Wherever this privilege was denied to Christians, Luther claimed for them the right, by virtue of their universal priesthood, to ordain a priest for themselves, and to reject the ensnaring deceits of mere human doctrine. He declared himself to this effect, in a treatise written in 1523, and intended in the first instance for the Bohemians—that is to say, for the so-called Utraquists who were then the leading party in Bohemia. These sectaries, whose only ground of estrangement from Rome was the question of administering the cup to the laity, and who had never thought of separating themselves from the so-called Apostolical succession of the episcopate in the Catholic Church, Luther then hoped, albeit in vain, to win over to a genuine evangelical belief and practice of religion. In this treatise he went a step beyond the election of pastors by their congregations, by maintaining that a whole district, composed of such evangelical communities, might appoint their own overseer, who should exercise control over them, until the final establishment of a supreme bishopric, of an evangelical character, for the entire national Church. But of any such ecclesiastical edifice for Germany, wholly absorbed as he was in her immediate needs, he had not yet said a word. Congregations of such a kind, and suitable for such a purpose, could only be created by preaching the Word; nor had Luther yet abandoned the hope that the existing German episcopate, as already had been the case in Prussia, would accept an evangelical reconstruction on a much larger scale. With regard to individual congregations, moreover, it was the opinion of Luther and his friends that, where the local magistrates and patrons of the Church were inclined to the gospel, the appointment of pastors might be made by them in a regular way. A separation of civil communities, each represented by their own magistrate, from the ecclesiastical or religious units, was an idea wholly foreign to that time.
That the word of God should be preached to the various congregations in a pure and earnest manner, that those congregations themselves should be entrusted with the work, should make it their own, and, in reliance thereon, should lift up their hearts to God with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving,—this was the fixed object which Luther held in view in all the regulations which he made at Wittenberg, and wished to institute in other places. In this spirit he advanced cautiously and by degrees in the changes introduced in public worship,—changes which, as he admits, he had commenced with fear and hesitation. 'That the Word itself,' he says, 'should advance mightily among Christians, is shown by the whole of Scripture, and Christ Himself says (Luke x.) that "one thing is needful," namely, that Mary should sit at the feet of Christ, and hear His Word daily. His Word endures for ever, and all else must melt away before it, however much Martha may have to do.' He points out as one of the great abuses of the old system of worship, that the people had to keep silence about the Word, while all the time they had to accept unchristian fables and falsehoods in what was read, and sung, and preached in the churches, and to perform public worship as a work which should entitle them to the grace of God. He now set vigorously about separating the mere furniture of worship. As to the Word itself, on the contrary, he was anxious to have it preached to the congregation, wherever possible, every Sunday morning and evening, and on week-days, at least to the students and others, who desired to hear it: this was actually done at Wittenberg. Innovations, not apparently required by his principles, he shunned himself, and warned others to do so likewise. Nor was he less diligent to guard against the danger of having the new forms of worship, now practised at Wittenberg, made into a law for all evangelical brethren without distinction. He gave an account and estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend Hausmann, the priest at Zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for Christ's sake,' that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these matters, he should make it known. No one, he declared, durst condemn or despise different forms practised by others. Outward customs and ceremonies were, indeed, indispensable, but they served as little to commend us to God, as meat or drink (1 Cor. viii. 8) served to make us well pleasing before Him.
In order to enable the congregations themselves to take an active part in the service, he now longed for genuine Church hymns, that is to say, songs composed in the noble popular language, verse, and melody. He invited friends to paraphrase the Psalms for this purpose; he had not sufficient confidence in himself for the work. And yet he was the first to attempt it. With fresh impulse and with the exuberance of true poetical genius, his verses on the Brussels martyrs had flowed forth spontaneously from his inmost soul. They were the first, so far as we know, that Luther had ever written, though he was now forty years of age. With the same poetic impulse he composed, probably shortly after, a hymn in praise of the 'highest blessing' that God had shown towards us in the sacrifice of His beloved Son.
Rejoice ye now, dear Christians all,
And let us leap for joy,
And dare with trustful, loving hearts,
Our praises to employ,
And sing what God hath shown to man,
His sweet and wondrous deed,
And tell how dearly He hath won. etc.
The full tone of a powerful, fresh, often uncouth, but very tender popular ballad no other writer of the time displayed like Luther. And whilst seeking to compose or re-arrange hymns for congregational use in church, he now busied himself with the Psalter, paraphrasing its contents in an evangelical spirit and in German metre.
Thus now, early in 1524, there appeared at Wittenberg the first German hymn-book, consisting at first, of only eight hymns, about half of them, such as that beginning Nun freut euch, being original compositions of Luther, and three others adapted from the Psalms. In the course of the same year he brought out a further collection of twenty hymns, written by himself for the evangelical congregation there: among these is the one on the Brussels martyrs. It was, in fact, the year in which German hymnody was born. Luther soon found the coadjutors he had wished for.
These twenty-four hymns by Luther were followed in after years by only twelve more from his own pen, among the latter being his grand hymn, Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott, written probably in 1527. Of these later compositions, comparatively few expressed entirely his own ideas; most of them had reference to subjects already in the possession and use of the Christian world, and of German Christians in particular; that is to say, some referred to the Psalms and other portions of the Bible, others to parts of the Catechism, others again to short German ballads, sung by the people, and even to old Latin hymns. In all of them he was governed by a strict regard to what was both purely evangelical, and also suitable for the common worship of God. And yet they differ widely, one from another, in the poetical form and manner in which he now gives utterance to the longings of the heart for God, now seeks to clothe in verse suited for congregational singing words of belief and doctrine, now keeps closely to his immediate subject, now vents his emotions freely in Christian sentiments and poetical form, as for example in Ein' feste Burg, the most sublime and powerful production of them all.
The new hymns went forth in town and country, in churches and homes, throughout the land. Often, far more than any sermons could have done, they brought home to ears and hearts the Word of evangelical truth. They became weapons of war, as well as means of edification and comfort.
In his preface to a small collection of songs, which Luther had published in the same year, he remarks: 'I am not of opinion that the gospel should be employed to strike down and destroy all the arts, as certain high ecclesiastics would have it. I would rather that all the arts, and especially music, should be employed in the service of Him who has created them and given them to man.' What he says here about music and poetry, he applied equally to all departments of knowledge. He saw art and learning now menaced by wrong-minded enthusiasts. For this reason he was particularly anxious that they should be cultivated in the schools.
With great zeal he directed his counsels to the general duty of caring for the good education and instruction of the young, as indeed he had done some time before in his address to the German Nobility. These, above all, he said, must be rescued from the clutches of Satan. He had again in his mind schools for girls. Thus in 1523 he recommended the conversion of the cloisters of the Mendicant Orders into schools 'for boys and girls.' The same advice was offered by Eberlin, already mentioned, who was then living at Wittenberg, and who made the suggestion to the magistrates of Ulm.