This doctrine ofAttritionhad not the undivided support of the theologians of the later medieval church; but it was taught by the Scotists and was naturally a favourite theme with the sellers of Indulgences. Nor were all theologians at one upon the whole theory of Indulgences. The majority of the best theologians held that Indulgences had nothing to do with the pardoning of guilt, but only with freeing from temporal penalties in this life or in purgatory. But the common people did not discriminate, and believed that when they bought an Indulgence they were purchasing pardon from sin; and Luther placed himself in the position of the ordinary Christian uninstructed in the niceties of theological distinctions.HisNinety-five Thesesmade six different assertions about Indulgences and their efficacy:—i. An Indulgence is and can only be the remission of a merely ecclesiastical penalty; the church can remit what the church has imposed; it cannot remit what God has imposed.ii. An Indulgence can never remit guilt; the pope himself cannot do such a thing; God has kept that in His own hand.iii. It cannot remit the divine punishment for sin; that also is in the hands of God alone.iv. It can have no efficacy for souls in Purgatory; penalties imposed by the church can only refer to the living; death dissolves them; what the pope can do for souls in Purgatory is by prayer, not by jurisdiction or the power of the keys.v. The Christian who has true repentance has already received pardon from God altogether apart from an Indulgence, and does not need one; Christ demands this true repentance from every one.vi. The Treasury of Merits has never been properly defined; it is hard to say what it is, and it is not properly understood by the people; it cannot be the merits of Christ and of His saints, because these act of themselves and quite apart from the intervention of the pope; it can mean nothing more than that the pope, having the power of the keys, can remit ecclesiastical penalties imposed by the church; the true Treasure-house of merits is the Holy Ghost of the grace and glory of God.
This doctrine ofAttritionhad not the undivided support of the theologians of the later medieval church; but it was taught by the Scotists and was naturally a favourite theme with the sellers of Indulgences. Nor were all theologians at one upon the whole theory of Indulgences. The majority of the best theologians held that Indulgences had nothing to do with the pardoning of guilt, but only with freeing from temporal penalties in this life or in purgatory. But the common people did not discriminate, and believed that when they bought an Indulgence they were purchasing pardon from sin; and Luther placed himself in the position of the ordinary Christian uninstructed in the niceties of theological distinctions.
HisNinety-five Thesesmade six different assertions about Indulgences and their efficacy:—
i. An Indulgence is and can only be the remission of a merely ecclesiastical penalty; the church can remit what the church has imposed; it cannot remit what God has imposed.
ii. An Indulgence can never remit guilt; the pope himself cannot do such a thing; God has kept that in His own hand.
iii. It cannot remit the divine punishment for sin; that also is in the hands of God alone.
iv. It can have no efficacy for souls in Purgatory; penalties imposed by the church can only refer to the living; death dissolves them; what the pope can do for souls in Purgatory is by prayer, not by jurisdiction or the power of the keys.
v. The Christian who has true repentance has already received pardon from God altogether apart from an Indulgence, and does not need one; Christ demands this true repentance from every one.
vi. The Treasury of Merits has never been properly defined; it is hard to say what it is, and it is not properly understood by the people; it cannot be the merits of Christ and of His saints, because these act of themselves and quite apart from the intervention of the pope; it can mean nothing more than that the pope, having the power of the keys, can remit ecclesiastical penalties imposed by the church; the true Treasure-house of merits is the Holy Ghost of the grace and glory of God.
The unexpected effect of theTheseswas that the sale of Indulgences began to decline rapidly, and the archbishop of Mainz, disappointed in his hopes of revenue, sent a copy to Rome. The pope thinking that the whole dispute was a monkish quarrel, contented himself with asking the general of the Augustinian Eremites to keep his monks quiet. This was not easy. Tetzel, in conjunction with a friend, Conrad Wimpina, had published a set of counter-theses. John Mayr of Eck, a noted controversialist and professor of theology in the university of Ingolstadt, scented the Hussite heresy in theTheses, and denounced them in a tract entitledObelisks. Luther at once answered in hisAsterisks. A controversy raged in Germany. Meanwhile, at Rome, Silvester Mazzolini of Prierio, a Dominican monk and Inquisitor, had been studying theTheses, was profoundly dissatisfied with them, and wrote aDialogue about the Power of the Pope, against the presumptuous conclusions of Martin Luther. This book reached Germany about the middle of January 1518, and increased the tumult.
Luther’s friends had been provokingly silent about theTheses; but in April 1518, at the annual chapter of the Augustinian Eremites held at Heidelberg, Luther heard his positions temperately discussed, and found somewhat to his astonishment that his views were not acceptable to all his fellow monks. On his return to Wittenberg he began an answer to his opponents. He carefully considered his positions, found them unassailable, and published hisResolutions, the most carefully written of all his works. The book practically discarded all the ideas and practices concerning Indulgences which had come into the medieval church since the beginning of the 13th century, and all the ingenious explanations of the scholastic theologians from Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas downwards. The effect of the controversy was a great decrease in the sale of Indulgences in Germany, and the Papal Curia saw with alarm a prolific source of revenue decaying. It was felt that Luther must be silenced. He was accordingly summoned to Rome. To obey would have meant death; to refuse in his own name would have been contumacy. But the peremptory summons could be construed as an attack on the university of Wittenberg, and both the elector of Saxony and the emperor Maximilian so regarded it. The result was that Pope Leo cancelled the summons, and it was arranged that Luther should appear before the papal Legate to the German Diet, Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajedtan, at Augsburg. The interview was not very successful. At its conclusion Luther wrote two appeals—one from the pope ill-informed to the pope well-informed, and the other to a General Council. True to his habit of taking the German people into his confidence, he wrote an account of his interview with the Legate, and published it under the title of theActa Augustana.
The publication greatly increased the sympathy of almost all classes in Germany for Luther. They saw in him a pious man, an esteemed professor, who had done nothing but propose a discussion on the notoriously intricate subject of Indulgences, peremptorily ordered to recant and to remain silent. The elector Frederick shared the common feelings and resolved to defend the man who had made his university so famous. His action compelled the Roman Curia to pause. Germany was on the eve, it was believed, of an election of a king of the Romans; it was possible that an imperial election was not far distant; Frederick was too important a personage to offend. So the condemnation by the Cardinal-Legate was withdrawn for the time, and the pope resolved to deal with the matter otherwise. He selected one of his chamberlains, Charles von Miltitz, the elector’s private agent at Rome, and commissioned him to deal with the matter as he best could. Miltitz received the “golden rose” to give to Frederick, and was furnished with several letters in all of which the pope spoke of Luther as a “child of the devil.” His holiness had probably forgotten the fact when he addressed Luther some months later as “his dear son.”
