Nobody should make Luther any better than he makes himself. Still, the question is pertinent whether violent polemics can ever be engaged in by Christians with a good conscience. Luther has asserted that, while he hurled his terrible denunciations against the adversaries of the truth, his heart was disposed to friendship and peace with them. (16, 1718 f.) Is a state of mind like this altogether inconceivable, viz., that a person can curse another for a certain act and at the same time love him? We think not. In his day this boisterous, turbulent Luther was understood, trusted, and loved by the people. After the publication of the Theses against Tetzel "the hearts of men in all parts of the land turned toward him, and his heart turned toward them. For the religious principles underlying the theses they cared little, for the arguments sustaining them still less. They saw only that here was a man, muzzled by none of the prudential considerations closing the mouths of many in high places, who dared to speak his mind plainly and emphatically, and was able to speak it intelligently and with effect upon a great and growing evil deplored by multitudes. It is such a man the people love and such a man they trust." (McGiffert, Luther, p. 98 f.)
McGiffert has the right perception of the Luther of 1517-1519 when he describes him as "the awakening reformer," thus: "He had the true reformer's conscience—the sense of responsibility for others as well as for himself, and the true reformer's vision of the better things that ought to be. He was never a mere faultfinder, but he was endowed with the gifts of imagination and sympathy, leading him to feel himself a part of every situation he was placed in, and with the irrepressible impulse to action driving him to take upon himself the burden of it. In any crowd of bystanders he would have been first to go to the rescue where need was, and quickest to see the need not obvious to all. The aloofness of the mere observer was not his; he was too completely one with all he saw to stand apart and let it go its way alone. Fearful and distrustful of himself he long was, but his timidity was only the natural shrinking before new and untried duties of a soul that saw more clearly and felt more keenly than most. The imperative demands inevitably made upon him by every situation led him instinctively to dread putting himself where he could not help responding to the call of unfamiliar tasks; but once there, the summons was irresistible, and he threw himself into the new responsibilities with a forgetfulness of self possible only to him who has denied its claims, and with a fearlessness possible only to him who has conquered fear. He might interpret his confidence as trust in God, won by the path of a complete contempt of his own powers; but however understood, it gave him an independence and a disregard of consequences which made his conscience and his vision effective for reform."
McGiffert suggests a comparison of Luther with, let us say, Erasmus. Had he been a humanist, he would have laughed the whole thing [Tetzel's selling of indulgences] to scorn as an exploded superstition beneath the contempt of an intelligent man; had he been a scholastic theologian, he would have sat in his study and drawn fine distinctions to justify the traffic without bothering himself about its influence upon the lives of the vulgar populace. But he was neither humanist nor schoolman. He had a conscience which made indifference impossible, and a simplicity and directness of vision which compelled him to brush aside all equivocation and go straight to the heart of things. With it all he was at once a devout and believing son of the Church, and a practical preacher profoundly concerned for the spiritual and moral welfare of the common people." (p. 66f. 87.) Had Luther considered his personal interests as Erasmus did, he would not have become the Luther that we know. Erasmus in his day was regarded as the wisest of men; Luther in his own view, like Paul, frequently had to make a fool of himself in order to achieve his purpose. For instance, when he wrote against the dullards at the University of Louvain, against the sacrilegious coterie at Rome that was running the Church and the world pretty much as they pleased, or against the brutal "Hans Wurst" (Duke Henry of Brunswick). Erasmus and his school of gentle reformers always counseled a slackening of the pace and the use of the soft pedal. Where is Erasmus to-day in the world's valuation? Even Rome, in whose bosom he nestled, and who fondled him for a season, has cast him aside as worthless. Luther lives yet, to the delight not only of Coleridge, but of millions of the world's best men, who, with the British divine, regard him this very hour as "a purifying and preserving spirit to Christianity at large."
Luther was conscious of the difference in the method of warfare between himself and his colaborer Melanchthon. He says: "I am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike. I am born to fight against innumerable monsters and devils. I must remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles and thorns, and clear wild forests; but Master Philip comes along softly and gently, sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has abundantly bestowed upon him," (14, 176.)
Dr. Tholuck, writing on "Luther's rashness," says: "What would have become of the Church if the Lord's servants and prophets had at all times done nothing else than spread salves upon sores and walk softly?" He introduces Luther in his own defense: "On one occasion, when asked by the Marquis Joachim I why he wrote against the princes, he returned the beautiful answer: 'When God intends to fertilize the ground, He must needs send first of all a good thunderstorm, and afterwards slow and gentle rain, and thus make it thoroughly productive.' Elsewhere he says: 'A willow-branch may be cut with a knife and bent with a finger, but for a great and gnarled oak we must use an ax and a wedge'; and again: 'If my teeth had been less sharp, the Pope would have been more voracious.' 'Of what use is salt,' he exclaims in another passage, 'if it do not bite the tongue? or the blade of a sword unless it be sharp enough to cut? Does not the prophet say, "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and keepeth back his sword from blood"?'"
One reflection suggests itself in this connection that goes far to exonerate Luther: the language which the Bible employs against heretics and ungodly men. It calls them dogs, Ps. 22, 20; 59, 6; Is. 56, 10; Matt. 7, 6; Phil. 3, 2; Rev. 22, 15; swine, Matt. 7, 6; boars and wild beasts, Ps. 80, 13; dromedaries and asses, Jer. 2, 23f.; bullocks, Jer. 31, 18; bellowing bulls, Jer. 50, 11; viper's brood, Matt. 3, 7; foxes, Cant. 2, 5; Luke 13, 32; serpents, Matt. 23, 33; sons of Belial, 1 Sam. 2, 12; children of the devil, Acts 13, 10; Satan's synagog, Rev. 2, 9. As regards its language, the Bible, too, agrees with the conditions of the times in which it was written. When God, to express His righteous anger, addresses the ungodly in such terms of utter contempt, He teaches us how to regard them and, on occasion, to speak of them. This "coarse" Luther is not more vehement and repulsive in his speech than the holy Word of God.
We remarked before that we would not apologize for Luther's rashness and coarse speech. Luther's acts are self-vindicating; they will approve themselves to the discriminating judgment of every reader of history. We can appreciate this sentiment of McGiffert : "As well apologize for the fury of the wind as for the vehemence of Martin Luther." The Psalmist calls upon the forces of nature: "Praise the Lord, fire, and hail; snow and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling His word." (Ps. 148, 7. 8.) God has a mission that our philosophy does not fathom for the mad hurry and destruction of the whirlwind. How silly it would be to criticize a cyclone because it is not a zephyr! We can imagine a scene like this: The battle of Gettysburg is in progress and a gentle lady is permitted to see it from a distance by a grim, warlike guide, and the following conversation ensues:
"Why, they are shooting at each other! Did you see that naughty man stab the pretty soldier right through his uniform?"
"Yes, madam, that is what he is there for."
"But is it not horrid?"