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It was at the time when the Bull of Excommunication was about to be promulgated by the Head of Christendom that Luther composed the Preface to the work entitled: “An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation von des christlichen Standes Besserung.”[65] The booklet appeared in the middle of August, and by the 18th four thousand copies were already in circulation, eagerly devoured by a multitude of readers hungry for books of all kinds. Staupitz’s warning not to publish it had come too late. “Luther’s friends, the Knights, were urging him on, and something had to be done at once.”[66]

This inflammatory pamphlet, so patronised by the rebellious Knights, was, with its complaints against Rome, in part based on the writings of the German Neo-Humanists.

Full of fury at the offences committed by the Papacy against the German nation and Church, Luther here points out to the Emperor, the Princes and the whole German nobility, the manner in which Germany may break away from Rome, and undertake its own reformation, for the bettering of Christianity. His primary object is to show that the difference between the clerical and lay state is a mere hypocritical invention. All men are priests; under certain circumstances the hierarchy must be set aside, and the secular powers have authority to do so. “Most of the Popes,” so Luther writes with incredible exaggeration, “have been without faith.” “Ought not Christians, who are all priests, also to have the right [like them, i.e. the bishops and priests] to judge and decide what is true and what false in matters of faith?”

The work was, as Luther’s comrade Johann Lang wrote to the author, a bugle-call which sounded throughout all Germany. Luther had to vindicate himself (even to his friends) against the charge of “blowing a blast of revolt.”[67] It is not enough to acquit him to point out in his defence that he had merely assigned to the Rulers the right of employing force, and that his intention was to “make the Word triumphant.”

One of the most powerful arguments in Luther’s work consisted in the full and detailed description of the Roman money traffic, Germany and other countries being exploited on the pretext that contributions were necessary for the administration of the Church. Luther had drawn his information on this subject from the writings of the German Neo-Humanists, and from a certain “Roman courtier” (Dr. Viccius) resident in Wittenberg.

It was, however, the promise he received of material help which spurred Luther on to give a social aspect to his theological movement and thus to ensure the support of the disaffected Knights and Humanists. Concerning Silvester von Schauenberg, he wrote to a confidant, Wenceslaus Link: “This noble man from Franconia has sent me a letter … with the promise of one hundred Franconian Knights for my protection, should I need them. … Rome has written to the Prince against me, and the same has been done by an important German Court. Our German book addressed to the whole Nobility of Germany on the amelioration of the Church is now to appear; that will be a powerful challenge to Rome, for her godless arts and usurpations are therein unmasked. Farewell and pray for me.”[68]

By the end of August another new book by Luther, which, like the former, is accounted by Luther’s Protestant biographers as one of the “great Reformation-works,” was in the press; such was the precipitancy with which his turbulent spirit drove him to deal with the vital questions of the day. The title of the new Latin publication which was at once translated into German was “Prelude to the Babylonish Captivity of the Church.”[69]

He there attacks the Seven Sacraments of the Church, of which he retains only three, namely, Baptism, Penance, and the Supper, and declares that even these must first be set free from the bondage in which they are held in the Papacy, namely, from the general state of servitude in the Church; this condition had, so he opined, produced in the Church many other perverse doctrines and practices which ought to be set aside, among these being the whole matrimonial law as observed in the Papacy, and, likewise, the celibacy of the clergy.

The termination of this work shows that it was intended to incite the minds of its readers against Rome, in order to forestall the impending Ban.

This end was yet better served by the third “reforming” work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” a popular tract in Latin and German with its dangerously seductive explanation of his teaching on faith, justification and works.[70]

In this work, as a matter of fact, Luther expresses with the utmost emphasis his theological standpoint which hitherto he had kept in the background, but which was really the source of all his errors. As before this in the pulpit, so here also he derives from faith only the whole work of justification and virtue which, according to him, God alone produces in us; this he describes in language forcible, insinuating and of a character to appeal to the people; it was only necessary to have inwardly experienced the power of faith in tribulations, temptations, anxieties and struggles to understand that in it lay the true freedom of a Christian man.

This booklet has in recent times been described by a Protestant as “perhaps the most beautiful work Luther ever wrote, and an outcome of religious contemplation rather than of theological study.”[71] It does, as a matter of fact, present its wrong ideas in many instances under a mystical garb, which appeals strongly to the heart, and which Luther had made his own by the study of older German models.