When Miltitz arrived in Germany he discovered that the movement was much more important than the Roman Curia had imagined. He had not to deal with the opposition of a recalcitrant monk, but with the awakening of a nation. He resolved to meet with Tetzel and with Luther privately before he produced his credentials. Tetzel he could not see; the man was afraid to leave his convent; but he had lengthy interviews with Luther in the house of Spalatin the chaplain and private secretary of the elector Frederick. There he disowned the sermons of the pardon-sellers, let it be seen that he did not approve of the action of the Legate, and so prevailed with Luther that the latter promised to write a submissive letter to the pope, to exhort people to reverence the Roman See, to say that Indulgences were useful to remit canonical penances, and to promise to write no more on the matter unless he happened to be attacked. Luther did all this. A reconciliation might have taken place had the Roman Curia supported Miltitz. But the Curia did not support Miltitz, and placed more faith in Eck, who was eager to extinguish Luther in a public discussion.
Luther had been spending the time between his interview with the Legate at Augsburg (Oct. 1518) and the Leipzig Disputation (June 1519) in severe and disquieting studies. He had found that all his opponents had pursued one line of argument: the power to issue an Indulgence is simply one case of the universal papal jurisdiction; Indulgences are what the pope proclaims them to be, and to attack them is to attack the power of the pope; the pope represents the Roman church, which is actually the universal church, and to oppose the pope is to defy the whole church of Christ; whoever attacks such a long-established system as that of Indulgences is a heretic. Such was the argument. Luther felt himself confronted with the pope’s absolute supremacy in all ecclesiastical matters. It was a plea whose full force he felt. The papal supremacy was one of his oldest inherited beliefs. He re-examined his convictions about justifying faith and whether they did lead to his declarations about Indulgences. He could come to no other conclusion. It then became necessary to examine the papal claims. He set himself to study the Decretals, and to his amazement and indignation he found that they were full of frauds. It is hard to say whether the discovery brought him more joy or more grief. His letters show him half-exultant and half-terrified. While he was in this state of mind he received Eck’s challenge to dispute with him at Leipzig on the papal supremacy.
This Leipzig Disputation was perhaps the most important point in Luther’s career. He met Eck in June 1519. It soon appeared that the intention of that practised debater was to force Luther into some admission which would justify opponents in accusing him of holding the opinions of Huss, who had been condemned by the great German Council of Constance. In this he was eminently successful. Eck left Leipzig triumphant, and Luther returned to Wittenberg much depressed. As usual he wrote out and published an account of the Disputation, which was an appeal to his fellow Germans. The result surpassed his expectations. The Disputation made him see that his protest against the abuses of Indulgences was no criticism of an excrescence on the medieval ecclesiastical system, but an attack on its centre of existence. He saw that he stood for the spiritualpriesthood of all believers and that medievalism in religion meant that man cannot approach God without a priestly mediator. The people also saw his position and rallied round him; and the Humanists discerned in him a champion against the old intolerance against which they had been revolting in vain. Luther’s depression fled. Sermons, pamphlets, letters from his tireless pen flooded the land, and Luther began to be the leader of a German revolt against Rome.
The year 1520 saw the publication of his three most important works, all written at a time when he was fully convinced that he had broken for ever with Rome. They were,On the Liberty of a Christian Man,An Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, andOn the Babylonian Captivity of the Church of God—the three primary treatises, as they have been called.
Meanwhile at Rome the pope had entrusted Eck and Prierias with the preparation of a bull (Exurge Domine) against Luther—a bull which followed the line of Eck’s charges at Leipzig. The reformer had been expecting it ever since the Disputation at Leipzig, and had resolved to answer it by one striking act which would impress the imagination of every man. He posted up a notice inviting the Wittenberg students to witness the burning of the bull (10th of December 1520). Rome had shot its last ecclesiastical bolt. Nothing remained but an appeal to the secular power, and this was at once prepared.
The emperor Maximilian had died suddenly (12th January 1519), and for long Germany was disturbed with intrigues about the succession—the papal policy being specially tortuous. The widely expressed desire for a German emperor secured the unanimous election of Charles, the grandson of Maximilian and the king of Spain. Never were a people more mistaken and disappointed. The veins of Charles were full of German blood, but he was his mother’s son. It was the Spaniard, not the German, who faced Luther at Worms.
Charles was crowned at Aachen, 23rd of October 1520, and opened his first German diet at Worms, 22nd of January 1521. The pope had selected two envoys to wait on the young emperor, one of them, Jerome Aleander, being specially appointed to secure the outlawry of Luther. The agenda of the diet contained many things seriously affecting all Germany, but the one problem which every one was thinking about was how Luther would be dealt with. The Electoral College was divided. The archbishop of Cologne, the elector of Brandenburg and his brother the archbishop of Mainz were for instant outlawry, while the elector of Saxony, who was resolved to protect Luther, had great influence with the archbishop of Trier and the Count Palatine of the Rhine.
