Works of Martin Luther Part 41

Preserve us from the great vice of avarice and the desire or the riches of this world. Keep us, that we may not seek this world's honor and power, nor consent to the desire for them. Preserve us, that the world's deceit, pretences and false promises may not move us to walk in its ways. Preserve us, that the wickedness and the adversities of the world may not lead us to impatience, revenge, wrath or other vices. Help us to renounce the world's lies and deceits, its promises and unfaithfulness and all its good and evil (as we have already promised in baptism to do), to abide firmly in this renunciation and to grow therein from day to day.

[Sidenote: The Devil]

Preserve us from the suggestions of the devil, that we may not consent to pride, become self-satisfied, and despise others for the sake of riches, rank, power, knowledge, beauty or other good gifts of Thine.

Preserve us, that we all not into hatred or envy or any cause.

Preserve us, that we yield not to despair, that great temptation of our faith, neither now nor at our last hour.

Have in Thy keeping, heavenly Father, all who strive and labor against these great and manifold temptations. Strengthen those who are yet standing; raise up all those who have fallen and are overcome; and to all of us grant Thy grace, that in this miserable and uncertain life, incessantly surrounded by so many enemies, we may fight with constancy, and with a firm and knightly faith, and win the everlasting crown.

The Seventh Pet.i.tion: _Deliver us from evil._

[Sidenote: The Seventh Pet.i.tion]

_This means--_

This pet.i.tion is a prayer against all that is evil in pain and punishment; as the holy Church prays in the litanies: Deliver us, O Father, from Thine eternal wrath and from the pains of h.e.l.l. Deliver us from Thy strict judgment, in death and at the last day. Deliver us from sudden death. Preserve us from water and fire, from lightning and hail. Preserve us from famine and scarcity. Preserve us from war and bloodshed. Preserve us from Thy great plagues, pestilence, the French sickness, and other grievous diseases. Preserve us from all evils and necessities of body, yet in such wise that in all these things Thy Name may be honored, Thy Kingdom increased and Thy divine Will be done. Amen.

AMEN

[Sidenote: The Amen]

The G.o.d help us, without doubting, to obtain all these pet.i.tions, and suffer us not to doubt that Thou hast heard us and wilt hear us in them all; that it is "Yea," not "Nay," and not "Perhaps." Therefore we say with joy, "Amen--it is true and certain." Amen.

FOOTNOTES

[1] For this translation see Vol. I, p. 222, note 1.

[2] The law that we have outside of divine revelation. C.f. Rom. 2:15.

[3] The possessor of these letters (_Himmels-und Teuelsbriefe_) was thought to be under the special protection of the spirits.

[4] Magical formulas.

[5] Practices popularly ascribed to the witches.

[6] See below, p. 364, note 1.

[7] Luther believed, with the mediaeval Church, that the lending of money at interest was a sin. See above pp. 159 ff., and _Weimar Ed._, XXV, 293 ff.

[8] i. e., In the confession made to the priest. See Vol. I, p. 285, and Introduction, above, p. 351.

[9] C. Vol. I, pp. 58, 285.

[10] In the manuals for confession with which Luther was familiar sins were divided into the various cla.s.ses mentioned here. C. Vol. I, pp.

90 ff.; Gecken, _Der Bilderkatechismus des XV Jhs._, and especially v.

Zezschwitz, II, 197 ff.

[11] _Serm._, 96, 2; _Migne_, XXVIII, 585.

[12] Cf. Vol. I, p. 187.

[13] See above, p. 355.

[14] Luther has here departed from the customary Roman division of the Creed into twelve articles.

[15] _Gemein._

[16] _Gemeine._

[17] _Christenheit_, cf. Vol. I, p. 338.

[18] _Kirche._

[19] In the catechisms of 1529 Luther abandons this interpretation of the bread.

[20] i. e. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

THE EIGHT WITTENBERG SERMONS

1522

INTRODUCTION

After the bold utterance of unshaken conviction at the Diet of Worms Luther disappeared from the scene of his activities. In the darkness of night he was taken by the friendly "foe" to the secure hiding-place where the imperial proscription could not affect him. Thus he entered the Wartburg on May 4, 1521. But the "crowded canvas of the sixteenth century," bereft of its central figure, threatened to become mere portrayal of turbulence and confusion. In Wittenberg and other places the new life of the soul had burst its ancient fetters and was about to lose its spiritual value in a destructive lateral movement. The inability of the hesitating elector and the helpless Melanchthon to stem the tide, caused Luther, in utter disregard of personal safety, to return to his beloved city on March 6, 1522, and on Sunday, March 9th, and the seven days following to preach the _Eight Sermons_ herewith given, guiding the turbulent waves of popular uprising into the channels marked by faith and love.

