24. Luther the Destroyer of Liberty of Conscience.
Catholics claim that Luther's work, though ostensibly undertaken in behalf of religious liberty, necessarily had to result in the very opposite of freedom. They point to the fact that in most countries which accepted the Protestant faith the Church became subservient to the State. These state churches of Europe, however, which in the view of Catholics are the product of Luther's reform movement, are to be regarded as only one symptom of the intolerance which characterizes the entire activity of Luther. He had indeed adopted the principle of "private interpretation" of the Scriptures, however, only for himself. He was unwilling to accord to others the right which he claimed for himself. All who dissented from his teaching were promptly attacked by him, and that, in violent and scurrilous language. The Protestant party in the course of time became a warring camp of Ishmaelites, Luther fighting everybody and everybody fighting Luther. Religious intolerance and persecution became the prevailing policy of Protestants in their dealings with other Protestants. The burning of Servetus at Geneva by Calvin was the logical outcome of Luther's teaching. The maxim, Cuius regio, eius religio, that is, The prince, or government, in whose territory I reside determines my religion, became a Protestant tenet. America got its first taste of religious liberty, not from the original Protestant settlers, but from the Catholic colonists whom Lord Baltimore brought to Maryland, etc., etc.
The view here propounded is in plain contravention of what the world has hitherto believed, and to a very large extent still believes, regarding Luther's attitude toward the right of the individual to choose his own religion and to determine for himself matters of faith. The position which Luther occupies in his final answer before the Emperor at Worms is generally believed to state Luther's position on the question of religious liberty in a nutshell. "Unless convinced by the Word of God or by cogent reason" that he was wrong, he declared at the Diet of Worms, he could not and would not retract what he had written. The individual conscience, he maintained, cannot be bound. Each man must determine the meaning of the Word for himself. And the inevitable result of this principle is individual liberty. This principle Luther maintained to the end of his life. His appeal to the magistrates to suppress the Peasants' Revolt was not a call to suppress the false teachings of the peasants, but their disorderly conduct. Against their spiritual aberrations Luther proposed to wage war with his written and oral testimony. "The peace and order of the State must be maintained against disorder, personal violence, destruction of property, public immorality, and treason, though they come in the guise of religion. The State must grant liberty of conscience, freedom of speech, and the privilege of the press. These are inalienable rights belonging alike to every individual, subject only to the limitation that they are not permitted to encroach upon the rights of others. The natural, the almost inevitable, consequence of the declaration and recognition of these principles was eventually the establishment of modern constitutional law. It was not in consequence of his teaching, but merely in spite of it, that for the next two centuries (in certain instances) monarchical government became more autocratic, as feudalism was being transformed into civil government. . . . All through Luther's writings, and in his own acts as well, is to be read the right of the individual to think and believe in matters political, religious, and otherwise as he sees proper. His is the right to read the Bible, and any other book he may desire. He has the right to confer and counsel, with others, to express and declare his views pro and con, in speech and print, so long as he abides by, and remains within, the laws of the land. Luther firmly believed in the liberty of the individual as to conscience, speech, and press. The search for truth must be untrammeled." (Waring, Political Theories of Luther, p. 235 f.)
This testimony of one who has made a careful investigation of Luther's writings on the subject of liberty of conscience is, of course, not first-hand evidence; it merely shows what impressions people take away from their study of Luther. Let us hear Luther himself. In the Appeal to the German Nobility he says: "No one can deny that it is breaking God's commandments to violate faith and a safe-conduct, even though it be promised to the devil himself, much more then in the case of a heretic. . . . Even though John Hus were a heretic, however bad he may have been, yet he was burned unjustly and in violation of God's commandments, and we must not force the Bohemians to approve this, if we wish ever to be at one with them. Plain truth must unite us, not obstinacy. It is no use to say, as they said at the time, that a safe-conduct need not be kept if promised to a heretic; that is as much as to say, one may break God's commandments in order to keep God's commandments. They were infatuated and blinded by the devil, that they could not see what they said or did. God has commanded us to observe a safe-conduct; and this we must do though the world should perish; much more, then, where it is only a question of a heretic being set free. We should overcome heretics with books, not with fire, as the old Fathers did. If there were any skill in overcoming heretics with fire, the executioner would be the most learned doctor in the world; and there would be no need of study, but he that could get another into his power could burn him." (10, 332.)
In his treatise On the Limits of Secular Authority, Luther says: "Unbearable loss follows where the secular authority is given too much room, and it is likewise not without loss where it is too restricted. Here it punishes too little; there it punishes too much. Although it is more desirable that it offend on the side of punishing too little than that it punish too severely; because it is always better to permit a knave to live than to put a good man to death, inasmuch as the world still has and must have knaves, but has few good men.
