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The foundations of the principal erroneous doctrines of the new theology were already laid at a time when Luther was still unmistakably asserting the authority of the Church and the Papacy and the duty of submission incumbent on all who desired to be true Christians.

Neither before his deviation from the Church’s doctrine nor whilst the new views were growing and becoming fixed, did he go astray with respect to the binding nature of the Church’s teaching office, or seek to undermine the Divine pre-eminence of the Holy See. Such a course would, it is true, have been logical, as not one of the doctrines which the Church proposes for belief can be assailed without the whole of her doctrinal edifice being affected, and without calling in question both her infallibility and her rightful authority. Only subsequent to the Leipzig Disputation, at which Luther unreservedly denied the doctrinal authority of General Councils, do we find him prepared to abandon the traditional view with regard to the Church and her teaching office.

The formal principle of Lutheranism dates only from this denial. The determining factor is no longer ecclesiastical authority, but the private judgment of the individual, i.e. the understanding of Holy Scripture—now considered as the only source of religious knowledge—acquired under the guidance of Divine enlightenment. Even then Luther was in no hurry to formulate any clear theory of the Church, of the Communion of the Faithful, of the oneness of Faith, and of its mouthpiece. On the contrary, he frequently returns then and even later, as will be seen below, to his earlier conception of the Church, so natural was it to him and to his time, so indispensable did her claims appear to him, and so logically did they result from the whole connection between Divine Revelation and the scheme of salvation.

How are we to explain this contradiction so long present in Luther’s mind, viz. his abandonment of the principal dogmas of the Church and, at the same time, his emphatic assertion of the Church’s authority? Chiefly by his lack of theological training, also by his confusion of mind and deficiency in real Church feeling; then again by his excess of imagination, by his pseudo-mysticism, and above all by his devotion to his own ideas. Moreover, as we know, the two conflicting tendencies did not dwell at peace within him but were responsible for great restlessness and trouble of mind. Had he been more in living touch with the faith and spirit of the Church, he would doubtless have recognised the urgent necessity of choosing between an absolute abandonment of his new theological views and a definite breach with the Church of his fathers. In explanation of the confusion of his attitude to the Church we must call to mind what has already been said, how, owing to the evils rampant in the Church, he had not had the opportunity of seeing that Divine institution at its best, a fact which may have helped to weaken in his mind the conception of her sublime mission and the binding nature of her ancient faith. He remained in the Church, just as he remained in the religious state, though its ideals had become sadly obscured in his eyes.

In its place he built up for himself an imaginary world, quite mistaking the true state of affairs with regard to his own position. He fancied that the representatives of the Church would gradually come round to his point of view, seeing that it was so well founded. He thought that the Papacy, when better informed, would never be able to condemn the inferences he had made from the clear Word of God, and his precious discovery for the solacing of every sinner.

Perhaps he also sought to shelter himself behind the divergent opinions entertained by the theologians of that day with regard to justification. Several details, as yet undefined, of this dogma, were then diversely explained, though no doubt existed regarding the essentials. The views propounded by members of the Council of Trent show how many side questions in this department called for definition and learned research before the Council could arrive at the classical formulation of the whole matter.[845] No true theologian, however, owing to want of distinctness in the minor details of the dogma was, like Luther, prepared to cast it overboard, or to demand its entire revision.

In the case of this strangely constituted man inward discernment alone counted for anything.

With him this outweighed far too easily all the claims of external authority, and how could it be otherwise when, already at an early stage of his career, while perusing the Holy Scriptures he had felt the Spirit of God in his new ideas? We have a picture of his feelings in his letter to Spalatin of January 18, 1518, in which he says, the principal thing when studying the Book of Books is to “despair of our own learning and our own sagacity.” “Be confident that the Spirit will instil the sense into your mind. Believe this on my experience. Therefore begin, starting with a humble despair, to read the Bible from the very commencement.”[846] There is here no reference to the traditional interpretation handed down from the first centuries through the Fathers and the theologians; in place of this each one is invited to seek for enlightenment under the guidance of that light which he assumes to be the “Spirit.”

And yet Luther’s teaching with regard to the authority of the Universal Church is, according to a sermon preached in 1516, as follows: “The Church cannot err in proclaiming the faith; only the individual within her is liable to error. But let him beware of differing from the Church; for the Church’s leaders are the walls of the Church and our fathers; they are the eye of the body, and in them we must seek the light.”[847] As the idea has not yet dawned upon him that the whole body of the bishops had strayed from the path of truth, he does not consider it necessary first to seek where the true Church is; he simply finds it there where Peter presides in his successors. No private illumination, no works however great, justify a separation from the Papacy.[848] In accordance with this principle, even in 1518, amidst the storm of excitement and not long before the printing of his sermon on excommunication, he assures Staupitz, his Superior, with the utmost confidence: “I shall hold the Church’s authority in all honour”; it is true, he goes on to say: “I have no scruple, Reverend Father, about going forward with my exploration and interpretation of the Word of God. The summons [to Rome] and the menaces which have been uttered do not move me. I am suffering, as you know, incomparably worse things which allow me to pay but little heed to such as are temporal and transitory.”[849]

