Life of Luther Part 15

The Word, rejected and condemned as it had been by bishops and priests in Germany, met with singular success beyond the eastern boundary of the Empire, among the Order of Teutonic Knights in Prussia. The Grand Master of the Order, Albert of Brandenburg, brother of the Elector of Brandenburg, and cousin of Albert, the Archbishop and Cardinal, had kept up communication with Luther, both orally and by letter, and had been advised by him and Melancthon to make himself familiar with the gospel and the principles of the Evangelical Church. And, above all, there were here two bishops who espoused the new teaching, and who were anxious to tend the flocks committed to their charge as true evangelical bishops or overseers, in the sense insisted on by Luther, and particularly to minister to the Word by preaching and by the care of souls. These were George of Polenz, Bishop of Samland since 1523, and Erhard of Queiss, Bishop of Pomerania since 1524. The members of the Order, almost without exception, were on their side: they resolved to establish a temporal princedom in Prussia and to renounce their vows of 'false chast.i.ty and spirituality.' The King of Poland, under whose suzerainty the country had long been, solemnly invested the hitherto Grand Master on April 10, 1525, as hereditary Duke of Prussia. Thus Prussia became the first territory that collectively embraced the Reformation, whilst as yet, even in the Electorate of Saxony, no general measures had been taken in its support. It became, in short, the first Protestant country. Luther wrote to the new Duke: 'I am greatly rejoiced that Almighty G.o.d has so graciously and wondrously helped your princely Grace to attain such an eminent position, and further my wish is that the same merciful G.o.d may continue His blessing to your Grace through life, for the benefit and G.o.dly welfare of the whole country.' And to the Archbishop Albert he held the new Duke up as a shining example, in saying of him, 'How graciously has G.o.d sent such a change, as, ten years ago, could not have been hoped for or believed in, even had ten Isaiahs and Pauls announced it. But because he gave room and honour to the gospel, the gospel in return has given him far more room and honour--more than he could have dared to wish for.'

The gospel now received its first testimony in blood. With joyful confidence Luther beheld what G.o.d had done, but could not refrain from lamenting, with sorrowful humility, that he himself had not been found worthy of martyrdom. In the Imperial hereditary lands, where for some years missionaries, chiefly members of Luther's own Augustine Order, had been actively labouring in the strength of the convictions derived from Wittenberg, two young Augustine monks, Henry Voes and John Esch, were publicly burnt, on July 1, 1523, as heretics. Luther thereupon addressed a letter to 'the beloved Christians in Holland, Brabant, and Flanders,' praising G.o.d for His wondrous light, that He had caused again to dawn. He spoke out even stronger in some verses in which he celebrated the young martyrs; they were published no doubt originally as a broadsheet:

A new song will we raise to Him Who ruleth, G.o.d our Lord; And we will sing what G.o.d hath done, In honour of His Word.

At Brussels in the Netherlands, It was through two young lads, He hath made known His Wonders, &c.

They conclude as follows:--

So let us thank our G.o.d to see His Word returned at last.

The Summer now is at the door, The Winter is forepast, The tender flowerets bloom anew, And He, who hath begun, Will give His work a happy end.

He was, later on, deeply grieved by the death of his brother-Augustine and friend Henry Moller of Zutphen, who, after having been forced to fly from the Netherlands, had begun a blessed work at Bremen, and was now murdered in the most brutal manner on December 11, 1524, by a mob instigated by monks, near Meldorf, whither he had gone in response to an invitation from some of his companions in the faith. Luther informed his Christian brethren in a circular of the end of this 'blessed brother' and 'Evangelist.' He mentions, with him, the two martyrs of Brussels, as well as other disciples of the new doctrine; one Caspar Tauber, who was executed at Vienna, a bookseller named Georg, who was burnt at Pesth, and one who had been recently burnt at Prague. 'These and such as these,' he adds, 'are they whose blood will drown the popedom, together with its G.o.d, the devil.'

With regard to his work of reformation, which had now spread so widely and found so many coadjutors, Luther at present thought as little about the outward const.i.tution of a new Church as he had thought about any outward organisation of the war itself, or an external alliance of his adherents, or of a cleverly devised propaganda. Just as here the simple Word was to achieve the victory, so his whole efforts were devoted solely to restoring to the congregations the possession and enjoyment of that Word in all its purity, that they might gather round it, and be thereby further edified, sustained, and guided.