"In the first place, it is to be noted that the two classes of the human race, one of whom is in the kingdom of God under Christ, and the other in the kingdom of the world under civil authority, have two kinds of laws; for every kingdom must have its laws and its rights, and no kingdom or regime can stand without law, as daily experience shows. Temporal government has laws that do not reach farther than over person and property, and what is external on the earth; for God will not permit any one to rule over the soul of man but Himself. Therefore, where temporal power presumes to give laws to the soul, it touches God's rule, and misleads and destroys the souls. We wish to make that so clear that men may comprehend it, in order that our knights, the princes and bishops, may see what fools they are when seeking to force people by their laws and commandments to believe thus or so. When a man lays a human law or commandment upon the soul, that it must believe this or that, as the man prescribes, it is assuredly not God's Word. . . . Therefore it is a thoroughly foolish thing to command a man to believe the Church, the Fathers, the councils, although there is nothing on it from God's Word.
"Now tell me, how much sense does the head have that lays down a command on a matter where it has no authority? Who would not hold as of unsound mind the person who would command the moon to shine when it wishes? How fitting would it be if the Leipzig authorities would lay down laws for us at Wittenberg, or we at Wittenberg for the people of Leipzig? Moreover, let men thereby understand that every authority should and may concern itself only where it can see, know, judge, sentence, transform, and change; for what kind of judge is he to me who would blindly judge matters he neither hears nor sees? Now tell me, how can a man see, know, judge, sentence, and change the heart? For that is reserved to God alone. A court should and must be certain when it sentences, and have everything in clear light. But the soul's thoughts and impulses can be known to no one but God. Therefore it is futile and impossible to command or compel a man by force to believe thus or so. For that purpose another grip is necessary. Force does not accomplish it. For my ungracious lords, Pope and bishops, should be bishops and preach God's Word; but they leave that and have become temporal princes and rule with laws that concern only person and property. They have reversed the order of things. Instead of ruling souls (internally) through God's Word, they rule (externally) castles, cities, lands, and people, and kill souls with indescribable murder. The temporal lords should, in like manner, rule (externally) land and people; but they leave that. They can do nothing more than flay and shave the people, set one tax and one rent on another; there let loose a bear and here a wolf; respect no right, or faith, or truth, and conduct affairs so that robbers and knaves increase in number; and their temporal regime lies as far beneath as the regime of the spiritual tyrants. Faith is a matter concerning which each one is responsible for himself; for as little as one man can go to heaven or hell for me, so little can he believe or not believe for me; and as little as he can open or close heaven or hell for me, so little can he drive me to belief or unbelief. We have the saying from St. Augustine: 'No one can or should be compelled to believe.' The blind and miserable people do not see what a vain and impossible thing they undertake; for, however imperiously they command, and however hard they drive, they cannot force people any farther than they follow with their mouth and the hand. They cannot compel the heart, though they should break it. For true is the maxim: Gedanken sind zollfrei. (No toll is levied on thought.) When weak consciences are driven by force to lie, deceive, and say otherwise than they believe in the heart, they burden themselves also with a heavy sin; for all the lies and false witness given by such weak consciences rest upon him who forces them.
"Christ Himself clearly recognized and concisely stated this truth when He said: 'Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's' (Matt. 22, 21). Now, when imperial authority stretches itself over into God's kingdom and authority and does not keep within its own separate jurisdiction, this discrimination between the two realms has not been made. For the soul is not under authority of the emperor. He can neither teach nor guide it, neither kill it nor give it life, neither bind nor loose, neither judge nor sentence, neither hold nor let alone; which necessarily would exist had he authority so to do, for they are under his jurisdiction and power.
"David long ago expressed it briefly: 'The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath He given to the children of men' (Ps. 115, 16). That is to say, over what is on the earth and belongs to the temporal earthly kingdom, man has power from God; but what belongs to heaven and to the eternal kingdom is under the Lord of heaven alone. But finally, this is the meaning of Peter: 'We ought to obey God rather than men' (Acts 5, 29). He here clearly marks a limit to temporal authority; for were men obliged to observe everything that civil authority wished, the command, 'We ought to obey God rather than men,' would have been given in vain.
"If, now, your princes or temporal lord command you to believe this or that, or to dispense with certain books, say: 'I am under obligations to obey you with body and estate; command me within the compass of your authority on earth, and I will obey you. Put if you command me as to belief, and order me to put away books, I will not obey, for then you become a tyrant and overreach yourself, and command where you have neither right nor power.' If your goods are taken and your disobedience is punished, you are blessed, and you may thank God that you are worthy to suffer for God's Word. When a prince is in the wrong, his subjects are not under obligations to follow him, for no one is obliged to do anything against the right; but we must obey God, who desires to have the right rather than men.