Life of Luther

by Julius Köstlin

From the Electoral court Luther learned that his treatise was 'not altogether displeasing.' And just at this time he had to thank his prince for a present of game.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.—TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND EDITION OF THIS
TREATISE, in a rather smaller size.]

There is no doubt that Luther received also from that quarter the advice to approach the Emperor, who had just arrived in Germany, and whom he had wished to address in his treatise, with a direct personal request for protection, to prevent his being condemned unheard. He addressed to him a well-considered letter, couched in dignified language. He issued at the same time a short public 'offer,' appealing therein to the fact, that he had so long begged in vain for a proper refutation. These two writings were first examined and corrected by Spalatin, and so appeared only at the end of August, not, as is generally supposed, in the January of this year. Luther never received an answer to his letter to the Emperor, and therefore never heard how it was received.

The dangers which threatened Luther, and through him also the honour and prosperity of his Order, affected further his companions and friends who belonged to it. And of this Miltitz took advantage to renew his attempts at mediation. He induced the brethren, at a convention of Augustinian friars held at Eisleben, to persuade Luther once more to write to the Pope, and solemnly assure him that he had never wished to attack him personally. A deputation of these monks, with Staupitz and Link at their head, came to Luther at Wittenberg on the 4th or 5th of September, and received his promise to comply with their wishes. At this convention, Staupitz, who felt his strength no longer equal to the difficult questions and controversies of the time, had resigned his office as Vicar of the Order, and Link had succeeded him. Luther saw him now at Wittenberg for the last time. He retired in quiet seclusion to Salzburg, where the Archbishop was his personal friend.

But Luther's spirit would not let him desist for a moment from prosecuting his contest with Rome. He had yet 'a little song' to sing about her. He was in fact at work in August, while rumours were already afloat that Eck was on his way with the bull, upon a new tract, and had even begun to have it printed. It was to treat of the 'Babylonian Captivity of the Church,' taking as its subject the Christian sacraments. Luther knew that in this he cut deeper into the theological and religious principles of the Church, which had come under discussion in his quarrel with Rome, than in all his demands for reform, put forward in his address to the nobility. For while, in common with the Church herself, he saw in the Sacraments, instituted by Christ, the most sacred acts of worship, and the channels through which salvation itself, forgiveness, grace, and strength are imparted from above, in those principles he saw them limited by man's caprice in their original scope and meaning, robbed of their true significance, and made the instruments of Papal and priestly domination, while other pretended sacraments were joined to them, never instituted by Christ. On this account he complained of the tyranny to which these sacraments, and with them the Church, were subject, of the captivity in which they lay. Against him were arrayed not only the hierarchy, but the whole forces of Scholastic learning. He knew that what he now propounded would sound preposterous to these opponents; he would make, he said, his feeble revilers feel their blood run cold. But he met them in the armour of profound erudition, and with learned arguments lucidly and concisely expressed in Latin. At the same time his language, where he explains the real essence of the sacraments, shows a clearness and religious fervour which no layman could fail to understand.

The subject of the deepest importance to Luther in this treatise was the sacrament of the altar. He dwells on the mutilated form, without the cup, in which the Lord's Supper was given to the laity; on the doctrine invented about the change of the bread, instead of keeping to the simple word of Scripture; and, lastly, on the substitution of a sacrifice, supposed to be offered to God by the priest, for the institution ordained by Christ for the nourishment of the faithful. The withholding of the cup he calls an act of ungodliness and tyranny, beyond the power of either Pope or Council to prescribe. Against the sacrifice of the mass he had published just before a sermon in German. He was well aware that his principles involved, as indeed he intended, a revolution of the whole service, and an attack on an ordinance, upon which a number of other abuses, of great importance to the hierarchy, depended. But he ventured it, because God's word obliged him to do it. So now he proceeds to describe, in contrast to this mass, the one of true Christian institution, and resting wholly, as he conceived it, on the words of Christ, when instituting the Last Supper, 'Take, and eat,' etc. Christ would here say, 'See, thou poor sinner, out of pure love I promise to thee, before thou canst either earn or promise anything, forgiveness of all thy sins, and eternal life, and to assure thee of this I give here my Body and shed my Blood; do thou, by my death, rest assured of this promise, and take as a sign my Body and my Blood.'

For the worthy celebration of this mass, nothing is required but faith, which shall trust securely in this promise; with this faith will come the sweetest stirrings of the heart, which will unfold itself in love, and yearn for the good Saviour, and in Him will become a new creature.

As regards baptism Luther lamented that it was no longer allowed to possess the true significance and value it ought to have for a man's whole life. Whereas in truth the person baptized received a promise of mercy from God, to which time after time, even from the sins of his future life, he might and was bound to turn, it was taught, that in sinning after baptism, the Christian was like a shipwrecked man, who, instead of the ship, could only reach a plank; this being the sacrament of penance, with its accompanying outward formalities. Whereas further, in true baptism he had vowed to dedicate his whole life and conduct to God, other vows of human invention were now demanded of him. Whereas he then became a full partaker of Christian liberty, he was now burdened with ordinances of the Church, devised by man.

Concerning this sacrament of penance, with confession, absolution, and its other adjuncts, Luther rates at its full value the word of forgiveness spoken to the individual, and values also the free confession made to his Christian brother by the Christian seeking comfort. But confession, he said, had been perverted into an institution of compulsion and torture. Instead of leading the tempted brother to trust in God's mercy, he was ordered to perform acts of penance, whereby nominally to give satisfaction to God, but in reality to minister to the ambition and insatiable avarice of the Roman see.

From all these abuses and perversions Luther seeks to liberate the sacraments, and restore them in their purity to Christians. Nevertheless, he takes care to insist on the fact that it is not the mere external ceremony, the act of the priest in administering, and the visible partaking of the receiver, that make the latter a sharer in the promised grace and blessedness. This, he says, depends upon a hearty faith in the Divine promise. He who believes enjoys the benefit of the sacrament, even though its outward administration be denied him.