Luther voices his profound reverence for the Scriptures in innumerable places throughout his writings. "The Holy Scriptures," he says, "did not grow on earth." (7, 2094.) Again: "When studying the Scriptures, you must reflect that it is God Himself who is speaking to you." (3, 21.) Again: "The Scriptures are older and possess greater authority than all Councils and Fathers. Moreover, all the angels side with God and the Scriptures. . . . If age, duration, greatness, multitude [of followers], holiness, are inducements to believe something, why do we believe men who live but a short time rather than God, who is the Oldest, the Greatest, the Holiest, the Mightiest of all? Why do we not believe all the angels, since a single one of them has greater authority than the Pope? Why do we not believe the Bible, when one passage of Scripture outweighs all the books in the world?" (19, 1734.) Again: "The Bible alone is the true lord and master over all writings on earth. If this is not so, of what use is the Bible? Then let us cast it aside, and be satisfied with the books and teachings of men." (15, 1481.) Again: "All Scripture is full of Christ, the Son of God and Mary. Its sole object is to teach us to know Him as a distinct person, and that through Him we may in eternity behold the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God. The Scriptures are ajar to him who has the Son, and in the same proportion as his faith in Christ increases the Scriptures become clear to him" (3, 1959.) How little Luther would have in common with the destructive higher critics of the Bible in our day, we can gather from the following statement: "If cutting and tearing the Bible to pieces were a great art, what a famous Bible would I produce! Especially if I were to lay my hand on the important passages, those on which the articles of our faith rest. . . . My position, then, is this: In view of the fact that our faith is supported by Holy Writ, we must not depart from its words as they read, nor from the order in which they are placed. . . . Otherwise, what is to become of the Bible?" (20, 213.)
22. Luther a Preacher of Violence against the Hierarchy.
In his fight against papal supremacy Luther discovered that the Roman priesthood was the Pope's chief support. The principle of community of interests had knitted both the higher and the lower clergy, the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, parish priests, monks, etc., together into one firmly compacted society. All its members understood that they were working in a common cause, and kept in constant and close rapport with one another: What concerned one concerned all the rest. Each aided and abetted the other, and all strove jointly to exalt their master, the Pope. Like a huge net the rule of priests was spread over mankind, and all men, with their spiritual and secular interests, were caught in this net. The system was called a hierarchy, that is, a holy government. The priesthood and the holy orders were the Pope's collateral. All its members derived what authority they possessed from the Pope; their fortunes were bound up in the Pope's. This priest-rule Luther overthrew by causing men to see the liberty with which Christ has made them free. Catholic critics claim that by so doing Luther rebelled against an ordinance of God. We have shown in chapter 18 that Luther acknowledges in the Church of Christ a ministry that exists by divine appointment. Hence the Catholic charge that Luther revolted from God when he disputed the divine right of the hierarchy is silly.
However, Luther is said to have "recklessly encouraged the destruction of the episcopate, and openly commanded sacrilege and murder" to mobs. The appeal of Luther that the rule of bishops be exterminated is interpreted to mean that the bishops be exterminated. This is one of the most wanton charges that could be preferred against Luther. By the Theses against Tetzel the attention of many prominent men in Germany was attracted to Luther. Princes and noblemen of the Empire had for some time been studying from a secular point of view the evils which Luther had begun to attack on spiritual grounds. These men understood the character of the Roman hierarchy much better than Luther. They saw at once that Luther's action would lead to serious complication that might ultimately have to be settled with the sword. When Luther was still dreaming about convincing the Pope with arguments from Scripture, German noblemen were preparing to defend him against physical violence. They knew that the hierarchy would not without a fierce struggle submit to any curtailment of their power. They offered Luther armed support. Luther recoiled with horror from this suggestion. In a letter from the Wartburg which he wrote to his friend Spalatin who was still tarrying at Worms, Luther refers to one of these warlike knights as follows: "What Hutten has in mind you can see [from the writings of the knight which he enclosed]. I would not like to see men fight for the Gospel with force and bloodshed. I have answered that parson (dem Menschen) accordingly. By the Word the world has been overcome, the Church has been preserved; by the Word it will also be restored. As to Antichrist, he began his rule without physical force, and will also be destroyed without physical force, by the Word." (15, 2506.) The letter from which these words are quoted is dated January 16, 1522. Nine months before this date, on May 14, when he had been on the Wartburg about ten days, Luther writes to the same party: "It is for good reasons that I have not answered your letter ere this: I hesitated from fear that the report recently gone out of my being held captive might prompt somebody to intercept my letters. A great many things