Aleander had no difficulty in persuading Charles, while both were still in the Netherlands, to put Luther under the ban within his hereditary dominions, and the papal nuncio expected that the decree would be extended to the whole German empire. But Charles at first refused to deal summarily with Luther so far as Germany was concerned. The emperor even wrote to the elector of Saxony, asking him to bring Luther with him to the diet for examination. Gradually he came to think that Luther might be condemned without appearing. The members of the diet were slow to come to any conclusion. At last they made up their minds, and presented a memorial to the emperor (19th of February 1521) in which they reminded him that no imperial edict could be published against Luther without their sanction, and proposed that he should be invited to Worms under a safe-conduct and be there examined. They also suggested that Luther should be heard upon the papal claims, and ended by asking the emperor to deliver Germany from the papal tyranny. The emperor agreed to summon Luther under a safe-conduct, and that he should be heard; but he refused to mix his case with that of grievances against Rome. He had no sooner made the promise than he seems to have repented it. He saw no need for Luther’s appearance. He tried to get him condemned unheard. An edict against Luther had been drafted (15th of February) which the diet refused to sanction. A few days later a second edict was drafted which ordered the burning of Luther’s books. The diet again objected. Finally four days after the safe-conduct had been despatched the emperor revised this second edict, limited it to the seizure of Luther’s books, and published it on his own authority without consulting the diet (10th March). After Luther had begun his journey, this edict was posted up along his route in order to intimidate him; other means were taken to make him turn aside from Worms; but he was resolved to go there and nothing daunted him. He reached the town (16th April) and was met by encouraging crowds. He was summoned to appear before the diet on the 17th and measures were taken to prevent him doing more than answering definite questions put to him. He was asked whether certain books had been written by him and whether he was prepared to maintain or to abjure what he had written. He asked time to prepare an answer to the second question. The diet was anxious to hear Luther, if the emperor was not, and his request was granted. He thus defeated the plot to keep him silent. On the 18th he made his second appearance and delivered the speech, which electrified his audience. At the close he was threatened by Spaniards in the diet. The Germans ringed him round, and, with their hands raised high in the fashion of a landsknecht who had struck a successful blow, passed out into the street and escorted him to his lodgings. Next day (April 19th) the emperor proposed to place Luther under the ban of the empire and read to the assembly a brief statement of his own views. The diet objected, and asked for a conference between Luther and some selected members. Conferences were held, but came to nothing. No compromise was possible between the declaration that man’s conscience could only be bound by the Word of God and the emperor’s belief in the infallibility of a general council. The commission had to report that its efforts had failed. Luther was ordered to leave Worms and to return to Wittenberg. His safe-conduct was to expire twenty-one days after the 16th of April. Then he was liable to be seized and put to death as a pestilent heretic. There only remained to draft and publish the edict containing the ban. Days passed and it did not appear. Suddenly the startling news reached Worms that Luther had disappeared, no one knew where. It was reported that his body had been found in a silver-mine pierced with a dagger. The news flew over Germany and beyond it that he had been slain by papal emissaries. At Worms the indignation of the populace was intense. The public buildings were placarded during the night with an intimation that four hundred knights had sworn not to leave Luther unavenged, and the ominous wordsBundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh(the watchword of peasant revolts) were written at the foot. The combination suggested an alliance between the lesser knights and the peasants, dreaded by all the ruling classes. The true story of Luther’s disappearance was not known until long afterwards. After the failure of the conference the elector of Saxony had commissioned two of the councillors to convey Luther to a place of safety without telling him where it was. Many weeks elapsed before Frederick himself learned that Luther was safe in his own castle of the Wartburg. The disappearance did not mean that Luther had ceased to be a leader of men; but it marked the beginning of an organized national opposition to Rome.
It was not till the 25th of May that the edict against Luther was presented to a small number of members of the diet, after the elector of Saxony and many important members had left Worms. It threatened all Luther’s sympathisers with extermination, and practically proclaimed an Albigensian war in Germany. But few public documents prepared with so much care have proved so futile. The latter half of 1521 saw the silent spread of Lutheran opinions all over Germany. This was not unaccompanied with dangers. Every movement for reform carries within it the seeds of revolution, and Luther’s was no exception to the rule.
The revolution began in Wittenberg during Luther’s seclusion in the Wartburg. Andrew Boden of Carlstadt, a colleague of Luther’s in the university of Wittenberg, was strongly impressed with the contradiction which he believed to exist between evangelical teaching and the usages of medieval ecclesiasticallife. He denounced monastic vows, a distinctive dress for the clergy, the thought of a propitiatory mass, and the presence of images and pictures in the churches. Zwilling, a young Augustinian Eremite, added his fiery denunciations. His preaching stirred the commonalty. Turbulent crowds invaded two of the churches and rioted inside. The excitement of the people was increased by the arrival of three men known in history as theZwickau prophets. Melanchthon felt himself powerless to restrain the tumult. The magistrates of the town were won over and issued an ordinance which attempted to express in legislation the new evangelical ideas. Duke George of Saxony, a resolute opponent of the Reformation, threatened to make the diet interfere. Luther became alarmed, and, not without a private hint from the elector of Saxony,1left his retreat and appeared among his townsmen. His presence and exertions restored order, and the conservative reformation resumed its quiet course. From this time onwards to the outbreak of the Peasants’ War (1525) Luther was the real leader of the German nation, and everything seemed to promise a gradual reformation without tumult.
The Peasants’ War ended this anticipation. From one point of view this insurrection was simply the last, the most wide-spreading and the most disastrous of these revolts, which had been almost chronic in Germany during the later decades of the 15th and earlier years of the 16th century and which had been almost continuous between 1503 and 1517. All the social and economic causes which produced them were increasingly active in 1524 and 1525. But it is undoubted that the religious revolt intensified the rebellion of the lower classes. Luther’s voice awoke echoes he never dreamt of. The times were ripe for revolution, and the message which spoke of a religious democracy could not fail to suggest the social democracy also. In his appeal to theNobility of the German Nationhe had stated with severe precision the causes of social discontent. Himself a peasant’s son and acquainted with the grievances under which the peasant lived, he had at various times formulated most of the demands which afterwards figured conspicuously in the Twelve Articles. The insurgents had good cause to regard him as a sympathiser. But Luther, rightly or wrongly, believed that of the two ways in which wrongs can be set right—the way of war and the path of peace—the latter is the only sure road in the long run. He did his best therefore to prevent the rising and risked his life among the infuriated peasants as readily as when he stood before the emperor and the diet. When the rebellion was at its height and Thomas Münzer had sent forth fiery proclamations urging the peasantry “not to let the blood cool on their swords,” Luther issued the pamphlet, which casts a stain on his whole life, in which he hounds on the ruling classes to suppress the insurgents with all violence. In the end the rebellion, formidable as it seemed for a few months, was crushed, and a heavier yoke was laid on the shoulders of the unfortunate peasants.
This year, 1525, saw the parting of the ways in the movement for reform. It ceased to be national and became ecclesiastical. It divided into three separate parts. One, guided by Luther himself, ended, after a long struggle with pope and emperor, in the establishment of evangelical churches under the rule of the secular authorities of the territories which adopted the Lutheran Reformation. Another, remaining true to the principles, doctrines, usages and hierarchy of the medieval church, dreamt only of a purification of moral life, and saw its end realised in the reforms of the council of Trent. The third, gathering together the more revolutionary impulses, expanded into that complex movement called Anabaptism—which spread over western Europe from England to Poland and from Scandinavia to northern Italy, and endured a long and sanguinary persecution at the hands of the civil authorities in most European countries. Its strength and popularity, especially among the artizan classes, have been very much underrated by most historians.