The woes which he repeatedly utters against heretics, and of which we have already given a striking example (above, p. 225), are very startling, coming from his lips. In his exposition of the Psalms he points a warning finger at pride, the source of all heresies: “Out upon our madness, how often and how greatly, do we fall into this fault! All the heretics fell through inordinate love of their own ideas. Hence it was not possible but that what was false should appear to them true, and, what was true, false.... Wisdom, in its original purity, can exist only in the humble and meek.”[850]

It would be easy to multiply the passages in which Luther, in his early days, asserts with absolute conviction the various doctrines of the Church which at a later date he was to attack.

It may suffice to take as an example the doctrine of Indulgences which was soon to become the centre of the controversy started by his theses on this subject. Luther presents the doctrine quite clearly and correctly in a sermon on Indulgences preached in 1516.[851] Here he makes his own the general Catholic teaching, notwithstanding that it clashes with his ideas on grace and justification, a fact of which he assuredly was aware.

“An Indulgence,” he says, “is the remission of the temporal punishment which the penitent would have to undergo, whether imposed by the priest or endured in Purgatory; formerly, for instance, seven years [of penance] were imposed in this way for certain sins.” “Therefore we must not imagine that our salvation is straightway secured when we have gained an Indulgence,” as it merely remits the temporal punishment. “Those alone obtain complete remission of the punishment who, by real contrition and confession, are reconciled with God.” “The souls in Purgatory, as the Bull expressly states, profit by the Indulgence only so far as the power of the Keys of Holy Church extend”; “per applicationem intercessions,” as he says, i.e. to use the common theological expression, “per modum suffragii.”[852] “Hence the immediate and complete liberation of souls from Purgatory is not to be assumed.” “The Indulgences are [i.e. are based on] the merits of Christ and His saints and are therefore to be accepted with due veneration.” “However the case may stand with regard to the abuses to be apprehended in the use of indulgences,” so he ends his lengthy and important explanation, “the offer and acceptance of Indulgences is of the greatest utility, and perhaps in our times when God’s mercy is so greatly despised, it is His Will to bestow His favours upon us by means of these Indulgences.... Indulgences must, however, never lead us, of the Church militant, to a false sense of security and to spiritual indolence.” The speaker goes much more fully into detail on many difficult questions than could be done in a sermon to-day. On certain subtle points of theological controversy regarding Indulgences, which had as yet not been definitely settled among the learned, he admits his ignorance and his doubts. One thing, however, is certain, namely, that he had no right to assert, as he did later, that the age was steeped in the deepest ignorance with regard to the nature of Indulgences, merely because some of these more recondite questions had not been fully solved. His own sermon just quoted is a refutation of the charge.

In this sermon he also attacks the abuses which in those days were connected with the system of Indulgences, particularly the disorders which prevailed at the sermons and collections made for Indulgences granted in support of various pious works and usually undertaken by certain noted popular preachers. In one of his strong generalisations he thus addressed his hearers at the very commencement: “Indulgences have become the dirty tool of avarice! Who is there who seeks the salvation of souls by their means and not rather the profit of his purse? The behaviour of the Indulgence-preachers makes this plain; for these commissaries and their delegates do nothing in their sermons but praise the Indulgences and urge the people to give donations, without instructing them as to what an Indulgence is.”[853]

At that time John Tetzel was making a great stir with the preaching of the Indulgence granted by Pope Leo X for the church of St. Peter in Rome.

Luther’s inward falling away from the teaching of the Church and his whole state of mind had made him ripe for a great public struggle. His action with regard to Tetzel was merely the result of what had gone before, and the consequences of the controversy were vastly more important than the actual point in dispute.

Many years later, when the circumstances appeared to him very different from what they really were, Luther related that he had lived in humble retirement in his monastery, studying Holy Scripture and following his calling as Doctor of the Word of God until he was drawn by force into the controversy, and called forth into the arena of public life. “I was completely dead to the world till God deemed the time had come; then Squire Tetzel excited me with the Indulgence and Doctor Staupitius spurred me on against the Pope.”[854]

Then gradually, so he says, his “other preaching followed,” i.e. that against “holiness by works,” and set free those who had become “quite weary” of Popery with its self-righteousness; this “other preaching” was as follows: “Christ says: Be at rest; thou art not pious, I have done all for thee, thy sins are forgiven thee.”[855] Nevertheless, for some years, so he assures us, he continued to practise “in ignorance” the works of idolatry and unbelief in the monastery, those works to which “everyone clung”;[856] then at last he cut himself adrift and laid aside the monk’s habit “to honour God and shame the devil.”[857]