Wherever this privilege was denied to Christians, Luther claimed for them the right, by virtue of their universal priesthood, to ordain a priest for themselves, and to reject the ensnaring deceits of mere human doctrine. He declared himself to this effect, in a treatise written in 1523, and intended in the first instance for the Bohemians--that is to say, for the so-called Utraquists who were then the leading party in Bohemia. These sectaries, whose only ground of estrangement from Rome was the question of administering the cup to the laity, and who had never thought of separating themselves from the so-called Apostolical succession of the episcopate in the Catholic Church, Luther then hoped, albeit in vain, to win over to a genuine evangelical belief and practice of religion. In this treatise he went a step beyond the election of pastors by their congregations, by maintaining that a whole district, composed of such evangelical communities, might appoint their own overseer, who should exercise control over them, until the final establishment of a supreme bishopric, of an evangelical character, for the entire national Church. But of any such ecclesiastical edifice for Germany, wholly absorbed as he was in her immediate needs, he had not yet said a word. Congregations of such a kind, and suitable for such a purpose, could only be created by preaching the Word; nor had Luther yet abandoned the hope that the existing German episcopate, as already had been the case in Prussia, would accept an evangelical reconstruction on a much larger scale.

With regard to individual congregations, moreover, it was the opinion of Luther and his friends that, where the local magistrates and patrons of the Church were inclined to the gospel, the appointment of pastors might be made by them in a regular way. A separation of civil communities, each represented by their own magistrate, from the ecclesiastical or religious units, was an idea wholly foreign to that time.

That the word of G.o.d should be preached to the various congregations in a pure and earnest manner, that those congregations themselves should be entrusted with the work, should make it their own, and, in reliance thereon, should lift up their hearts to G.o.d with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving,--this was the fixed object which Luther held in view in all the regulations which he made at Wittenberg, and wished to inst.i.tute in other places. In this spirit he advanced cautiously and by degrees in the changes introduced in public worship,--changes which, as he admits, he had commenced with fear and hesitation. 'That the Word itself,' he says, 'should advance mightily among Christians, is shown by the whole of Scripture, and Christ Himself says (Luke x.) that "one thing is needful," namely, that Mary should sit at the feet of Christ, and hear His Word daily. His Word endures for ever, and all else must melt away before it, however much Martha may have to do.' He points out as one of the great abuses of the old system of worship, that the people had to keep silence about the Word, while all the time they had to accept unchristian fables and falsehoods in what was read, and sung, and preached in the churches, and to perform public worship as a work which should ent.i.tle them to the grace of G.o.d. He now set vigorously about separating the mere furniture of worship.

As to the Word itself, on the contrary, he was anxious to have it preached to the congregation, wherever possible, every Sunday morning and evening, and on week-days, at least to the students and others, who desired to hear it: this was actually done at Wittenberg. Innovations, not apparently required by his principles, he shunned himself, and warned others to do so likewise. Nor was he less diligent to guard against the danger of having the new forms of worship, now practised at Wittenberg, made into a law for all evangelical brethren without distinction. He gave an account and estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend Hausmann, the priest at Zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for Christ's sake,' that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these matters, he should make it known. No one, he declared, durst condemn or despise different forms practised by others. Outward customs and ceremonies were, indeed, indispensable, but they served as little to commend us to G.o.d, as meat or drink (1 Cor. viii. 8) served to make us well pleasing before Him.

In order to enable the congregations themselves to take an active part in the service, he now longed for genuine Church hymns, that is to say, songs composed in the n.o.ble popular language, verse, and melody. He invited friends to paraphrase the Psalms for this purpose; he had not sufficient confidence in himself for the work.

And yet he was the first to attempt it. With fresh impulse and with the exuberance of true poetical genius, his verses on the Brussels martyrs had flowed forth spontaneously from his inmost soul. They were the first, so far as we know, that Luther had ever written, though he was now forty years of age. With the same poetic impulse he composed, probably shortly after, a hymn in praise of the 'highest blessing' that G.o.d had shown towards us in the sacrifice of His beloved Son.

Rejoice ye now, dear Christians all, And let us leap for joy, And dare with trustful, loving hearts, Our praises to employ, And sing what G.o.d hath shown to man, His sweet and wondrous deed, And tell how dearly He hath won. etc.

