History of the Reformation - Thomas M. Lindsay

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of a Christian Man, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, and On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. These three books are commonly called in Germany the Three Great Reformation Treatises, and the title befits them well. They were all written during the year 1520, after three years spent in controversy, at a time when Luther felt that he had completely broken from Rome, and when he knew that he had nothing to expect from Rome but a sentence of excommunication. His teaching may have varied in details afterwards, but in all essential positions it remained what is to be found in these books.

      The tract on The Liberty of a Christian Man, “a very small book so far as the paper is concerned,” said Luther, “but one containing the whole sum of the Christian life,” had a somewhat pathetic history. Miltitz, hoping against hope that the Pope would not push things to extremities, had asked Luther to write out a short summary of his inmost beliefs and send it to His Holiness. Luther consented, and this little volume was the result. It has for preface Luther's letter to Pope Leo x., which concludes thus: “I, in my poverty, have no other present to make you, nor do you need to be enriched by anything but a spiritual gift.” It was probably the last of the three published (Oct. 1520), but it contains the principles which underlie the other two.

      The booklet is a brief statement, free from all theological subtleties, of the priesthood of all believers which is a consequence of the fact of justification by faith alone. Its note of warning to Rome, and its educational value for pious people in the sixteenth century, consisted in its showing that the man who fears God and trusts in Him need not fear the priests nor the Church. The first part proves that every spiritual possession which a man has or can have must be traced back to his faith; if he has faith, he has all; if he has not faith, he has nothing. It is the possession of faith which gives liberty to a Christian man; God is with him, who can be against him?

      “Here you will ask, ‘If all who are in the Church are priests, by what character are those whom we now call priests to be distinguished from the laity?’ I reply, By the use of those words priests, clergy, spiritual person, ecclesiastic, an injustice has been done, since they have been transferred from the remaining body of Christians to those few who are now, by a hurtful custom, called ecclesiastics. For the Holy Scripture makes no distinction between them, except that those who are now boastfully called Popes, Bishops, and Lords, it calls ministers, servants, and stewards, who are to serve the rest in the ministry of the Word, for teaching the faith of Christ and the liberty of believers. For though it is true that we are all equally priests, yet cannot we, nor ought we if we could, all to minister and teach publicly.”

      The second part shows that everything that a Christian man does must come from his faith. It may be necessary to use all the ceremonies of divine service which past generations have found useful to promote the religious life; perhaps to fast and practise mortifications of the flesh; but if such things are to be really profitable, they must be kept in their proper place. They are good deeds not in the sense of making a man good, but as the signs of his faith; they are to be practised with joy because they are done for the sake of the God who has united Himself with man through Jesus Christ.

      Nothing that Luther has written more clearly manifests that combination of revolutionary daring and wise conservatism which was characteristic of the man. There is no attempt to sweep away any ecclesiastical machinery, provided only it be kept in its proper place as a means to an end. But religious ceremonies are not an end in themselves; and if through human corruption and neglect of the plain precepts of God's word they hinder instead of help the true growth of the soul, they ought to be swept away; and the fact that the soul of man needs absolutely nothing in the last resort but the word of God dwelling in him, gives men courage and calmness in demanding their reformation.

      Luther applied those principles to the reformation of the Church in his book on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (Sept.-Oct. 1520). He subjected the elaborate sacramental system of the Church to a searching criticism, and concluded that there are only two, or perhaps three, scriptural sacraments—the Eucharist, Baptism, and Penance. He denounced the doctrine of Transubstantiation as a “monstrous phantom” which the Church of the first twelve centuries knew nothing about, and said that any endeavour to define the precise manner of Christ's Presence in the sacrament is simply indecent curiosity. Perhaps the most important practical portion of the book deals with the topic of Christian marriage. In no sphere of human life has the Roman Church done more harm by interfering with simple scriptural directions:

      “What shall we say of those impious human laws by which this divinely appointed manner of life has been entangled and tossed up and down? Good God! it is horrible to look upon the temerity of the tyrants of Rome, who thus, according to their caprices, at one time annul marriages and at another time enforce them. Is the human race given over to their caprice for nothing but to be mocked and abused in every way, that these men may do what they please with it for the sake of their own fatal gains? … And what do they sell? The shame of men and women, a merchandise worthy of these traffickers, who surpass all that is most sordid and most disgusting in their avarice and impiety.”

      Luther points out that there is a clear scriptural law on the degrees within which marriage is unlawful, and says that no human regulations ought to forbid marriages outside these degrees or permit them within. He also comes to the conclusion that divorce a mensa et thoro is clearly permitted in Scripture; though he says that personally he hates divorce, and “prefers bigamy to it.”

      The appeal To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation made the greatest immediate impression. It was written in haste, but must have been long thought over. Luther began the introduction on June 23rd (1520); the book was ready by the middle of August; and by the 18th, four thousand copies were in circulation throughout Germany, and the presses could not print fast enough for the demand. It was a call to all Germany to unite against Rome.

      It was nobly comprehensive: it grasped the whole situation, and summed up with vigour and clearness all the German grievances which had hitherto been stated separately and weakly; it brought forward every partial proposal of reform, however incomplete, and quickened it by setting it in its proper place in one combined scheme. All the parts were welded together by a simple and courageous faith, and made living by the moral earnestness which pervaded the whole.

      Luther struck directly at the imaginary mysterious semi-supernatural power supposed to belong to the Church and the priesthood which had held Europe in awed submission for so many centuries. Reform had been impossible, the appeal said, because the walls behind which Rome lay entrenched had been left standing—walls of straw and paper, but in appearance formidable. These sham fortifications are: the Spiritual Power which is believed to be superior to the temporal power of kings and princes, the conception that no one can interpret Scripture but the Pope, the idea that no one can summon a General Council but the Bishop of Rome. These are the threefold lines of fortification behind which the Roman Curia has entrenched itself, and the German people has long believed that they are impregnable. Luther sets to work to demolish them.

      The Romanists assert that the Pope, bishops, priests, and monks belong to and constitute the spiritual estate, while princes, lords, artisans, and peasants are the temporal estate, which is subject to the spiritual. But this spiritual estate is a mere delusion. The real spiritual estate is the whole body of believers in Jesus Christ, and they are spiritual because Jesus has made all His followers priests to God and to His Christ. A cobbler belongs to the spiritual estate as truly as a bishop. The clergy are distinguished from the laity not by an indelible character imposed upon them in a divine mystery called ordination, but because they have been set apart to do a particular kind of work in the commonwealth. If a Pope, bishop, priest, or monk neglects to do the work he is there to do, he deserves to be punished as much as a careless mason or tailor, and is as accountable to the civil authorities. The spiritual priesthood of all believers, the gift of the faith which justifies, has shattered the first and most formidable of these papal fortifications.

      It is foolish to say that the Pope alone can interpret Scripture. If that were true, where is the need of Holy Scriptures at all?

      “Let us burn them, and content ourselves with the unlearned gentlemen at Rome, in whom the Holy Ghost alone dwells, who, however, can dwell

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