are related about me at this place; however, the opinion is beginning to prevail that I was captured by friends sent for this purpose from Franconia. To-morrow the safe-conduct granted me by the emperor expires. I am sorry that, as you write me, there is an intention to apply the very severe [imperial] edict also for the purpose of exploring men's consciences; not on my account, but because they [the papists] are ill-advised in this and will bring misfortune on their own heads, and because they continue to load themselves with very great odium. Oh, what hatred will this shameless violence kindle! However, they may have their way; perhaps the time of their visitation is near. —So far I have not heard from our people either at Wittenberg or elsewhere. About the time of our arrival at Eisenach the young men [the students] at Erfurt had, during the night, damaged a few priests' dwellings, from indignation because the dean of St. Severus Institute, a great papist, had caught Magister Draco, a gentleman who is favorably inclined to us, by his cassock and had publicly dragged him from the choir, pretending that he had been excommunicated for having gone to meet me at my arrival at Erfurt. Meanwhile people are fearing greater disturbances; the magistrates are conniving, for the local priests are in ill repute, and it is being reported that the artisans are allying themselves with the student-body. The prophetic saying seems about to come true which runs: Erfurt is another Prague. [There was rioting in Prague in the days of Hus, whom Rome burned at the stake.]—I was told yesterday that a certain priest at Gotha has met with rough treatment because his people had bought certain estates (I do not know which), in order to increase the revenue of the church, and, under pretext of their ecclesiastical immunity, had refused to pay the incumbrances and taxes on the same. We see that the people, as also Erasmus writes, are unable and unwilling any longer to bear the yoke of the Pope and the papists. And still we do not cease coercing and burdening them, although—now that everything has been brought to light—we have lost our reputation and their good will, and our former halo of sanctity can no longer avail or exert the influence which it exerted formerly. Heretofore we have increased hatred by violence and by violence have suppressed it; however, whether we can continue suppressing it experience will show." (15, 2510.) To Melanchthon he wrote about this time: "I hear that at Erfurt they are resorting to violence against the dwellings of priests. I am surprised that the city council permits this and connives at it, and that our dear friend Lang keeps silent. For although it is good that those impious men who will not desist are kept in check, still this procedure will bring the Gospel into disrepute, and will cause men justly to spurn it. I would write to Lang, but as yet I dare not. For such a display of friendliness to our cause as these people show is very offensive to me, because it clearly shows that we are not yet worthy servants in God's sight, and that Satan is mocking and laughing at our efforts [of reform]. Oh, how I do fear that all this is like the fig tree in the parable, of which the Lord, Matt. 21, predicts that it will merely sprout before the Day of Judgment, but will bear no fruit. What we teach is, indeed, the truth; however, it amounts to nothing if we do not practise what we preach." (15, 1906.)
Disquieting rumors of excesses that were being perpetrated by radical followers of the evangelical teaching had reached Luther also from Wittenberg. To obtain a clear insight into the actual state of affairs, he made a secret visit to his home town in the beginning of December, 1521. Returning to his exile, he wrote his Faithful Admonition to All Christians to Avoid Tumult and Rebellion. In this treatise Luther reasons as follows: The papacy, with all its great institutions, cloisters, universities, laws and doctrines, is nothing but lies. On lies it was raised, by lies it is supported, with lies and frauds and cheats it deceives, misleads, and oppresses men. Accordingly, all that is necessary to overthrow its dominion is to recognize its lying character, and to publish it and the papacy will collapse as if blown aside by the breath of the Almighty, as Scripture says it shall happen to Antichrist. To start a riot against the papists would never improve them, and would only cause them to vilify the cause of their opponents. In times of tumult, people lose their reason and do more harm to innocent people than to the guilty. Public wrongs should be redressed by the magistrates, who are vested with authority for that purpose. No matter how just a cause may be, it never justifies rioting. Luther declares that he will rather side with those who suffer in, than with those who start, a riot. Rioting is forbidden in God's Law (Dent. 16, 20; 32, 35). This particular rioting against the papists has been instigated by the devil, in order to divert people's minds from the real spiritual issues of the times, and to bring the cause of the Gospel into disrepute. Luther feels these tumultuous proceedings as a disgrace. "People who read and understand my teaching correctly," he says, "do not start riots. They were not taught such things by me. If any engage in such proceedings and drag my name into it, what can I do to stop them? How many things are the papists doing in the name of Christ which Christ never commanded!" Luther begs all who glory in the name of Christians to conduct themselves as Paul demands 2 Cor. 6, 3: "Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed." (10, 360 ff.) Whoever can, ought to treat himself to the reading of this fine treatise of the exiled monk of Wittenberg.