The new theory which, he alleged, was to free man from the burden of the Catholic doctrine of good works, he summed up in words, the effect of which upon the masses may readily be conceived: “By this faith all your sins are forgiven you, all the corruption within you is overcome, and you yourself are made righteous, true, devout and at peace; all the commandments are fulfilled, and you are set free from all things.”[72] “This is Christian liberty … that we stand in need of no works for the attainment of piety and salvation.”[73] “The Christian becomes by faith so exalted above all things that he is made spiritual lord of all; for there is nothing that can hinder his being saved.”[74] By faith in Christ, man, according to Luther, has become sure of salvation; he is “assured of life for evermore, may snap his fingers at the devil, and need no longer tremble before the wrath of God.”

It was inevitable that the author should attempt to vindicate himself from the charge of encouraging a false freedom. “Here we reply to all those,” he says in the same booklet,[75] “who are offended at the above language, and who say: ‘Well, if faith is everything and suffices to make us pious, why, then, are good works commanded? Let us be of good cheer and do nothing.’ ” What is Luther’s answer? “No, my friend, not so. It might indeed be thus if you were altogether an interior man, and had become entirely spiritual and soulful, but this will not happen until the Day of Judgment.”

But in so far as man is of the world and a servant of sin, he continues, he must rule over his body, and consort with other men; “here works make their appearance; idleness is bad; the body must be disciplined in moderation and exercised by fasting, watching and labour, that it may be obedient and conformable to faith and inwardness, and may not hinder and resist as its nature is when it is not controlled.” “But,” he immediately adds this limitation to his allusion to works, “such works must not be done in the belief that thereby a man becomes pious in God’s sight”; for piety before God consists in faith alone, and it is only “because the soul is made pure by faith and loves God, that it desires all things to be pure, first of all its own body, and wishes every man likewise to love and praise God.”

In spite of all reservations it is very doubtful whether the work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man” was capable of improving the many who joined Luther’s standard in order to avail themselves of the new freedom in its secular sense. “By faith” man became, so Luther had told them, pure and free and “lord of all.” They might reply, and as a matter of fact later on they did: Why then impose the duty of works, especially if the interior man has, according to his own judgment, become strong and sufficiently independent? Such was actually the argument of the fanatics. They added, “to become altogether spiritual and interior,” is in any case impossible, moreover, as, according to the new teaching, works spring spontaneously from the state of one who is justified, why then speak of a duty of performing good works, or why impose an obligation to do this or that particular good work here and now? It is better and easier for us to stimulate the spirit and the interior life of faith in the soul merely in a general way and in accordance with the new ideal.

As a matter of fact, experience soon showed that where the traditional Christian motives for good works (reparation for sin, the acquiring of merit with the assistance of God’s grace, etc.) were given up, the practice of good works suffered.

There is, however, no doubt that there were some on whom the booklet, with its heartfelt and moving exhortation to communion with Christ, did not fail to make a deep impression, more particularly in view of the formalism which then prevailed.

“Where the heart thus hears the voice of Christ,” says Luther with a simple, popular eloquence which recalls that of the best old German authors, “it must needs become glad, receive the deepest comfort and be filled with sweetness towards Christ, loving Him and ever after troubling nothing about laws and works. For who can harm such a heart, or cause it alarm? Should sin or death befall, it merely recollects that Christ’s righteousness is its own, and then, as we have said, sin disappears before faith in the Righteousness of Christ; with the Apostle it learns to defy death and sin, and to say: O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, but thanks be to God Who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. xv. 54 ff.).[76]

Pious phrases, such as these, which are of frequent occurrence, demanded a stable theological foundation in order to produce any lasting effects. In Luther’s case there was, however, no such foundation, and hence they are merely deceptive. The words quoted, as a matter of fact, detract somewhat from the grand thought of St. Paul, since the victory over sin and death of which he speaks refers, not to the present life of the Faithful, but to the glorious resurrection. The Apostle does, however, refer to our present life in the earnest exhortation with which he concludes (1 Cor. xv. 58): “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

Protestants frequently consider it very much to Luther’s credit that he insisted with so much force and feeling in his work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man” upon the dignity which faith and a state of grace impart to every calling, even to the most commonplace; his words, so they say, demonstrate that life in the world, and even the humblest vocation, when illumined by religion, has in it something of the infinite. This, however, had already been impressed upon the people, and far more correctly, in numerous instructions and sermons dating from mediæval times, though, agreeably with the teaching of the Gospel, the path of the Evangelical Counsels, and still more the Apostolic and priestly vocation, was accounted higher than the ordinary secular calling. A high Protestant authority, of many of whose utterances we can scarcely approve, remarks: “It is usual to consider this work of Luther’s as the Magna Charta of Protestant liberty, and of the Protestant ideal of a worldly calling in contradistinction to Catholic asceticism and renunciation of the world. My opinion is that this view is a misapprehension of Luther’s work.”[77]

It was this booklet, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” that the author had the temerity to send to Pope Leo X, with an accompanying letter (see above, p. 18), in which he professed to lay the whole matter in the hands of the Sovereign Pontiff, though in the work itself he denied all the Papal prerogatives. In the latter denial Luther was only logical, for if the foundation of the whole of the hierarchy be upset, what then remains of the position of the Pope?