During the storm of the Peasants’ War (13th of June 1525) Luther married Catherine von Bora, the daughter of a noble but impoverished family belonging to Meissen. She had been a Cistercian nun in the convent of Nimtzch near Grimma—a convent reserved for ladies of noble birth. Luther’s writings, circulating through Saxony, had penetrated the convent walls and had convinced most of the inmates of the unlawfulness of monastic vows. Catherine and eight companions resolved to escape. Their relatives refused to aid them, and they applied to Luther. He entrusted the business to Leonhard Koppe of Torgau, and the rescue was safely carried out (4th of April 1523). The rescued nuns found places of refuge in the families of Wittenberg burghers. The elector John of Saxony (who had succeeded his brother Frederick) gave Luther the house which had served as the Augustinian Convent. The family gathered in this three-storeyed building, with its back windows looking over the Elbe and its front door opening on a great garden, was latterly Luther and his wife, their three sons and two daughters, Magdelena von Bora, Catherine’s aunt, two orphan nieces and a grandniece. At the beginning of his married life Luther must have been in straitened circumstances. He married a portionless nun. On to 1532 his salary was two hundred gulden annually (about £160 in present money); after 1532 the stipend was increased to £240 with various payments in kind—corn, wood, malt, wine, &c.—which meant a great deal more. The town added occasional gifts to enable Luther to entertain the great personages who came to consult him frequently. Princes made him presents in money. This enabled Luther to purchase from his wife’s brother the small estate of Zulsdorf. Catherine, too, was an excellent house-wife. She made the long-neglected garden profitable; kept pigs and poultry; rented other gardens; stocked a fishpond; farmed in a small way; and had her house full of boarders. Luther had a high opinion of her intelligence; she took rank among those consulted on all important occasions; in one letter to her, seldom quoted, he gives the fairest statement he ever made about the views of Zwingli on the Sacrament of the Supper.
The diet of Speyer (1526) saw Germany divided into a Protestant and a Romanist party. After much debate a compromise was arrived at, which foreshadowed the religious peace of Augsburg of 1555. It was resolved that the Word of God should be preached without disturbance, that indemnity should be given for past offences against the edict of Worms, and that meanwhile each state should live religiously as it hoped to answer for its conduct to God and the emperor. The Lutherans interpreted this to mean the right to frame ecclesiastical regulations for various principalities and to make changes in public worship. Luther busied himself in simplifying the service, in giving advice, anxiously sought for, about the best modes of organising ecclesiastical affairs. In the diet held at Speyer in 1529 a compact Roman Catholic majority faced a weak Lutheran minority. The emperor declared through his commissioners that he abolished “by his imperial and absolute authority” the clause in the ordinance of 1526 on which the Lutherans had relied when they began to organize their territorial churches. The majority of the diet supported the emperor in this, and further proceeded to decree that no ecclesiastical body was to be deprived of its revenues or authority. This meant that throughout all Germany medieval ecclesiastical rule was to be upheld, and that none of the revenues of the medieval church could be appropriated for Protestant uses. On this a portion of the Protestant minority drafted a legal protest, in which the signers declared that they meant to abide by the decision of the diet of 1526 and refused to be bound by that of 1529. From this protest came the nameProtestant.
A minority in such a case could only maintain their protest if they were prepared to defend each other by force in case of an attack. Three days after the protest had been read, many of the protesting cities and states concluded “a secret and particular treaty,” and Philip of Hesse, the ablest statesman among the Protesters, saw the need for a general union of all evangelical Christians in the empire. The difficulties in the waywere great. The Saxons and the Swiss, Luther and Zwingli, were in fierce controversy about the true doctrine of the sacrament of the Supper. Luther was a patriotic German who was for ever bewailing the disintegration of the Fatherland; Zwingli was full of plans for confederations of Swiss cantons with South German cities, which could not fail to weaken the empire. Luther had but little trust in the “common man”; Zwingli was a thorough democrat. When Luther thought of the Swiss reformer he muttered as Archbishop Parker did of John Knox—“God keep us from such visitations as Knox hath attempted in Scotland; the people to be orderers of things.” Above all Luther had good grounds for believing that at the conference at Memmingen friends of Zwingli had helped to organize a Peasants’ War and to link the social revolution to the religious awakening. All these suspicions were in Luther’s mind when he consented very half-heartedly to meet Zwingli at a conference to be held in Philip of Hesse’s castle at Marburg. The debate proceeded as such debates usually do. Zwingli attacked the weakest part of Luther’s theory—theubiquityof the body of Christ; and Luther attacked Zwingli’s exegesis of the words of the institution. Neither sought to bring out their points of agreement. Yet the conference did good; it showed that the Protestants were agreed on all doctrinal points but one. If union was for the present impossible, there were hopes for it in the future.
In 1530 the emperor Charles, resolved to crush the Reformation, himself presided at the diet. The Protestant divisions were manifest. Three separate confessions were presented to the emperor—one from Zwingli, one by the theologians of the four cities of Strassbourg, Constance, Lindau and Memmingen (Confessio Tetrapolitana), and theAugsburg Confession, the future symbol of the Lutheran church. The third was the most important, and the emperor seriously set himself to see whether it might not be made the basis of a compromise. He found that reconciliation was hopeless. Thereupon the diet resolved that the edict of Worms was to be enforced against Luther and his partizans; that the ecclesiastical jurisdictions were to be preserved; and that all the church property taken possession of by the Lutheran princes was to be restored; and that in all cases of dispute the last court of appeal was to be the Imperial Court of Appeals. The last provision meant that the growing Protestantism was to be fought by harrassing litigation—nicht fechten sondern rechtenwas the phrase.
Luther was not present at the diet nor at the negotiations. He was still an outlaw according to imperial ideas. Melanchthon took his place as leader.