The full tone of a powerful, fresh, often uncouth, but very tender popular ballad no other writer of the time displayed like Luther.

And whilst seeking to compose or re-arrange hymns for congregational use in church, he now busied himself with the Psalter, paraphrasing its contents in an evangelical spirit and in German metre.

Thus now, early in 1524, there appeared at Wittenberg the first German hymn-book, consisting at first, of only eight hymns, about half of them, such as that beginning _Nun freut euch_, being original compositions of Luther, and three others adapted from the Psalms. In the course of the same year he brought out a further collection of twenty hymns, written by himself for the evangelical congregation there: among these is the one on the Brussels martyrs.

It was, in fact, the year in which German hymnody was born. Luther soon found the coadjutors he had wished for.

These twenty-four hymns by Luther were followed in after years by only twelve more from his own pen, among the latter being his grand hymn, _Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott_, written probably in 1527. Of these later compositions, comparatively few expressed entirely his own ideas; most of them had reference to subjects already in the possession and use of the Christian world, and of German Christians in particular; that is to say, some referred to the Psalms and other portions of the Bible, others to parts of the Catechism, others again to short German ballads, sung by the people, and even to old Latin hymns. In all of them he was governed by a strict regard to what was both purely evangelical, and also suitable for the common worship of G.o.d. And yet they differ widely, one from another, in the poetical form and manner in which he now gives utterance to the longings of the heart for G.o.d, now seeks to clothe in verse suited for congregational singing words of belief and doctrine, now keeps closely to his immediate subject, now vents his emotions freely in Christian sentiments and poetical form, as for example in _Ein' feste Burg_, the most sublime and powerful production of them all.

The new hymns went forth in town and country, in churches and homes, throughout the land. Often, far more than any sermons could have done, they brought home to ears and hearts the Word of evangelical truth. They became weapons of war, as well as means of edification and comfort.

In his preface to a small collection of songs, which Luther had published in the same year, he remarks: 'I am not of opinion that the gospel should be employed to strike down and destroy all the arts, as certain high ecclesiastics would have it. I would rather that all the arts, and especially music, should be employed in the service of Him who has created them and given them to man.' What he says here about music and poetry, he applied equally to all departments of knowledge. He saw art and learning now menaced by wrong-minded enthusiasts. For this reason he was particularly anxious that they should be cultivated in the schools.

With great zeal he directed his counsels to the general duty of caring for the good education and instruction of the young, as indeed he had done some time before in his address to the German n.o.bility. These, above all, he said, must be rescued from the clutches of Satan. He had again in his mind schools for girls. Thus in 1523 he recommended the conversion of the cloisters of the Mendicant Orders into schools 'for boys and girls.' The same advice was offered by Eberlin, already mentioned, who was then living at Wittenberg, and who made the suggestion to the magistrates of Ulm.

But Luther's chief advice was directed to the requirements of the Church and the State, or 'temporal government,' which a.s.suredly were then in need of educated and well-cultured servants. For the training here required, the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, were indispensable, and for the ministers of the Church, Greek and Hebrew in particular, as the languages in which the Word of G.o.d was originally conveyed to man. 'Languages,' he says, 'are the sheaths which enclose the sword of the Spirit, the shrine in which this treasure is carried, the vessel which contains this drink.' He insisted further on the study of history, and especially of that of Germany. It was a matter of regret to him that so little had been done towards writing the history of Germany, whilst the Greeks, the Romans, and the Hebrews had compiled theirs with such industry. 'O!

how many histories and sayings,' he remarked, 'we ought to have in our possession, of all that has been done and said in different parts of Germany, and of which we know nothing. That is why, in other countries, people know nothing about us Germans, and all the world calls us German beasts, who can do nothing but fight, and guzzle, and drink.' Such were his opinions, as given in 1524, in a public letter 'To the Councillors of all the States of Germany; an appeal to inst.i.tute and maintain Christian schools.'

The enthusiasm which had recently inspired young men of talent and ambition to study and imitate the ancient cla.s.sics, and had banded together the leading teachers of Humanism, very quickly died away.