To appreciate the effects of the three works just mentioned it may be worth our while to examine more closely two characteristics which there appear in singular juxtaposition. One is the deeply religious tone which, as we said, is so noteworthy in Luther’s book “On the Freedom of a Christian Man.” The other is an unmistakable tendency to dissolve all religion based on authority.

Luther, as we said before, positively refused to have anything to do with a religion of merely human character; yet, if we only draw the necessary conclusions from certain propositions which he sets up, we find that he is not very far removed from such a religion; he is, all unawares, on the high road to the destruction of all authority in matters of faith. This fact makes the depth of religious feeling evinced by the author appear all the more strange to the experienced reader.[78]

Some examples will make our meaning clearer.

In the work addressed to the Christian nobility, Luther confers on every one of the Faithful the fullest right of private judgment as regards both doctrines and doctors, and limits it by no authority save the Word of God as explained by the Christian himself.

“If we all are priests”—a fact already proved, so he says—“how then shall we not have the right to discriminate and judge what is right or wrong in faith? What otherwise becomes of the saying of Paul in 1 Corinthians ii. [15], ‘The spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man,’ and again, ‘Having all the same spirit of faith,’ 2 Corinthians iv. [13]? How then should we not perceive, just as well as an unbelieving Pope, what is in agreement with faith and what not? These and many other passages are intended to give us courage and make us free, so that we may not be frightened away from the spirit of liberty, as Paul calls it (2 Cor. iii. [17]), by the fictions of the Popes, but rather judge freely, according to our understanding of the Scriptures, of all things that they do or leave undone, and force them to follow what is better and not their own reason.”[79]

“A little man,” he had said already, “may have a right comprehension; why then should we not follow him?” and, with an unmistakable allusion to himself, he adds: surely more trust is to be placed in one “who has Scripture on his side.”[80]

Such assertions, as a matter of fact, destroy all the claims made by the visible Church to submission to her teaching. Further, they proclaim the principle of the fullest independence of the Christian in matters of faith; nothing but private judgment and personal inspiration can decide. Luther failed to see that, logically, every barrier must give way before this principle of liberty, and that Holy Scripture itself loses its power of resistance, subjectivism first invading its interpretation and then, in the hands of the extremer sort of critics, questioning its value and divine origin. The inner consequences of Luther’s doctrine on freedom and autonomy have been clearly pointed out even by some of the more advanced Protestant theologians. Adolf Harnack, for instance, recently expressed the truth neatly when he said that “Kant and Fichte were both of them hidden behind Luther.”[81]

The second work “On the Babylonish Captivity,” with its sceptical tendency, of which, however, Luther was in great part unconscious, also vindicates this opinion.

The very arbitrariness with which the author questions facts of faith or usages dating from the earliest ages of the Church, must naturally have awakened in such of his readers as were already predisposed a spirit of criticism which bore a startling resemblance to the spirit of revolt. Here again, in one passage, Luther comes to the question of the right of placing private judgment in matters of religion above all authority. He here teaches that there exists in the assembly of the Faithful, and through the illumination of the Divine Spirit, a certain “interior sense for judging concerning doctrine, a sense, which, though it cannot be demonstrated, is nevertheless absolutely certain.” He describes faith, as it comes into being in every individual Christian soul, “as the result of a certitude directly inspired of God, a certitude of which he himself is conscious.”[82]

What this private judgment of each individual would lead to in Holy Scripture, Luther shows by his own example in this very work; he already makes a distinction based on the “interior sense” between the various books of the Bible, i.e. those stamped with the true Apostolic Spirit, and, for instance, the less trustworthy Epistle of St. James, of which the teaching contradicts his own. Köstlin, with a certain amount of reserve, admits: “This he gives us to understand, agreeably with his principles and experience; it is not our affair to prove that it is tenable or to vindicate it.”[83]

Luther says at the end of the passage in question: “Of this question more elsewhere.” As a matter of fact, however, he never did treat of it fully and in detail, although it concerned the fundamentals of religion; for this omission he certainly had reasons of his own.