The iconoclastic uprising which broke out in Wittenberg in the closing days of the month of February, 1522, finally decided Luther, at the risk of his life, to quit his exile and to fight the devil, who was trying to subvert his good doctrine by such wicked practises. The world knows that it was Luther who quelled the riot in his town. Luther's face was ever sternly set against those who wanted to wage the Lord's wars with the devil's weapons. No murder or sacrilege that was committed in those days can be laid at the door of Luther's teaching.
The Catholics are trying to divert attention from their own unwarranted and violent proceedings by charging Luther with preaching a war of extermination against their hierarchy. How did they treat the just claims and reasonable demands of the German nation for measures that were admitted to be crying needs of the times? No German diet met but a long list of grievances was submitted by the suffering people. It was of no avail. The haughty clergy rode over the people's rights and prayers rough-shod. The tyrannous devices which their cunning had invented were executed with brazen impudence. How had they treated simple laymen in whose possession a Bible was found? What was their inquisitorial court but the anteroom to holy butchers' shambles, the legal vestibule to murder that had been sanctioned by the Popes? How had they treated Luther? If the papal nuncio at the Diet of Worms had had his way with the emperor and the princes, Luther would not have left that city alive. They openly declared to the emperor that he was not obliged to keep his plighted word for a safe-conduct to a heretic. These people come now at this late day prating about violence that they have suffered from this sacrilegious and bloodthirsty Luther. They themselves were the perpetrators of the most appalling violence against God and men: their whole system rests, as Johann Gerhard in his famous Confessio Catholica rightly asserts, on Fraus et Vis, that is, Fraud and Violence.
23. Luther, Anarchist and Despot All in One.
Extremes met, with most disastrous effect-so Catholic writers tell us-in Luther's views of the political rights of men. At one time he was so outspoken in his condemnation of the oppression which the common people were suffering from the clergy, the nobility, and their aristocratic governors that he incited them to discontent with their humble lot in life, to unrest, and to open rebellion against their magistrates. At another time he became the spokesman for the most pronounced absolutism and despotism. He turned suddenly against the very people whose cause he had so signally championed, and who hailed him as their prophet and leader. When the poor, downtrodden people needed him most, Luther cowardly deserted them, and by frenzied utterances excited the nobility to slay the common people without mercy in the most ruthless fashion, and even promised the lords whom he had denounced as tyrants heaven for enacting the barbaric cruelties to which he was urging them. This is the Catholic portrayal of Luther during the Peasants' War.
The relation of the peasant uprising to Luther's preaching is grossly misrepresented when the impression is created that Luther had before this sad upheaval worked hand in glove with the malcontent rustics for the overthrow of the government. Disturbances of this kind had been periodical occurrences in Europe for many hundreds of years. The heavy taxes and tithes, and the forced labor which the lords exacted from their tenants, who were little better than serfs, the galling restrictions in regard to hunting, fishing, gathering wood in the forests which they had imposed on them, the foreign Roman law under which they tried cases in court, and, in general, their haughty and contemptuous bearing toward the common people had for many generations created strained relations between the upper and the lower classes. The estrangement which developed into open defiance existed among the peasants before Luther had begun to preach. Nor can Luther's teaching be said to have fanned the slumbering embers of discontent into a huge flame. The liberty of a Christian man which he had proclaimed was not such liberty as the peasants demanded and wrested to themselves when the revolt had reached its height. Luther had consistently taught that obedience to the government is a Christian duty. He had, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, warned with telling force against riot, tumult, and sedition. He had deprecated any allying of the cause of the Gospel and of spiritual freedom with the carnal strivings of disaffected men for mere temporal and secular advantages. He had reminded Christians that it was their duty to suffer wrong rather than do wrong.