At Wartburg he began that course of interference with political administration and ecclesiastical organization which made his later years as a reformer so different from his earlier, and in the end led him to the practical denial of nearly every principle that he had affirmed. His own protection by the Elector Frederick against the combined power of pope and emperor made clear to him, he thought, the method by which a reformation might be attempted. While at Wartburg he thought out and wrote what he entitled, “Warning to all Christians to Abstain from Rebellion and Sedition,” in which he maintained the principle from which he never thereafter departed, that the civil Rulers had both the right and the duty to undertake the reformation of the church, and that any other principle was impracticable and dangerous. That there be no mistaking his meaning I give his words:
Therefore have regard to the rulers. So long as they undertake nothing and give no command, keep quiet with hand, mouth and heart, and undertake nothing. If you can persuade rulers to undertake and command, you may do it. If they will not you should not. But if you proceed, you are wrong and much worse than the other party.
This no doubt was called forth by the news of the proceedings at Wittenberg. For even with Luther away, Wittenberg, with its growing, aggressive university, was the center of the Reformation. New thoughts had been put into men’s minds, new aspirations, new purposes had come into their hearts. Luther had long before preached that the mass was wrong, but had gone right along celebrating it, and so had he taught about other things, but continued to practice them. His teaching had taken deep root, and Zwilling, chaplain of the Augustinian convent, a bold, zealous and eloquent man, who had the confidence of the people, declared that the mass ought to be abolished and that it was a sin to celebrate it. “The members of the convent, the prior excepted, agreed with him. The prior asserted his authority; the monks rebelled; the elector interfered and referred the case to the university. The university decided in favor of Zwilling and the monks, Melanchthon writing the opinion.” He attacked earnestly and bitterly monastic vows, celibacy, clerical garb, the use of images and pictures in the churches. His teaching strongly implied that liberty could not be attained till all these things were swept away.
The movement to put these exhortations into practice began first among the clergy. Two priests in parishes near Wittenberg married; several monks left their cloisters and donned the garments of the common people; Melanchthon and several of his students “communicated in both kinds in the church,” and his example was followed by others. Images were condemned and cast out of the churches. No one knew what would next be done, and disturbing rumors were being circulated. Carlstadt now took the lead and announced that on the first day of the new year he would “celebrate the Lord’s Supper after the ancient manner in both kinds. When opposition threatened he anticipated the time and held the service on Christmas day. A beginning was made; opposition was silenced and Carlstadt had his way.”
Things were going too fast for the Elector Frederick, too fast for Luther. In his quiet retreat in Wartburg he wrote against the mass and monkish vows, “but how great a step there is between condemning old customs in our hearts and changing them with our hands—between the thoughts and the act!” On being informed of the reformatory movements in Wittenberg, Luther resented it, and most sharply reproved them for practicing what he had preached. In a letter written to the Wittenbergers in December, 1521, he said:
They have introduced changes in the mass and images, attacked the sacrament and other things that are of no account, and have let love and faith go; just as though all the world hereabouts had great understanding in these matters, which is not the fact; and so many have brought it about that many pious people have been stirred up to do what is really the devil’s work. It would, indeed, be a good thing to begin such changes, if we could all together have the needful faith; and if they suited the church in such measure that no one could take offense at them. But this can never be. We can not all be as Carlstadt. Therefore we must yield to the weak; otherwise those who are strong will run far, and the weak who can not follow them at like pace will be run down.
It was not by Luther, but by men of a different type, that this practical work was begun. There was sore need for a Zwilling and a Carlstadt. This was an occasion when those who were called fanatics did a real service for mankind. They were strong in their convictions, saw only one thing, reckless of all consequences, and brave where other men are appalled, and with no misgivings kindled a fire that wrapped the world in flame. Had it not been for what they did, “Luther’s writing and preaching might have ended in preaching and writing. They saw that something must be done, and they did it!” While this was needful in precipitating the conflict, it was equally necessary that others should direct it.
The excitement at Wittenberg soon reached an alarming height, and was intensified by the arrival of the Zwickan prophets, who claimed to be the first to have properly received the divine Spirit, and to have been called to carry on God’s work. They boasted of prophetic visions, dreams and direct communications with God. They also rejected infant baptism, saying that there was no such thing taught in the Scriptures. The people, losing their hold on the old, were ready to take up with anything that came with a plausible face. Even the most prudent were afraid to condemn anything that might have truth in it, and especially were they unwilling to reject anything that seemed to be taught in the Scripture. Melanchthon was greatly troubled and disturbed. It was not so much the visions of the Zwickan prophets that disturbed him as their teaching on baptism, and instead of settling the matter by an appeal to the Word of God, he referred it to the Elector Frederick, who advised him not to discuss the subject with them, but wait for Luther, for they quoted Saint Augustine to prove that nothing could be brought in favor of infant baptism except ecclesiastical custom.
RETAINS THAT WHICH THE SCRIPTURES DO NOT EXPRESSLY FORBID
Luther returned from Wartburg to Wittenberg in the early part of 1522, when efforts were made to get him to drop infant baptism and make the Reformation thorough. But while translating the Bible, at Wartburg, he had determined to retain whatever practices it did not forbid. At first he had no little struggle on the subject of infant baptism. On other subjects he had been forced, against his will, step by step, to abandon the fathers, the councils, and Catholic tradition, being driven to it by the Scriptures. But when he found no authority in the Bible for infant baptism he assumed a new attitude. At that point he had a fiery contest with himself as to the true key of Biblical interpretation, and he deliberately chose the negative turn. That is, he determined to abide by what the Scriptures did not forbid, instead of by what they enjoined. He saw at a glance where his rule of interpretation on other subjects must inevitably lead him on this point. And he dared not venture one step further in free thought, for fear of invoking a complete revolution. To take one step more was to let infant baptism go and the State church with it. But this was not the kind of a church Luther wanted, so he dismissed the whole matter as a very inopportune question. Thus it appears that he was willing to do as a positive duty to God whatever the Scriptures did not prohibit, as in the Supper, when asked, “What scripture have you for elevating the cup?” to which he indignantly replied, “What is there against it?” By the same answer he might have justified the offering of masses for the dead, auricular confession, purgatory, infallibility of popes, and any other unauthorized thing practiced by the Catholics, but which the Scriptures had not positively forbidden.