A certain radicalism is perceptible in the work “On the Babylonish Captivity,” even with regard to social matters. Luther lays it down: “I say that no Pope or Bishop or any other man has a right to impose even one syllable upon a Christian man, except with his consent; any other course is pure tyranny.”[84] It is true that ostensibly he is only assailing the tyranny of ecclesiastical laws, yet, even so, he exceeds all reasonable limits.

With regard to marriage, the foundation of society, so unguarded is he, that, besides destroying its sacramental character, he brushes aside the ecclesiastical impediments of marriage as mere man-made inventions, and, speaking of divorce based on these laws, he declares that to him bigamy is preferable.[85] When a marriage is dissolved on account of adultery, he thinks remarriage allowable to the innocent party. He also expresses the fervent wish that the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians vii. 15, according to which the Christian man or woman deserted by an infidel spouse is thereby set free from the marriage tie, should also apply to the marriages of Christians where the one party has maliciously deserted the other; in such a case, the offending party is no better than an infidel. Regarding the impediment of impotence on the man’s part, he conceives the idea[86] that the wife might, without any decision of the court, “live secretly with her husband’s brother, or with some other man.”[87] In the later editions of Luther’s works this statement, as well as that concerning bigamy, has been suppressed.

Luther, so he says, is loath to decide anything. But neither are popes or bishops to give decisions! “If, however,” says Luther, “two well-instructed and worthy men were to agree in Christ’s name, and speak according to the spirit of Christ, then I would prefer their judgment before all the Councils, which are now only looked up to on account of the number and outward reputation of the people there assembled, no regard being paid to their learning and holiness.”[88] Apart from other objections, the stipulation concerning the “Spirit of Christ,” here made by the mystic, renders his plan illusory, for who is to determine that the “Spirit of Christ” is present in the judgment of the two “well-instructed men”? Luther seems to assume that this determination is an easy matter. First and foremost, who is to decide whether these men are really well-instructed? There were many whose opinion differed from Luther’s, and who thought that this and such-like demands, made in his tract “On the Babylonish Captivity,” opened the door to a real confusion of Babel.

Neither can the work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man” be absolved from a certain dangerous radicalism. A false spirit of liberty in the domain of faith breathes through it. The faith which is here extolled is not faith in the olden and true meaning of the word, namely the submission of reason to what God has revealed and proposes for belief through the authority He Himself instituted, but faith in the Lutheran sense, i.e. personal trust in Christ and in the salvation He offers. Faith in the whole supernatural body of Christian truth comes here so little into account that it is reduced to the mere assurance of salvation. All that we are told is that the Christian is “free and has power over all” by a simple appropriation of the merits of Christ; he is purified by the mere acceptance of the merciful love revealed in Christ; “this faith suffices him,” and through it he enjoys all the riches of God. And this so-called faith is mainly a matter of feeling; a man must learn to “taste the true spirit of interior trials,” just as the author himself, so he says, “in his great temptations had been permitted to taste a few drops of faith.”[89] Faith is thus not only robbed of its true meaning and made into a mere personal assurance, but the assurance appears as something really not so easy of attainment, since it is only to be arrived at by treading the difficult path of spiritual suffering.

Luther thereby strikes a blow at one of the most vital points of positive religion, viz. the idea of faith.

The author, in this same work,[90] again reminds us that by faith all are priests, and therefore have the right “to instruct Christians concerning the faith and the freedom of believers”; for the preservation of order, however, all cannot teach, and therefore some are chosen from amongst the rest for this purpose. It is plain how, by this means, a door was opened to the introduction of diversity of doctrine and the ruin of the treasure of revelation.

The religious tone which Luther assumed in the work “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” and his earnestness and feeling, made his readers more ready to overlook the perils for real religion which it involved. This consideration brings us to the other characteristic, viz. the pietism which, as stated above, is so strangely combined in the three works with intense radicalism.