The decision of the diet compelled the Protestant princes to face the new and alarming situation. They met in conference in mid-winter at the little town of Schmalkald, and laid the foundations of what became the powerful Schmalkald League, which effectually protected the Protestants of Germany until it was broken up by the intrigues of the imperial party. From the time of the formation of this league, Luther retired gradually from the forefront of a reformation movement which had become largely political, and busied himself with reforms in public worship and suggestions for an organization of the polity of the Evangelical church. In this work his natural conservatism is apparent, and he contented himself with such changes as would make room for the action of evangelical principles. He disclaimed the right of suggesting a common order of worship or a uniform ecclesiastical polity; and Lutheran ritual and polity, while presenting common features, did not follow one common use. It may be said generally that while Luther insisted on a service in the vernacular, including the singing of German hymns, he considered it best to retain most of the ceremonies, the vestments and the uses of lights on the altar, which had existed in the unreformed church, while he was careful to explain that their retention might be dispensed with if thought necessary. To the popular mind the great distinction between the Lutheran and the medieval church service, besides the use of the vernacular and the supreme place assigned to preaching, was that the people partook of the cup in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; and the Lutheran service became popularly distinguished from the Reformed because it retained, while the Reformed did away with, most of the medieval ceremonies and vestments (seeLutherans). The variations in the details of the polity of the Lutheran churches were very numerous, but they all preserved the same distinctive principles. Two conceptions lay at the basis—the thought of the spiritual priesthood of all believers and the belief that the state was a divine ordinance, that the magistracy might represent the whole body of believers and that discipline and administration might be exercised through courts constituted somewhat like the consistorial courts of the medieval bishops, their members being appointed by the magistracy.
The last years of Luther’s life were spent in incessant labour disturbed by almost continuous ill-health. He was occupied in trying to unite firmly together the whole evangelical movement; he laboured to give his countrymen a good system of schools; he was on the watch to defeat any attempt of the Roman Curia to regain its hold over Germany; and he was the confidential adviser of a large number of the evangelical princes. Luther’s intimacy with his own elector, first John, then John Frederick, helped to give him the place accorded to him by the princes. The chiefs of the Houses of Anhalt and Lüneburg, Duke Henry of Saxony, Joachim II. of Brandenburg, Albert of Brandenburg and the counts of Mansfeld, were among Luther’s most devoted supporters and most frequently sought his advice. Princely correspondence was not always pleasant. It took its most disagreeable form when Philip of Hesse besieged Luther with requests to give his sanction to taking a second wife while his first was still alive. Luther’s weakness brought the second great blot on his career. The document sanctioning the bigamy of the landgrave was signed by Martin Bucer, Luther and Melanchthon, and is a humiliating paper. It may be thus summarized. According to the original commandment of God, marriage is between one man and one woman, and this original precept has been confirmed by our Lord; but sin brought it about that first Lamech, then the heathen, and then Abraham, took more than one wife, and this was permitted under the law. We are now living under the Gospel, which does not give prescribed rules for the external life and has not expressly prohibited bigamy. The law of the land expresses the original commandment of God, and the plain duty of the pastorate is to denounce bigamy. Nevertheless, the pastorate, in single cases of the direst need and to prevent worse, may sanction bigamy in a purely exceptional way. Such a bigamous marriage is a true marriage in the sight of God (the necessity being proved), but it is not a true marriage in the eye of public law and custom. Such a marriage and the dispensation for it ought to be kept secret; if it is made known, the dispensation becomeseo ipsoinvalid and the marriage is mere concubinage. The principle which underlies this extraordinary paper is probably the conception that the Protestant church has the same dispensing power which the medieval church claimed, but that it was to be exercised altogether apart from fees of any kind.
In his later years Luther became more tolerant on the sacramental question which divided him from the South German cities, although he never departed from his strong opposition to the supposed views of Zwingli himself. He consented to a conference, which, as he was too ill to leave home, met at Wittenberg (May-June 1536). After prolonged discussion the differences were narrowed to one point—the presence of the body of Christextended in spacein the sacrament of the Supper. It was agreed in theWittenberg Concordto leave this an open question. Thus North and South Germany were united. It is possible that had Luther lived longer his followers might have been united with the Swiss. He repeatedly expressed an admiration for Calvin’s writings on the subject of the sacrament; and Melanchthon believed that if the Swiss accepted Calvin’s theory of the Supper, the Wittenberg Concord could be extended to include them. But theConsensus Tigurinus, which dates the adhesion of the Swiss to the views of Calvin, was not signed until 1549, when Luther was already dead.
Year by year Luther had been growing weaker, his attacks of illness more frequent and his bodily pains more continuous.Despite the entreaties of wife and elector he resolved to do what he could to end some trifling dispute about inheritance which threatened the peace of the House of Mansfeld. He left Wittenberg in bitterly cold weather on the 23rd of January 1546, and the journey was tedious and hazardous. He was accepted as arbiter and his decision brought an end to the strife. He preached in Eisleben (February 14) with all his old fervour; but suddenly said quietly: “This and much more is to be said about the Gospel; but I am too weak and we will close here.” These were his last words in the pulpit. On the 16th and 17th the deeds of reconciliation were signed and Luther’s work was done. The end came swiftly. He was very ill on the evening of the 17th; he died on the early morning of the 18th of February 1546 in his sixty-third year.
The elector of Saxony and Luther’s family resolved that he must be buried at Wittenberg, and on the 20th the funeral procession began its long march. The counts of Mansfeld, the magistrates of the city and all the burghers of Eisleben accompanied the coffin to the gates of their town. A company of fifty light-armed troops commanded by the young counts of Mansfeld headed the procession and went with it all the way to Wittenberg. The following was temporarily swelled as it passed through villages and towns. Delegates from the elector of Saxony met it as it crossed the boundaries of the principality. Luther was laid to rest in the Castle church on whose door he had nailed thetheseswhich had kindled the great conflagration.