The universities everywhere were less frequented. Enemies of Luther ascribed this to the influence of his doctrines, though matters were little better where his doctrines were repudiated. It is not, indeed, surprising that the Humanist movement, with its regard for formal culture and aesthetic enjoyment, and its aristocracy of intellect, should retire perforce before the supreme struggle, involving the highest issues and interests of life, which was now being waged by the German people and the Church. A further cause of this decline of academical studies was to be found, no doubt, in the vigorous, and somewhat giddy bound taken by trade and commerce in those days of increased communication and extensive geographical discovery, and in the striving after material gain and enjoyment, which seemed to find satisfaction in other ways more easily and rapidly than by learned industry and the pursuit of culture. It was from these quarters that came the complaints against the great merchants' houses, the usury, the rise in prices, the luxury and extravagance of the age,--complaints which were re-echoed alike by the friends and foes of the Reformation. The Reformers themselves fully recognised the thanks they owed to those Humanistic studies, and their permanent value for Church and State. In the new church regulations introduced in the towns and districts which accepted the evangelical teaching, the school system then played a prominent part. Nuremberg, some years after, was among the most active to establish a good high school. Luther himself went in April 1525 with Melancthon to his native place Eisleben, to a.s.sist in promoting a school, founded there by Count Albert of Mansfeld: his friend Agricola was the head master.

Thus we see that the work of planting and building occupied Luther at this time more than the contest with his old opponents. Well might he, as he says in his hymn, rejoice to see the spring-tide and the flowers, and hope for a rich summer.

On the other hand, not only did the adherents of the old system knit their ranks together more closely, and, like the confederates of Ratisbon in 1524, profess their desire to do something at least to satisfy the general complaint of the corruption of the Church; but men even, who from their undeniably deep and earnest striving for religion, seemed originally called to take part in the work and war, now separated themselves from Luther and his a.s.sociates, not venturing to break free from the bonds of old ecclesiastical tradition. Still more was this the case with men of Humanistic culture, whose temporary alliance with Luther had been dictated more by the interest they felt in the arts and letters threatened by the old monastic spirit, and by the open scandal caused by the outrageous abuses of the clergy and monachism, than by any sympathy with his religious principles and ideas. And to those who wavered in so momentous a decision, and shrank back from it and the contests it involved, there was plenty in what they observed among Luther's adherents, to give them occasion for still further reflection. It was not to be denied that, sharply as Luther had reproved the conduct of the Wittenberg innovators, the new preaching gave rise among excited mult.i.tudes, in many places, to disturbance, disorder, and acts of violence against obstinate monks and priests; and all this was held up as a proof of what the consequences must be of a general dissolution of religious ties.

The desertion of their convents by monks and nuns, ostensibly on the ground of their newly-proclaimed liberty, but in reality, for the most part, as was alleged against them by the Catholics, for the sake of carnal freedom, was denounced with no small severity by Luther himself; but, in so doing, he recalled to mind the fact, that equally low interests had led them into the convents, and that the cloisters also, after their fashion, indulged in the 'worship of the belly.' Luther was just as indignant that the great majority of those who refused to be robbed any longer of their money and goods at the demand and by the deceits of the Papal Church, now withheld them both from serving the objects of Christian love and benevolence, which they were all the more called on to promote. The enemies of the new doctrine began already to charge against it that the faith, which was supposed to make men so blessed, bore so little good fruit. Lastly, there were many honest-minded men, and many, also, who looked about for an excuse for abstaining from the battle, whom Luther's personal partic.i.p.ation in the din and clamour of the fray served to scandalise, if not to alienate from his cause. Thus among those who had formerly been united by a common endeavour to improve the condition of the Church and repel the tyranny of Rome, a crisis had now begun.

Of all who drew back from Luther's work of reformation, none had been more intimately attached to him than his spiritual father, Staupitz. And this intimacy he retained as Abbot of Salzburg. In his view, nothing of all the external matters to which the Reformation was directed, seemed so important as to warrant the endangerment of religious concord and unity in the Church. Luther expressed to him the sorrow he felt at his estrangement, while renewing, at the same time, his a.s.surance of unalterable affection and grat.i.tude. Staupitz himself felt unhappy in his att.i.tude and position. But even as abbot, and in the proximity of the Archbishop of Salzburg, a man of very different views and temperament to himself, he remained true to his doctrine of Faith, as being the only means of salvation and the root of all goodness. And the very last year of his life, in a letter to Luther, recommending to him a young theologian who was about to further his education at Wittenberg, he a.s.sured him of his unchanging love, 'pa.s.sing the love of women' (2 Sam. i. 26), and gratefully acknowledged how his beloved Martin had first led him away 'to the living pastures from the husks for the pigs.' Luther gave a friendly welcome to the young man recommended to his care, and a.s.sisted him in gaining the desired degree of Master of Philosophy. This is the last that we hear of the intercourse between these two friends. On December 28, 1524, Staupitz died from a fit of apoplexy.

