
With such views of the riches of salvation by Jesus Christ, there was no need of indulgences.
Luther, while attacking the papacy, speaks honourably of Leo X. "The times in which we live are so bad," says he, "that even the greatest personages cannot come to the help of the Church. We have now a very good pope in Leo X. His sincerity and knowledge fill us with joy. But what can one man, though amiable and agreeable, do by himself alone? He certainly deserved to be pope in better times. We, in our day, deserve only such popes as Julius II, and Alexander VI."