Bibliography.—(a) For Luther’s life as a whole: Melanchthon, “Historia de vita et actis Lutheri” (Wittenberg, 1545), in theCorpus Reformatorum, vi.; Mathesius,Historien von ... Martini Lutheri, Anfang, Lehre, Leben und Sterben(Prague, 1896); Myconius,Historia Reformationis 1517-1542(Leipzig, 1718); Ratzeberger,Geschichte über Luther und seine Zeit(Jena, 1850); Wrampelmeyer,Tagebuch über Dr Martin Luther geführt von Dr Conrad Cordatus, 1537(Halle, 1885); Förstemann,Neues Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenreformation(Hamburg, 1842); Kolde,Analecta Lutherana(Gotha, 1883); G. Lösche,Analecta Lutherana et Melanchthoniana(Gotha, 1892); G. Lösche,Vollständige Reformations-Acta und Documenta(Leipzig, 1720-1729); Enders,Dr Martin Luther’s Briefwechsel(5 vols., Frankfurt, 1884-1893); J. Cochlaeus (Rom. Cath.),Commentarius de actis et scriptis M. Lutheri, &c. (St Victor prope Moguntium). See also J. Köstlin,Martin Luther, sein Leben und seine Schriften(2 vols., Berlin, 1889); Th. Kolde,Martin Luther, Eine Biographie(2 vols., Gotha, 1884-1893); A. Hausrath,Luther’s Leben(2 vols., Berlin, 1904); Lindsay,Luther and the German Reformation(Edinburgh, 1900);Cambridge Modern History, ii. (Cambridge, 1903);History of the Reformation, i. (Edinburgh, 1906).(b) For special incidents: TheThesesand their publication: W. Köhler,Luthers 95 Theses sammt seinen Resolutionen, den Gegenschriften von Wimpina-Tetzel, EckundPrierias, und den Antworten Luthers darauf(Leipzig, 1903); Emil Reich,Select Documents illustrating Medieval and Modern History(London, 1905); The Leipzig Disputation: Seidemann,Die Leipziger Disputation im Jahre 1519(Dresden, 1843); Luther before the Diet of Worms:Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V. (Gotha, 1893-1901), ii.; The Marburg Colloquy; Schirrmacher,Briefe und Acten zu der Geschichte des Religionsgespräches zu Marburg, 1529, und des Reichstages zu Augsburg 1530(Gotha, 1876); Hospinian,Historia Sacramentaria, ii. 123b-126b; Ehrard,Das Dogma vom heiligen Abendmahl und seine Geschichte, ii. (Frankfurt a M., 1846); The Augsburg Confession: Schaff,The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches(London, 1877),History of the Creeds of Christendom(London, 1877).
Bibliography.—(a) For Luther’s life as a whole: Melanchthon, “Historia de vita et actis Lutheri” (Wittenberg, 1545), in theCorpus Reformatorum, vi.; Mathesius,Historien von ... Martini Lutheri, Anfang, Lehre, Leben und Sterben(Prague, 1896); Myconius,Historia Reformationis 1517-1542(Leipzig, 1718); Ratzeberger,Geschichte über Luther und seine Zeit(Jena, 1850); Wrampelmeyer,Tagebuch über Dr Martin Luther geführt von Dr Conrad Cordatus, 1537(Halle, 1885); Förstemann,Neues Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenreformation(Hamburg, 1842); Kolde,Analecta Lutherana(Gotha, 1883); G. Lösche,Analecta Lutherana et Melanchthoniana(Gotha, 1892); G. Lösche,Vollständige Reformations-Acta und Documenta(Leipzig, 1720-1729); Enders,Dr Martin Luther’s Briefwechsel(5 vols., Frankfurt, 1884-1893); J. Cochlaeus (Rom. Cath.),Commentarius de actis et scriptis M. Lutheri, &c. (St Victor prope Moguntium). See also J. Köstlin,Martin Luther, sein Leben und seine Schriften(2 vols., Berlin, 1889); Th. Kolde,Martin Luther, Eine Biographie(2 vols., Gotha, 1884-1893); A. Hausrath,Luther’s Leben(2 vols., Berlin, 1904); Lindsay,Luther and the German Reformation(Edinburgh, 1900);Cambridge Modern History, ii. (Cambridge, 1903);History of the Reformation, i. (Edinburgh, 1906).
(b) For special incidents: TheThesesand their publication: W. Köhler,Luthers 95 Theses sammt seinen Resolutionen, den Gegenschriften von Wimpina-Tetzel, EckundPrierias, und den Antworten Luthers darauf(Leipzig, 1903); Emil Reich,Select Documents illustrating Medieval and Modern History(London, 1905); The Leipzig Disputation: Seidemann,Die Leipziger Disputation im Jahre 1519(Dresden, 1843); Luther before the Diet of Worms:Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V. (Gotha, 1893-1901), ii.; The Marburg Colloquy; Schirrmacher,Briefe und Acten zu der Geschichte des Religionsgespräches zu Marburg, 1529, und des Reichstages zu Augsburg 1530(Gotha, 1876); Hospinian,Historia Sacramentaria, ii. 123b-126b; Ehrard,Das Dogma vom heiligen Abendmahl und seine Geschichte, ii. (Frankfurt a M., 1846); The Augsburg Confession: Schaff,The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches(London, 1877),History of the Creeds of Christendom(London, 1877).
(T. M. L.)
1Enders,Dr Martin Luther’s Briefwechsel, iii. 292-295; von Bezold,Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichtexx. 186 sqq.; Barge,Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, i. 432 sqq.
1Enders,Dr Martin Luther’s Briefwechsel, iii. 292-295; von Bezold,Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichtexx. 186 sqq.; Barge,Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, i. 432 sqq.
LUTHERANS,the general title given to those Christians who have adopted the principles of Martin Luther in his opposition to the Roman Church, to the followers of Calvin, and to the sectaries of the times of the Reformation. Their distinctive name is theEvangelical, as opposed to theReformedchurch. Their dogmatic symbols are usually said to include nine separate creeds which together form theBook of Concord(Liber Concordiae). Three belong to the Early Christian church—theApostles’ Creed, theNicene Creed(in its Western form,i.e.with thefilioque), and the so-calledAthanasian Creed; six come from the 16th century—theAugsburg Confession, theApology for the Augsburg Confession, theSchmalkald Articles, Luther’s twoCatechisms, and theForm of Concord. But only the three early creeds and the Augsburg Confession are recognized by all Lutherans. Luther’s Catechisms, especially the shorter of the two, have been almost universally accepted, but the Form of Concord was and is expressly rejected by many Lutheran churches. The Augsburg Confession and Luther’s Short Catechism may therefore be said to contain the distinctive principles which all Lutherans are bound to maintain, but, as the principal controversies of the Lutheran church all arose after the publication of the Augsburg Confession and among those who had accepted it, it does not contain all that is distinctively Lutheran. Its universal acceptance is perhaps due to the fact that it exists in two forms (thevariataand theinvariata) which vary slightly in the way in which they state the doctrine of the sacrament of the Supper. Thevariataedition was signed by Calvin, in the meaning, he said, of its author Melanchthon.