The earlier acquaintance between the Reformer and the great Humanist, Erasmus, had now developed into an irreconcilable enmity.

The latter had long been unable to refrain from venting, in private and public utterances, his dissatisfaction and bitterness at the storm aroused by Luther, which was distracting the Church and disturbing quiet study. Patrons of his in high places--above all, King Henry VIII. of England--urged him to take up the cause of the Church against Luther in a pamphlet; and, difficult as he felt it to take a prominent part in such a contest, he was the less able to decline their overtures, since other Churchmen were reproaching him with having furthered by his earlier writings the pernicious movement. He chose a subject which would enable him, at any rate, while attacking Luther, to represent his own personal convictions, and to reckon on the concurrence not only of Romish zealots but also of a number of his Humanist friends, and even many men of deeply moral and religious disposition. Luther, it will be remembered, had told him plainly from the first that he knew too little of the grace of G.o.d, which alone could give salvation to sinners, and strength and ability to the good. Erasmus now retorted by his diatribe 'On Free Will,' by virtue whereof, he said, man was able and was bound to procure his own blessing and final happiness.

Luther, on perusing this treatise, in September 1524, was struck with the feebleness of its contents. So far, indeed, from defining the operation of the human will, Erasmus floated vaguely about in loose and incoherent propositions, evidently not from want of extreme care and circ.u.mspection, but from the fact that, in this province of antiquarian research, he failed in the necessary acuteness and depth of observation and thought. He declared himself ready to yield obedience to all decisions of the Church, but without expressing any opinion as to the real infallibility of an ecclesiastical tribunal. Throughout his whole treatise, however, there were personal thrusts at his enemy.

Luther, as he said, only wished to answer this diatribe out of regard to the position enjoyed by its author, and, from his sheer aversion to the book, for a long while postponed his reply. We shall see moreover, very shortly, what other pressing duties and events engrossed his attention for some time after. It was not until a year had elapsed, that his reply appeared, ent.i.tled 'On the Bondage of the Will.' Herein he pushes the propositions to which Erasmus took exception to their logical conclusion. Free Will, as it is called, has always been subject to the supremacy of a higher Power; with unredeemed sinners to the power of the devil; with the redeemed, to the saving, sanctifying, and sheltering Hand of G.o.d. For the latter, salvation is a.s.sured by His Almighty and grace-conferring Will. The fact that in other sinners no such conversion to G.o.d and to a redeeming faith in His Word is effected, can only be ascribed to the inscrutable Will of G.o.d Himself, nor durst man dispute thereon with his Maker. Luther in this went further than did afterwards the Evangelical Church that bears his name. And even he, later on, abstained himself and warned others to abstain from discussing such Divine mysteries and questions connected with them. But as for Erasmus, he never ceased to regard him as one who, from his superficial worldliness, was blind to the highest truth of salvation.

In respect to the battle against Catholic Churchdom and dogma, the controversy between Luther and Erasmus presents no new issue or further development. But in company with their old master, other Humanists also, the leading champions of the general culture of the age, dissociated themselves from Luther, and returned, as his enemies, to their allegiance to the traditional system of the Church. Next to Erasmus, the most important of these men was Pirkheimer of Nuremberg, to whom we have already referred.

CHAPTER V.

THE REFORMER AGAINST THE FANATICS AND PEASANTS UP TO 1525.

In his new as in his old contests, Luther's experiences remained such as he described them to Hartmuth of Kronberg, on his return to Wittenberg. 'All my enemies, near as they have reached me, have not hit me as hard as I have now been hit by our own people.'

At first, indeed, Carlstadt kept silent, and continued quietly, till Easter 1523, his lectures at the university. But inwardly he was inclined to a mysticism resembling that of the Zwickau fanatics, and imbibed, like theirs, from mediaeval writings; and he too, soon turned, with these views, to new and practical projects of reform.