During his absence others had heeded the clarion call to lead the Church out of its "Babylonian Captivity," and had put into practice the measures which would carry out the principles he had uttered. The ma.s.s was abolished[1], monks left the monasteries, some priests took wives, and communion under both kinds was inst.i.tuted. With these measures Luther was in sympathy, which is evident from his letters to Melanchthon[2] and to Wenceslaus Link, Staupitz's successor as the Augustinian vicar[3], and the treatises _De votis monasticis_ and _De abroganda missa privata_[4]. But these treatises also show that Luther was not fully informed of the disturbances accompanying the new measures. In so critical a time the absence of a great leader was soon manifest. Melanchthon, ardent in the beginning, could not hold back the radical procedure of Carlstadt and Zwilling.

Carlstadt, moderate at first in his conduct, nevertheless had sown the seeds, in his teaching, which resulted in the bountiful harvest of disorder Without Luther's clearness of vision and aptness of speech, he likewise failed to discern the pitfalls which Luther so carefully avoided. "In my opinion, he who partakes only of the bread, sins."[5]

"In all things of divine appointment, the divine law must be taught and observed, even if it cause offence."[6] "The Gregorian chant keeps the spirit away from G.o.d. . . . Organs belong to theatrical exhibitions and princes' palaces."[7] "That we have images in churches is wrong and contrary to the first commandment. To have carved and painted idols standing on the altar is even more harmful and devilish."[8] For his Scripture proof in other places, too, particularly concerning vows, Carlstadt drew largely from the Old Testament. On Christmas Day, 1521, he preached a sermon in which he opposed going to confession before receiving communion. Attired in his street garb he then proceeded to celebrate an "evangelical" ma.s.s by giving communion in both kinds to the people, placing the elements directly into their hands. Many of the communicants had not previously confessed, nor observed the prescribed rule of fasting. From a denial of any distinction between clergy and laity, Carlstadt finally progressed to a condemnation of all scholarship and learning as unnecessary to an understanding of the Divine Word, since it is given directly from above[9].

Without the theological ac.u.men of Carlstadt, and with less restraint, the Augustinian monk Gabriel Zwilling labored in season and out of season for the new order of things. In December the Zwickau prophets, Niclas Storch, Thomas Drechsel, weavers by trade, and Marcus Stubner, a former university student, appeared in Wittenberg claiming direct divine inspiration, and preached the overturn of present conditions.

Earlier in the month (December 3d) some students and citizens had caused a disturbance in the parish church and driven off the priests who were saying ma.s.s. Soon after a number of citizens crowded into the council chamber and demanded of the three councillors who presided over Wittenberg the abolition of the ma.s.s by law, the rest.i.tution of the cup, and the release of those in custody for causing the tumult of December 3d. On Christmas Eve both the parish and the castle churches witnessed scenes of wild disorder. On January 11th the monks, led by Zwilling, destroyed all the altars except one in the convent church, and cast out the images. The city council, in the endeavor to restore order, on January 24, 1522, in full accord with a commission of the university, adopted a "Worthy Ordinance for the princely City of Wittenberg,"[10] in which the popular demands were met and a date was fixed on which the images should be removed from the parish church--the only one of the four churches of Wittenberg subject to the council's control. But the excited populace did not await the day.

Taking the matter into its own hands it invaded the church, tore images and pictures from the walls and burned them up.

The council and the university turned to Luther. Immediately after his three-day secret visit to Wittenberg in December, on which he had sensed the unrest in Wittenberg and elsewhere, he issued his _Faithful Exhortation for all Christians to shun Riot and Rebellion_[11], in which he emphasizes the principles reiterated in the _Eight Sermons_, the sufficiency of the Word and the duty of dealing gently with the weak. But the time for writing had pa.s.sed. "Satan had broken into his sheepfold" and had caused such havoc that he could not meet it "by writing."[12] In spite of the elector's instruction to remain--the same whose ineffectual measures had failed to avert the storm--Luther on March 1st bade farewell to the Wartburg. On his way to Wittenberg, in Borna on March 5th, he wrote the famous letter to the elector[13]

in which he declared that he desired no protection from the elector.

"I come to Wittenberg under much higher protection." He arrived in Wittenberg on Thursday, March 6th, and on the following Sunday, March 6th, the first Sunday in Lent, he again ascended the pulpit in the parish church. In an interesting report of an eye and ear witness--Johann Kessler--we are told that he first gave an explanation of the Gospel for the day on the temptation of Christ (Matt. 4:1 ff.), after which "he dropped the text and took up the present affair."[14]

This earlier portion of the sermon has not come down to us. It may be that Luther likewise first preached on the Gospel for the day on the following Sunday, and for that reason it is called "a brief summary"

(see Sermon No. 8) in the early printed editions, when, in reality, it is longer than that of Sat.u.r.day (No. 7).

The sermons, delivered in a _vox suavis et sonora_[15], produced immediate results. In a letter by Schurf, dated March 15th, even before the last of the sermons had been delivered, it is stated that "Gabriel [Zwilling] has confessed that he was wrong." Carlstadt was silenced, the city council made acknowledgment to Luther by substantial gifts and Wittenberg bowed to law and order.