After Luther’s death the more rigid Lutherans declared it to be their duty to preserve thestatus religionis in Germania per Lutherum instauratus, and to watch over thedepositum Jesu Christiwhich he had committed to their charge. As Luther was a much greater preacher than a systematic thinker, it was not easy to say exactly what this deposit was, and controversies resulted among the Lutheran theologians of the 16th century. The Antinomian controversy was the earliest (1537-1560). It arose from differences about the precise meaning of the word “law” in Luther’s distinction between law and gospel. Luther limited the meaning of the word to mean a definite command accompanied by threats, which counts on terror to produce obedience. He declared that Christ was not under the dominion of the law in this sense of the word, and that believers enter the Christian life only when they transcend a rule of life which counts on selfish motives for obedience. But law may mean ethical rule, and the Antinomians so understood it, and interpreted Luther’s declaration to mean that believers are not under the dominion of the moral law. The controversy disturbed the Lutheran church for more than twenty years.
The Arminian controversy in the Reformed church, the Jansenist controversy in the Roman Catholic church, had their parallel in three separate disputes among the Lutherans lasting from 1550 to 1580. (1) George Major, discussing the relation of good works to conversion, declared that such works were both useful and necessary to holiness. He was attacked by Flacius and Amsdorf, and after a long controversy, full of ambiguities and lacking in the exhibition of guiding principles, he was condemned because his statement savoured of Pelagianism. (2) The same problem took a new form in the Synergist controversy, which discussed the first impulse in conversion. One party taught that while the first impulse must come from the Holy Spirit the work might be compared to reviving a manapparentlydead. It was answered that the sinner wasreallydead, and that the work of the Spirit was to give an actually new life. The latter assertion was generally approved of. (3) Then a fresh controversy was started by the assertion that sin was part of the substance of man in his fallen condition. It was answered that sin had not totally destroyed man’s ethical nature, and that grace changed what was morally insensitive into what was morally sensitive, so that there could be a co-operation between God’s grace and man’s will.
The controversy raised by Andrew Osiander was more important. He felt that Luther had omitted to make adequate answer to an important practical question, how Christ’s death on the cross could be brought into such actual connexion with every individual believer as to be the ground of his actual justification. The medieval church had spanned the centuries by supposing that Christ’s death was continuous down through the age in the sacrifice of the Mass; Protestant theology had nothing equivalent. He proposed to supply the lack by the theory that justification is a real work done in the individual by the same Christ who died so many centuries ago. Redemption, he said, was the result of the historical work of Christ; but justification was the work of the living risen Christ, dwelling within the believer and daily influencing him. Osiander’s theory did not win much support, but it was the starting-point of two separate doctrines. In the Lutheran church, Striegel taught that the principal effect of Christ’s work on the cross was to change the attitude of God towards the whole humanrace, and that, in consequence, when men come into being and have faith, they can take advantage of the change of attitude effected by the past historical work of Christ. The Reformed church, on the other hand, constructed their special doctrine of the limited reference in the atonement.
The other controversies concerned mainly the doctrine of the sacrament of the Supper, and Luther’s theory of Consubstantiation. This required a doctrine ofUbiquity, or the omnipresence of the body of Christ extended in space, and therefore of its presence in the communion elements. Calvin had taught that the true way to regard substance was to think of its power (vis), and that the presence of a substance was the immediate application of its power. The presence of the body of Christ in the sacramental elements did not need a presence extended in space. Melanchthon and many Lutherans accepted the theory of Calvin, and alleged that Luther before his death had approved of it. Whereupon the more rigid Lutherans accused their brethren of Crypto-Calvinism, and began controversies which dealt with that charge and with a defence of the idea of ubiquity.
The university of Jena, led by Matthias Flacius, was the headquarters of the stricter Lutherans, while Wittenberg and Leipzig were the centres of the Philippists or followers of Melanchthon. Conferences only increased the differences. The Lutheran church seemed in danger of falling to pieces. This alarmed both parties. New conferences were held and various articles of agreement were proposed, the most notable being theTorgau Book(1576). In the end, the greater proportion adopted theBook of Concord(1577), drafted chiefly by Jacob Andreae of Tübingen, Martin Chemnitz of Brunswick and Nicolas Selnecker of Leipzig. Its recognition was mainly due to the efforts of Augustus, elector of Saxony. ThisBook of Concordwas accepted by the Lutheran churches of Sweden and of Hungary in 1593 and 1597; but it was rejected by the Lutheran churches of Denmark, of Hesse, of Anhalt, of Pomerania and of several of the imperial cities. It was at first adopted and then rejected by Brunswick, the Palatinate and Brandenburg. The churches within Germany which refused theBook of Concordbecame for the most part Calvinistic or Reformed. They published, as was the fashion among the Reformed churches, separate creeds for themselves, but almost all accepted theHeidelberg Catechism. These differences in the German Protestant churches of the second half of the 16th century are reflected in the great American Lutheran church. The church exists in three separate organizations. The General Synod of the Evangelical Church of the United States, organized in 1820, has no other creed than theAugsburg Confession, so liberally interpreted as not to exclude Calvinists. The Synodical Conference of North America, organized in 1872, compels its pastors to subscribe to the whole of the nine creeds contained in the Book of Concord. The General Council, a secession from the General Synod, was organized in 1867, and accepts the “unaltered” (invariata)Augsburg Confessionin its original sense, and the other Lutheran symbols as explanatory of the Augsburg Confession.
The divided state of German Protestantism, resulting from these theological differences, contributed in no small degree to the disasters of the Thirty Years’ War, and various attempts were made to unite the two confessions. Conferences were held at Leipzig (1631), Thorn (1645), Cassel (1661); but without success. At length the union of the two churches was effected by the force of the civil authorities in Prussia (1817), in Nassau (1817), in Hesse (1823), in Anhalt-Dessau (1827) and elsewhere. These unions for the most part aimed, not at incorporating the two churches in doctrine and in worship, but at bringing churches or congregations professing different confessions under one government and discipline. They permitted each congregation to use at pleasure theAugsburg Confessionor theHeidelberg Catechism. The enforced union in Prussia was combined with the publication of a new liturgy intended for common use. This led to secessions from the state church. These seceders were at first treated with great harshness, but have won their way to toleration, and form the Lutheran Free churches of Germany.