He now began to unfold in writing his ideas of a true union of the soul with G.o.d. He too explained how the souls of all creatures should empty themselves, so to speak, and prepare themselves in absolute pa.s.siveness, in 'inaction and la.s.situde,' for a glorified state. His profession of learning, and his academical and clerical dignities he resigned, as ministering to vanity. He bought a small property near Wittenberg, and repaired thither to live as a layman and peasant. He wore a peasant's coat, and mixed with the other peasants as 'Neighbour Andrew.' Luther saw him there, standing with bare feet amid heaps of manure, and loading it on a cart.

He found a place for the exercise of his new work in the church at Orlamunde on the Saale, above Jena. This parish, like several others, had been incorporated with the university at Wittenberg, and its revenues formed part of its endowment, being specially attached to the archdeaconry of the Convent Church, which was united with Carlstadt's professorship. The living there, with most of its emoluments, had pa.s.sed accordingly to Carlstadt, but the office of pastor could only be performed by vicars, as they were called, regularly nominated, and appointed by the Elector. Carlstadt now took advantage of a vacancy in the office, to go on his own authority as pastor to Orlamunde, without wishing to resign his appointment and its pay at Wittenberg. By his preaching and personal influence he soon won over the local congregation to his side, and ended by gaining as great an influence here as he had done at Wittenberg. Here also the images were abolished and destroyed, crucifixes and other representations of Christ no less than images of the saints. Carlstadt now openly declared that no respect was to be paid to any local authority, nor any regard to other congregations; they were to execute freely the commands of G.o.d, and whatever was contrary to G.o.d, they were to cast down and hew to pieces. And in interpreting and applying these commands of G.o.d he went to more extravagant lengths than ever. Must not the letter of the Old Testament be the law for other things as well as images?

Acting on this idea, he demanded that Sunday should be observed with rest in all the Mosaic rigour of the term; this rest he identified with that 'inaction,' which formed his idea of true union with G.o.d.

He proceeded then to advocate polygamy, as permitted to the Jews in the Old Testament: he actually advised an inhabitant of Orlamunde to take a second wife, in addition to the one then living. He began, at the same time, to dispute the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament--a doctrine which Luther steadfastly insisted on in his contest with the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. By an extraordinary perversion, as is evident at a glance, of the meaning of Christ's words of inst.i.tution, he maintained that when our Saviour said 'This is My Body,'--alluding, of course, to the bread which He was then distributing, He was not referring to the bread at all, but only to His own body, as He stood there.

The inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Kahla were seized with the same spirit. These mystical ideas and phrases a.s.sumed strange forms of expression among the common people, who jumbled together in wild confusion the supernatural and the material. Carlstadt kept up also a secret correspondence with Munzer.

The question of the authority of the Old Testament soon took a wider range. It seemed to be one of the authority of Scripture in general, which was contended for against the Papists. If the authority of G.o.d's Word in the Old Testament applied to the whole domain of civil life, should it not equally apply, as against particular regulations established by civil society? On these principles, for example, all taking of interest, as well as usury, was declared to be forbidden, just as it had been forbidden to G.o.d's people of old. A restoration of the Mosaic year of Jubilee was even talked of, when after fifty years all land which had pa.s.sed into other hands should revert to its original owners. With eagerness the people took up these new ideas of social reform, so specious and so full of promises. The evangelical and earnest preacher, Strauss at Eisenach, worked zealously with word and pen in this direction. Even a court-preacher of Duke John, Wolfgang Stein at Weimar, espoused the movement.

Meanwhile Munzer came again to Central Germany. He had succeeded, at Easter 1523, in obtaining the office of pastor at Allstedt, a small town in a lateral valley of the Unstrut. In him, more than in any other, the spirit of the Zwickau prophets fermented with full force, and was preparing for a violent outburst. Alone, in the room of a church tower, he held secret intercourse with his G.o.d, and boasted of his answers and revelations. He affected the appearance and demeanour of a man whose soul was absorbed in tranquillity, devoid of all finite ideas or aspirations, and open and free to receive G.o.d's Spirit and inner Word. More violently than even the champions of Catholic asceticism, he reproached Luther for leading a comfortable, carnal life. But his whole energies were directed to establishing a Kingdom of the Saints,--an external one, with external power and splendour. His preaching dwelt incessantly on the duty of destroying and killing the unG.o.dly, and especially all tyrants. He wished to see a practical application given to the words of the Mosaic dispensation, commanding G.o.d's people to destroy the heathen nations from out of the promised land, to overthrow their altars, and burn their graven images with fire. Community of property was to be a particular inst.i.tution of the Kingdom of G.o.d, the property being distributed to each man according to his need: whatever prince or lord refused to do this, was to be hanged or beheaded. Meanwhile, Munzer sought by means of secret emissaries in all directions to enlist the saints into a secret confederacy. His chief a.s.sociate was the former monk, Pfeifer at Muhlhausen, not far from Allstedt. The Orlamundians, however, whom also he endeavoured to seduce to his policy of violence, would have nothing to say to such overtures.