The religious feeling which pervades every page of the “Freedom of a Christian Man” is, if anything, overdone. In what Luther there says we see the outpourings of one whose religious views are quite peculiar, and who is bent on bringing the Christian people to see things in the same light as he does; deeply imbued as he is with his idea of salvation by faith alone, and full of bitterness against the alleged disfiguring of the Church’s life by meritorious works, he depicts his own conception of religion in vivid and attractive colours, and in the finest language of the mystics. It is easy to understand how so many Protestant writers have been fascinated by these pages, indeed, the best ascetic writers might well envy him certain of the passages in which he speaks of the person of Christ and of communion with Him. Nevertheless, a fault which runs through the whole work is, as already explained, his tendency to narrow the horizon of religious thought and feeling by making the end of everything to consist in the mere awakening of trust in Christ as our Saviour. Ultimately, religion to him means no more than this confidence; he is even anxious to exclude so well-founded and fruitful a spiritual exercise as compassion with the sufferings of our crucified Redeemer, actually calling it “childish and effeminate stupidity.”[91] How much more profound and fruitful was the religious sentiment of the genuine mystics of the Church, whom the contemplation of the sufferings of Christ furnished with the most beautiful and touching subject of meditation, and who knew how to find a source of edification in all the truths of faith, and not only in that of the forgiveness of sins. Writers such as they, described to their pious readers in far greater detail the person of Christ, the honour given by Him to God and the virtues He had inculcated.

The booklet “To the Nobility,” likewise, particularly in the Preface, throws a strange sidelight on the pietism of the so-called great Reformation works.

Here, in his exordium to the three tracts, the author seeks to win over the minds of the piously disposed. The most earnest reformer of the Church could not set himself to the task with greater fear, greater diffidence and humility than he. Luther, as he assures his readers, is obliged “to cry and call aloud like a poor man that God may inspire someone to stretch out a helping hand to the unfortunate nation.” He declares that such a task “must not be undertaken by one who trusts in his power and wisdom, for God will not allow a good work to be commenced in trust in our own might and ability.” “The work must be undertaken in humble confidence in God, His help being sought in earnest prayer, and with nothing else in view but the misery and misfortune of unhappy Christendom, even though the people have brought it on themselves. … Therefore let us act wisely and in the fear of God. The greater the strength employed, the greater the misfortune, unless all is done in the fear of God and in humility.”[92]

Further on, even in his most violent attacks, the author is ever insisting that it is only a question of the honour of Christ: “it is the power of the devil and of End-Christ [Antichrist] that hinders what would be for the reform of Christendom; therefore let us beware, and resist it even at the cost of our life and all we have. … Let us hold fast to this: Christian strength can do nothing against Christ, as St. Paul says (2 Cor. xiii. 8). We can do nothing against Christ, but only for Him.”[93]

In his concluding words, convinced of his higher mission, he declares that he was “compelled” to come forward. “God has forced me by them [my adversaries] to open my mouth still further, and, because they are cowards, to preach at them, bark at them, roar at them and write against them. … Though I know that my cause is good, yet it must needs be condemned on earth and be justified only by Christ in heaven.”[94] When a mission is Divine, then the world must oppose it.—One wonders whether everything that meets with disapproval must therefore be accounted Divine.

It is the persuasion of his higher mission that explains the religious touch so noticeable in these three writings. The power of faith there expressed refers, however, principally to his own doctrine and his own struggles. If we take the actual facts into account, it is impossible to look on these manifestations of religion as mere hypocrisy. The pietism we find in the tract “To the German Nobility” is indeed overdone, and of a very peculiar character, yet the writer meant it as seriously as he did the blame he metes out to the abuses of his age.

We still have to consider the religious side of the work “On the Babylonish Captivity.” Originally written in Latin, and intended not so much for the people as for the learned, this tract, even in the later German version, is not clad in the same popular religious dress as the other two. Like the others, nevertheless, it was designed as a weapon to serve in the struggle for a religious renewal, especially in the matter of the Sacraments. Among other of its statements, which are characteristic of the direction of Luther’s mind, is the odd-sounding request at the very commencement: “If my adversaries are worthy of being led back by Christ to a more reasonable conception of things, then I beg that in His Mercy He may do so. Are they not worthy, then I pray that they may not cease to write their books against me, and that the enemies of truth may deserve to read no others.”[95] His conclusion is: He commits his book with joy to the hands of all the pious, i.e. of those who wish to understand aright the sense of Holy Scripture and the true use of the Sacraments.[96] He further declares in an obstinate and mocking manner his intention of ever holding fast to his own opinion. His more enlightened contemporaries saw with anxiety how every page of his work teemed with signs of self-deception and blind prejudice, and of a violent determination to overthrow religious views which had held the field for ages. To those who cared to reflect, Luther’s religiousness appeared in the light of a religious downfall, and as the chaotic manifestation of a desire to demolish all those venerable traditions which encumbered the way of the spirit of revolt.