The most important of these latter is the Evangelical Lutheran church of Prussia, sometimes called the Old Lutherans. It came into being in 1817 and gradually gained the position of a tolerated nonconformist church (1845 being the date of its complete recognition by the state). At the 1905 census it numbered 51,600 members under 75 pastors. Its affairs are managed by anOberkirchencollegium, with four ordained and two lay members. The Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Synod came into being in 1864, and has a membership of 5300 with 13 ordained pastors. Its headquarters is Liegnitz. The Independent Evangelical Lutheran church in the lands of Hesse arose partly on account of the slumbering opposition to the union of 1823 and more particularly in consequence of an attempt made at a stricter union in 1874. It has a membership of about 1800. Therenitentechurch of Lower Hesse has a membership of 2400. The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Hanover has a membership of 3050 under 10 ordained pastors. The Hermannsburg Free Church has a membership of about 2000 under 2 pastors. The Evangelical Lutheran Community in Baden has a membership of about 1100 with 2 ordained pastors. The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Saxony has a membership of about 3780 with 15 ordained pastors. These free churches exist separate from the State Evangelical United Church (Evangelische unirte Landskirche).
The general system of ecclesiastical government which prevails among all Lutheran churches is called theconsistorial. It admits of great variety of detail under certain common features of organization. It arose partly from the makeshift policy of the times of the Reformation, and partly from Luther’s strong belief that thejus episcopalebelonged in the last resort to the civil authorities. It may be most generally described by saying that the idea was taken from the consistorial courts through which the medieval bishops managed the affairs of their dioceses. Instead of the appointments to the membership of the consistories being made by the bishops, they were made by the supreme civil authority, whatever that might be. Richter, in hisEvangelische Kirchenordnungen des 16ten Jahrhunderts(2 vols., 1846), has collected more than one hundred and eight separate ecclesiastical constitutions, and his collection is confessedly imperfect. The publication of a complete collection by Emil Sehling was begun in 1902.
The liturgies of the Lutheran churches exhibit the same diversities in details as appear in their constitutions. It may be said in general that while Luther insisted that public worship ought to be conducted in a language understood by the people, and that all ideas and actions which were superstitious and obscured the primary truth of the priesthood of all believers should be expurged, he wished to retain as much as possible of the public service of the medieval church. The external features of the medieval churches were retained; but the minor altars, thetabernaculato contain the Host, and the light permanently burning before the altar, were done away with. The ecclesiastical year with its fasts and festivals was retained in large measure. In 1526 Luther published theGerman Mass and order of Divine Service, which, without being slavishly copied, served as a model for Lutheran communities. It retained the altar, vestments and lights, but explained that they were not essential and might be dispensed with. The peril attending the misuse of pictures in churches was recognized, but it was believed to be more than counterbalanced by the instruction given through them when their presence was not abused. In short Luther contented himself with setting forth general principles of divine service, leaving them to be applied as his followers thought best. The consequence was that there is no uniform Lutheran liturgy. In his celebratedCodex Liturgicus Ecclesiae Lutheranae in epitomen redactus(Leipzig, 1848), Daniel has used 98 different liturgies and given specimens to show the differences which they exhibit.
The divergences in ritual and organization, the principle underlying all the various ecclesiastical unions, viz. to combinetwo different confessions under one common government, and, resulting from it, the possibility of changing from one confession to another, have all combined to free the state churches from any rigid interpretation of their theological formulas. A liberal and a conservative theology (rationalist and orthodox) exist side by side within the churches, and while the latter clings to the theology of the 16th century, the former ventures to raise doubts about the truth of such a common and simple standard as the Apostles’ Creed. The extreme divergence in doctrinal position is fostered by the fact that the theology taught in the universities is in a great measure divorced from the practical religious life of the people, and the theological opinions uttered in the theological literature of the country cannot be held to express the thoughts of the members of the churches. In each state the sovereign is still held to be thesummus episcopus. He appoints a minister of public worship, and through him nominates the members of the governing body, theOberkirchenrathorConsistoriumorDirectorium. This council deals with the property, patronage and all other ecclesiastical matters. But each parish elects its own council for parochial affairs, which has a legal status and deals with such matters as the ecclesiastical assessments. Delegates from these parish councils form theLandessynode. In cases that call for consultation together, theConsistoriumand the Synod appoint committees to confer. In Alsace-Lorraine about half of those entitled to vote appear at the polls; but in other districts of Germany very little interest is shown in the elections to the parish councils.
The income of the state churches is derived from four sources. The state makes an annual provision for the stipends of the clergy, for the maintenance of fabrics and for other ecclesiastical needs. The endowments for church purposes, of which there are many, and which are destined to the support of foreign missions, clerical pensions, supply of books to the clergy, &c. are administered by the supreme council. The voluntary contributions of the people are all absorbed in the common income of the national churches and are administered by the supreme council. Each parish is legally entitled to levy ecclesiastical assessments for defined purposes.
Appointments to benefices are in the hands of the state (sometimes with consent of parishes), of private patrons and of local parish councils. The number of these benefices is always increasing; and in 1897 they amounted to 16,400, or 300 more than in 1890. The state appoints to 56%, private and municipal patrons to 34%, and congregations to 10% of the whole. Customs vary in different states; thus in Schleswig-Holstein the state nominates but the parish elects; in Alsace-Lorraine the directorium or supreme consistory appoints, but the appointment must be confirmed by the viceroy; in Baden the state offers the parish a selection from six names and then appoints the one chosen.
The Lutheran state churches of Denmark, Sweden and Norway have retained the episcopate. In all of them the king is recognized to be thesummus episcopusor supreme authority in all ecclesiastical matters, but in Norway and Sweden his power is somewhat limited by that of parliament. The king exercises his ecclesiastical authority through a minister who superintends religion and education. The position and functions of the bishops vary in the different countries. In all the rite of ordination is in their hands. In Denmark they are the inspectors of the clergy and of the schools. In Sweden they preside over local consistories composed of clerical and lay members. The episcopate in all three countries accommodates itself to something like the Lutheran consistorial system of ecclesiastical government.
The two leading religions within Germany are the Evangelical (Lutheran) and the Roman Catholic, including respectively 58 and 39% of the population. The proportions are continually varying, owing to the new migratory habits of almost every class of the population. Generally speaking, the Roman Catholics are on the increase in Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Württemburg; and the Evangelicals in the other districts of Germany, especially in the large cities. There is a growing tendency to mixed marriages, which are an important factor in religious changes.