The Elector Frederick even now came only tardily to the resolve, to interpose, in these ecclesiastical matters and disputes, his authority as sovereign, nor did Luther himself desire his intervention so long as the struggle was one of minds about the truth. Duke John had been strongly influenced by the ideas of his court-preacher. The princes still hoped to be able to restore peace between Luther and his colleague, Carlstadt, who, with all his misty projects, was still of importance as a theologian.

Carlstadt consented, indeed, at Easter in 1524, to resume quietly his duties at Wittenberg university. But he soon returned to Orlamunde, to re-a.s.sert his position there as head and reformer of the Church.

With regard to the question of Mosaic and civil law, Luther was now invited by John Frederick, the son of Duke John, to express his opinion. It is easy to conceive how this question might present, even to upright and calm-judging adherents of the evangelical preaching, considerations of difficulty and much inward doubt. It had cropped up as a novelty, and, as it seemed, in necessary connection with this preaching: moreover, on its answer depended a revolution of all ordinances of State and society, in accordance with the command of G.o.d.

Luther's views on this subject, however, were perfectly clear, and he expressed himself accordingly. In his opinion, the answer had been given by the keynote of evangelical teaching. It lay in the distinction between spiritual and temporal government, the essential features of which he had already explained in 1523 in his treatise 'On the Secular Power.' The life of the soul in G.o.d, its reconciliation and redemption, its relations and duty to G.o.d and fellow-man in faith and love--these are the subjects dealt with in the gospel message of salvation, or the biblical revelation in its completeness. G.o.d has left to the practical understanding and needs of man, and to the historical development of peoples and states under His overruling providence, the arrangement of forms of law for social life, without the necessity of any special revelation for that purpose. It is the duty of the secular power to administer the existing laws, and to make new ones in a proper and legal manner, according as they may think fit. That G.o.d prescribed to the people of Israel external, civil ordinances by the mouth of Moses, was part of His scheme of education. Christians are not bound by these ordinances,--no more, indeed, than is their inner life and right conduct made conditional on outward rules and forms. Moral commands alone belong to that part of the Mosaic law whereof the sanction is eternal; and to the fulfilment of these commands, written, as St.

Paul says, from the beginning on the hearts of men, the Spirit of G.o.d now urges His redeemed people. No doubt the law of Moses, in regard to civil life, might contain much that would be useful for other peoples also in that respect. But it would, in that case, be the business of the powers that be to examine and borrow from it, just as Germany borrowed her civil law from the Romans.

Such, briefly stated, are the views which Luther enunciated with clearness and consistency, in his writings and sermons. He guards the civil power as jealously now against an irregular a.s.sertion of religious principles and biblical authority, as he had formerly done against the aggressions of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, while at the same time he defends the religious life of Christians against the dangers and afflictions which that hierarchy threatened. Thus he answered the prince, on June 18, 1524, to this effect: Temporal laws are something external, like eating and drinking, house and clothing. At present the laws of the Empire have to be maintained, and faith and love can coexist with them very well. If ever the zealots of the Mosaic law become Emperors, and govern the world as their own, they may choose, if they please, the law of Moses; but Christians at all times are bound to support the law which the civil authority imposes.

In Munzer Luther looked for a near outbreak of the Evil Spirit. He alluded to him in his letter of June 18, as the 'Satan of Allstedt,'

adding that he thought he was not yet quite fledged. He soon heard more about him, namely, that 'his Spirit was going to strike out with the fist.' On this subject he wrote the next month to the Elector Frederick and Duke John, and published his letter. Against Munzer's mere words--his preaching and his personal revilements--he was not now concerned to defend himself. 'Let them boldly preach,'